I turned after hanging the dish towel from the oven handle.
“Hi,” I responded.
Her brown eyes flew as big as pucks, and she dusted her hands down her denim and T-shirt combo like she was self-conscious.
I offered my hand. “Hudson Porter. Nice to meet you.”
“Grace Wilborn. I’m Charlie’s mother.”
Shea appeared over her shoulder. “It’s right here,” she said as she slid past her. Opening the first cabinet, she pulled a pink thermos down. “She left it after the last sleepover, and I knew if I didn’t snag it right now, I’d forget.”
“Oh, thanks!” Grace took the thermos from Shea, her eyes still on me. “You’re Elliott’s Big, right? The hockey player?” She flashed Shea a look that suggested they’d spoken about the hockey player on more than one occasion.
“I am,” I confirmed.
“She says great things about you.”
“She says wonderful things about your daughter, too,” I told her.
Grace’s eyes lit up, erasing a few lines of exhaustion on her face. “Thank you. She’s my pride and joy.”
“Ready!” Elliott shouted as a couple sets of running footsteps came to a halt in the living room.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to keep them tonight? I can absolutely do a sleepover,” Shea offered.
“Oh, no. They’ve been looking forward to this all week. Besides, you know how they are, practically entertaining themselves.”
“Amen,” Shea agreed, and the women shared a secret smile.
Elliott bounced into the room, hugged Shea, and to my surprise...me.
“Thank you for talking to her about the hockey stuff,” she whispered in my ear when I’d leaned down to hug her back.
“Anytime, kiddo. Have a great sleepover.”
Within moments, they left, and Shea and I were alone, facing each other in her living room.
“I should probably get going.” I offered Shea the out, even though the last thing I wanted to do was leave.
What I wanted to do was to suck the last half hour back into whatever dimension it had come from. I wanted to erase our fight and go back to the effortless, easy feeling we’d had during dinner.
But it would have happened sooner or later.
“You could stay,” Shea offered quietly. “I mean, for a drink or something. I might have the world’s oldest bottle of tequila in the freezer. I think I bought it when Elliott was five or something.” She gave me a quick, forced smile, but her eyes lingered on mine, and it was the longing that kept me there.
“I actually don’t drink.” I tucked my thumbs in my pockets.
“Oh. You don’t?”
“Shocked?”
“A little, I guess. Not that I think hockey players all drink or something. God, I’m so sorry. That...that escalated in there way faster than I could seem to stop it.” She tucked a strand of her hair back behind her ear. She’d opted for contacts again today, and though I missed the sexy librarian vibe her glasses gave her, she was just as beautiful without them.
“When I was a teenager, I read that addiction can be genetic. That there was something in the genes that made someone predisposed to an addictive personality, whether it was drugs or alcohol, or even sex. So I decided I’d never drink or do drugs, ever. I wasn’t going to chance that I’d be one of the statistics.”
“But the sex was okay?” she smirked.
“Well, there are some things a man can live without, and some…” I shrugged, a smile forming on my lips.
“Some you can’t live without. Yeah, yeah, I know. Nine years, remember?”
“All too clearly,” I replied.
Just like that, the space between us grew tense, thick with possibility. Her eyes dropped to my lips, studying them with such intensity that I felt her stare like a caress.
“As for the rest, don’t worry,” I quickly said, trying to distract myself. As much as I’d loved kissing her before, she obviously hadn’t been ready for it, and I wasn’t about to push.
“The rest?” her head tilted to the side, her attention still fixated on my mouth.
My tongue swept over my suddenly dry lower lip, and her pupils dilated.
Fuck, she wasn’t making this easy.
“The hockey stuff.”
She blinked, then met my eyes again. “Oh, right. Yeah. You’re right. I can’t really judge what I haven’t seen. That’s not fair.”
“I get it.” Unable to stop myself, I reached for one of her hands, and my thumb traced the lines on her palm.
“You do?”
I nodded, savoring the softness of her skin. This might be the only way she ever let me touch her.
“I could be wrong. But I think someone hurt you. And it’s up to you when and if you ever want to tell me who and how, or if I’m even right. But something forced you to build some pretty thick walls. And I don’t just mean the normal walls we build with failed relationships. I mean Great Wall of China-sized walls. Violence, in any matter, scares you, even more so when Elliott is involved, and you need to know it’s okay. I get it.”
Instead of pulling her hand back from mine, she leaned in, her empty hand resting on my chest. “You’re right.”
I nodded. “I didn’t want to be.”
She eyed my lips again, then my throat, and down the lines of my chest until she traced the logo on my shirt. “I feel safe with you,” she admitted. “That’s something I haven’t felt in...so long. And the last time I felt that with a man, it turned out that I...wasn’t.” She picked up my hands and held them by my wrists. “Your hands are beautiful, did you know that?”
“I’d never thought of them that way,” I said as she studied them. “They’re just my hands.”
“They’re capable of such amazing things. Driving Elliott to whatever adventure you planned, bringing me bubble tea, spiking a volleyball...setting my body on fire with nothing but a simple touch.” Her voice dropped to a near whisper.
Damn if I didn’t want to touch her now. It had been weeks, and I could still taste her, sweet and chocolatey on my tongue.
“They’re capable of wielding a hockey stick, and…” She swallowed.
“Fighting,” I supplied.
She nodded.
“Yeah, they are, but I’m in control of them, you know,” I teased. Her eyes shot to mine. “You’re always safe with me. I need you to know that. I know you think my job is the very thing you can’t stand, but I need you to know that hockey didn’t make me a monster—it kept me from becoming one. It taught me to channel that energy, to leave it all out there, to never let anger bottle up and become dangerous.”
“You’re dangerous to me.” It was the most honest she’d ever been with me. “You make me want things I shouldn’t want. You make me feel selfish. Possessive, even, and that’s just ridiculous because the only claim I have to you is that you’re Elliott’s Big, and you kissed me once.”
Just like I wanted to do right now. Over and over. Endlessly. If that was all she wanted, then I’d kiss her until our mouths were swollen and red, until we both ached. Hell, I’d kiss the woman until I died and be thankful for it.
“I’d have kissed you a hell of a lot more in the last two weeks if you’d given me the okay.” A corner of my mouth lifted.
“What? Really? I thought I’d freaked you out.”
I lifted one of my hands from her grasp and cupped her cheek. “It would take a lot more than you asking me to stop, than you drawing physical boundaries, to freak me out.”
“All I had to do was ask?”
“Yes.” Fuck, my voice dropped, which was the opposite of what my dick had decided to do.
“When you caught me at the end of the rock climb?” She ran her hand up my chest to rest on the side of my neck.
“Yes.” That moment had tested my restraint, but I’d passed.
“When we were at the yoga studio, and you helped me get into that twisty position?”
“Hell. Yes.” I hadn’t jus
t wanted to kiss her, I’d wanted to peel those spandex pants off her body—they didn’t hide anything anyway—and put my tongue on her.
“Now?” Her question was breathless.
“More than I want air,” I answered.
She slowly took my hand and wrapped it around her waist. “Porter?”
“Shea?”
“Would you please kiss me?”
So polite, when everything I wanted to do to her was so very dirty.
I answered with my mouth on hers, kissing her softly, sucking on her bottom lip. “Is that what you want?”
She used her free hand to clench my shirt and tug me closer. “Almost.”
I kissed her harder, running my tongue along the seam of her lips, and when she parted them, gently teased that lower lip again, licking the tender strip of flesh just inside her lip.
“That closer?”
“Fucking. Kiss. Me,” she ordered, pulling at my neck to bring me lower.
I let her, hovering just above her lips, millimeters out of her reach, even with her on her toes. The anticipation was as excruciating as it was erotic.
“Porter!” she snapped, then swiped her tongue over my lower lip.
I almost broke. Never in a million years did I ever think I’d have Shea Lansing begging me to kiss her.
“Say my name,” I ordered.
“Porter,” she pled.
“No. My first name. I’ve never heard you say it.”
She blinked, and the lust raging in her eyes merged with a tenderness that made me want to hand her the keys to my soul.
“Hudson,” she whispered.
I groaned. What was it about the sound of my name on her lips that made me harder? More desperate to find out what her skin tasted like?
This time when she gently pulled on my neck, I lowered my head, bringing my mouth within reach of hers.
“Kiss me, Hudson,” she whispered against my lips.
I took her mouth in a long, drugging kiss, tangling my hand in the loose silk of her hair and my tongue with hers. She tasted even sweeter than I remembered.
She whimpered, tugging me closer until there were no spare inches between us, and the angle of our kiss bent my neck like a contortionist. I kissed her over and over, losing myself in the feel of her tongue, her curved waist under my hand, her breaths coming in stuttered gasps.
When she tugged again, trying to get a closer that didn’t exist, I let my hand drift to the curve of her ass, and waited for any sign of protest. When she only moaned, I squeezed the plump, round flesh, which only made her moan louder.
“Damn, Shea,” I muttered, then lifted her so I could kiss her at my level. She wrapped her legs around my waist, sank both of her hands in my hair where it curled at the nape of my neck, and then took my mouth as her own.
Her tongue was fire, burning me alive as she explored with little flicks and strokes, learning me the same way I’d already made a study of her.
She flat-out branded me, and I loved it.
I took back control, angling to kiss her deeper, holding her tighter to my body. She rubbed her breasts against my chest, seeking out friction that I was more than happy to give. Without breaking our kiss, I walked forward, then turned and sat in the middle of the couch, arranging her knees so she straddled me.
As she slid into my lap, her breath exhaled on a long sigh, her eyes both widening and turning a darker silver as she felt my erection pressing against her. I wanted her. There was no hiding that fact, and if it was too much, if it scared her, then it was better to know that now.
She rested her forehead against mine, as both of our hearts hammered a furious beat.
“You’re in control,” I assured her.
She took my lower lip in a long, sipping kiss. “What if I want to lose control?”
My dick jumped at the thought.
She flat-out fucking rubbed against me, her barely-there shorts doing nothing to block the heat her sweet body was putting off.
Her breath caught, and she rubbed again, letting a delicious moan slip free.
“God. Por—Hudson...that feels so good,” she moaned.
I gripped her hips, and instead of waiting for her to move, I slowly thrust up against her, using my cock and the seam of her shorts to elicit another moan from her.
I hadn’t dry-humped a girl since high school, but I would happily consider it my job to do nothing but that for the rest of my life if I had Shea in my arms.
“Hudson, please,” she pled, shifting her hips restlessly in my lap.
“What do you want, Shea?” I asked, barely recognizing the gravel in my voice.
“I don’t know,” she replied, frustration obvious in her tone.
Her hips swiveled above mine again, and I groaned. I knew exactly what her body wanted. It wanted me to unzip my jeans, free my cock, slip her shorts and panties to the side, and plunge inside her. Her body wanted to be filled, stroked over and over until all that pleasure peaked and she came so hard the entire apartment building would hear.
But what her mind wanted was a completely different situation, and I had a feeling she was more frustrated with the schism in herself than anything else.
I kissed her, thrusting my tongue rhythmically into her soft mouth the way I wanted to move inside her heat.
My control was on a tight but thin leash as she ground against me, taking my kiss, and giving back just as good as she got.
When this woman finally let go, she would be fire incarnate, and even though I suspected she might leave her share of scars on me, I was more than willing to let her.
Her hands drifted to my shoulders, squeezing the muscles there before drifting to my biceps and grinding down on my cock. “You’re huge...everywhere.”
“I’m proportionate,” I argued.
“That’s pretty much what I said,” she managed to say between kisses and gasps.
“Does it scare you?” I needed to know. Had to know.
“No,” she admitted. “I trust you.”
I nearly came right then and there.
“Fuck, Shea. I know you’re not ready for sex.” Even if her body was screaming for it. “You’re burning me alive.”
“I…” She swallowed. “You’re right. I just. God, I can’t ever remember feeling like this. I don’t think I’ve ever been this…” She licked her kiss-swollen lips, and it took everything in me not to kiss her senseless, until her mind gave in to the demands of her body.
“Turned on?” I supplied.
“Desperate,” she whispered, her eyes taking me in like I was something to be devoured.
It made me want to flip her to her back and show her exactly what being devoured was like.
Why the fuck not?
I gripped her ass and rocked up against her again, going slowly until her head fell back and she groaned low in her throat. That’s where my lips went next, to her neck, sucking the tender patches of skin and then kissing my way to her collarbone, left bare by the V-neck shirt she wore.
When I kissed the curves of her breasts, she grasped my head and tugged me closer. “God, yes.”
I lightly bit her pebbled nipple through the fabric of her shirt, and she cried out, so I gave the same attention to the other.
“Hudson, I’m dying.”
“You’re living,” I corrected her. Her body filled my hands, supple, soft, her temperature elevating with her pulse. “Let me make you come,” I begged against her breasts.
She whimpered, her grip turning almost painful in my hair.
“I won’t even remove a stitch of my clothing,” I promised. “Just let me take away your ache.”
Our eyes locked, need and something else...something sweeter and deeper passed between us.
“Let me show you how good we could be if you gave us a chance.”
She nodded slowly.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I don’t want you to feel pressured.”
A smile spread on her face. “I trust you,” she repeated.
&nb
sp; “You’re in control,” I reiterated, needing her to know that I might hold her body, but she held the leash.
She nodded.
“You’ll stop me if you feel uncomfortable.”
“I’m already uncomfortable,” she declared, rubbing down on my cock again, making us both moan.
“Damn it, Shea, I’m doing my best here to go slowly. Now tell me you understand,” I bit out, my hands gentle on her breasts, at odds with my tone. I rolled and pinched her nipples, and she nodded.
“I’ll tell you. Just, God, Hudson. Please…”
Permission asked for and received.
I flipped her in one smooth motion, so it was her ass on the couch, and I slid to my knees in front of her.
Our kiss was molten, hotter than anything I’d ever experienced. It went beyond pleasurable to primal—necessary.
My fingers found the snap on her shorts, and I undid them, pausing to watch her reaction.
Her eyes showed a flash of nervousness, but she lifted her hips, letting me unzip the tiny things and slide them down her thighs.
“These are so fucking small.”
“They’re mid-thigh,” she argued.
“Well, these thighs have driven me mad all night,” I said against the soft skin above her knee. Then I took my lips higher and higher, hooking my hands under said thighs and gently parting them wider.
“Hudson,” she gasped as my tongue swirled over her inner thigh, running along the seam where skin met her—holy fuck me—black lace panties.
“Trust me?” I questioned, fully intent on stopping if she changed her mind.
“Yes.” Her nails bit into my scalp for emphasis.
Those beautiful, sexy, incredible panties came off, too, landing somewhere in the vicinity of her shorts.
“God. Damn.” I breathed in and out, pressing my dick into the base of the couch to keep control. “You’re… God Damn, Shea.”
Her thighs were smooth, creamy, and led to a sexy strip of hair that matched the auburn on her head. She was fire everywhere, and mine. All. Fucking. Mine.
I reached for her hips, my hands gripping the pale flesh roughly, and pulled her straight to my mouth.
Shea cried out as my tongue hit her clit.
“Stop?” I asked.
“Are you crazy?”
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