Today, I would stuff my face; and tomorrow, I would use the energy to write all day.
Around six in the evening, I took my laptop and snuggled under a soft blanket. Spending an entire weekend tucked away in a cabin wouldn’t be complete without a horror movie, so I decided on The Descent, a British horror film about a group of women staying at a cabin in the Appalachian Mountains, and then getting lost in an unknown cave system where they’re chased by deformed, underground predators. My belly was full, my cravings were sated, and I had a large packet of Cheetos and a bottle of sparkling mineral water beside me. I was all set to go.
About thirty minutes into the movie, just when things were getting interesting, there was a loud knock on my cabin door. I jumped in fright, then frowned at myself for being silly. It was probably one of the guests staying at the next cabin. I set the laptop down and went to answer the door.
“Roe?”
I blinked and craned my neck up, wondering what the heck was wrong with me. I was hallucinating. I was going mad. I was –
“Can I come in?”
Still wondering if I was dreaming, I pulled the door wider. Hunter strode inside, then spun around to stare at me.
“You look good,” he said, his intense gaze lingering on my face. “Really good.”
“And you have a beard,” I said, confused. I’d never seen him with so much facial hair before. He looked delectable enough to eat. “What are you doing here? How did you even find me?”
“Dorothy told me over the phone. She yelled at me, called me every cuss word I know, and then immediately gave up the info when she grew breathless. I drove up here as soon as I could.” He laughed softly. “She’d make a terrible spy.”
I turned away from him, my heart thudding dangerously. “You should go,” I whispered. “I don’t want you here.”
“Roe . . .” He trailed off, stepping closer to me. “I know I fucked up, all right? I should have given you a chance to explain, but all I could focus on was how angry and hurt I felt. I couldn’t handle the pain.” He took another step toward me. “You were right. There I was accusing you of not trusting me, of sending Eric to keep an eye on me, but I was doing the exact same thing to you. Maybe worse. I don’t know what possessed me to think you would go behind my back and cheat on me.”
I could think of one reason – Roxy had suggested it, knowing it wouldn’t take long for Hunter’s jealousy to take over and make that leap. And Hunter had definitely been jealous of Eric Steinberg.
“So what makes you think I didn’t sleep with Eric?” I asked, sitting on the bed. “Roxy wasn’t completely lying, you know. It really was just the two of us at the Hamptons.”
Hunter blew out a breath. “He contacted me about three days ago and said he wanted to meet. So we met at Diggory’s Pub and had a beer.” His green eyes bored into mine. “Even before then, I knew that I’d made a huge mistake in letting you go, but Eric confirmed just how much I’d fucked up. He told me how he’d unsuccessfully tried to seduce you, and then had the nerve to say he would try again if you’d only let him. Then he called me a fool for sending you away like that.”
“Did he say anything else?” I wondered if he’d mentioned our afternoon “date” in Sydney.
“He did, just before he left the pub.”
“What did he say?”
Hunter’s smile was gentle. “I’ll tell you next time.”
An awkward silence settled between us. In the meantime, I couldn’t stop staring at his beard. He looked like an incredibly hot homeless stranger with his shaggy hair and facial whiskers. I forced myself to calm down.
Stop thinking about boinking him.
Which of course meant that I would think about it. In graphic, uncensored detail.
“You’re blushing.” He noted, watching me carefully.
My hands flew to my cheeks like some cartoonish maid. “Am I?”
Hunter came closer until he was looming right in front of me. “Do you remember what I told you about make up sex?”
I nodded, swallowing nervously. “You said that make up sex was wild and uninhibited, and went on all night long.”
“That’s right.” He leaned down and drew me into his strong arms, his beard tickling my cheek. “Don’t give up on us, Roe. Maybe you deserve someone like Eric Steinberg, but I can promise you that he won’t love you like I do. You’re the love of my fucking life. I can’t let you go, so please, please, don’t ask me to.”
My hands tightened around his neck as I breathed in his intoxicating male scent. “I won’t ask you to,” I whispered into his chest, “because I can’t let you go, either.”
Groaning with relief, he cupped my face and crashed his mouth on mine, another groan soon rising from his throat when I sucked sweetly on his bottom lip.
“Fuck, I’ve missed you so much.” He murmured, his hands now gripping my waist as his mouth trailed down my neck. He grasped the hem of my T-shirt, then pulled back briefly to yank it off my body and toss it on the floor. His mouth instantly returned to my neck, his fingers sliding the bra straps over my bare shoulders.
I let out a shudder when he slowly pulled the lacy bra down, revealing more of my breasts until my nipples were peeking over the lacy edge. He paused to stare at them, then closed his eyes as he breathed over my skin and brushed his lips over the hardening nubs with feathery touches. I whimpered and tried to push a nipple between his lips. He was torturing me, and he knew it.
His eyes fluttered open. “What’s the hurry, Roe?” he whispered against my breasts, still brushing his soft lips over my aching nipples. “We’ve got all night, haven’t we?”
“We do, but –”
“Let me just breathe you in. I still can’t believe I’m here with you.” After another minute or so of feathery touches and kisses, he finally leaned forward and sucked a nipple into his warm, wet mouth.
I gasped and wrapped my arms around his head.
“H-Hunter.” I stuttered, arching my back. “I need to ask a favor of you.”
“Hmm, what is it?”
“I need you to be gentle with me tonight.”
He stopped what he was doing to give me a sexy smile. “Slow and passionate it is, then.” And with maddening slowness, he ran the tip of his tongue over my other nipple, a satisfied smirk on his face when I practically screamed out his name for everyone to hear.
Epilogue
Hunter
The first time I saw Rosemary, I was thirteen years old.
It was my first day at River Vale High School, and I was bored. A lot of my friends and classmates from public school had moved to the same high school. They were even in some of my classes. High school was supposed to be a new experience, a chance to meet new people and make new friends, but that wasn’t the case for me.
Hence my boredom.
But it did mean that I already had friends on the first day, and I was already part of the popular group. Being head and shoulders taller than most of my male peers also meant that guys looked up to me (literally), and girls giggled whenever they saw me. But I found none of them all that interesting.
Except for the lonely brunette with the pale skin.
There was something different about her. Maybe it was the posh way she held herself, but my gaze kept following her during recess and lunchtime. She was definitely not in any of my classes; I would later find out it was because she was in the advanced classes.
The brunette was a certified geek.
Unlike me, she had no friends. During recess and lunch, she would sit near the canteen and eat her sandwich and sip at her juice, her eyes downcast. She had this habit of swinging her legs, which I found quite endearing. One time, when the bell rang, she hopped off the bench in a hurry, and this caused her skirt to flip up over her arse. I immediately noticed the pink panties she was wearing before she slapped her skirt down. Her nervous eyes darted this way and that, making sure no one saw her, before she ran toward the science building.
But I saw her. And th
e image burned into my mind and became the cause of my first ever wet dream.
For the next couple of weeks, I tried to work up the courage to approach her. It wasn’t easy. Every time I walked toward her, some older girl in Year 9 or 10 would block my path and ask me out or offer to have sex with me. I was only thirteen! And they were fifteen, sixteen years old. It was unbelievable.
Out of frustration, I grabbed the collar of a well-known geek in our year and asked if he knew who she was. When he sputtered her name, protectively clutching his books to his thin chest, I let him go.
Rosemary. Rosemary Thornton.
And then Rosemary was gone. I couldn’t find her anywhere. Later, I found out that she had transferred to some expensive private school in the city. I never saw her again.
Until seven years later, during my second year of uni.
I was in my English Lit class, sitting right at the back of the lecture hall with my rowdy friends. It was one of my elective courses, and I had a tendency to skip these classes. But on occasion, I turned up like a good student.
That was when she walked in, smiling at one of the students sitting in the first row. I recognized her instantly. She was taller and curvier, but her features were pretty much the same. As she went to join her friend, her gaze casually swept across the hall and landed on me. I noticed the spark of interest on her face before she sat down. But there had been no recognition in her eyes.
And why would there be? She had never known me.
I approached her when the lecture ended and asked if she gave tutoring lessons. When she hesitated, I said someone had told me she tended to get lots of high distinctions, and that I needed help. To be honest, I didn’t. I actually did fairly well in all my classes even though I hardly attended the English Lit lectures.
But this was my excuse to spend some time with her.
And that’s what we did. I teased her and called her “geek,” and tried to make sure she stared at me a lot. I could tell she was attracted to me, but it wasn’t enough. I needed more from her. Much more.
I needed her to fucking fall in love with me.
A couple of weeks later, I overheard some pretentious arse in English Lit talking about how he was going to ask Rosemary out and try to get in her pants. More than anything, I wanted to bash his head in. But instead, I forced Rosemary to write my essays for me, effectively taking up all her free hours so that she had no time for dates with arseholes.
Then one day, out of the blue, she announced that she was leaving for six months because of some stupid exchange student program. Just like that. She would leave for the States, and probably give her virginity to some American douchebag.
I couldn’t let that happen.
It had been fairly obvious to me for some time that she was a virgin. And she usually confirmed it by overreacting whenever I teased her about it. But when Wally came up with that stupid virgin bet, I warned him and the others to stay away from Roe.
His boorish response? “Then you’d better get to her first, mate.”
And so I did, that night when we had sex in her house. It was only right for me to take her virginity because she was mine, and I was hers, even though she didn’t know it yet.
When she finally left for Los Angeles, filled with anger and misunderstanding once she found out about Wally’s stupid bet, she didn’t come back.
She’d left me again.
And this became a pattern with her. With us. She was always leaving me.
But this was never going to happen again. I would make sure of it.
The morning light filtered through the window curtains, casting Roe in a warm, golden light. I watched her as she slept peacefully, her soft, creamy body naked under the blanket. She was so beautiful.
Unable to stop myself, I leaned forward and pressed my lips to her shoulder.
I thought back to my meeting with Eric Steinberg. Just before leaving Diggory’s Pub, he’d stopped to say one last thing to me.
“Oh, and by the way, congratulations.”
“For what?”
He raised his brows. “Didn’t you know? Rosemary’s pregnant.”
And then he’d left me sitting there, shocked into silence.
I knew then exactly which day it had happened. It was the night I had kicked her out of the penthouse, the night I had fucked her like an animal. Instead of making love to her like I normally did, I had used her body roughly and carelessly. But it had been the only way to protect my heart from breaking. She was my heart and my life, and in less than an hour, I was about to send her away.
Whatever the reason, it was still inexcusable.
I gently spread my fingers over Roe’s stomach. “I promise to make it up to both of you,” I whispered. This baby had been conceived in anger, but I would devote the rest of my life to making sure Rosemary and our child felt nothing but love from me.
This is my promise to you.
After spending another minute or so just watching her sleep, I grabbed my cell phone and spooned her from behind. I took a quick selfie of us and then uploaded the photo to my Instagram page. For the caption, I typed: “When she wakes up, I’m going to propose to the woman of my dreams.”
My Instagram followers were going to freak out, especially since this would be the first time they would see actual confirmation of my love life.
But, honestly? I was too fucking happy to give a damn.
I slid my phone under the pillow when Roe stirred beside me. “Hey.” She croaked, rubbing her eyes. “When did you get up?”
“I haven’t been awake that long.” I reached over to brush her hair from her eyes. “What are you planning to do today?”
“Well, I was planning to write, but that was before you suddenly showed up at my cabin door.” Faint spots appeared on her cheeks. “Staying in bed all day sounds nice, though.”
I leaned down and kissed her breasts. “My thoughts exactly.”
She ran her fingers through my hair, massaging my scalp. “So what’s going to happen now? Have you found another agent to replace Roxy?”
“I have, but I’ve decided to take a short break from modeling and focus more on acting.” When she frowned thoughtfully at me, I smiled. “I’ve sent my applications to the National Institute of Dramatic Art. I start next year, Roe.”
“I don’t believe it!” she cried, throwing her arms around my neck. “Isn’t that where all the famous Aussie actors went to study acting?”
“They do have quite an impressive alumni list,” I said, nodding, but my thoughts quickly returned back to us. I wanted to tell Roe about how we’d actually met. “Listen, I know you’re the one who’s the storyteller, but I want to tell you a true story.”
She lay on her side, tucking her hand under her head. “Hmm, I love true stories. What’s it about?”
“It’s about the first time I saw you.”
That piqued her interest. “Oh, good. Am I ready to know now?”
“You bet,” I said. And I began with the day I first saw her at River Vale. As I talked and she listened, her eyes grew round, and by the time I finished about an hour later, she was stunned speechless.
At this point, it seemed no further words needed to be said. As I pulled the blanket off and began kissing her bare stomach, I thought back to the night when I had kicked Rosemary out of the penthouse. Something she had said that night had stayed with me. She’d said that we had come full circle – meaning we had started our relationship with hurtful actions, and our relationship was inevitably ending the same way.
But I never believed that.
As far as I was concerned, our relationship began on that day when I first saw her as a thirteen-year-old, and it was inevitable that we would find each other again. And we had. Our presence here was living proof of it.
She arched her back and groaned, opening her legs for me. She made me so unbelievably happy. As I positioned myself between her thighs and bent down to suckle on her nipples, one thought crossed my mind.
I woul
d say we have come full circle now, babe.
I hope you enjoyed Selfie.
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Also By Leslie Johnson
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About Leslie
Leslie is a California native but recently moved to Arizona after a stint in Arkansas. She enjoys travel and being with her grandchildren.
She is an avid reader of many genres, but prefers romances with travel or thriller themes. She loves writing about strong women and strong men because the world needs both!
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