Mine?
No, it wasn’t possible.
I swallowed. “When did you get them?” Had he been planning for me to be there before he invited me? Or was this part of the scam we’d tried to pull on his mother, a piece of proof that we were a couple should anyone look in his closet?
“Last night after I left the club.”
Last night. “But that was almost eight.” He’d left me at the start of my shift. That couldn’t have possibly been enough time to arrange anything. “How did—”
“I understand what it looks like,” he cut me off. “There’s likely still a tag on the robe if you…” He reached his hand inside my collar and tugged. “Yes, see?” He held up a tag, the price—an extravagant price for a robe—listed boldly under the size.
I glanced over at the cosmetic bottles again. They were completely full, seemingly unused. I hadn’t realized that in my heated emotion. But, still, I had questions. “Why? How...?”
“Why? Because I knew you’d have nothing to wear today and I didn’t want you to have to do the so-called walk of shame through my lobby. Plus I figured you’d want to wash that club makeup off your face and freshen up a bit. As for how…I have people.”
I ran my hands through my hair. “You have people.” The tension in my shoulders relaxed slightly as I processed what he’d said. He’d left me at work and then he’d prepared. As he always prepared. He’d canceled his morning. He’d arranged to have clothing for me. Even at that late hour, Hudson managed to make arrangements. Because he had people.
“Mirabelle?” I asked. Hudson’s sister, Mira, owned her own boutique. She knew my size, knew what I’d look good in.
“Yes.” He cocked his head. “And others.”
Others like the same people he had launder and deliver my undies within a couple of hours when I’d left them at his office one time. Like Jordan who was always available to drive me to and fro at the drop of a hat. I’d known he had others.
“Oh.” A medley of emotions washed over me as I let the pieces settle into place. I was relieved to find my jealousy was unfounded and delighted to realize how much thought Hudson had put into my arrival at his apartment. I was also touched to know he was serious about wanting our relationship to work, because didn’t this type of preparation show sincerity?
But then I also felt embarrassed. And ashamed. I’d overreacted, and even though I hadn’t gone crazy like I would have in the past, I felt the seed of it inside. It scared me. Scared me to know Hudson saw it too.
I lowered my eyes to my hands where I wrung the sash of the robe anxiously. “It must be nice to have people,” I mumbled. “I want people.” Silly, senseless words, but they were all I had.
Hudson lifted my chin to meet his stare. “I want you.”
The look on his face—he wasn’t upset by my outburst at all. Other men had been scared away by similar unfounded accusations. But Hudson—not only did his expression show an absence of fear, it showed hunger, desire. Almost as though my paranoia was a turn-on.
“You have me,” I whispered.
He took the sash from my hands and pulled the knot free. “I want you right now.” His hand wrapped around my breast, squeezing as his thumb flicked across my nipple.
“Oh, you want me, want me.”
“Uh-huh.” He shifted me so my backside was against the table. Flattening his palm between my breasts, he pushed me down; the surface of the table met hard with my backside and a brief flash of worry about spilling his coffee and breaking the cosmetic bottles entered my mind.
“And I want you now.”
Fuck the coffee. Let it spill.
Hudson nudged me back so that my bottom met up with the edge of the table, scooting the bottles out of the way with his arm as he did. I was laid out before him now, my robe open to expose the most intimate parts of me.
His eyes darkened as he rubbed his hands in long strokes from my belly up to my breasts and back again. Then they went lower, to the center of my desire.
“I could stare at your pussy all day long.” His fingers slid through my folds and circled my hole.
“Don’t you have to be somewhere?” My voice didn’t sound like mine, breathy and needy and desperate.
And what the hell was I doing? I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t want him to stop. Please, god, don’t let him stop.
“I do have someplace to be. We’ll have to be quick.” His hands left me to work on opening his pants. “But I’m not leaving here without fucking you good morning.”
I may have sighed out loud in anticipation.
Leaning up on my elbows, I watched as Hudson adjusted his pants and briefs enough to free his stiff cock. A sight I’d never tire of. And it was all mine, only mine.
Another random worry crossed my mind. “Your housekeeper isn’t going to walk in on us, is she?”
“She comes on Tuesday and Friday. If I’m not mistaken, it’s Wednesday.” He grabbed my ankles and bent my legs up. “And if she did walk in, would you care?”
He thrust in.
“No,” I gasped. Right then I didn’t care about anything but the man in front of me. The man inside me. The man who wanted me, wanted me in his house, wanted me in his bed. Wanted me in his life despite my shortcomings.
Hudson pulled out and pressed back in, again and again, the sturdy table rocking with the force of his jabs. He adopted a rapid tempo, apparently serious about the have to be quick. At this rate, he’d be there soon.
He adjusted his grip on my ankles and folded my knees into my chest, the new position bringing him deeper inside me. “Touch yourself, precious.” His voice was tight with effort to hold on. “Let’s come together.”
Without hesitation, I moved my hand to rub my clit, swirling the bud at a speed that matched his. I’d done this before—played with myself for his viewing pleasure. It was a turn-on for him, based on how quickly it always brought him to release.
It was a turn on for me, too. To see the pleasure in his face, to feel his drive increase as I writhed and moaned at my own touch—there was nothing hotter. Already, I was tightening, clenching around him.
“That’s it, Alayna.” His face contorted. “Fuck, that’s… it…” His voice broke as he came, shoving deeper into me as his climax erupted.
My hand fell to the table, my body numb.
He smiled as he pulled out. “How was that?”
He knew the answer. The perv wanted to hear me say it.
I grinned. “You can fuck me good morning anytime you want.”
“I wouldn’t mind fucking you good morning every morning.” He reached behind him to grab a paper towel off the kitchen counter while I pretended not to read a million things into his statement. I continued to pretend while he cleaned himself up and did up his pants.
He raised his brows and gestured toward me. For a moment I thought he might know what I was thinking—how being with him every morning implied living with him, how that was too soon, how I never thought anything was too soon because I was an obsessive freak who wanted to cling, how I was ultimately unable to handle such a proposition with my history.
Then I realized he was simply asking if I needed the paper towels, too. “I’m jumping in the shower.” Shit, he hadn’t said I could stay. “If that’s okay, I mean.” Was it totally inappropriate for me to ask if I could lounge around his place while he went to work? Because until that very second, that’s exactly what I had planned.
Hudson reached his hand out to help me down from my perch. Reaching around me, he grabbed the ends of my sash and tied it at my waist. “It’s more than okay. I want you to stay. I planned that you would stay.” Which meant I would likely find women’s shampoo and conditioner in the shower, too.
Hudson’s phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his suit pocket to read his text message. “My driver’s here. Seems I used up the time I meant to spend giving you the penthouse tour.”
I shrugged. “Whoops.”
“You’ll have to explore on your
own.” He walked to the kitchen sink and washed his hands.
“Are you giving me permission to snoop? Because it sounds like you are and you don’t understand—I’m a snooper.”
He chuckled. “I don’t doubt it. I have nothing to hide. Snoop away. Use the gym. Take a nap. There’s food in the fridge. Do and take whatever you like. You work at eight tonight?”
“Yes.” I’d stopped being surprised by Hudson’s omniscient way of knowing my schedule. It was the sort of thing I’d usually do—memorize a guy’s schedule, find out all the details of his life. It was kind of nice to be on the other side of that for once.
“Good. I’ll make sure I’m home by six.” Home. He said it like it was our place, not his. Another ping of anxiety stabbed at my chest. “We’ll have dinner together before you leave.”
“I hope you aren’t expecting me to cook.” Or to not latch on.
“Don’t be silly. I’ll arrange for the cook to come.”
I nodded, my insides turned into knots by Hudson’s easiness about our relationship.
“Oh, and the books for the library should be here today. There’s an intercom there.” He pointed to the wall by the light switch. “And one in the hallway by the elevators and a third one in the bedroom. When security buzzes up, you can approve the delivery and the guard will let them up.”
“Sure thing.” Trusting me with intercoms and security…this was getting bigger by the minute. “Wait, books?”
“Yes, I ordered a few books. Since you said it was your favorite part of the library.”
“Right.” It had been part of our charade for his mother. She didn’t believe I had ever been to Hudson’s penthouse and, of course, I hadn’t. Meaning to trick me, she’d asked me what my favorite room was. I had said the library. An avid reader, the library was a natural room for me to choose, and I mentioned my love of books to Sophia. Apparently, though, Hudson’s library didn’t have any books.
Not at the time, anyway. “I still feel somehow tricked about that whole thing, by the way. But when did you have a chance to order them?”
The conversation had only taken place on Sunday when we’d been at his parent’s place in the Hamptons. The day I voiced for the first time that I was falling in love. The day before he’d left me alone with his family while he went to try to save one of his companies, Plexis, from being sold.
“I ordered them Monday night from my hotel. After the deal with Plexis.” His voice held the slightest hint of disappointment when he said the name of his company. His disappointment mirrored how I was suddenly feeling. “What is it?”
I considered saying nothing, but the talk it out mantra replayed in my head. “It’s silly, but I’d convinced myself you hadn’t called me or anything because you didn’t have time. But it seems you did.” Hudson had left me without anything but a brief text. He didn’t call or contact me until more than a day later. I had believed we were over then. I’d been devastated and heartbroken. Now I found he was ordering books when he could have been calling me? “Like I said, it’s silly.”
Hudson tugged me into his arms. “I was trying to not be with you at the time, Alayna. But I couldn’t sleep that night. Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” He kissed me on the forehead as I furrowed my brow. “Tell me—what’s going on in there?”
“It’s just…” How could I express the myriad of emotions that I’d been through that morning? Especially this growing fear tugging at my gut—this fear that anything that seemed too good to be true usually was.
I took a shaky breath. “You’ve made a complete one-eighty, Hudson. About you and me. You were so intent to be only sex only half a day ago. And now…who are you?” It scared me. It made me doubt what he felt. It made me wonder if he was playing games with me.
Hudson cupped my face in his hands and pierced me with his deep gray eyes. “Don’t do that. I mean it.”
He widened his eyes, making sure I was with him.
I was.
“I’m the same man, Alayna. A man who commits to whichever plan he’s chosen. I had told myself I couldn’t have you. So I didn’t let myself even try.”
“And now you’ve let yourself.” I said it like a statement, but it was really a question. A question that I absolutely needed answered.
“Yes. And I will commit to this new plan as fiercely as the other. Even more fiercely. Because that plan was a compromise.” He pressed his forehead against mine. “This plan is the one I should have pursued to begin with. It’s the better plan.”
My throat tightened. “The plan with the greater potential of profit.”
“Unfathomable potential.” He parted his lips and bent in for a kiss, sucking gently as he moved his mouth over mine. It was a sweet and tender kiss and it ended too quickly. “I have to go. Save more of that for later.”
“Always.”
I walked with him to the foyer. He retrieved his briefcase from the closet then kissed my forehead once more before stepping into the elevator. We stood, eyes latched until the doors closed.
As soon as he was gone, I fell against the foyer wall. Oh my god, was this really happening? Was I really making myself at home in the penthouse of my billionaire boyfriend? I felt like Cinderella. Or Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Did Hudson really want me in his life like this or was I completely insane?
I was insane. Insanely happy.
With a squeal, I ran to the living room and threw myself on the sofa. I closed my eyes and replayed the morning in my mind—waking up in Hudson’s bed, the hot sex on the kitchen table. But what I focused on the most were his words.
I’d like to fuck you good morning every morning.
I’ll be home by six.
I couldn’t stop thinking about you.
Unfathomable potential.
After several minutes of grinning so widely my cheeks hurt, the doubts started to creep in again, as they always did. Was it truly possible for Hudson to change so completely, seemingly overnight? Or was I merely a game he was playing? Maybe he wasn’t even conscious of what he was doing and he was manipulating me and my emotions out of habit.
Or maybe, like I, he didn’t know how to do this relationship thing and he was simply acting the way he thought he should, even if that meant rushing.
Possibly it was all completely genuine. I felt those things for him after all. I wanted to be with him every day, all the time. I was ready for that commitment level, even though I wouldn’t have said so two days before.
But I jumped into things, clung too quickly. That was my way.
Maybe it was Hudson’s way too.
I sat up and glanced around the room. I had been serious when I’d said I was a snooper and usually I’d jump right on that. But I didn’t feel the need to at the moment. I did feel the need to get in the shower and clean up. I was still sticky from the evening before, not to mention our morning activities.
I went back to the master bedroom, noting on the way a closed door that most likely led to the library as well as another bedroom. In the master, I stepped into the closet Hudson had retrieved my robe from. It was a walk-in and was mostly empty except for one rack of clothes. There were a few dresses most likely meant for the club, several pairs of shorts, jeans and sweat pants, and a rack of tops. One dresser drawer was partially opened so I pulled it out the rest of the way and found panties and bras. There was also a negligee. I guess I knew what Hudson wanted me to wear to bed that night.
I let out a happy sigh and headed to the bathroom, this time noticing a closed door on my way. I peeked in and discovered it was a second walk-in closet, this one full of Hudson’s clothing. I walked through, running my hands along the rows of suits. Was it ridiculous how much I adored seeing his clothes like this? It felt so personal, so intimate. As if by being in the center of his closet, I was in the center of his life. I twirled around slowly, basking in the metaphor. It felt warm and completely right.
My shower was long and hot. If I’d been in my studio apartment, I’d have run
out of hot water long before the time I finally stepped out from the luxuriating pulse of Hudson’s deluxe showerhead. I wrapped a towel around my body and put my hair in a turban, then left the bathroom to pick out some clothes from my closet.
My closet.
But once I was in the bedroom, I heard voices coming from the main part of the apartment and a click of heels on the marble floor in the foyer.
It couldn’t be the housekeeper—not only was she not due in that day, but she would have been alone. And surely she wouldn’t be wearing heels. Maybe Hudson had forgotten to tell me something. Like, that his mother was visiting. God, wouldn’t that just be the way to ruin my day?
I bit my lip. My phone was in my purse, which was still in the living room, so I couldn’t call or text Hudson to ask who could be in his house. I glanced at the intercom. Should I call down to security? But whoever was there had gotten past security without a problem. Whoever it was had a key.
And from the sound of her heels and soprano voice, it was a woman.
Pressing my body tight against the wall, I peered around the doorframe and down the hall. Her back toward me, I saw a woman dressed in a light blue sundress, directing men with boxes toward the library. Her hair, wrapped into a loose yellow bun at her nape, was what gave her away.
It was the woman Hudson grew up with. The woman Hudson had falsely claimed he’d gotten pregnant. The woman Hudson’s mother had wanted him to marry.
It was Celia Werner.
Chapter Three
One of the deliverymen spotted me and nodded his head in my direction. Panic bubbled in my chest as Celia turned to see what he was gesturing at. I ducked back around the corner, but not before she saw me.
“Laynie?”
Shit, shit, shit. I didn’t want to see her, didn’t want her to see me.
Her heels clicked as she walked down the hall toward the bedroom. “Alayna, is that you?” She peeked into the room and found me pressed against the wall, still dressed only in a towel.