When a knock came on my door, I knew it wouldn't be Hunter, and figured it was probably Kellie checking on me.
When I opened the door, Kellie held up a bakery bag. "I brought muffins."
I opened the door to let her in. "You don't have to worry about me. I'll be alright." Eventually.
"I know." She made her way to the kitchen. "I smell coffee. Can I have some?"
"It has caffeine in it. Isn't that bad for the baby?"
She frowned. "I'll have tea."
A few minutes later we were sitting at my dining table eating muffins and drinking coffee and tea respectively.
"Ryan and I feel terrible about having gotten you in the situation,” she said, dunking her tea bag in the hot water.
I looked at her. "It's not your fault. It's Hunter's fault."
Maybe that wasn't exactly true. He didn't arrange the articles in the paper and magazine any more than I did. But still, it seemed more accurate to blame him.
"I know you left your job, and you probably don't want to come back, but Ryan says we can find something else for you if you wanted. "
"I didn't even want to do this first job. You know that."
Was she really going to harp on me about getting a job again? Granted, I couldn't rely on her and Ryan to support me, but I could find my own job.
"We just want to help make this right. Do you have any plans?" Kellie asked.
"Well, it's only been a day. So no, I haven't made any plans yet."
Kellie reached out and put her hand on my forearm. "I'm sorry to sound like such a mother. I just want to make sure that everything's going to be okay."
I nodded, letting her know I understood. "As it turns out I'm actually pretty good at this marketing thing, unless Hunter was lying about that. So, I'm thinking of looking at some of the freelance sites. Maybe I can start my own little side hustle."
Kellie's gaze lifted to my covered art studio. "What about your art?"
I looked down into my coffee mug. "Hopefully, the desire will come back again, but right now I just can't."
"I'm so sorry, Natalie."
At that point I couldn't help the tears. As I cried, Natalie moved her chair over and put her arms around me. I didn't always like her being like a mother hen, but in this moment, it was nice to know she was there.
When she left to go to work, I spent a little time on the Internet looking for opportunities to make some money on the side until I figured out what I was going to do. Finding a freelance site, I signed up and started filling in the profile, but eventually my energy petered out. I saved the profile and then went back to bed.
I woke up and checked my clock, and discovered it mid-afternoon. It took me a minute to reorient myself to my life, but then it all came back to me, and crushed me again. This time when I got up, though I was determined that I would move on. I took a shower, got dressed, and then moved my furniture around a little bit, I made a makeshift home office, and finished my online profile. With that completed I did some research on current job openings, and was discouraged by how dull most of them looked, but went ahead and submitted my profile for consideration. After all, beggars couldn't be choosers.
I was considering getting out of the house to go for a walk. Just as I was grabbing my purse to go, there was a knock at my door. Checking my watch, it seemed a little early for Kellie to be showing up again, but I knew she was worried.
I went over and opened the door, and saw Hunter standing there. Anger erupted like a volcano. But instead of giving him an ear full, I simply slamed the door in his face.
I strode back into the apartment wondering what it meant that he was there. Had Ryan sent here to apologize and beg me to come back? That wasn't gonna happen and Kellie should've told him that it wasn't going to happen.
"I've come here to apologize," Hunter's voice came through the door. After a slight pause, he added, "And to grovel."
Grovel? Now that was something I wanted to see.
I went back to the door and opened it just enough to see him. I was surprised to find him leaning against the door jam, his face up against the door.
"I'm listening," I said, determined not to be swayed by anything he said.
"I'm an asshole."
"You’ll get no argument from me." I started to shut the door.
His hand came up, pressing against the door to keep me from slamming it in his face again. "Please give me a chance to talk to you. I know I'm not doing a very good job of it. Give me a few minutes to get it all out and then if you want me to leave, I will."
I wished my resolve was stronger than the yearning in my heart. Because my resolve wanted to tell him no and shut the door. But my heart had me opening the door and letting him in. I didn't offer him anything to drink or eat. I just went over to my couch and sat down.
He walked in and looked around my apartment, his eyes stopping at my sheet-covered studio. A look of shame came to his face, and that made me feel a little bit triumphant.
He came around in front of my couch and coffee table and began to pace. "I'm sorry." He stopped pacing and turned to look at me. "I'm sorry." He said again. "I know this media fuckup isn’t your fault. I know my behavior is too reprehensible to forgive, so I won't even bother asking for forgiveness. But I did want to let you know that I'm truly sorry, and I'm ashamed for how I treated you."
I studied his face closely to see the truth of his words. I saw it in his eyes. He meant every word and while that did loosen some of the anger tightening in my chest, it didn't completely let my guard down.
I knew it was time for both of us to go our own ways, and the only way that either of us could be truly free of the other would be if I did forgive him. "I forgive you Hunter. And now we can both just go on with our lives."
I expected him to have an expression of relief and then leave. Instead, he looked more desperate.
"Can I tell you a story?" he asked.
"Will it help us get closure on this whole thing?"
"Yes. Maybe." He looked down. "I don't know, but I'd like to tell you anyway, if I could."
"Sure, okay." I found it odd that I was the one having to help him alleviate his guilt and pain, when I had been his victim. Then again, if this is what needed to happen to get him walking out my door, I would listen.
He paced again for a minute and then he surprised me by walking over towards me, sitting on the coffee table directly in front of me. He was too close, so I leaned back on the couch.
"I was in love once before. Or at least I thought I was."
I arched a brow, surprised by this confession.
"I met her my junior year of college and she was what you would expect; tall, beautiful, she could've been a model, maybe."
I smirked, and was about to tell him that hearing about his beautiful model girlfriend wasn't exactly the type of thing that was going to make me feel better about him. But he looked down and ran his hand over his face, making me realize that whatever was going to happen in the story, it wasn't easy for him to tell.
"I haven't really told anybody about all this. Anyway, I was pretty sure that I loved her and that she loved me too, and so as our senior year came to an end, and we'd been seeing each other for almost two years, I figured we should get married."
My other brow arched as the idea of Hunter getting married just didn't jive with what I knew about him.
"I bought the biggest ring that my trust fund would allow me to spend, and I made arrangements to set us up in a really nice condo on the beach and bought her car — "
"You did all that just to propose?"
He shrugged and a blush came to his cheeks. "I wanted her to say yes."
“It doesn't sound like you were sure that you loved her, or she loved you."
He rubbed his hands on his thighs. "You're getting ahead in the story here."
"Sorry." I began to realize that this was a story of heartbreak. Hunter was being as vulnerable as I'd ever seen him. Maybe it was as vulnerable as he’d ever been, excep
t perhaps when he asked this woman to marry him. Once again, my heart began to soften towards him.
"So, I made this whole big thing about proposing and she said yes," he said.
"She said yes?" I thought this was going to be a story about heartbreak.
"She said yes, and at that time I didn't think I could ever be happier, and we moved forward with graduation and planning a wedding, and a future together."
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat because I didn't like that there was a woman that made Hunter the happiest he'd ever been.
"I had to come home one weekend for Gran's birthday, and my fiancé couldn't come with me. But of course I missed her, so after Gran's birthday, I drove back up to school to surprise her."
All of a sudden, I realized I was about to hit the punch line.
"I walked into our brand-new condo that I’d just spent a fortune having decorated to her specifications, and I found her in bed with somebody else.”
My heart went out to him. Betrayal was a bitch.
“Of course, I went ballistic, and expected her to apologize, to beg me to forgive her." He shot up, and began to pace again.
"She didn't beg for forgiveness?" I asked, fighting the urge to go to him to hug him.
"No." He turned and looked at me, blue eyes staring down at me. "No, she didn't beg for forgiveness. She laughed in my face. She said that she'd been seeing other guys the whole time. She'd been with me for the money and the name."
"Oh God." I began to understand why Hunter was such a love-phobe.
"It gets worse."
I couldn’t imagine how it could be any worse, but I sat and listened.
"That fuckwit she was with filmed the whole thing. He said he was afraid I was going to beat the shit out of him, which I thought about doing for a second except for then she completely humiliated me. I felt completely castrated." He started to pace again grounding the palms of his hands in his eye socket, giving off a low growl. Then he stopped short and came back over and sat on the coffee table again. His movement was so fast that he surprised me, and I jerked back my eyes widening in surprise.
He held his hands up in surrender, like he was trying to let me know that he didn't mean to startle me. "They posted that video of me learning I was cuckold. When that video he took went viral on the Internet and having her humiliate me and squash my heart, was the worst day of my life.” He looked at me intently. “That is until last night."
My brain came to a screeching halt. What?
"Let me preface this by saying that piece in the magazine brought all this back and it wasn't fair to you because you're not her and I know you would never do something like that. But I'm not a very good steward of my emotions sometimes and I let all that anger takeover and I hurt you, for which I'm truly sorry."
I nodded, but I wanted to go back to the part to where he said last night was the worst night of his life.
"When I saw you walking to the bar last night, looking so fucking beautiful, my heart hurt." He pressed his hand over his heart. "And then I saw you dancing with Jason Tollison and then all I saw was red," he said with a sheepish smile.
I smiled glad to hear he was jealous of Jason.
"When I saw you out there with him, I told myself that you weren’t into me and it just validated everything that I'd been thinking. Except I couldn't accept that. I had to fight for you, Natalie. I know I did it the wrong way. You and I, sometimes we don't communicate in the way other people do, but last night it became clear that you and I were done, and it crushed me." He stared at me taking a long breath that he let out slowly. "The truth is Natalie, I'm in love with you."
27
Hunter
There were many moments in my life where I waited on bated breath for an answer to an important question. But never before had I felt like my entire future was riding on this one moment. As Natalie sat on the couch looking at me, a little bit confused and stunned, I began to worry that the answer I was hoping for was going to be no.
A desperation bubbled up deep in my gut and I had to do something. "I love you, Natalie." I said it again in case she didn't hear me the first time. Again, the seconds drew out like an eternity, and I had to recognize that she didn't feel the same.
I thought my worst fears had come true when I believed that Natalie had betrayed and humiliated me. I was discovering that in fact, my worst fear was that she didn't love me. I worked so hard to prevent myself from ever feeling like this again. And the worst part about it, was that this moment was so much worse than the first time I loved and lost.
As I sat there feeling like a fool, I could feel something inside me die. My protective instinct was telling me to get up and leave. But I couldn't quite give up the hope that maybe I was wrong again. Maybe she did love me. And so, I sat and waited.
A moment later she came off the couch, her arms wrapping around my neck and her body pressing close to mine. It took me a moment to realize what was happening because I was so sure that it wouldn't. But then I banded my arms around her picking her up and sitting on the couch with her on my lap. I held her to me, burying my face in her neck, inhaling her sweet scent and making a vow to never let her go.
"That was the longest hour of my life," I said, letting out a long, shuddering breath.
She lifted her head and looked down at me, her smile so wide and bright, the light now coming back into her eyes. "It was like three seconds. It took that long for what you said to filter through to my brain."
"It felt like a fucking eternity. My life was flashing before my eyes." Then because I couldn't wait a second longer to taste her, I pulled her to me, pressing my lips to hers, letting her taste and texture infuse my body with relief.
She tore her lips away from mine and I growled in frustration because I hadn't had enough. Not nearly enough. In fact, I now was sure I would never ever have enough. Even if I spent a lifetime with her.
Her hands slid from my shoulders along my neck and up to cup my face. Her beautiful blue eyes scanned my face before coming back to my gaze. "I love you too Hunter."
I closed my eyes, savoring the way her words cloaked me in relief and happiness. Then her lips were on mine again, kissing me like she planned to kiss me forever, which I hope to hell would be the case.
When we broke apart again. I rested my forehead against hers. "Just so we’re clear here, this isn't some sort of friends with benefits, or a trial let's see where this goes. I want to be with you Natalie. I want to tell the world that you are mine or maybe I'm yours, and I know that’s selfish considering what being with me has done to your career —"
Her lips were kissing me again and I sank into it thinking that it was a good sign. I broke away from the kiss with reluctance, but determination to get everything that needed to be set out. "I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'm to make everything right for you again. I promise."
She rubbed her nose with mine, a gesture that I never would've thought could fill me with such sweetness. "Don't you know, Hunter? You already made everything right just by being here and telling me you love me."
I slid my hands up her back. "I do love you Natalie. I've been wrong before about being in love. That wasn't love. And as humiliating and crushing that whole experience was, I can't help but be grateful for it now because if things had gone as planned back then, I wouldn't be with you here now. And there's nowhere I'd rather be than right here with you."
Her cheeks blushed and she had this most beautiful, sweet smile on her face. "When did you get to be such a romantic, Hunter?"
I shrugged. "It's all your fault."
That sweet smile widened and then her lips were on mine again. Thinking that we'd said all that needed to be said at this time, I repositioned us pulling her underneath me on the couch.
"I'm going to make love to you now." I trailed kisses along her jaw and nibbled lightly on her ear.
"I certainly hope so."
I always felt a little crazed and desperate when I had sex with Natalie. Maybe it was
because my hormones were raging out of control. Or maybe it was because each time, I wasn’t sure if it would be the last time.
Right now, I still felt crazed, but a part of that was in wanting to be as close to her as possible. My goal though was to take my time because I was sure this wasn’t the last time, and I wanted her to know through my touch, how I felt.
The part we hurried through was in getting naked. Once my hands were on her soft, smooth skin, I pulled back on the throttle and took my time. I worshiped her body with my lips and fingers. Her sighs and moans were like music as I made sure no inch of her body was untouched.
“I want you,” she said on a gasp as she reached for me.
“I’m right here.” I slid up her body, stopping to suck her nipples just the way she liked.
She bowed off the couch, and her fingers found my dick and stroked him.
I growled, and fought to retrain my urges.
“I need you inside me, Hunter. Please.”
Whatever my lady wanted, she’d have. I lifted her leg over the back of the couch as I settled my hips between her thighs. I rubbed my tip along her wet pussy lips, eager to feel her around me.
“Oh fuck.” I started to back away.
“What’s wrong.”
I gave her a sheepish smile. “I need a condom.” I started to reach for my jeans.
“I’m on the pill.”
My gaze whipped to hers. All this time we’d been fucking around, and she’d never said. Then again, why would she? She thought she was just a plaything. One of many playthings.
Giving In To Love: A Friends with Benefits Office Romance (Strong Brothers Book 2) Page 17
