Giving In To Love (Strong Brothers 2)

"I had to come home one weekend for Gran's birthday, and my fiancé couldn't come with me. But of course I missed her, so after Gran's birthday, I drove back up to school to surprise her."

All of a sudden, I realized I was about to hit the punch line.

"I walked into our brand-new condo that I’d just spent a fortune having decorated to her specifications, and I found her in bed with somebody else.”

My heart went out to him. Betrayal was a bitch.

“Of course, I went ballistic, and expected her to apologize, to beg me to forgive her." He shot up, and began to pace again.

"She didn't beg for forgiveness?" I asked, fighting the urge to go to him to hug him.

"No." He turned and looked at me, blue eyes staring down at me. "No, she didn't beg for forgiveness. She laughed in my face. She said that she'd been seeing other guys the whole time. She'd been with me for the money and the name."

"Oh God." I began to understand why Hunter was such a love-phobe.

"It gets worse."

I couldn’t imagine how it could be any worse, but I sat and listened.

"That fuckwit she was with filmed the whole thing. He said he was afraid I was going to beat the shit out of him, which I thought about doing for a second except for then she completely humiliated me. I felt completely castrated." He started to pace again grounding the palms of his hands in his eye socket, giving off a low growl. Then he stopped short and came back over and sat on the coffee table again. His movement was so fast that he surprised me, and I jerked back my eyes widening in surprise.

He held his hands up in surrender, like he was trying to let me know that he didn't mean to startle me. "They posted that video of me learning I was cuckold. When that video he took went viral on the Internet and having her humiliate me and squash my heart, was the worst day of my life.” He looked at me intently. “That is until last night."

My brain came to a screeching halt. What?

"Let me preface this by saying that piece in the magazine brought all this back and it wasn't fair to you because you're not her and I know you would never do something like that. But I'm not a very good steward of my emotions sometimes and I let all that anger takeover and I hurt you, for which I'm truly sorry."

I nodded, but I wanted to go back to the part to where he said last night was the worst night of his life.

"When I saw you walking to the bar last night, looking so fucking beautiful, my heart hurt." He pressed his hand over his heart. "And then I saw you dancing with Jason Tollison and then all I saw was red," he said with a sheepish smile.

I smiled glad to hear he was jealous of Jason.

"When I saw you out there with him, I told myself that you weren’t into me and it just validated everything that I'd been thinking. Except I couldn't accept that. I had to fight for you, Natalie. I know I did it the wrong way. You and I, sometimes we don't communicate in the way other people do, but last night it became clear that you and I were done, and it crushed me." He stared at me taking a long breath that he let out slowly. "The truth is Natalie, I'm in love with you."

27

Hunter

There were many moments in my life where I waited on bated breath for an answer to an important question. But never before had I felt like my entire future was riding on this one moment. As Natalie sat on the couch looking at me, a little bit confused and stunned, I began to worry that the answer I was hoping for was going to be no.

A desperation bubbled up deep in my gut and I had to do something. "I love you, Natalie." I said it again in case she didn't hear me the first time. Again, the seconds drew out like an eternity, and I had to recognize that she didn't feel the same.

I thought my worst fears had come true when I believed that Natalie had betrayed and humiliated me. I was discovering that in fact, my worst fear was that she didn't love me. I worked so hard to prevent myself from ever feeling like this again. And the worst part about it, was that this moment was so much worse than the first time I loved and lost.

As I sat there feeling like a fool, I could feel something inside me die. My protective instinct was telling me to get up and leave. But I couldn't quite give up the hope that maybe I was wrong again. Maybe she did love me. And so, I sat and waited.

A moment later she came off the couch, her arms wrapping around my neck and her body pressing close to mine. It took me a moment to realize what was happening because I was so sure that it wouldn't. But then I banded my arms around her picking her up and sitting on the couch with her on my lap. I held her to me, burying my face in her neck, inhaling her sweet scent and making a vow to never let her go.

"That was the longest hour of my life," I said, letting out a long, shuddering breath.

She lifted her head and looked down at me, her smile so wide and bright, the light now coming back into her eyes. "It was like three seconds. It took that long for what you said to filter through to my brain."

"It felt like a fucking eternity. My life was flashing before my eyes." Then because I couldn't wait a second longer to taste her, I pulled her to me, pressing my lips to hers, letting her taste and texture infuse my body with relief.

She tore her lips away from mine and I growled in frustration because I hadn't had enough. Not nearly enough. In fact, I now was sure I would never ever have enough. Even if I spent a lifetime with her.

Her hands slid from my shoulders along my neck and up to cup my face. Her beautiful blue eyes scanned my face before coming back to my gaze. "I love you too Hunter."