Chapter Twenty-One
Hudson
S he’s playing games. And I’m not sure why I’m going along with it.
Apart from that simple fact that if I’m going to do this, I don’t have time to find someone else.
We head to Brooklyn.
I feel like a bullying ass, invading her life, pushing her to do this. Because, no matter how I set it up for her to think it was her choice, I pushed.
Thing is, I wouldn’t care about her home if I still believed she lived back on Park. Maybe for the first time it’s something I’m interested in, but that’s not why.
I just need to know before I take the final step that I can trust her. If I put this out there, then there’s no going back. And it’s no longer the same as not taking up this challenge for the jewels if I fail. Because now, if I fail…
I’m not going to fail.
We don’t talk as we cross the bridge and head into Bushwick. The edges of Bushwick? I didn’t pay attention to what she told my driver, as I needed to send something out. It’s getting late and I’ve got plans.
We arrive in an area that isn’t money but close to the Halsey St L stop. This is the kind of area Magnus loves taking and turning on its head. That’s not my area and I don’t generally do much of Brooklyn outside certain parts such as Dumbo and even Park Slope.
The building is pre-war, the paint peeling and the trees old, along with some of the litter. But I noticed bars and restaurants in with the bodegas and old school supermarkets and dollar stores that tell me this place will be completely turned around in another five to ten years.
I give her a curious look as we pull up and disembark. Even for a rich girl with no money, this isn’t a normal choice. I should ask Bixby about it, but then again, if she’s out here, maybe she hasn’t told anyone.
Who am I kidding? Of course she hasn’t.
“This way,” Scarlett says.
I’m imagining a place crammed full of expensive pieces that don’t fit, and a closet that won’t quit, but it’s not that. When we climb the flight of stairs and she opens three locks with the kind of practiced ease that says to me she’s lived here a while, we’re in a lovely little apartment.
Emphasis on the little.
But it’s cheery and looks good. Like she got someone in to make it hers.
“Oh!” A tall woman with the kind of curves Ryder would lose his mind over says as she steps out of the kitchen, a bottle of tequila in one hand. “Scarlett, I didn’t expect a guest…”
Scarlett looks like she wants the floor to open and to swallow her whole. “This is my boss—”
“A little more than that,” I find myself saying because suddenly I need to start the ball rolling and this seems as good a place as any to test it out.
The woman looks like she’s going to say something, but she suddenly smiles and holds out her tequila-free hand. “Amber. Scarlett’s roommate, and aren’t you a dream?” She winks and hell yes, would Ryder be all over her. “I’m having a drink if you both want one, and then I’m out. Got a hot date.”
“No thanks,” Scarlett says, pushing me down the short hall from the living room, “we’re not thirsty.”
She pushes again and I’m so shocked I let her and then a door slams and I’m in a dark place that smells like Scarlett. Flowers bright and earthy and green and with a hint of sensual promises hidden. “You know what she’s thinking.”
Scarlett makes a sound that tells me she doesn’t appreciate my dry humor. “You started it. You know, with the little bit more thing.”
I move in close to her. Her presence surrounds me and then I have my arms around her, drawing her in and she’s soft and perfect feeling. “Upping the ante. So, this is your place?”
“For now.”
Her words are brittle and I swallow a laugh. Not at her place or what she feels is her predicament, but because she’s all prickly when she doesn’t need to be.
“So,” I say, brushing my mouth against her ear, “does this place in here come with a light, or are you into bat living?”
“Do not mock me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
I slide my arm a little tighter around her. “Not on purpose, Scarlett. I’m sorry I got you to do this.”
“My idea.”
There’s something strangely intimate about standing in her bedroom, holding her in the dark, while we’re both completely dressed. I let her go and step back and she turns on a light.
There’s a threadbare bear on the bed and everything in the room is in casual disarray and she sees me looking, rushing about, knocking things down while she tries to clean up. I just slide my hands in the pockets of my pants and wait.
Her roommate didn’t know who I was, which is good. And not unexpected. I’m not sure she knows Scarlett’s from money, which makes sense, I guess. Someone like Scarlett, who looks like she’s been here a while, they don’t talk about money issues. Old moneyed people never do, unless it’s to impress. You’re meant to know.
After all, that was drilled into me, too. But I prefer, like my brothers, making my own way.
My gaze keeps returning to the bear that’s on the bed and I take the two steps across the worn floorboards to pick him up.
“Mr. Figglesmort,” she blurts, snatching him from me and holding him.
“He was very safe with me.”
She turns a delightful shade of dark rose. “He’s just an old relic, that’s all.”
“Heirloom?”
“Something like that.” Scarlett places him on the bed with a reverence I’ve only seen with expensive things from her type.
But then again, Scarlett keeps reinventing her own mold.
“You know,” I say, “I’m not going to advertise you live here. Not that there’s shame in it. I think that you taking me here was hard and you might think me knowing about this…where you live, makes things harder, but it makes it real. A lot more real than just cookie cutter representation.”
Now I’m making an utter ass of myself and doing something I don’t think I’ve done in years—screw up what I’m trying to say. I usually think it through, weigh it, find the right words, or hire the right people to say them for me. But here I am, spewing words at her that she just might take the wrong way.
I clear my throat and take hold of her shoulders. “All I wanted to say was I like you’re not boring. You were never boring, but your home? I like it.”
And even though I shouldn’t, and because I can’t think of anything to say beyond that, I kiss her.
It’s just a kiss, a soft and sweet, fleeting kiss.
“Hudson, you should stop kissing me.”
“Why? Do you want me to?”
“No, which is why yo u should.”
She’s got a point and I’m playing with fire and getting burned and it feels a little too good. But an idea’s come to me, to go with my text earlier. I’m going to need to send some more, and really set the cat in among the pigeon. Get that ante up where I need it to be.
“Scarlett,” I say, stepping back so I can breathe. “We’re going out. And pack a bag. You’re coming home with me.”
“That’s a terrible idea.”
I frown. “I’m not asking for you to fuck me again. I have guest rooms. I think if we’re upping the ante, we should do it right. For all intents and purposes. What do you say?”
“That it’s a terrible idea.”
“So is that a yes?”
She looks at me, those hazel eyes melting dark golden brown. “Yes.”
We go to dinner at one of the hottest to be seen places across from the Park. The kind of place Ryder loves, Magnus wouldn’t bother with, Kingston will use if he needs to, and that I abhor.
It’s the place with a waiting list into next year and it’s where those who want to be seen are, well, seen.
The food’s decent.
I’m an attentive date, but Scarlett’s easy to pay attention to. This doesn’t seem to be her kind of place, but her eyes were wide when we stepped foot in here, so maybe it’s a place she’s wanted to go since it opened nine months ago. Who knows? I don’t ask, she doesn’t volunteer.
The dark red dress she wears that swirls a little around her calves is sexy in a way I wouldn’t have thought about before. And when we leave, it’s only natural to take her hand.
For the right reasons, obviously, but her hand feels good and warm and made to fit into mine.
I pull her into me and she comes willingly in the warm air of the night. She laughs and looks up at me. “You’re good at this,” she breathes.
I brush a strand of hair away from her face, lingering on her cheek that feels like satin beneath my fingertips. “Good at what?”
“Seduction? The perfect date? Whatever it is you’re up to.”
I brush my mouth against hers. “Upping the ante, Scarlett. Let’s go get a nightcap.”
“Okay.”
It’s not far to the upscale bar in red leather and black steel and oversized glasses of cocktails that need a real mixologist.
I know a lot of the people in the place, but they’re the type to keep to themselves. I’ve slept with a number of women here too. They give Scarlett a once over before they turn to their latest goals, and she notices, but as we take our seat and place our drinks order, the jazz band’s music at just the right tempo and level, I lean in and kiss her. This time, it’s a deeper, more carnal kiss.
I meant for it to simply be a kiss for show, but it quickly gets away from me. Her response is like fire and she sets me ablaze.
“You keep complicating things,” she whispers against my mouth.
I sample that mouth again, this time sliding my hand up under her skirt to rest against her naked thigh and wonder how far I can go. Here. In this place. “You make it very easy, Scarlett.”
“The ante doesn’t count if there’s no one there to watch.”
I laugh softly as I slide my hand a little higher and her fingers grip the edge of the table. “Is that like the tree thing in the woods?”
“No.” And she lets go of the table and takes hold of my tie pulling me up against her and then her hand moves down, a deliberate ride, over my chest and torso, stopping just short of where my cock is stiffening in my pants. “You’re teasing me. For reasons I don’t understand.”
“You’re teasing me, Scarlett.”
She smiles. “I’m getting back at you for doing that to me.”
I push my hand higher, brushing at the juncture of her thighs.
I don’t do this kind of thing. I don’t take these risks in public, especially not with what I’ve gone and done. But she drives me to it. Somehow, someway, Scarlett makes things brighter, and she tests me, or makes me test myself. In short, with her, I very much do this kind of thing. And I like it.
“We can play this game, Scarlett,” I say, “or we can go to my place and do it all for real.”
“You want me.”
“Of course I do. I thought that was obvious.”
“Take me back to your place.”
“Thank Christ,” I say, “because we keep doing this and I’m going to end up embarrassed.”
She laughs. “Maybe we should stay.”
I pull her hand from my lap and withdraw mine from her leg and I kiss each and every one of her fingertips. “I think, Scarlett, we should go.”
We barely make it in my front door before we’re ripping at each other’s clothing like we can’t get enough. I know I can’t. I don’t know what she’s done to me. It’s the second night in a row that I’m caught in the fever of her.
There’s no way we’re going to make it up the stairs.
I drag her to the left, into the drawing room I keep for visitors, and I push her onto her stomach on the back of the sofa and flip the skirt of her dress up and over her.
The harsh sound of her breathing is a sexual pull against me and my cock is so hard it hurts.
Her ass in their black panties is a glorious thing.
“Spread your legs, Scarlett.”
She does so with a small whimper as I slide my finger down along her panty covered slit. Hot and wet.
I can’t wait. Not anymore.
“Hurry…”
Her word is fuel. And I fumble with the buttons on my fly and undo them and unleash my hard cock. I pump it in my hand, fisting it around the base, and then I’m there, pulling her panties to the side and those pink lips glisten, inviting me in and I’m not one to ignore such a delicious invitation.
Rubbing the head along her pussy, I line up and then I thrust in, and she cries out.
I bury myself to the hilt.
She’s so tight and wet and she grips me, it’s the most insanely pleasurable place to be, inside of her. And I stay like that, buried deep, for a long moment, breathing, trying to get myself down so I don’t blow my load immediately.
And then I kiss her back. Kiss her nape, bite down as she moans low. “Please. Fuck me.”
I do. I pump into her, in long, hard, deep strokes, each one a revelation. My entire body is singing and wound tight with need, and I can feel her tighten around me, even as my balls tighten and I’m not going to last.
She clamps down on me as her orgasm hits and she cries out. The contractions of her cunt on my cock are too strong, too much, and I come, too, deep, and it’s a full on body explosion.
I rest my head against her nape, and brush it with my lips, savoring the salty sweetness of her skin, the slight dampness from our fucking.
“Hudson?”
“Yeah?” I’m still inside her, only half soft because I want her again.
“That was just a starter, right?”
And I laugh.
A man, if he believed in love, could fall for this woman, I think.
“Try and stop me from doing all that again.”
And I reluctantly pull out of her, and take her up the stairs, a slow, meandering walk up the floors with plenty of interesting stops and loss of clothes along the way, and we do it all again.
All night long.
I’m not used to leaving someone at my place when I head to work.
I’m not used to having overnight guests on the whole and I never have them on my private floor.
Still, there’s something about Scarlett… It doesn’t really matter, I tell myself as I head out after a trip to my gym in the house. It’s not even six am, but I have a lot to do and the things I put in motion, well, I need to check on those.
Everything’s running smoothly to my satisfaction and Scarlett comes to work on time, no doubt facing the small wall of work I left her.
It’s almost lunchtime when there’s a harried knock on my door and it bursts open.
Scarlett stands there, in charcoal trousers and a cream shirt that looks good, but it’s her face that has my attention.
She’s pale, eyes wide, looking nervous.
“What is it?”
“It wasn’t me. I don’t…I don’t know how…” She moves quickly to my desk and holds out her phone, shaking it in front of me. “Oh, God.”
She’s worked up, in a tizzy as my mother used to say, and the phone is moving so much I can’t see what she’s trying to show me before the screen goes black.
“Scarlett, use your words.”
“You and me. We’re on social media. As a couple. I don’t know how that happened.” She pulled the phone back to her and pressed it, then put it in front of me. “See.” She shoved a finger at it.
Shit. “Scarlett—”
“Photos. Of you and me.”
I start to rise. “Scarlett, you—”
“It wasn’t me. I’m sorry! It’s somehow out there. Please don’t fire me.”