Page 56 of Burden of Proof

xx, H

I folded the note in on itself, determined to shove it into my pocket once I found my pants.

“Two kisses?” I asked.

“As many as you want now that you’re up.”

He walked around the counter and fitted himself between my naked thighs. There was no thought involved with taking the ends of his tie into my hands and knotting it into place at the base of his throat, which was a blessing, because I had to spend all of my brain power on remembering how to breathe with him so fucking close to me.

After I adjusted the knot, I smoothed my hand down the silk, finding his green tie to be as soft as his blue one. Before my fingers could drop off the end, he covered my hand with his and raised it to his mouth, kissing my knuckles, my palm, the inside of my wrist. A wave of goosebumps rolled up my arms, and I closed my eyes so I could better appreciate the feel of his mouth.

Patron saint of head over heels in love with a man I barely even knew.

“I’m going to have lunch with Smith today,” he said, my fingertips pressed against his lips. “I’ll let him know we’re…well, shit.”

Hunter’s normally gorgeous mouth turned down into a frown, and I pulled my hand out of his grip in order to stroke my thumb across his cheek. His face was still damp, smooth…he’d shaved. I imagined him leaning over the sink, a towel loose around his waist and shaving cream streaked down his throat and toward his ear.

“What?”

“I’ll let him know that we’re…what’s the word, Lincoln?”

“Involved,” I murmured.

“Is that all?”

I appreciated him putting the ball in my court, but it wasn’t a decision for me to make. Normally deciding your involvement with another person was a collaborative kind of thing, but he said it had been awhile since he’d been in a serious relationship so maybe he’d forgotten how it worked.

“What do you want it to be?” I asked.

“I’m a Covington, sweetheart,” he said, angling his face into my hand and kissing my palm again. “We’re greedy men by nature.”

“Be greedy then.”

He closed the space between us and slanted our mouths together, making quick work of slipping his tongue past my sleep-chapped lips and into my mouth. I flung my arms around his neck, happy to let him steer the kiss, relishing the way the taste of his coffee and his toothpaste quickly overpowered the sticky remnants of sleep that lingered in my mouth. It didn’t take long for my cock to wake up as much of the rest of me, and it wasonly a reluctant groan from Hunter’s mouth as he broke the kiss that put enough space between us that we could breathe.

“Boyfriend,” he whispered, the word dusting across my lips like a kiss on its own.

“As long as you call me sweetheart again,” I said softly, my whole body swaying after his.

“I’ll call you anything you like.”

“I’ll call you Sir,” I promised, because it felt right to do so. “I’ll call you my best boy.” Hunter smiled against my mouth. “I’ll call you Daddy.”

“I’ll be all of those things for you.”

He took my face into his hands and kissed me hard. Rough enough that I saw stars around the corners of my vision before I closed my eyes and melted into him again.

“I’ll tell Smith you’re my boyfriend,” he said again.

“You just like saying it.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up, and he looked so fucking young. “I’ll tell him I’m your boyfriend. That sounds better.”

Something unexplainable and terrifying knotted itself together in the middle of my chest, and I was glad Hunter had ended the kiss because if his tongue was still in my mouth, I might choke.

“What else?” I asked.

“I’ll make sure he knows that you’ve been honest about your relationship with him. That it doesn’t bother me. That it won’t bother me.”