Page 56 of Hat Trick

With my forehead against his damp chest, I say, “Pretty sure if we had sex like that at an actual theater, we’d bearrested.”

“The perks of having your own theater.” He pauses, the silence drawing out until all I hear is our ragged breathing. “Not gonna lie, honey, you’ve ruined me. I don’t even think my legs are going to hold me up for anothersecond.”

If he feels all wobbly the way I do, I don’t blame him. I pat his shoulder. “Sit your Jell-O legs down and take me withyou.”

He wraps his arms around me and hoists me up into his embrace, bridal-style. He makes a move to sit, mutters “fucking armrest,” and then shifts over to the nextseat.

I snuggle against his chest, my arms wrapped around his neck, as I inhale his scent and wonder if it’d be weird to ask for a shirt. Not to wear, just to . . . keep. Okay, yeah, that’sweird.

Marshall collapses as gently as possible with me in hisarms.

I hear the distinct sound of metal clattering to the floor, andthen—

“Fuck.Me.”

I jerk back to stare at him, only to find that his eyes are wide withpanic.

“What?” I poke him in the chest. “What’swrong?”

His gaze clashes with mine. “Thepie.”

Um . . . “It was tasty,right?”

He blinks. Once. Twice. Thrice. “The pie”—he swallows audibly—“is underneathme.”

No. I lean to the side, blink a few times, and wish that our shadows weren’t throwing the entire seat into darkness. I glance back up at him. “Are you sure you’re sitting on thepie?”

His tongue sweeps over his bottom lip. “Yup. I’m going to need you to get up, Gwen. And to also never mention thisagain.”

“But—”

His gaze zeroes in on me, as though daring me to challenge him onthis.

So Ido.

“But how will we ever tell anyone about our first kiss then? It’s all part of the fantasy, afterall.”

“All part of the . . .” he trails off, and I don’t have time to register the fact he’s pulled me up into his arms and plopped me down in his place until I hear a very loudsquishhhh. Oh. My. God. He swallows my shriek with a kiss and a full-bellylaugh.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers in my ear, “I’ll be sure to lick you allclean.”

21

Hunt

Iwaketo the sound of my phone ringing—and a warm body snuggled up against mychest.

Gwen stretches and shoves her butt against my crotch. Even in sleep, she’s a temptress I can’t live without. More than that, she’s a woman I want by my side for the rest of my life. Everything about her calls to me in a way that I can’t necessarily dictate into words—and the thought alone brings to mind the studies I’ve seen online that circle the question: why do you love aperson?

Always, the interviewee’s answer came back to attributes: she’s gorgeous, his smile, their laugh. Or maybe, even,he understands meorshe makes mehappy.

That’s how I feel about Gwen. It’s so much harder to give definition to the wonderment I feel when we grin at each other or the sense of completion that envelops me when she says my name like I’m the only one in the world who can give her what sheneeds.

Those studies had the right of it. Tonight, I knew with every fiber of my being that Gwen fits me in every way—but if I had to give bullet-point reasons why, I’d have only one answer. She justdoes.

I slip my hand over her curves and momentarily lose myself in the memories of thisevening.

It’s pretty hard to believe that this moment is my reality. After years of hoping that she’d look at me as something more than the guy from her Accounting class, I finally got my taste of her. Hell, I got a lot more than I bargainedfor.

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