7. Hunter

My fingers tapped in time to the music against the steering wheel. I hadn't quite worked up the nerve to get out yet, knowing Brody might be inside.

Lottie had insisted on taking some time to think about my proposition. Every passing second was time she could be learning on the field from the retiring manager, but instead, she wanted to sit in her two-story wood-cabin on her father's small ranch. The same one I was sitting outside of, trying to muster the guts to knock on the door.

The bottle of wine resting on the passenger seat was half peace offering and half liquid courage.

I turned down the speaker system, leaving myself alone with my thoughts and the gentle sound of my truck's engine. With a deep breath, I slid my phone from the pocket of my jeans.

I needed to text her at least. Showing up unannounced was one thing, but the idea of Brody sitting in there, relaxing in his lazy-boy, assuming I was there to see him, was enough to fill me with dread.

If he found out we'd slept together, he'd kill me. Brody wasn't the soft type. He loved his daughter fiercely, enough to cock that shotgun he kept above his mantle at anyone he deemed unsatisfactory. But if Lottie agreed to the deal, he'd have to know at least something about it. That was enough to make this harder than it needed to be. If it was any other woman with any other father, I'd be at the door without an introduction, without a warning.

Come outside.

I hit send without letting myself dwell on it any longer and grabbed the bottle of wine from the passenger seat. Kicking my door open with one boot and flipping the key, I hopped down from the high body of the truck, landing in the wet grass with a thick thud. Every step toward the door squished, each one in time with my breaths.

Please don't let Brody be home. Please don't let Brody be home. Please?—

The front door creaked open. Hair up in a messy bun and pajamas covering every inch of her body, Lottie stood glaring at me from her porch, her phone clutched in her hand and a heavy blush warming her cheeks.

"My dad's not home. Why are you here, Hunter?" she asked, the words echoing off the trees that surrounded the front of their property. I'd been here so many times to meet with Brody, but Lottie was never present. And I'd certainly never come before just to see her.

"Because I'm not a patient man," I answered. Kicking the bit of mud off my boots, I climbed up the four steps until I was directly in front of her. "And you haven't given me an answer."

"I told you I'd email you."

"Three days ago. Look, if you have questions, concerns, whatever—I can answer them. Just have a damn conversation with me, Lottie." I held up the bottle of wine, pushing it toward her empty hand.

"What the hell is this supposed to be?"

"A peace offering."

She looked between me and the bottle, slowly wrapping her thin fingers around the neck of it. "Is it fancy?" she asked, lifting it from my hand. Her eyes scanned the label, front and back, searching for some kind of sign that it wasn't just something I'd picked up from the local Trader Joe's.

"It's worth more than a horse." I shrugged and shoved my hands into my pockets, watching the way her brows narrowed in irritation from the comment. "You know, I wasn't expecting a girl like you to still be living with Brody. You seem very?—"

"Independent?" She cut me off. The door behind her creaked again as she stepped backward. She turned her back to me, a silent invitation to follow. "I am. That doesn't mean I don't consider this home."

I caught the door with my foot and pushed inside, likely brushing off some of the chipped paint from its frame. Brody made enough money from me alone to keep this place in order. I'd asked him at least twenty times over the last ten years we'd worked together why he didn't spend the money to have the house renovated or do it himself. All he ever said was that it was Allison's specialty. His wife, Lottie's mother, had died sometime long before I was around. A part of me wondered if that was Lottie's job now, and if the house had deteriorated while she was gone in Hawaii.

But once inside, it looked the same as ever.

Only a handful of lights were on—one by Brody's lazy-boy, another in the kitchen at the back of the house, and one lighting the windowless stairs. The floors were old, a polished hardwood that had seen years of wear and tear, of mucked-up boots covered in soil and toys with moving parts scratching it to high hell. They were clean, but you wouldn't know it from the state of them. Rugs of varying shapes, sizes, and designs covered the majority of them, almost as if in an attempt to cover up the drabness. But I'd always liked the comforting feeling of Brody's house. I'd never understood the reason to hide something like that.

It was far more cozy than my parent's pristine, all-white mansion in the foothills of Rocky Mountain National Park.

The faintest sound of music played gently from somewhere upstairs, almost inaudible due to the low, electrical humming of what I could only imagine was the ancient heating system. Lottie stepped over a stray cushion and went behind the dividing wall that separated the living space from the kitchen, wrenching a drawer open and sending things clattering around inside.

Despite the countless times I'd been here over the last ten or so years, it had always been on business. Granted, this was technically business, too, but the urgency of Brody to discuss whatever needed discussing, jumping straight into planning mode, meant I'd never gotten the chance to have a good look around.

Tiny embers barely kept themselves alive in the wide fireplace. I spotted a few framed pictures on the mantel above, one of them a family photo of a much younger Brody, a little girl no older than five with long, black hair and blazingly blue eyes, and a woman that very much resembled an older version of the woman currently extending a very expensive glass of wine toward me.

"That was meant to be a gift," I said, plucking the glass from her hand. "Not something to share."

She shrugged. "It's just wine." Lifting the glass to her nose, she took a deep inhale, her pupils dilating. "Haven't you been here, like, a million times? Why are you so suddenly interested in our family pictures?"

"Normally Brody and I are out in the stables or we jump straight into whatever he wants to discuss. I've never really looked at them before," I explained. I sipped at the pricey merlot, the familiar taste washing away the dust that coated my tongue. "That's your mother, right? Allison?"

She nodded. "She died when I was seven."

"I'm sorry."

I wasn't expecting the exaggerated eye-roll I got as she turned away from me again, another silent instruction to follow her. Our footfalls made the floorboards creak with each step until we reached the sliding back door. The screen squealed on its tracks as she opened it. "I don't need your sympathy."

She stepped out onto the back porch, the bottle of wine in one hand and her glass in the other. She sank into one of the rocking chairs and I made my way around to the other one, sitting at an angel next to hers.

I sat down into the cozy chair, appreciating the amazing view before me.

"Sell it to me," she said, her gaze sweeping out toward the mountains beyond the perimeter of their property. "Make me want to do this for you and maybe I'll say yes."

Forty-nine percent of the business isn't enough?

"And before you ask, no, the percentage of the business isn't enough of a selling point."

Damn.

"Alright," I sighed. "Well, you'll get to experience a life of luxury for the next six months?—"

"My father makes enough for that already. Do you think I grew up poor?" She glanced at me from the corner of her eye, a thousand unsaid insults lurking behind it.

"Fair enough," I responded. "I'll consider taking thoroughbreds off the docket for next year."

She slowly turned her head toward me. "Promise and mean it."

God, the way she looked at me like I was the worst person she'd ever met somehow managed to excite me. "Fine. I promise."

"I want to hire Dana," she added. "She'll be more than just a stable hand. I want her by my side."

I sighed and sipped at my glass of wine, gently rocking myself back and forth to calm myself down from that one. "You're asking for an additional entire salary with benefits. You realize how expensive that is, correct? That's a position that isn't needed."

"Do you want me to do this for you or not?"

Ballsy. That's what she was. She would use this as her bargaining chip to get whatever she wanted, and in truth, a part of me respected that. She'd clearly learned a lot from her father.

"Fine."

She nodded to herself as she broke eye contact, looking back out at the mountains behind the stables. I wondered if it kept her calm, if it soothed her in a way she couldn't get elsewhere. Her thumbnail sat between her teeth, her thoughts churning in her mind in the silence. "What would be expected of me?"

I've got her. I've fucking got her. "It will need to be public. My parents won't believe it if it isn't," I said, reaching for the bottle of wine and topping off her glass. Knowing that Brody would also be aware made my stomach churn. "You'll come to events with me. You'll meet my parents. We'll sell it however we need to in order to convince them that it's real."

Her face scrunched as she picked up her glass, nearly spilling the wine from the unexpected weight of it. "When you say public?—"

"Brody will see, yes."

"That's not what I meant," she said, her head shaking, the little bun atop it wobbling. "We'll have to, what, kiss? In front of people?"

"Yes."

"Sex?"

I snapped my eyes to hers within a second. Just hearing her say the word was enough to make my skin heat, to make my cock twitch, to make the memories of Oahu flood back in with a vengeance. "Is that normally something you do in front of a crowd, Lottie?"

The little breath that escaped from her lips was shaky. "No."

"Then it won't be expected of you," I said simply, calming myself with another sip of wine. "It's not exactly frowned upon, either to be clear."

"Of course it's not," she mumbled, her eyes flicking upward in irritation.

"I'm just saying. It'll be a long six months for me without being with anyone else. You too. And I know damn well you enjoyed yourself back in Oahu. Those sexy little sounds you were making were oh so sweet." She squirmed in her seat, lifting her legs to her chest.

"You're disgusting, Hunter."

"You didn't think that when you came around my cock on my bed."

"Shut up," she groaned. "Drop it and you have a deal."

I was on my feet in a second, glass of wine forgotten on the little table between us. I held out my hand to her, an offering and a sealing of the deal, and she looked up at me with an expression that asked a thousand questions. "Shake on it."

Slowly, she set her glass of wine down and pushed up from the chair, nearly slipping when it rocked beneath her. She took my hand, warm skin against skin, her cheeks flushed from the little buzz of alcohol. "It's a deal," she said.

Relief flooded my system and demanded I celebrate. "It's a deal," I echoed.

In a quickness that surprised even me, I wrapped one arm around her waist and hoisted her onto her tiptoes, briefly pressing my lips against hers. Just a little mark of something she would need to get used to seeing as we would be doing this for the next six months. I let go as quickly as I'd brought her in, and she backed up a step, her eyes hazy, unfocused and blinking.

"We need to go public soon," I said, steadying her shoulders with my hands. "Tomorrow, ideally. We can go out tomorrow night, be seen together, get people talking. I'll pick you up at seven."

"What?" she breathed. "No."

"Yes."

"No. That's too quick. I should be seen around the ranch first, get things going in my job, and then people will put two and two together," her brows narrowed as she looked up at me, that quick burst of adrenaline from the kiss wearing off. Maybe I should kiss her again.

She wasn't necessarily wrong. But I didn't have that kind of time. Dad was talking about retiring within the next four months—six at the latest—and I needed to sell this fast. "We don't have that kind of time, Lottie."

"I don't care. If you want to sell it, sell it right. Sell it organically. Otherwise, they'll think you picked me up off the damned street."

"No," I said, parroting her with a little grin as I took a step toward her. "We start tomorrow."

"We give it time or we give it nothing at all." She took a step back toward the glass door, that hardened look on her face coming straight from Brody's likeness. I wasn't sure if I should feel weird about finding that unbearably sexy. "My dad will ask questions. And if we don't play our cards right, the whole thing will crumble when he does."

I didn't like it when she was right. I stepped closer, coaxing her back to the glass. I stood over her just as I did at the wedding, boxing her in, bringing out that terrified, deer-in-the-headlights reaction that turned me on just as much as it had before. "We start privately now."

Her eyes widened as I tipped my head down, pressing my lips to hers before she could object. That last kiss hadn't been enough, even if I hadn't been planning on it. I wanted more.

Her hands pushed gently against my chest, separating us just an inch. "My dad will be home soon."

I let my hand explore the side of her abdomen as the words slowly sunk in. I knew Brody couldn't find out this early. And I definitelydidn't need him knowing how I wanted to touch his daughter, let alone how I already had.

On the flip side, though, I was impatient, and that testosterone-fueled need in my gut was screaming at me.

"Fuck it," I breathed, pushing my way back to her. I kissed her greedily, hungrily, ears trained on any noises coming from inside or out front. She took my urgency and increased it tenfold, her hands pushing again on my chest. Her mind was telling her this was a bad idea. But her lips, God, her lips revealed the truth. She wanted it just as much as I did, and she kissed me back eagerly.

My fingers found the waistband of her black-and-white checkered pajama pants. She sucked in a breath as I tugged at the elastic, just enough to slip inside, just enough to feel the lack of fucking anything beneath them. That was twice, now, that I'd gotten that far and both times she'd not been wearing undergarments when I went exploring. I couldn't even imagine the places my mind would take me whenever I saw her, whether I'd question if there was anything beneath her clothes. It was going to drive me insane.

"Hunter," she rasped, a slight bit of irritation as my hand sunk lower, over the mound of flesh that sat between the blades of her hips and between damp lips. Her little gasp pulled my lower lip into her mouth the moment my fingertips brushed against her swollen clit.

She was so wet. Dripping, almost. Suspicion arose as to why she was so turned on.

I lifted my lips from hers. "Fuck," I said, sliding two fingers inside of her with ease. Her body shook around them. "Is this what you were doing before I showed up?"

Her cheeks heated drastically as she moaned, her hips pressing in against the palm of my hand for friction. "Shut up."

"Oh my God." My cock throbbed in my jeans. It wanted nothing more than to slide itself inside of her, fill her better than she could fill herself. I didn't even fucking care if Brody showed up. "You were fucking yourself senseless, weren't you, sweetheart?"

She stayed silent as I slowly began to pump my fingers, curling them just enough to get that same rise out of her that she gave me back in Oahu. She felt better than I remembered, softer, warmer. The moment my thumb started to circle her clit, she whimpered, her knees buckling.

I shoved my knee between her legs to keep her upright.

Moving my lips to her ear and leaving little kisses along the way, I whispered, "Tell me, Lottie, did it feel as good as when I buried myself inside of you?"

"No." The little break in her voice nearly made me take my jeans off right fucking then. "It didn't."

The more I worked at her, the more she came undone in my hands. A pool of her dampness formed in my palm, and I wanted nothing more than to taste it, to devour her, to drink her in like fucking water. "How long?" I asked. I took her earlobe between my teeth, giving it a little tug. "How long were you touching yourself before I showed up?"

Her breaths came quicker, shallower, her walls closing in. I knew damn well she was approaching the edge. "A, close to an hour, I guess," she whimpered.

Holy fucking shit. She'd been at it for a while. No wonder she was falling apart around my fingers. "Did you come?"

"No."

A dark, hearty laugh bubbled up from my throat. The temptation to stop just before she tumbled over the edge, just to drive the knife in, was so intense I nearly let myself do it. But that would only make her more frustrated, only anger her more. And I wanted to calm her down.

Her walls tightened. She gasped for air, moaning between breaths, fingernails digging into my chest. So close. So fucking close.

"Do you want to come for me?" I asked, veiling my voice with sympathy, still fighting the urge to stop and deny her what she wanted more than anything.

"Please," she muttered. I circled faster, pumped my fingers just a little bit harder. "Fuck, oh my God, please."

"Please what?"

"Please can I come?"

Those four words were almost enough to make me feral. I fucking savored them every time I heard them, no matter who they came from, but coming from her lips made them sound so much sweeter than any other time I'd heard them before. She was going to drive me insane. "Come," I growled. "Come for me, Lottie."

As if on command, her body snapped, her legs fully giving out as her orgasm tore through her. I kept her upright with my knee, taking the brunt of her weight, and fucked her with my fingers long enough to let her ride the wave that left her gasping for air and clutching onto me.

"Good girl."