courthouse telling her that her divorce was final. Then, she packed her stuff, bought a ticket for the next train leaving the state, and never looked back.
And now…
“Are you really going to hog the bed?” came the muttered complaint even as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer.
“Are you really going to complain all night?” she fired back with a wiggle, demanding that he hold her tighter.
“Probably,” Hunter admitted, as he tightened his hold around her and pressed a kiss against the back of her neck before casually asking, “Did you like the gift basket?”
“I loved it,” Kylie said, smiling as she thought about the large gift basket filled with lotions, bath salts, bath bombs, goat’s milk soaps, creams, loofa sponges, scrubbing brushes, a manicure kit, and all the luxury bath items that she’d never had and always told herself that she didn’t need.
“More than the cookie basket?”
“Well, I mean, I wouldn’t go that far,” Kylie said, feeling her lips twitch when he released a growl and pressed another kiss against the back of her neck with a “Goodnight, brat,” and before she knew it, she was falling asleep.
A gentle caress woke her sometime later. For several minutes she simply laid there, enjoying the feel of Hunter’s fingertips running along her jaw. She’d never liked to be touched, not when she was a kid, and definitely not when she was married. It used to take everything in her not to flinch when David reached for her. She’d hated his touch, his scent, but mostly, she’d hated not being able to be close to anyone without being afraid.
When Hunter asked her why she’d married David a few months ago, she hadn’t been able to give him an answer, but now she knew. She’d never loved David, but she’d cared about him and back then that had been enough. She was sick of being alone and being afraid all the time and that had led her to the biggest mistake of her life. She thought getting married would make her feel like she belonged, but all it did was make everything worse. He’d never made her feel safe, never made her feel wanted, or even bothered to pretend that he cared once they’d said, “I do.”
David had been quiet, boring, polite, kind of pathetic, and once upon a time, she’d thought that meant safe. The moment he thought she wasn’t going anywhere he’d stopped pretending to be harmless and she’d found herself trapped in another nightmare. He’d turned cruel, belligerent, and had taken great joy in throwing everything that she’d foolishly told him about her family back in her face.
It hadn’t taken long to realize that she didn’t love him after that and even less time to realize that she didn’t even like him. When she’d found out what he was doing behind her back, it had made accepting the truth that much easier.
She was better off alone.
At least, that’s what she used to think. Now, she wasn’t so sure what she wanted, she realized, as she opened her eyes to find Hunter sitting next to her, watching her with that curious look in his eye that she couldn’t quite understand. He slid his fingers through her hair as he slowly leaned down and brushed his lips against hers, giving her an achingly sweet kiss before he pulled away, letting his fingertips caress her jaw one last time with a softly murmured, “What am I going to do with you, Kylie?”
Chapter 23
“You look uncharacteristically pissed today,” Ryan said conversationally as he joined him by the back wall, away from the long line of people eager to get a shot at the security challenge that his men set up for a chance to get their hands on ten-thousand dollars.
“Did you need something?” Hunter asked, as he watched the next person in line step up to take a crack at the security system they’d put on a shed that they’d built to look like a house and-
“Damn it!” the man that headed straight for the keypad groaned when the buzzer went off and the red light flashed, letting him know that he’d tripped the system.
“Whose idea was this?” Ryan asked, gesturing towards the challenge that had people lined up around the block.
“Kylie’s,” Hunter said absently, still beyond fucking impressed that she’d come up with this idea in the first place.
It not only brought them a shitload of free PR, but it had also given them an opportunity to put their newest