Chapter 18
eighteen
SKYLER
I’m not sure I’ve ever been more turned on in my life than right now, as Hudson Fitzgerald kisses me hard and fast, his breath warm against my lips, his tongue teasing mine. I feel powerful yet completely at his mercy at the same time. It’s confusing and perfect in every way.
He tightens his hold on me, his hands sliding down my body, then up my stomach, my ribcage, his fingers pushing at my bra.
I break the kiss, desperate to feel his body against mine. “This needs to come off,” I say urgently, tugging at his shirt. It takes us a moment of teamwork to unfasten the buttons and throw the white cotton garment on the floor. But then he’s bare chested and I’m almost naked as he pulls me against him with his strong arms.
His skin is warm, stretched across taut muscles. A contrast to my soft curves. I run my hands over him, feeling the ridges and dips of his abdomen and chest. His eyes are dark, following my movement.
Then he reaches behind me and takes my bra off.
“Fuck,” he mutters, looking at my breasts. “How the hell are you so perfect?” I open my mouth to tell him I’m not, but he’s already standing, lifting me with him, my arms around his neck, my breasts pressed into his chest.
“Where are we going?” I murmur as he starts to stalk through the tables and chairs. Our dinner is forgotten, and I feel a momentary pang about that because that shrimp was so good. But then I have a feeling the main course – Hudson – will be even better.
“I need to look at you,” he mutters, sliding my panty-clad behind onto an empty table closer to the bar. I can see the thick ridge of his excitement clearly through his pants. “This would be much easier on a bed.”
I smile coquettishly at him. “You strike me as a man who never takes the easy way.”
“I take the easy way when it doesn’t lead to back problems,” he mutters, but then he leans forward to kiss my waist, his breath hot against my tattoo and any sassy retort I might have made dissolves on my tongue.
As his tongue starts to trail across my skin.
He kisses my hipbone, my stomach, then slowly drags his lips up to the swell of my breasts. There’s a deep rumble in his throat as he kisses each one in turn.
“Gonna dream of these,” he mutters against my skin.
“In your bed,” I manage to gasp as he closes his mouth around my nipple.
He chuckles against me, then lashes his tongue and my eyes just about roll into the back of my head. I reach down, running my nails over his scalp and he groans in response.
This is happening. I’m going to have bedless sex with Hudson Fitzgerald and I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more in my life.
I’m splayed out on the table and he’s standing in front of me, my legs hooked around his shoulders as he teases my body. It’s awkward and it’s hot and right now I’m reconsidering my requirement about no beds.
And then he pulls me toward him and kisses me softly and I remember why I made it in the first place.
This man would be so easy to fall for. I know it’s an abrupt change in direction after all my hatred of him, but I didn’t know him then. I do now. I know his favorite childhood memory. I know how fiercely he loves those he’s closest to.
I know he’d do anything for them. It touches me so hard that I can feel my heart already aching.
“Take your pants off,” I tell him, needing him to be as naked as me.
“Need to make you come first,” he tells me.
“I think that’s a pretty foregone conclusion.” I’m practically vibrating here, without any form of energy except the desire his mouth is creating as he kisses me hard, his thumbs brushing over my nipples before he moves his hand lower, sliding it underneath the elastic of my panties.
“Fuck, you’re wet.”
“It’s your fault.” I’m getting a cricked neck from leaning up to kiss him. And he’s so damn awkward as he leans over me. Yet pleasure is radiating from my body every time he brushes his thumb over my clit.
“Pants off,” I say again, tugging at them this time, my fingers unbuckling his belt to slide the tailored wool over his hips. His cock is jutting out from his boxers, the head thick and swollen as it escapes from his waistband. I curl my hand around him, my thumb brushing him. “You’re wet too,” I murmur as he kicks his pants across the floor.
“Your fault,” he replies, brushing the hair away from my face. “Last chance,” he says. “Sure you wouldn’t like to take this to a bed?”
I would, I really would. But I’m stubborn and I’m turned on and I’m kind of liking the way he’s so desperate to get me horizontal. I want him to remember tonight for a long, long time.
So I push him away, then slide off the table to my feet, before dropping to my knees. I look up at him, my eyelashes sweeping over my face.
His lips part as I pull his shorts down, a soft breath escaping them as I curl my fingers around his thick, stiff excitement. I push my tongue out, slowly circling it around him and he groans.
“Sky…”
I slide my mouth over him as he grunts out my name, tasting his warmth, feeling his fingers tangle into my hair. All suggestions of beds and bad backs disappear as I move my lips over his skin, my tongue flicking as he almost escapes my mouth, before I engulf him once more.
It only takes a minute for his breath to turn ragged. I love the way I’m on my knees, yet I feel so in control. This huge, muscled man has his eyes trained on me as I look up at him, sucking him, teasing him.
Then I flutter my tongue against his head and he lets out a growl. Before I can swallow him down again, he’s leaning down, lifting me up onto the table once more, pushing me back so I’m splayed out on the surface and he’s the one on his knees, his stubble scraping my thighs as he parts them with his face, burying it between them.
Dear God, this man knows how to make me squirm. His tongue is weaving some kind of black magic against my clit as he slides a finger inside of me, making me arch my back against the table.
And yes, it’s hard and cold and I’d so much rather it be a bed, but this is pretty damn hot, being ravished in an empty bar.
He slides a second finger inside, murmuring in approval as I tighten around him, pleasure coiling deep inside my body, ready to explode. He pulls my clit between his lips, sucking, flicking with his tongue, and then he scrapes me with his teeth and I’m done.
“Hudson!” My eyes widen as the strongest orgasm I’ve felt in my life overtakes me. My hands clutch at the air, my body convulses, my breath escapes in little torn up bursts, as he carries on plundering me with his mouth.
“You have to stop,” I manage to get out. “You’re going to kill me.”
I’m only half joking. I read about a woman who couldn’t stop orgasming. It seems like a dream, but it turned into a nightmare pretty quick. She’d go to the grocery store and collapse in a pile of goo while disapproving old ladies expressed disappointment.
What if I don’t stop? What if that becomes me? Hudson damn Fitzgerald has a lot to answer for.
Thankfully he does stop, his eyes dark as he pulls himself reluctantly away from my thighs, kissing his way up my body to my lips as he softly presses his mouth against mine. They’re warm, they taste of me. It’s weirdly decadent.
“I want to be inside of you,” he murmurs against me.
Oh god, I need that too. Praise be, my orgasm is waning, dissolving into a soft, warm pleasure that radiates through my body. I nod, and he pulls out a condom, sliding it easily on, before he pulls me against him. I don’t tell him I’m on the pill – he doesn’t need to know that I take it for bad periods. I just like that he’s taken my requirements seriously. His heated excitement is hard against me as I wrap my legs around his hips and he lazily thrusts inside.
The air rushes from my lips. This man is big. I hold onto his shoulders, trying to get used to his size.
“Okay?” he asks me, our gaze locking.
I want to tell him to stop being nice to me. To stop checking on me. To stop snapping my soul in two. But instead I nod again, and he pulls out then pushes in, his eyes looking down at the connection between us as he moves in and out of my body, his rhythm creating a burning need inside of me, and sating it all at the same time.
“Better than I imagined,” he mutters. “So much better.”
He’s imagined me like this. My cheeks heat up at the thought.
“Fuck me until you break me,” I whisper.
A half-smile pulls at his lips as he takes me at my word and starts to thrust harder, faster, his hands trailing over my body as I cling onto his. He kisses me, his hand sliding down until it’s between us, his thumb finding where I need him, the movements matching the rhythm of his thrusts until I swear I’m going to combust.
“Hudson…”
“Come,” he murmurs, kissing me. “Come for me. All over me.”
So I do. Every muscle in my body tightens as pleasure washes over me in a wave. Softer, this time, but no less sweet. I bite his shoulder to stop myself from screaming, and then he’s muttering my name, stilling as he spills inside of me, his breath rough and sharp as I scrape my nails down his back.
We stay like that for a minute, my arms tight around him, my mouth against his skin, his face buried into my hair. I’m almost afraid to let go. I don’t know what happens next.
I lift my head up to catch him staring at me, an unreadable expression on his handsome face. Neither of us says a word, we just stare.
And then he reaches between us and pulls out of me, his fingers keeping the condom secure, before he grabs something from his pants and strides unabashedly naked over to the bathroom, the door swinging closed behind him.
I immediately miss his warmth. But it’s only a second before he’s back. He has something in his hand, something white.
It takes a moment before I realize it’s a handkerchief that he’s dampened under the tap.
“It’s clean,” he tells me, as he slides it between my legs, the warm cotton cleaning up the mess he’s made of me.
My throat is tight as he takes care of me, cleaning me up before he stands and kisses me softly. I sit up, watching him as he pulls his shorts back on.
“You have no idea how much I want to take you to bed right now,” he tells me.
My chest tightens. “You just did.”
“I mean to snuggle.”
For some reason him saying that word makes me laugh. Snuggle and Hudson Fitzgerald aren’t two things I’d ever put together.
“I’m not a snuggler,” I lie, swinging my legs because I like the way he can’t stop looking at my naked body. “I’d annoy you by being restless.” I reach for him, wrapping my arms around his neck, as he stands between my legs.
“You’re annoying me by not letting me take you to bed,” he mutters.
I tip my head to the side, running my fingers through his hair. It’s soft and silky against my skin. “It’s better this way,” I murmur. “Now you can go home and sleep in your own bed and not worry about when it’s a good time to leave or if I’m going to demand that you stay all night. No strings, no worries.”
His eyes narrow. “Who says there’s no strings?” He sounds almost pissed off now.
I swallow hard. “Isn’t that what you want? Your life is complicated enough without me.” I try to smile. “And I promise, I’m always a huge complication.”
“Maybe I like complications,” he mutters. “And you said no bed. You didn’t say no strings.”
Oh, he looks really annoyed.
“Isn’t that every man’s dream?” I ask him. “For a woman to offer up sex without expecting anything from him?”
“I have no fucking idea,” he says shortly. “But it’s not my dream. There are definitely strings here. A goddamned web of them.”
“What kind of strings?” I rub the pads of my fingers against his scalp. He closes his eyes, his face relaxing.
“Obviously I want to see you again,” he says when he opens his eyes. “Next Tuesday. And every Tuesday after that.”
“Tuesday?” I say. “That’s very specific.”
“Autumn has Ayda sleep over at her place on Tuesdays.”
My heart does a little leap. “Okay,” I breathe. “What else?”
“We don’t see anybody else.” His eyes catch mine.
“I guess I’d better break things off with Mylene,” I say sighing. “Shame, she makes a mean coffee.”
“I’m serious, Skyler. I don’t share.”
Of course he doesn’t. “No sharing,” I agree.
“Good. And maybe I’ll need the occasional massage,” he says grumpily, picking up my dress from the floor and putting it over my shoulders like he’s worried I’ll get cold. “Because I’m going to end up with a fucking slipped disc at this rate.”
My breath catches. “Just how long is this thing going to go on for?” I ask him, sliding my arms through the denim. Because he’s making it sound like a long term thing.
“Maybe we should make it less bedless…” he murmurs.
“It’s non negotiable,” I say firmly. Because I need to have some power here. I have a feeling that not only would this man walk all over me if I let him, I’d actually enjoy having his foot in my face.
Not literally. I’m not a foot fetishist. But I still need to assert my authority, or what little of it I have. And keeping this relationship out of bed is all I’ve got.
“I’ll bill you for my chiropractor,” he says, pulling his pants on. “I’m way too old for this.”
“Shut up, you’re in your thirties. You’re not exactly at death’s door.” I smile at him and he shakes his head.
“I’ll get you into a bed if it kills me,” he mutters.
“Not going to happen,” I say lightly, secretly enjoying the way he looks so grumpy. My dress is still gaping and he can’t stop looking. Good . “But you can use your imagination. Just because we won’t be having sex in a bed doesn’t mean you have to give yourself sciatica. Don’t be a killjoy. If you want me, you’ll have to take what I’m offering.”
He reaches out to trace my lips with the pad of his thumb. “I want you,” he says gruffly.
Another thrill rushes through me. “Then work for it,” I whisper.
Something about my words makes his eyes darken further. “Christ, you’re aggravating.”
“Right back at you.” I lean forward to kiss him softly, and his mouth yields against mine, the scowl on his face replaced by a warm gaze. “Now let’s finish getting dressed and eat dinner. I think we might need the calories.”