Sex, Not Love(83)

She stared at me for a moment. “You know how Italian mothers make meatballs from scratch?”

I furrowed my brow. “I think so.”

“You take the meat and put it in a metal grinder.” She used her hands to demonstrate a crank going around.

“Okay…”

Bella pulled her purse onto her shoulder and straightened her spine. “That’s what I’m gonna do to your balls if you hurt my baby again.” Then she kissed both of my cheeks and walked down the steps, leaving me standing there on the stoop.

She yelled over her shoulder as she hit the sidewalk. “Door is open. She’s in the kitchen. No hanky-panky on my couch. I just got new plastic put on.”

I chuckled to myself as I watched her walk off. Then I took a deep breath and let myself into the house.

Natalia yelled from the kitchen. “What did you forget this time?”

She had her back to me as she poured a cup of coffee with one hand and held her phone with the other, reading something.

I waited until she set the pot down so I wouldn’t startle her and spoke softly. “Hey.”

She jumped and whipped around to face me. Blinking rapidly, as if she thought she might be imagining me standing there, she clutched her cell phone to her chest.

I took one hesitant step closer. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Hunter? What the hell are you doing here?”

“Your mother let me in. I came to talk to you.”

The initial excitement in her face disappeared as a mask slid over it. She pulled at the tie of her robe to cinch it tighter.

“That’s funny. I contacted you a few weeks ago, and you didn’t want to talk then. You couldn’t even bother to respond to my text. Didn’t have much to say at the christening either.”

I shoved my hands into my pockets and looked down at my feet. “I saw your ex on TV going into your building.”

I’d been up for twenty-four hours with nothing to do but think about what I was going to say to her, but the look on her face told me that apparently that was the wrong thing to open with. She was pissed.

Her hands flew to her hips “So you thought my ex was visiting me and what… I was fucking him?”

Her tone told me yes was not the way to respond to that question, even if it was the accurate answer. “I needed to talk to you.”

“About what?”

She was angry.

She was defensive.

She looked ready to slap me across the face.

Yet she’d never been more beautiful to me. God, I am so in love with her. That thought made it impossible to hold back the smile that spread across my face. Rightly so, upon seeing it, Natalia looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

“What the hell are you smiling at?”

I took two hesitant steps closer to where she stood. “You’re incredibly beautiful.”

“You’re a jerk.” Her words were hard, but her face softened a little.

“I am.” My smile grew wider.

“What do you want? I have an appointment to get to.”

She still hadn’t moved, so when I took another step forward she was trapped with the sink at her back and me in front of her. I took her lack of kicking me in the balls as a positive sign. My heart raced, and it felt like if I didn’t touch her, it might explode in my chest.

“I missed you.” I took another step and closed the gap between us. She still didn’t run, so I kept pushing my luck. Reaching up, I cupped both of her cheeks in my hands. My eyes closed at the incredible feel of her soft skin beneath my fingers. I took a deep breath in, relishing her intoxicating scent. She’d definitely just taken a bath. I smiled, opening my eyes, and slowly leaned forward to brush my lips against hers. “Sweet pea,” I mumbled. “Love that smell.”

The phone in her hand dropped to the floor, yet she made no attempt to pick it up. I took that as another good sign and went in for more. Planting my mouth over hers, I kissed her again. Only this time it was more than a brush of lips. Leaning her against the sink, I kissed her long and hard. I licked her lips, urging her to open, and she moaned into my mouth when our tongues tangled. My hand at her cheeks snaked around to her neck, and I gently squeezed to tilt her head and deepen the kiss. She moaned again, and the sound shot through me.

God, I missed this.

I missed her.

How could I have thought I was living before?

We kissed for a long time, and when it broke, her slack jaw began to tighten almost immediately.

“I can’t do this again, Hunter. You hurt me.”

I leaned my forehead to hers. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry I hurt you. I’m crazy about you. I didn’t mean for it to happen. Just the opposite. I wanted to keep you from being hurt.”

After a minute of shallow breathing, she swallowed. “I don’t understand, Hunter. You hurt me because you wanted to keep me from being hurt? That doesn’t make any sense. What’s going on?”

I looked into her eyes. It was the moment of truth. For the last ten years I’d hidden behind a disease I wasn’t even sure I had. I wanted to live, and I wanted to live for and with this woman.

“We need to sit down and talk.”

She nodded. “Let’s go in the living room. My mother went to my sister’s to babysit. She won’t be home for hours. We’ll have privacy.”