26. Blame it on the Lemon Fiesta Coolers
Allie
Gwen
So … a little bird told me you and Hudson are stranded for the night up at Black Creek? (You can’t see me, but I’m waggling my eyebrows as I type.)
Me
YES!!! Is there any way Daddy Warbucks can send a helicopter to save me? Because I have a very bad feeling I’m about to make a fatal error.
Gwen
1) Daddy Warbucks? Newp. Don’t like that nickname. 2) Trust me, you do NOT want to travel via chopper. They’re just giant fish bowls of death that have no business flying around like that. 3) What if NOT sleeping with him is the fatal error, and you wind up missing out on your one chance at true love?
Me
I know your frame of reference can’t help but be skewed by the fact that a hot billionaire fell madly in love with you, but trust me, in my case, it is not going to happen. So, yeah, sleeping with him will be fatal for my poor heart.
Gwen
You’re forgetting I saw the kissing video. Plus, I’ve seen the way he looks at you in real life. It’s like you’re the only woman in the entire Universe. Go for it and report back later. I want all the details.
Me
Not going for it, which means any details will be about things like having supper and spending the evening teaching him all about the Big Bang Theory.
Gwen
Yeah, you should definitely focus on some big banging. Maybe big bang him a few times, since you’ve got him trapped in the mountains all night.
Me
You’re not helping.
Gwen
I am, but just not in the way you want me to. Your goal is to stay as far away from that hot man candy as possible, and my goal is to encourage you to take advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shag a celebrity.
Me
He’s so much more than just a celebrity. He’s a human being. A thoughtful, kind, generous person.
Gwen
Agreed. He’s a thoughtful, kind, generous, hotter-than-molten-lava hot man who is totally into you.
Me
I’m ending this conversation now. I need to have a shower, then spend the rest of my evening NOT sleeping with anyone.
Gwen
Fine, but let me just say this: You should totally have sex with him.
Me
Good night. Have fun with your billionaire.
Text to Lucia:
Me
Hey, I need you to relay a message to Ma and Pops from me.
Lucia
Why can’t you call them? Camilla’s got dance class in half an hour and we haven’t left the house yet.
Me
Because it’ll be a whole thing if I call them. You don’t have to do it now. Wait until you’re at the dance studio. Tell them I’m snowed in up at Black Creek, but that everything’s fine, and they should have the highway plowed by tomorrow morning.
Lucia
Please don’t tell me you’re stranded alone with Hudson Finch.
Me
Okay, I won’t tell you that.
Lucia
OMG! You ARE!
Me
And our parents know he’s with me, which is why I can’t call them.
Lucia
You lucky, lucky bitch.
Me
So, you’ll pass the message on?
Lucia
Fine, but what do I tell them about the fact that you’re not calling them yourself?
Me
Just … tell them there’s no cell reception to place calls. Only to text.
Lucia
That’s not a thing.
Me
It could be. I’m not a telecommunications engineer.
Lucia
Who are you? My sister hates liars, and one date with this man and you’re ready to sell your soul to the devil.
Me
Am not. I just can’t handle the pepper vs. tomato paste talk right now. Hey, I thought you were in a big rush?
Lucia
I’m still waiting for Camilla to get off the toilet. I think she’s constipated.
Me
Okay, not sure she would want her auntie to know that.
Lucia
Oh, she’s out. Gotta go. I’ll call Ma in a bit, but you owe me.
Me
Thanks.
“You can’t sleepwith him. You can’t. No,” I say to the woman in the mirror. She just had a shower, and it should’ve been a cold one because the thoughts going through her head belong in a letter to Playboy. “Just no.”
Oh, but I really, really, really want to. Like really, really, more than anything I’ve ever wanted to do. In fact, I’d honestly hand Frank over to Lando right now if it meant one night with Hudson. Guilt hits me immediately. I could never do that to Frank. But the fact that I even thought that shows how very badly I need to stay away from Hudson. Only I don’t want to. Not even a bit. There’s a devil inside me that’s urging me to walk out of this bathroom, drop my towel and say, “How about it?”
But that’s not who I am. At the end of the day, I’m boring. So boring, I can’t hold a man’s attention. And Hudson isn’t just any man. He’s a man who can have whoever he wants whenever he wants. He may seem interested in me, and maybe he is, but only in a curious sort of, ‘what would it be like to sleep with a total nerd’ type of way. But even if we did somehow fall into some sort of weird, mismatched relationship, he’d get bored. Fast.
And even if it did last a few glorious weeks or months, there’s all that online hate I’d have to deal with. And I know me. I won’t be able to ignore it. I could try, sure. But eventually, my need to know will get the better of me, and I’ll break, and spend hours scrolling through shitty comments people are saying about me, which will hurt more than it should and bring out every last one of my insecurities. It’ll eat away at us. I know it will. So that’s that. Time to woman up and go spend a very chaste evening with my dream man. That’s what I’m going to do. Keep it professional and go to bed early if I feel like I’m going to crack.
I pull on my leggings, a long-sleeved tee, and some wool socks, and give myself another quick lecture in the mirror. “You can do this. You’ve managed to go years without sex. You can last one more night.”
I pull open the bathroom door and follow my nose to the kitchen, only to see Hudson setting the table, his arms flexing with the effort. Damn him for wearing a fitted t-shirt and jeans and having all those muscles. How’s a girl supposed to resist that? “Something smells delicious.”
It’s him. He’s the thing that smells delicious. And not just because he showered already.
He smiles at me. “You must be really hungry then because it’s just frozen pizza.”
I pick up the box. “Oh, but it’s extreme meat lover’s which sounds very decadent.”
“It’s the word extreme. It really classes up any food.”
I laugh at his joke. It’s a giggly girlish sound that should not be happening. Please stop being so fun and amazing. I busy myself getting out a couple of glasses, then open the fridge. “We’ve got beer, lemon fiesta coolers, and Coke.”
“I say we go with lemon fiesta. You know, make it a party.”
I grin at him, knowing I should probably go for a Coke. But somehow, I find myself pulling two coolers out. I hand one bottle to Hudson, brushing his fingers with mine accidentally on purpose. We unscrew the caps and he holds his up to mine.
“What are we cheersing?” I ask.
“Cheersing?”
“It’s a new word. I just made it up now. Go with it,” I say.
“In that case, we’re cheersing to forgetting about the world for a while.”
I stare at him, realizing how hard it must be to be in the public eye all the time. Everywhere you go, being recognized and approached. Then I think about how nice it is to be away from my own work today, and to just … be. There’s no Chad irritating me, no family in my business, no race against time. Just us. “To forgetting the world.”
We sit down to eat a few minutes later, both of us starving from being out in the cold for so long. The pizza is piping hot, and loaded with pepperoni, Italian sausage, bacon, ham, and cheese. “They weren’t kidding about the extreme amount of meat.”
I have a few sips of my drink to wash it down, and I already start to feel a bit of a buzz, which should be sending off warning signals for me to leave it at one drink. Inhibitions are an absolute necessity, especially tonight.
After we eat, we work side-by-side to clean up the kitchen, him washing and me drying and putting everything away while he tells me about the worst person he’s ever worked with—a total male diva who constantly had the crew waiting for ‘the moment to be right,’ and I tell him about my biggest brush with fame before I met him. The time I took a flight from Vancouver to Denver and Dennis Quaid was on board. “I spotted him in business class as I was walking to my seat at the very back of the plane, obviously. He was on the phone and we made eye contact, and he definitely could tell I recognized him. I smiled, and he … pulled his hat down and turned away. Super rude, right?”
He clicks his teeth. “Well, it’s a bit of a tricky situation because if he strikes up a conversation with you, it’ll delay boarding.”
“Good point. So maybe he wasn’t so much rude as responsible,” I say, taking the last plate from his hand so I can dry it. “Now, my question is this: Was he on a real phone call or a fake one?”
He glances up at the ceiling for a second. “I’m going to say fake, which is a good strategy because people are far less likely to talk to someone who’s on the phone.”
“That’s what I thought. Although, the truth is, if he hadn’t been talking, I wouldn’t even have noticed him sitting there.”
“Oh yeah, good point, so he was actually drawing attention to himself.”
“Exactly. So, what do you do to avoid fans in that situation?”
“I wear a hat and pretend I’m already asleep. Works like a charm.”
“You should tell him that if you ever meet him.”
He laughs, then says, “I’ll definitely do that.”
“Good.” We stare at each other for a second, then he pulls the plug on the sink and lets the water drain. I hand him the dish towel so he can dry his hands. The whole thing feels so natural and comfortable, as if we’ve been doing this our entire lives. When we’re finished, we’re left with the dreaded question of what we should do next. My lady bits have a few ideas, all of them very, very bad.
I lean against the counter with my hands behind my back to keep myself from running them all over his everything. He’s standing a couple of feet in front of me, staring down at me. His eyes flick down to my mouth and back up.
My heart pounds and I’m filled with butterflies that need to calm the hell down already. “So, I was thinking, since we’re stuck here, maybe we should spend some more time in the observatory room. We’ll go over those charts again, only this time I was thinking you could take some actual notes.”
He moves closer, his body nearly pressing up against mine. “That’s probably a good idea. To read through those charts again…”
“Yeah, it would be the smart thing to do.” Did I just slowly lick my lips? I should not have done that because it’s clearly sending a message I shouldn’t be sending.
“But I thought we were going to forget about the world,” he says, moving a little closer.
“Is that what we said?” I ask, my voice coming out all breathless.
He puts his hands on either side of me and grips the counter. “We did. We even cheersed to it, remember?”
“Oh right,” I say, my entire body coming alive as he leans down. “But surely we didn’t mean we should forget about work, did we?”
“Pretty sure we did.” His lips are almost on my neck and I can feel the heat from his body as he whispers in my ear, “What if we give ourselves this one night to do all the things I know you’ve been thinking about?”
“What have I been thinking about?” I ask.
His lips brush against my neck. “This.”
I let out a moan, tilting my head to expose my neck a little more while he works his way up. Oh God, that’s good. So, so good. His teeth skim my earlobe, completely silencing that voice in my head that was sounding that pesky alarm. I grab his shirt and pull him to me so he’s now got me pressed up against the counter. He reaches up with both hands and places them on my cheeks, then kisses me hard on the mouth, melting the rest of my resolve. I run my hands up and down his back, feeling his muscles flex while he does the most amazing things with his tongue. After a few deliciously delirious moments, he pulls back and gazes down at me. “Is that what you had in mind?”
I nod, not wanting him to stop. “How did you know?”
“Because it’s all I can think about too,” he answers, nipping my bottom lip with his teeth. “I want you, Allie. I’ve wanted you since the moment I first laid eyes on you.”
“No, that can’t be right,” I say. “That’s just something you think you have to say.”
His eyes harden. “It’s not. It’s the truth. I’ll never forget seeing you there in the lobby. I was awestruck by your beautiful full lips, your perfect skin. You’re gorgeous, Allie. Stunning.”
He kisses me again, and I feel myself melting like butter in his arms. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, both inside and out.”
“But you’ve been with?—”
He kisses me hard on the mouth to stop whatever comparison I was about to make. “Facts aren’t up for debate.” His words come out as a low growl, and I let out a little involuntary squeak.
“Okay, I won’t argue with you then,” I say.
“Good.”
He crushes my mouth with his while I tell that awful voice in my head—the one who can’t let me believe he means any of this—to shut the hell up. Because if I don’t, I’m going to talk my way out of the most incredible night of my life.
I lift myself onto my tippy toes and kiss him again, wrapping one hand behind his neck and pulling him closer.
I’m pinned between his hard body and the counter, and it’s all I can do not to start yanking off both our clothes. Instead, I give in to the moment, letting myself feel what he’s doing to me with his hands and his mouth. I breathe in the scent of him. The masculine, fresh, irresistible smell of his skin. We stay like this, making out until we’re both worked up into a frenzy. He pulls back, causing me to let out a little whimper—it’s a sound I’ve never made before in my life. It’s desperate and whiny and it makes him smirk as he pulls off his t-shirt, tossing it on the floor behind him.
My eyes drink in the perfection that is his body, and I only now realize how very thirsty I’ve been for basically my entire adult life. “Wow,” I mutter, running my hands over the ridges of his abs and up to his muscly chest. “Yeah, wow.”
I don’t even care that I’m fawning over him when I should be playing it cool. There’s no way not to fawn over the absolute perfection that is Hudson Finch. Every woman who’s ever seen him on screen wants to do exactly what I’m doing right now, which makes me the luckiest human on the planet. Reaching down, he pulls my shirt over my head, forcing me to lift my arms—and lose contact with his glorious body for a second. He smiles as he stares at me without my shirt on. Just when I start to feel a hint of self-consciousness, he says, “God, look at you. You’re so fucking beautiful.”
His hands are on my waist, and he pulls me to him, kissing me some more. I feel the heat of his skin against mine, and I’m suddenly desperate to have all our clothes off so I can feel more of him against me and all of him inside me. He works his way down my neck with torturously slow kisses that trail across my collar bone, then pulls my lacy bra down to give him full access to my breasts. His mouth captures my right breast and he teases my nipple until it’s puckered and hard, sending a ripple of pleasure through me. I moan again, shameless in my desire for him.
He lifts his head and says, “Is this what you were thinking about?”
“God, yes, all of it,” I answer, my words breathy.
He works his way back down and gives my left breast the same perfect attention, his tongue swirling around my nipple and doing all sorts of amazing things to me. I barely notice him unclasping my bra, or it falling to the floor, but somehow it happens. He drops to his knees in front of me, pulling my leggings, panties, and socks off, leaving me completely exposed. The cool air of the kitchen causes goose bumps across my skin, but his hands warm me as he moves them up the sides of my legs and onto my hips. I should feel self-conscious, here in the brightly lit room in front of this Adonis of a man, but the look in his eyes tells me I have nothing to feel bad about.
“I’m going to do everything you need,” he says, gripping my ass with both hands and planting kisses across my tummy. “All the things you’ve always wanted.”
“Yes, please,” I answer, unable to think straight enough to say anything coherent. I stare down at him, my breath ragged, as I take in the expression on his face. It’s adoration and animalistic and everything I’ve always wanted in a moment like this. I feel sexy. I feel beautiful. I feel seen. And it’s utterly addictive. I want to be looked at like this forever.
I grip his shoulders and pull up. “Come here,” I whisper.
“Not yet,” he says, gently parting my legs. “We’ve got all night and I intend to make this last.”
He kisses and licks me, his tongue doing things that are so intense and amazing, I can hardly hold myself up. I grip the counter behind me to stop myself from collapsing onto the floor. His fingers grip my ass as he pleasures me in ways I didn’t know were possible. Closing my eyes, I let my head drift back until it’s resting against the cupboard, feeling him lift my right leg a little higher so he can bring his tongue in deeper inside me.
A distant part of me feels like she’s observing this from across the room, shocked and delirious and thrilled at what’s happening. She can see us together like this, with Hudson showing me how a man should love a woman. Just like this. He’s not quick or selfish. He’s not here to just get whatever he can from me. He’s paying attention to every little moan and sigh and movement of mine, and adjusting to bring me closer to the edge. I press myself a little harder against his smooth face, writhing over him as I tighten my muscles and let one hand drift from the counter to his hair. I grip his head and pull him in even more, his tongue rubbing inside me, setting off a wave of intense pleasure that rips through every cell of my body. Spasms of satisfaction take over as I call out, “Yes, yes, yes!” in a raspy voice.
He stays right where I need him as I ride every wave. When it’s over, he holds onto my waist with both hands while he plants lingering, adoring kisses from hip to hip, the heat from his mouth warming every part of me. When he finally stands, I kiss him hard on the mouth, tasting the pleasure he just gave me. It was incredible, powerful, and all-consuming, but somehow, it’s left me desperate for more. For him, and only him.
I fumble with the button on his jeans, somehow managing to undo them, then I let my hand slide inside, feeling his hard length through the fabric of his boxer briefs. God, that’s big. And hard. And I want all of it inside me right now.
Hudson tugs off the rest of his clothes, then stands in front of me, nude and hard and perfect. “Should we go find a bed?” he asks.
I shake my head, frantic to feel him inside me before he can change his mind. “No, let’s stay here.”
“Are you sure? I was hoping to romance you,” he says, lifting one hand to cup my jaw.
“Fuck romance. We can do romance later,” I murmur. “I need to do this now.”