And even when the night engulfed her in loneliness, when winter wrestled him out of her life.
She knew he would come back.
He always did.
Long after they said goodbye.
I clutched the paper to my chest. Bowing my head, I pressed my lips to the lyrics. God, what was happening to me?
I felt the paper snatched from my hands. My eyes popped open, and when I looked up, I saw Hunter, his eyes dead on mine.
I was the first one to break our gaze as I watched his fist clenching the paper, destroying it. I smiled sadly at the irony. Did that mean I was coming to terms with our fate? With our impending goodbye?
Hunter threw the balled paper behind his shoulder, erasing all the distance between us with one step. He was still in his work attire, pale gray suit with a silky, wine-red tie. He tilted my chin up with one finger. I slapped his hand away. I was irrationally angry with him and too scared to admit why, even to myself.
Because I wasn’t content with being just the babysitter he slept with to let off steam.
Because I expected more than being treated like an acquaintance.
Because I wanted us to have what Knight and Luna had.
He raised one eyebrow in question.
I turned around and walked away. I was almost at the stairs when Hunter wrapped his fingers around my wrist and pulled me behind the burgundy-velvet curtain that felt heavy and thick as it shielded us from sight.
He nuzzled his nose against my face, inhaling me with a shudder.
“When you’re like that, you make me want to fuck the defiance out of you, aingeal dian.”
For all the times I’d asked him what my nickname meant, I’d never had the courage to Google it and find out myself. I still hoped he’d voluntarily tell me before our time was up. Plus, I liked the mystery. I knew I was probably going to look it up as soon as we parted ways. I was bound to obsess over every little detail once he was gone. Which reminded me—I needed to start looking for apartments, since my parents had repurposed my old bedroom. Another thing I’d postponed.
“You barely even acknowledged me out there,” I protested, glad for the dim light that hid my bright-red blush. I was crammed between his hot, strong body and the wall.
“I didn’t know how,” Hunter admitted, his lips finding the lobe of my ear, nibbling at it. His mouth had a way of sending shivers to the rest of my body the minute it touched an inch of me. “I’ve never had a…” He paused, thinking about how to label us.
Girlfriend?
“Lady friend. A real one,” he finished, his mouth moving to the curve of my neck, his tongue sliding along it. “I don’t know how to communicate with you without unbuttoning your clothes with my teeth.”
“So you decided not to pay me any attention at all?” My breath hitched, but I kept the conversation going.
When he realized I wasn’t touching him back, wasn’t reciprocating, he took my hand and put it on the bulge between his legs. He was hard.
He just watched his friends bone right in front of him. Don’t feel so special.
“Since when do you care?” His lips skimmed mine. He used one of his hands to grab my butt and pin me against the wall, and the other to pull my dress up so he could push his hand inside me.
“Since you made me feel like shit,” I countered, squeezing him there. I didn’t put much strength into it, but I wasn’t gentle, either. If I hoped it’d clear him out of his hormone-induced fog, I was dead wrong. Hunter just laughed throatily, shoved my hand into his slacks, and curled his fingers over mine to make sure I was holding his shaft.
“Good girl. Up and down, now. Rub it, baby.”
“Hunt,” I croaked, but still rubbed him off. I hated that I succumbed to him. My only solace was the fact that I didn’t do it to get him off. I did it because it was incredibly hot. Us, making out in this haunted theater that was almost solely ours tonight, fooling myself by pretending I had what Luna had, when Hunter clearly offered me nothing more than sex.
“Yeah, baby,” he groaned, grinding against my hand. “Show those ghosts how it’s done. Casper porn all the way.”
“Answer me, Hunter. Why were you ignoring me?” I asked, going faster, watching as his eyes rolled backwards in agony and pleasure. He still didn’t answer, so I stopped midway, withdrawing my hand and folding my arms over my chest. His eyes widened.
“Jesus fuck, Sailor! What did you want me to do? Kiss you? Make out with you in public? That’d throw us out of fuck-buddies purgatory, which is exactly where we’re supposed to be. I have a shit-ton of money on the line. You’ve got your career. This shit’s almost over. Why kill the fun now?”
Fuck buddies.
The way his mouth formed the word—the mere existence of the word in his mouth—made every inch of my skin blossom with violent goosebumps. Fuck. Buddies. That’s all we were. Friends who had sex with each other.
Hunter wanted us to remain nothing, and I? I wanted everything.
Sensing he wasn’t going to get a verbal answer, Hunter twisted his hand between us, dipped it under my dress, and shoved my panties down to my knees. I shivered when I realized how wet and ruined my panties were, especially in the middle of our fight.
“Let me make you feel better,” he whispered into my mouth, kissing me once again. Slow. So slow. Designed to seduce.
“They might catch us,” I whispered.
“Let them. That’ll show them how much attention I give you.” He leaned forward and got rid of my panties, pulling them all the way down. I kicked them aside, still in my Vans. Hunter pushed me flat against the wall.
“Spread your legs for me,” he ordered.
“You’re not the boss of m…”
“Swear to God, Sailor, I will fuck your mouth so hard you’ll lose teeth if you disobey.”
I nudged my knees apart, opening myself in front of him. He crouched on his knees in his suit, using his thumbs to open the lips between my legs. He put his lips close to me, inhaled, then blew what I knew was a fresh, minty exhale inside me, peppered with a chocolate-y, M&M’s smell.
I quivered, my hands flying to his shoulders. “Do it again,” I moaned.
He blew into me again, and I clenched against the air, begging for more.
“Tell me.” Hunter spread me wider with his thumbs, and I felt the pressure, the slight pain down there as he stretched me. “Do you really think you can say no to me?”
I didn’t answer, because I didn’t like my answer. I just stared at him defiantly, even as he was close to giving me an orgasm while hardly touching me. Hunter Fitzpatrick is a dangerous habit, I thought. I should be glad to quit him.
He blew into me again, his eyes on mine.
My hands moved from his shoulders to his hair, tugging at the soft, silky strands.
“More.”
He plunged two fingers into me, curling them upwards to hit my G-spot, the sound of my wetness around him filling the air, and began to thrust. Slowly. So slowly I thought I was going to die. His eyes didn’t leave mine as he did it, his expression grave.
“Faster,” I croaked.
He shook his head.
“This is a punishing orgasm, not a rewarding one, Sailor. You should’ve thought about that before you had the idea of breaking this off.”
I collapsed down along the wall, keeping his head between my legs and wiggling my butt on the floor, trying to quicken the pace myself, but he wouldn’t let me. Hunter flattened one of his hands against my lower stomach, pinning me in place.
I moaned. “I want more.”
“Specify,” he nearly barked.
There was a commotion in the scene playing on the big screen that hid us. Brad Pitt and Edward Norton were not happy campers. I thought we were safe from being found.
“Have sex with me.” I swallowed my shame.
“Bzzzz,” he said. “Wrong terminology. Now say it like a proper twenty-first century chick.”
“Fuck me,” I whispered, looking down.
He quickened his pace, knowing I was close. “Louder.”
“Fuck me.” I raised my voice.
“Can’t hear you,” he sing-songed.
“Fuck m—” I began to yell, but before I could, he was on top of me, unfastening his belt and shoving himself into me. He went in bareback—the first time we’d done it without a condom—and my eyes bulged at the sensation of his hot, silky flesh inside me. I groaned into his shoulder, clutching his back as he began to move.
Somewhere in the back of my head, I was glad we’d had that conversation. The one about STDs. It wasn’t official or anything—Hunter had complained about his father forcing him into being tested when he moved back to Boston—but still, it was nice to know chlamydia was not in my near future.
He pumped fast—feral, jerky, and completely out of rhythm. Hunter had a few moves I’d become accustomed to. There was what I called the stripper move, where he would plow in and out in one, smooth, wave-like movement, like in soft porn movies. Then he had the frat-boy move, where he nailed me to whatever surface we were lying on and pumped into me in fast, deep, punishing thrusts. This was neither of those things. Tonight he entered me like he thought I was going to evaporate into air any moment and he needed to find his release before that happened.