by Zoe Chant
"I've used a cell phone before," Hunter muttered. The slender smartphone felt tiny in his big hands. "Just not one quite like this."
"Hey, I offered you a simple phone, dude. You're the one who wanted all the bells and whistles. Which brings me back around to wondering if you finally got over that chick who dumped you and got back on the dating scene."
"I don't need bells and whistles," Hunter retorted, skipping past the reference to Christine as best he could. The problem with a small town was that everyone was always in everyone else's business. "I just want to be able to do email, and stuff."
"And stuff?" Murray asked, waggling his brows.
Hunter dug in his feet. "I just want a phone, that's all. Living alone, a man can't be too careful, all right?"
"You weren't worried about being 'too careful' a year ago, or five years ago. Now, unless you had some kind of near-death experience in that storm we just had—you didn't, did you?"
"You were telling me about phone plans," Hunter reminded him.
He was finally able to escape with his new phone—which he was fairly sure he could use—stuffed in his pocket along with a warranty, the new email address that Murray had helped him sign up for, and a bunch of information he'd have to read at home. Jake had already left the store, but was waiting for him outside.
"I'm laying down my bets right now!" Murray called after him. "Next time you come in here, you're gonna have some big-city looker on your arm! Jake, you're my witness."
"Murray has a bit of a mouth on him, but he's right, isn't he?" Jake said quietly as they strolled back to Hunter's truck. "You did meet someone."
"Maybe," Hunter admitted. "Things are a little uncertain right now. It's not something I want to discuss with the whole town."
Jake made a crossing-his-heart gesture. "You'll get no problems from me. But just between you, me, and the wall—" He tapped the truck lightly with a fist. "—I'm glad to see you getting over that Christine gal. It's hard to pick up and move on when you got your heart broken. But ... you look happy, man. Really happy. Whoever this new girl is, I think she's good for you."
"Like I said, it's not a done deal yet."
But Jake was right, he realized as he got back into the truck. He'd been really happy this weekend, and there was a part of him that felt complete, in a way he never had—not just since Christine, but in his entire life. He'd found his mate. She slotted into place and completed him. And he was pretty sure she felt the same way.
Now he just had to convince her of it.
7. Felicity
Felicity found herself having a much harder time than she expected settling back into her everyday life.
She'd made it back to Minneapolis without a problem, though she still showed up several hours after the workday started, even pausing only for a fast shower and change of clothes at her apartment. This prompted a not-exactly-unexpected round of teasing from Melinda and the handful of designers who worked under her. Melinda called her "Hot Stuff" for the rest of the day.
It would have been easier to dispel the rumors if she'd been able to stop spacing out all day long. Every time she'd let her mind wander, instead of coming up with new clothing designs as she normally did, her thoughts would drift straight to Hunter. His eyes, his lips, his chest, his many other charms ...
"Oh, come on, Mel," Felicity said after the others had left. Melinda was gathering up her things; Felicity planned to stay late, making up for lost time. "I was hiking. I told you that."
"Uh-huh," Melinda laughed. "Because hiking is totally why you came back with that rosy glow in your face."
"I do not have a rosy glow," Felicity protested. From the way her cheeks were heating up, though, she felt like she'd practically glow in the dark now.
Melinda winked at her. "Maybe I should take up hiking, then. Looks like it sure does wonders for your complexion."
"Weren't you leaving?"
Melinda gave her a cheerful wave. "Say hi to your 'hiking' buddy for me!" she called on her way out the door.
"Too nosy by half," Felicity muttered. She turned back to her computer and discovered that a new message had appeared in her inbox from an address she didn't recognize.
Dear Felicity,
How are you? Sorry we didn't say goodbye. Write back?
Hunter
Felicity's heart jumped. For a few minutes she just stared at the screen, with her emotions a turbulent mix of delight and alarm. She hadn't realized until that moment that she'd compartmentalized her weekend with Hunter as something very separate from her ordinary city life, and now it felt very odd to have the two colliding.
It wasn't a bad feeling. Just strange.
She started to reply, then hesitated. Should she? If she wanted to cut things off with Hunter, now would be the time to do it. A clean break, with no awkward emotional entanglements. She would always remember their weekend at the cabin as the perfect thing it was, with no opportunity to sour and go bad, tainting those good memories. And the thing was, it would just never work between them. He had a life out there, and she had a life here, and she couldn't see how they could possibly reconcile the two, at least not without someone being unhappy and resentful.
But the idea of never seeing Hunter again, never feeling his strong arms around her, never again hearing the way he whispered her name when he came ...
"I need to think about this," she said aloud. Getting a grip on herself, she minimized the email window and brought up a work-related one. They really needed to get the new fall line into production, and she had some ideas for color schemes. She'd deal with the Hunter situation later.
She managed to successfully not think about Hunter all evening, until late at night, when she was back home and eating takeout in her too-big, too-empty apartment. Then her thoughts began to drift to Hunter. What was he doing? Where was he? Would he be awake? Maybe he was even outside, roaming the nighttime forest as a bear. Maybe he was sitting inside, thinking of her, as she was thinking of him ...
Felicity sighed and reached for her phone. It couldn't hurt to send him a little message in return. Just something to let him know she wasn't completely ignoring him.
When she opened up her email, she found that she had another message from the same address as the first one.
Dear Felicity,
Sorry. Forgot to give you this. 555-9969. Don't feel like you have to call. But I hope you will.
Hunter
Felicity stared at the message for a long while, fighting a battle of willpower with herself. It's too late to call. He's asleep. You don't want to wake him up.
But her fingers seemed to know her mind better than she herself did, because her fingers ended up dialing it for her.
The phone only rang once before Hunter's deep voice said, "Hello?"
She was completely unprepared for the powerful effect his voice would have on her, even through the phone. A rush of desire rolled through her, from his voice in her ear, straight to the warm heat between her legs.
"Uh," she managed to say at last, "it's me. Felicity."
"I know," Hunter said, and there was warmth and humor in his voice. "It says so on the screen."
"I didn't know you had a phone," she said.
"I didn't. Bought it today."
"Oh," she said, and it was a good thing Melinda wasn't there, because she really might be glowing now. "Because of me?"
Hunter sounded a little embarrassed. "Well, I gotta stay in touch somehow, right?"
"Yes," Felicity said. "Yes, that's true." She was sitting on the floor beside her coffee table, and she arranged herself into a more comfortable position, pulling down a pillow from the couch. "So, uh, I hope you had a good day? I'm sorry I left so suddenly."
"It's okay, you had to get back to the city. I understand."
Resolve firmed up in her. "No, I mean, I'm glad you understand, but it was wrong of me to say goodbye in a note. I just wasn't sure what to say, and I was in a hurry, but I promise I won't do that again."
; There was a silence on his end of the line, long enough that she was afraid she'd upset him. But then he said in a quiet voice filled with conviction, "I know. I believe you."
Felicity lay back on the pillow. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine that the miles between them had gone away, and he was here beside her. "So tell me about your day. I'd love to hear about it."
"There isn't much to tell. Mostly I went into town and bought a phone, and then stuck around the cabin the rest of the day. Chopping wood and that kind of thing. Two robins on the feeder this afternoon. Mated pair, I think. Pretty sure they have a nest around here somewhere."
"That's lovely," Felicity said. "You'll have to take pictures and send them to me."
"I haven't got a camera," he admitted.
"Your phone," she reminded him. "If it can do email, then surely it has a camera."
Hunter laughed, a warm rich sound. "It's an amazing world we live in."
"An amazing, wonderful world," she agreed. His voice was having a definite effect on her—a very stirring effect. Maybe it was just a Pavlovian response after that weekend of great sex, but lying here with her eyes closed, trying to imagine him near her, she could feel herself growing wet. "What are you doing right now?"
"I'm next to the fire," he said, his voice a quiet growl. "Lying on the furs."
A flutter of want trembled in her belly. She could picture him so clearly, all spread out on the furs, golden in the firelight. "I'm in my living room, on the floor. Lying down. Um, what are you wearing?"
This got another of his warm laughs. "Is this phone sex?"
"Only if you cooperate," Felicity told him archly. She placed a hand on top of her skirt, over her mound. She could feel the heat and wetness even through her skirt. "I'm still wearing my work clothes, a blouse and a dark navy skirt. I'm barefoot." She curled her toes into the carpet.
"I've only got jeans on. I don't wear much around the cabin, usually."
Oh, how well she could picture that. "And what are you wearing under your jeans?" she asked.
"Nothing at all," he said in a deep, sensuous growl, and another flood of heat and wetness dampened the insides of her thighs. "And now I'm taking them off. You've got panties under your skirt, right? What do they look like?"
"They're red," she said breathlessly. "Red with a little lace around the edge."
"If I was there, I'd be taking them off. You'll have to take them off for me."
She hooked a finger under the elastic and stripped them down, peeling them off and flicking them off the end of her toe. "They're off," she said, her voice catching in the middle. Now that she was bare under her skirt, the fabric brushing her clit gave her a sharp little static charge of pleasure.
"I'm touching myself now," he growled into the phone. "Imagining it's your hand holding me. Your hand stroking me. You?"
"I am. Yes." She slid her hand under her skirt and dipped a finger between her folds. She was very hot, wet, and slick. She caressed her own smoothness and imagined his bigger, rougher fingers sliding along the folds, rubbing over the sensitive nub of her clit. It was like, and yet unlike, masturbating in the privacy of her bathroom. She knew just how to touch herself, and yet, there was an extra frisson of delighted pleasure in knowing that he was listening to her tiny gasps and moans as she stroked herself.
"I'm close," he murmured in a throaty growl.
"Me too," she gasped back. Her whole hand was wet and slippery. She kept her eyes closed, picturing his hard body leaning over her, his hands and tongue and body pleasuring her.
There was a sudden, stuttering jolt in his breathing, and that did it for her. She thrust a finger inside, and came with a white-hot flare, shuddering through an intense orgasm.
As she came down slowly, she could still hear his breathing on the other end of the phone—slowing now, too. Felicity kept her hand resting on herself, enjoying the light pressure. She was still fluttering gently in the aftermath.
"Good?" he asked quietly.
"Not as good as having you here." Or me being there.
"Same," he said softly.
"But good," she added.
"Yeah. Same."
They lay in companionable silence for a little while, not saying anything. It was enough just to know he was there. She could hear his soft breathing, and the fire crackling in the background. At last, just to make sure he hadn't fallen asleep, she said, "Congratulations, Hunter."
"Huh?" he asked, as if she'd roused him from drowsing thoughts.
"You're no longer a phone sex virgin."
This got another of his deep, warm laughs again.
"Good night, Hunter," Felicity said softly.
"Night," came his quiet reply.
Even after he disconnected on the other end, it took her a long time to hang up.
***
The rest of the week flew by. Felicity hardly had time to miss Hunter during the day. She was much too busy, dealing with dozens of clients and trying to get her own designs ready for fall production.
It was only at night that she missed him, and then he was there on the phone. Her former habit was to have takeout while watching TV, sitting on the living room floor with her pizza or carry-out boxes spread out on the coffee table. Now, instead of the TV, there was Hunter on the other end of the phone. She sat on the floor, barefoot and barelegged, and they chatted while she ate. She told him about her arguments with clients and the conflicts she'd resolved among the designers on her staff. And he told her about the birds at his bird feeders, the animal tracks he'd seen in the woods, the new flowers blooming along the road. He'd figured out how to use his phone's camera, and he sent her pictures of a bright red tanager on the bird feeder, and a blurry shot of a mother and baby deer he'd seen by the woodshed.
"Oh, it's so adorable," she enthused, holding the phone far enough from her face to see the picture. The fawn, in its dappled baby coat, was so tiny and delicate that it looked like a toy deer. "You should post this on Twitter. Oh, wait, you don't have Twitter, do you?"
He chuckled. "One thing at a time, now. A week ago, I didn't even have email."
"You're certainly taking to it like a ... a bear to honey." He'd been emailing her multiple times a day.
"The only kind of honey I want is the one I'm talking to right now."
"This weekend," she promised.
Rather than staying late at the office as was her usual habit, on Friday she caught herself watching the clock all afternoon. Finally, after having to remind her of appointments and correct mistakes in her emails, and stopping her at one point from spilling a cup of coffee on her expensive Cintiq tablet, Melinda gave up. "Felicity, just get out of here. Go meet your guy. That's what's got your panties in a knot, isn't it?"
"My panties are not in a knot, a twist, or any other kind of wardrobe malfunction, and I still have to finish going over the final details of the advertising campaign for our fall line."
"It can wait until Monday. They aren't even expecting to get our corrections back until the middle of next week." Melinda folded her arms and leaned a hip on Felicity's desk—a risky maneuver in her tight pencil skirt. "Hon, you're a workaholic. An over-achiever. And that's great; that's how you built this company into what it is today. But it's not going to fall apart if you think about yourself rather than the business for a change."
Felicity laughed. "Now you sound like my mom."
"Hey, Mother knows best, right? Go on. Head out early. I'll hold down the fort, and tell everyone you're incommunicado."
At any other time, she would have politely brushed off Melinda's offer, and finished her work. But her mind kept slipping back to the previous weekend, to the heat of Hunter's touch and the hunger of his mouth on hers. "All right," she sighed, tossing her pen down on her desk. "Twist my arm."
Melinda grinned and made shooing motions toward the door. "Go, go. Before anyone sees you. I'll square things away in here."
Felicity giggled, grabbed her jacket and purse, and was out the door
before she could change her mind.
She didn't bother stopping by her apartment this time, just drove north in her work clothes. She'd be out of them soon enough anyway, and she couldn't fly with an overnight bag.
But as she drove, she couldn't help thinking that this was a temporary, stopgap solution at best. She couldn't live her life half-assing her job and sleeping alone in a big, empty bed, dreaming about Hunter, able to indulge in his fiery touch only on weekends.
Would Hunter be willing to move to the city for her?
Could she give up her company, her dream, for him?
She didn't know.
8. Hunter
Hunter ended up working all day on Friday, which at least kept him from hanging around the cabin, daydreaming about Felicity's shapely thighs and teasing smile. Work on the logging crew was on-again, off-again, and they were just getting started after the winter's inactivity. Most of the day was spent on a lot of fiddly little tasks, getting the equipment in good shape and ready to go for the season's work. It kept him occupied, at least, and if he didn't come home sweaty and exhausted—well, that was better anyway, if Felicity would be coming up to the cabin tonight.
When he drove into the yard, he was startled to find smoke curling from the chimney and a warm light in the cabin window.
Could it be Felicity? She'd hardly even have gotten off work yet. Of course, it was her company, and if she wanted to take time off, she could ...
The truck's tires had barely stopped rolling before he flung the door open and jumped out. He bounded up the steps to the cabin's porch, then stopped, got control of himself, and opened the door with more restraint. It might be a friend, after all, or even a lost hiker.
But it wasn't. The cabin's interior was warm, lit with lamps and the fire's glow. And there on the furs in front of the fireplace, Felicity was lounging, naked and turned toward the fire so he had a compelling view of her lush, round behind. She had one of his books open in front of her.
"Ah, there you are," she said, stretching. "I would have called, but I left my phone in my other—mmph!"