Chapter 14
Liv
Words had never hurt so badly. I’d been called the same things before, but never had they cut into me like sharpened blades. To hear them from Hudson made them more brutal, piercing me and the calluses I’d built to protect me from the truth.
My plea, a desperate statement, fell from my mouth because I didn’t want to be that woman anymore. I didn’t want him to think of me that way and not understand why. To not know that I could be no other way and survive. His piercing gaze, chestnut, hard and expectant, locked on me when he turned.
It stirred something within me. A creature clawing for freedom, a banshee searching for her voice, a prisoner reaching for the key. The need for truth that had been building with every moment I was with Hudson was so close to bursting like an explosion of fireworks.
An enlightening that I hadn’t been myself since the day I’d left him.
Had caged that girl away to return to being what my father demanded.
Hudson had freed me, and I’d let that part of me go when I’d blocked him from my life, building barriers around her so my father wouldn’t discover her.
Returned to being proper and perfect. Driven and nasty.
Cold and calculating. Because that’s what my father wanted.
And that’s who I needed to be to exact revenge on him, to make him pay for taking my mother away, for stealing my childhood and Gabe’s.
I had never looked back at that girl. The one who rode horses, laughed, smiled, looked at things with wide eyes and curiosity because a boy who loved those things about her loved her.
I’d left her buried with the ache of losing that boy.
Resorting to wine and bitchiness to cover the truth. That I was lonely and in pain.
Pressure burned my eyes, pressing against them until something broke free. A tear, lone and brazen, slid down my cheek. I hadn’t cried since I was a child, and its rogue escape left me defenseless.
“Talk,” Hudson said.
I wanted to be free again. To have someone lift this burden from me, to be rid of it.
And so the truth spilled from me like a tidal wave smashing over the dam I had built.
With each truth, from the first strike against Gabe to every insult, to the day of my mother’s funeral.
The words flowed untethered, and with them the tears fell, soaking my face.
When I reached the end, the day we took my father down, I stopped.
My lips quivered, and my chin shook as my limbs trembled.
Penetrating orbs the color of freshly tilled earth remained on me, unwavering.
“You broke up with me for money and revenge?” His voice held hurt I didn’t expect but should have.
“No.” I shook my head adamantly, wanting him to understand and hating that he hadn’t, and maybe that was because I had never voiced the whole truth. Not even to Gabe.
“That’s sure as hell what it sounds like.” He turned back to the door and opened it.
The serrated edge of the knife that plunged into the furthest recesses of my heart sent a sob falling from me like a wounded animal.
“I did it for Gabe.”
His head dropped, but his hand remained on the doorknob. Admitting it caused the knife to sever what remained of the tethers I had stitched together to keep me strong as a child. They tore, sending blood and agony surging through me. My chest heaved as the fractured syllables came out.
“I couldn’t do anything for him. He was my baby brother, and I couldn’t protect him.
He stood in front of me, taking the strikes that should have been mine to take, to keep me safe.
” My voice rasped with emotion, tears choking me.
“I couldn’t tell him no. This was the only thing I could do for him.
The only sacrifice I could make and when I made the vow the day we stood in the rain, the dirt still fresh on Mama’s grave, I knew it would hurt, that I’d never recover but he had hurt for so long for me.
” I sucked in a shaky breath. “It was my turn to hurt for him.”
The sound of the storm filled the silence that stretched like long limbs of a tree reaching to the sky.
I was raw, exposed for the first time. The truth out in the open and revealing the real me.
The one who had internalized every bruise her brother had taken, every drop of blood spilled, and there it had stayed, turning to a guilt that festered and destroyed as much as her father’s rancid words had.
I had shaped it into a mask that showed the world a hardened, petty, self-absorbed woman who cared about nothing more than her nails and her morning lattes.
Pushing people away, even Gabe, until nothing could touch me, nothing could tug the straps of that mask and reveal the truth.
The door clicked shut, and Hudson took his hat off, hanging it back on the hook. “Tell me again that you didn’t want to leave,” he said, his tone gruff. “Tell me you picked that fight and that your words were nothing but lies.”
My bottom lip trembled, a chill spreading through my body. Fear encompassed me. Fear that I’d lost him, that I had lost my second chance, that telling him the truth had only worsened things.
“They were lies. All of them. Each one like acid on my tongue. I swear, Hudson.” Saying his name was akin to standing on broken glass, the shards piercing me.
“You were my everything, and giving you up…hurting you…” I couldn’t make the words form; my tears were too heavy now that they had escaped their prison.
He shrugged his coat off, dropping it to the floor, and covered the space between us in long strides until he was upon me. His eyes searched mine, soulful, expressive, caring. He placed his hands on my cheeks and wiped my tears away.
“Did you still love me the day you left me?” he asked.
“Yes. It hurt so bad.” My voice broke, and more tears flowed.
He rested his forehead on mine, still holding my face.
“And now?”
I sucked in a shaky breath, the sound like a violent shudder. “I never stopped loving you.”
He closed his eyes, breathing me in.
“Fuck, Olivia. All this time…”
“But you stopped loving me,” I whimpered, the agony ripping all my scabs open. “You moved on, and I lost you.”
He tipped his head back, his eyes dark and emotional. “No, you never did. I couldn’t let you go, Olivia. No matter how I tried.”
“But you…you dated and—”
His smirk stopped my words. “And you had your flings.” Guilt shot through me, but he brushed his thumb over my cheek, his fingers sinking into my hair. “And I have loved no one but you, Olivia Icinda.”
I drew a breath that scalded my throat. “No one? But Jessie…” How I hated saying her name in this moment. A woman who had him when I couldn’t. But his words were still bouncing through my head. He loved no one else? Did that mean he still loved me?
“I never loved her. I tried.” He closed his eyes. “I tried for her, but I couldn’t. I told her once to make her feel better, but it wasn’t the truth, and she knew it, because my heart was never hers.”
“Whose was it?” A hushed question with a plea embedded in it.
“Yours. It’s always been yours, Olivia.”
His kiss stopped my response. Heated and needy, it curved its way through my body, crashing through the remaining walls I’d built and peeling back the scabs, leaving my heart bloody and alive for the first time since he had first brought it to life.
I grabbed his shirt, fisting the material in my hand as his hands bunched my hair, forcing my mouth further into his.
His tongue slipped over the seam of my lips, and I parted them, letting him in as warmth spread through my body.
Hands, rough and large, encircled my neck, his fingers splayed, thumbs stroking.
Breathless, I whimpered as they dropped to my waist and picked me up.
My legs wrapped around him, the robe splitting, my thighs rubbing against his jeans.
He planted me on the island where, the prior night, his touches had been gentle and caring.
Now they were aggressive and demanding, drawing out the heat in me until it was like an inferno, turning my insides into ashes.
His hands pushed at the robe, exposing my shoulders, and he dragged his mouth down my cheek and over my neck before he brought his hands back to my hair, twisting his fingers into it and drawing my head back.
My lips parted, a ragged exhale escaping them.
“Tell me you love me, Olivia.” Commanding and hoarse. Eyes flaring with hunger.
“I love you, Hudson.”
He closed his eyes as if he were savoring the words, letting them settle before they opened again.
“Fuck,” he growled, smashing his mouth to mine, his kiss flaming through me. I clung to his shoulders, my entire being his for the taking. His hand dropped to the tie on my robe. “Tell me what you want, honey.”
My eyes rolled back, my fingers digging into his shirt as anticipation coiled in me. What did I want? The one thing I’d craved and thought I’d never have again. Content to live life empty and without him.
“You,” I breathed. “Only you.”
The tie fell, the robe following. His hands were everywhere, lighting sparks across my skin.
He cupped my breast, his thumb brushing over my nipple just as he grabbed my butt and shoved me into his bulge.
Goosebumps shot over my skin at the thought of the pleasure it would bring.
He swept his hand over the island, sending things crashing to the floor before his mouth trailed a path down my neck to my chest, where he reminded me of why no other man’s touch had ever worked my body the way his did.
“Fuck, I missed this body,” he grumbled as I shoved my fingers into his hair.
“Language,” I rasped, receiving only a chuckle before he pushed my thighs further apart and slid his fingers through me. With a groan, he sank one into me. My back arched, but he nipped at my nipple, causing me to whimper.
He drew his finger out and stood back, lifting it to his mouth and sucking it. All the while, his eyes were on mine. With a smirk, he said, “Sweet as honey.”