“Heard you were back in town, Win,” he says to me in his typical gruff tone. “Maybe you can keep my brother in line.”
“Who, Hunter?” I raise my eyebrows. “I don’t think Hunter likes being kept in line.”
“I think he’s been known to make an exception a time or two,” he says cryptically with a wink at me.
Like I can feel Hunter’s presence, I look around Max at the gap in the crowd. Sure enough, the door to the Fire locker room has opened, and the team is walking out.
The screams increase about tenfold to what they were for the Wild Kings, and I can’t help from smiling as I catch sight of Hunter. He’s with Liam, plus another teammate that I recognize as Dean Harris, along with Camden “Murph” Murphy. Murph went to school with all of us, and he was inseparable with the Storms.
Hunter can’t possibly see me from this angle, but he’s walking quickly down the corridor, and he’ll be upon us in a matter of seconds. That is until a woman jumps the barricade and hurls her body against his.
Hunter’s not expecting it, and he lurches backward momentarily before regaining his balance.
Security reacts swiftly, but not before the woman has wrapped her arms around Hunter’s neck and is headed for his mouth with her own.
He twists his head to avoid the kiss and shoves her off of him. The guard pins her arms behind her and carries her off.
I’m frozen in place as I watch.
“Some people don’t know the words personal space,” Ashley mutters.
Hunter pushes past the security guard, and as he looks up, I step forward.
He sees me. A crooked grin takes over his face, the kind of smile that drives women wild. The kind of smile that always got us into trouble. While I’m still processing what it means that he’s giving me that look right now, he heads straight for me.
I expect him to stop when he reaches me and maybe crack an awkward joke about what just happened when the crazy fan accosted him.
What I don’t expect is for him to pick me up in his arms and kiss the hell out of me.
Oh. My. God.
I forgot how good it felt to kiss Hunter. So good. So right, the way his lips feel against mine. The way my body melds into his.
The kiss doesn’t last long, but there’s definitely tongue. And tenderness. And I don’t want it to stop.
I haven’t kissed Hunter Storm in ten years, and no one since has come close to…that. The way he fits with me. The urgency and gentleness.
He pulls back after a few seconds, and I read the apology in his eyes. He immediately lets me down to the ground like he’s worried he overstepped.
He would have no way of knowing this, but I haven’t kissed anyone since I was attacked six months ago. I thought I was broken. No one has even made me contemplate anything sexual until I moved back to New Orleans and ended up on Hunter’s front porch.
I was so sure I’d feel different, like that asshole who took something from me without my permission had permanently changed me. I’ve felt so shut down, so numb inside, and I was terrified I’d never feel turned on again. But that kiss just now…it liberated me a little bit. And I want to feel all the way freed.
I stare up at Hunter while his brothers slap him on the back and joke with him about keeping things PG when we’re out in public.
He’s barely answering them because he’s too busy staring back at me. When he mouths “sorry” to me, I realize he’s misread my reaction.
I shake my head almost imperceptibly to try to let him know I’m fine, but we don’t have time to communicate any more than that because Dean and Murph insist that we all go to The Riverway.
Soon, we’re piling into Liam and Hunter’s trucks. I end up in the back of Hunter’s truck with Ashley squeezed in next to me and Jared on her other side.
“What was that between you and Hunter?” she manages to whisper in my ear.
“I was as surprised as you,” I whisper back.
“Peyton is going to be so mad she missed it. God, that was a hot kiss, Win!”
It was. It was so. Damn. Hot.
