Hudson’s grip tightened around me and he buried his face in my hair. “I don’t know what she’d do. I’m not willing to find out.”
The edge in his voice coupled with his uncertainty caused another spike in my blood pressure. “Hudson, I’m scared.”
He pushed me away enough to cup my face in his hands and meld his gaze with mine. “I’m not, Alayna. Not in the least.” It was a one-eighty from his last declaration, and I suspected his words now were only for my benefit, that he was more worried than he was letting on. He couldn’t fool me.
But it felt good to hear him try.
“Trust me.” He placed a kiss on the tip of my nose. “I’ll take care of it.” He kissed the side of my mouth. “I’ll take care of you.”
He licked along the seam of my lips. When I parted my mouth, he eased inside, mesmerizing me with sensual strokes along my teeth and tongue. He kissed me slow and deep and with careful attention. With his lips he did the thing his words had failed to do—he made me feel better. Or he distracted me, at least. Either way, he gave me what I needed.
In fact, I needed more.
I pushed into him, lifting my breasts to meet his chest.
Hudson smiled against my mouth. Then he wrapped up the kiss with a final peck on my lips and pulled away.
My fingers curled into his jacket, drawing him back to me. “Don’t stop. I need you.” I pressed my body against his, my desire growing with an intense urgency.
“Alayna…” His eyes traveled to the phone on the desk behind him. He wanted to be making calls, setting things in motion. It’s what he needed to do to feel better. To feel safe. I got that.
But what I needed to feel safe was much simpler. More tangible. More within reach. “I need you, Hudson.” I moved my hand to stroke against the ridge in his pants. “Please. Please make it better.”
“Dammit, Alayna,” he growled. “You’re making it hard for me to do what I should be doing.”
I continued rubbing his crotch. “I’m trying to make it harder.” God, I’d never had to beg, but if he wanted me to, I would. “Hudson…please!”
“Fuck.” In one swift motion, he turned me so that the desk was pressed against my behind. He leaned down, and with the length of his arm, pushed aside the files that lay on top. Then he lifted me so that I sat on the edge of the mahogany surface. “Take off your panties,” he commanded, as he undid his buckle.
He didn’t have to ask me twice. Hudson had his cock out by the time I’d slid my panties off and kicked them to the floor. I watched as he stroked himself, his shaft thickening with each pump.
I ran my hands along his chest and squirmed, spreading my legs further apart. I ached to have him moving inside me—ached with an intensity that I couldn’t recall having ever felt before. I was desperate. Frantic. “Hudson.” I couldn’t stop pleading. “I need—”
He cut me off. “I know what you need. Trust me to give it to you.” With one hand still wrapped around his cock, he placed his other hand between my folds and swirled his thumb across my bud.
I moaned and tilted my hips to increase the pressure.
Hudson leaned his forehead against mine. “You’re so eager, precious. It’s going to hurt if you don’t let me get you ready first.” He slid his finger along my lips and back to dance across my clit.
“I don’t care if it hurts.” It hurt not having him inside me. I tugged at his tie. “Come on!”
He swore under his breath. Then he let himself go. Tangling his hand in my hair, he pulled me roughly toward his lips. “It’s hard enough to control myself around you as it is. If you give me permission, then you better believe you’re going to get fucked.”
I wanted to reply, Thank god, but his mouth had claimed mine with frenzied passion and speaking was no longer an option. At the same time, he drove his cock into me with a deep, forceful jab. I cried out at the pleasure/pain. I’d been wet, but he’d been right—I hadn’t been quite as ready as I could have been.
And it didn’t matter. I loved him inside me, and my snug channel let each of his short stabs rub against every wall. I cried into his mouth at each stroke. God, oh god, oh god.
Still it wasn’t enough. I wrapped my legs around his waist and bucked against him, meeting his thrusts. I closed my eyes. I was aroused and insane with needing the release I knew would come if I could just get there.
He let go of the lip he’d been sucking on. “Jesus, Alayna. Slow down.”
“No. Can’t. Want you.” I couldn’t even speak in complete sentences.
“I know. I know what to give you.” He nipped at my jaw. “But if you don’t let me take care of you, you aren’t going to get where you want to go.”
“Need,” I corrected. And I couldn’t slow down. I was crazed.
Hudson huffed my name in frustration. Wrapping a handful of hair around his fingers, he pulled my head back until I gasped. His strokes slowed to a steady pulse. “Listen to me. Are you listening?”
I nodded.
“Look at me.”
I opened my lids and met his gaze. Immediately, his gray eyes soothed me.
“You need to let me take charge, Alayna. You need to trust me. I’m going to take care of you.” He wasn’t talking about achieving an orgasm. He was speaking about much more. “Okay?”
I did trust him. Implicitly. I’d told him over and over.
But even with my declarations, I was still recovering from his recent abandonment and the pain of it lingered. Saying I trusted him was easier than actually letting myself go to fully act on that trust.
He was calling me out on that now.
And I wouldn’t let him down. “Okay,” I said.
“Good. Now let’s do this.” With one hand still pulling my hair, he moved his other to my clit where he rubbed with expert circles. “Hold on to the desk.”
I moved my hands to grip the edge of the desk. He picked up the tempo of his thrusts, his tip knocking against the same spot on the inside that his thumb massaged on the outside. The sensation in that one concentrated area built quickly. Soon, I felt the tightening in my lower belly, and my limbs began to tingle.
And Hudson was feeling it too. “God, Alayna. Your pussy feels so good. So tight. You make me so hard. I’m going to come so hard.” He quickened the pace again, and the sound of our bodies slapping and his sex words pushed me higher and higher and higher.
When I was about to orgasm, he urged my hips up and drove into me with staccato jabs that sent us over together with a shared moan. He rubbed into me for several long seconds, spilling everything he had, my own fluids mixing with his.
“Better?” he asked before I’d even caught my breath.
“Yes. Much.” But even as I was still soaring on the tails of my climax, I recognized that I’d just done the thing I’d always accused him of—used sex to solve a problem. “I, um, I’m sorry about—”
“Shh.” He put a finger to my lips and smiled. “It’s nice to be on the opposite side for once.”
“Well, thank you.” I kissed his finger then laced my hands around his neck.
“Anytime you need it, I’m happy to fuck away your woes.”
I laughed. After cleaning up and putting my panties back on, I left him to begin the tasks he felt were necessary for our protection.
Celia was nowhere in sight as I climbed into the back of the Maybach, but I shuddered, still feeling her eyes on me from the last time I’d been in the car. Hudson believed he could rid her from our lives. And I had total faith in him.
But I loved the man more than I’d loved anyone. It was totally plausible that my faith was biased.
Chapter Seven
Instead of going back to the club, I decided to call it a day. Besides, Hudson and I had planned that morning to be home to eat dinner together, and even though the new developments of the afternoon were keeping him at work late, I didn’t want to waste the cook’s efforts.
At the penthouse, I put our dinner trays in the warmer and sat at the dining roo
m table nibbling on my salad while I tried to concentrate on a new book. I’d picked Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence, hoping it would help me focus on the romantic and sexual aspects of my life rather than the dread Celia had instilled.
But reading required more attention than I was able to devote to the task. Giving up, I tossed the book on the table. A blank business card poked out between the pages at the bottom. I hadn’t seen it before—throwing the book must have jostled the card from where it was lodged inside. I flipped the book open to the page the card marked and then turned the card over to see if the other side was also blank.
It wasn’t. And the name on the back almost made me drop the card.
With a hand on my chest, I talked myself down from my panic attack. Hudson had ordered the books from Celia and her design company—it was only natural that she’d stick her business card between the pages.
Except the books were new. And the page that the card had marked had a quote highlighted in yellow: “She was always waiting, it seemed to be her forte.”
Had Celia marked that quote? And had she meant it for me or for Hudson? And whoever the intended target was, what did she mean by it?
“Good book?”
I jumped at Hudson’s voice behind me. I’d been too absorbed in the book and Celia’s mark on it to hear him come in.
He leaned down to kiss my neck. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”
“It’s not that. Look.” I showed him the card and held the book up for him. “I found this business card in this book—it’s one of the ones you got me. And this quote is highlighted.”
I felt Hudson’s body heating with rage. He crumpled the card in his hand and threw it across the room. “Goddammit!”
“What does it mean?”
“Who knows?” He took a deep breath and reined in his fury. “You know what? Don’t even think about it. That’s what she wants. She wants it to mess with you.” He grabbed the book from me and took it with him to the kitchen. “Have you eaten?”
“I waited for you. It’s in the warmer.” I sat quietly until he returned with our dinner plates. “You took her key away, right?”
Hudson set our plates down. “She didn’t just leave that in your book now. This has to be from before. When she had the boxes delivered.” He disappeared again into the kitchen.
That hadn’t been an answer to my question and his avoidance made me nervous. I waited until he came back, this time with a bottle of wine.
“Hudson—her key?”
“Yes. I took away her key.” He poured me a glass and then one for himself. He had his half finished before I’d even taken one sip. “The day after she made the delivery.”
He hadn’t told me about seeing her then. But I’d seen Celia many times without telling him so I supposed it was fair.
Instead of dwelling on why he’d never mentioned it, I thought about what else he’d said—that she must have put the note in the books before they’d been delivered. There were hundreds of books. How had I happened to find the one with the note? Unless there were more. “So there could be secret notes and messages in all of the books.”
Hudson took another swallow of his wine—a swallow that finished off the glass. “I’ll replace them all.”
“You don’t need to do that.” Truthfully, I was already planning to search them. Curiosity was pretty much my middle name, after all.
Hudson refilled his drink. “I’ll do it anyway.”
He had made up his mind and when he made up his mind, there was no arguing with him.
I glanced at the clock on my phone. It was after eight. “You got home late. Does that mean you came up with ideas on how to deal with her?”
Hudson didn’t look at me as he took a bite of his fish. “I have something in the works,” he said when he’d swallowed. “But I’d rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.”
“Um, yes, I do mind. This affects me and I want to know what’s going on.” If he thought he was doing this on his own, he had another think coming.
“You know what you need to know. I’ve hired security, the new cameras are being installed at the club tomorrow, and I have some preliminary ideas to try to make Celia lose interest in her game.” His entire demeanor was dismissive.
And my demeanor was getting pissed off. “Ideas that you aren’t going to share?”
“No. I’m not.”
I set my fork down, a little more forcefully than I’d intended. Or maybe exactly as forcefully as I’d intended. “Hudson—transparency, honesty—remember? Are you hiding something from me? Is it illegal?”
“No. And no. And you said you trusted me.” He raised a brow. “Remember?”
“I do trust you. But we’re supposed to be in this together and this is not together. This is you keeping me in the dark while you go play superhero. Or I assume you’re playing superhero, because I don’t really know.”
He sighed and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked at me directly. “We are in this together, Alayna. And I’ll tell you. Just not now.” He covered my hand with his own. “I’d rather spend my evening with you. Alone.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that he needed a rest from the subject. It was how he dealt with things—internally and on his own. We both needed to learn to work things out as a couple. But he’d said he’d tell me later. Maybe tonight I could let it go too.
I turned my palm up to lace my fingers through his. “Okay. No more talk of Celia.”
We exchanged smiles. Then Hudson let go of my hand to continue his meal.
We sat in silence for several long minutes. Hudson finished most of his plate while I poked at my food, my appetite long gone. I could agree not to talk about Celia, but that didn’t mean I could stop thinking about her. She’d penetrated so deeply into our relationship—did she realize that she consumed our thoughts? That our time together was now so intertwined with her that we were practically a threesome?
Hudson swirled his wine in his glass and watched me. “Now you’re quiet.”
I chuckled. “I don’t know what else to talk about.”
He ran his hand across his face and I knew he was thinking the same thoughts I’d been thinking—about how we couldn’t even have a simple meal without Celia there. He opened his mouth to say something, and for a moment, I thought he was going to go ahead and let her win.
But then his face changed and he became resolved. “Well, let’s see. I know how today went. What’s on your agenda for tomorrow? You’re interviewing Gwenyth, right?”
“Her name’s Gwenyth? Hmm.” That was the first time I’d heard her full name. And it bothered me. Hudson was not one to use nicknames.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” I was probably making a mountain out of a molehill. But I couldn’t help myself from pursuing it. “I’ve heard you call her Gwen.”
He shrugged. “That’s what she goes by.”
“You never call people by their nicknames.” My irritation was showing.
And so was his. “Are you suggesting it means something that I use hers?”
“No.” Why did this bother me so much? “I don’t know.” It was Celia. The mood had been set and now, even as we tried to move past it, we struggled.
It was my turn to sigh. “I’m just tense. I’m sorry.”
“I know. I am too.” Hudson took another swallow of his wine. “I don’t know why I call her Gwen. I knew her as that first. I suppose it’s in my brain now.”
“You don’t need to explain.” But I was glad he had.
I took a sip from my own glass, trying to focus on something that wasn’t going to piss either of us off. He’d asked about my agenda for the next day...fuck. I remembered something we needed to talk about. But it was definitely not going to be a pleasant conversation. Might as well get it over with.
“About tomorrow…” I began tentatively. “I do have plans I should tell you about.”
“You better not
be planning a run in Central Park. Your new bodyguard will tackle you down.” His tone was light, but his eyes said he was serious.
“I said I wouldn’t run outside. Trust me works both ways, you know. Do I get to meet this bodyguard? Is he also very attractive but unavailable because he’s gay?”
Hudson smirked. “That’s not even a little funny.”
I knocked his knee playfully under the table. “It totally is and you know it.”
“I’ll introduce you on his shift tomorrow. He’s not gay. And I trust you so I’m not worried about whether or not he’s attractive.”
“Good boy.”
“Now what do you need to tell me?” He took a bite of his risotto and pinned his attention on me.
I paused, hating to destroy the lighter mood. “I’m, um, having lunch with Mira tomorrow. And Jack.”
Hudson froze, his fork mid-air. “What did you say?”
The look on his face said he’d heard me fine. But I played along, trying to sound more confident the second time around. “I’m having lunch with your sister and father.”
“Like hell you are.” His eyes blazed with fury.
His reaction wasn’t a surprise, but I fought not to get immediately defensive. “I’m guessing it’s the Jack part that has you upset and not the Mira part.”
His jaw twitched. “I’m not upset about any of it because you are not having lunch with my father.”
With as much lightheartedness as I could muster, I said, “I’m not sure you can tell me what I am and am not doing.”
“Oh, yes, I can.”
I groaned, running my hands through my hair. “Hudson, this is ridiculous. I’ve told you before, I’m not Celia. I’m not going to sleep with your father—even if he comes on to me. Which he won’t because your baby sister will be there.”
He wiped his mouth with his napkin and tossed it on his plate. “Why do you even need to spend time with him?”
“I don’t need to. I didn’t plan to. Mira didn’t want to be alone with him, and so I offered to be a buffer.”
“She doesn’t need a buffer. Cancel your date and have coffee with her later. Just Mira.”
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