I nod dazedly, feeling my head start to swim but not so much that I don’t know that I want whatever he’s willing to give me right now, regardless of what’s happening to my body. Realizing that I want it for me, not simply for the demands of my newfound designation.

“Also,” he says distractedly, as if he’s having a hard time figuring out his thoughts too. “You’d been drinking.”

That one throws me off a little. “So?”

And maybe he’s figured out how to make thoughts before I have—in fact, I highly suspect he has—because he isn’t looking at my mouth anymore. Maybe it’s because it’s too hard to look, since his face is so close to mine now. The deep brown of his eyes seems dark and bright all at once, so much so that I can’t look away as they bore into mine.

“If I ever kissed you…I’d want you to damn well remember it tomorrow.”

All the air just…leaves my lungs. That can’t be normal, right? Regardless, I might not be breathing. Speaking still seems to be possible, but only barely.

“I haven’t…had anything to drink today.”

“Tess,” he growls. “Is it happening again?”

“Maybe,” I admit, feeling that familiar surge of heat pooling in my belly that is somehow worse than before. “It feels different.”

“You smell different,” he tells me. “You smell like…like…”

“What do I smell like?”

“Like you need me,” he says, echoing the same shiver-inducing sentiment from weeks ago. “Do you?”

“No,” I say, mustering my courage even as the heat builds and builds inside me. “I want you, Hunter.”

He looks hesitant for a moment, his gaze moving to my mouth as he studies it for a long span of seconds like he’s considering, and I watch with bated breath. I watch his jaw tic as his tongue darts out to wet his lips, and then his eyes collide with mine, an intense heat in them that looks exactly how I feel.

“Fuck it,” he practically growls.

And just like that, the tiny bit of space between us is nonexistent.

I’ve been wondering all day if Hunter Barrett wanted to kiss me. I’ve been playing a torturous game of Does He or Doesn’t He in my head often enough since last night to drive myself crazy. But there isn’t any doubt now. Now it’s very obvious that he does.

I mean, it’s sort of hard to doubt when he’s whispering against my mouth, urging me to open it.

I gasp as his tongue slips inside, licks mine with a desperation that is only outmatched by the way his hand wraps around my hip. His scruff tickles the place above my mouth, enough so that I giggle a little when he turns his face to deepen the kiss.

“Is something”—the words are sort of muffled when he speaks them to the corner of my mouth, and he licks gently, pressing his lips there after—“funny?”

“Your beard,” I laugh. “It tickles.”

“Does it?” My breath catches when he rubs his cheek against mine, his mouth ducking below my chin to lick there, to chase after his tongue with a kiss. “Does this tickle too?”

“Hunter,” I sigh.

His hand is touching my skin now, tucked under my sweater as he traces idle circles with one of his fingers. His mouth, however, is still wandering, still tasting.

“I like your freckles,” he murmurs along my jaw. “I keep thinking about everywhere else you have them.”

I smile as he kisses my cheek. “All over.”

“I know.” I can feel his hand moving to glide over my bare stomach, his thumb brushing my belly button as my skin trembles. “I like it.”

His mouth trails down my throat until he stops to suck at a spot near my collarbone—which I didn’t even know could make my stomach flip until this very second—while both hands pushing at the fabric of my sweater as it moves up and over my belly until the warmth of the fireplace glowing nearby licks at my exposed skin. I make an embarrassing sound when I feel his thumbs sliding back and forth across the sensitive swell of my breasts (my God, his thumbs are so large they barely even have to move to span the underside), his breath releasing raggedly at the base of my throat as he lingers there for a moment.

“Tess.” He gives one side a gentle squeeze, making a sound of his own that makes me less embarrassed about mine. “Is this okay?”

I don’t have the ability to tell him that this is spectacular, that this is fireworks and cotton candy and every good sensation I’ve ever felt, but I manage a nod and a quiet Yes at the very least. Even as the familiar heat and cramps threaten to overtake me, some part of my brain is so fixated on his touch that it almost seems to keep those sensations at bay, even if only a little.

His hair, mussed and wild from where my fingers have been digging into it, is falling in his eyes when he pulls away from me, and his eyes are so dark now they appear almost black as he looks down at my rumpled state. There’s something about his mouth that seems hungry somehow, a rise and fall of his chest that feels impatient while he looks at me.

“Fuck, Tess,” he rumbles, the tip of his finger reaching to trace the bare skin of my breast that just peeks out from my rucked-up sweater. “There’s one here.” His head dips to press his mouth there, and my back bows instinctively when I feel warm air kiss at my nipples as he pulls my sweater higher. “And here.” His tongue flicks along the swell, sucking gently at the spot. “Even…here.”

His tongue is light at first against my nipple, teasing at the spot he’s found before he swirls around the entire thing in a slow circle—but then his entire mouth covers it, sucks it inside, making me moan, and then he just…keeps going. I can feel him growling against me, actually feel it like a deep vibration that hums along my skin, and my fingers push into his hair again—to bring him closer or to push him away, I really can’t be sure. It feels so good, I can’t decide what I want.

“Raise your arms,” he urges, turning his head to pay attention to the other side even as he tugs harder at my sweater. “Want this off you.”

And who am I to argue with that, really?

My sweater winds up somewhere across the room, but I have no idea where. Hunter doesn’t really give me time to consider it, since he decides his shirt should join it immediately thereafter, robbing me of all coherent thought.

My fingers skim up the dark line of hair from his navel to his chest. “We should put you on the website. Make some sort of influencer out of you.”

I can make out the dimple in his beard. “I don’t think I’m cut out for influencing.”

“You’re influencing me a whole lot right now.”

“Am I?” He turns his face to let his eyes roam over my naked chest. “Fuck. Look at you.” His hand reaches to curl around my breast, his thumb flicking lazily against my nipple. I’m vaguely aware that his hand can cover the entirety of my breast with very little spillage, and my boobs are in no way small. “I thought I was going to lose my mind earlier,” he admits. “I felt like I was some sort of asshole for being so fucking turned on helping you out of the shower when you were injured.”

“Does it help to know that I probably could have gotten my pants on by myself?”

“You’re gonna kill me.”

I don’t really think that’s a fair accusation, considering a second after he says it, he’s ducking his head again to wrap his lips around one of my nipples, making me cry out. I can feel a delicious graze of teeth that seems to draw warm pulses from between my legs with every pull, making me unconsciously try to press my thighs together, only to be foiled by Hunter’s leg, which still rests between them.

Hunter seems to remember this too, since I feel one of his hands tickling down my stomach to let his fingers tease the waistband of my pajama pants. They simply…hover there, not really dipping beneath and not really touching, and he turns up his face to look at me from between my breasts with glazed eyes. “Can I…?”