Page 70 of When the Time Is Right
My face bunched, I was losing the battle with him and the war with myself. I couldn’t truly be angry with him about Lauren, even if it would have been nice to be in the loop. And I had to admit Hudson had been peacocking around like King Dong all week. Even if I hadn’t been the one he was sleeping with, after one look at him, I would have known too.
My armor began to chip away under the forceful hammer of my curiosity.
“So Lauren wasn’t freaked out?”
Gauging the changing tide, he tilted his head back and stepped closer, perching his forearms on my shoulders. “Nope. I mean, I didn’t give her any sordid details, but…” He winked at me and my tummy did a one-eighty Hudson flirty flip. “Actually, she saw it coming and even put money on it.”
Was the whole world in on this?
“That’s messed up. Maggie saw it coming too.”
The instant the words left my mouth, I knew it was over.
His face lit, and his jaw hung open. “You little, sexy, gossiping hypocrite. You didn’t keep your mouth shut, either.”
All right, I was busted. “Okay, truce. Lauren was a freebie. Cal and Maggie both called us out. We’re even.”
Outside, lightning popped off somewhere close and thunder rolled right behind it.
“Good. I’m glad that’s over. Now, I just checked and you have plenty of beer for both of us already. Why don’t you order some Chinese—I want extra egg rolls—and we’ll hunker down here tonight. It’s supposed to storm until morning.” He wagged his eyebrows. “Maybe you’ll let me get you drunk and take your panties off.”
Damn him and his rough-and-tough art of seduction. I was weak, but apparently, I didn’t care, because that stormy night, he made up a new way to eat Lo Mein.
Off my naked stomach.
By candlelight.
After the power went out, we ended up in a heap of sheets on my living room floor, laughing and talking like nothing had changed. It was comfortable and easy being with him like that, which was probably why I was finally ready to dip my toes into the big discussion pool.
I was using his thick, outstretched arm as a pillow while we lay on our backs and went for it.
“Hey, Hud?”
“Yeah, babe,” he replied, absentmindedly kicking his foot to bat away a territorial Boop at the end of our sheet.
I turned my face toward his in the dim, flickering light. “Okay. Time in. This really doesn’t feel strange to you? Like, us?”
He rolled to his side but didn’t pull his arm away, and then he brushed the hair off my sweaty forehead. With no AC and after doing what we had, I wasn’t even worried about how totally jacked I probably looked.
“No,” he answered without hesitation. “It feels natural to me. Unexpected maybe, but right.”
I couldn’t disagree, especially in moments like that.
“Now what about you? What’s going on in that beautiful head of yours?”
After three beers and three orgasms and three hours of uninterrupted Hudson time, I couldn’t hold back anymore. “It all feels right, almost too right sometimes, but I’m scared too.” Damn it. I hated how my voice cracked every time I let my guard down.
But if we had any shot at this at all, I had to start somewhere and get used to talking to him about stuff. There was a good chance, before everything was said and done, one or both of us would fuck this up on accident. But I knew one hundred percent that we’d never get anywhere if I didn’t face the things I’d been hiding from both him and myself.
“I don’t mean to scare you, Lex. I’m just being me.”
“It’s not that. I’m used to you by now, big guy.”
“Then what is it?” He cleared his throat and pulled me closer with his free hand. “Are you afraid I can’t make you happy? That you’re not a priority to me? That I won’t take care of you?”
What absolute Hudson things to say.
What sweet, protective, loyal, thick-and-thin Hudson things to say.
I swallowed and smiled up at him. “No. You do make me happy—when you’re not driving me crazy. And I’d never dream of being your first priority—that’s Jack’s spot. And there’s no one, not a single soul, on this great big Earth I trust to look out for me more than you. But…”
I was so damn afraid to say it.
His hand cupped my face and his thumb made tiny circles on my cheek. He whispered gently, “Just tell me. I’ll fix it.”
With a shaky exhale, I pushed on. “I’m so damn scared that I’m falling totally head-over-heels in love with you and then one day you’ll just be gone. Without you, who’s gonna fix me?”
He rolled on top of me, bracing himself on his elbows, and I cradled him between my bare legs. “I’m not going anywhere.”
