12. Hunter

Chapter 12

Hunter

Oh, fuck no.

I catch Cara’s wrist as she tries to slip by. “Wait. Don’t go back to bed just yet. I’m not going to regret anything, I swear.”

She glances at the closed door. Down the hall, my daughter is sleeping.

And fuck, I know she thinks it’s wrong, but the jolt of off-limits temptation doesn’t stop me. If anything, it fires me up. It just underlines how right our connection is.

“Cara, I’m a grown man. I won’t deny that I was shocked to see you when I opened the door, because for the last week, you have been wholly separate from the rest of my life. A fantasy. But that was just a stupid, immediate reaction. I’ve spent the rest of the night thinking about you. All of you. Not a fantasy, not my daughter’s friend, but the very real woman in front of me. And I’ve been looking at you in this silky top, wanting to unwrap you. It can’t be a coincidence that you show up on my doorstep on Christmas Eve. Even if you had to be delivered here by my daughter.”

Cara huffs a little protesting breath. “Then maybe it’s just me who has a problem with looking her in the eye, knowing that I’ve called her dad Daddy.”

I laugh. God, that’s funny. Genuinely. “Okay, fair deal. Call me Hunter if you’d rather.”

Her lower lip plumps out in a pout.

I lean in, heart pounding with confident anticipation. “You don’t want to, do you?”

She shakes her head a little. “No,” she admits.

“Then we have a little secret to keep, don’t we? ”

Desire wars with the duty of friendship, and she twists her face.

I keep pressing my case. “Cara, I don’t deserve you as my Christmas present, but I won’t deny that I want you anyway. I want to unwrap every inch of you and give you more kisses to make up for the fact that I disappeared. And as for my daughter… Don’t you think I should teach Hannah that love is worth waiting for?”

Cara’s eyes widen. “What are you?—”

“I told you it was illogical.” I circle my thumb on the inside of her wrist, feeling her delicate pulse flutter against my touch. “But the reason I backed off after our first kiss is that I knew I was already a goner. I knew if I kissed you a second time, I’d want forever, and that wasn’t fair to put on you at such a young age.”

She stares at me as she brings her free hand to her lips. Remembering how insanely good that kiss was, I hope.

“That was something special. Something worth holding on to. Kisses are never like that, Cara. You have to take my word for that, because I’m not letting you kiss a bunch of creepy toads to find out for yourself.”

She giggles despite her shock.

I lift her other hand and press it to my chest, right over my heart. “This isn’t the setting I pictured for this conversation. I swear. I planned to come and find you at the library at your next tutoring session. Ask for help with an apology letter, but I’d already have it written.”

She turns a little, enough to take in my bed in the shadows of the room. “This is a lot more private than the library.”

“You can go back to your room if you want,” I say hoarsely. “But I’ll come find you at the library, then. And it’ll get awkward there, too.”

“Awkward is sort of our thing, apparently?” She frowns. I take her face in my hand and soothe her furrowed brow. She bites her lower lip again, her gaze locked on my face, and I ease it out from between her teeth with my thumb .

“I don’t think awkward is that bad,” I murmur before I kiss that wounded flesh. So gently. “If we can survive Christmas with the whole Dane clan, that’s a pretty good start to forever, don’t you think?”

She gasps against my mouth.

I take that as a yes, and turn her around so we’re facing the full-length mirror where most days, I just check to make sure I’m basically presentable for the world.

Tonight, for the first time ever, I’m not alone in this reflection.

“Do we look awkward together?”

A gorgeous smile blooms across her face. “No.”

I press my lips to her temple, heart pounding. “Do I look too old for you?”

Slowly, she shakes her head. “No.”

“Do I look like a man who wants to give you the entire world at your feet?”

She laughs.

“I’m serious.”

She studies our reflections.

I’m taller than her, and wider, too. But she’s no little slip of a thing. She’s a solid stack of curves. My cock thickens as my hands graze down her bare arms, my fingers itching to touch more of her.

Her shoulders roll back and her head tilts to the side. She’s really thinking about this, really watching us as I caress her arms. I drop my hands to her hips, touching, squeezing…

Her breathing changes.

Still watching.

I sweep my touch to her belly, filling my hands with her silky shirt and the soft flesh beneath it. Up, up, up, until my hands are just beneath her breasts, both of them, my fingers aching to curve over her tits.

“Hunter,” she whispers. “I don’t understand.”

I’m not surprised by her uncertainty. I, on the other hand, have the context of a lifetime without her, so I have more bone-deep confidence in this rightness.

“Oh, sweet girl.” I press my face into her hair. “Don’t you? Can’t you feel what you do to Daddy?”

She moans, which I’ll take as a yes .

“You know when I knew you were mine?” I kiss her temple, her cheek, nosing at her until she tips her head all the way to the side so I can kiss her neck. “The moment I saw your profile as you strode past me up to the counter in the coffee shop. I was so fucking nervous you wouldn’t give me a second glance. I thought for sure you’d come over and realize immediately you’d made a huge mistake.”

“That’s not at all what I was thinking.” She shakes her head a little, her aroused gaze tracking my touch in the mirror.

I slide my hand under her shirt, remembering where she is ticklish, and being careful as I fill my palm with her warm flesh. “What did you think?”

“I thought, thank God I lied about my age .”

I half-laugh, half-groan. “Fuck.”

“And I still wasn’t old enough for you!” She twists away from me.

But I catch her wrists again.

We can play this game all night.

I’m smiling down at her as I back her up against the mirror. “I don’t care about your age now.”

She gives me an uncertain look. “Are you absolutely sure?”

I press her hands to my chest. “Feel that?”

“What?”

“My steady heartbeat.”

She smiles. “Yes.”

“Cara.” I hold her gaze. Steady steady steady. “I fucked up our first chance because I cared about the wrong things. I will not make that mistake again, I swear to God. I am deeply attracted to you . You are singular and special, and nothing is going to stop me from owning that feeling.”

She takes a deep breath. “I have to ask you something.”

“Anything.”

She swallows hard. “What if Hannah doesn’t like us together? Not even if . She won’t like us together.”

I lift her hand to my mouth and kiss her palm. “There will be a storm, no doubt. But I will be your shelter from it. She can be mad at me , not you. And we’ll ride it out together. I’m not letting you go. She’ll get over any outrage she feels, and then she’ll see how I feel about you.”

Her hand curls against my jaw, her fingers stroking my cheek. “Okay.”

Now my steady heartbeat takes off at a gallop. “Okay?”

“Oh. Kay.” She exhales with wonder. “I guess I’m your Christmas present.” Her eyelashes brush her cheek for a moment before she looks up at me again, coyly this time. “If you still want to unwrap me, Daddy?”

My hands are already on her, greedy and demanding. While I kiss her deeply, my fingers find a hidden zipper down the back of her shirt and work it down, down, down, revealing a warm slice of skin bisected by what feels like a lacy bra.

She whimpers into my mouth as I work the loosened satin up over her breasts, and then release her mouth long enough to bring it up over her head.

Then I look down.

“Oh fuck me,” I groan, getting my first proper look at Cara’s breasts, heavy and full in a black lace bra.

“I will eventually,” she says shyly. “Although you might be doing the fucking first?”

I blink in disbelief. At the perfection of her. At the shy sex joke. At the fucking gift of her half-naked in my bedroom.

“Marry me,” I growl, picking her up.

“Oh God, Hunter, don’t—” She flings her arms around my neck as I wrap her thighs around my waist.

“Don’t what?” I carry her to my bed and set her down on the edge of the mattress.

She clings to me, shaking her head. “I wasn’t sure you could pick me up.”

I laugh. “Ah, sweetness. Holding you in my arms is the easiest thing in the world. You make me feel ten feet tall and as strong as?—”

“An oak tree?” She squeezes my shoulders. “That’s what I thought when you kissed me the first time.”

“I’ll be your oak tree. I’ll be anything you need.”

“I need more kisses,” she says shyly.

I roll to the side, pulling her with me so we stretch out together on the mattress. “Come here, then.”

She gives me her lips, eager and soft, and I pour into this kiss everything I’m feeling, because I can’t rush my girl into anything else.

If all we do tonight is make out, I will be the luckiest man in the world.

As our first tastes stretch into breath-stealing deep kisses, I roam my hands over her bare arms and back and tummy, caressing her everywhere her bra isn’t covering. Tension radiates through me, and it’s so hard to hide from her. She squirms closer, rocking her hips into my obvious erection, even through both of our jeans.

“I thought you were going to unwrap me,” she whispers as she pulls my hand to the button on her jeans.

I shudder, need ripping through me. With a flick of my fingers, the button is open and her jeans are unzipped.

She gasps and I kiss her again, holding her against me as I push my hand into the back of her jeans to cup her ripe, lush ass.

“Cara, my Cara,” I growl as I roll her onto her back.

I rear up on my knees, looking down at her with unrestrained hunger now. Her chest is rising and falling unevenly, but her gaze is locked on me and her eyes are glittering with desire.

“Hips up, pretty girl,” I murmur as I hook my fingers on her jeans and ease them off her. Under the denim, she’s wearing blue cotton panties, and once the jeans are flung over my shoulder, I settle my hands on her hips and just….look. “Fuck, you’re perfect.”

She wriggles in my touch. “I didn’t know I’d be getting halfway naked.” She blushes. “I do own matching underwear.”

I drag in a rough breath and roll my thumbs over the soft padding at her hipbones. “That would be perfect, too.”

“And I have ugly underwear,” she says slowly.

“Good. Perfect.”

“Hunter.”

I jerk my eyes up and meet her gaze. “Yes? ”

She smiles. “You just said ugly underwear would be perfect.”

“Is this a bad time to admit I’m going to be an easy lay for you?” I grin. “I’m…I mean, the joke is that I’m like a kid on Christmas morning, but you’re so pretty and soft and sexy, and I can’t quite fucking believe that you’re in my bed.”

“How easy are we talking?” She licks her lips and looks at my cock, bulging at the fly on my jeans.

“Fuck, don’t tempt me with that mouth.”

Her eyes light up. “Is that tempting?”

I fall forward, bracing my arms on the bed on either side of her.

She bites her lower lip and gives me an innocent look. “Good.”

Fuck. Me. My cock is raging now, desperate to get free. Desperate to feel the hot, wet slide of her tongue.

Her pupils are dark, deep pools of seduction as she slowly smiles. “Do you want my mouth, Daddy?”

“You’re not completely innocent, are you, sweet girl?”

She shakes her head proudly.

“We’ll get there. I want everything you’re offering. But first… Daddy wants to unwrap the last parts of his gift.” I stroke her silky hair, gathering the glossy strands in my fist. “Are you ready for more kisses?”