CHAPTER 22
Hudson had everything he needed to install the doggy door. He’d left Noodle at home with Jeremy, who was still nursing his wounds from the breakup and quitting his job.
He let himself into Willa’s house like he lived there—he’d only been coming for about a month, but it was becoming one of his favorite things, to the point where he resented being called out on emergency jobs.
He heard music playing. Willa had moved on from simply humming, and now she was always surrounded by music. It was an indicator of her mood. She was constantly surprising him with the wide, wild range of stuff she was into. Movie scores and classical when she was trying to puzzle something out. EDM and angry alternative when she was really stuck on something. And poppy, happy music when she was actually in the kitchen cooking—often from the eighties and nineties, which was fun. He’d seen the way she swayed, sometimes punching out a lyric under her breath when it was a song she really liked, and when she was doing something natural that she didn’t need to concentrate on.
Today was a cooking day, he thought with a smile as he headed down the hallway. It was salsa music, some of his favorite. He didn’t recognize the song—or rather, he kind of recognized the song, but didn’t know why.
He froze when he hit the archway to the dining area and saw her bopping around. She was singing along in Spanish, he realized. And then realized the reason he recognized it was because it was one of her favorite songs, from a Japanese animated show. Only it had been “salsa-fied.”
Never thought I’d get turned on by a salsa version of the theme song to Chainsaw Man .
He would’ve laughed out loud if he hadn’t caught sight of her, basically taking any conscious thought offline.
The way she was moving her hips? Holy shit. It was a far cry from much younger women. Obviously, she knew what she was doing, and he was hypnotized as she sang along, her slipper-clad feet moving to the complex steps. She was so immersed, she didn’t notice him until she turned around.
“ Eeeeep !” she shrieked, dropping the wooden spoon she’d been singing into.
“Sorry,” he said, although he kind of wasn’t. He grinned, ignoring the way his heart was pounding. “You’re good. I didn’t know you were into salsa.”
“I’m kind of ... it’s been a while.”
“Same.” He grinned. “I’m all right at it, basic stuff, but I don’t have any fancy moves or anything.”
“Oh, I’ll bet you have some fancy moves.” Then she slapped her hand over her mouth, and he burst out laughing. The shock was clear on her face. She finally grinned back a little as she tucked her hair behind her ear, one of his favorite nervous gestures of hers.
“You look like a pro.”
“I took a class ages ago, in college, and I’ve always liked the music,” she said, picking up the spoon, tossing it into the sink, and cleaning the spot on the floor. “My friend Nat and I sometimes hit a club when I’m in the Bay Area, but that’s been a long time, too.”
They’d been slowly circling around their growing attraction, teasing ... getting closer, moving away. It was like foreplay. Hell, it was like edging . It had been more fun than he realized it’d be.
He liked sex, without question, and he liked flirting. He liked kissing, he liked making out, even cuddling. But at this point, with dating off the table for so long, he didn’t play games, didn’t make promises of any sort, and was clear up front with the women he had sex with. As a result, he did tend to get to the point a little faster. It was a dick move to take a woman to a fancy dinner, kiss and cuddle and tease her, and then insist that there wasn’t anything emotional going on.
This was a mix of hot and just so sweet, so soft, he felt like he was going to crawl out of his own skin. There was obviously more going on here.
He liked that they talked. He liked her blushing, her teasing ... the way her eyes roved over him, sometimes when she didn’t think he was looking, sometimes when he was, like she couldn’t help herself as she bit her lip. Or even better, when her eyes went unfocused and he swore he could practically see her desire for him reflected there.
Especially then.
The song was still going, so he held out his hand. She stared at it with wide eyes for a second.
“We’re in the kitchen,” she stammered, looking flustered.
“We’ve got the joint to ourselves,” he said, in his smoothest voice, and as he’d hoped, she laughed ... but took his hand.
He was a little rusty, but it was like riding a bike. He started on the right beat, and she followed like they’d been dancing together for years, even though she looked shy. There was space between them, but they moved in rhythm.
Like he’d thought at the bar: you could tell a lot about someone by the way they danced. It was clear Willa loved it—and was good at it, no matter how she tried to downplay it. Once the self-consciousness melted away, she got into it with his encouragement and the fact that he obviously enjoyed it too. He held both of her hands, her movements mirroring his.
He took a chance and twirled her, then attempted a lock-twirl hand switch. Her clear, rough-silk laugh made him happier than he’d felt in a long time.
Then she surprised him as her expression turned slightly naughty. She danced a little closer.
“Oh, it’s like that, huh?” he said, but his voice went rough. He saw her dimples pop out in response, and her eyes gleamed. “All right, let’s do this.”
He remembered the moves. He stepped closer still, one foot between both of hers. He saw her eyes widen, but she didn’t step back. So he shifted even lower, holding her waist as they matched their rhythm, going from two people dancing to one hot-as-hell couple, fused together.
And god damn , she actually rolled her hips in response.
His body immediately went into oh-my-God-it’s-happening mode, but he didn’t slow down. He stepped between her jeans-clad legs, showing her that he, too, knew what to do with his hips.
Before he knew it, they were grinding. And they were doing it well .
She was getting breathless, but he didn’t think it was from the exertion of the dancing. He stared into her eyes, his own temperature going up like a skyrocket. Her hands smoothed up his chest, resting on his biceps and clenching lightly.
The song stopped abruptly, with a flourish. They stopped, in each other’s arms, bodies still plastered to each other. He looked into her dark-brown eyes, watched the way her pulse still danced wildly in her throat.
He leaned in, giving her plenty of time to pull away. She just kept staring, her head angling upward. Her tongue darted out quickly, a fast pass against her lower lip.
Another salsa song turned on, but he barely registered it. He wasn’t interested in dancing now.
His mouth met hers, and for a split second, it was like ... like when he fixed a clock, and all the pieces finally clicked , and everything moved smoothly. She had the softest lips he’d ever kissed, and she moved against him like she had when they were dancing, in sync, anticipating his moves, countering with her own. It was indescribably satisfying. It felt perfect.
Then she made a soft moan that was clear, even over the music, and things went from gentle to hard in a blink.
He groaned in response, moving his hands from her hips, one cradling her jawline, the other weaving into her hair to keep her in place. His tongue moved ahead, tangling with hers as her fingers moved to grip his shoulder, digging in and dragging him closer.
Things got a little blurry after that.
He knew that she’d basically started to climb him, hands linking around his neck, pulling him lower and bringing her higher. He solved part of that problem by walking them backward until his hands met the wall ... then pressing her against it and hooking her knee over his hip in a way that made his current physical state unmistakable. He thought—or at least, insofar as his brain was capable of thinking—that this would be the breaking point, that she’d pull away. But when he went to pause, to check, she growled at him, nipping at his lower lip and ...
Sweet Jesus. If he’d been impressed by the hip roll during dancing, it had nothing on when she was pressing herself against his rock-hard cock.
Part of him wanted to just lift her up, wrap her legs around his waist, and then carry her koala-style to her bedroom, where he would proceed to absolutely wreck her for the next twenty-four hours. Sure, he was forty-two, but he still had stamina, and he’d been thinking of her for over a month. And if she kept tugging at his hair, he was definitely leaning in that direction.
But another part of him—a part he hated at the moment—didn’t want to fuck this up. She was worked up enough past the point of no return, from the feel of it (and a fantastic feel it was), but he couldn’t bear the thought of them finally having sex and then her immediately regretting it.
And then, even worse—cutting him off.
As much as he hated it, communication was probably the best plan here. After they talked it through, and when his dick wasn’t in the driver’s seat, then they could go ahead and tear up the sheets. For days straight, if she’d let him.
With more internal strength than he’d ever used before, he pulled away. The two of them were gulping breaths like they’d been running a marathon, and she looked at him, confused and irritated.
“You sure about this?” he asked. He was concerned, but he wasn’t a saint. He also wasn’t going to make the decision for her. “Because I am if you are. You have no idea. But I don’t want just one night, Willa, and I don’t want you to regret this or push me away. If you’re in, you need to make sure you’re willing to at least try being all in, whatever that looks like.”
He saw the minute she registered what was happening—when the lust slid away into shock. She lowered her leg, and he stepped back, as difficult as it was.
“I ... I’m not ready,” she said. “I’m so sor—”
“ Don’t apologize,” he said, with a little more snap than he probably should have, but his body was pissed at him, and it bled into his tone. He was glad he’d said something, since this was exactly what he’d been worried about.
He’d made the right decision. His dick could get over it.
He gentled his voice, and he stroked her cheek. “I know you’re still getting used to all of this, and I don’t want you to go faster than you’re ready, no matter how I’m feeling.”
Her look of gratitude made the current ache he was feeling worth it. He could tell she still wanted to apologize, but she didn’t, so that was a step forward.
“I’m gonna put in the door,” he said. “Then you can tell me how the cookbook’s going, maybe?”
She nodded, her eyes huge, her hair mussed. She looked sexy as hell.
“Then, when you’re done with the cookbook,” he said, his voice dark with promise, “maybe we’ll dance some more.”
He saw the second it registered. Her cheeks flushed.
And she nodded.
With a smile, he went back out to the truck and grabbed the supplies. He wasn’t looking for a one-night stand from Willa, not just because she was his neighbor but because for the first time in a long time, he could see something maybe, maybe long term. And he was going to build this right.