His Curvy Woman

by Leigh, Elisa

  “What is going on with you?” I ask Hunter whose fists are clenched and is steadily clocking Dave as he goes to another table. Having had enough of his outrageous behavior, I kick him under the table. Finally getting his attention, he looks at me. “He was checking you out.” He grinds out through his clenched teeth.

  I start laughing, so hard I start crying. When I’ve calmed down and dried my eyes, I’m finally able to speak. “That’s what has you ready to Hulk out? For one, guys don’t check me out. Two, even if they did, they aren’t you, so you have nothing to worry about. Three, do you see me throwing a tantrum every time a girl checks you out, which is oh, about every five minutes or so? I mean we walked into the restaurant, and every woman we passed was basically eye-fucking you.”

  “Don’t say fuck.” He says in a fractionally calmer tone.

  I roll my eyes. “Hunter, people are going to stare. It’s just human nature. If I can put up with it, then so can you. Trust me, I’ll have to deal with it a hell of a lot more than you will.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “Don’t say fuck.” I sass, and he gives me a pointed stare making me laugh.

  “Answer my question, Whitley.”

  “Don’t make me say it, Hunter. You’re a smart guy, figure it out.”

  “No.”

  “On the scale of who is hot or not, ten being the hottest and zero being not at all, you’re like a twelve or thirteen while I’m a solid seven.”

  Hunter looks even more pissed than when Dave was here telling us the specials, then Dave walks over, and I groan. What started out as a lovely night has quickly turned bad. “Are we ready to order now, or do you still need a few minutes?”

  “We’re read,” I say, needing to change the subject and get through this dinner. “I’ll have the Chilean Sea Bass,” I tell him, pointing to the spot on the menu where the Chilean Sea Bass is located.

  “And what sides would you like with that?” He asks.

  “Aren’t you going to write any of that down?” Hunter grinds out from across the table.

  “No need sir, I’ll remember the order,” Dave says, pointing at his head.

  “I’ll have the risotto and a side salad,” I say quickly trying to move this along.

  “What kind of dressing would you like on the salad?”

  “What kind do you have?” When he leans over and points to where the dressings are listed on the menu, Hunter loses it.

  “We’re leaving.” He stands up, throws a twenty on the table, then walks to my side and pulls out my chair.

  “Are you crazy?” I ask the man who’s starting to make a scene.

  “We need to go, Whitley, it’s an emergency.” He says sternly then holds out his hand for me to take.

  Unable to tell him no, I take his hand and he quickly walks us out of the restaurant and back to his truck. Once we are both safely inside and he’s pulling out of the parking lot and onto the main road, I look at him expectantly.

  Chapter 6

  Hunter

  I can sense her eyes on me, wanting to know what the hell is wrong with me. I wish I could tell her, but I don’t think she’d understand caveman talk at the moment. “I swear as soon as we’re home, I will be able to think more rationally.”

  “You have to give me more than that, Hunter. You said there was an emergency!”

  “If we didn’t get out of there, it would have turned into an emergency, and one of your friends down at the call center would have had to dispatch the cops to Russel’s to keep me from killing Dale.”

  “His name was Dave.” She mumbles, and I almost slam on my breaks, but using what’s left of my common sense, I decide not to. The longer I’m in her presence, the stronger this animal rage within me grows. I don’t even want her saying another man’s name.

  After a few tense minutes of silence, I peer over at Whitley and see that she’s on her phone texting, someone. Shit, I’ve really gone and screwed this night up royally. “I’m sorry for overreacting back there,” I mumble.

  “What was that?” She asks, putting her phone back in her clutch.

  “I’m sorry for overreacting back at Russel’s. I shouldn’t have let him get to me like he did.”

  “Apology accepted.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Yeah just don’t let it happen again.”

  It is very unlikely that I’ll be able to keep that promise, so I don’t respond. Within fifteen minutes, we are pulling up my drive and into my garage. The house is close to her parents, but not too close that they could walk here. It’s a four-bedroom, two and a half bath ranch with a deck and a nice sized yard. It’s a new house that was only built a few months back and has sat empty since it was finished. I hope Whitley likes it because I plan on moving her in as soon as possible.

  “This is yours?”

  “Why do you always sound so surprised by everything that has to do with me?”

  She laughs and shrugs. “I have no idea.” She opens up her door and looks back at me. “Come on, show me around. I’ve been dying to see what these looked like since they were built.”

  Once inside the house, I let her walk around the place, and like a puppy, I follow her. She doesn’t say anything for the longest time. She just walks into each room and stares for a few minutes, then walks out. When she gets to the master bedroom, she peeks in, but then goes to walk away.

  “I promise I hid my dirty clothes.” I try and joke, but she only blushes.

  “I didn’t want to intrude. Bedrooms are a private place.”

  I grab her hand and walk her into my bedroom, the one I plan on sharing with her for many years to come.

  “What do you think?” I ask, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling her to stand in between my legs.

  Hesitantly, she rests her hands on my shoulders and looks me square in the eyes. “You have a beautiful home, Hunter. Empty, but beautiful.”

  “Are you going to help me fill it up?”

  “Trust me, you don’t want my help with this. I can’t decorate to save my life.”

  I won’t tell her I meant I wanted to fill it up with children, not decorations, but I’ll let her believe that for now. “You are the only person’s help I do want Whitley.” I lean in for a kiss, but she steps back.

  “No. Once you kiss me, it’s over. I want you to tell me what’s going on with you. Where did you go when you left? Tell me about your life after you left me, Hunter.”

  The pleading tone in her voice does me in, but it’s the look in her eyes that has me opening up my mouth and telling her my story. I drag my hands down my face and breathe deeply, then exhale. She’s right. I know she’s right, but that doesn’t stop me from being afraid of what this could mean for us.

  “Come on.” I stand and grab her hand, walking us back into the living room to sit on the couch. I’m quiet for a while before Whitley pokes me in the chest. “Talk.” She demands.

  I grab her finger and kiss the tip of it. “The night of the football game, the last time we saw each other, my mom and dad were meeting with a U.S. Marshal from WITSEC. My dad had witnessed a murder and reported it to the police a couple weeks before. It turns out that the guy he saw pull the trigger was high up in the Russian Bratva. We had to go into witness protection until Kozlov, and all of his men were arrested and placed in prison.”

  “Since you came back, does that mean they are all in prison now?”

  “As of about six months ago, the last guy they were trying to send away was caught and sentenced to life without parole.”

  “Six months? Why did it take you so long to get back here?”

  “For the first two months, I didn’t believe it. I didn’t trust that Kozlov and his men were really put away for good. I was waiting for the backlash, but it never came. After a while of nothing happening, I started to have hope for a future that for the longest time was out of my reach.” I say and stroke her cheek with the back of my fingers. “I contacted Ramsey a couple o
f months ago and told him that it was finally safe for me to come home and asked him if there was a job at the firehouse.”

  “Hold up,” She says, stopping me with her raised palm between us. “Ramsey knew what happened to you?” She asks, each word getting louder and louder.

  “I called him before the U.S. Marshall made us give up our phones. He’s the only one I told.”

  “I can’t believe he didn’t tell me what happened.”

  “He couldn’t. If anyone found out about us, we could have been captured or worse, killed. I shouldn’t have even told him because it’s against the rules, but selfishly if anything ever happened to me, I wanted someone to know.”

  She’s quiet for a while thinking things through, I guess. There’s no rush for her to come to terms with what I’m telling her, I’m just glad that she knows now.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” I ask.

  She nods. “I’ll just have some water please.”

  I’m about to stand up to get her a drink when I hear her stomach rumble. “It’s not Chilean Sea Bass, but I could order us some pizza.” I offer. “Do you still like white pizza?”

  She gives me a pointed look. “Is the sky blue?” she asks, making me laugh.

  “Well, not right now, it isn’t,” I say, earning me a light punch to the gut, but then her hand flattens, and she runs it along my abs.

  “Jesus Hunter, when did all of this happen?” She makes a circular motion with her pointer finger around my body.

  “Let me order the pizza, and then you can ask me anything you want to know.” I wink then stand and drop a kiss on the top of her head. “I’ll be right back, baby.”

  “Go ahead, I’m going to find the bathroom.”

  “Use mine, there isn’t anything in the guest bathroom.”

  I go to the kitchen to grab my phone and order the pizza, then grab us both bottles of water. When I come back, Whitley is no longer in the living room, so I wait around for her to come back. While I’m waiting, I get a text from Ramsey.

  Ramsey: Heard you stormed out of Russel’s with my sister.

  Me: That was fast.

  Ramsey: Welcome back to small-town living buddy.

  Me: Isn’t that the truth. The waiter was too busy flirting with Whitley.

  Ramsey: Sure, he was. I’ll save the ‘treat her right talk’ for my dad but know this. If you hurt her, I’ll kick your ass.

  Me: I’ll kick my own ass fucker. Got to go.

  When Whitley comes back, she looks happier. No, that’s not the right word. More at ease, I suppose. She slides her boots off her feet and places them out of the way then comes and sits right next to me on the couch.

  “Ready?” She asks.

  “For what?”

  “To answer all of my questions.”

  “Should I be worried?” She gives me a pointed stare and crosses her arms over her tits. “Of course,” I say.

  “Where did you live?”

  “At first we were located to a safe house until my dad gave his testimony in the trial. I have no idea where we were, but it was out in the woods somewhere. There was always a U.S. Marshall keeping a lookout outside the cabin, or they were in the cabin keeping us company, telling us about anything important going on in the real world. We didn’t have internet or cable, just basic electricity. I did a lot of reading over those eight months. Then, because dad had risked his and his family’s lives, they gave him the option of placing us in WITSEC until all the other players in the Bratva were behind bars. It made sense for him to take the deal, even though it meant we couldn’t go home. We were relocated to Arizona and started our new lives. Mom got a job as a secretary for a dentist and dad worked construction.”

  “It’s crazy to think of your parents having to quit what they loved. And they had to uproot you from everything you knew. That must have been really hard.”

  I shrug, not wanting to dwell on my past. “Because I had missed so much of my senior year of high school, I ended up taking the GED test, passed it, and immediately went into the fire academy.”

  “So, you’ve been there, with your parents since then?”

  I nod.

  “How was your life? Did you enjoy where you worked? What did you do for fun when you weren’t working?” She asks all at once.

  “I love my job as a firefighter, and the guys I worked with were great for the most part. I never got close with anyone, though. I did my job, went out with them every once in a while, when we had time off and hung out with my parents.”

  “Did you date?” Whitley asks me softly, looking down at her hands.

  Thank god I didn’t. I’d never want her to have the opportunity to compare herself to anyone of insignificance. “The last date I went on was to my junior prom.”

  A small smile lights up her face. “Hunter, why did you come back?”

  “My life is here, Whitley. This is where I’m meant to be. Nowhere else had the thing that I wanted most.”

  “Which was what?”

  “You.”

  “I was fourteen when you left Hunter, you couldn’t have wanted me then.”

  “I didn’t realize it until a few years after we had left. I followed Ramsey and eventually you on Facebook. I saw the pictures he would post. One day he had posted a picture of your whole family when y’all went on that cruise to the Caribbean. You weren’t the same girl I knew when I left. You’d grown up Whitely and turned into the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

  She gasps in surprise at my admission. “And what happens if you get what you’ve always wanted?”

  I fall to my knees and kneel between her legs, grasping her hands in between my own. “When I get you, I’m going to keep you. I’m going to make you fall in love with me and then I’m going to marry you. As soon as I fucking can, I’m going to put my babies in your belly and we’re going to make a family, a huge family.” I promise. She bites her lip and looks unsure. “What is it?” I ask.

  “What if when you get to know me again, you don’t like who I am now? What if this version of me you’ve built up in your head over the years is just a fantasy? You’re too good of a man to commit to me and then leave when you realize you’re unhappy. You’ll stay in a loveless relationship-”

  I cover her mouth with my hand, and she glares at me. “Are you going to listen?”

  She stares at me for a long few seconds before finally nodding.

  “It’s never going to fucking happen Whitley. I’m more certain about you than I’ve ever been about anything else. Unless you aren’t feeling this. Tell me now if you don’t want me, Whitely.” The doorbell rings interrupting our heated moment. She eyes me as I get up and go to the door.

  Chapter 7

  Whitley

  Tonight has been a crazy rollercoaster of emotion. Happy, nervous, turned on, frustrated, shocked, and then back to happy again. I don’t know which way is up or down. I never would have thought I’d run into my longtime crush and he’d tell me he wanted to be with me. What do I even say to that? It’s almost like I’m living in a dream, except this isn’t a dream. This is reality, and I’m scared that I’ll get my hopes up and then something will go wrong and screw it all up.

  Sitting here worrying about what-ifs aren’t going to get us anywhere though. I go to the kitchen and start looking through his cabinets to find plates. The only thing he has are paper plates and solo cups, go figure.

  Hunter walks into the kitchen carrying two pizza boxes that smell incredible and a couple other to-go containers. He sets them down on the counter and starts opening them all up for me to see. He’s ordered a large supreme pizza, a white pizza, garlic knots, wings, an order of alfredo fettuccini, and a salad. Dear Lord, what is this man trying to do, feed an army? I look at him and shake my head. “That is way too much food, Hunter. How are we going to eat all of this?”

  “Silly woman, I am a grown man. I can finish one of those pizzas all by myself. Also, I didn’t know what you wanted, besides the pizza.”

>   I inhale all of the delicious scents, and my stomach rumbles again making me laugh. I shouldn’t have skipped lunch today, but I was too nervous about our date tonight to eat. I look through his drawers looking for something to serve the salad and pasta with, so I can make our plates, but all he has are plastic forks. “Hunter, you really need to go shopping. Where is all of your kitchen stuff from your old place?”

  He shrugs his shoulders. “I never had any. I lived at home with Mom and Dad until I moved out. It never made sense for me to get my own place when I was able to live rent-free. When I moved, I just figured I would take you with me when I went shopping since you would be the one who would be using it all too. Or no?”

  I sigh and shrug my shoulders. “Yes?” His smile fades, and I immediately feel bad. I place my hand on his forearm and squeeze, getting his attention. “I’m scared, Hunter.”

  “Of what baby?”

  The emotion in his eyes shows me that he’s genuine, that what’s between us isn’t temporary. “That this is too good to be true, and everything I’ve ever wanted is going to be taken away from me.”

  He wraps me in his arms and hugs me tight. “Believe in me and in us Whitley. We’ll take it day by day, and I’ll prove that our love is a love that will last us a lifetime.”

  I’m not touching the word love. Nope. It’s too soon for that kind of talk and gives me a funny feeling in my middle that I’m not going to think about, something akin to need and hope.

  When my stomach rumbles again, he swats my ass and laughs. “I need to feed that monster that keeps growling. Go sit down in the living room, and I’ll bring you your plate.”

  I roll my eyes and swat his stomach as I pull away. “How about I make the plates, and you go find us a show that we can watch while we eat.”

  He gives me a quick kiss, grabs the pizza boxes, and heads out of the kitchen and into the living room. The saying ‘I hate to see him go, but I love watching him walk away’ is entirely accurate here. That man has a fine ass. I shake my head to clear it and fill both of our plates with garlic knots, salad, pasta, and wings then walk out to the living room.