Page 89 of Hunter

“Hurt?” he asked, one side of his lips curving upwards.

“Yeah. I heard, uh, you know, blue balls hurt.”

He shook his head, full-on smiling now. “You are an amusing little thing. How could I not know that?”

He said the last sentence quietly, almost to himself. I wondered just how he thought he could have known the kind of person I was just from the very few, brief meetings we’d had.

And the fact that I didn’t know him very well should feel daunting that I was lying naked in his arms, with nothing but a skimpy little dress covering my middle.

I didn’t feel that way.

Perhaps I was just lonely and mistaking that for this feeling of safety and excitement with a man I didn’t know. Or perhaps he was meant just for me.

The romantic side of me wanted to fall on the latter.

That he was meant for me, and that was all there was to it.

The practical part of me said it was the first reason.

The practical part of me was losing, as I found myself snuggling in a little closer to him.

He moved his hands up, playing with my hair.

“How’d you sleep last night?” he asked suddenly.

I looked up and met his stare. “What do you mean?”

He cupped my cheek with one hand, then his thumb skimmed gently over the skin beneath my eyes. “You have dark circles under your eyes. I’m guessing you didn’t sleep all that well. Is the attack keeping you awake?”

I shrugged and looked down at his chest. “A part of it,” I answered quietly.

I hadn’t realized how obvious it was that I was lacking sleep.

I had been haunted by the attack all day yesterday, almost paralyzingly so, but it wasn’t the attack that I dreamed about, and I wasn’t sure how I could go and explain my messed up past to him, especially when I had been kept out of the newsbothtimes.

Only the people in my parents’ inner circle knew about my kidnapping at fourteen.

They didn’t want the public to know, afraid it might make things harder for my dad in hisgrowingcareer.

“I saw something I wasn’t supposed to,” I said finally, bracing myself for him to ask me what that was.

He surprised me when he said, “You probably did something you weren’t supposed to, too.”

I looked up and met his eyes.

I couldn’t judge his mood based on his tone of voice.

Silently, I nodded.

He cupped my face, and I felt myself relaxing when the soft look in his eyes came back.

“I wish I could take away all your nightmares.”

I smiled a little. “Perhaps not, but I think you make it feel… not so impactful.”

He smiled back at me before leaning toward me and offering a small chaste kiss on my lips that I felt all the way down to my soul.

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