CHAPTER ELEVEN TINSLEY
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TINSLEY
Waking up in Hudson Carrington's bed is a sensory overload I am entirely unprepared for.
The mattress is the kind of supportive, cloud-like miracle that makes my old IKEA frame feel like a medieval torture device.
The air in the master suite carries the faint, crisp scent of cedar mixed with lavender.
Sunlight pours through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating the wreckage of our clothes strewn across the Persian rug like colorful flags of a surrender.
I shift against the high-thread-count cotton of the pillows, my skin humming with the memory of his touch.
A heavy arm slides over my waist, pulling me backward until my spine is pressed against the solid, radiating heat of Hudson's chest. His skin is rough and smooth in all the right places, and I can feel the slow, steady thrum of his heartbeat against my shoulder blade.
He doesn't say anything at first, just buries his face in the crook of my neck and inhales.
The stubble on his jaw grazes my shoulder, sending a fresh wave of goosebumps dancing down my arms.
"Morning, sweetheart," he murmurs, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that does dangerous things to my sore girly bits.
"Morning," I mutter, snuggling closer to his warm body. He tightens his grip, his thumb tracing the curve of my hip with agonizing slowness.
“Nothing in the world is better than waking up with you in my arms.” He shifts, and I realize with a jolt of heat that he is very much awake and very much interested in a repeat performance of last night.
His cock is a hard, insistent weight against my rear end, and my breath hitches as he nips at the sensitive skin just below my ear, his tongue tracing my skin until I'm trembling.
He rolls me onto my back, hovering over me with those stern hazel eyes now darkened by a hunger that makes my throat go dry. The sunlight catches the golden flecks in his irises, making him look more like a predatory cat than a businessman.
"Hudson," I gasp as his fingers find my clit, circling it with a rhythmic precision that sends sparks dancing behind my eyelids. “That feels so good.” My words end in a soft, broken moan when he slides two fingers inside me.
I can’t stop shaking, hips rolling up for more, for everything.
Hudson’s thumb moves in slow, ruthless circles across my clit, the pressure building until it’s almost unbearable.
My fingers clutch the sheet, desperate for something to anchor me while his mouth finds mine, swallowing every gasp and whimper.
“Look at you,” he growls, voice pure sex and command. His eyes lock on me, molten gold in the sunlight. “Fucking perfect. And all mine.”
He kisses a heated, hungry trail down my body.
Jaw rough under my skin, breath hot against my nipples as he takes one in his mouth and sucks so hard I nearly come right then.
My back arches off the mattress as my legs tremble and my lungs barely work.
He bites, then soothes the sting with his tongue, and all rational thought disintegrates. I’m nothing but sensation.
He kisses lower. Over my ribs, my stomach. A low, wicked laugh vibrates against my skin. Then he settles between my thighs, parts me with those broad, callused hands, and buries his face in my pussy.
I nearly scream as electricity flows up my spine.
His tongue licks flat and slow, then sharp and fast, zeroing in on my clit with unbelievable precision.
My body bows, fists tangled in his hair, pulling him closer.
He groans when I tug and slides two fingers deep, curling them up, his tongue flicking and sucking my clit so hard my vision goes black around the edges. Everything explodes.
My entire body goes rigid, heels digging into the sheets, thighs shaking so hard I can’t control them.
I’m going to die. I mean it, I’m actually going to die from how good this feels.
His tongue and fingers keep working me, merciless, driving me up and over the edge again until I’m shattering apart.
I scream his name as fireworks burst behind my closed eyelids.
He groans against my pussy, the sound vibrating through my whole body, and I come again, harder, helpless.
Slowly, he eases off, kissing my thighs then biting the sensitive flesh until I’m shaking all over again. I’m boneless, limp, ruined.
Hudson drags his mouth up my stomach, hot breath trailing shivers over my sensitized skin. He kisses my ribs, my breasts, his tongue swirling around my nipple before biting down just enough to make me gasp.
He lands a final, soft kiss at the hollow of my throat and lines up the blunt, heavy head of his cock at my entrance.
He enters me in one slow, agonizingly deep thrust that fills me completely, stretching me until I'm sure I can't take another inch.
I toss my head back against the pillows as he begins to move, his pace relentless and demanding.
He fucks me with a kind of possessive intensity that leaves no room for doubt.
He's marking me, claiming the space I tried to keep for myself, and the most terrifying part is how much I want him to do it.
I want to be his. I want to forget that I spent my whole life fighting for a room of my own just to realize that a room is empty without the right person in it.
The friction builds, a white-hot tension coiling in my gut until I'm begging him for more, my voice sounding like a stranger's in the quiet room.
"Look at me," he commands, his voice strained as he pounds into me, his chest brushing against my breasts with every downward stroke. I open my eyes, meeting his gaze, and the sheer adoration I see there is enough to steal the rest of my heart.
Before I know it, waves of pleasure crash over me until I'm screaming his name, my pussy clamping down on him in tight, frantic pulses.
Hudson lets out a low, guttural sound and thrusts once more, burying himself as deep as possible as he explodes inside me.
We stay like that for a long time, tangled in the sheets and the sweat and the sheer gravity of what we've done.
The air in the room slowly cools, but the heat between us remains, a low-frequency hum that suggests this was only the beginning of our morning.
"Wow," I whisper against his neck after several minutes of shared, heavy breathing. My voice is still shaky, my body feeling like it's been rearranged on a cellular level.
"You can say that again," he says, kissing the top of my head and stroking the damp hair away from my forehead. My body feels like he’s broken it down and rebuilt it from atoms, but the way Hudson wraps himself around me after, pulling me flat to his chest like I’m the only thing in the world that matters, makes everything inside me go soft and achy and completely unguarded.
For a minute, neither of us says anything. I listen to his heartbeat, heavy and slow. I memorize the rough skin of his arm draped over my waist, the aftershock tremors still moving through us. His lips touch my temple, slow and tender, and my ribs squeeze tight enough it almost hurts.
“I’m in love with you,” he whispers against my ear, shocking the hell out of me.
He keeps going, his mouth brushing my hair.
“I fell for you the very first day you made me wait in the goddamn Montoya lobby.” His arms flex hard around me, like if he holds on tight enough, he’ll keep me from slipping away.
Everything inside me starts to shake. I want to say something, anything, but all I can do is turn and look at him. The look in those hazel eyes is raw enough to strip all my defenses bare.
My heart hammers so loud I’m sure he can hear it. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out except air. A thought suddenly hits me right between the eyes. I just want him.
I take a deep, shaky breath and admit, “I love you, too.” I force myself to keep looking at him, to own it. “I love you so much it freaking scares the shit out of me.”
Hudson surges forward and pulls me in, one hand fisting in my hair and the other pressed flat against the small of my back, and I feel the full weight of him, his heartbeat against my sternum, the ragged warmth of his exhale against my lips before they meet mine.
The kiss is rough and slow at once, his mouth moving like he is trying to memorize me.
Hudson breaks away for half a second, his brow pressed to mine, breathing hard. “You fucking destroy me, Tinsley. You know that?”
I want to tease him, toss out something sharp about emotional devastation, but all my bones have turned to marshmallow fluff and there’s a tremor in my voice when I say, “Good.” Because it is. There’s something wild and amazing about knowing I can get under his skin the way he gets under mine.
His hands cradle my face, rough thumb stroking my cheek like I’m the most breakable thing in the world and the only thing holding him together. And the way he looks at me right now? I could live off it.
“You’re never getting rid of me,” he says, dead serious.
I don’t want to get rid of him. Not ever.
Instead of saying it out loud, I press my mouth to the sharp line of his jaw. His stubble is a burn, and I love it, love the way he shudders when I nip at the scar over his eyebrow. “Then I guess you’re stuck with me, too.”
“Good.” He smiles at me, and my girly bits wake up and sing.