The Bitterroot Inn

by Devney Perry

  My palms took his face. My fingertips combed through his short beard. My hands traveled up his cheeks into his hair. With one tender pull, I took out the elastic tie and smiled as his wavy locks fell to just past his shoulders. Threading my fingers close to his scalp, I combed his soft tresses, tugging hard enough for his eyes to flare.

  I only got that one pass through his hair before Hunter stood, planting his shoulder in my belly and picking me up in a fireman’s hold.

  “Hunter!” I giggled as he carried me across the hall to my bedroom. With one toss, I was on my back in the center of my strewn sheets. I pushed up on my elbows as Hunter stripped off his jeans, then the white boxer briefs beneath.

  Entering the bed on his knees, he planted a hand on my sternum and pushed me back. His hands came right to my shorts, roughly dragging them down my legs and tossing them to the floor. Tracing the skin on my calves, he trailed his gentle hands up to my inner thighs.

  He was torturing me. Rubbing up and down, back and forth on the inside of my legs but never getting close to my throbbing core. By the fifth pass, I started writhing on the bed.

  “Hunter. More.”

  His hands froze, his eyes locked on mine as he roughly grabbed my knees and thrust them apart. I nearly came undone. He spread me wide, making room for his hips, and slowly came down on top.

  “Eyes on me, baby.”

  I nodded as my breath came in labored gulps.

  “Watch us together.” His hips pressed into mine and he ground his erection right into my clit, making my hips buck.

  “Condom?” he asked.

  My heart sank as the air rushed from my lungs. I didn’t have condoms.

  Wait. Yes, I did!

  I’d found an unopened box of condoms in a guest room last year and I’d stashed them in my nightstand. I’d kept them, wishfully thinking that one of my blind dates would pan out and I’d need them.

  Thank god. If that guest ever came back, he’d get his room at a discount.

  “There’s a box in my drawer,” I breathed, grinning at Hunter’s handsome face.

  He grinned back before leaning over and rifling through the nightstand, ripping open the box. Using his teeth, he tore open the foil packet and rolled on the condom before coming back down on top of me.

  Hunter’s grin got bigger as he reached between us. With his thick cock fisted in his hand, he worked it up and down my slit. A shudder rolled down my spine with every stroke. My eyelids were heavy but I fought to keep them open so I could watch us together, like he’d instructed.

  “I’m going to fuck you now, baby. I’m going to fuck you and you’re going to say my name when you come.” Hunter’s dirty words made my pussy clench again. “Ready?”

  I nodded and tensed, waiting for him to push inside. I never enjoyed this part—a man’s first thrust. It would always get better but not until the painful stretch at the beginning had burned away.

  Our eyes were locked and his hand was still working his cock between us, but he wasn’t coming inside. What was taking him so long? I lifted my hips, hoping it would move him along, but he pulled back his hips from mine.

  “Take a breath, Maisy.”

  I did, in and out with a quick puff.

  His eyes narrowed. “Take a deep breath this time.”

  I obeyed again, filling my lungs so completely my chest rose and brushed against his.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked as I exhaled. “Do you want to stop?”

  I shook my head. “No. It just, um, hurts at the beginning.”

  His eyes softened as his lips dropped to mine. “Not this time.”

  Then he kissed me, slow and wet. His tongue worked so smoothly against mine, I closed my eyes and just let him take over. So lost in his kiss, I didn’t have the chance to tense or brace before his cock slid slowly inside, filling me completely. The stretch was still there but it didn’t hurt. It was . . . incredible.

  “Fuck, you feel good,” Hunter groaned, breaking apart from my lips to hover above me.

  I hummed my agreement and kept my eyes locked with his as he moved. He pulled out his cock, leaving just the tip inside, then pushed back in with a measured stroke. He did it three more times before he did exactly what he’d promised. He fucked me until every one of my muscles was trembling and his name was the only thing on my mind.

  My orgasm built fast and right before I came, Hunter’s thrusts got harder. “I’m—” I couldn’t finish my sentence, the buildup was too powerful.

  “My name. You say my name, baby.”

  He didn’t even need to ask. When my climax broke, I cried out his name as my neck arched into the pillow. Fisting the bedsheet, I rode out my pulsing orgasm as it hit me with wave after wave of heat.

  “You are so fucking beautiful,” he grit out as his strokes got even faster.

  After the longest and most intense orgasm of my life, I opened my eyes and found Hunter’s, wanting to see what he looked like when he came. When his legs started shaking and the cords in his neck bunched tight, I refused to blink. My hands slid up his arms braced at my sides, dipping into the contours as they traveled, and then into his hair. I pinned it back with a tight fist so it wouldn’t get in the way of my view.

  And what a view.

  When I tugged his hair, Hunter’s jaw clamped shut and he came with a rich moan from deep within his chest. It was magnificent. Planting himself deep, Hunter collapsed onto my chest. Then he slid his hands under my back and held me tight. My hands untangled from his hair and traced patterns on his back.

  Heavens above. Did that just happen? I stared up at my ceiling, replaying everything until it all sank in. Hunter and I had just had totally freaking awesome sex.

  How had I gotten so lucky that this man had walked into my motel?

  I didn’t have an answer but I was grateful regardless.

  With Hunter’s hair free from my grasp, it draped around our faces as we relaxed. The smell was so clean and familiar that I took a few deep breaths trying to place it. It wasn’t the complimentary shampoo and conditioner I left in the rooms. I knew from cleaning that he’d been using those when he was in room eight. No, this was different. It was a smell I remembered from my high-school days.

  “Herbal Essences?”

  Hunter chuckled and lifted up. “I give you an incredible orgasm and the first thing you ask is my brand of shampoo?”

  I smiled. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  He answered with a wink.

  Then he kissed me softly and sweetly with light brushes of his lips. Sliding out, he stood to his full naked glory and held out a hand to help me off the bed.

  “Come on.” Pulling me behind him with our fingers threaded, we went to my bathroom to shower off the sex and paint. When we were clean, we came back to my bedroom for clothes.

  “Do you need to paint or do you want to try and get some sleep?” Hunter asked, pulling on his briefs.

  Sleep. Except I couldn’t leave Coby’s room like it was. “I need to paint.”

  Standing at my closet with my back to him, I stepped into clean panties and tugged on an old tank top. Then, nervous to face him, I spoke to my hanging clothes. “Don’t, um, feel like you have to stay. It’s late and I’m sure you’re tired. I can handle painting on my own and I’m sure you want to sleep in your own bed.”

  I held my breath, waiting for his response. I desperately wanted him to stay, to prove that he wasn’t like the photographer that had screwed me, then run away, but if Hunter wanted to leave, I wouldn’t be upset. It was late, after all.

  I will not be upset.

  His footsteps came my way and then he wrapped me in his arms. “I know we just started but I’m all in, Maisy. I’m serious about you. And serious means I’m helping you paint your son’s ceiling. It means, when we’re done, we’re going to sleep together in your bed. And serious also means that, at some point, I want you to feel comfortable introducing me to Coby as the man that sleeps in your bed every night.”

  Lucky
. I was a lucky girl.

  “I’m all in too.”

  “Good.” He hugged me tighter and pressed his lips to my neck.

  Then he let me go and we painted Coby’s ceiling in our underwear.

  “Stop!” I shouted, struggling to get free from Hunter’s grip.

  I was thirty seconds away from peeing my pants.

  He was sitting on top of my hips and his hands had my wrists pinned above my head while Coby was relentlessly tickling my ribs.

  “Get her, Coby!” Hunter yelled over my laughing cries.

  My son’s fingers dug in harder, then traveled up to my armpits.

  “No!” I squealed and twisted, trying to escape, but my struggle was pointless. Hunter was too big and I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe. Tears were running down my temples and into my hair. The corners of my jaw were aching and every muscle in my core was flexed tight.

  “Okay! Okay. Stop! Oh my god, stop.” My bladder was about to give way.

  Coby took pity on me and stopped his tickling but Hunter didn’t let me up. “Who gets to eat the last two cookies?”

  “You do,” I panted. “You guys get the last two cookies. I give up.”

  Hunter was off me in a flash, standing up and raising his arms triumphantly in the air. “We won!” Then he bent down to give Coby a high five. “Good job, bud.”

  Coby smacked his hand into Hunter’s, then started singing, “Mommy is the loser. Mommy is the loser,” and danced around me still lying on the floor.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered, wiping my eyes dry. “You guys won. Again.”

  It had been two weeks since Hunter and I had started sleeping together, and in that time, he and Coby had bonded even closer. Their new favorite thing was to gang up on me. Everything was a vote these days. Games. Movies. Even the dinner menu. I’d become a perpetual loser, outvoted two to one every single time. Whenever I’d try and put up a fight, I would get tickle-tortured until I’d cave.

  “This is so not fair,” I told Hunter, faking a pout.

  He shrugged and smiled down at me still on the floor. “Boys rule, girls drool.”

  “Oh my god.” I rolled my eyes as Coby started singing that instead.

  I smiled, not really minding that I was constantly outvoted if it brought Hunter and Coby closer together. Besides, I was having fun too. I’d laughed to tears more times in two weeks than I had in all my twenty-nine years combined.

  With his victory smirk in place, Hunter stretched out a hand to help me off the living room floor.

  “Thanks.” I smoothed out my hair, getting rid of the static from the carpet, and then straightened my chambray shirt. When Hunter wasn’t looking, I quickly tugged my panties and khaki shorts out of my butt crack.

  “Okay,” I said. “That was fun and all but I’ve got to get going. Coby, you’re going to be a good boy for Hunter, right?”

  “Yep!”

  “He always is.” Hunter ruffled Coby’s hair. “We’ll be fine.”

  “You’re sure you don’t mind bringing him to the rodeo? I can always bring him with me now. He can just hang out in Mom’s booth and—”

  Hunter swooped down and cut me off, brushing his lips against mine for a chaste kiss. “Go. We’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

  I sighed. “All right.”

  Dashing to my room, I slipped on my light-blue tennis shoes and donned some silver hoop earrings. After clasping on my favorite necklace, a simple silver chain with Coby’s initials etched into a silver disk, I walked back toward the living room.

  I stopped in the hallway at the sight on the couch.

  Hunter was in the middle of the sectional, the TV remote in one hand as he scrolled through cartoon channels. His other arm was wrapped around Coby, keeping him tucked right into his side. My son was smiling and bouncing his bare feet as they rested on Hunter’s jean-covered thigh.

  Where is my phone? That was a picture worth saving.

  I smiled and pushed onward, rounding the couch to sit down next to Coby. “Hey, buddy.” I patted Coby’s leg so he’d take his eyes off the TV as Hunter hit mute. “We need to have a quick talk before I go. Do you remember a couple weeks ago when I told you Hunter was going to be my boyfriend?”

  Coby nodded. “’Cause he gives you hugs and kisses and Eskimos.”

  “That’s right.” I bent forward to rub our noses together. “I was thinking that it might be fun for Hunter to start having special sleepovers. That way he could eat breakfast with us. What do you think?”

  My eyes darted up to Hunter’s surprised face as Coby started shouting.

  “Yay! He can sleep in my room!” Coby bounced into Hunter’s lap. “You can sleep wif me!”

  “Your bed is kind of small, bud,” Hunter said. “Maybe your mom would let me sleep in hers? It’s a lot bigger.”

  Coby stared at him for a second, considering his suggestion, and then looked back to me. “Can he stay in your bed, Mommy?”

  “My bed? Hmm. I guess that would be okay. Good idea.” I tickled Coby’s side, causing him to fall into Hunter’s chest as he laughed.

  “Are you sure?” Hunter mouthed over his head.

  I nodded. “I’m sure.”

  We’d spent almost every night together these past two weeks but I was sick of shuffling him out the door at dawn. He’d been patient, understanding I wasn’t ready to introduce sleepovers to Coby yet, but the time had come.

  We’d have a sleepover tonight after we made our relationship public.

  Hunter and I had been enjoying the intimacy and privacy of our new relationship. We’d been getting to know one another in the comfort of my home, avoiding the café and other restaurants in favor of home-cooked meals at my small table. Rather than seek entertainment downtown, we had been content to spend evenings inside, playing games with Coby and watching kids’ shows. And after Coby was fast asleep, Hunter and I would spend our nighttime hours making each other come until we’d both pass out, utterly exhausted.

  No one knew I was seeing Hunter except Mom—who I’d begged to keep quiet—and these past two weeks, she’d proven that miracles do happen. Marissa Holt had kept a tight-lipped secret for the first time ever. As far as I knew, the only other family member who knew about Hunter was Dad.

  The secrecy had worked for us, but now it was time to move forward.

  Hunter and I were making our first “official” public outing as a couple at the annual June county rodeo.

  I was nervous. Really nervous.

  Knowing we’d get to come back for a sleepover would give me something to look forward to if the evening went to crap.

  “Should we have pancakes in the morning?” I asked Coby.

  “With chocolate chips?”

  “Duh. And Mickey Mouse ears.” He smiled and I leaned in to kiss his cheek. Then I stood from the couch and glanced at the wall clock by the dining room table. “I’ve still got a few minutes before I need to leave. I’m going to take Pickle out for a potty break.”

  “We can do it,” Hunter said.

  “It’s fine. It won’t take me more than a few minutes. You guys can go back to your cartoons.”

  He smiled at me before settling Coby back into his side and unmuting the TV.

  I scooped up Pickle from his spot in the kitchen where he was gnawing on a rawhide bone. “Come on, puppy.”

  Taking him downstairs, I plopped him in the grass without his leash. His training with Dad was going so well he was now obeying “sit,” “stay” and “come,” so I didn’t have to keep him leashed at all times to avoid him running away.

  I followed him slowly as he let his nose lead him to the perfect pee spot. When he selected the place, he lifted his leg and did his business, then trotted up ahead to mark more grass. “Come, Pickle,” I called when he was done. He bounded over and I scooped him up again to go back inside.

  “Hello!” a woman’s voice called out right as I started up my stairs.

  I turned and saw one of my guests and her husba
nd walking down the sidewalk, ready to cross the highway and head for Main Street.

  “Hi!” I waved. “How are you? How is everything with your room?”

  “We’re great and the room is just so lovely. We’re heading downtown to do some exploring.”

  “Sweet! Enjoy the sunny afternoon. If you’re up for some fun later, you should check out the county rodeo. It’s out at the fairgrounds.” I pointed down the highway in the opposite direction from town and rattled off directions.

  They both nodded eagerly, excited to check out something “Western” and then continued toward Main Street.

  And I went back upstairs with a smile.

  This time of year was hectic. Reservations were packed as closely together as I could fit them, and on any given day I had at least seven rooms to turn over. But the interactions with my happy guests made it all worth it. I loved being a part of family vacations, part of bucket-list trips. I loved helping people get acquainted with my hometown.

  Settling Pickle back down with his bone, I collected my things from the kitchen. With my purse slung over my shoulder and an enormous box of triple-chocolate-chip brownies in hand, I came back to the living room. “All right. I’d better get going.”

  Hunter tipped his head backward. “Bye, baby. I’ll text you when we get there.”

  “Okay.” I brushed my lips to his. “My car keys are on the counter.”

  “Got it.”

  “Bye, buddy. Be good.” I touched Coby’s hair and got an absentminded, “Bye, Mommy.”

  I walked to the door and swiped Hunter’s truck keys from the dining room table. The moment my hand touched the metal cluster, his phone, also in the jumble, lit up with a text notification. A text my eyes read without permission.

  Nell: What happens next is your fault.

  I blinked, unsure what I was reading. Then the screen went black.

  Nell? Who was Nell? And why was she threatening Hunter?

  I turned around to the couch to ask, but I closed my mouth before the words came out. I’d just invaded Hunter’s privacy by looking at his phone, and as much as I wanted to know about Nell, I couldn’t bring myself to ask.