Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

Hunter

No. I couldn't look at her. I couldn't look at her because I wanted her. So far, I'd been able to keep a leash on myself around her, but then I'd seen the acres of naked back and all of my common sense and reason had completely shut down. All I could think about was digging my fingers into that back, tasting her skin. Watching those muscles flex as I touched her for hours. She'd feel so good. Too good.

"Come on, baby. Open your eyes." There it was. The word that unlocked me and would make me do anything for her.

I opened my eyes. She was right there. Crowding my space. The only thing I could smell was her.

"Stace," I said, my voice shaky.

"Tell me that you don't want to kiss me." One hand touched my face so gently, completely at odds with the fire in her eyes.

"I can't tell you that." I couldn't tell her that because I did want to kiss her. I wanted a whole lot more than that. I had since the first night we'd met. The second she'd taken off her helmet and I saw her smile in the flashing red and blue lights.

"So, what do you want me to do?"

Of course she was forcing me to say it.

I opened my mouth but no words came out.

"Do you want me to kiss you, Hunter?" she asked.

This was it. The moment that would change everything. Two paths and I had to choose one.

Except there weren't two paths because right now, looking at her, I could only see one. Stace left me only one choice.

"Yes. I want you to kiss me." I could have nodded, but I knew she wanted the words.

Her smile stopped my heart. It was unlike any of her smiles I'd seen before. This one was radiant. Pure, clear happiness. She was so fucking gorgeous.

"Well, if you wanted me to kiss you so bad then all you had to do was ask," she said.

"I'm going to beat you with a pillow again," I said, my voice still not very steady.

Her fingers traced my jaw like she was drawing a map of my face.

"No, you're not," she said before our lips met.

I wasn't going to beat her with a pillow, that was true. The contact of her mouth sizzled through my veins. Her mouth was warm, so warm. Her lips cradled mine as if she was trying to be gentle.

Gentle was fine for other times, but for right now? I didn't crave gentle. I didn't need gentle.

I tilted my head and sucked her bottom lip into my mouth, causing her to make a sound of surprise and it was as if she'd been waiting for me to do that.

Stace backed me up until I hit a wall and rattled some picture frames. At some point she'd pulled the clip from my hair and had wound one hand through the strands. Buck barked, but Stace didn't remove her mouth from mine to tell him to calm down. No, her mouth was busy as she licked her tongue into my mouth and nibbled on my lips and turned me inside out while her hands grabbed and pulled at my clothes.

The kiss was aggressive and claiming and too much and not enough. Our teeth clashed and our noses smashed each other and none of it mattered because Stace was kissing me and this was what I'd wanted. What we'd both wanted.

"What are you doing to me?" she moaned into my mouth as she squeezed my side and pulled gently on my hair which caused me to whimper.

"What are you doing to me ?" I threw back at her, my lungs stuttering as if they'd forgotten how to work properly.

Stace rested her forehead against mine as she panted and the hand in my hair trembled.

"I can't even think anymore," she said, and I knew exactly what she meant.

I'd never had a kiss like this. Never, ever. It hit me with all the intensity of a car crash. But in a good way.

No, I was definitely not thinking coherently anymore.

"Fuck," Stace said, leaning back a little. She almost looked scared.

"Yeah."

She started to back away, but I dug my fingers into her sides that I'd apparently been using to hold on for dear life.

"No!" My voice was way too loud.

"What is it?"

With one hand, I grabbed the back of her neck and tried to draw her face closer to mine again. "Don't stop."

"Don't stop?" she asked, freezing a millimeter away from my mouth.

I squeezed the back of her neck. "Don't. Stop."

A second later, I was being lifted into the air and carried as if I weighed no more than a gallon of milk.

Those firefighter muscles were no joke.

Stace deposited me on my back on the couch before straddling me and bracing herself on her forearms.

"Are you comfortable?"

"Yes," I said, grabbing the front of her shirt to pull her back down so she could resume kissing me to devastation.

Instead of doing that, Stace arranged a pillow under my head. She couldn't turn off the impulse to take care of people, even now. I should be annoyed, and I was. But I was also so charmed that it made me want her even more.

Stace even arranged my hair so it wouldn't get stuck under me and pull when we started kissing again.

"You're so hot," I blurted out.

Stace grinned. "Thank you, princess. You're unbelievably beautiful yourself."

She slowly lowered herself down, as if she was scared to crush me, but she could absolutely do that, and I'd be happy.

"Stace?" I asked.

"Yes?"

"Why aren't you kissing me?" I thought that her tossing me on the couch was a prelude to kissing, but it wasn't happening, and I needed to know if she was going to continue.

"Oh, you thought I was going to keep kissing you? What if I just wanted to snuggle?" There was that look in her eyes.

"One of these times you're going to fuck around with me and find out," I said.

She raised her eyebrows. "I don't mind the finding out if I can have the fucking around part first."

With the words "fucking around" she pressed her hips into mine and wrung a moan from my mouth. Every time I thought I had the upper hand, she turned the tables on me.

I grabbed her hips and squeezed. "Don't say fucking if you're not going to follow through."

"Mmm, I don't think you're ready for me, baby," she said. That was number four. I was collecting those words like little treasures.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Hunter. I'm going to fuck you. I promise you that. But if I fuck you right now, you're going to run home and then I'm never going to hear from you again. You'll get spooked and I don't want that. Don't deny it," she said as I started to protest. "Yes, I want to fuck you, but even more than that? I want to seduce you."

Her words took a few moments for me to understand.

"What the fuck is the difference?" Now I was getting annoyed.

Stace leaned down and kissed the tip of my nose.

"You're going to find out."

The next thing I knew I was still on the couch, but she wasn't.

Stace stood next to me and I felt like I'd been doused in a bucket of ice water.

What the actual hell had just happened?

Stace smiled at me.

She'd done all that work to get me comfortable and then just…stopped?

My thoughts were sluggish and confused and I couldn't make any sense of what had changed.

I gave her my hand and she pulled me to my feet, and then into her arms.

A hug? Nothing made sense right now.

Stace stroked the back of my head.

"God, I love holding you."

Even through my confusion, I still curved my arms around her because she felt good and smelled good and I didn't want to let go.

"That's my girl," she said, and it was like she had unlocked something inside me. Oh. I liked that. I really liked that. In combination with her holding me and touching my hair? I completely melted.

Stace held me for a long time and I was the one who eventually leaned back.

"This isn't a casual thing for me, Hunter," Stace said, stroking through my hair with both hands. "It hasn't been from the first minute I saw you. I knew you'd be someone to me. I'm all in. But I know you're not."

"I don't do relationships, Stace. Sometimes I do sex, but not very often. And never with people that I'm going to see again. This thing you want from me? I can't give it to you. I don't have it to give to you." If the choice was between love and everything else in my life? I was going to choose everything else. Either Stace and I would end, and I'd be miserable and brokenhearted, or we'd stay together and eventually make each other miserable. Love was easy, in the beginning. But it didn't last, and when it turned, it was ugly and cruel and bitter. Was it worth it? For a few good years?

No. It wasn't.

Stace nodded and I expected her to argue with me. "I know you believe that. But I don't. And I'm going to prove it to you. You see, princess, I'm a little competitive. And proving you wrong? Oh, that's the ultimate challenge."

What the fuck ?!

She was smiling. She was actually smiling.

"I don't even know what to say right now."

Stace kissed my mouth so softly and gently. "That's okay, baby. It's all going to be okay."

One minute I'd been lusting after her back muscles, the next minute we'd been sharing the best kiss of my entire life and the next we were cleaning up Stace's kitchen. Or rather she was cleaning and I was standing around and trying to figure out what I was even doing anymore.

No one had thrown me off-kilter quite like Katrina "Stace" Stacey.