by Noelle Adams
“Well, get it,” Melissa says.
I take a deep breath and connect the call. “Hey, Hunter.”
“Hi.”
I wait, literally holding my breath.
He hesitates several seconds before he says gruffly, “If we’re gonna do this, there’re gonna be rules.”
Something in my chest jumps in excitement. It might be my heart, but it feels a lot bigger than that. “I’m fine with rules.”
I see Melissa and Chelsea exchange a look, but I’m too distracted to read it.
“This can’t be charity,” Hunter says. “I’m not okay with you feelin’ sorry for me.”
“I don’t feel sorry for you! I want to help, and I’m getting something out of it too.”
“So you have to do it.”
“Do what?”
“Get something out of it. You have to do all the things you want to do, even if you’re scared. It can’t be like the motorcycle.”
This isn’t the conversation I was expecting. “O-kay.”
“You have to let me help you.”
“I will.”
“That means you have to do what I say.”
“What?”
“You have to do what I say. If there’s something you wanna do, you have to listen to me when I’m helping you do it. You can’t wuss out like you did this afternoon.”
“I’m not going to wuss out.” I’m saying this mostly out of principle. Hunter knows me really well, and wussing out is usually my fallback.
“Uh huh.”
“I’m not going to wuss out.”
“So if you’re going to give me a place to live and a job, I’m going to make sure you experience all the stuff you want. We’ve got a year. We can do a lot. But you have to do what I say.”
I swallow hard, my cheeks hotly flushed. He’s not necessarily talking about sex, but that’s exactly where my mind goes.
Immediately.
Sex.
Hot sex.
Sex with Hunter.
Shit, I’m having a hot flash.
“Okay?” Hunter prompts.
“Okay.”
“Okay.” He clears his throat. “Then let’s do it. Let’s get married. Just for a year.”
“Just for a year.”
“It’s a deal then.”
“It’s a deal.” I take a shaky breath. “But just so you know, I’m not going to do what you say in everything. Just in... the living-life stuff.”
He makes a throaty sound, and because I can’t see his face, it takes me a few seconds to realize he’s laughing. “Got it. Just in the living-life stuff.”
“And you can’t be too bossy.”
There’s a pause that’s full of something nameless. Then he finally drawls, “I never agreed to that.”
HUNTER STARTS TO MOVE in the next day.
I love my apartment. It’s a third-floor walk-up in a renovated building that used to be a bank a hundred years ago, and the place is full of history and character. It’s got big windows, wide-plank oak floors, and two bedrooms (one big and one small).
I’m a bit worried that the second bedroom is too small for Hunter, but he looks neither surprised nor disappointed when he comes over to check it out.
“Looks great,” he says, scanning the bare floors, twin bed, and matching nightstand and dresser. I’ve set it up as guest bedroom and will leave it as it is until I see what Hunter wants to do.
“I can move out the furniture and stuff.” I come into the room to stand beside him. “I just didn’t know if you’d want to use it or not.”
“I’ll use it if you don’t mind. I’ve got some clothes. Not much else.”
“Okay. Good. That makes it easy. I hope it’s not too girly in here.” The room has a blue-and-white quilt on the bed and beach prints on the walls. I think it’s pretty and pleasant, but it’s not over-the-top in any way.
It doesn’t feel like Hunter though.
“I don’t give a shit what it looks like. I’m just glad not to sleep on a couch.” He pauses before he adds, “Thanks for doing this.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And thanks for the job.”
Last night, after my phone call with Hunter, Melissa got on the phone to start arranging a position for Hunter.
She did it without question, without a background check, without an interrogation about his qualifications and fitness to work.
There’s a reason I love Melissa so much, and it’s not just because she’s my sister.
She did ask if he had any of his projects available from his finance major in college, and he had an online portfolio and a business plan that was the final assignment in one of his courses. He sent them to me, and I sent them to her, and after looking at them, she decided he could easily handle a desk job.
By this morning, she’d worked something out for Hunter, only getting Pop to agree to it when I announced he was my fiancé. It’s an entry-level position in the finance department of Pop’s, the kind a twenty-one-year-old college graduate might take. He won’t have any transactional power, but I don’t think anyone in an entry-level job would be able to move much money around—so I don’t think they’ll be treating him differently than anyone else.
He starts on Monday.
“You’re welcome about the job,” I say. “But you don’t have to thank me again. I’m getting something out of this too, you know.”
“I know.” There’s a different kind of texture in his voice now, and I can’t recognize it.
Not until he turns to face me. His blue eyes heat up as he gazes down on me, and it makes my whole body clench.
He reaches out to touch my cheek very gently with his fingertips.
“What are you doing?” My voice squeaks, and it’s embarrassing, but there’s no way I can speak normally.
Not when Hunter is looking at me that way.
Not when he’s touching my face.
Not when every cell in my body is pulsing, yearning, reaching toward him.
“You said you wanted really hot sex.”
I gulp. “Wh-what?”
He frowns behind his beard. “You said you wanted hot sex. You admitted I was right about that. I’m gonna help you with that.”
Hot sex.
He’s offering hot sex
Hunter Ness.
It’s like a scene from one of my fantasies, and I’m not entirely convinced it’s happening in real life and not in my imagination.
“Right now?” I manage to say.
“Why not?”
“Because... because...” I can’t think of a good reason except the idea of it is making my head spin like it might just fly off my head.
He takes a step even closer so his body is brushing just slightly against mine. “I told you I was gonna step up with my side of the deal.”
And that’s like a kick in the gut.
It shouldn’t be. His voice and face are just as sexy and compelling as ever, but it reminds me of something.
Why he’s doing this.
And it’s not because he wants me.
He’s fulfilling his end of the bargain. He gets a job and a place to live, and I get... hot sex. Among other things.
It takes a lot of the thrill out of his closeness and the smolder in his eyes.
I hide my response, but I do take a step backward and clear my throat.
His frown deepens. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing. Really. It’s just that...”
“You don’t wanna have sex with me?”
That’s so far from the truth it’s almost laughable, but I don’t really feel like laughing. “No. That’s not it. It’s just that—”
“You’re wussing out.”
“I’m not wussing out. I’m not. It’s just too soon, I think.”
“Why?”
I inhale slowly and then blow the breath out. “I don’t know. It just feels... unnatural right now. I’m not saying I don’t want to have sex. Because I kind of do.” It’s a lo
t more than kind of, but all my life I’ve minimized my own desires so no one ever thinks I’m needy. “But I’d rather wait awhile, until it feels more natural.”
He’s watching me closely, and I can’t tell if he’s confused or surprised or disappointed or relieved. “Okay.”
I feel like I need to say more, so I add, “I just don’t want it to feel like I’m paying for services.”
His face relaxes slightly. “It wouldn’t be that.”
“I know. I just don’t want it to feel that way.”
“Got it. We’ll wait.” His eyes heat up again for just a moment. “But I’m ready to go anytime.”
I almost laugh at this and remind myself he’s been in prison for two years. Of course he’s ready for sex.
It doesn’t have anything to do with me.
There was this one afternoon back in high school that’s oddly symbolic of our entire relationship. We were working on a literary analysis for his English class, and he was getting frustrated at having trouble understanding the poem. So frustrated he was angry about it.
Getting tired of his muttering, I finally demanded why it mattered so much to him. Most guys like him didn’t care that much about their grades in school. I didn’t know him well yet, and I didn’t understand why he was taking his grades so seriously instead of just sliding by.
“I need As,” he mumbled, not meeting my eyes.
“Why?”
He didn’t answer.
“Why, Hunter?”
“I’ve got to show Dad I can do it.”
There was a world of backstory underlying the vague comment, and I sensed the depth of it even as an inexperienced girl. I might not know all the reasons, but I knew Hunter was desperate to prove something to his father, and he wasn’t sure he could ever do it.
I know all about trying to live up to expectations. My teenaged heart was touched, and I reached out to put a hand on his forearm. “You can do it, Hunter. I’ll help you.”
He raised his eyes to meet mine and gave me the sweetest little self-deprecating smile.
I was so fluttery I couldn’t speak, and my excitement intensified when Hunter asked in an intentionally casual voice, “You goin’ to the Spring Formal?”
The Spring Formal. The school dance. He was asking if I was going to it! The world buzzed and blurred before my eyes.
But I was me back then the way I’m me still today. And one thing I never do is look too eager about anything except books. So instead of saying how much I wanted to go but that no one had asked me yet, I said, “I don’t know. Probably not.”
His mouth quirked up. “I guess you’re too smart for that kind of thing.”
“I’m not too smart.” I waited. Breathless. Hands clasped together beneath the desk.
But Hunter didn’t ask me to go with him. He just gave a strange little huff of amusement and said, “Yeah, you are.”
Then he started working on his paper again.
In our entire history together, that was the only moment where I had real hope that Hunter might be interested in me—those few seconds, waiting to see if he was going to ask me to the dance. It barely lasted a minute, but I was crushed when it came to nothing. Embarrassed by myself, by my stupidity in thinking Hunter Ness would go to the dance with someone like me.
He did like me well enough. Back then and still today.
But he will never like me like that.
ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON, Hunter and I get married. It happens like this.
I have a three-hour seminar class on Friday mornings, and it ends at 11:45. Hunter is waiting outside my class building when I’m done.
We take my car, since Hunter doesn’t have one, and we drive over to the courthouse. Melissa and Chelsea are waiting for us there.
Pop is pouting about my choice of a husband, so I’m surprised to discover that he’s present with the others.
Then I realize he’s not there to attend my wedding ceremony. He wants to talk to me before I go through with it.
I’m tempted to say no, but that would be petty, so I walk with Pop down the steps of the building to the sidewalk.
“What did you want to say, Pop?”
He smooths down his mustache. “What are you thinking, girl?”
“I’m thinking I’m getting married.”
“Why him?”
“Because I want to marry him.”
“It’s out of the blue.” His voice isn’t angry. It’s confused. He really can’t understand why I’m doing what I’m doing. I’ve always been his good girl.
“It’s not really. I just didn’t tell you before because you wouldn’t approve. But you told me you wanted me to get married, so I figured it was time. It’s like it was with Melissa and Trevor.”
Pop grows very still, only his mustache quivering slightly. “Like them?”
“Yes. Like them.”
He’s silent a long time, and I can see he’s trying to put pieces together. Trying to come up with answers.
I’m suddenly terrified he’s going to be so angry he’ll just cut me off.
Then the marriage to Hunter would be futile, since it wouldn’t provide him with what he needed.
We’d have to call it off.
“You are going to... help us out, right? I mean, with the rent. And the job?”
There’s something else in his expression now. Something almost bleak. “Yes. I’ll help you out. Getting married is a good thing. But you could have chosen a better man. I’m disappointed in you, girl. I thought better of you.”
He walks away then. He’s obviously not going to stay for a ceremony he doesn’t approve of.
I should be relieved because it means his financial support of me and Hunter is assured.
But I feel kind of sick.
I don’t like disappointing people.
And I’ve never disappointed Pop before.
I thought it’s what I wanted. And part of me still wants it.
But it still makes my stomach queasy.
I’m staring in the direction Pop left when I hear a voice behind me.
“You still wanna go through with this?”
I whirl around to see that Hunter is standing on the bottom step, watching me closely.
I nod. “Yes.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. I knew Pop wasn’t going to like it. It doesn’t matter. This is what I want to do.”
“All right.” A tension has relaxed in his shoulders, and he reaches out to take one of my hands. “Then let’s go inside and do this.”
My sisters are in a good mood when we rejoin them, and I’m nervous and on edge but trying to act casual. Hunter is quiet around the others, but in a calm way, like what’s about to happen isn’t a big deal.
He’s wearing a pair of khakis and a black shirt, and I’m wearing black pants and a casual top.
I have the rings—two simple gold bands. No use to invest much money on rings that will only be worn for a year.
We linger in the waiting area until our names are called. Then we all go back.
The ceremony takes less than ten minutes.
I come out wearing a wedding ring.
Hunter Ness is now my husband.
FOR DINNER THAT EVENING, we make salad and pasta—with sauce out of a bottle since I’ve never really learned to cook and Hunter doesn’t care. Then we watch a movie. I have a pretty good evening, but I’m tired from trying to act calm and casual for so long, so I finally call it a night.
I tell Hunter good night before I head into my bedroom. I usually just change into my pajamas, wash my face, and brush my teeth, but I feel kind of hot and icky right now, so I take a quick shower before I put on soft knit pajama pants and an oversize T-shirt, which is what I always sleep in.
When I go to get a bottle of water, the door to the bathroom door is closed and I hear the shower spray. Hunter must be taking a shower too.
I try not to picture him naked in the shower as I crawl into bed.
I leave the l
amp on beside the bed and open a book assigned in one of my classes.
Nothing like reading philosophy to put you to sleep.
I’ve only gotten a page into the chapter I need to read for Monday when there’s a knock on my bedroom door.
I’m surprised and lift my head from the pillow. “Yes?”
Hunter opens the door. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs, and my eyes nearly pop out of my head.
“What are you doing?” I ask as he walks into the room and around my queen-size bed to the other side.
“I’m going to bed.” He’s frowning as if I asked a stupid question.
“You have your own bed!” I’m sitting up straight now, wondering if he’s teasing.
But his face is sober, and he’s lifting the covers to get under them.
He’s getting into the bed with me.
He’s getting into my bed!
“I know. And I appreciate it. But I’m sleeping in here.”
“What? What? Why?” I’m known by all my friends and acquaintances as intelligent and articulate, always in control of myself, but I don’t sound like it at the moment.
But how the hell is a girl supposed to be lucid when a big, hard, hot man is climbing into bed beside her?
“Because you wanted to know what it’s like to have a husband,” he says as blandly as can be. He’s stretching out under the sheets, and his head is turned in my direction. “And you’re not going to get that if all we are is roommates.”
“But... but I said...”
“I’m not here for sex. I know you wanna wait on that. But we’re married. We’re not roommates. I’m sleeping in here.”
“Bu—” That’s what I say. I can’t even get the whole three-letter word out.
He nods as if we’ve reached an agreement, and there’s the slightest little smirk on his lips. “Will it bother you if I turn the TV on?”
“You’re serious?”
“Yes. I am. We’re married, and I’m gonna sleep in the same bed as my wife.”
I swallow hard. “Okay. Fine. You can turn the TV on. Noise doesn’t bother me when I read.”
I hand him the remote, and he flips around between news and sports. I lift my philosophy book up again and stare at the pages.
I can’t read a single word though.
Hunter is in my bed.
