Page 19 of Strut

I licked at the tangy apple ice while Hunter demolished his dog with all the trimmings. The groans of appreciation that came out of his mouth should’ve been fucking illegal, and by the sly smile he wore when he’d caught me staring, I was pretty sure he was messing with me.

“Could you possibly make any more noise?”

He grinned salaciously, the dense city high-rises reflecting in his dark Moscots. “I could try. Do you have a special request?”

I flipped him off, returning to my gelato to suck the remainder out the end of the sugar cone before the whole lot melted all over my hand. Then I swallowed the soggy remnants of the cone before licking my fingers clean one at a time. Two could play that game.

Hunter groaned softly and pushed his sunglasses onto his head. “Jesus, Alec.”

I batted my lashes at him. “Problem?”

And yes, we were flirting. Like we’d been doing all fucking afternoon ever since we’d left Tim, and I really, really needed to stop. And I would, except there were two problems with that. One, I hadn’t laughed as much in months. And two, I hadn’t enjoyed a man’s attention as much since... fuck, who the hell even knew when?

Since that time Hunter had pressed me up against the wall in that club and owned my body. Oh, right, since then.

But it wasn’t just the zing of physical attraction, although that had a lot going for it. Hunter was a breath of fresh air after a year away from home. He offered a taste of something achingly familiar. Relaxed and unaffected in a way that was rare in the industry I spent most of my New York life cautiously navigating. Hunter smelled of black sand beaches and Auckland streets, and he sounded like home.

He also wanted me, which added an extra undercurrent of zippiness to the flirting, even if he was keeping to the rules. But it was in his eyes when I caught him staring at me. In the brush of the back of his hand against mine as we walked. In the way he put his hand on my lower back and guided me ahead whenever we passed through a crowd of people, the warmth of his touch lingering like a warm blanket. And it was in all the unsaid things that hummed between us, like shadows on the wall. Words that wriggled deliciously under the laughter and peeked out from behind those smiles. Tempting words. Dangerous words.

Not that it was all on Hunter’s side.Hell no.I’d been a heartbeat away from dragging the gorgeous man and his winsome ways into the Gansevoort Woodland section in order to have my wicked way and possibly risk becoming the High Line’s latest art installation. Sex in the Cityhad a nice ring to it.

The gelato sat cool in my belly as I leaned back on my elbows and squinted at the sky. It was darkening at the edges and crisscrossed with contrails. After a few minutes, I broke the comfortable silence. “Is it just you and your sister or do you have other siblings?”

“No, it’s just the two of us. Patty’s younger, thirty-one.”

“And your parents?” I rolled onto my side and propped myself up on an elbow.

Hunter mirrored my posture, reaching across to unsnag an errant lock of hair that had caught on my lashes. All afternoon he’d taken any excuse to touch me, and I hadn’t once tried to stop him. I was doing really well in keeping him friend-zoned.

Instead, I smiled at his attention. “I don’t know how I manage to dress myself every day without your help.”

He chuckled. “It’s one of life’s great mysteries. And to answer your question, my mum owns a women’s clothing store and my dad’s a high school principal. They’ve been divorced since I was sixteen.” There was a flash of anger in his eyes, or maybe hurt.

“Was it hard for you? Sixteen is a crap age to watch your parents go through that.”

Hunter fell onto his back and bunched his leather jacket under his head as a cushion. He stared at the sky and was silent long enough that I wondered if he was going to answer at all. Eventually his eyes closed, and he blew a heavy sigh. “Itwaspretty shitty. I can’t tell you how many times I slammed out of the house to go stay with Rhys when the fighting got too bad. By the time my dad finally moved out, it was more of a relief than anything else.”

I grimaced. “Well, that sucks.”

He turned his head to look at me. “It happens to a lot of kids. And it didn’t come out of the blue. I was twelve when Dad had his first affair. That one was with a fellow teacher. Mum and Dad got counselling and stayed together, but the second time it happened was the last straw. They divorced and Dad ended up marrying that one.” Hunter huffed. “It didn’t survive, and last I heard he was shacked up with another woman in Christchurch.”

The comment came out too carefully indifferent that I wanted to reach for his hand, but I didn’t.

“Mum was better off without his sorry arse, anyway. But the fucker paid his alimony on time, so that was something.” Hunter’s angry frown belied his light-hearted comment.

“Do you see him much?”

“Not if I can help it.” Hunter balled his hot dog wrapper and dropped it between us. “I know that sounds harsh, and he’s okay, I guess. I mean, he’s my father. But he shredded Mum’s heart, twice, and I fucking hate him for that. She’s never even dated since then.” He swallowed hard and looked back up at the sky and I wanted nothing more than to slide across and pull him into my arms. But before I could do something stupid, he faced me again, his eyes suspiciously shiny. “Tell me about your family? They have a farm, right?”

Fuck it.I reached across and ran my thumb across the dampness under his left eye. “I think you got some dust in there.”

He gave a wry smile and wrapped his hand around my wrist. “Thank you.”

And I was blushing again. I pulled free and cleared my throat. “My parents have a dairy farm just north of the Bombay Hills. My older brother, Lachlan, runs the farm with Dad. He’s got an agriculture degree, and he and his girlfriend live in the share-milker’s cottage and will eventually take over the farm. Mum and Dad lucked out there.”

Hunter frowned. “Do I detect a note of resentment?”

I thought about that and shrugged. “No, not resentment. I’m no farmer. Never wanted that life. But when I visit and listen to them laughing and talking and sharing so much in common, I sometimes feel more of the outsider than Tessa.” I hesitated and Hunter frowned but said nothing. “They didn’t want me to come to New York. They don’t get the modelling thing. Every time I call home they ask when I’m coming back and if I’ve got it out of my system yet. They’re big on security. The business degree I did was for their benefit—get a good job, solid income, buy a house, get married, all of that.

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