“Sure thing.” He began typing.
“I’ll give you money, Meg,” Hunter practically shouted. “Why won’t you let me help you?”
“Can you please let me know how much I qualify for?” I asked Frank.
He was sweating, looking between Hunter and me.
“Who helped out your cousin?” I prodded.
“You have been preapproved for three thousand dollars,” he told me, furiously hitting the print button then shoving the papers at me. “Sign here, and the money will be in your account in three days.”
Hunter prowled after me as I left the bank.
“I thought you had a meeting.”
“I’m giving Frank a moment to calm down,” he said, following me outside.
“You can’t keep harassing me and the men I talk to.”
“Frank runs the bank that stole your house,” Hunter reminded me.
“And you’re the one Barry put in charge ofmy”—I pointed at myself—“finances. That you refuse to share with me.”
“I’m just trying to assemble the bigger picture before I alarm you.”
“You just want to control me.”
“Funny you should mention that,” he said, voice lowering. “I do want to control you but not like that. I want to do it in a way that ends with you coming on my cock.”
“You’re…” I sputtered.
“Sexy? Irresistible?” His eyes were intense.
You could just go back to your apartment. You don’t have a meeting until lunch. You’ve worked hard. You deserve this.
“Stop trying to fight this, Meg, fight us,” he pleaded. His mouth was inches away from mine. I wanted him. Bad. It took every shred of willpower and excessive bribing of myself with sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits to tear away from him.
“You can come talk to me when you are ready to give me information on my finances.”
38
Hunter
The problem was that Meg’s financial straits were not just dire, they were apocalyptical. They were going to lose the house. I was still arguing with the banks on the credit card fraud charges. The fact was that Barry had stolen so much money, Meg was going to have to decide whether she wanted to pay off the debt or send him to jail and have the debt expunged. Between the multiple mortgages, the car notes, and the credit card debt, plus the random businesses Barry had invested in, one of which the FBI had just informed me was being investigated for money laundering, Barry had racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of debt both in his and Meg and her sisters’ names.
I could of course pay off the debt; the money wasn’t the issue. However, Greg would be livid if I threw away that much money. He would never let me hear the end of it. That was why I was slowly working to disentangle the web of lies and debt Barry had left. It was a lot, and I didn’t want Meg to have to deal with that until after the election. Even then, I needed to be careful in how I presented it all to Meg. I was afraid it would break her. Therefore, I was stalling.
I was afraid that the craving for her was going to break me. I had given up on sleeping. I would wake up in the middle of the night hard and aching for her then have to take an ice-cold shower. It didn’t help that the house was chaos, and Josie had enlisted all my brothers to help her with the Harrogate Foundation fundraiser festival.
“Are you ready, Hunter?” she chirped the next morning when I arrived at the town square to help set up. Meg was already waiting with her to put up more of the decorations I had brought in the truck.
“What am I doing?” I asked Josie.
“Eating a cream pie,” Parker said with a laugh. My brain immediately veered off a cliff into visions of eating Meg out.
“For goodness sake, Hunter,” Meg said irritably. “Not like that. This is a family-friendly event.”
But she clearly was thinking the same thing I was if the flush on her neck was any indication.
