All The Way

He scowled at her. “Mr. Who?”

“Anaheim! That’s where you went when you left me!”

It took him a moment, but he made sense of it. Pritch’s trial track.

“Let me go.” She tugged against his grip.

“Calm down first. And you left me.”

“The hell I did! But I will now if you’ll get your hands off me!”

Hunter let her hands go but grabbed her shoulders. He wanted to shake her. “You were pregnant when you told me to leave that bar!”

“And you left!” she shouted back.

Then she started shaking.

He felt it under his fingertips, tremors that grew and shuddered. Hunter pulled his hands back fast. For more than eight long, cold years, he’d imagined ways to punish her for leaving him as if he was yesterday’s garbage. Now he couldn’t let her emotion rock him.

“I’m going to be a part of that little girl’s life,” he said more quietly.

For more than eight desperate, aching years, she’d imagined ways to make him hurt as badly as he’d hurt her, Liv thought. Her breath chugged a little, then she finally got her voice back. “No. You’re not. Because I won’t allow it.”

He leaned closer, pinning her back against her car. He stopped only when his face was inches from hers. “You have no options here, Livie. I’m bigger than you are. You can’t stop me if I decide I’m headed somewhere.”

“Try me.” Liv’s fist found his gut. She was rewarded by a grunt of breath.

She started to twist away, but then something in his eyes stopped her. His gaze turned heated and speculative at the same time she realized what she had just said. “I didn’t mean—”

“Why, Livie. Was that an invitation?” He pulled her back and his mouth found hers.