The Mating Game by Lana Ferguson - 23

Going to bed with someone you tried (and failed) to kiss the night before is about as awkward as you might think. I watch with growing nerves as Hunter makes two—yes, two, and my brain can’t decide how to feel about that—makeshift beds on the bearskin rug (a bearskin rug , for goodness’ sake). My thoughts race like it’s Christmas Eve, except Santa is hot, and I really want to kiss him but can’t figure out if he wants to kiss me back. Also, in this horny waking nightmare, Santa is practically six and a half feet tall, with shoulders that stretch his black T-shirt to mind-boggling proportions, and he wears flannel pajama pants (has flannel just become a sexual trigger for me?) and no socks, so my brain has to deal with the oddity of trying to figure out why a man’s bare feet are suddenly attractive.

“Do you need help getting down here?”

I blink back at him from the couch, still thinking about the way his arms flex when he pops a quilt to straighten it out. “What?”

“The floor,” he clarifies. “Do you need me to help you get into bed?”

Logically, I know that what my brain is doing to that sentence is not at all what he intended when he asked the question. My ankle actually feels much better than it did, and if I’m being honest, I can probably get into the little pallet he’s made me on my own with very little trouble if I want to. In fact, part of me is appalled by how much he’s had to coddle me already, but that part of me is effectively silenced by the part that wants him to touch me again.

“If you don’t mind,” I answer sheepishly.

He’s right in front of me, his body looming over mine as he takes my hand to help pull me from the couch, and sure, maybe I lean into him a little more than I need to—but who can blame me, really?

Hunter is careful with me, letting me cling to his arm as I gingerly cross the floor to the bed of quilts he’s laid out for us side by side, never letting go as I lower myself to the floor.

“Easy,” he murmurs. “Don’t hurt yourself again.”

I roll my eyes, my grip moving from his forearm to his hand, which curls around mine as I adjust myself to sit with my (sort of) injured ankle slightly suspended. “I think you’re enjoying that joke.”

“Me?” His lips curl a little at the corners as he tries for an innocent look. “Just concerned for your well-being. You only have so many ankles.”

He keeps hold of my hand as I lower my leg to the blankets, settling in as he steps to the side a bit to make room for me. “Yeah, sure,” I scoff. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you—”

Okay, I’ll be honest. I’ve always thought serendipity was bullshit. I mean, divine luck coming together to create happy accidents that seem to right all the wrongs in the world? It always sounded like a hokum informercial to me. But what happens at this exact moment, what causes me to stop short midsentence and lose my train of thought in a matter of seconds…Well. I might be tempted to rethink my stance.

It happens so fast I don’t even realize it is happening at first. It’s not like any of my recent mishaps; things don’t move in slow motion or feel like they drag on forever. No, when Hunter’s foot slips on the edge of one of the quilts, when he loses his balance and tumbles forward, that seems to happen so quickly. He’s upright and standing and perfectly stable one second and simply… there the next. And by there , I mean right over me. I mean his hands are braced on either side of my head to keep himself from completely smothering me. I mean his frame is so close to mine that I can feel every inch of his body heat radiating over me.

I had a lot of thoughts in my head a second ago, but right now I sort of can’t remember how to even form them.

“Now who’s clumsy?” I breathe, feeling dazed.

He’s so close that I can see every little movement of his Adam’s apple when he swallows.

“Maybe…you’re rubbing off on me,” he answers, his voice much rougher than it was a second ago.

He’s looking at me like that again. It’s the same look from the bar, the same one he gave me after I told him the good news about Nate—the one that looks like he’s holding himself back when I don’t want him to. A look like that is enough to make a girl brave.

“I still believe you want to kiss me,” I whisper.

He laughs, I think, but it’s more of a rasp, really. Like it’s choked.

“Only a very, very stupid man wouldn’t want to kiss you, Tess.”

My throat feels like sandpaper, but somehow my tongue is very wet. Heavy, even. Maybe it’s swollen. Maybe that’s why Hunter’s eyes look so transfixed on it when it slips past my teeth to wet my bottom lip. I try swallowing, but it feels useless. Maybe it’s because I’m breathing so hard.

“But you won’t.”

“For a few reasons,” he murmurs.

I wonder if it’s difficult for him to keep himself suspended like he is. He’s so close , and yet somehow there’s still that tiny fraction of space between us, just enough so that he isn’t touching me. I mean, surely his arms must be hurting, right?

If I only slightly move my hand, my fingers can graze the cotton of his T-shirt. “A few?”

“I told you about Chloe.” He makes a strained sound in his throat when the tip of my finger finds the space between the cotton and his bare skin. “That’s a big part of it.”

“But not all of it,” I press, curling my finger around a bit of his T-shirt.

“You also barely know me,” he breathes. “I don’t want you to do anything you might regret. You’ve already had a ton of things out of your control lately.”

“I wouldn’t,” I assure him, an urgency building as I notice he isn’t even looking me in the eye now but at my mouth. Only my mouth. “Regret it.”

“I can smell you, Tess,” he rasps. “Your scent…You smell like…”

His knee is between my legs. I can feel the heat of it against both my thighs. I think his thumb just touched my hair.

I nod dazedly, feeling my head start to swim but not so much that I don’t know that I want whatever he’s willing to give me right now, regardless of what’s happening to my body. Realizing that I want it for me , not simply for the demands of my newfound designation.

“Also,” he says distractedly, as if he’s having a hard time figuring out his thoughts too. “You’d been drinking.”

That one throws me off a little. “So?”

And maybe he’s figured out how to make thoughts before I have—in fact, I highly suspect he has—because he isn’t looking at my mouth anymore. Maybe it’s because it’s too hard to look, since his face is so close to mine now. The deep brown of his eyes seems dark and bright all at once, so much so that I can’t look away as they bore into mine.

“If I ever kissed you…I’d want you to damn well remember it tomorrow.”

All the air just…leaves my lungs. That can’t be normal, right? Regardless, I might not be breathing. Speaking still seems to be possible, but only barely.

“I haven’t…had anything to drink today.”

“Tess,” he growls. “Is it happening again?”

“Maybe,” I admit, feeling that familiar surge of heat pooling in my belly that is somehow worse than before. “It feels different.”

“You smell different,” he tells me. “You smell like…like…”

“What do I smell like?”

“Like you need me,” he says, echoing the same shiver-inducing sentiment from weeks ago. “Do you?”

“No,” I say, mustering my courage even as the heat builds and builds inside me. “I want you, Hunter.”

He looks hesitant for a moment, his gaze moving to my mouth as he studies it for a long span of seconds like he’s considering, and I watch with bated breath. I watch his jaw tic as his tongue darts out to wet his lips, and then his eyes collide with mine, an intense heat in them that looks exactly how I feel.

“Fuck it,” he practically growls.

And just like that, the tiny bit of space between us is nonexistent.

I’ve been wondering all day if Hunter Barrett wanted to kiss me. I’ve been playing a torturous game of Does He or Doesn’t He in my head often enough since last night to drive myself crazy. But there isn’t any doubt now. Now it’s very obvious that he does.

I mean, it’s sort of hard to doubt when he’s whispering against my mouth, urging me to open it.

I gasp as his tongue slips inside, licks mine with a desperation that is only outmatched by the way his hand wraps around my hip. His scruff tickles the place above my mouth, enough so that I giggle a little when he turns his face to deepen the kiss.

“Is something”—the words are sort of muffled when he speaks them to the corner of my mouth, and he licks gently, pressing his lips there after—“funny?”

“Your beard,” I laugh. “It tickles.”

“Does it?” My breath catches when he rubs his cheek against mine, his mouth ducking below my chin to lick there, to chase after his tongue with a kiss. “Does this tickle too?”

“Hunter,” I sigh.

His hand is touching my skin now, tucked under my sweater as he traces idle circles with one of his fingers. His mouth, however, is still wandering, still tasting.

“I like your freckles,” he murmurs along my jaw. “I keep thinking about everywhere else you have them.”

I smile as he kisses my cheek. “All over.”

“I know.” I can feel his hand moving to glide over my bare stomach, his thumb brushing my belly button as my skin trembles. “I like it.”

His mouth trails down my throat until he stops to suck at a spot near my collarbone—which I didn’t even know could make my stomach flip until this very second—while both hands pushing at the fabric of my sweater as it moves up and over my belly until the warmth of the fireplace glowing nearby licks at my exposed skin. I make an embarrassing sound when I feel his thumbs sliding back and forth across the sensitive swell of my breasts (my God, his thumbs are so large they barely even have to move to span the underside), his breath releasing raggedly at the base of my throat as he lingers there for a moment.

“Tess.” He gives one side a gentle squeeze, making a sound of his own that makes me less embarrassed about mine. “Is this okay?”

I don’t have the ability to tell him that this is spectacular, that this is fireworks and cotton candy and every good sensation I’ve ever felt, but I manage a nod and a quiet Yes at the very least. Even as the familiar heat and cramps threaten to overtake me, some part of my brain is so fixated on his touch that it almost seems to keep those sensations at bay, even if only a little.

His hair, mussed and wild from where my fingers have been digging into it, is falling in his eyes when he pulls away from me, and his eyes are so dark now they appear almost black as he looks down at my rumpled state. There’s something about his mouth that seems hungry somehow, a rise and fall of his chest that feels impatient while he looks at me.

“Fuck, Tess,” he rumbles, the tip of his finger reaching to trace the bare skin of my breast that just peeks out from my rucked-up sweater. “There’s one here.” His head dips to press his mouth there, and my back bows instinctively when I feel warm air kiss at my nipples as he pulls my sweater higher. “And here.” His tongue flicks along the swell, sucking gently at the spot. “Even…here.”

His tongue is light at first against my nipple, teasing at the spot he’s found before he swirls around the entire thing in a slow circle—but then his entire mouth covers it, sucks it inside, making me moan, and then he just…keeps going. I can feel him growling against me, actually feel it like a deep vibration that hums along my skin, and my fingers push into his hair again—to bring him closer or to push him away, I really can’t be sure. It feels so good, I can’t decide what I want.

“Raise your arms,” he urges, turning his head to pay attention to the other side even as he tugs harder at my sweater. “Want this off you.”

And who am I to argue with that, really?

My sweater winds up somewhere across the room, but I have no idea where. Hunter doesn’t really give me time to consider it, since he decides his shirt should join it immediately thereafter, robbing me of all coherent thought.

My fingers skim up the dark line of hair from his navel to his chest. “We should put you on the website. Make some sort of influencer out of you.”

I can make out the dimple in his beard. “I don’t think I’m cut out for influencing.”

“You’re influencing me a whole lot right now.”

“Am I?” He turns his face to let his eyes roam over my naked chest. “Fuck. Look at you.” His hand reaches to curl around my breast, his thumb flicking lazily against my nipple. I’m vaguely aware that his hand can cover the entirety of my breast with very little spillage, and my boobs are in no way small. “I thought I was going to lose my mind earlier,” he admits. “I felt like I was some sort of asshole for being so fucking turned on helping you out of the shower when you were injured.”

“Does it help to know that I probably could have gotten my pants on by myself?”

“You’re gonna kill me.”

I don’t really think that’s a fair accusation, considering a second after he says it, he’s ducking his head again to wrap his lips around one of my nipples, making me cry out. I can feel a delicious graze of teeth that seems to draw warm pulses from between my legs with every pull, making me unconsciously try to press my thighs together, only to be foiled by Hunter’s leg, which still rests between them.

Hunter seems to remember this too, since I feel one of his hands tickling down my stomach to let his fingers tease the waistband of my pajama pants. They simply…hover there, not really dipping beneath and not really touching, and he turns up his face to look at me from between my breasts with glazed eyes. “Can I…?”

“Stop asking me for permission and just touch me,” I practically growl, feeling that need swirling inside.

I mean, a girl can only take so much edging, really.

He watches my face as he lets his fingers slip inside the front of my pants, tucking them under the elastic band of my underwear—which I’m remembering have pictures of cartoon kittens holding little fish on them, but I’ll worry about that later. Right now I’m just trying not to let my eyes cross as I feel the calloused pads of his fingers dip into the already-too-wet crease between my legs. I bite my lip as he lets the thick length of his index finger part me. He circles my clit experimentally before he dips lower to do the same thing to the opening, where slick is already starting to stream from me copiously.

“I’m not”—he pushes only hard enough to let the tip of his finger dip inside me, and I feel my skin thrum as I shiver—“prepared. For this.” He looks sort of pained as he says it. “I don’t have anything.”

“I take the pill,” I tell him a bit too quickly. “Like, religiously. Like, you could set your watch by it. I’m so prepared.” He cocks an eyebrow at me, but there’s humor to it, and I know he’s silently teasing me. “Shut up. Not in a weird way. In a totally normal way. And my last panel was all clear. I haven’t been with anyone since.”

Hunter actually laughs a little. “You’re the first woman I’ve touched in…a very long time. So it’s safe to say the same.”

“It’s been a long time for me too,” I manage. “I mean, not that I’ve ever touched a woman, but— Ah .”

My hips cant upward when he pushes as deep as his finger will reach, twisting a little as he withdraws, only to do it all over again. “You’re so slick for me,” he practically hums. “Tell me how to touch you. I want you to feel good.”

“I mean, you’re off to a stellar start,” I pant. “ Oh. Keep doing that.”

He presses the heel of his hand against my clit again, rubbing it slightly as his finger continues to pump in and out of me. When he adds a second, I think I actually shout a little. I can’t be sure, since Hunter chooses then to slant his mouth across mine, swallowing down the sound.

I can feel his cock pressing on my stomach, hard and positively throbbing through the soft flannel of his pants, his hips tilting back and forth a little so he can rub himself against my skin. It’s a little clumsy, the way I grab at his waistband to try to pull him free, and it definitely takes a second longer than it probably would if his tongue weren’t occupying my mouth and his fingers weren’t occupying…other places, but somehow I manage to wrestle him out of the confines of his pants to feel the hot, velvety length of his cock as it thumps (yes, I said thumps ) against my belly. There’s already a sticky wetness at the head that dews well above my navel, and my hand is unable to fit around all of him, so I settle for running my palm along the underside before fisting the tip.

His hand stills as I feel his arm shake against me, his entire body shuddering as his lips trip across mine, like he’s forgotten what he was doing. “Don’t—I don’t—Jesus, Tess. I want to come already. I could come all over you.”

Wow, okay.

I love that when he touches me, it’s bye-bye to the quiet, reserved Hunter.

Hello, axe-wielding sex lumberjack.

His head falls to rest on my shoulder as he pulls his hand from my pants, and I whine in protest, which he effectively ignores. When he wraps his fingers around my wrist to pull me away from him, I can feel my own fluids all over his fingers.

“Give me a second,” he grunts into my neck. “I want to be fucking you when I come. I want to feel you on my knot.”

The cartoon wolf inside me is beating the table right now. It’s howling at the moon. It’s hitting itself over the head with a comical-looking mallet. Because I want it too, I realize. Desperately. I haven’t the faintest idea what it feels like to have his knot, but something in my hindbrain is begging to find out.

I squirm impatiently—because let’s face it, I am impatient—shifting my weight to try to entice him to hurry up. My bad foot taps against his and makes me wince during all this, and I hiss out a breath as I mutter a quiet expletive.

“Ow.” I bend my knee to bring my foot off the floor. “My foot.”

“Shit.” He’s already pulling away from me, and now I sort of wish I’d just borne it. “I forgot. Are you okay?”

“It’s fine,” I assure him. “It’s not bad. Don’t you dare stop.”

There’s an impish quality to his grin, making him seem younger, like a hormonal teenager doing something he shouldn’t. “I’m not stopping. We’ll just have to be a little more careful.” His eyes rake up my body hungrily. “This time.”

He’s gentler now when he starts to tug my pants over my thighs, gingerly working them down my legs and over one foot at a time, taking extra care with the one that’s wrapped. He notices my underwear when he comes back for them, cocking an eyebrow up at me as I roll my eyes. “They’re cute.”

“They are,” he agrees. His fingers curl purposefully on either side of them, hooking into the elastic before he looks up at me again. “But they’re coming off.”

Getting my underwear off has me spreading my legs a little to help him, and no sooner am I rid of them than he has his hands running up the insides of my thighs to keep me that way. He holds me open so he can curl his body and press a kiss right above my crease, brushing his nose back and forth along the soft, neat curls there.

If I weren’t so horribly turned on, I might even be embarrassed.

“If I didn’t need to come inside you so badly,” he says against my core, lowering to give me one broad lick directly up the center with a rumbled sound that seems to come from deep in his chest and has my back arching and my breath catching, “I’d be down here all night.”

“ Hunter .”

“Next time,” he promises quietly, pressing one last kiss between my legs before he pushes back up again.

I can’t do anything but watch as he starts to shove his pants down broad thighs that are dusted with the same dark hair that covers his chest, thick and corded with muscle that he surely got doing wilderness tasks that make the cavewoman part of my brain purr. But none of that really compares to the shocking size of him—long and so heavy that even fully hard it sort of hangs between his legs instead of jutting upward. I didn’t have time to fully appreciate it last time with how frantic we were, but I sure as hell do now.

I’m not a virgin by any means, but that doesn’t mean I’m not equal parts excited and nervous when I see all of him, knowing that this is really happening. That he’ll be inside me. Not that I have any real time to dwell on it, given that Hunter seems to be single-minded right now.

He crawls up next to me only to urge me to turn onto my side, then wraps an arm around me to pull my back against his front as easily as if I were some cotton-filled doll rather than a fully grown woman. His hand makes my thigh seem tiny when he curls his fingers around it, lifting and pulling it back to drape over his so that my injured ankle hangs safely behind his calf.

At first I’m a little put out by the fact that I can’t see his face in this position, but then Hunter starts to lick at a spot where my shoulder meets my throat, and I sort of forget where I am. I feel his fingers skimming back up my thigh before he reaches between my legs to tease my swollen, slick folds, running his knuckles between them in a slow up-and-down motion that’s only interrupted by the periodic rubbing of my clit, which makes me squirm against him.

“Talk to me,” he says into my neck. “Can you take my cock now? Tell me what you need.”

I don’t say that if it weren’t for my somewhat busted ankle I would be pushing him to the floor and taking advantage of him in utterly obscene ways, forcing a nod instead, because I am so wet already with the climbing heat threatening to take over me.

“You can—I can— Hurry .”

Oh.

The head of his cock is so broad and so hot , but in a way that makes me want to sink down farther, to feel his heat deeper. I would too, if it weren’t for the sheer fucking size of him. I can say with utter confidence that I have never experienced anything like it.

I reach behind me to tangle my fingers in his hair, pulling his face closer to my throat to encourage him to keep going. His kisses are sloppier now, with a staccato rhythm, as if he loses just a little more focus with every inch that he gives me. I can feel warm breath puffing against my skin from his nostrils in that same sharp rhythm as he holds his breath again and again like he’s simply forgotten how to breathe properly, and I tilt my head back in pleasure as he fills and fills and fills me until it feels like he’s touching every part I knew about and a few that I didn’t know even existed.

“ Fuck .” His entire palm flattens between my legs to cup me, and he slides a finger on either side of where we’re joined. “You’re so tight.”

“I can handle it,” I urge.

He tenses above me. “I don’t want to hurt y—”

I let my hand slide down my body to circle him, feeling the throbbing length of him between us as I urge him forward. He hisses when he bottoms out, and I can’t help the whine that escapes me at the feeling of being so full of him.

“It’s… Fuck. I don’t want to come yet.”

That is the opposite of what I want to do. I would like to come very much. I even press back against him to try to wordlessly let him know, but this only makes him groan into my hair as he shivers.

“Hunter,” I practically beg. “Can you—? I need you to—”

“I could come just like this.” His hand slides back up between my legs, only enough so that he can press his fingers against the swollen bud of my clit, rolling it in a steady pattern as I sort of rock into it. “But I want to fuck you. I wanna feel you come.”

“I’m—Keep doing—Yes, yes, right there .”

Honestly, this alone would probably be enough for me if he keeps touching me like that, but then I would be robbed of the utterly decadent sensations that spark inside me when he starts to move. Even with the extreme fullness, it’s an easy glide in and out, given that I’m probably more aroused than I’ve ever been, and I find myself chasing after each thrust, trying to push down onto him even when he’s barely pulled out. Not to mention the subtle swell of his knot inside me, something I never could have anticipated would feel so good. Right now it’s only a hint of what it could be, but still, something inside me wants it more than my next breath.

“Don’t move,” he grunts. “You’re going to make me— Fuck. I just want to feel you a little more.”

Another thick arm works its way underneath me to wrap around my middle, effectively trapping me and holding me in place as he continues that same dizzying circling of my clit that has me fighting to chase after more.

“Be good,” he coos. “Be still for me.” I feel goose bumps pebble over my skin despite the warmth of the fire and the heat of his body, his lips finding my ear so he can nibble at the lobe as he whispers praise that has me half out of my mind. “You feel too good,” he huffs. “Can you come like this?”

“So close,” I manage. “Just—Don’t stop—Just keep—”

His mouth goes a little slack against my neck when he pushes a little deeper, a little faster, a little harder —hitting some spot inside me that has hot, liquid pressure swelling deep in my belly and between my legs, even bleeding warmth down my thighs as everything seems to tighten like a coil that’s being wound too tight.

“Hunter. Hunter .”

“You’re squeezing me so much,” he groans. “So wet. Can you take my knot, Tess?”

A tremor of unease runs through me at the unknown of it all. “Will it hurt?”

“You’re so slick for me,” he says, rolling his hips so that his cock glides in and out to accentuate his point. “Feel that?”

“Uh-huh,” I breathe.

“It’s going to feel so good when I knot you,” he promises, and the feel of him has my eyes rolling back. “You were made for me. You can take it, can’t you?”

“Oh. Oh. Yes. I can.” I’m babbling, not even sure if that’s true but wanting it all the same. My body seems to be on board for it, in any case. “Just like that. Please .”

I’ve read about “toe-curling orgasms” since the summer of my fifteenth year when I would hide downstairs at my grandmother’s and sneakily read her Harlequins. I’m well acquainted with the phrase; I simply thought it was a crock of shit until now.

But when that coil stops winding, when that pressure inside spills to give way to the all-over rush that seems to explode inside…my toes actually curl. Hell, if it weren’t for the way Hunter is holding on to me, keeping me pressed tightly against him, I suspect my entire body would curl. I shake and shiver and make noises that are probably going to haunt me later when I recall them—but I don’t think Hunter will notice anyway. Not with the way he practically shouts against my skin before biting down on my shoulder, shaking a little himself.

I’m so full of him that I can actually feel it when he lets go, the pulsing warmth as he fills me seeming to last forever. I feel everything when it happens—when his knot swells to proportions that I’ve only felt with my hands—and the fullness nearly steals my breath as it thickens inside me. As it touches me in ways I’ve never dreamed of being touched. Like I’ve spent my entire life missing something and now I’m complete.

“ Oh .”

“Does it hurt?”

I shake my head. “Feels good.”

“I don’t…I don’t smell your heat dissipating.”

“What?”

“Normally, after you…Well. Normally it starts to fade after.”

“What does that mean?”

He inhales deeply from my throat, sighing softly. “That it might not be over this time. This might be the real thing.”

“So I’m…?”

“Going into heat? It’s possible.”

“But you’ll…” There’s a sudden flash of fear at the unknown, but his arms around me keep it at bay somewhat. “You’ll help me, right?”

His fingers find my chin to tilt my face back so I can meet his eyes, his gaze intense and singular. “I’m not going anywhere.” He shifts his hips so that his knot tugs a little, and I whimper as sparks of pleasure flit through me. “I want you right here on my knot for as long as you need me.”

“Good,” I tell him with a relieved sigh. “That’s good.”

He places lazy, sporadic kisses against my neck that feel impulsive, like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, and lying in the afterglow of what we’ve just done might be one of the most singularly satisfying moments of my entire adult life. I couldn’t have known how complete I would feel with his knot swollen inside me, my back tucked against his front, fitting like I’m meant to be there. Even if I feel so full that I might burst with it.

God, Ada wasn’t too far off with the splitting analogy.

That makes me laugh without being able to help it.

“Something funny again?”

I shake my head even though I’m grinning like an idiot. “I knew you wanted to kiss me.”

Hunter snorts as he nuzzles my hair, seeming to be in no hurry to pull out of me. “Give me a minute, and I’m going to do it again.”

“Wow, again? At your age? What if you mess up your whittling arm? Maybe we should—”

His hand at my chin and his mouth over mine don’t really leave room for jokes.

I absolutely forget what I was going to say anyway.