“So, what did you think of it?” he asked.
“Before we go there, can I ask a favor?”
“Julia, you can ask me anything, and the world would be yours.”
Girl, looking at him now? With those blue eyes of his feasting on you? You already know that’s true . . .
“How about if all I’m seeking is a martini . . . ?”
“Is the script that bad?” he asked.
“How about if we get to that after the martini arrives?” I asked.
“Give me a minute, and I’ll have one for each of us. I’ll meet you back in the living room when I’m finished.”
“I’ll be there,” I said.
When he returned with our drinks, he handed me mine, we touched glasses, he took the chair opposite me, and tension filled the room.
“So?” he said. “What are your thoughts?”
And here we go . . .
“They sent you a gift,” I said.
“A gift? You think it’s good?”
“It’s a smart, funny, classic rom-com, and yes, I do think it’s good. I loved the main characters, the side characters, the premise, the way Daniella and Cutter fall in love with one another, that adorable bitch of a woman named Blackwell—all of it. Could some of the lines be funnier with a few tweaks? Yes, and that should happen. But should you overlook it because of that? Oh, hell no.” I tapped my finger on top of the manuscript. “Because this is gold, Hunter. Congratulations.” With my heart breaking for all I was about to lose, I took a sip of my martini and tried to steel my nerves. “How do you feel about it?”
“You see, that’s the thing,” he said.
“What’s the thing?” I asked.
“As good as it is, it doesn’t hold a candle to you. Not even close. While you were reading the script, I was doing a lot of thinking. And what I kept thinking is what would my life be without you in it—”
“Hunter, listen to me now, OK? Take us out of the equation. This film is a perfect fit for you. I think you need to do it.”
“Do you know what I think I need to do?” he said as he stood in front of me, took the martini from my hand, and put it down on the side table. When he turned back to look at me, the intensity in his eyes—the love and lust I saw pulsing through them—was enough to shake me. “What I need to do is this,” he said as he reached for my hands and helped me to my feet. “What I need to do is what I should have done sooner, Julia—make love to you. As in now.”
With one sudden, fell swoop, I was in his arms.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he smiled at me.
He kissed me on the lips.
“I’m about to turn you inside out.”
“Hunter!”
He kissed me on the cheek as we started toward the stairwell.
“I’m about to make love to you in ways that no man has ever made love to you, Julia. I can promise you that. But before we even go there, I know we have a deal, so let me ease your mind, because I have given my career and you a great deal of thought. And what it all comes down to is simple.”
He kissed me on the neck, which just about did me in.
“I’ll do another season of the Teens, which will keep me here in the city for another two years. During that time, you’ll become an associate agent at CAA. And when that happens? CAA has an office in LA, and if another script comes my way? And if I need to move there to direct it? You can come with me and work there while I direct the film, should that happen. I believe it will. But even if it doesn’t, what matters most is having you in my life. You might think I’m joking, but in a matter of minutes, I’m going to show you just how serious I can be.”
What he’s thought of is everything Sienna laid out for me. And he thought of it on his own—without any interference from me . . .
“Hunter, are you sure about this?” I asked as we ascended the stairs.
“I am. But I don’t want to pressure you. So, let me ask you. Do you want this?”
“You really mean this? You’re going to give up that movie and stay here in the city for another two years?”
“That’s right—and I’m doing it for us. Because you and I, Julia? You and I are worth taking that chance—and it’s one I already know I’ll never regret taking. I want to make love to you. I finally want to have you in my bed. By my side. Fully in my life. Championing one another. Making love to one another. And hopefully, if you’ve come to feel for me what I feel for you, hopefully being a couple together. Do you want the same?”
This was such an unexpected, romantic, and emotional moment, my eyes misted with tears. When he saw them, he stopped on the landing and kissed them away.
“Tell me what you’re feeling,” he said.
“That I’m in love with you . . .” I shrugged at him. “I am. I’ve tried my best to put you and your career first, I pushed my feelings for you away so I’d never stop you from achieving your dreams, but here I am—in your arms and in love with you.”
“If I’d taken that script, would you have told me how you felt about me?”
“No,” I said. “I would have had no choice but to let you go. It would have killed me to do so, but that’s how much I’ve fallen for you, Hunter. That’s how much I didn’t want to get in the way of your future.”
“What if you are my future . . . ?”
“What if I am? Make love to me, Hunter—because I’ve been waiting too long for that to happen.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
WHEN HE CARRIED ME into his large, masculine-looking bedroom—brown walls, a huge mahogany bed near the expansive bay windows, gleaming hardwood floors, a leather chair with a brass floor lamp curled above it, and a giant Oriental rug on which the bed stood—he seared me with a kiss before he gently put me down next to the bed. On his bedside table was a remote control. He reached for it, pressed a button, and the shades covering the windows lowered automatically.
“That’s pretty smooth,” I said to him with a smile.
“Let’s call it what it is,” he said. “Convenient. Because when you work the hours I work? Who the hell wants to bother with all of those shades when you come home after a long day of dealing with several spoiled brats? Not me.”
“I hope you’re not this efficient when it comes to everything . . .”
“You’re about to find out.”
With a quick smirk at me, Hunter ripped off his T-shirt and threw it across the now dimly lit room.
I don’t know what it hit, but it hit something before it fell to the floor. The act was so sudden and aggressive, it was enough to make me shiver with pleasure, especially when I saw him standing shirtless in front of me. He was built like a Greek god—his lightly hairy chest was chiseled and broad, his shoulders were the size of the map of America, and his ridiculously cut abs pretty much could be used as a scrubbing board to clean my panties right now.
Because, yes, I was already that wet.
Not to be outdone, off came my shirt, which I tossed onto the floor just as his jeans came off and hit some other part of the floor. For a moment, as I stood there with my bra still on, I caught sight of the huge bulge in his black boxer briefs, and my lips parted when I took it in. He was enormous.
How in the hell am I ever go to take that . . . ?
Do you know how many women would kill to have that right now? Girl, please. Time to become a sexual Olympian!
“What are you staring at?” Hunter asked me with a gleam in his eyes.
“I think we both know what I’m looking at, Hunter. I mean, why even lie . . . ? Your crotch is literally a flashing billboard right now.”
He laughed when I said that.
“I’ve never heard it put that way in the past . . .”
“That’s because you haven’t been with someone like me in your past.”
“Up for an adventure?”
“With you I am.”
For a moment, it appeared that he was about to take off his underwear, when instead he stopped and walked toward me.
He smoothed the back of his right hand across my cheek.
“Are you OK?” he asked.
“Despite how confident I sounded a moment ago? Let’s get real. I might be a little bit nervous . . .”
“To be with me?”
“Let’s just say it’s complicated.”
“How is it complicated?”
Tell him the truth . . .
“Hunter, I haven’t had sex in four years, and I don’t want to disappoint you.”
“Julia, we’re in love. But I hear you, so how about if we do this? How about if you just trust me and give yourself over to me? I promise I’ll take good care of you. And while I’m doing so, I’m also going to take you to places you’ve never been before. I’m going to take you out of this room, out of this city, out of this world, and into a new world where only you and I live. Because you’re nervous, I know that might sound like a challenge, but I—”
“Challenge accepted,” I said to him at once.
He raised an eyebrow at me, then he kissed me on the lips.
“Just let yourself go, and enjoy the moment,” he said. And then he seemed to check himself. “Well, maybe not a moment, per se. But at least prepare yourself for the next several hours or so of moments.” He winked at me, and in that wink I knew that he wasn’t just trying to make me laugh—which he did—but that he wanted me to know that he understood the place of uncertainty I was coming from.
He gets it, I thought. So let it go. Let the past go. To hell with Michael. I have a new man in my life, and I need to be in the present for him so this moment highlights the best of us. Especially now. Because there’s only one first time between a new couple, and this will be that moment with Hunter.
“I do love you,” I said to him.
“And because you do, I’m the luckiest man in the world. But how about if I show you how much I love you?”
“Please, do . . .”
He moved even closer toward me.
“Gladly.”
Slowly, he unbuttoned the slim-fitting jeans I was wearing, knelt before me, removed my black pumps from my feet, then started to tug down my jeans until they were off me. And there I stood before him, in nothing but (thank God!) a sexy red bra and a matching pair of red panties.
He looked up at me.
“In a few moments, you’re about to learn yet another reason we’re right for one another,” he said. “I’m about to make you come so many times, your world is going to spin . . .”
“Make it whirl,” I urged.
“Challenge accepted . . .”
When he said that, I felt a part of me fall away as he began to kiss the area just beneath my breasts, which was enough to make me arch my back and place my hand down on the bed behind me—an act that just encouraged him more. My torso was one of the most sensitive parts of my body, and with Hunter’s stubble, lips, and tongue brushing against it, I was pretty much doomed to a lingering moment of delicious agony if he didn’t move on soon.
And then he did.
Without warning, he lowered his head and ran his tongue along my inner thighs in ways that felt so heavenly and forbidden, I finally gave up the ghost and leaned back onto the bed, only to hear a deep murmur come from the base of his throat as he made his way toward my feet. I looked down at him and saw a mischievous look in his eyes as he started to kiss my toes, then the tops of my feet, then my ankles—all while his hands slowly ran up the length of my body until they cupped my concealed breasts. Gently, he ran his thumbs over my nipples, which stiffened beneath his heated touch—especially when he slid his hands beneath my bra so he could pinch my nipples, which sent a jolt of electricity through me.
“Turn onto your side,” he said in his ridiculously deep voice.
I did as I was told—and then, just like that? My bra had been unfastened and was gone, allowing my heavy breasts the freedom they apparently needed. Hunter snaked his way up my body and moved his head toward them, stopping until he was just close enough to kiss me before he took my right nipple into his mouth. As he sucked on it with his tongue somehow also curling around it, it was sensation overload. It was too much . . . until he moved over to my other nipple and covered it with his mouth, and then I realized it wasn’t too much.
Because this is perfect . . .
As we moved about the bed, Hunter intuitively seemed to know exactly what to do and which areas of my body were the most sensitive. He was as talented and as sensuous as I’d thought he’d be, and it showed in ways that were every bit as erotic as I’d imagined. The more he touched me—and the more I responded to him—the less nervous I became. He was in control of the situation in ways that I wasn’t, and he seemed thrilled to be in that position. On one level, it was as if I was his student, and he was about to give me one hell of a lesson in lovemaking.
I was in a blissful kind of delirium.
“Take my hand,” he said, holding it out to me. “I want you to feel how much I’m in love with you . . .”
I took it, and he pressed it against his heart.
“Do you feel that?” he asked.
His heart was pounding so hard against his chest, it felt like a drum to me.
“Yes,” I said.
“Now feel this . . .”
With one swift move, he lifted himself off me and knelt back as he swept me up and into his arms. Somehow, I was suddenly straddling him as his lips met my neck and his arms stroked my back. My breasts, so taut and full, brushed against his chest, sending rivers of ecstasy through me as I pressed them harder against him. Each time his lips connected with my skin, I felt my own heartbeat race even faster, as this moment started to feel more profound than ever.
But I wanted to do something for him.
I released myself from him, knelt before him, tugged off his boxers, held the length of him in my hand, and took him into my mouth. I heard him gasp when my tongue met his sensitive skin and felt his body respond with a sharp shiver, and when I started to massage him, taste him, and toy with him, I felt his fingers run through the strands of my hair as his breathing became more labored.
When he couldn’t take it any longer, he positioned me gently on my back. I saw that his eyes had become hooded with desire, and I watched his head move toward my sex before he pulled off my panties and claimed it with his mouth and then with his tongue.
Cool air brushed against me, quickly erased by the warmth of his breath. When his tongue plunged into me, it was enough to make me want to scream out because it felt so good. He covered my clit with his mouth, sucked on it and licked it, and while he tasted me, I wasn’t sure how much longer I could wait for him to enter me.
“What are you doing to me?”
“Everything you wanted me to do to you. Isn’t that what you asked?”
“It’s too much.”
“It hasn’t even begun.”
And it hadn’t. For what felt like at least ten minutes, he took his time preparing me to take him, first with his mouth and then with his hands. First one finger—and then another, and finally another—until I felt so full and wet and horny that he quickly and unexpectedly pushed me toward the edge of climax.
When I came the first time, he caught it just before it happened, raced up the length of my body, and took one of my nipples in his mouth, biting down just hard enough to lift me off the bed and into his arms as my climax shuddered through me. He held me as I pulsed against him, but he didn’t hold me for long. Instead, he lifted me up, I hooked one arm around his neck, and reached out and placed my free hand against his rock-solid, corded abs. Only when I was lying back on the bed again did Hunter get on top and mount me. And when he did, I took a sharp breath that caught in my throat.
&
nbsp; My first thought was that he was too big, but as he moved inside of me, filling me with his impossible length and girth, it was desire that shot through me, not the pain I’d been expecting, because Hunter knew exactly what he was doing. When we were one and he bent his head down to kiss me as he rocked into me, I knew in my soul that this man was meant for me.
“Are you OK?” he asked me.
“I’m better than OK . . .”
With slow, rhythmic strokes, he drove into me. With my eyes locked onto his, I felt myself open up to him. As our pace quickened, I saw his lips part in desire as my body soared to heights I’d never experienced before. And only when it was clear to him that I was ready for something more aggressive did he even dare to go there.
Gradually, he dominated my body and my soul.
He slid me down the length of the bed, grabbed me by the ankles, and kissed each of them before he entered me with a quick thrust that caused me to cry out in pleasure as the moment escalated between us.
I touched his muscular chest, tweaked his nipples between my fingertips, and because I wanted to see what he could take, I pressed them as hard as I could, which caused his head to rear back. He let out a primal moan that not only delighted me, but also seemed to excite him even more as he started to pound into me. With our bodies now covered in sweat, our skin was slick as he bucked and reared against me. I whipped my head to the left and right as I felt myself growing close to orgasm again.
“Hunter,” I said.
“Come with me, Julia.”
When he said that, he started to move faster, harder, and then my world began to blur, spiraling away from me as I felt him pulsing deep within me.
“Come with me,” he growled again, and then he began saying it over and over until the room dimmed, my eyes slammed shut, and we both climaxed as our bodies trembled against each other, until we were lying next to each other—him flat on his back, me on my side coupling him. He had just turned my body into a silo of heat. As we paused to catch our breath, my face slumped against his shoulder—wet, slick, and feverishly hot.
And yet this wasn’t over. I wanted more . . .
“Take me again,” I said.
Making It, #2 Page 30
