CHAPTER FIVE
Hudson Whittingdon was a royal ass.
A sexy ass, an objectifying ass, and my brand spanking new partner.
Shit. Archer really pulled the wool over my eyes with that one and I was far from proud of it. Not that he seemed fazed that I slept with the newb, even though it horrified me more than a little bit. I assumed I’d be able to sweep the whole situation away as a summer fling in undercover work. That shit happened all the time. Then I”d transfer to another unit and the intimate skin-on-skin moments we shared would become stuff of urban legend.
Instead, my fling was my partner, confessing all sorts of flowery bullshit I didn’t believe in and now we were headed to...
Ba da ba boom–
A place called Love Beach. Hello, South Carolina. Where we were supposed to be newlyweds and keep an eye on a target that should never be part of our scope.
On the dash sat the plain gold band I was supposed to wear but couldn’t bring myself to face the confining feeling, even if it was fake as fuck.
Hudson, the show off, put his on hours ago before we headed into Love Beach after our road trip.
No fucking lie. That’s what the place was called, and we were headed there right now, with a fresh change of panties in a packed truck. The manilla folder sat in my lap and I once again sat gunshot in Hudson’s truck heading into the stupidly-named town in South Carolina.
Instead of trying to even things with Hudson, or deal with the way he kissed me back in the office, I opted to ignore the huge beefy Ranger in the driver’s seat and chose instead to study the small town’s main street. Not overpopulated, it was still obvious which of those wandering along the row of shops and service providers was a local and which were the tourists purely by their dress.
The locals were much more laid back, and the travellers donned enormous floppy hats as their weapon of choice that had the locals dodging back on more than one occasion as they shared a sidewalk together.
The shops looked clean, if brightly coloured, as if a family or PG rated movie vomited all over the place. And here we were, supposed to watch for a smuggler who escaped Texas Rangers on their own turf, study the target’s habits, and bring back all our observations without doing a single thing to apprehend the man who took three lives on Texas land not a month before.
Was I impressed?
No ma’am, I was not.
Apparently, Archer hadn’t got his ass in gear enough to get the man himself, but Hudson was as gung ho with this little test as he had been in Tijuana.
I wondered if his tastes in women and relationships fluctuated as fast as his attention. I rather suspected they did and I was simply a fast and furious summer passion in a long line of fling-like conquests reaching from California to Texas, no matter what he said back in the office, or any day since.
He kept insisting we were fine and it wasn’t a week long thing.
Fine, two weeks, then.
The blur of color along the main street melded into a rainbow of pastels, and as soon as I noted the ice cream parlor on one end of a block, my stomach rumbled.
Hudson laughed, his deep voice reverberating around the cab in a far too appealing sound.
“Don’t do that,” I snapped.
“Do what?” He affected a wounded look, all puppy dog eyes, downturned mouth and wrinkly forehead.
I slapped the arm he slid across my shoulders, pushing him back. I sighed. The man was relentless, and not in a good way. Or maybe I did like his ways, and just hated that about myself, too.
I had a whole lot of hate for a stack of things right now.
I spotted something I didn’t hate and threw out a hand, slapping the passenger window with my knuckles. “Stop here.”
Hudson slammed on the brakes, eliciting a stream of honks behind us and dived into a space way too small for his monster of a vehicle. “This good?”
I pried open a squinted eye. “Do I need to order a funeral service for any small animals or grannies?”
“Hey, that’s not nice. And you never know. Grannies in Texas be badass.” He smirked.
I nodded at his nonsense and hauled my ass out of the truck. “Stay.”
His laugh followed me as he bounded to the sideway and fell into step at my side. “Not a dog, Skye.”
“But you’re still my bitch.” The barb was hollow and meaningless. A wave of tiredness hit me. “Where are we staying?”
“I mean, I’m happy to be your bitch but my girl’s gotta tell me what’s up, otherwise I can’t take care of her. ‘Kay?” He nuzzled my temple.
I batted him away before I could catch something, like feelings.
Already did that.
I ignored my annoying voices, too.
“We’re working. We don’t have time for things like this.” I lifted my pace.
Hudson matched me step for step. “You’re hell bent on this investigation, huh?” The back of his hand brushed mine and I repressed the shiver that raced through my body and along my arms, turning into Caffeine Beach, the coffee shop I spotted earlier.
“I’m hell bent on getting this done, going home and starting real work,” I snapped back. “Not going to apologise, because this is a bullshit assignment, much like the last.”
“Aw, Archer wouldn’t do that to us. He needs this information.” Hudson caught my hand this time, linking our fingers together. His were thicker and speared my fingers apart. I hated that I liked the feeling that he was bigger than me. Could actually take everything I threw at him.
Not appropriate on the job.
Besides, I knew a few things about his precious Archer that he clearly didn’t.
Like that the man wasn’t invested in the unit and was closing up shop, handing the unit over to the next most capable man, and heading north. Real far north, like Montana. Borderlands area. About as far as a person could get without actually needing a passport.
But I didn”t say any of that because a large part of me knew I would need it for a rainy day sometime. Maybe soon.
I yanked my hand free. “You don’t call having no arrest at the end of the assignment progress?” I walked straight up to the counter. “Giant long black please, four shots, no sugar. Thanks.” The waitress looked at me doubtfully, but wrote down my order without any more questions, thankfully.
“Well we are on this one, so why don’t you start behaving less like a cop and more like the girl I’m supposed to have just married?” Hudson whispered in my ear, flicking his tongue along the curve in a way that liquefied and overheated all of my internal functions.
I shivered lightly against him, and made to push him back but the smart ass expected the move and caught my wrists, twirling me expertly in his arms. The moment my mouth opened to protest, he covered it with his in a seriously pornographic kiss that would have ended in bed had we been in an enclosed space. Instead, my red face flamed along with probably anyone else in the shop who couldn”t possibly avoid the PDA he put on.
“Aren’t you overdoing it?” I whispered, looking coyly up at him through my lashes, fluttering them and stepping on his toes to let him know he crossed a line.
The big boof didn’t buy into my play. His expression grew serious, and it stalled me, the way he looked at me, all intense and complicated.
Life needs to be simple. In and out. Hi and bye.
I couldn’t do complicated any more, not now or ever. Never again.
I couldn’t.
The corners of Hudon’s lips turned up in the sort of sexy smile that left me leaning into him whether my brain screamed at me to retain my independence, or not.
“Aw, come on, Skye. I just found you. Don’t ruin my day.” His fingers knotted around my hand as his mouth lowered over mine, leaving just enough space for a single breath before he kissed me again.
A dare to defy him in public.
Spoilers: I didn’t.
His tongue dragged over mine, his pace slow, but dominating, a reminder of the way he fucked me by the beach in Mexico. A moan caught in my throat before I remembered where we were.
When he pulled back, he wore a satisfied smirk and a gold band sat on my left ring finger.
Asshole.