Page 104 of Bloom

Breath hitching, I clench around nothing, bucking erratically as I chase the building high.

Hunter’s deep chuckle reverberates bone-deep, and I whimper as his stubble scratches just right. “You like the sound of that?”

When I don’t reply, too lost in the statement to focus on the question, too shy to give the honest answer, teeth sink into the fleshy swell of my boob.Hard. A silent reprimand that I hear loud and clear, and react to accordingly. “Yes.”

Hunter grips my thigh as he picks up the pace. His strokes become faster, harder, and I almost go off right then and there, my vision blurring as I bow off the bed, my mouth opening in a silent scream as I imagine what it would be like if…

“You have no idea how much I wanna be inside you right now,” he practically growls, toying with the frilled hem of my shorts, slipping his fingers beneath it. “It would be so fuckin’ easy. Could just rip these off and fuck you right now.”

I wouldn’t mind. I wouldn’t protest one bit.

“But I know you're not ready.” He snuffs my horny hopes and dreams before reigniting them. “Gonna get you ready, though. Promise. Gonna wait until you want it bad enough to ask politely with that pretty mouth. Nice and loud so I know exactly what you want.”

Loud he wants, and loud he gets. My cries echo off the walls as I come hard—harder than the last time, so hard I stop breathing. He doesn’t stop, not once, chasing his own high and it’s all I can do to hold on and take it. Take it and take it and take it until I think I can’t anymore. Until I see stars again. Until, for the first time in my life, I experience the wonder of multiple orgasms.

Hunter grunts, groans,moans, and then he’s coming too, with a ferocious shudder, hips pumping sloppily as his forehead presses to my sternum.

One last guttural noise leaves his lips before he stills. Our panting melds together, our bodies quivering in unison. An indeterminable length of time passes before Hunter blows out a breath and flops onto his back beside me, keeping one hand firmly clasped around my thigh. Our heads turn at the same time, opposite cheeks resting on a shared pillow, our faces only a few inches apart.

It’s odd, so very odd, how after what we just did, this is the part that feels overwhelmingly intimate. No touching, just looking. Really looking. As though he can see right through me, see everything. This is the part that rattles me the most.

Except, of course, for when I avert my gaze and realize my freaking boobs are still hanging out, my legs are still splayed, and my shorts are shoved so far to one side, they may as well not be there. Cheeks ablaze, I hastily fix my clothes.

Rolling onto his side, Hunter mouths against my shoulder, “If I shower, are you still gonna be here when I get back?”

I frown. “Of course I will be.”

“Good.” Relief flickers across his face, so quick I can’t be sure that’s really what it was, before he kisses the corner of my mouth. “What did I say about that head?”

“I know.” I sigh, wondering if he’s really good at reading me, or if I’m just easy to read. “Stay out of it.”

“Real good, honey,” he croons, praising me with a kiss too. One that quickly riles me up enough to leave me panting by the time he pulls away, his forehead hot against my cheek. “You know what.” A hand slips between my back and the mattress. “Just to be safe, I think you should come with me.”

I shriek when he rolls me on top of him. I wriggle like a fiend when he lifts me as he stands. I protest when he carries me into the bathroom and drops me on the counter beside the sink.

Funnily enough, my fight pretty much dies the second he drops to his knees.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

Twirling his car keys around his fingers, Hunter feigns innocence. “Like what?”

He knows exactlylike what. The way he’s looking at me right now, the way he has been all morning. All crookedly upturned lips and roguish mirth andsmolder. Like he’s seen me naked—which he hasn’t. Not really. Notcompletely. I might’ve been blissfully light-headed by the time he got off his knees, but the second the shower turned on and his hands went to the waistband of his boxers, I regained enough sense to flee.

He’s doing it on purpose, I swear. He enjoys flustering me so thoroughly, I’ve walked into at least four different pieces of furniture; it’s a miracle I’ve made it out the front door without a broken bone. “Quit it.”

“Can’t.” A tug on the back of my dress stops me from descending the porch steps and draws me back against a broad chest. His hair tickles my jawline, his stubble scraping my skin as he nuzzles my neck. “Changed my mind,” he rasps with a wet, warm brush of his lips. “Not goin’ to work today.”

It takes a herculean, a trulygodly, effort not to disintegrate right then and there. “You’re already late.”

Verylate. The sun’s already high in the sky, and he only has the morning off, not the entire afternoon. I don’t want him to get in trouble, and I certainly don’t want to be the reason he does. Even if lazy, long mornings with your not-boyfriend are pretty great.

Wriggling free, I skip down the steps and start towards my truck only to be twirled and smushed against the hood of Hunter’s. A hand by each of my hips, gripping the grille pressing into my back, I’m crowded by six-feet-six-inches worth of bonafide cowboy.

Poor me.

There’s something different about him today. Same old boots, tee, jeans—thank God for that—but he looks… lighter. Relaxed. A little younger, with that goofy, crooked smile. Nothing like the sullen grump who stomped into the house last night—I almost forgot about that, what with so much happening in its wake.

So,somuch.

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