His Every Touch (For His Pleasure, Book 8) (5 page)

“I wish we could just spend the entire night like this,” she said, sighing, as he rubbed his thumb up and down the middle of the sole of her bare foot.

“I bet you do,” he grinned. “What about when my hands fall off from all this massaging?”

“That would be unfortunate for you,” she replied gravely.

“You should stay the night,” he said, after a brief silence.

She sat up on her elbow and looked at him. “Really?”

“Really.”

Kallie considered it. “I don’t know. What would Red and Nicole think?”

“They’re your bosses, not your parents.”

She fell backwards again, groaning. “Speaking of parents, I have my big family dinner tomorrow. And my parents will probably be pretty curious what happened to me tonight. I don’t think they thought I was really sick for even a moment.”

Hunter didn’t say anything. He’d stopped massaging her foot, too. Kallie lifted her head to look at him, concerned that she’s somehow upset him. But he was smiling at her, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “I just figured out what I’m doing tomorrow evening,” he said. “I’m going with you to your family dinner.”

“Hunter, please don’t joke around about this.”

His smile faded. “Oh, I’m not joking at all. I’m going.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why? We’re together, Kallie. I want the world to know that you and I are in a relationship.”

Kallie wasn’t sure which was worse—if Hunter was just messing with her head or if he really was serious. The thought of him meeting her parents and brothers was literally horrifying, and the thought of them meeting him, equally so.

“But we’re not really in a real relationship, Hunter. This,” she said, gesturing to the bed and their naked state, “is hardly the kind of thing my family would consider wholesome and respectable relationship fodder.”

“Really?” he asked, his eyes blazing. “Why, because I spank you? Because we have a certain way of handling our sexual roles that’s slightly outside the norm?” He got up from the bed and began pacing. “You know, I so hate that self-righteous, puritan attitude that some people fling around. People who know nothing about respect, nothing about honesty and monogamy—most of the critics can’t even keep it in their pants themselves. Most so-called “moralists” are people with the same faults and foibles as the rest of us. But because they’re ashamed of their sexual proclivities, we’re supposed to hide ours as well?”

Kallie had to admit, she sort of enjoyed watching him get all worked up like this.

Especially in the nearly nude state he was currently in—his passion for the subject was a turn-on. “Forget about the puritan moralists,” she said, breaking in for a moment. “I’m just saying that my family would never accept our relationship in its current state.”

“Well, they will. They have to, Kallie. Because I’m coming tomorrow. You know I have the power to say what we will and will not do, and I say that we show up as a couple tomorrow night.”

She put a hand on her forehead. “Why couldn’t we have just kept going with the foot massage?”

Hunter went to his dresser in the far corner of the room and opened the top drawer. A moment later, his hand emerged from that drawer holding a thin black box about six or eight inches in length. He turned and came back to the bed, the box in his hand. Slowly, he held it out to her at arm’s length. “This is for you, Kallie. I was trying to think of the right time to give it to you, and this is it.”

Kallie stared for a long time. It was as if the moment had frozen somehow, or maybe she was the one who’d frozen. Whatever the issue, she couldn’t seem to bring herself to move a muscle at first—she was too shocked.

And then she reached out and took the box (it was velvety smooth to the touch) and slowly opened the lid, as if whatever was inside the case might bite her if she wasn’t careful.

Her eye caught the glimmer of something sparkling inside.

“What is that?” she said. “A necklace?” She glanced up and Hunter nodded, his expression one of great anticipation.

“Go on,” he said. “Take it out.”

She pulled the lid all the way off and laid it in her lap. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “It’s beautiful!”

And it was. She’d never seen anything quite like it before. It was white gold, and she was fairly certain that it wasn’t fake gold or just gold-plated either. The chain was thin and long. The pendant on the necklace was composed of a large ring, made also of white gold, with a small, bright diamond gleaming from its center.

“Come, let me put it on you,” Hunter said. He gently took the necklace from her and then slid the chain around her neck, fastening it in back. When he was done, the necklace hung between her breasts. It would be well covered by most tops, unless she wore something that displayed an awful lot of cleavage.

Kallie looked down at the ring with the diamond in the middle. She picked it up between her fingers. “What is it, exactly?”

“That,” he said, “Is the symbol that I’ve chosen to represent our relationship.”

“It’s lovely,” she told him. It was lovely, but she had questions about it as well.

He said it was meant to represent their relationship. Kallie wondered just what it represented exactly. She had an idea that the small gleaming diamond in the center of the pendant was supposed to be her, and so it stood to reason that the white gold ring surrounding the diamond was supposed to be Hunter.

Thus, he was encircling her with his protection, much in the same way that the ring was protecting and encircling the precious stone.

She liked it, very much, and yet it also gave her an uneasy feeling.

Kallie wanted to be an equal in this relationship, even if she was subservient in theory. Yet this necklace made her feel that somehow he saw her as this tiny little thing to be looked after, to be enshrined and kept away from the world and its dangers.

Perhaps she was reading much too much into the necklace. And perhaps Hunter hadn’t even given it that much thought—maybe he’d bought it before they’d even met.

“Now you have the necklace and you have the contract. This means we’re officially together, and it’s quite a bit more official than most dating relationships that your family would likely approve of.”

“They wouldn’t even know what to make of this stuff and I’m not sure I do either.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the necklace, though. It was cool and smooth and hard against her skin.

“My point is,” Hunter said, his voice sounding a trifle edgy, “I’m clearly making a commitment to you, Kallie. A commitment to us. And I should hope that means something.”

“It does,” she told him. “It means a lot.”

“And we’re going to that dinner tomorrow. Right?”

She sighed. “Yes. Just, please don’t do anything to embarrass me, Hunter.”

He smiled. “Me, embarrass you? Never.”

***

In the end, she stayed the night.

It was so easy that it rather shocked her. After Hunter gave her the necklace, they went downstairs and he fixed them dinner. He made a salad with grilled chicken and vinaigrette dressing. Simple but tasty.

Kallie wanted to help but Hunter wasn’t hearing of it. Instead, he opened a bottle of red wine and they both drank it while he made the meal. Kallie had a little too much, though, and by dinner’s end she was getting silly.

During the meal, Hunter asked her questions about her family life, growing up, all kinds of boring little things that he seemed to take a keen interest in hearing. Of course, she wanted to do the same and ask about him—but she wasn’t allowed.

When dinner was over, they went and sat in the living room together. Hunter said he liked to read after dinner, and so he asked her what she enjoyed reading, because he wanted to find her something from his library. She replied honestly, even though she knew there was a chance it would anger him.

“I was really enjoying Blue Horizon,” she said. “Only now I can’t finish it. I feel like anything else would be a disappointment right now.”

She glanced at him, concerned that she might see the first stirrings of anger in his expression. But he seemed completely fine with her response. In fact, he was smiling a little. “We agreed you won’t finish Blue Horizon. But, I think I have something else you might get a kick out of. Wait right here.”

Hunter left the room and Kallie sat with her glass of red wine and sipped, wondering what new surprise he had in store for her. She was feeling a bit dizzy and warm—sort of fuzzy around the edges. She was happy with Hunter, talking to him, watching the way he reacted to her stories. He was always right there with her, always so present to her needs and interested in her thoughts, she realized, and that was one of the things she loved about him.

Love. Was it way too early in the game to be using such a word to describe her feelings for a man who was as flaky as Hunter Reardon? Probably, yes, she thought. But anyway, Kallie rationalized, she just loved certain qualities he possessed.

As she grappled with her feelings, Hunter re-entered the room carrying a binder of some sort. Puzzled, Kallie put her glass of wine down on the glass coffee table and took the binder that Hunter presented to her.

“You might find this funny,” he said, pointing to the large white binder in her hands. “That’s some of the old writing I did for my creative writing program back in college.”

Kallie’s eyes widened. Something from Hunter Reardon’s secret, never-to-be-spoken-of past! She felt like she was holding the Dead Sea Scrolls in her hands. Kallie couldn’t believe he was just handing over something so personal like this. He didn’t seem to mind sharing it at all.

She flipped the cover open and immediately came face to face with a printed page of text. At the top of the first page was the title of what must have been a short story or something. It was bold and underlined, and it read:
IT CAN’T ALL BE LIKE THIS