Found in You (Fixed)

Chapter Four




Hudson was already home, jacket discarded, when I got back to the penthouse that evening. He met me as I stepped out of the elevator, greeting me with a lush kiss that swept me off my feet.

“Well, hello to you, too.”

“You’re late,” he said against my lips.

“And?”

“I worried.” His mouth swept across my cheek and down toward my earlobe.

My eyes widened both in surprise and at the yummy thing he was doing to that sensitive spot below my ear. “That something had happened to me?”

“That you weren’t coming.”

I pushed him back to meet his eyes. “Why Hudson Alexander Pierce, did you worry I’d stand you up?” It was silly to even think about. “Don’t you realize I’m the kinda girl that sticks?”

He leaned back in to rub his nose against mine. “If you acted as smart as you are, you would have stood me up weeks ago.”

“Good thing I don’t act smart.”

“Good thing for me, yes.” He released me and took my purse off my shoulder, which he stowed in the coat closet. Then, weaving his fingers through mine, he tugged me after him through the foyer toward the living room.

“Guess what.” I admired his back as I followed him, his taut muscles visible through his dress shirt.

“You don’t have to work tonight.”

I stopped short, my hand slipping from his grasp. “How do you always know everything?”

“I don’t.” He turned back to face me, a smile toying on his perfect lips. “But where you’re concerned I make an effort. David called me this afternoon and asked if I approved of you making your own hours.”

“And you said, ‘Yes, because then I can conform my schedule to Alayna’s so we can f*ck as much as possible.’” I laughed at my horrible imitation of Hudson’s voice.


“I said I thought it was a good idea.” Instantly, I was back in his arms. “But I was thinking what you said.” His mouth circled above mine, teasing.

“I love you.”

He moved tighter into me. “I hope that my ability to change your working hours is not the sole basis of your fondness for me.”

“It is not. Trust me.” This time I kissed him, licking along his upper lip.

When he pulled away, his eyes were clouded with desire. “Dinner’s ready, precious.”

He led me to the dining room where the table was set with a bouquet of white orchids, two lit candlesticks, an opened bottle of wine, and two place settings at one end.

He waved his hands toward the candles. “These would have a more dramatic effect if it weren’t so light in here.”

“Yes, it’s terrible that your penthouse has floor-to-ceiling windows that let in so much sun,” I teased. “Honestly, it’s lovely.” Our eyes locked for a moment, caught up in each other.

Jesus, if we kept looking at each other like that, food would have to wait. I was already feeling moist in my panties.

Noticing the aroma of fresh herbs, I broke our gaze and looked toward the quiet kitchen. “Where’s the cook? Did she abandon you?”

“She did not. She cooked and then she left. Our plates are waiting under the warmer.” He pulled a chair out, gesturing for me to sit. “I presume I can manage the service without her.”

I kept my eye on him as I sat. “Honey, you don’t need anyone’s help with service.”

“Hey now.” He tapped my nose with his finger as he delivered his reprimand. “Food first. I need my energy to keep up with you. But if we get through dinner, perhaps there will be dessert.”

“A naughty dessert, I hope.”

“No hoping necessary.”

Hudson poured white wine into my glass before filling his own. Then he disappeared into the kitchen returning a few minutes later with two plates of food. He set a plate in front of each of us and then sat down. Together we dined catty-corner from each other, tangling our legs under the table. We chatted about our day and when I told him about my bachelorette party ideas for the club, he was both supportive and impressed.

“Do you want me to get you in touch with my company event planners? Not that they’d be helpful in the pre-wedding party arena.”

“Nah, I got some things set up already.”

He took a swallow of his wine, and I guessed it was difficult for him to let me keep the reins on my project. But when he set down his glass, he seemed resigned. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

The meal was delicious—chicken breast stuffed with sundried tomatoes and artichokes. Sautéed zucchini and jasmine rice accompanied the chicken. I’d stayed at work all afternoon, arranging meetings for the week, and had skipped lunch. It wasn’t until I was eating that I realized how hungry I’d been.

“This is so good, Hudson,” I said when my plate was half-clean. “Wherever did you find this cook?”

“She used to be sous-chef at one of my restaurants. Things didn’t work out with her and another staff member, so she works privately for me now.”

I thought for a moment about what I knew from Hudson’s portfolio of businesses. “Fierce?”

“That’s the one.”

Fierce was one of the hottest restaurants in the city. The head chef had a reputation for being a complete hard-ass. I didn’t have to ask if that was the reason she’d left.

My work-oriented mindset of earlier lingered into the conversation. “Would she consider working at The Sky Launch?”

“Then who would cook for us?”

I ignored the rush I had from the way Hudson referred to us as an “us,” and pressed on. “For private events then. It doesn’t have to be a full-time gig.”

“I like the way your business brain works, Alayna. But why don’t we put the job away for the night? I’d like to spend time with the other sexy parts of my girlfriend.”

That shut me up. It was the first time he’d called me that—girlfriend—and holy wow, what it did to me. My chest warmed with what felt like a radioactive level of heat, spreading down my limbs and up into my cheeks. Girlfriend. I was Hudson Pierce’s girlfriend.

Pretending he didn’t know what his statement had done to me—he knew, he so knew—he continued with the common conversation that boyfriends and girlfriends exchanged after a day apart. “Other than work, how was your afternoon? I noticed the books came. Did the delivery go okay?”

I nodded as I swallowed my food, following it with a sip of wine before answering. “They did, and yes, it went fine. Celia accompanied the delivery.”

Though his face stayed even, he stopped chewing for half a second. “Oh?”

I had guessed that Hudson wouldn’t be that happy about Celia stopping by. Ever since she’d spilled the beans about his manipulative past, he seemed to fear what she’d say to me. No matter what I said, he didn’t understand that nothing she could say to me about him would ever change how I felt for him. Perhaps I shouldn’t have told him about her visit, but that didn’t feel right. I was already keeping my history with David on the down low. I didn’t want another secret.

The only thing to do was convince him Celia and I could be trusted together. “She surprised me. I guess I was in the shower when she buzzed up so she let herself in.”

His brows furrowed. “I need to take away her key.”

“Yes, you do.” I didn’t like worrying that she could stop by any time she wanted. “But it wasn’t bad. In fact, we had a nice chat.”

Hudson’s entire upper body tensed. “I don’t like that. At all.”

I’d only seen that possessiveness of his a couple of times before. It was frightening and thrilling, sending bolts of hormones to my lower regions and raising my arousal levels to full alert.

It was also unnecessary. “Don’t get all panicked. It was fine.”

“I don’t want you two to spend time together. Remember, in my script you aren’t friends.” He stabbed at the air with his fork, enunciating his point.

I clucked my tongue. “Come on, that’s not fair. I only want to feel close to you and she’s your best friend.”

He shook his head once. “She’s my only friend. It’s different.”

I stroked my foot up his calf, hoping to lighten his mood on the subject. “She didn’t give away any deep dark Hudson secrets.”

“Says you.”

“She only said she was happy that you’d found me.” I paused to let that sink in. “She thinks you deserve someone.”

Instead of softening, his expression hardened. “That’s a deep dark Hudson secret right there.” He leaned closer to me, speaking low. “So deep and dark, it’s a lie. I don’t deserve you and I never will.”

“Shut up.” I rolled my eyes then placed my hand over his. “You deserve much better than me. You’re out of my league and everyone knows it.”

“Alayna—” His tone was a warning.

I narrowed my eyes. “How about instead of arguing over who deserves whom, we agree that we fit pretty damn well together and leave it at that.”

“I don’t want you spending time with Celia.”

Damn, he was serious. So much for getting insider knowledge over coffee. On the other hand, who was he to tell me that I couldn’t spend time with someone?


But we were trying to make a relationship work. If it was important to him then…“All right, I won’t spend time with her. And I don’t want you spending time with her either.”

“I can live with that compromise.”

“You can?” I tried not to sound surprised.

“Yes. I barely see her anyway. From now on, if I have to see her, it will be with you.”

“Agreed.” It wasn’t as much of a sacrifice for me as it was for him. She wasn’t my friend.

“Good.” Then a wicked gleam filled his eyes. “We do fit pretty damn well together.”

“Now who’s getting naughty?”

He set down his fork and looked at our nearly empty plates. “It is time for dessert.”

“Hold that thought. I’ll be right back.” I wiped my mouth with my napkin and got up from the table. The hall bathroom wasn’t visible from the dining room so I hoped that’s where Hudson assumed I had gone. Instead, I went to the master bedroom, to my closet. I grabbed the lingerie set from its drawer and changed as quickly as I could.

I stopped in front of the bedroom mirror to fluff my hair into as close of a sexy tousle as my straight strands would allow and noticed, damn, I looked good. The teddy was a coral baby-doll flyaway that pushed my already perky boobs up to soaring heights. The middle opened to expose my flat belly and the matching lace thong. Hell, I’d do me.

I slunk back to the dining room and found the table cleared and Hudson at the bar making a drink, his back to me. Awkwardly, I tried to come up with some stripper pose, but when he turned toward me, I’d only managed to cock my hip and put a hand at my waist.

He nearly dropped his glass, his eyes wide. “Holy, f*ck, Alayna. You look so goddamned hot, you’ve surpassed naughty and gone straight to sinful.”

“Why, thank you.” I swayed toward him, his lustful gaze never leaving my body. When I was close enough, I pulled on his tie, beckoning him forward. His brow arched in surprise, but he let me lead him back to his chair and push him to a sitting position.

Leaning forward so his view was all tits, I ran my hands up his thighs to his waist where I undid his belt and began working on his fly.

“What are you doing?” His voice was hoarse, his eyes pinned on my cleavage.

“You served dinner. I figured I should serve dessert.” I wasn’t sure he’d let me take the lead. He rarely did where sex was concerned—where anything was concerned. But instead of waiting for his permission, I simply took charge.

I tugged at his waistband and waited to see if he’d play along. After a moment’s hesitation, he submitted, lifting his hips for me to pull down his pants and underwear. I lowered them just enough to expose his already rock hard cock.

“Holy, f*ck, Hudson,” I repeated his earlier words as I took his dick in my hand. “Talk about sinful.” Still gripping him in my hand, I knelt before him, nudging his legs wider for me to fit in between them.

Leaning forward, I rubbed my breasts along his bare cock.

He let out a heavy breath, and I did it again, running my fingernails along his chest, digging through his shirt. His eyes were pinned to my tits as I stroked his penis between them.

“You’re so f*cking beautiful, Alayna.” His voice grated, like he was losing control. “So f*cking beautiful.”

“So are you.” This time I maneuvered my hands under his shirt to claw at his skin as I rubbed my tits along his throbbing cock. “Do you like f*cking my tits?”

“I love anything you do to me.”

“Is that so?” I sat back on my haunches and leaned down to run my tongue up the length of his shaft.

He growled—actually growled—and I shivered at the sound.

But despite how his sounds and reactions made me completely weak and dizzy, I suddenly felt powerful. There was nothing in the world that I could imagine that would be strong enough to cause Hudson Pierce to relinquish his authority—nothing in the universe that could make him yield to anyone.

Yet here he was giving in to me.

Yes, I felt very powerful.

I licked again up the other side of him then swirled my tongue across his head as I pumped him once with my hand.

He jerked in the chair, his fingers gripping the arms. “Jesus, yes.”

I wanted his hands on me, him grasping my hair. But I knew, as he did, that if he touched me, he’d take over. He’d run the show. His lack of contact was a gift, and I took it graciously. Greedily.

Moving one hand to fondle his balls, I placed my lips over his crown and slid my mouth over his soft, stone cock, my hand grasping the length of him I couldn’t fit inside. Up and down I pumped him, sucking him off with an insatiable passion.

I felt his thighs tense around me and I knew he was close.

“Alayna, slow down,” he pleaded through gritted teeth.

I ignored his request, continuing to stroke and suck him toward his orgasm.

“Alayna!” His hands flew to my shoulders.

Next thing I knew, I was on the floor, Hudson hovering over me as he tore at my thong, ripping the flimsy thing off of me. Then he was inside me, filling me, stretching me, thrusting into me with such force I thought he might rip me apart.

And, god, he felt good. So goddamn good.

“You feel amazing, Alayna,” he said as he drove into me, his face sweaty and pinched with the effort. “I was about to come in your mouth.”

“That would have been fine.” I would have sucked him dry and licked him clean.

“But I much prefer coming in your tight cunt.” His jabs slowed as I clenched around him, constricting his movement. “F*ck, I’m coming now.”

I groaned with him as his climax pressed him deeper into me, as my own heightened arousal took me to a gentle release behind him. It wasn’t the earth-shattering variety of orgasm that I’d grown accustomed to having with Hudson, and somehow that made it even sweeter, more savory.

When he’d emptied himself completely, Hudson fell to his back beside me and took in several deep, ragged breaths. “I apologize for that.”

I sat up on my elbows and cast him a questioning glance. I could recall very few times he’d apologized to anyone for anything. Certainly not for sex.

“I got carried away. I didn’t give you the attention you deserved.”

Laughing, I rolled to lie across his chest. “I love it when you get carried away. You rarely let yourself go. It’s a nice change. Not to mention, it’s hot.”

Hudson’s chest rose as he chortled—another sound I heard infrequently from him—and he draped an arm over my back.

I propped myself up on my arm. “Someday, though, you’re going to let me suck you off until you finish.”

“You know I love to come buried inside you.”

“God, I do, too.” I smiled, dreamily. “But I’d also love to have you come in my mouth. I’m craving it, actually.”

His arm tightened around me. “Stay tonight.”

It wasn’t a question or even an invitation. It was a declaration that I would stay, and of course I would. But I responded anyway. “Okay.”

Where else would I want to be?

***

Hudson had missed his usual morning workout since we’d slept in that morning. Though I was convinced we’d worked out enough in the bedroom—and the kitchen and the dining room—he decided to hit the penthouse gym. Wanting to be near, I joined him.

The gym was in the back of the apartment, next to the master bedroom, and was equipped with a treadmill, elliptical trainer, rowing machine and a weight system. I changed into a sports bra and shorts from my closet and claimed the treadmill. Hudson started out on the elliptical and moved to the weights for the bulk of his workout.


I’d always been a fairly good runner, usually pounding Central Park or the blocks from the club to my apartment, but running with the sight of Hudson’s calves and arms flexing as he worked the elliptical was quite a feat, even for me. Admittedly, I tripped a couple of times.

After exercising, we showered and settled in the bedroom, Hudson donning a pair of boxers while I snagged one of his t-shirts to wear with a pair of panties. Hudson brought in his laptop to sort through some business emails, and I curled up with a book from the day’s delivery. There were several Hudson had got that I hadn’t read yet but were on the list of greatest books of all time that I was working through.

When I’d been reading long enough to get lost in the first few chapters of my book, I suddenly became aware of stillness next to me. Hudson was no longer typing. I looked up and found he was watching me.

Goose bumps marched down my arms. “What?”

“You look good in my t-shirt.”

“I know.”

His lips curled into a sexy smile. “You look better without it.”

I laughed.

He lifted his chin toward my book. “What did you choose to read?”

I held the book up for him to see the cover.

“The Talented Mr. Ripley. Interesting. A book about a true sociopath.”

An unexpected chill ran through me. Hudson’s mother had told me that he was a sociopath—unable to feel empathy or love, detached and self-absorbed. I disagreed vehemently. I’d seen otherwise. Hudson loved and cared for me like no one in my life had.

But, though I hadn’t told him about the conversation, I was certain sociopath was a term Sophia had used openly with him. I wondered if he thought it was an accurate description of himself. It was hard to bring it up and debate it with him when I knew so little about the things he’d actually done in the past. I only knew the general idea—that he manipulated people. Played them.

If I was being honest with myself, I could see where sociopath might be mentioned by a therapist treating someone with those types of habits.

I didn’t know enough. Though I believed in Hudson and his feelings for me, there were still so many unknowns.

Propping the book open on the nightstand, I turned my body to face him. “Hudson, can I ask you something?”

He shut his laptop, set it on the nightstand on his side of the bed and switched on the table lamp. “Yes, I will do wicked things to your body, but only if you promise to do wicked things to mine.”

I giggled. “I’m being serious.”

“So am I.” His eyes blazed as he ran them down my bare legs and back to meet mine. “But wickedness can wait. Ask me.”

“I was thinking…” I ran my teeth over my lower lip as I figured how to broach the subject. “Celia had said that you manipulated women, as if it was more than her. What does that mean exactly? Like, what did you do?”

His jaw set. “I thought you said you just chatted today.”

“We did.” I rushed to correct his impression. “She didn’t mention that today at all. Or anything like it. I swear.” I took a deep breath. “It was before, at the charity fashion event of your mother’s and I’ve been thinking about it. I should know, don’t you think? If we’re going to be open and honest with each other, I need to know.”

“No, you don’t.” He stood, and for a moment, I thought he was leaving the room, but he merely turned off the overhead light and started back to the bed.

“I do need to know.”

“No way.” He said it with finality. Case closed.

But I wasn’t willing to accept that. I pulled my legs under me to a kneeling position. “Hudson, I get it. I do. You want to ignore it and leave things in the past. But you’re always going to be scared that I can’t love you through anything if you don’t give me the chance to prove that I will.”

He stood at the edge of the bed, his eyes narrowed. “But what if you don’t? Have you considered that? Has it crossed your mind that I might have done things you could never forgive?”

“There’s nothing—”

He cut me off. “You don’t know that.”

I switched tactics. “Is there anything I could have done to make you…?” Stop loving me is what I thought. But it felt weird to say it out loud like that when he hadn’t ever said it himself. “To change the way you feel about me?”

“It’s not the same.”

“You don’t know that either.” To be fair, he knew very little about the things I’d done before. I hadn’t wanted to tell him, hadn’t wanted him to know the awful ways I’d invaded people’s lives. I completely understood about wanting to let the past lie.

“Then tell me.”

I swallowed but didn’t let the trepidation show on my face. “Anything?”

He sat on the bed, facing me. “The restraining order against you was filed by Paul Kresh. Who was he?”

I closed my eyes for half a second. Hudson had read my police files. Of course he would remember the details.

My hesitation spurred him. “See? You can’t tell me.”

“He was a guy,” I blurted out. I wasn’t stupid. If I wanted him to share, I’d have to do the same. “Just a guy who picked me up once when I was clubbing.”

“You f*cked him.”

Another deep breath. “Yes.”

Hudson’s eye twitched. “Go on.” His voice was tight.

“He took me to his place. And after…well, after, he wanted me to leave. But I played drunk and stayed the whole night.”

“Then what?”

“Then I went through his things while he was sleeping and discovered wedding invitations. He had a fiancée. She was out of town for the weekend or something and I was a girl he’d picked up. But he didn’t realize that I’d been crushing on him for weeks. I’d seen him with her, and I didn’t care. When I saw him alone that night, I made myself available.”

My hands were sweaty—I’d been holding them in a ball. I wiped them on the bed next to me as I went on. “Of course, he wanted me gone, to pretend it never happened. Wanted me to forget his address. He never gave me his number, but I’d gotten that when he was sleeping, too. Sent myself a text from his phone so I’d have it.”

I paused, trying to remember how I’d felt, how desperate I’d been for Paul to be in my life. “I couldn’t let him go. I thought…” My voice trailed off at the memory. “I don’t know what I thought.”

Hudson turned so that his back was against the headboard. “Yes, you do. Tell me.”

I sat back next to him, stretching my legs out in front of me. “I thought he was my soul mate. That I was meant to be with him or something. Before I even actually talked to him. I know. Crazy. It was crazy.” I stared at my toes. “I was crazy.”

“No, you weren’t. You only wanted to be loved.”

Hudson’s rich brandy tone pulled my eyes to his. “Yes,” I said, meaning so much more than yes, I wanted to be loved. Meaning yes, we understand each other, yes, we get it.

Yes, we weren’t crazy or sociopaths or horrible people. We only wanted to be loved.

“Anyway,” I smoothed my hair behind my ear, “I didn’t have a job. I was living off my inheritance, which is gone now, and so I had plenty of time to wait outside his apartment and follow him to work. Every day. For months. Two? Three? I don’t remember exactly. One day, I told the security guard he was my boyfriend. I convinced him to let me in his office during lunch. When Paul came back, I was waiting for him.” I lowered my lids. “Naked.”


Hudson’s eye twitched again.

“He turned me away, H. Called security before I had a chance to even throw some clothes on.” My throat closed at the humiliating memory. “He filed the restraining order after that.”

I studied his face, trying to pick up on the slightest change in his expression, hoping to pick up on his thoughts. But I came up with nothing. His features were stone.

Would he ever let me in?

Hudson brought his index finger up to his face and rubbed the tip along his chin. “But that’s not all, is it? Your record says you violated the order.”

I felt my face flush. “I, um, I did.” God, talking about it was embarrassing. Even thinking it made me want to crawl in a hole. Of the stupid, idiotic, insane things I’d done, this had been one of the worst. “I became friends with Melissa.”

He nodded once, immediately understanding. “His fiancée.”

“Yeah. I joined her Pilates class and became buddy-buddy with her. So she started inviting me out with her and her friends. Eventually I ended up at a party that Paul was at too. He was livid. And he had to decide if he wanted to ignore it or report me. If he reported me, Melissa would find out about the one-night. I wouldn’t leave things alone, so he reported it. And she broke things off.”

“He deserved that.”

“Maybe.” I wasn’t so sure. Yes, he’d cheated on his fiancée, but that didn’t make up for my role in things.

“He deserved worse in my book.” Though Hudson was guarding his reaction to my story, his casual crumbs of support in my favor helped put me at ease. “And Paul’s the only one this happened with?”

No. Not even close. “He was the only one who went to the police.”

“I see.” Hudson was quiet for a handful of seconds, absorbing. Finally, he furrowed his brow, and looked me eye-to-eye. “Why would you think that this would change how I feel about you?”

“Are you kidding? Aren’t you worried I’ll become that hung up on you?”

“I’m hoping you become that hung up on me.” He draped his arm around my shoulder. “Paul was a f*cking a*shole who didn’t realize what he had in front of him. I do. Get hung up on me.”

“I am hung up on you!” I turned to kiss his shoulder. “But careful what you wish for. If I go crazy on you, you’ll want me gone.”

He turned his cheek to nuzzle against the top of my head. “I’d never drive you away. Not on purpose.”

It was sweet—being held and told that I was wanted. I couldn’t ask for anything more.

Yet, I still felt Hudson didn’t understand the severity of the things I’d done.

I sat forward and turned my entire body to face him, pulling my legs underneath me. “But what if I started to doubt you? That’s happened before, too. Where I didn’t trust anything my boyfriend said to me, no matter how innocent they were. And then I snooped and invaded privacy and people got hurt.”

“Then I simply have to make sure that you never have any reason to doubt me.” He swept his hand out in front of him. “Snoop away. I have nothing to hide from you here.”

And there was my ticket back to where we’d started the conversation. “You’re hiding your past.”

He groaned. “I’m not hiding my past. There’s simply nothing worth talking about. It’s ugly. Why would you want to focus on the bad things?”

“It’s not focusing; it’s sharing and then moving on.”

He shook his head.

“I told you mine. That’s not fair.”

This time I got a steady glare.

“Come on. Anything. One thing.” I felt desperate. Opening up had been hard, and I wasn’t even getting the reward that I’d counted on.

I stared at him with wide, pleading eyes.

“One thing and you’ll leave it alone?”

I nodded enthusiastically.

“Okay, one thing.” He sighed. “It was a game. Always a game. And my favorite was the same one I played on Celia. Make a woman fall for me, and when she did, I was done.” He paused, and for half a second I feared that was all he was going to say.

But then he went on, his eyes glossy with memory. “There was one time, though, I wanted to see if I could make someone fall for someone else, someone they had no interest in. I knew this guy, Owen, who was a real ass. A complete man-whore. And this woman, Andrea—a girl, really. She was in my tennis club my second year of college. Very shy, simple, homely. I discovered she had a thing for me. Having a thing for me was very dangerous.” He stared pointedly at me. “Still is.”

I rolled my eyes. “No, it’s not. Go on.”

“I set her up with Owen. Not just on a date, more. I played silent matchmaker. Got them together. I convinced Owen he was doing me a favor by taking her out a few times. Meanwhile, I’d fill him with all these stories of how amazing Andrea was, how her true beauty was inside. And it happened—they fell for each other. Completely. Sincerely.”

I blinked. Twice. “That’s a beautiful story.”

“Then I f*cked her and showed Owen the pictures.”

“Oh, my god.” My hand flew instinctively to my mouth. I hadn’t been prepared for that and immediately felt ashamed. I’d been trying to be supportive. He’d tried to shock me. He won.

Hudson carried on as if I hadn’t reacted. “Andrea tried to tell Owen it was a mistake, that I’d tricked her, which I had. I didn’t rape her—I never raped anyone. But he wouldn’t listen to her. They were both…broken, is the best way to describe it. Andrea left school in the middle of the semester. I never heard anything about her again.”

“And Owen?” My voice sounded much feebler than I would have liked.

“He went back to sleeping with anyone with two legs. Last I heard he’d gotten HIV. I don’t know. I lost track of him.”

He studied me, the same way I’d studied him a moment before, and I knew he read me. Saw what I was feeling. I couldn’t be stoic as he’d been. I couldn’t hide my emotions.

His features grew dark. “I told you, you didn’t want to hear it. I told you—”

“Just give me a second to process,” I stuttered, ashamed that I needed the delay. I’d said his past wouldn’t change how I felt about him. Did it? I pushed past the horror of the story and focused on Hudson, the man who had committed the horror. Did knowing these things change how I felt for him?

My pause was too long for him. “See, Alayna? See why your past means nothing to me? Compared to me, you were an angel. You hurt people because you loved too much. I hurt people because I could.”

I jerked my eyes to his. No, my feelings for him hadn’t changed. If anything, they’d grown deeper. How lonely, how sad, how broken did a man have to be to feel compelled to destroy the people around him? And how strong and worthy was that same man to attempt to be someone different in the aftermath?

I was in his lap before a second had passed by, straddling him, my hands resting on the sides of his neck. “No.” I aligned my eyes with his and said it again. “No. You hurt people because you didn’t have any idea what love really was. You were trying to understand it in the only way you knew how. It’s horrible, yes. But it’s forgivable. I forgive you. I forgive a thousand worse things you may have done. I can forgive anything.”


I caressed his cheek with my palm. “Because I love you. I love you too much, like I always do, but this time I don’t regret it and I don’t wish I could take it back because you need it. So take it from me, H. Take it all from me.”

He buried his head into my neck and sighed, a deep sigh that sounded both haunting and freeing. Wrapping my arms around him, I stroked his hair, whispering his name at his ear.

Soon he found my lips, and we disappeared into the sweetest, most languid kiss that lasted on and on, neither losing momentum nor turning frenzied.

It was a long time later before our clothes were discarded and Hudson slid us to a lying position, stretching me out over the length of his body. And just like the kiss had lasted on and on, we made love slow and leisurely, giving and taking from each other until the wee hours of the night when we were certain that the memory of our bodies together burned stronger and brighter than the horrid memories we’d shared from our past.