24. Hunter

TWENTY-FOU R

HUNTER

A shaft of light peeks through the tall blackout curtains and lands across her fingers. I've never paid much attention to a woman's hands before, but if there's one word I can think of for hers, it's "elegant."

I spoon behind her, holding her body to my chest, and the arm that's not holding her has long gone asleep, tingling underneath her pillow. They could chop it off for all I care. Her face is smooth, and the troubled furrow to her brow is absent. She looks peaceful.

After the heaviness of last night, I just wanted her to relax and get undisturbed sleep. So I made her a bath. I pulled out all the frilly shit Ella stocked under my sink and dumped anything labeled for relaxation into the water.

When she stood in front of me, fully naked and not hiding anything, she allowed me to catalog her scars.

There were so many of them. On her stomach, her thighs, on her back, her upper arms.

She shook as I looked at her. Keeping eye contact, I knelt before her and kissed every one of them. When I saw her C-section scar, just a tiny, puckered line at the top of her mound, I kissed it with reverence .

She cried. I kissed her tears.

I close my eyes and press my face into the riot of curls draped across my pillow. Her hair still faintly smells like roses, and the coils tickle my nose. It took everything within me to maintain composure last night as she haltingly spilled her past to me. I wanted to rage and maim and kill as I processed every word. Her abuser. Her aunt and uncle who are long dead. I wanted them all to bleed and suffer. I wanted to hold together her broken pieces, the parts that she's stitched together day by day, year by year, so she can move forward and live. I wanted to weep in the face of her raw, haunting honesty.

Slowly, I drift my hand from beneath her breast to her lower belly, right where her womb would be. My pinky grazes her scar. I allow myself to envision our future. The perfect child she would give me. The love we'd have for them as we blend our family. It feels impossible, but I can't imagine a world where Winter and I aren't together and a family, whatever that looks like. So I allow myself to dream.

She stirs, and I press against her more firmly and say, "Good morning."

"Hmmm, good morning," she replies, reaching out in front of her in a long stretch. "What time is it?" she asks sleepily.

I pull my arm up, letting the movement activate the digital face of my watch. Holding it in front of both of us, I tell her, "Just past ten a.m."

She hums and smiles before her face crashes into a frown and she jolts upright.

"Oh, my God!" Her hands rush to her hair. In the dim light, I notice it's a little flat on one side. "Oh, God, this is—shit!" She rakes her fingers through her hair.

I grab my phone off the nightstand, tapping the screen to quickly access the home system to open the curtains .

She spares the window only the briefest of looks before scrambling to pull back the covers.

"What is it?" I'm slow to process because I'm having a great time staring as her bra-less tits dance beneath the T-shirt I got her to sleep in the night prior.

"My hair is—I didn't do my hair right last night."

"Do your hair?" I ask with a yawn.

"Yes, I—" she lets out a frustrated groan. "It's a—it's a Black thing, all right?" She reaches underneath the pillow with one hand, the other holding her hair tightly on the top of her head.

"Well, help me understand. I want to understand." She finds the hair tie, says, "A-ha!" and quickly secures her hair. Settling back into the pillows, she sighs and says, "Really?"

I place my hand on her bare thigh. Her skin is so fucking smooth. "Yes, really. I want to know all the things."

She starts biting her fingernail. "I got my hair wet but didn't do it before we went to sleep."

"Okay, give me a little more info here."

She blows out a breath and says, "I needed to do my hair to keep it from tangling and frizzing. I should have re-added the moisture to it with oils or creams since I'd stripped my hair of them when I soaked in the tub last night. I usually braid my hair into a few big braids for sleep. My pillow at home is satin, but when I sleep on regular pillows, I need to wear a bonnet and tie my hair up. But obviously, I didn't have any of those things and I've never done," she waves her hands in the space between our bodies, " this before."

My head spins a little at the multi-step hair routine, but I make a mental note to get a list of all the supplies she needs so I can have them here by the end of the day.

I smirk at the last part of her spiel. "Oh? And what is this ," I say, amused. My hand travels higher up her thigh. She opens her legs slightly .

"Um, sleeping with a man at his place. I mean, in the most literal sense, right? And also, even in the figurative sense. And—what are you doing, H?"

"Hmm?" My hand disappears beneath the hem of her shirt, rubbing her inner thighs so close to her crotch my mouth starts to water.

"You're awfully close to my…" she trails off, and I lazily draw my eyes up her body, snagged by the hard tips of her nipples pressing through the shirt.

"Pussy. Your pussy, Winter. Say it." I look at her directly in the eye as I run thumb over her seam with a whisper-soft touch. She went to bed in an oversized shirt and nothing else. I feel her heat against my fingers.

"My pussy ." She whispers the last word.

"Yes, and to answer your question, I'm playing with your pussy. Is that all right?" I rub in circles now.

"Y-Yes, that's f-fine." She leans back, catching herself on her hands, and I sit up further.

"Winter, I want to take things slow with you. Savor you. We need to build trust in this space especially. And at the same time, I want to make you feel good. Is that okay?"

She nods, biting her lip.

"Good girl." I remove her shirt. Her nipples are large and surrounded by dark areolas. I want to suck on them badly. "Sunbeam?"

"Huh?" She asks, her eyes half closed.

"I want to suck on your breasts. Is that okay?"

"Yesss," she says, drawing out the last syllable as I pull her over my body to lick the tip of her breast with my tongue.

"Oh, God, " she says breathlessly.

I don't say anything except moan. I fucking moan.

The taste of her skin—slightly salty from sweat but so sweet—makes me want to stay with her in this fucking bed forever.

I need to get her pussy in my mouth .

"Come here," I say. My voice is gruff, deepened by the strength of my desire for this woman.

She jolts and places her hand on mine. "Um, do you want to have sex?"

Seeing her tension, I bring my hand to her neck and caress her cheek with my thumb.

"Not yet, Sunbeam. But I do want to make you feel good. You can tell me to stop anytime, and I'll stop." I kiss the tip of her nose. "What I really want to do," I say, placing soft kisses on her cheek and down her neck, "is to kiss," I press my lips to her racing pulse, "and lick," I place my lips to the shell of her ear. "And suck your pussy until you come on my tongue."

Before she answers, I kiss her on the mouth, and she pushes against me, our lips fighting for dominance.

Breaking away, I say, "What do you say to that, baby?"

She nods up and down, panting. "That sounds…yes."

"Okay then," I say. I sit up to adjust my position on the bed, and she looks around as if lost.

She straightens her legs and, if possible, presses even more deeply into the bed.

"Nope, not like that."

She sits up military straight and clasps her arms around her knees. "Where do you want me then," she asks, confusion lacing her words.

I see her closing herself off, and that simply won't do.

I lay back flat with my head on the pillows. "Here."

She looks me up and down. "Where?"

"Here," I say, pointing to my mouth.

"You want me to…"

"Sit on my face? Yes," I say simply, taking her hand and pulling her toward me.

"What! That's not a thing people actually do."

"I can assure you it is most certainly something people do. "

"But how will you be able to breathe? I'll suffocate you! I'll?—"

"I'll be able to breathe just fine. If death by suffocation were to happen because you smothered me with your pussy, I'd die the happiest man on earth. Now sit on my face, Winter." I pull on her waist and leg before deciding to go to her. Even though it means laying sideways on the bed, I move to situate my head near her crotch.

"Are you…are you sure, H?" She's got her hand back to her mouth, biting on her nail again.

Looking at her from my upside-down vantage point, I take her hand and place it on my bare chest, right over my heart.

"I have never been more sure of anything in my life, Sunbeam."

She blinks hard one, two, three times before darting her gaze around the room. She releases a short breath when her eyes land on Kitty curled up in the dog bed I'd snatched from August's game room.

"Stay. Off-duty," she commands. Kitty raises his head, tilting it to the side and assessing her. I reach over, putting my hand on her thigh and rubbing her silky skin with my thumb.

"I mean it! Relax. Stay. Do not move from your dog bed." There's a slight, quivering tone to her voice, and Kitty focuses on her for a few heartbeats before chuffing and readjusting his position to curl into a ball facing the wall.

I'm going to give that dog so many treats for this.

"Okay," she says, but I'm not sure if she's talking to me or psyching herself up. "Okay," she repeats.

She lifts up slowly on her knees. Taking that as an invitation, I move into position and sigh as her glistening cunt hovers over my face. I fight back the urge to drool. Looping my arms around the juncture where her thighs and pelvis meet, I say, "Sit down and enjoy."

She relaxes a bit more, and blindly shoving a pillow under my hea d, I tilt my chin to give her a long lick up her seam, starting at her hard button.

"Oh, holy shit!" she says. A full-body roll goes down her back, and she goes from sitting up straight to leaning over my body. Her face is inches above my aching cock.

Reaching down, I quickly swoop my dick to pin it beneath the waistband of my boxers. I'll deal with that later. In the shower. With the smell of her still on my face.

My dick twitches, and precum starts to bead against my neglected tip.

I return my attention back to her pussy and lazily settle in to lick around her clit.

"H, that's—oh, my God, that's amazing." She starts to rock her hips above me slowly, and I'm glad she can't see the beaming smile I'm wearing right now.

"Hmmmm," I say, drawing her into my mouth in a wet suck. The taste of her explodes on my tongue, and I decide right then and there that she's my new addiction.

Reaching up, I place my index finger against her pussy, teasing the entrance. She rocks harder against my mouth and finger.

"Oh, H, I need…I need…"

I understand what she's not able to verbalize, and I slowly press my finger into her, gauging her response. When she lets out a low groan followed by a rush of her wetness against my face, I move my finger in and out of her impossibly tight cunt.

"Oh, fuck, H. This is—" A louder moan cuts off her sentence as I put another finger into her.

Popping off her clit, I use my thumb to rub it as I say, "I want you to come all over me, Winter. Do you think you can do that?"

"Uh-huh," she says, nodding and pressing back against my fingers.

"What do you need from me to get there?"

"What—I mean…what? "

"Tell me what to do to get you off, Winter," I demand, slowing my pumping fingers until they're resting right against her entrance. She groans in frustration.

"What do you want from me, H?"

"I want you to tell me. To use your voice. Demand that I do exactly what you need me to do to give you an orgasm so good you see stars. So, what do you need from me to get there?" I punctuate the end of my sentence with a gentle kiss to her clit and a nip at her inner thigh.

Pushing my fingers back into her torturously slow, she stutters out, "I want—oh, God."

I press my thumb against her clit, rubbing in firm circles.

"I want you to push t-two fingers in and out of my… pussy. "

"Good girl." I reward her good work with a firm push of my fingers and a quick caress of her G-spot. "And?"

"And…And I want you to suck hard on my clit, " she says on one breath.

Immediately, I pull her clit back in my mouth and pick up a steady rhythm with my fingers, twisting them and pushing against the most sensitive parts of her with every pass.

My cock leaks against my stomach, but I don't care if I bust in my underwear like a kid. It will be worth it to see Winter come undone on my tongue.

"Fuck, Hunter, I'm gonna…I need to?—"

She presses her body flat against my torso, and I about die when I feel her puckered lips against the head of my dick, licking it with tentative strokes.

That's it. Game over. I push my dick against her mouth, and she sucks the tip like I'm sucking her, and I feel her hands grab my balls and shaft inside my underwear.

She hums a long moan, her voice escalating higher and higher. She arches her back and pops off my dick, screaming, " Hunter!"

Her sheath flutters on my fingers and tongue, and she gets imposs ibly wetter. Her walls clamp down on my fingers, squeezing as I suck and press on that spot she loves so much to prolong her orgasm.

Panting and rocking against my mouth, she collapses back down against me and reaches for my dick again. Taking half of it in her mouth, she pumps only twice before I rush out, " Lean-back-if-you-don't-want-me-to-come-in-your-mouth. "

She hums and sucks harder. Not even a minute later, my cock twitches in her wet warmth as I flood it with my cum. She hums even louder, and I feel my dick press against the back of her throat as she swallows me down.

I rub her back in firm circles as she catches her breath and I come down from the soul-stealing blow job she just gave. Eventually, she rolls off my body and lays flat on her back, staring at the ceiling.

"That was…" she says with a small smile, panting.

"Everything?" I put a possessive hand on her thigh.

"Something like that."

"Come up here," I say, pulling on her arm, and she moves to lay her head on my chest. Putting my arms around her, I breathe deeply.

"Thank you, H."

"For what, Sunbeam?"

"For being you," she says and yawns. She settles against me, and a few moments later, she's asleep.

All I can think is, "Ditto."

An hour later, I close the blinds and let Winter sleep. After all she's been through in the past twenty-four hours, she needs it. Kitty stretches lazily before padding over to me where I stand near the door.

"You know I've never had a dog?" I say to Kitty and he gives me the doggy version of an eyebrow lift. "I've always wanted one. You're a really cool pup to have around," I finish. He huffs and jumps back, sticking his butt in the air and his front legs and chest close to the ground. His tail wags, playful.

The wagging picks up to double time when I reach down to scratch behind his ears. Figuring he needs to do his business and eat, I lead us in the direction of the garden.

"Mr. Kitty!" a deep male voice echoes when Kitty and I hit the foyer. I follow Kitty's progress as he trots away from me and toward August's guard, Rex.

"Miss Winter isn't around?" Rex asks as he bends down to pick Winter's dog up. Kitty isn't wearing his harness, so it's safe for Rex to assume that he isn't working.

"Resting," I reply shortly. I've been on guard with anyone who is around August after what happened with his old detail. But Ella thoroughly vetted Rex, calling him a gentle giant. I haven't received any reports of anything bad happening.

August seems to like him.

"Where's August?" I ask. He clears his throat and erases the playful look he's giving Kitty from his face.

"He's in the kitchen, sir," he replies. I nod.

"Mind taking this one out for me?" I point to Kitty. "Let him into the kitchen when he's done with his business so he can eat."

A look of happy surprise settles on Rex's face. "Oh, yes, of course, sir. It's no problem," Rex rushes out. Kitty lolls his head back over his shoulder, panting with his tongue hanging out in a goofy look.

Dude, get outta here , is what I imagine the look translates into.

I pivot on my heel and head toward the kitchen.

My phone beeps, alerting me to an email, and by the time I'm steps from the kitchen, it beeps three more times with more messages. I've wasted most of the day away.

Well, not a waste.

Memories of Winter in my arms slide through my brain.

I am in love with Winter Leigh Vaughan.

How long until this all explodes?

I stop at the entrance of the kitchen because August stands at the island. He's dusted flour on the countertop and kneads a ball of dough. He's wearing blue medical gloves as he works.

"August," I say, clearing my throat. He pauses, not looking at me. I contemplate giving him his space. Letting him do the thing that gives him peace and happiness. This is a moment he spent with his mother. I don't want to ruin any more memories.

Atonement. Winter's voice echoes in my brain. This is step one.

"Can I help you make the pizza?" His hands still, and I hold my breath. He makes several different sounds in his throat, and I'm not sure if they are voluntary or not. But then he nods.

I go to the sink to wash my hands, and when I dry them, he turns to do the same after pulling off his gloves. Once his hands are dry, he grabs his tablet.

"I need to make the sauce," he says. Just then the oven lets out a short beep-beep-beep , indicating that it's preheated.

"Isn't the sauce already pre-made?" I ask.

He shoots me a short look and then goes to the cabinet where the spices are kept.

"We have to add spices," he adds quickly. He pulls oregano, basil, onion powder, garlic powder, and Italian seasoning from the pantry. Then he pulls a bowl from the cabinet and places everything on the counter.

I continue to knead.

"Do you like any other types of pizza?" I ask. He ignores me, em ptying the jar of pizza sauce into the bowl. He then adds two shakes each of the spices.

"My favorite type is Hawaiian," I say to fill the silence. He pauses his work and then moves to his tablet.

"You would like something like that," he says.

I chuckle. "What? Do you find the pineapple appalling or is it the ham?"

He taps his cheek. "I do not like either. Putting both on a pizza is just stupid."

My chuckle turns into a laugh.

"The dough is ready. Roll it out into a circle," he says.

I do as he says.

We fall into another silence. It's not as tense as it usually is.

Be brave.

"August, I'm not happy about the circumstances that brought you here to live with me. But I'm glad that I get to spend time with you."

He freezes and stops grating the cheese for the pizza for a full thirty seconds.

"I want to spend time with you, August."

He hesitates before he says, "I cannot say the same."

I nod, my mouth forming a straight line.

Atonement.

"I am sorry." I stop rolling the dough and look at him.

Placing my palms flat on the counter, I lean forward and repeat. "I am sorry, August. I am sorry that I treated you so shittily. I am sorry that I've been a shit father, and I know it sounds like I'm seeking sympathy, but I'm not. I'm just stating the facts. I've been horrible to you. I was horrible to your mother. And," I swallow against the jumble of words, all the words I want to say. "I can't make up for the past. I can't change the past. But I would like the opportunity to make the future better for us. For you and me. "

I wait for him to do anything. But he just resumes grating the cheese.

"Right, that's…that's all I wanted to say right now." I go back to rolling the dough. Head down, I feel him shift. Then his tablet activates.

"If this pizza is good, we can make one next Friday."

And that's the best thing I could possibly hope for.