Chapter 6 Hudson
The meeting with Torres was brief and unsettling.
Lang and Briggs had gone dark. No sightings, no activity, no communication with their usual contacts. The FBI had surveillance on their homes, their families, their known associates, and had come up with nothing.
"They're planning something," Torres said, her expression grim. "Men like this don't just disappear unless they're preparing for something big. We've increased security at the courthouse, but I want you to keep Ms. Ramirez close. Don't let her out of your sight."
Like I needed to be told that.
Betty sat beside me in Torres's office, her hand clasped in mine beneath the table. She hadn't let go since we'd sat down, and I wasn't about to complain. After this morning, after feeling her come apart beneath my hands, I never wanted to stop touching her.
"What about the bar?" Betty asked. "I can't just abandon my business."
"We'll have plainclothes officers in the area," Torres said. "And Mr. Cole's team will maintain their positions. Just be careful. Both of you."
We left the field office and drove back to Betty's apartment in silence. I could feel the tension radiating off her, the fear she was trying to hide beneath a mask of composure.
"Hey." I reached over and squeezed her thigh. "We're going to get through this."
"I know." She put her hand over mine. "I'm just tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop."
"One more week until the trial. Then this is over."
"If I make it that long."
"You will." I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed her knuckles. "I'll make sure of it."
When we got back to her apartment, the atmosphere shifted. The fear and tension from the FBI meeting faded into the background, replaced by something else entirely. Something that had been building since this morning.
Betty locked the door behind us and turned to face me, her back against the wood. Her eyes were dark, heated, full of the same want I felt burning in my chest.
"Hudson."
One word. My name. And it undid me completely.
I crossed to her in two strides, my hands cupping her face, my mouth claiming hers. She melted into me immediately, her arms wrapping around my neck, her body pressing against mine.
"I've been thinking about this all day," I said against her lips. "About this morning. About the sounds you made when you came."
She shivered.
"I want more." I pulled back to look at her, making sure she understood exactly what I was asking. "I want all of you, Betty. I want to be inside you. I want to feel you wrapped around me while I make you scream my name."
Her breath caught. "Yes."
"Yes?"
"Yes." She grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me closer. "I want that too. I want you. All of you. Right now."
I didn't need to be told twice.
I lifted her easily, her legs wrapping around my waist, and carried her toward the bedroom. Our mouths never stopped moving, kissing and biting and devouring each other like we'd been starving for years.
Because we had been. Ten years of hunger, ten years of wanting, all of it crashing together in this moment.
I laid her on the bed and stepped back just long enough to pull my shirt over my head. Her eyes roamed over my chest, my tattoos, the scars that mapped my body like a road atlas of violence.
"You're beautiful," she breathed.
"That's my line."
I crawled over her, caging her body with mine, and kissed her again. Slower this time. Deeper. I wanted to commit every moment to memory.
Her hands explored my back, tracing the lines of muscle, the raised tissue of old scars. When her fingers found the phoenix tattoo over my heart, she paused.
"What does this one mean?" she asked.
"Rebirth." I pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Rising from the ashes. Finding something worth living for again."
"When did you get it?"
"The day I decided to come back for you."
Her eyes glistened, and she pulled me down for another kiss, this one softer, sweeter. Full of emotion neither of us could put into words.
I took my time undressing her, until she lay beneath me completely bare, and I felt like I might die from the sheer beauty of her.
I stood just long enough to strip off the rest of my clothes, and her eyes went wide when she saw me. All of me.
"God, Hudson." Her voice was barely a whisper. "You're..."
"Yours." I climbed back over her, settling between her thighs. "Every inch of me. Yours."
I kissed my way down her body, relearning every curve, every sensitive spot. The hollow behind her ear that made her gasp. The spot on her neck that made her moan. The swell of her breasts, the peaked nipples that hardened beneath my tongue.
By the time I reached the apex of her thighs, she was trembling. Begging.
"Please, Hudson. I need you."
"Not yet." I spread her legs wider, looking at the glistening evidence of her arousal. "I need to taste you first."
I lowered my mouth to her center, and her back arched off the bed with a cry. She was sweet and tangy and perfect, and I licked and sucked like a man dying of thirst who'd finally found water.
"Oh God. Oh God. Hudson."
I worked her with my tongue, circling her clit, dipping inside her, learning what made her writhe and what made her scream. When I slid two fingers inside her while sucking on her sensitive bundle of nerves, she shattered.
Her orgasm was violent, her whole body convulsing, her hands fisting in my hair as she rode my face through wave after wave of pleasure.
I didn't stop until she was limp and gasping, her chest heaving, her eyes glazed.
"I can't," she panted. "I can't possibly come again."
"Challenge accepted."
I crawled up her body and positioned myself at her entrance. The head of my cock pressed against her slick folds, and we both groaned at the contact.
"Are you sure?" I asked, even though holding back was physically painful. "We can stop here if you're not ready."
"If you stop now, I will kill you. I’m on the pill. I just want your skin on mine." She grabbed my hips and pulled me closer. "I need you inside me, Hudson. I've needed you for ten years."
I pushed forward slowly, inch by agonizing inch, feeling her stretch around me. She was tight. So fucking tight. And hot. And wet. And perfect.
"Jesus, Betty." My arms trembled with the effort of holding back. "You feel incredible."
"More," she gasped. "I need more."
I sank the rest of the way in with one smooth thrust, and we both cried out. For a moment, I couldn't move. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything but feel the absolute rightness of being inside her.
"Are you okay?" I managed.
"I'm perfect." She wrapped her legs around my waist, pulling me deeper. "Now move. Please."
I pulled back slowly, almost all the way out, then thrust forward again. Hard and deep. She moaned, her nails digging into my shoulders, and I felt my control start to slip.
"You feel so good," I groaned. "So fucking good. I'm not going to last long."
"I don't care." She moved her hips against mine, meeting each thrust. "Just don't stop."
I set a rhythm, hard and deep and relentless. The bed creaked beneath us. The headboard slammed against the wall. Betty's cries grew louder with each thrust, her body arching into mine, her inner walls clenching around me like she never wanted to let go.
"That's it, baby," I growled in her ear. "Take me. Take all of me."
"Harder," she begged. "Please, harder."
I gave her what she asked for. Pounded into her with everything I had, my hips snapping against hers, my cock driving deep into her core. The sounds filling the room were obscene, skin slapping against skin, her moans mixing with my groans, the wet sound of our bodies joining.
"I'm close," she gasped. "Hudson, I'm so close."
"Come for me." I reached between us, finding her clit with my thumb, rubbing it in tight circles. "Come on my cock, Betty. Let me feel it."
She shattered with a scream, her whole body convulsing around me. Her inner walls clamped down on my cock so hard I saw stars, and I followed her over the edge moments later.
My orgasm hit me like a freight train. I buried myself to the hilt and came with a guttural roar, pumping everything I had into her, wave after wave of pleasure crashing through me until I was completely empty.
I collapsed on top of her, barely remembering to catch my weight on my elbows so I didn't crush her. We lay there, panting, trembling, still connected in the most intimate way possible.
I rolled to the side, slipping out of her, and pulled her into my arms. She curled against me immediately, her head on my chest, her leg thrown over mine.
"I forgot," she said quietly.
"Forgot what?"
"What it felt like. Being with you." She traced patterns on my chest. "I'd convinced myself I'd exaggerated it in my memory. That it couldn't have been as good as I remembered."
"And?"
"It was better." She lifted her head to look at me, and the emotion in her eyes made my chest ache. "How is it better?"
"Because we're not kids anymore." I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "We know what we want. What we need. And we're not afraid to take it."
She kissed me softly, then settled back against my chest.
"Hudson?"
"Yeah?"
"I think I'm falling in love with you again."
My heart stopped. Then restarted at twice its normal speed.
"I never stopped loving you," I said quietly. "Not for a single day. Through everything, you were always there. In my head. In my heart. You're the reason I survived the last ten years, Betty. The thought of you. The hope that maybe, someday, I'd get another chance."
A tear slipped down her cheek, and I kissed it away.
"We're going to get through this," I said. "The trial, Lang and Briggs, all of it. And then we're going to have the life we should've had all along."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
We made love again that night. Slower this time, gentler. Learning each other all over again, rediscovering the intimacy we'd lost.
And when we finally fell asleep, tangled together in her bed, I knew that whatever came next, whatever challenges we faced, we'd face them together.
Because I'd spent ten years in the darkness, and Betty was finally my light again.
I was never going to let her go.
The next morning, we established a new routine.
I woke her with kisses and coffee. She complained about being a morning person while secretly loving every second of the attention. We showered together, which took longer than it should have because I couldn't keep my hands off her, and then we headed to the bar.
Martinez had finished the security upgrades overnight. New cameras. Motion sensors. Panic buttons behind the bar and in the back office. The place was as secure as I could make it without turning it into a fortress.
"It feels different," Betty said, looking around at her bar. "Safer."
"Good. That's the point."
She turned to me, her expression softening. "Thank you. For all of this. I know you have a company to run, clients who need you."
"None of them matter as much as you." I pulled her into my arms, pressing a kiss to her hair. "You're my priority, Betty. You always have been."
She smiled up at me, and the sight of it made something warm bloom in my chest.
We were going to be okay.
We just had to survive the next week.