Chapter 16 #2
“He comes to visit sometimes. Been about two years, but we talk once a week, sometimes more. Usually a bitch session about how stubborn Mom is. She’d flip if she discovered we still talk, but you know Parker, he has a bit of a wild streak in him.
” He scratched his cheek before continuing, “Always sneaking out when we were young. Always pissing her off, like he was getting his last taste of freedom in before he turned it over to her. I’m sure she’d willingly take me back if I promised to behave and give this life up. ”
Turning his body, he brought me against his chest. “Enough talk, I’m hungry again.”
I tossed my head back and laughed as his mouth grazed my neck. “Maybe we should have dinner. I think we missed lunch.”
Picking his head up, he gave me a cocky grin. “Oh, I had plenty for lunch.”
Heat blazed in my cheeks, and he kissed each one, making his way to my mouth and waking my body even when I didn’t think it could possibly be anything but exhausted. That didn’t stop him from leaving me as weak as a rag doll.
“It stopped raining.” Hudson’s excited words had my eyes blinking away the sleep that clung to them. “Do you ever get sleep at home?” he asked, yanking the sheets from me.
“No,” I grumbled, tugging them back and burying my head further into the pillow.
My attempts were no match for his strength, and within seconds, he had me over his shoulder as he carried my naked body to the bathroom.
“It’s nine already, and the sun is out,” he said as he walked. “I talked to Jessie, and the diner is open, so we’re going to get breakfast and help out where we’re needed.”
He plunked me into the shower, and I scowled. “Having breakfast with your ex is not my idea of a fun morning.”
The water hit me, sending goosebumps over my skin.
“Stop pouting and being jealous.”
I crossed my arms. “I’m not a morning person.”
“Knew that a long time ago.”
“And I don’t like to think about you…” The water was warming, but my mind was going to chilly places, “…getting as hungry as you get with other women.” I made quotations around the word hungry to emphasize my irritation.
His lips thinned, and after a distinct jaw tick, he stepped into the shower, forcing my back against the tile.
Water streamed over his clothes as he grabbed my chin.
“No one makes me as hungry as I am with you, Olivia. Now knock this shit off. It’s not you, and it’s certainly not that bitchy nose in the air, overconfident princess who walked onto this ranch three days ago.
” He pinned my arms beside my head and looked down at me with shadowed eyes.
My chest heaved as lust hazed those chestnut irises.
“No one has ever made me as ravenous as you and this body do, and no one has ever made me so desperate to taste it. In fact, I think I need a taste now before we go into town.”
I licked my lips, thinking of how he’d woken me earlier that morning. His eyes lit as they followed my tongue’s movement. He leaned down and brushed his cheek over mine, his lips dragging over my ear as he growled, “On your knees, honey.”
The way those words held two promises, one where he would use my mouth in ways that would soak me and one where he would use his until I was drowning in rapture, had me twisting my legs.
His lips tugged into a wicked grin as he yanked his wet shirt off and stepped back, watching as I followed his command and slamming his hand against the tile as I took him over the edge.
I didn’t know how long we stayed in the shower, but by the time we were sated and clean, the water had run cold.
Hudson had always had a fantastic sex drive, and it was clear that it hadn’t faded.
My moment of worry that it had been like that with every woman he’d been with was over.
The look in his eyes when he told me no one made him as desperate as I did reassured me I was the one who drove that insatiable need.
I needed to get out of my head and return to the confident woman I’d been before I’d come here.
Now that he’d rammed through my defenses, that was a hard thing to do.
Who I was with Hudson was so different from who I was at home, and I didn’t know how to balance the two sides or if I ever could.
His warm hand surrounded mine, and I turned my head from peering out the truck window to look at him.
The sun was shining, the weather strangely warmer than it had been.
So warm, it felt like August and not October.
The water had receded, leaving the ground mushy and with a massive divot that ran through the ranch.
The road splashed in small waves as we traveled down it.
“You’re quiet all the sudden,” he said, glancing at me.
“Just thinking about how much it will cost to fix the ranch after the storm.”
His brows crinkled. “That’s what you were thinking?”
I didn’t want to admit the thoughts that had been there, the worry of how to juxtapose the part of me that Hudson had freed with the woman I was. “Yes, it’s a mess.”
“It’ll dry. This has happened a few times since I moved here. Just takes some smoothing over of the land. Some seed in the fields. It’ll be good as new just in time for winter.”
I gave him a smile and a nod. “We’ll need to sit down and go through any extra equipment or supplies so I can include them when I send my report to Gabe.”
He shook his head and chuckled. “Do you think about anything but work?”
Only when I’m thinking about you.
“I don’t think about it when I’m in my Pilates class or when I’m at home or getting my nails done or…well, I guess I rarely think about it.”
“Then why are you sitting there thinking about it now?”
Because I don’t want to tell you I’m worrying about what you’re doing to the walls I built or how I’m going to need to rebuild them when I go back to New York.
“I don’t know. I guess I want the ranch to succeed. For the ideas we discussed to work.”
He glanced over at me again. “They will because they’re your ideas and you’re the smartest person I know.”
My throat went dry, pressure forming in my chest. This man. He was too good for me in ways I didn’t think he’d ever know. I gave him a smile, which he returned before his eyes settled back on the road. He kept my hand in his for the rest of the trip into town.
A glaze of rainwater sat on the road when we pulled into a spot. The town was a rush of energy, with the doors to the shops open and people busy working and talking.
“Mornin’, Sheila,” Hudson said, waving a hand to the shop owner as he hopped out of the truck.
“Mornin’ there,” she replied, tucking her broom under her arm and looking between us as Hudson came around to take my hand. “I see you two have stopped bickering.”
“Eh, she’s still a bitch,” he teased, and I bumped him with my elbow, strangely relaxed.
With the shake of her head, she said, “Those jeans look like they were made for you, Olivia.”
I looked down at my clothes, the tight jeans with the T-shirt tucked in, some brand on it I didn’t know. Returning my sight to hers, I said, “Well, the boutique owner who helped me choose them has great fashion sense.”
She blushed, her smile so big it looked like it would burst.
“And it’s Liv,” I added. “Only Hudson calls me Olivia.” Something that turned my insides into knots. “Oh, and people I don’t like.”
She gave a laugh, and I heard Hudson grumble something unintelligible. “Well then, Liv, what are you two up to?”
“Came to help, grab some breakfast, and make sure everyone made it through okay,” Hudson answered, which was good because I’d only been thinking about breakfast.
“We’re all good. The Colemans had a tree come down on their barn, and Old Man Quincy had some flooding in his basement, but nothing got damaged.”
“Yeah, his basement floods every storm.”
“Basement?” I blurted. “Do you have a basement?”
They both looked at me like I was insane.
“What?” I asked, looking between them.
“Of course I have a basement.”
“Well, how would I know that?”
“Because most houses do, unless you’re in Florida or Texas, maybe.”
“I live in a hotel, and our house in the Hamptons doesn’t have one,” I snapped.
“Seriously? Why would it not have a basement?”
“How would I know? I didn’t design it.”
“I see the bickering stage hasn’t faded after all,” Sheila mumbled.
Hudson and I stayed locked in a battle of stares, the tension thick between us again, but within it a simmering sexual overtone.
“You sure you two don’t want to head back home? Sort this out through other means?”
Hudson snapped his gaze from mine. “We’re fine. You need help?”
“Nah, just sweeping out some water. Stan’s in the back with the shop vac. I had everything up high, expecting we’d get some damage.”
I pulled my phone out while they talked and texted Gabe.
Liv: Does the house have a basement?
Hudson and Sheila continued to talk while I waited for Gabe’s reply.
Gabe: Yeah. Why?
Liv: How did I not know that?
Gabe: Because you’re oblivious and in your own world.
Liv: Not making me like you any better.
He sent a laughing emoji.
Gabe: Then you’re really going to hate me now.
Liv: How could it get worse?
Gabe: I can’t get the plane back to you until next Monday.
I stared at his words, a sense of elation mixing with dread. I’d have a week with Hudson, but now an expiration date sat over us.
Why so late? I texted, not wanting him to suspect that I wanted to stay.
Gabe: Roads are flooded and, from what the pilot says, it’ll be days before they clear. I need the plane Thursday. Taking Tori and Reid to Salem and Boston. Doesn’t make sense to send it to you until we get back.
Liv: You really suck. You know that?
Gabe: Yup.
“Olivia?”
My head snapped up to find Hudson and Sheila staring at me.
“Did you hear any of that?” he asked.
“No, but we have a basement.”
He shook his head, fighting his grin as I sent Gabe a quick emoji with its tongue sticking out before I tucked my phone away.
We said our goodbyes, and Hudson tugged me closer as we walked. “Who are you?”
“What does that mean? Just because I didn’t know you have a basement?”