Chapter 42

Kara’s POV

I leaned closer to Adrian. I’d been surprised that he accepted my offer to come in for a drink. I was pretty sure he was just checking to make sure I drank a glass of water and didn’t faint, at first, but then we’d started talking. It felt surprisingly easy and I hadn’t noticed the time passing.

Suddenly we’d stopped talking.

I could feel electricity between us, and myself starting to get wet.

We were moving slowly closer to each other when there was a knock at the door.

We both jumped and stepped back, the tense moment shattered.

I sighed, let down.

And surprised. I hadn’t thought I wanted Adrian.

I went to the door and opened it: Hunter.

Alone, which was surprising. I couldn’t believe he’d left Maya at the ball alone.

He must have been concerned about me.

But now he looked murderous: every bit the jealous husband.

“Sorry,” he said coldly, “I can see that I’m interrupting.”

“You’re not interrupting anything other than me trying to make sure your wife doesn’t need to go to the hospital,” Adrian said, sounding more composed than I felt.

“Yeah right,” Hunter replied, stepping closer to his cousin.

Adrian stepped toward Hunter as well, quietly but menacingly.

They inched closer to each other.

They were closer than Adrian and I had been a few seconds earlier, but for a very different reason.

I could feel the tension buzzing in the air like a swarm of silent hornets.

I shouldn’t let this go on any longer. I stepped between them toward the bed, picking up my glass of water from the nightstand and taking a drink.

I was thinking that I should send him away.

I was thinking that I should really send both of them away. Get some sleep and give myself a break from all of this. But I wasn’t realistically going to do that. I needed to talk to him.

Needed more time with him.

“Adrian,” I said finally. “I’m fine. You can get going.”

His shoulders slumped for a moment, but he quickly composed himself, set his water down on the counter, and walked swiftly out the door. Hunter’s chin lifted and he looked into my eyes.

I wasn’t deciding between them. I had no choice in the matter, for one thing. Neither of them could be mine. Not really.

I had to talk to Hunter, though. To know why he’d left Maya to come and see me.

To figure out if he really believed our relationship had never been more than a transaction.

“Are you okay?” Hunter asked. His voice was soft and gruff.

“I’m fine,” I said quickly, but grew suddenly faint again. I wasn’t sure if it was from the pregnancy exhaustion or the night’s exertions, or the fact that the blood had all rushed between my legs.

Suddenly, I didn’t care about all the complications.

I was tired of everything being so difficult and fraught and messy.

I was far enough into the pregnancy that my hormones were going haywire.

And the tension had been building with Adrian before Hunter interrupted. I wondered if I’d have had sex with him, if there hadn’t been a knock at the door.

To be honest with myself, I definitely would have. I had no idea if Adrian was thinking the same thing, though I thought he was. But I needed a release.

I felt guilty for just a second: that I would have slept with Adrian, and was now entertaining the thought of being with Hunter. But they’d both put me through hell. Adrian once, with that stinging rejection a long time ago. Hunter in different ways for years, and especially since Maya’s arrival.

If I wanted to, I deserved to use either of them.

I unhooked the back of my dress and slid out of it.

I felt suddenly weightless, shedding the dress I hated and the bloody evidence of the evening’s intensity.

I hadn’t needed to wear a bra or shapewear with it, so all that was left was a black, lace thong.

I leaned back and blinked at Hunter.

He strode toward me, shrugging out of his shirt as he did.

By the time he leaned over me on straight arms, the bare planes of his chest were exposed. I reached up and ran my hands lightly along the architectural planes of his body and down to the button on his trousers.

He helped me take them off, and I took him in my hand, feeling the hardness and pulse of his desire for me.

He might not want me for anything but this. And he probably didn’t. But he did still want my body.

He looped his finger into my thong and tugged it aside.

He plunged his finger into me, and curled it in a beckoning motion that made me squirm with pleasure.

But I was immediately distracted by the expression on his face.

Disgust, and anger, and jealousy.

“You don’t get this wet for me,” He said, sliding his hand back out. It left a tingling ache behind. I needed his cock. Not his bullshit.

“Excuse me?” I replied.

He leaned further over me, but didn’t touch me. It was menacing and irritating, and hot.

“You heard me. This is for him, isn’t it? You got worked up at being carried out of the ball like a little princess, didn’t you? I never thought you needed a big strong man to help you. It was one of the things I respected about you.”

I slithered out from under him awkwardly and rose beside the bed.

I needed to be standing for this. He stood as well, just in time for me to pull my hand back and slap him across the face with everything I had.

I put into it all my anger at him, and Maya, and the situation, and my desperation. For the parts of what he just said that he was wrong about.

And especially for the parts that he was right about.

Because I did get worked up at being carried out of the ball.

But like hell was he allowed to give me a hard time for that, after how he’d been behaving toward me.

My palm landed with a satisfying crack. Even more satisfying were the red fingerprints I left on his cheek or the shocked impression I left on his face.

We stood staring at each other, almost naked, and chests heaving.

I wasn’t sure if he moved first or if I did.

But suddenly we were wrapped around each other again, biting and sucking at each other’s necks, fingers groping downward and grasping then extending the other’s pleasure.

I was thinking about how sex between us had felt so different lately. Really since the time I’d decided to use him for my own enjoyment. I wondered if some of it was the pregnancy hormones as well.

It had always been good, but this was—

Then he slipped two fingers inside me and picked up with the beckoning motion he’d left off on before. He increased the rhythm and I ground my hips against him, and suddenly I couldn’t think of anything else at all.