by Piper Lawson
The flush doesn’t just creep up my cheeks—it’s a tsunami of red I can feel to my ears. Which only makes me press my hands to my face.
Hunter watches, fascinated. “You okay?” He cocks his head, and I duck my face in my hands.
“Stop it. Please,” I manage. “With the sexuality.” It’s mortifying, but I want to crawl under a rock for the way he affects me. It’s as if I have no control over my own body.
But when I look up, he’s all innocence as one of those beautiful hands rubs the scruff on his chin. “I think you have the wrong impression. I’m just a nice guy who loves beer and needs to sell ten thousand vibrators.”
I take a steadying breath and lower my hands. “I get that there’s something between us. But you don’t need to flaunt it all the time. You act like all you have to offer is… that.” I nod at him, and it’s his turn to sit back.
"You got a problem with my ‘this’?" he teases, gesturing to his torso like he’s showing off a prize.
And he’s right. Every inch of him is hard and cut and imposing and makes my throat dry. My desperate gaze finally lands on his feet. "Shoes without socks shouldn’t happen."
"I'll have you know my feet smell likes roses,” he tosses back.
I shake my head to clear it. Dammit, if he didn’t make me want to smile, this would be easier. “That’s not the point. The point is you cut commercials in half the time. You run a social media presence half the brands in this country would cut off their arm for. You command a meeting like you were born to do it. People respect you. But you pretend you're shallow. As if all people want from you is your charm or your body…or your stupid tongue ring.”
His brows draw together, his eyes clouding. Hunter’s practically vibrating in the chair across from me, his voice rough when he says, “What am I, then?”
“A man who’s capable. Talented. And maybe one who doesn’t know what he wants.”
He stares me down, and I feel a shiver work through me that has nothing to do with his physical presence and everything to do with the look in his eyes.
I swallow. “Why are you selling vibrators, Logan?”
I think he’s going to refuse to say, but he doesn’t. "I made a wager with Nellie. We’ve made a lot of bets over the years. It’s always a slam dunk. This time my pride got the better of me.”
“What did you bet?”
“My share of my grandmother’s company.”
Cold washes over me, either from his words or the troubled expression on his face.
“If I don’t sell ten thousand by the board meeting, I hand my ownership over to Nellie.”
As those deep brown eyes linger on mine, filled with self-mocking and regret, I feel as though I'm getting more than a glimpse of something personal.
“Nellie.” I think of the man I met in the meeting earlier this week. “There’s no way that man will have respect for the company. Not like you do.”
“I know.”
Sweat breaks out on my neck, and I drop my face in my hands, feeling light-headed.
“So. We gonna do this or what?” Hunter asks from somewhere over me.
Yes. I won’t leave him like this.
I force my lungs to work properly, blow out a long breath as I lift my face. "Okay. We’ll figure it out.”
Relief softens his expression. "Thank you.”
I’m feeling too many things from the way he’s looking at me, regret and appreciation blurring on his strong face as if I just took a huge weight from him.
But he doesn’t look lighter. So maybe we’re carrying it together.
Hunter turns away, pouring beer, and I blink to shake away the visual I just conjured.
“Now, the real reason I came over was to show you my actual products. Which, you’ll be pleased to know, have nothing to do with my charm or my body or my tongue ring.” The wicked grin is back, more relaxed but no less potent. “No peeking. It's a taste test. See if you can tell the varieties apart."
I think about protesting, but what’s the harm?
I try the first one.
The second.
The third.
All I notice is the intent way he's staring at me.
"They're good, but I can't tell which one has”—I consult the box—"blackberry essence. Or strawberry. Or ginger."
"You need a palate cleanser. Juice?"
"In the fridge."
He goes back to the kitchen, looks in the cupboard, and frowns. "No more cups."
He opens the dishwasher and smirks. Hunter lifts the vibrator, and my heart stops.
"Something you want to tell me?" he drawls.
Oh, shit.
"No," I say in my most even voice.
He puts it back in the dishwasher and finds a glass. "Toys are a piss-poor replacement for the real thing."
I straighten in my chair, his attitude and my research on other male-dominated companies and products making me bristle. "Some women like to be in the driver's seat. It’s a way to explore their sexuality without fear. Or without doing something intimate with someone they don’t want to have that level of intimacy with just because they want to experience that feeling."
Hunter pours the juice and drops back into the chair. "I'm all for female empowerment. My beef is that silicone can't push you. Can't feed off your energy. Can't see what you want but are too scared to ask for."
I’m not sure if it’s his words or the way he says them that has me squeezing my thighs together.
"Being physical with someone shouldn’t be a challenge,” I manage.
He passes me the cup, our fingers brushing and sending sparks up my arm. “Why? Because you’re afraid that by losing control, you might learn something about yourself?”
I think about Blake as I open my mouth to answer, but it takes a moment. “Because sex is an illusion. A temptation. A distraction from the things that really matter and the kind you can’t just get dressed and walk away from the next day. Even if you want to.”
I expect him to laugh at me or say something like, “If the sex you’re having doesn’t matter, you’re doing it wrong.”
He doesn’t. But he does shift closer, and my breath catches as I refuse to look down and see the distance narrow between us.
Logan's gaze is full of understanding and something that makes my neck itch in a not entirely unpleasant way. “I’m not gonna tell you how to think about sex. You get to think whatever the hell you want to, PK. About life, about sex, about love. But I’m not gonna bob my head and agree that whatever safe, shitty sex you’ve been having is the only kind.”
The look on his face, as if he’s lived more than I could ever hope to, seeds something deep in my stomach. Longing. But also envy—that it’s so easy for him to understand his sexuality, to own it without being afraid of the consequences.
“How do you think about it?” I ask before I can stop myself, a little breathless.
His eyes flash on mine as he leans forward, bracing his elbows on the table and dragging my gaze to his thick arms. “It’s a way to experience the world. To make memories, for you and someone else. The day you die, that’s what you’ll remember. Not the bad times. The fucking brilliant ones. The flashes that are so damned exquisite they steal your breath.”
Could he be any more provocative?
I chug the juice in a long gulp, mostly for an excuse to avoid that heated chocolate gaze. "So, I can't tell the difference between those beers. But then, I bet you can't tell the difference either."
A dark brow lifts. "Try me.”
He turns around, and I ignore the way the T-shirt pulls across the muscles of his back as I shuffle the beers, pulling out one.
"Ready."
He turns back, and I hold out the IKEA cup. Hunter’s fingers brush mine as he takes it and lifts it toward me. I look between him and the cup in confusion.
He rests the cup against my lips, and a streak of heat shoots between my thighs.
That's messed up.
But he tips it gently, and
I drink a sip. When he lowers the glass, I shake my head. "Hunter, I know what—"
My voice is cut off when he closes the distance between us, smooth as anything, and presses his mouth to mine. The breath I suck in is his, and it's masculine and addictive.
His hand finds my face, cupping more lightly than I would've thought possible, his fingers threading into my hair near my scalp as he presses his tongue to my lips.
Logan Hunter is kissing me.
Except he's not. He's tasting me.
I'm confused and startled and overwhelmed by him—his closeness, his energy, his strength. But when that barbell shocks my mouth into opening and his tongue meets mine, the smoky taste of him mingling with the tang from the metal and the beer, I'm so wet.
The groan that escapes his throat is defiant, as though he's fighting a fight that has nothing to do with me.
Before I can decide what happened or what's happening next, he's gone. "Peach."
I blink my eyes open to find him millimeters away. Hunter's caramel eyes are gone, replaced by the blackest black, hungry under thick lashes that should be pretty but only add to his appeal. His mouth is firm but parted in the center as if he wants something he can't have.
"What?"
His voice is hoarse. "You taste like peaches.”
Before I can reply that there's no peach beer in the box he brought, his mouth claims mine again.
He feels like danger. And temptation. A kind of rawness I never thought was real.
How can something be too much and not nearly enough at once?
Logan Hunter’s the kind of beautiful you can’t know with one sense. Looking at him steals my breath, but it’s his touch that seduces.
His kiss that destroys.
Frustration blends with longing as my fingers thread into his hair. A moan I didn’t know I was capable of escapes from somewhere deep in me.
I can stop him. Grab his wrists, push him away. Tell him this isn’t what I want.
Instead I kiss him back as if he’s life and I’m dying.
I thought I’d scraped the bottom of my desire in those guilty looks at Hunter earlier. I was wrong. The bottom was a delusion, one that stretched and gave way under the force of Hunter under me, around me. Hurtling me deeper, farther, faster toward some destination I’ve never seen.
The box in the darkest corner of my brain gives way, and it’s as if Bad Kendall was waiting there all along to catch me in a moment of weakness.
I'm grabbed by strong hands and hauled into his lap. My squeak of protest fades as my legs settle on either side of his hips. His thighs are hard, and between them…
He's harder still.
I grind my hips against his erection as my hands stroke down his shoulders, lingering on his chest, finding the hard ridges of muscle I’m suddenly desperate to touch without soft fabric impeding my hands.
He groans his approval of all of it, dragging me closer, holding me tight to him.
I'm on top, but Hunter's driving this freight train. He grabs the back of my shirt and twists, pulling it tight over my breasts, making it stretch and drag across my sensitive skin.
His hand cups me through the thin T-shirt, finding my tight nipple and twisting it hard enough to send sharp twinges that make me buck against him.
My teeth sink into his lip and he half laughs, half groans.
It's not foreplay. It's a destination of its own, this burning world halfway between heaven and hell. It's a gateway to a bigger desire.
And it terrifies me how much I want it.
Hunter's mouth traces a hot line up to my ear, his tongue ring flicking against my lobe and making me gasp. When his hands reach inside my yoga pants to grab my ass, rubbing me on his impossibly hard groin, I'm reduced to a pile of panting need.
"Say the word," Hunter murmurs against my skin. "Say it and we'll make memories, Peach."
My eyes squeeze shut. He's temptation incarnate, and I'm desperate to hand over the reins and let him go.
But noise in the hall outside captures my attention.
The creak of the door.
"Bloody hell."
I shoot off Hunter's lap a moment too late.
Because the door's open and my kid's standing in the doorway with his friend Mitchell and Mitchell’s mother, Nadine, behind him, her mouth a perfectly painted O.
9
I came to Kendall’s place to get her to know her better. To convince her to like me because we’re working together and we need to be on the same page.
Our conversation was not supposed to take a sharp turn toward personal.
But the things she said about me…
They’re wrong. I know exactly what I want—to keep doing what I’m doing.
I’m the poster child for reckless fun, but she makes me want to take another look at what I’m doing and whom I’m doing it with.
Sometime in the last thirty minutes, sitting across from her in her Heart T-shirt and yoga pants, looking fresh-faced in her modest apartment, I realized something.
She’s not only smart and serious and cute.
She’s perceptive.
And stubborn.
And fascinating.
And all I could think about was kissing her.
I can’t remember the last time my chest was tight, my abs flexed, because I wanted to kiss someone so badly.
I shouldn’t. The reasons are still there, drumming in the back of my head. I’m working with her. She’s not my type. I can’t give her anything she wants.
I do it anyway because I can’t stop myself. She’s so close, and she smells like heaven, and it’s the payoff from the foreplay we’ve been accumulating for an entire week.
When I kiss her, I'm not expecting the surprised gasp when I press my tongue against her lips. The way she opens under me.
In a lifetime of salt-kissed breezes and bespoke beer and Michelin-star restaurants…
Kendall's the sweetest thing I've tasted.
I’m definitely not expecting her to kiss me back as though I’m a dream she never wants to wake up from.
Her reaction takes me from edgy to mindless in two seconds flat.
I stroke down her sides, my hands learning her curves as my tongue learns her mouth. Her breasts are small and round, perfect in my hands. Her waist dips in, flaring into curvy hips. When she grinds against me like a porn star, I think my eyes roll back in my head.
She.
Tastes.
Like.
Heaven.
I need to know if she tastes this good everywhere.
If she makes that low sound of surprise when my cock presses inside her like my tongue did a moment ago.
"Say the word," I rasp into her ear. "Say it and we'll make memories, Peach."
That’s when she jumps off my lap as if I’ve shocked her.
Okay, wasn’t expecting to get shot down that quick. But she’s not like any woman I’ve…
I follow her startled gaze, turning in my chair.
There're three people at the open apartment door.
Or one and two half people because two aren't grown. They're the size of the CPR dummies we train on for diving.
I struggle to make sense of the situation. Fail.
"Kendall!" says the woman, a cool blonde who's gripping the doorframe as if it's going to hold her up. "Goodness. We brought Rory home because I wanted to talk to you about your ticket sales strategy for the talent show." Her gaze flicks between us, full of shock. "I didn't realize we'd be… interrupting something."
"You’re not interrupting.” The steadiness in Kendall's voice is the only thing that could have ripped my gaze from the sight at the door. “Ah, I’ve started thinking about tickets. But let’s talk at drop-off tomorrow."
The woman who was in my arms a second ago is smoothing back her hair, which has come loose from its pigtails thanks to yours truly.
She's across the room with her chin held high and her T-shirt straightened by the time I’m out of my chair.
&nb
sp; "You really shouldn't have brought Rory home,” she says.
"It's no trouble. I need to get Mitchell to violin. We’ll talk tomorrow." With a tight smile, the woman and one of the boys turn and disappear.
Kendall carefully shuts the door.
With the miniature redhead inside, not out.
I rub the back of my neck, my legs still cement.
"Rory, this is Hunter. I mean, Logan."
I can't even register the strangeness of Kendall using my given name because I'm focused on the kid's wary eyes, the same hazel as hers.
"This is my son, Rory."
As I look between them, the uncertainty on his face and the shock on hers, I realize it's true.
Though math's not my strong suit, she would’ve been a teenager when she had him.
That’s one hell of a graduation present.
I shove a hand through my hair. "I gotta go."
"Your beer—"
"Keep it. Nice to meet you, man. Kid." What's his name? "Rory."
I'm out the door before either of them can respond.
"You buy your plane ticket for Ibiza yet?" Nellie flashes teeth at me over the felt-top table in the basement of the Charlotte on Thursday night.
“Nope.”
“Less than a month now. This chick Lita from last year looked me up. Wanted to see if I was coming again. I dunno what I’ll tell her. Any girls from last year hit you up, Hunt?”
“Few.” There are messages on my social, but I haven’t read them in any detail, what with all the pressures around Hunter’s Cross.
“My dad wanted me to stay here that week and run the hotel while he’s on business.” Nellie snorts. “Figured I did such a shitty job last time he wouldn’t ask again.”
Monty shakes his head, and Tanner snorts.
"Don't be disgusted. You’re the one who decided last week’s poker was a breath of fresh air from the married life and begged to come back. If you were smarter, you'd be like me and Hunter. Never work a day in your life."
I don’t bother dignifying that with a response as I survey my cards.