by Vi Keeland
Hunter nodded, and I could see from his profile he was disappointed. “There’s just one thing I don’t understand.”
“What’s that?”
“Why go out with Marcus then?”
“You won’t judge me if I’m honest?”
“Never.”
“Because he’s a really nice guy, and although I don’t want to be attached to anyone, I also don’t want to be celibate. I’m not worried about getting lost in him. Does that make sense?”
We arrived at the school for Izzy’s game. Hunter put the car in park and turned to face me. “It makes a lot of sense. All of it. Although, I live three-thousand miles away, and I’m definitely not looking for a relationship either. Just like you have your baggage, I have mine. I’m only in town for two months. We could agree to be not-celibate together—just sex and fun, with an expiration date. It would keep you from fucking some guy you’re not attracted to, and we could get lost in each other in the bedroom only.” He held my gaze. “Think about it. Sex, not love.”
Chapter 14
Hunter
12 years ago
I had no real interest in the party. Not even in the cute little redhead who used her elbows to squeeze her enormous rack together every time she batted her eyelashes at me while we spoke. But Jayce asked me to stick around, at least until the girl he wanted me to meet showed.
My big brother wasn’t a love ’em and leave ’em type of guy. I could count on one hand the number of girlfriends he’d had, even though attracting them was never an issue. Jayce was just the serious type. A lot of that came from the weight he’d carried on his shoulders the last few years before Mom died. He’d refused to live on campus, even though he’d snagged a full ride, including room and board. After she passed, he still wanted to stay home to make sure I had a place to come back to for holiday breaks from school. Our uncle pretty much had to force him to live on campus and try to enjoy himself.
“You want another beer?” Jayce yelled to me from the other side of the kitchen. People were playing beer pong between where the two of us stood.
I shook my can from side to side. Since I’d been nursing it, I still had half left. “I’m good. Thanks.”
He grinned. “Lightweight.”
Jayce made his way back over and leaned against the kitchen sink next to me. He followed the plastic ball bouncing in front of him as he spoke. “Have you talked to Derek lately?”
“Yeah. He’s building a robot or some shit that they do over there in genius land. I’m hoping it’s an anatomically correct female robot he can hump because he never seems to do anything other than study.”
My brother tilted his beer at me. “It’ll all pay off one day. Derek’s gonna be loaded, with a hot wife who thinks his geek ass walks on water. You’ll see.”
I laughed. “We’ll see.”
“How are your classes going?”
Always the big brother. “Good. You?”
“Easy. Nothing left but electives, so I’m spending most of my time tutoring underclassmen for cash.”
Jayce had met the girl he liked through his tutoring job.
“Cash? Are you still charging Pearl, too? You should be taking a different kind of payment by now,” I joked and chugged the rest of my beer. “By the way, who named a girl Pearl twenty years ago? Every time you say her name, I picture you dogging some blue-haired old lady like Mrs. Whitton who lived across the street.”
My brother shook his head and chuckled. “You’re a sick fuck. Mrs. Whitton was eighty-five with a cane. But Pearl is actually her middle name. Probably was her grandmother’s or something. It’s just what everyone calls her.”
One of my brother’s roommates yelled from the yard. “Delucia, come out here. We need someone smart to settle something.”
Jayce tapped his beer can to mine. “Ain’t hard to be the smart one in this crowd. I’ll be back.”
After beer sloshed on my shoes twice from players bumping into the beer pong table, I decided to get some fresh air. Since the backyard was packed, I went out the front, figuring I’d check my phone to see if Summer had left her party yet. Walking out onto the porch, I stopped digging for my phone when I saw two girls strolling across the lawn.
Summer.
She was walking with another girl, deep in conversation, when she looked up and our gazes caught. Her eyes flared wide before she took off running for the porch. The girl she’d been talking to looked confused as to why she’d been suddenly left hanging mid-chat.
Summer darted up the stairs and jumped into my arms. Thinking back, that might have been the moment I fell in love with her. My heart was so full from her reaction, not to mention my hands were full of a pretty spectacular ass. We hadn’t kissed that first day—just sat in the fountain and talked for hours. Then we’d spent the last six weeks getting close on a level I’d never explored with a girl before sleeping with her. Hell, who was I kidding? I’d never bothered after sleeping with them either. After a big hug with long legs wrapped around me, I pulled my head back to take a good look at my girl. I wasn’t even sure when I’d started to consider her my girl, but she was all the same. Plump, smiling lips invited me to taste them. Wrapping both hands around her soft cheeks, I sealed my lips over hers. The party in the background faded as she kissed me back, pushing her full tits up against my chest.
I had no idea how long it lasted, but eventually the sound of someone clearing her throat knocked us back to reality. We smiled like goofballs at each other when the kiss broke. I swiped my thumb over her bottom lip to fix her smeared lip gloss.
“Umm….do you two know each other or is this one of your stupid dares?”
Summer smiled. “Hunter here picked truth the first time I asked him. And actually, he has every time since.”
Her friend shook her head. “You and your tests. I’ll let you two go back to what you were doing. I’ll find us something other than cheap, gross beer to drink.”
“Okay. Thanks. We’ll meet you inside in a few.”
When her friend disappeared, I asked what she’d meant by you and your tests.
“When I was in eighth grade, a bunch of boys asked me to play truth or dare. Turned out that was their little trick to get girls to do stuff. Eventually one of us would pick dare because we wanted to sound cool, and then they’d dare us to kiss them. So I started using the game to weed out the boys who were only interested in one thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I think a guy is cute and has potential, I ask him to pick truth or dare. If he goes immediately for dare, it’s because he wants me to reciprocate and pick dare, and then he’ll dare me to do something with him or to him—shows he’s more interested in fooling around than us getting to know each other.”
Her logic was untraditional, but I suppose she sort of had a point. And shit, was I glad I’d picked truth that first day. “Do most guys pick dare?”
“Almost all of them. Well, not Gavin from my art conservation class. He picked truth. But I realized he didn’t really count a few days later when I met his boyfriend.” She tilted her head and smirked at me. “You’re not gay, are you?”
Her ass was still in my hands with her legs wrapped around my waist. I responded by grinding my hips into her so she could feel my erection. “What do you think?”
Summer giggled. The sound was damn awesome.
“What are you doing here anyway?” I asked. “I thought we were meeting up after you went to your party?”
“I was just going to ask you the same thing. Did you already hit your party?”
My brows drew down. I thumbed toward the house. “This is the party I was going to. This is the party you were going to, also?”
She smiled. “Yep. That’s so funny. You said you were going to a frat party, and I said I was going to an off-campus party. It didn’t dawn on me that we were both talking about an off-campus frat party.”
My eyes fell to her lips. “I want to get out of here. Take you…I don’t know…any
where but here. But my brother wants me to meet someone.”
“I have to meet someone, too. Maybe we can sneak out right after.”
“Definitely.”
As much as I hated to, I lowered Summer to the ground. The house was too mobbed with drunk people to maneuver while carrying her. I took her hand. “Come on. Let me introduce you to Jayce. Maybe his girl is here by now.”
“That’s funny. The guy I’m meeting is named Jayce, too.”
Sometimes you just know. Like the first time Mom fell down. I helped her up and asked if she was okay. But something inside of me was certain she hadn’t just tripped, even though that’s what she’d said.
I knew the answer before I asked Summer.
“Any chance your middle name is Pearl?”
She wrinkled her little nose. “How did you know that?”
Chapter 15
Natalia
I could barely concentrate on the game. Sex, not love. Those were the exact same words that Anna had said to me about having a relationship with Hunter. The two of them made it sound so simple. Maybe it was. Maybe I was making it out to be more difficult than it needed to be. After all, it’s what I’d have with Marcus if I slept with him. Although, I wasn’t quite sure that was the way Marcus would see it. Not that I was so full of myself to think Marcus had fallen in love with me already, but my gut told me he was looking for a relationship. Of course, some men took you out to dinner a few times and pretended that’s what they wanted just to get in your pants. I could be wrong, but Marcus’s intentions seemed genuine.
The part of me that wanted to sleep with Hunter justified its cause. Sleeping with Marcus would be wrong—you’d be misleading him. The honest thing to do would be to break things off and have a purely sexual relationship with a man who has the same intentions. Yet the part of me that didn’t want to sleep with Hunter—my brain—knew this man could break my heart. I was attracted to him, sure. Who wouldn’t be? But it was more than just physical. I actually liked him. He was funny, smart, outdoorsy. Not to mention he’d bonded with Izzy—a guy has to be something special to combat teenage revulsion. Could I go in with my eyes wide open and keep feelings from growing?
“You want something?” I heard Hunter say.
I turned to him with confusion written all over my face. “Hmm?”
“You didn’t hear one word I said, did you?”
“I heard you.”
“Yeah? What did I ask?”
“You asked if I wanted something.”
“Before that.”
“Oh.”
He smirked and leaned in. “Thinking about what I said earlier in the car, aren’t you?”
“I am not.”
“Are too.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
“How old are you? Because you sound like you’re seven.”
Hunter stood. “What do you want to eat? Because if you let me decide, I’m buying you a hot dog to watch you eat it.”
“I’m not hungry.” It wasn’t until my eyes followed Hunter down the bleachers that I even noticed the game had stopped. It was half-time, and I’d dazed for most of the first part of the game.
Hunter returned with a brown box holding pretzels and two ridiculously large sodas. He handed one to me. “So, what did you decide?”
“I guess I’m having a pretzel since you bought it for me already.”
“I meant regarding my proposal you’ve been fantasizing about for the last half hour.”
“I wasn’t...” I thought better of protesting again, which would lead to another round of immature am not, are toos, and instead, I came clean. Rolling my eyes, I said, “I’ve been going over the pros and cons in my head.”
He set his pretzel down, dusted off his hands, and turned in his seat to give me his full attention. “Lay ’em on me.”
“What? No.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for starters, this isn’t the appropriate place for it.” I looked to my left and right. Although no one seemed to be paying attention, I’d certainly eavesdrop on this conversation if I heard it in the stands.
“Okay. Then where is?”
“Somewhere more private.”
“My place after the game today.”
“No.”
“Why not? Can’t trust yourself?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll have Izzy, and I told her we would go shopping later this afternoon after the game.”
“Tomorrow, then?”
“Date with Marcus.”
Hunter made a face.
“When I told you I was going over the pros and cons in my head, I didn’t mean I wanted your assistance. I was just being honest.”
“Fine. But if you’re going to go over the pros and cons without me, I want to plead my case first.”
My brows raised. “Plead your case?”
“Yep. You might be missing some critical factors that would sway your decision.”
“Oh yeah?” I laughed. “Like what?”
“Well, you should know I’m extremely good at it.”
“Every man thinks he’s good at it, Hunter.”
He ignored me. “And I’m well endowed.”
“Show me a man who pleads his case by saying ‘I have a tiny penis’.”
“I believe sex without going down on a woman first is bad manners.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out.
One of the women sitting two rows ahead of us turned and leaned up. “If she says no, I’ll give you my number.”
My face turned crimson, while Hunter, being Hunter, dazzled her with a smile and wink. “And I haven’t even gotten to my best selling points yet.”
Luckily, the ref blew the whistle calling the game back to start, and the persistent man sitting next to me redirected his focus. I, on the other hand, stared straight ahead, struggling to follow a bouncing ball. All I could think was God, I like a man with good manners.
***
“Could we go to the mall tomorrow before going to Sunday night dinner?” Izzy asked from the back of Hunter’s rental car. We were almost back to the city after getting stuck in construction traffic.
I turned. “I have plans tomorrow in the afternoon.”
“Oh. That’s right. The ugly guy.”
From the corner of my eye, I caught Hunter smirking.
“Marcus isn’t ugly. Besides, I thought you needed to go to the mall today for some new practice shorts.”
Izzy shrugged. “I can use the ones I have for a while longer.”
There was a reason if she was giving up a trip to the mall. “Okay. So if we skip the mall this afternoon, do you want to do something else?”
She looked away. “I kind of want to go to Beacon to watch the boys basketball game.”
“The boys basketball game?”
“For technique,” she responded, selling it way too hard. “It’s good to watch other players for form and technique, right, Hunter?”
Hunter’s eyes flashed to me. I squinted back, and somehow we had a two-second wordless conversation. “Watching is always good,” he said. “But you might want to watch pro ball so you don’t pick up bad habits from high school kids.”
I tried not to smirk. Of course I’d let her go to the game instead of shopping with me. She was fifteen and belonged with her friends.
Hunter looked in the rearview mirror at Izzy. “What time is the game?”
“It just started.”
“On second thought, watching might be good. You can watch for things they’re doing wrong as part of learning.”
Izzy pepped up. “That’s what I’ll do. Could you drop me off, Hunter?”
“Don’t you want to go home and change?” I said. “You’re in your uniform still.”
“It’s a basketball game. There are two teams in uniforms.”
“I don’t mind dropping her off,” Hunter said. “Besides, it will give us a chance to discuss the business we didn’t get t
o yet.”
I furrowed my brow. So Hunter clarified. “Pros and cons.”
***
Hunter waited at the front of the school until Izzy walked inside and then turned to me. “Your place or mine?”
“I’m not having sex with you.”
“Do you mean now or ever?”
“You said…” I deepened my voice into a husky impression of him. “…your place or mine, and that usually refers to whose house you’re going to have sex at.”
“So it means it’s off the table now, but not forever then?”
I laughed. “Why don’t we go have some lunch? I owe you at least that for coming to two basketball games and giving up your Saturday morning.”
“Alright.” He put the car into gear. “I’ll take lunch. But know that it didn’t feel like I gave up anything this morning, and also…I’m paying.”
***
I’d eaten a pretzel at the game, so I wasn’t that hungry. “I’ll have a Caesar salad.”
The waitress turned to Hunter, who looked at me. “Do you like calamari?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll take an order of fried calamari.”
“Okay.” She scribbled it down on her pad.
He looked to me again. “Do you like eggplant?”
“Yes, but I’m not really hungry.”
“Me either. Let’s share.”
“Okay.”
“We’ll also take an order of eggplant rollatini.”
“Umm…can you cancel my Caesar salad then?” I asked the waitress.
After she left our table, I opened my napkin and draped it over my lap, then took a drink of my water. Hunter watched me intently.
“What?”
He shrugged. “Just looking at you.”
“Well, don’t do that.”
