“Smug.”
“Very,” he agreed.
His smile softened, and he leaned in to kiss me. I tasted myself on his mouth, and the intimacy of it made my chest ache almost as much as my body. He helped me down from the counter, but my knees immediately betrayed me.
Hunter caught me against his chest. “Easy.”
“I’m fine.” I laughed into his shirt, but the sound came out softer than I expected.
He held me there for a minute, one hand at the back of my head, the other low on my back. And that was the part that scared me most. I could handle hot and dirty. I could even handle secret and risky and stupid. But Hunter holding me in his kitchen after making me fall apart on his counter, like I was something precious instead of something temporary, was dangerous in a completely different way. Hunter watched me, but this time his expression was quieter. The mood shifted again. I knew before he said anything.
“Isla comes home in less than two days,” he said.
There it was. Real life pressing its hand against the glass.
“I know.”
“I don’t want tonight to make it feel like I’m promising things can always be like this.”
My chest tightened, but I nodded because I understood. I hated it, but I understood.
“Isla comes first. I would never have it any other way,” I said.
He exhaled like the weight he was holding lifted. “Okay because that doesn’t mean I don’t want you.”
I swallowed.
“It doesn’t mean I’m pulling away,” he continued. “It just means I have to be careful. More careful than I’ve been this week.”
“You mean sneaking into linen closets and eating me out on your kitchen counter isn’t careful?” I snickered.
His mouth twitched. “No. Shockingly.”
I smiled, but it didn’t quite hold. “So what happens when she’s home?”
“I don’t know yet.” The honesty was better than a perfect answer. Scarier too.
Hunter reached for my hand and threaded his fingers through mine. “But I want to figure it out.”
My heart gave that stupid, hopeful kick again.
“Okay,” I whispered. I looked down at our joined hands. “We’ll figure it out.”
Hunter squeezed my hand, and then he held me for what felt like a long breath.
“I should head home,” I said.
“Okay,” he replied. “I’m not ending this. I want to see where this goes.”
“Me too.”
He leaned in to kiss me, and I left his apartment feeling like I was on a roller coaster of emotions.
CHAPTER 19
Hunter
Two days should not have felt like a month. I had gone longer than that without seeing Catherine before. Now forty-eight hours felt like punishment. The kind of problem a man should probably address before he found himself standing in an airport arrivals area, scanning every person coming through the doors for his daughter and trying not to look at the woman standing fifteen feet away with her family. Catherine was with Cole, Holland, and Jaden, waiting for Mila. She wore jeans and a fitted white T-shirt under an open button-down, her hair pulled back, her sunglasses pushed on top of her head. She looked casual, pretty, and completely off-limits. She looked over at me once. My chest tightened like I’d taken a hit.