Verity put her fork down, watching him. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
He looked up with a frown. “Huh?”
“Did something happen on the walk today? You seem a little distracted.”
He shook his head then nodded. “It’s not something that … ugh, I don’t know. I bumped into these two women. One of them claimed to live here, and well, they had something crazy to say about the houses.”
“Do you want to tell me what it is?” Verity asked.
Hector put down his fork. “Apparently, these houses are cursed.”
“They are?”
“Yeah, but not in a mean, haunting-ghost kind of a way.”
“What way?”
“The people who are neighbors are real-life soul mates. They fall in love and spend the rest of their lives together,” he said.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
“And you believe this?”
“Well, I bought my house from a girl, and she was either married to or going to marry the guy who lived in your house.”
“Oh,” Verity said. She frowned and recalled the guy who had lived here had said that he’d fallen for his neighbor and they were moving on to a place that was much more suited. It had seemed strange to her. “Okay, but neighbors fall in love all the time, right?” she asked.
“That’s what I was thinking, but I don’t know. I guess, with us having sex…” he said but didn’t quite finish.
“Do you think we’re going to fall in love?” she asked. Her heart started to thump inside her chest. Her mouth went dry. She reached for the coffee and took a sip, trying to moisten her mouth.
He shrugged.
This was a crazy conversation, and she didn’t like it at all.
“Don’t worry about what the houses mean, or what they don’t mean. It’s nonsense for us to be in their kind of situation. No houses curse people to fall in love. How can falling in love be a curse, anyway?” She was rambling on.
Getting to her feet, she picked up her plate and Hector’s. There were only a couple of mushrooms left on his plate.
She carried them through to the kitchen and put them on the side, gripping the counter, trying to find something to hold everything together.
Falling in love.
Hector.
There was no way she was falling in love with Hector, but even as she thought those very words, her gut started to twist because she knew she was lying.
The cursed-houses idea was nonsense.
Hector came into the kitchen. He moved up behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders. She expected him to say something, to bring some calm to her rioting thoughts. But there was nothing he could say.
He’d dropped this mega bombshell, and now she just had to deal.
Hector kissed her neck. The touch was featherlight, but she felt an answering pull between her thighs.
The hands on her shoulders slid down her arms, settling on her waist.
He lifted beneath the shirt and touched the tender flesh of her stomach before, with light touches, he glided up and cupped her tits. She couldn’t contain her moan as his touch sent a hit of fire coursing through her body.
“Do you have any idea what you do to me?”
Did she make him love her?
That was crazy.
What he had told her was so stupid.
She wasn’t going to believe it. There was no room to believe it.
Hector lifted the shirt right over her head, tossing it across the counter and letting it hit the floor. She didn’t fight him as it fell.
Verity wasn’t wearing a bra, and a whimper escaped her lips as he stroked her tits. Pinching her nipples.
He put his hands back on her waist, and this time, he pushed her sweatpants down her thighs until they landed on the floor. She stepped out of them. There was no point in wearing panties around him.
His hand moved between her thighs, cupping her naked pussy. He slid his fingers between her slit, grazing across her clit before going down to plunge inside her.
“Hector,” she said.
“I’ve got you. Let go.”
She didn’t know if she could. Did he even realize that she was falling for him? Was it such a ridiculous idea?
This isn’t love, Verity.
It’s sex.
Even as she thought it, she couldn’t help but deny it. This wasn’t just sex. Sex had ended a long time ago.
Pushing all negative thoughts from her mind, she focused on his hand. How good it felt on her pussy.
“I’ve got to be inside you.”
She felt him moving, and then he nudged her forward, tilting her hips so she was bent over the counter. His cock slid between her slit, bumping her clit before moving back and going to her entrance.
The hard length of him filled her.
She whimpered.
He grabbed her hips, almost bruising her, he held her that tightly. Pushing all the way inside her until he went to the hilt, but he drew back.
Hector did this for several thrusts, lighting a fire in her stomach. Then, it was like he was taken over, and he pounded inside her, fucking her harder than ever before.