Whether it was my words or my rubbing, Christina complied, quickly erupting around me with a scream.
There, that was what I needed. I followed with a long, low grunt. My fingers returned to her hips, digging into her skin as I throbbed and pounded out the last of my climax.
I was still inside her when the bedroom door flew open.
Automatically, my face turned to see who our audience was. My eyes connected with familiar blues—Celia.
Could my night get any better? I’d thought the whole plan had ended perfectly before, but this was the real icing on the cake. Now, in this moment, Celia would realize that I didn’t actually feel the emotions that I’d led her to believe I’d felt. I’d thought I’d have to have a conversation about it. But, oh, do actions speak louder than words.
Celia froze in her spot. Her eyes darted from me to Christina and back to me. It all seemed to take minutes, but in reality, only a few quick seconds passed before her hands flew to cover her eyes. “Oh, my God.”
It was only then that Christina noticed our intruder. “Fuck! Celia.” She moved to get out from under me, but I held her in place.
“I’m sorry.” Celia’s voice cracked. “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
She spun and headed out the way she’d come in.
I could have gone another round—I was hard again from Celia’s interruption—and the last thing my cock wanted to do was withdraw from its warm cocoon. But I was desperate to draw more reaction from Celia. This was the final stage of the experiment—the recording of results. I had to know what she was thinking, what she was feeling. What she thought she was feeling.
Without cleaning up, I stuffed myself in my pants and gave directions to Christina. “Take off your skirt and panties and wait for me here. Next time I won’t be so gentle.”
She scrambled to obey as I left her. My cock throbbed, yelling at me to stay. My heart, on the other hand, beat wildly at the thrilling outcome of my experiment. The adrenaline and an ability to guess where Celia would go—to her car—allowed me to make up for the distance she’d put between us, though I didn’t spot her until I was outside.
“Celia, wait,” I called across the front lawn. I tried to sound urgent and panicked. I feared I sounded delighted.
She didn’t turn to me but acknowledged me with her middle finger. “Fuck you, Hudson.”
“Come on, wait.” I ran to catch up. When I was close enough, I reached for her arm.
She snapped out of my grasp then spun around to face me. “What? What do you want from me?” Tears fell in torrents down her cheeks. Her voice was surprisingly steady considering. The look though, was off-putting. Her obvious heartache tugged at something in my gut, something I had no familiarity with.
I ran a hand through my hair, a bit thrown. A breath later, I managed to say something. “We were going to talk. I came here tonight to talk.”
She laughed, her expression in complete contradiction to the flowing stream from her eyes. “That’s fucking hilarious. You came here to talk to me and what? You couldn’t find me so you talked to Christina instead?”
This was excellent. Her emotion was pure, raw. It intoxicated me in a way that very little else could. I wanted to bottle it, inhale it, take it in and process her feelings in depth. Since none of that was possible, I wanted to draw out as much as I could before she walked away.
I stepped toward her. She stepped back.
“What is it that I did wrong, Celia?” My voice was steady and controlled, in stark opposition to hers. “You act as though I owe you something. What exactly do you think is going on between us?”
A sob escaped her lips and she wiped at her tears with her hand. “I told you I loved you, Hudson. You kissed me.”
Another step toward her. “You kissed me.”
“And you insinuated that the only reason you stopped was because I had a boyfriend.”
Ah, her side. The details of my cruel setup cited back to me like a melody I’d orchestrated but was only now hearing. It was beautiful.
I looked at my feet, hiding the corners of a smile. “No. No, Ceeley.” I lifted my eyes to hers. “I’m truly sorry if you got the wrong impression. I was simply reminding you not to throw away your relationship with Dirk simply because you remembered how you once felt for me.”
“How I felt for…?” Her eyes flared with incredulity. “That is not what happened. You were feeling things for me too.”
“No. I wasn’t.” Here was the highlight of my act. My joy in performing it was a testament to my sadistic nature. I softened my expression. “I mean, I care for you. A great deal. I always have, I always will. I know that’s probably hard to hear, but that’s all I’ve ever felt regarding you.”
I was good. I knew it. I felt it.
Except Celia didn’t break the way I’d expected. In fact, her tears slowed and her brows furrowed in confusion. “What…what are you doing, Hudson?”
The way she looked at me, the way her gaze pierced through me—did she know? Had she figured out it was all an act? There was no way she could know. Who would guess that?
I paused too long before answering. “I’m trying to straighten out this misunderstanding.”
She studied me. “No, you’re not. You’re running away.” Her shoulders, which had sagged only a moment before, squared with renewed strength. She was the one who took a step toward me this time.
I was the one who stepped back.
“You’re convinced that you shouldn’t be allowed to feel anything or that having emotions will make you weak or something equally as ridiculous, and so you’re pushing me away.”
My calm was unraveling. Her words—they stung. They bit at me. They burned. And like the dragon who was angered by the meager attempts of humans to draw it down, I grew furious.
She took advantage of my setback. “Stop pushing me away,” she pled.
The softness of her appeal, the sweetness in her eyes, the sincerity of her posture—it stirred me. There she was assuming things about me again. She wanted to see me feel? Well, I was feeling a whole shitstorm of rage. “You don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about,” I hissed.
Her attack—because I refused to call it anything else—didn’t waver. “Stop this, Hudson. Stop lying to me. Stop lying to yourself. This isn’t who you are.”
Fury spread through me so thick that it propelled me forward until I was in her face. “This is who I am, Celia. Don’t you dare think you know something different. What you see is what you get.”
“You’re a fucking coward.” Her voice caught and I savored the victory. To her credit, she didn’t back away. “This was your chance to be a man, Hudson. I could have even forgiven your thing with Christina if you could just be honest now.”
“You could forgive me?” My eyes widened in mock exclamation. “Well, hell. How will I ever go on without your pardon?” My voice was uncharacteristically loud. I didn’t care. Venom was spewing from me whether I wanted it to or not—and I wanted it to. It was no longer about an experiment of emotion. I wanted to hurt Celia. She was the very example of how love weakened a person. She was pathetic. I loathed her.
I loathed myself for contributing to this creation.
“Scratch coward. I meant to say asshole.” She was too kind to me.
I stepped back from her, not in retreat, but in disgust. I was consumed with it—the emotion wrapping around my insides like a cobra. “Jesus, you’re really a piece of work, Celia Werner. What did you think was going to happen between us? You thought I was going to love you? You thought we were going to ride off into the sunset together? You’re the one who needs to stop lying to yourself. That’s a fairy tale, Ceeley, and I stopped believing in those a long time ago. It’s time you grew up too.”
I was done with her. Done with all of it. I left her there, crying on the edge of the driveway. I didn’t turn back once.
The next two hours I spent alleviating my temper in carnal ways with Christina. I fucked her hard and
long and unrelentingly until she was raw and I was numb inside and out. A quick shot of whiskey before I left the Brookes’ kept the numbness clinging to me until I pulled into the driveway at Mabel Shores. I closed my eyes and rested my head for a moment on the steering wheel of my BMW Z4, a high school graduation present from my parents. I felt…tired. Exhausted. Drained. I certainly had notes to add to my log. My findings had been satisfactory, though not as precise as I would have wished. A part of me wanted to study further in this vein—would another subject react as Celia did, turning on me? Or was it her close relationship with me that produced the results I’d seen?
A bigger part of me never wanted to experiment with a subject so close to me again. It was too unreliable of a study. From then on, I promised myself, my research would be conducted further from home.
I’d been too distracted to notice Celia’s car until I’d gotten out of my own. It was parked at the other end of the circle drive. Its appearance was ominous—I didn’t like what it could possibly mean. I walked over to make sure she wasn’t waiting inside. She wasn’t. So I headed inside the house. The front door was locked, which meant if Celia was inside, she’d been let in before the house had been shut up for the night.
I intended to search for her but halted when I discovered Mirabelle curled in a ball reading on the main staircase. “Why are you still awake?”
“What’s it to you?” She must have sensed that I was in no mood for her attitude because she quickly amended. “It’s summer. I don’t have a curfew. Or a nanny anymore, it appears.”
Right. Erin was fired. Mother must have won that battle.
If we had parents that gave a damn, Mirabelle would have a curfew whether it was summer or not. “As long as you’re up—” Might as well use her for information. “What’s Celia’s car doing here?”
My sister shrugged her slight shoulders. “She came by. I told her you weren’t home and she said she’d wait for you on the patio. That was, like, two hours ago. She probably fell asleep out there.”
“Fuck,” I mumbled under my breath. I wasn’t in the mood to deal any more with Celia that night. But it would be even worse to have to explain her sleeping on a deck chair in the morning.
I nodded up the stairs. “Get to bed, Mirabelle.”
“I don’t—”
“Get to bed.”
“Fine.” She stomped up the stairs muttering something about “never having any fun.” I waited until she was out of sight before checking on Celia. Last thing I needed was Mirabelle as a witness to whatever was going to happen next.
The patio outside was empty, so I walked down to the pool to see if Celia had ended up there. She wasn’t there either. I was about to head down to the beach when I noticed the lights on in the guest house. My father had stayed there after the party the night before, and that morning my mother had his things moved as well. Maybe Celia had wandered over looking for me.
I’d only taken two steps toward the house when the door opened. Celia walked out then my father appeared in the doorway behind her. From where I was, and in the dark, I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed he wasn’t wearing anything but swim trunks or boxer briefs. He held his hand out and he must have said something because Celia turned back to him. She took his hand. He pulled her to him. And they kissed. It wasn’t a long kiss, but I knew that kind of kiss. It wasn’t a first kiss—it was a thanks-for-the-fuck kind of kiss.
My stomach churned, and I looked away. I stepped back into the darkness both to remain unseen and to be off the pathway in case I puked—I’d rather do that on the lawn.
At some point, their kiss must have ended, because when I glanced back, the door was closed and Celia was halfway up the walk. She slowed the tiniest bit when she saw me, but she didn’t stop. As she passed, I saw her more clearly—her lips were swollen, her hair and clothes a mess. We didn’t speak a word to each other, but a conversation transpired nonetheless. With my eyes, I told her I knew. With her eyes, she told me we were even.
With our silence, we said that it was done now. We were done now.
It was a shared understanding. Soon she was gone and a few minutes later, I heard her car starting up in the driveway.
Then I walked down to the guest house. Celia and I might be done, but my father and I were not. He’d done a lot of fucked up shit before, but this I couldn’t stand by without giving him my take on the situation. This was too low. Fucking his wife’s best friend’s daughter not one hundred feet away from where his wife slept? No wonder I had no sense of ethics.
The light inside the guest house was out now, but I knocked on the door lightly—light enough that he might assume it was Celia again and not his full-grown son. It didn’t take long before he answered the door, and when he did, I was ready. I punched him in the face. Hard.
I left him cursing and holding his cheek. He didn’t need any explanation for my behavior. He might have been an asshole, but he wasn’t an idiot.
The night hadn’t gone exactly as I’d planned. But I’d finished my experiment. I’d ended the drama with Celia. I’d learned more about how the idea of love affected human behavior. I’d even gotten laid.
If it had been such a fulfilling evening, why did I feel so fucking empty?
With my head throbbing and my chest heavy, sleep took its time to arrive. When it finally did, I dreamed I was in a fire, that flames licked at me, scorching me, robbing me of oxygen, destroying me. I woke in a sweat. Fucking nightmare. It held no truth in it.
In reality, I wasn’t on fire. I was the fire.
Chapter Nine
AFTER
It’s been two days since I first kissed Alayna. Yesterday, she came by my office and accepted my proposal. I was surprised, to say the least, as I’d thought I’d need more time to work on her. I was glad though, because I could then concentrate on the aspects of our relationship that interested me more.
After our arrangement was settled, I took her upstairs to the loft and made her come with my fingers and my tongue. The experience was unlike any other I’d had with a woman. While it wasn’t the first time that I’d given pleasure with no expectation for the return, it was the first time it hadn’t been about me. Usually, my focus is on my own skills. I’m studying, investigating. Watching and mentally recording how my actions cause the woman I’m with to respond. I love to try and find the trigger points. Love to discover how to make her come. It’s intriguing. It’s fascinating. It’s also very self-centered.
With Alayna, however, my thoughts were not on myself at all except in the sense of how could I make it better for her. From her first moan, I became her slave. Everything I did after that was for her—for her pleasure, for her release, for her satisfaction. My entire being disappeared in the singular purpose of making her feel good. Though the episode ended with my cock rock hard and uncomfortable in my pants, it was the most fantastic sexual experience I’d ever had.
We made plans to meet this evening. I can’t stop thinking about being inside her cunt. I’m so preoccupied by it that I’ve only half-heartedly addressed many of my other obligations—including Celia. I haven’t spoken to her in days and she’s eager for news. Not wanting that to disrupt my night, I figure I better speak with her before Alayna arrives.
Shortly after three, I walk out of my office, briefcase in hand, and ask my secretary to clear the rest of my afternoon. Then I come up to the loft through the main elevator so that even she doesn’t know I’m still in the building. It reduces my chances of being disturbed.
Once in the loft, I make the call I’ve been dreading.
“It’s about fucking time,” Celia says in place of a greeting.
“Since when have frequent check-ins been a requirement?” I look longingly at my bar, but I’d prefer to have all my senses about me when Alayna arrives later.
“They’re not a requirement. They’re a courtesy.” She’s calmer, though. “Right now, I don’t even know if this is a go or not.”
“It’s a go.” I massage the
bridge of my nose and a bitter taste gathers in my mouth. It’s guilt that I’m feeling. While there are few emotions that I’m familiar with, guilt is one I know full-well. It’s the monkey on my back. I carry it everywhere.
“Good.” The satisfaction in her voice carries through the phone. “Then our first outing is this Sunday at your mother’s charity event?”
“It is.” I won’t tell Celia I’m seeing Alayna before then. Nor will I tell her the nature of our time spent together for no other reason except that it’s none of her business. I actually believe that Celia would approve—the more time I spend with Alayna, after all, the more likely she is to become attached. That is the risk I’m taking with my soon-to-be lover, but I have faith in Alayna.
Besides, I can’t help myself.
Though not necessary, Celia and I have previously agreed that she will be present at the major events of our scam. I suspect she’ll try to push her way in for more, and that I will not allow. “Is that all you need, Celia?”
“No. I’d like to hear the details.”
I shake my head even though she can’t see me. “I’m not sharing details. Not today and not in the future. I’m not checking in with you. You will not call me regarding the situation.” I sense she’s about to interrupt me, but I speak over her. “I’ve arranged things as you’ve requested, Celia. And I’ll follow through, though I realize I have no reason at this point to do so.”
“Because you own the club now? Hudson, you know as well as I do that I would find another way to follow through with my experiment.” The click of her heels on the floor suggests she’s pacing as she talks. “I’m invested in this project now. I won’t let it go. It has such great potential. Frankly, I’m disappointed that you aren’t as intrigued as I am by the emotional psyche of Alayna Withers.”
I am as intrigued as Celia. More, I think, but I won’t give her the satisfaction of confirming that.
So I divert. “I don’t believe you’re going to see the results you believe you are.” Especially after spending time with Alayna. Every minute in her presence I’m more convinced that she’s stronger than she looks.
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