Fall Dirty (SEALs Undone Book 8) Page 7

  “It’s not. I promise.” He didn’t let go of her, but his gaze dropped, in stuttering jerks, like it was hard for him to look at her. Not because it was hard to see her, but because he maybe felt…bad.

  Her heart cracked all over again. “Hunter, do you feel guilty about tonight?”

  He froze.

  She reached for him, touching his waist, his chest. “Think for a minute, without any rules…what did you want to happen tonight?”

  “I didn’t want anyone else to touch you too much.” That wasn’t an answer to the question, but in the hollows of his words, in the blank spaces on either side of that statement, he said a lot.

  “I’m yours,” she affirmed quietly.

  “Mine.”

  “But you touched me in front of Quinn. You shared me with him, at least that much.”

  “I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “But did you want to in the moment? That’s all that matters.”

  “I don’t know if I want to answer that. It was hot as hell. Not gonna deny that. But if this is how I react, then it’s not okay.”

  “Maybe your reaction will be different next time. Maybe we’ll do a better job of talking about the rules next time.”

  “You want there to be a next time?”

  “Not necessarily,” she said, totally sure of herself for the first time tonight. It wasn’t necessary, at all. “Let’s figure out if tonight was a good idea or not, first.”

  A door clanged open above them and Hunter tensed. “Not here.”

  “Where to?”

  He scrubbed a hand up his cheek, then across his mouth. “Coffee sounds good.”

  He kissed her then, briefly and sweetly. He didn’t say anything else, but he didn’t let go of her hand the entire way to the hotel’s coffee shop. They didn’t have the place completely to themselves, but it was pretty quiet, and once they ordered, Serena gestured to a table tucked into the corner, next to a window.

  Private enough to talk, but not completely alone.

  There was something safe about talking in public. Nobody could lose their temper—not that she really thought that would happen. More of a knee-jerk self-protection move.

  She sighed. That was something she should probably tell Hunter about.

  “What?” he asked, right on cue. Attentive at every turn.

  She wrinkled her nose. “I’m having some weird flashback stuff to previous conversations about kink that didn’t go so well. Glad we’re having this conversation in a semi-public place, and then feeling guilty for that relief, because I trust you, you know?”

  He covered her hand with his. “Yep. I get it. And this conversation will go just fine.”

  “You freaked out a little.”

  “But just a little. I told you I needed to process my thoughts.”

  “That scared me.” But in admitting that, man she felt a rush of relief. Because she could tell him that, no drama. She gave him a tremulous smile. “Hey, I can tell you that!”

  He laughed gently and raised his eyebrows at her. “How about that?”

  She held his gaze as the warmth flooded back into her core. “I love you, Hunter.”

  He nodded slowly. “I love you, too.”

  She took a sip of her coffee, giving him some space to set the next beat of the conversation.

  He took his time, thinking as he hulked over his coffee cup. She let her gaze travel over him. His hair was still damp from the sweat of dancing and getting dirty in the limo. He probably smelled faintly of sex, and she was grateful that it was the middle of the night—not that he seemed to mind.

  So who had the hang up now?

  “Three months ago, my life was pretty simple,” he finally said, setting his coffee down and taking her hand in his. His eyes were soft, but the rest of his features were tightly schooled. Back in control. “And then I met you and everything I thought I wanted exploded. My life has changed so much since I met you, you know that? In tiny ways. Like I imagine sharing your little bungalow and wonder if you’re going to want to raise chickens. I can’t get enough of watching you paint. I want you naked, all the time—and I like sex, but that incessant craving is new to me. I think about a future with you and what it might be like. And of all that is overwhelming enough without the extra layer of discovering I might have all these darker, deeper desires. Fuck, Serena, I’m not a guy that uses the word desire. I like sex. I like fucking. I like women. But damn it, I love you, and to have you also be the person who unlocks some kinky shit inside me is kind of mind-blowing. I just need some time to process it.”

  He needed time?

  Her mouth had dropped open somewhere around chickens and she couldn’t bring herself to close it. “Uh-huh,” she said quietly, her eyes probably as wide as saucers. She knew the feeling. She could use some time, too.

  The rest of her life might just be long enough to absorb just how incredible Hunter was. It was way too soon to think about ways to keep busting norms with him, but the urge to drop to her knees and beg this man to marry her was pretty dang strong.

  “So give me time, okay?” He touched the tip of his finger to her jaw and she snapped her mouth shut.

  “Baby, you don’t need to change who you are. At all. Maybe we’ve gone about this all the wrong way, but you’re perfect for me.” She licked her lips, suddenly nervous. Because she sure as heck wasn’t perfect for him. Not by a long shot. “Tonight…if you regret it—”

  “I don’t.” His gaze didn’t waver from her face, even as storm clouds gathered in his usually clear eyes. “I feel like I should. You see the difference? But I don’t.”

  “It was hot,” she said, her voice cracking, slipping to a whisper because the next part was hard. “But then it was…not. And that’s like whiplash, you know?”

  He nodded, his face tightening even more.

  “Sometimes…” she was reaching here, but she knew it was okay to make some guesses. And safer still to talk just about herself. She swallowed against the irrational fear of revealing too much about herself. “Sometimes sex can be so good, so intense, that it rocks us at the core. Usually it happens to the bottom in a scene, but let’s face it, real life can’t be constrained to a scene, and especially a newer person, even when in charge…I mean, I’m just guessing here, but I bet aftercare is important for dominants, too. And I know how awful it is to do something new and scary and hot, and then be left to deal with the emotional fallout on my own.”

  His face blanched. “That wasn’t what I meant to do tonight.”

  “Not tonight,” she continued smoothly. “What we did in the limo was dirty and hot, but I wouldn’t call it a dominant/submissive scene, and I didn’t slide into subspace.” All the vocabulary slide right back into her mouth like it hadn’t been years. And oh, boy did it feel good to flex those muscles again. It felt right. Maybe for the first time ever.

  She didn’t know how often the words would come in handy with Hunter, but she had a new confidence that they’d never be used to hurt her.

  He frowned. “So…wait, you think that I need aftercare? After getting you off in front of Quinn?”

  She nodded. “Maybe yes.”

  “Warm blankets and a cookie?” His face cracked into a wide, happy smile. “Beautiful. Come on.”

  Oh, the big bad SEAL didn’t think he had sensitive feelings? She stuck her tongue out at him. “Come on, nothing.” She pointed to his coffee. “That warm, milky drink making you feel better?”

  He froze, cup halfway to his mouth. His eyes darted back and forth from his hand to her face, and back to the coffee in question. “Uh… Maybe.”

  She giggled. “See? And once you’re full recovered from the intense ordeal…” She trailed off as he laughed out loud, then waited until he finished. “Then we can talk about if you want to do it again.”

  That got his attention.

  The way his gaze sharpened like a knife made her shiver. His voice was rough and hard when he spoke. “I thought you didn’t need a threesome?�
�

  She nodded. “I don’t.”

  He leaned back in his seat.

  “But I think maybe you do,” she said quietly. “And I’m not asking you to say yay or nay right now. Or even ever. Totally up to you. Even talking about it is up to you. But I was in your arms, Hunter. I could feel you getting off on it, too, you know? And then, yeah, once it was done, that was weird for you. But while you were getting me off…in front of Quinn, maybe a little bit for him… you liked that.”

  “Okay.” One word. Clipped and hard, but not a disagreement.

  She waited a beat, because she was already out on a limb, but it felt sturdy. Mostly. She reached for his hand and he squeezed her fingers readily. That gave her the courage she needed to give him one last thought to mull on for the night. “Are you sure you don’t want to be the puppet master of someone else touching me?”

  The slightest hitch to his slow, deep breaths proved that at the very least, she was on the right path. But it was late and there probably wouldn’t be any more exploration of Hunter’s secret kinky side tonight.

  She tilted her head to the side and gave him a soft smile. “You want to take these back to our room? Then we can tuck into bed and watch middle-of-the-night episodes of CSI.”

  He laughed and stood, drawing her into his side. “Vegas in Vegas? How meta.”

  “Right? I bet they have an entire channel dedicated to it.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The next day dawned far too early. Serena closed her eyes and buried her face in Hunter’s warm chest.

  She thought he might be asleep, but after a beat, he tightened his arm around her.

  “Waking up with you is the best thing ever. I don’t like that I gave you pause to think I wanted anything else,” he said roughly, his voice raw.

  “We went to bed together.” She kissed his chest. “That’s all that matters.”

  “I think it’s possible I know just as little about relationship stuff as I do about being a Dom.”

  She laughed. “Oh, baby, you think too hard about this.”

  “I want to be what you need.” He said it so seriously, so stoically, that she stopped laughing immediately.

  “You are. Stop thinking about this being about sex and think about it like dishes. Imagine that I’m someone who needs the dishes cleared from the table right away, and stacked just so in the dishwasher. If you don’t do either of those things, that’s not going to be deal breaker. But I appreciate your efforts to try harder.”

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said last night.”

  “Yeah?”

  He didn’t continue right away, just stroked his hand up and down her spine. Then he huffed a nervous laugh. “That’s it. Just thinking.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  Yeah, she was. They hit the buffet for breakfast, then lost fifty bucks in the casino before Serena declared that gambling wasn’t for her. When she dragged Hunter to the mall instead, he rolled his eyes, not seeing the difference—until she bought new lingerie.

  Then they retired to the hotel room and explored just exactly what the emerald green set looked like on, and had spectacular vanilla sex, of the loud and dirty variety.

  It was perfect.

  Dinner ended up being fast food on their way to a last minute show they got tickets for—a pop singer who was way better than either of them expected. She did a devastating version of Silent Night for her encore, and it brought down the house.

  As they spilled out onto the sidewalk again, Hunter pulled her into his arms and kissed her more deeply, more thoroughly than he had all day. He poured a lot she didn’t quite get into that kiss. It tasted like adventure and resolve, like he’d spent all day thinking, secretly, and now he had a plan.

  When he turned her around and pointed to a limo, with Quinn leaning against it, she realized that’s exactly what he had.

  A crazy, crazy plan.

  “I want a redo, beautiful,” he rumbled in her ear. “You trust me?”

  Did he trust himself? That’s what really mattered. “To the moon and back.”

  * * *

  Hunter had texted Quinn during intermission, and his friend had been totally cool about both the apology, which was twenty hours too late, and the evening’s new plans.

  He’d just said to meet them at the theater. The limo…that was a fancy touch.

  But he liked it. Another chance at doing this right.

  Because for all of Serena’s confident chatter about kink being like doing the dishes, Hunter knew in his soul that it wasn’t the same thing. Now that he’d had a taste, he knew that sharing these private fantasies, that exploring them together, bonded him and Serena in a way that orderly household chores never could.

  He guided Serena to the limo, his left hand possessively resting on her hip. With his right, he reached out and shook Quinn’s hand. “Thanks, man.”

  Quinn snorted. “My pleasure.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  Serena squeaked. He stroked his hand lower, covering the sweetest, softest part of her ass. “Yours, too.”

  “Oh, goodie,” she whispered, glancing up at Quinn from beneath her lashes. A look passed between them, two people who knew more about this than he did, and Quinn nodded at Serena.

  His friend cleared his throat and opened the door, chagrining the driver.

  Whatever. Tonight was all about breaking the rules. Shattering them to pieces, really.

  Hunter ignored the default flight or fight response that wanted to take hold inside him.

  He wasn’t afraid of anything, not when it came to Serena.

  Chapter Twelve

  They took a ride up and down the strip, then the driver dropped them at the Wynn—Hunter’s order.

  He held Serena close as he lazily invited Quinn up to their room without hesitation.

  She’d created a monster.

  “Drinks?” she asked demurely as they entered their suite.

  Hunter laughed and curled his hand over the nape of her neck, pulling her in for another dirty kiss. He’d given her plenty of these in the limo, but it still took her breath away to be consumed like this in front of his friend.

  “Later,” he said roughly, leading her to one of the couches.

  She gasped as he settled her in his lap, then turned her almost immediately to face their guest. Her skirt rucked up nearly to her hips and any second now, Quinn would be reminded that she wasn’t wearing any panties—because Hunter had stripped them off her in the limo.

  She wasn’t sure if she should press her thighs together, or spread them wide open. Just the thought of the latter made her wet all over again. It also terrified her, and she twisted her head, pressing her face into Hunter’s neck.

  “I’ve gotcha, beautiful,” he said, pressing a hand low on her belly. “And Quinn looks like he’s dying for a bit of a show.”

  A moan slipped out of her mouth. Her head and her body were on two very different pages. Maybe this was a disastrous idea. Great in theory, dangerous in reality.

  “Having second thoughts?” He kept going, his voice level and calm, even with a hint of heat.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. She breathed in, the spicy, woodsy scent of his cologne grounding her. She was in Hunter’s arms. His hands were on her thighs now. His voice in her ear. But she needed to hear him say he wanted this, too. It wasn’t enough that he was delivering her fantasy. If this was just for her, she wanted to keep it at dirty talk and flirting, and have her body just be for Hunter.

  “I’m all for having fun tonight. Does that help?” He rocked his erection against her ass. “Feel that? That’s how hard I am at the thought of Quinn seeing how wet you get. You’re fucking gorgeous, and I want to share you with him tonight.”

  Her clit tightened to the point of pain as he talked. Pressing her thighs together against the ache, she shifted restlessly, which just moved her against his arousal—and that didn’t help. “I don’t want to be reckless,�
�� she whispered.

  “Yes, you do,” he laughed in her ear. “It makes you drip. Let’s show Quinn just how reckless you want to be.”

  Serena blinked, lifting her head enough to see Hunter’s friend. He was sprawled out on the opposite couch, his arms spread wide across the tops of the cushions.

  He gave her a slow, hungry smile, then shifted his gaze to Hunter. “I’m game for anything. Or nothing. Your rules.”

  Part of her wanted to protest that it was her body, her rules, but she couldn’t because even as that thought flicked through her brain, she was sagging back against Hunter in relief. Yes. If he set the rules, there’d be no risk of going too far and losing him. Not that she wanted to go far at all, actually. Right now, what she wanted more than anything was Hunter inside her, above her, his words filling her with reassurance that they were okay. That she was still the woman he could see himself growing old with.

  “My rules?” Hunter laughed again, tightening his grip on Serena. “Everything you do is about making her come. Use your fingers, lick her beautiful pussy. Use a condom if she asks you to fuck her. And if she wants to suck your cock, no coming.”

  Did she want that? Her fantasy had always been two men inside her at once. But to suck another man? She shook her head.

  Hunter pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “Okay. No blow jobs.”

  Quinn nodded, an easy, knowing look on his face. “Sounds good. Maybe she should start off on her knees for you, then.”

  “You want that, beautiful?” Hunter whispered in her ear. She nodded and he turned her so she slithered off his lap and onto the floor. He hung on to her skirt as she moved, baring her ass fully to his friend. When she whimpered, he cupped her face in his hands, blocking everything else out. Just him and her. “You’re so gorgeous. Quinn has such an raging hard-on right now, and I should hate him for it, but I don’t. I don’t. This is fucking hot, it’s just tonight, and it doesn’t change a thing about who owns your heart, right?”

  “I’m yours,” she whispered. She tried to bury her face in his lap, but he held firm.