“Oh,” Hunter’s voice from the door startled me out of my thoughts, and I shifted onto my side so I could see him. He was half-naked, wearing nothing more than a pair of pajama pantsand a smile. Hunter had a mug of coffee in one hand, and he shoved his messy brown hair out of his face with the other. He looked nothing like the put-together lawyer I knew him to be, nothing like the confusingly submissive dominant partner he was exploring.
“Oh?”
Unlike Hunter, I was all the way naked, but thankfully he scooped up a pair of pajama pants from his dresser and tossed them to me before sitting down on the edge of the bed.
“You’re awake,” he said.
“Hard to not be.”
He grimaced, taking a sip of coffee. “Did we wake you?”
“You didn’t wake me up. I just woke up.” I shoved the pajamas under the blankets and fought my legs into the right holes, shimmying the waistband into place. Hunter tore the blankets away less than a second too late. He frowned over the rim of his coffee mug, plucking at the elastic to get a peek for himself anyway. “I assume both of your brothers are still here?”
“Smith is trying to leave, but Finn seems like he’s going to hang on for a while. He’s going through some shit in his personal life, and I don’t think it’s ideal for him to be alone.”
“I can get out of your hair,” I offered quickly, flinging my legs over the side of the bed. “I don’t want to interfere.”
Hunter grabbed my wrist, pulling me back down to the bed. “You’re not interfering.”
I swallowed hard, catching my breath. “I believe you.”
I didn’t.
“Would you come meet him?” Hunter asked.
“Can I steal a shirt first?” I glanced down at my chest, my piercings glittering against my skin. “I don’t really need your brother knowing about all this.”
The corner of Hunter’s mouth twitched, but he nodded and gestured dismissively toward the dresser. “I don’t care ifhe knows, but if you’d feel better with a shirt on, then help yourself.”
“Would…” I trailed off, the question preposterous on the back of my tongue.
Hunter stood and took a step toward the door, glancing over his shoulder with one eyebrow lifted. He was clearly waiting for me to speak, but the words were a mess.
“Yes?” he prompted.
“Would you pick one for me?”
Hunter worked his jaw, sucking in a loud lungful of air. “If I had my way, you wouldn’t put one on,” he said softly, going to the dresser and pulling out one of his plain white undershirts. “But if you want one, you can use this one.”
He passed me the shirt and bent down, kissing the top of my head, whispering into my hair, “Daddy loves when you show off, sweetheart.”
And before I could say a single thing in reply, he was gone. The bedroom door closed behind him, the smell of coffee and sweat lingering in the air like a quickly thinning fog. There wasn’t anything special about the shirt he’d picked for me. It was white and it was his, the material soft and thick. It smelled like his laundry soap, it smelled like him, and I wanted to put it on because I wanted to be surrounded by him in all ways and at all times.
Daddy loves when you show off, sweethearthe’d said to me.
This was Hunter Covington, a man who had more success this week than I’d ever have in my whole life. A man who didn’t care what I did for work or that I kissed my best friends or that I’d had sex with his brother. Hunter was a man who accepted me for exactly the person I was, even if I didn’t like myself all the time. He had stumbled into kink on accident and taken to it so readily, all to support me in chasing after my own understanding of myself. He would get on his knees for me without thinking,indulge my fucked-up fantasies, and God knew what else he’d do for me. There was no way I deserved him, but if Hunter didn’t want me to wear a shirt…
“Fuck it,” I cursed under my breath, throwing the shirt onto the pillows and heading out after him into the living room before I could talk myself out of it.
I found the three of them in the kitchen, Smith leaning against the fridge with his arms crossed over his chest, looking so much like Marshall I had to laugh about it. Hunter faced the stove, the sound of sizzling bacon filling the space. And then there was Finn, sitting on the kitchen counter and swinging his legs back and forth like a teenager. If there was something going on with him personally, his face definitely didn’t show it.
He was the first to turn when I walked in, dark eyes inquisitive and hair a mess. His inscrutable stare raked over me, clocking each barbell and every missing piece of clothing before returning to my face.
“He is risen,” Finn said.
At the sound of his brother’s voice, Hunter turned around, a pleased and slightly turned-on smile taking over his face when he realized I’d gone shirtless after all. I hope he knew it was something I’d done with the sole purpose of making him happy. It was bad enough I’d fucked 66% of the Covington brothers in the room and 40% of them overall. I found myself hoping for a handful of new ones to pop out of the woodwork so I could knock my bang rate down to something more socially acceptable.
“You’re up,” he said to me, soft and pleased. I joined them in the kitchen, standing against Hunter’s side and resting my head against his shoulder in greeting. He left another kiss in my hair, spatula-ed some bacon onto a folded stack of paper towels, then turned off the burner.
