Page 73 of Because I Liked A Boy
My knees went weak. I dug my nails into the dart-stained wood. “Hunter—”
He smiled, wicked and certain. “I’ll wait until we’re home. Then I’ll take my time showing you exactly what choosing me means.”
We ended up back in our booth, shadows swallowing us whole. The Ember buzzed around us laughter, clinking glasses, the jukebox spilling old rock—but none of it touched me. Hunter’s gaze was fixed on me like I was the only thing in the room.
“You keep looking at me like that, princess,” he murmured, thumb tracing my thigh beneath the table, “and I’m going to forget we’re in public.”
I tilted my chin. “Then what are you waiting for?”
His grin turned wicked. He leaned in, kissed me once, and then again slower, deeper.
The kiss was a match strike: sudden, hot, greedy. My fingers fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer. He groaned into my mouth, his palm cupping my jaw as if he couldn’t stand a single inch of distance.
When he broke away his forehead rested against mine. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here before this storm gets worse.”
“Your place or mine?” I asked, breathless.
“Mine’s a mess.” His smirk darkened. “Yours?”
“Closer,” I whispered.
He rose and threaded his fingers through mine, clearing a path through the crowd as if he owned space itself.
We hit the rain the second we stepped outside sheets of water that plastered my dress to my skin. Thunder rolled, neon flickered, and Hunter cursed under his breath as he pulled his collar up. “If I’d known it was this bad I’d have called a cab. Sorry, princess.”
I couldn’t stop grinning. “Don’t apologise. I don’t care about the storm. I’m—” The words tumbled out, too true. “I’m happy. You make me happy, even when you drive me insane.”
He froze, rain dripping from his lashes, staring at me like I’d just handed him something he hadn’t dared hope for. His thumb brushed my cheek, wiping rain away. “Jesus, Isabella.”
Then he kissed me hard, frantic, filthy. Beer and thunder and rain and him. My fingers clawed at his shirt, pulling him in. He pinned me to the brick of the shopfront, hands brutal and demanding, one wrapping around my hip, the other tangling in my hair.
“Fuck, princess,” he groaned, mouth pressing into mine, teeth grazing, lips bruising. “I can’t hold back.”
“Then don’t,” I breathed, answering him with the same reckless hunger.
We broke to breathe only long enough to see each other. Lightning flashed, throwing the street into white light. I pulled him down, close to my ear. “Come on, fuckboy. Let’s get home and get these wet clothes off.”
He laughed dark, feral and kissed me again before we ran.
By the time we reached my flat we were drenched: shoes squelching, dress clinging, his shirt a dark, skin-tight second skin. We stumbled in laughing, shaking the rain from our hair, water pooling at our feet. He kicked the door shut and his hands were on me again before I’dtaken off my heels.
“You look like you crawled out of the ocean,” he rasped.
“Then maybe we should start with the clothes,” I said, tugging at the hem of his soaked tee.
He growled low and kissed me like an animal, hands bracing my waist hard enough to bruise. He pressed me back against the wall, rainwater running from our hair, his mouth trailing down my jaw to my throat, biting, nipping, promising. When his teeth grazed the skin above my collarbone a dark welt bloomed and my knees went soft.
“Not yet,” he murmured, pulling away just enough to meet my eyes. His thumb dragged over my lower lip. “I want to take my time with this, Isabella. Every single piece.”
He eased the wet fabric of my dress up slow and deliberate, like unwrapping something precious. Lightning stuttered across the windows and for a moment the storm felt like it was inside us thrumming, alive.
My body hummed under him, every nerve raw and alert. When his mouth found me again it was patient, tasting the rain on my skin, mapping each drop with his lips and tongue as if he meant to remember it.
It was messy and tender and feral all at once, and I let myself fall into it.
After The Storm
I’m being fucked by Hunter Hayes.
