by Stacey Lynn
Hmmm. Hudson not being a gentleman. I tried to picture it in my mind.
He laughed and placed his hand at my lower back, shoving me off the bed until I had no choice to stand. “Go. Shower. We’ll discuss that look at a different, better time, too.”
He didn’t say the words, but he made it sound like a promise. Hudson was a man who would keep them.
And he gave that. To me. After everything I gave him last night—all my shame, all my ugly, dirty secrets, he still seemed to want me.
I had done a lot wrong in my life. Made a lot of selfish, childish choices and paid the consequences for them.
But I wasn’t sure what I’d done so right to deserve a guy like him.
Perhaps David had been right after all—what happened to me was tragic and I’d already paid the consequences of those choices. Perhaps I’d been punished enough.
Maybe now it really was time to move forward, to make something of myself and begin moving past them. If I could do that with men like the Valentines in my life, so much the better.
29
Hudson
“Good morning.”
At my dad’s greeting, I didn’t move from my stance at the windows. In the reflection, my dad held a coffee mug in one hand. He brought it to his mouth and took a drink.
“Is it?”
There was a whisper of the threat of snowfall later in the week, but today the sun was shining, the sky cloudless. I wish it were storming.
It’d fit my mood.
It’d been a week since Lilly fell asleep in my arms, sobbing to the memories that haunted her, giving them to me. I wanted her with me all the time. Giving herself to me in all the ways I could have her, and still, I knew it wouldn’t be enough.
We ate dinners together. She came to me when she was done studying for the night while we watched TV. I told her about playing baseball in college. We laughed about favorite toys we remembered getting for holidays. She told me more about Josh, about his alcohol and drug problems, how many times he’d been in trouble before. Cars he crashed.
A truck he once tried to park in the garage without raising the garage door first.
I gave her all I had, only holding back my body and not taking hers when we kissed. I couldn’t do that to her, not with this between us but even I could tell she was growing confused. Especially because I’d never brought up staying with her again.
And God—the sounds she made when we kissed or when I slid my hand beneath her shirt for a hint at skin-to-skin contact.
My self-control was hanging on by a thread, and it was the man in front of me who could help me.
“What’s going on?”
Dad stepped into my office and closed the door.
Once the click ensured we have privacy, I spun, putting my back to the joyful-looking view.
“You need to tell her.”
We both knew who I meant. Another family dinner. Another night filled with lies. Another night hiding pictures of some of the people we loved the most. All to what…?
Break Lilly’s heart and destroy her trust in all of us by the time she learned everything?
“I will.”
“I can’t keep doing this, Dad.”
He set his coffee mug on my conference table and drew his finger over the rim. “I need more time.”
Anger pulsed, hot and heavy through my blood, making my shirt feel too tight and strangling me at the collar.
“I’m falling in love with a woman who I’m lying to. That doesn’t make me feel like the man I want to be. Or the one you raised.”
I loved her. I loved her before I ever met her. How it was possible to fall in love with photographs and second-hand stories I wasn’t sure of, but it happened. It wasn’t only Lilly’s heart on the line. It was mine. I wanted to give her the world, everything she hadn’t had and everything she didn’t know she could possibly dream of. Yet the end was barreling down. The grumble of the train tracks signaling its arrival vibrated beneath my feet every time I was with her.
I wanted to kiss her without guilt, take her in my arms, and someday to my bed without secrets.
I wanted it all with Lilly, and I wanted to give it all back to her.
“You love her?” His voice lifted in surprise. His widening eyes matched.
“You heard me.” I sighed and dropped my face into my hands, scrubbing my hands through my hair.
“Give me the holidays. Please, Hudson,” he pleaded as I opened my mouth to argue.
Thanksgiving was two weeks away. “That’s too long.”
He looked at me then with tired eyes I hadn’t noticed at first and a sober expression he rarely wore. “Let me give her this one thing. One good holiday season where she can see how beautiful life can be.”
“Every day this continues is a day it risks blowing up in our faces.”
In my face. It was me she’d end up hating. After all the nights I spent listening to her tell me about her life, she’d soon realize what a complete and utter jackass I was.
“I know, but I have no doubt you’d be able to heal her afterward, too… if you truly love her.”
Goddamn him. “Promise me. As soon as the holidays are done, you’ll tell her.” I gritted my teeth so hard it’s a wonder they didn’t snap.
“I promise. After Christmas, I’ll explain everything.” He yawned and picked up his mug, taking a drink.
Unless you counted the existence of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, my parents never lied to us. I could trust his promise, even if I despised the timing.
“Okay then.”
“Now, if you’re done looking at me like you want to punch me in the face, I’d like to discuss the New Year Benefit.”
Business, I could talk about.
“Hit me with it. What’s your plan?”
A beautiful sight came to my door an hour before quitting time.
Lilly, dressed in a new dress I knew she purchased from a shopping day with her friend, Angie, from school. They went to the mall over the weekend.
Her dress, gray with white angled stripes, was conservative but still showed her beautiful curves. It tightened at her waist and clung to her thighs, ending just below her knees. It was professional, modest, and I wanted to do nothing else besides tear it off her to find out what she wore beneath. Her blonde hair was curled, bounced at her breasts when she walked. Long gone were the nights of the heavy makeup she wore at Judith’s like a shield. Now it was all soft and natural-looking, allowing me to see the freckles across the bridge of her nose.
She was even more elegant now that she wore clothes that fit her but even without them her beauty was unmistakable. After only a week of working, becoming closer with Brandon and Sandra, she was blossoming. Becoming confident, letting her personality shine through.
And all of that made her more beautiful than her outward covering, despite how well they showed off her exceptional figure.
I cleared my throat. “Hey, what brings you here?”
“Brandon asked me to bring these files up to you. He said they’re for the winter gala?”
“Ah. Yes. Come in.” I was already moving, rounding my desk when she met me, files between us like a buffer.
“Has Brandon mentioned this to you?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I hadn’t heard a thing about it.”
I grinned and slid the folder from her fingers. She wore a soft look when we were alone in the office, making not kissing her a difficult task.
“We host it in January. It’s a night of dinner and dancing with a silent auction where we raise money for homeless shelters. Then we provide them with everything they need before the worst of winter hits.”
“Oh.” She wrinkled her nose in a way she didn’t approve.
“What? And don’t say nothing,” I said when she started shaking her head. “What don’t you like about that?”
“It’s a good cause.”
“But?”
She laughed, with a throaty, frustrated, and absolutely ador
able chuckle. “You’re pushy today.”
Probably because being around her was giving me a massive case of never-ending blue balls.
“Just tell me.”
“I just never understood why people with lots of money to give have to get dressed up and spend thousands on dinners and wardrobes when they could give that money instead.”
I agreed with her, but playing the game brought us more money.
“Because they like to feel important and when they’re all in one room, they become competitive. Their egos won’t allow them to be the smallest contributor. And I agree with you, but this will give shelters millions spread throughout the nearest four counties. Last year we were able to fund an expansion project as well on the south side.”
“Oh.” She blushed as she shrugged. “I suppose that’s worth it then.”
“It is. Are you almost done for the day?”
“Almost. I have to go do a few more things for Sandra before I leave.”
“Let me take you to dinner again?”
She grinned, easy and wide. It wasn’t the first time since last week that it seemed her smiles came quicker, bigger. “I’d love that.”
“Good. Now get out of here before I kiss you and have Brandon know exactly what we were doing when you return to your desk with smeared makeup.”
I was rarely this bold with her. That was the thread unraveling on that tether, but sometimes, like now, I liked the way her mouth formed an O in surprise and her already round eyes went even larger.
Teasing her turned me on.
“Well.” She brushed her hands nervously down her dress and bit her bottom lip. “We wouldn’t want that, would we?”
“I wouldn’t mind…” I let that linger. I didn’t care if everyone in the office knew we were together, because we were, even if we hadn’t had that discussion yet. But Lilly had made a mention of not wanting people to know so I was trying to give that to her.
She already had enough problems with getting the job because she needed help, I figured she didn’t want people to think she got it because she was sleeping with the boss.
Which, after last week, she now was. At least, I was hoping I’d get to wake up again with her in my arms.
The conversation with my dad earlier still settled like a lead balloon in my stomach.
“Are you okay?” she asked, and I relaxed my tightened features.
“Yeah. Just, busy day is all.”
“You sure? You look… tense. Or worried.”
“No.” I smiled, fake as it might be but I hoped like hell it looked normal and kissed her cheek. “Everything’s fine. I’ll see you in an hour.”
She pulled back, grinning up at me, inspecting me but finding nothing. “I’ll be the girl waiting for you in the lobby.”
“Hudson Alexander Valentine. That is quite the mouthful.”
“Alexander means protector,” I said. “Mom didn’t name me for that, but once they started doing foster care, she used to remind me of that all the time. That my job is to protect people.”
“And here you are.” She flipped her hand in the air, gloves still on even though we were back at her house after dinner. “Killing it.”
She gestured to her apartment and then to herself.
Yeah, I’d protected her. Or tried. But that had nothing to do with my name. It was because I was falling in love with her.
“Yours,” I stated, asking for her middle name. We’d been playing this game since dinner. Favorite toys. Favorite memories. Favorite enemy. I barely resisted the urge to say her father’s name for that one. I didn’t have enemies, but that man would be at the top of my Most Hated list.
“I don’t think I know you well enough for that.”
“It can’t be that bad,” I teased. Her cheeks were burning and it had nothing to do with the cold weather. We’d been in my truck and her apartment was warm.
“It’s horrific.”
“Lilly.” I reached for her then, threaded my hands beneath her winter coat so I was holding her waist and yanked her to my chest. “Tell me your middle name.”
“I’m surprised you don’t know it.”
I did. I couldn’t remember it right now. Not with her windswept hair and pink cheeks and those damn freckles. I wanted to kiss every single one until I knew them all by heart.
“Tell me,” I whispered, and bent to kiss her cheek, the hinge of her jaw. She shivered beneath me and as she did, I pushed her coat off her shoulders until it fell to the floor behind her.
God. I wanted this woman. All of her. I was desperate to know everything about her, to have her tell me all the things I’d already learned before we met.
“Gertrude,” she said and cringed. “It’s stupid and horrible.”
I kept kissing her, trailed my lips down the column of her throat. “What does it mean?”
She tore off her gloves. “I have no idea.”
I needed to slow this down. Immediately.
Pulling back, I reached for my phone inside my own coat pocket and waited for the facial ID scan. A few quick taps on my screen gave me my answer.
“Strength.”
“What?” she asked.
I turned my phone so she could see it herself. “Gertrude means strength. I think that fits you pretty well.”
She traced her fingernail over my screen, mesmerized by it.
“Huh,” she said softly. She glanced at me, gave me a sad smile. “At least my mom gave me something good then, didn’t she?”
God, I wanted to show her all the good things I saw in her.
Which meant it was time to go.
“I should let you get to studying.” She had a test in the morning. Her last before the Thanksgiving break next week.
“I don’t think I want you to go.” She kissed me then. Lilly’s kisses tasted like sunshine and innocence, such contradiction to how she’d lived, but I knew she was inexperienced with men. She had to have been. Which made it all the more important we took this slow.
“Lilly.” I murmured it against her mouth, pulling back, peeling her hands off me. She glanced up at me, eyes glazed with desire, lips wet with the taste of me.
When she licked her bottom lip, cleaning me off her, sealing me in, it was almost my undoing.
I stepped back and reached for the doorknob.
“Have fun studying. Can I text you later?”
She smiled. She did it more frequently now, daily. And they weren’t the tight fake smiles she gave to the customers at the diner, but the true ones that lit up her face and made my dick harden.
“You better.”
30
Lilly
It was late when I finally closed my laptop. My eyes burned from hours of staring at a screen. Admittedly, my schoolwork took me longer since I couldn’t stop thinking about Hudson.
Collapsing back to my couch, my fingers drifted to my lips. If I closed my eyes, I could see the way he leaned his head just so when he went to kiss me. The furrowed brow of his when he pulled back when he didn’t want to.
I could tell he was holding back. If it was for my benefit, he certainly didn’t have to, but as much as I tried to give him clues I was ready for more, he wouldn’t budge. There were moments I was with him, when his focus grew so distracted, I was worried I overstayed my welcome. Then there were moments when his focus was so intensely set on me, it felt like I could settle against him and stay there forever.
Somehow, in weeks, I’d grown to trust him. I wanted him in ways I couldn’t deny and in ways I would have assumed foolish months ago.
A man like him. A woman like me. If others knew our histories, my history, they would say we didn’t fit. That he deserved better. But Hudson had never once made me feel like that. He never once treated me as if I was less than him. And neither had the rest of his family, Brandon and Jenna included. They welcomed me into their chaotic home with open arms and wide smiles.
I never wanted to leave. And yet, there were still those moments, like at the office earl
ier when we were teasing one another, flirting, and then Hudson stepped back, and shook it off.
I wasn’t an idiot. I knew something was wrong. Something was bothering him.
Blowing out a breath, I shoved off the couch to head toward the kitchen for water. Maybe a snack before bed. As I did, my phone lit up with an unread text. I never studied with my phone nearby, too tempted to call Angie for a distraction or Hudson for an even better distraction.
The text was from Hudson, came in only ten minutes ago, right as I’d been finishing up.
Done studying?
I checked the clock on my microwave. 11:42pm. Why was he texting me this late?
Just finished. You okay?
Hudson tended to go to bed earlier than me. Of course, he also woke up at some godforsaken hour to work out, too.
Can’t sleep. Want to come keep me company?
If I was the kind of girl who squealed, I’d be doing it loud enough for him to hear me from floors above. As it was, my grip on my phone tightened and I read the message. Reread it. Surely he meant… didn’t he?
Are you asking me to come spend the night?
I squeezed my eyes closed. If I misinterpreted that text, mortification would melt me into a puddle of goo on my kitchen floor. Here lies Lilly—dead of embarrassment.
It took hours. Centuries. As I waited, I fine-tuned my epitaph. Possibly it was only seconds later when instead of a text, my phone rang, startling me so much I dropped it, caught it right before it hit the counter.
“Hello?”
“Is that okay?” Hudson asked. There was a rumble in his voice, like he was already in bed, and had been there for a while. I imagined him shoving back his dark hair and pressing his head into his pillow. A spark of desire flickered at the thought. Of Hudson. In his bed. Thinking of me. “To stay with me?”
“Yeah. Yeah, of course it’s okay.” My socked foot drew circles on my tiled floor. “Like… now?”