Chapter 3
three
. . .
Willow
The smell of coffee and something savory drifts up from downstairs before I even move, warm and unexpected in a place that still doesn’t belong to me.
I lie there for another second, staring at the unfamiliar ceiling, completely aware of where I am and exactly how I got here.
The bakery. The black SUV. Hudson Wolfe walking through my door and saying my real name like he’d been holding onto it for months.
Willow Thompson.
Not the name on my lease. Not the name printed on my work schedule.
The name I haven’t heard spoken out loud in seven months, and somehow it sounded different coming from him.
He said it with so much certainty that for one strange second, it felt less like a secret I’d been hiding and more like something that still belonged to me.
I sit up slowly. My body feels heavy from the crash of adrenaline and the long drive. The scars on my hip and thigh pull when I swing my legs over the side of the bed. I always notice them first thing in the morning. They’re the first thing I hide.
I pull on clean jeans and a soft gray tee that covers everything, then head downstairs barefoot. The cabin is brighter in daylight. Sunlight pours through the big windows and turns the leather couches a warm brown. The forest outside looks endless.
Hudson is in the kitchen.
He’s still in the same black t-shirt from last night, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, showing those thick forearms I keep trying not to stare at.
His blond hair is a little messy, like he’s run his hands through it more than once.
He’s standing at the stove cooking what looks like eggs and bacon, and the entire space smells like home in a way my tiny apartment never did.
He glances over when he hears me. Those blue-gray eyes move over my face, then down my body in a slow, thorough sweep that makes my skin warm.
“Morning,” he says. His voice is still rough from sleep. “Coffee’s ready. Sit down before you fall over.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re exhausted. Sit.”
I almost argue just on principle, but the way he’s looking at me makes the words die. I slide onto one of the stools at the counter instead. He pours a mug of coffee and sets it in front of me without asking how I take it. Black. Exactly the way I like it. I don’t ask how he knew.
He plates the food and pushes a full plate toward me, then leans against the counter across from me with his own. We eat in silence for a few minutes. It’s not uncomfortable exactly, but the air between us is thick with everything that almost happened last night in this same kitchen.
“You always cook for the people you’re protecting?” I ask eventually.
“No.” He takes a bite of bacon, watches me while he chews. “You’re the first.”
The honesty in his voice lands hard. I look down at my plate and force myself to keep eating so I don’t have to meet his eyes.
After breakfast he starts cleaning up. I move to help without thinking about it. He doesn’t stop me. We work side by side at the sink, him washing, me drying. Every time our arms brush, heat sparks under my skin. I keep waiting for it to fade. It doesn’t.
“You don’t have to do this,” he says after a while.
“Do what?”
“Help. Pretend this is normal. You can be pissed at me. You can ignore me. You don’t owe me polite conversation.”
I dry the last plate and set it down harder than I mean to. “I’m not pretending. I’m just… trying to figure out what the hell this is.”
He turns off the water and dries his hands on a towel, then faces me fully. The kitchen suddenly feels smaller.
“You already know what this is,” he says, voice low. “You’re just not ready to admit it yet.”
Something hot and defensive flares in my chest. I don’t like how easily he reads me. I don’t like how right he sounds.
I decide right then that I’m done hiding.
My hands go to the hem of my tee before I can talk myself out of it.
I pull the soft fabric up on my left side, high enough to show the worst of the scars that run from my lower ribs down over my hip and disappear under the waistband of my jeans.
The skin is raised and uneven, a permanent reminder of the night everything burned.
“This is what I am now,” I say, and my voice comes out steadier than I feel. “This is what they left me with. So if you’re going to look at me like I’m something you want, you should know exactly what you’re getting.”
I expect him to flinch. To look away. To give me the careful, pitying expression I’ve seen on every doctor and nurse who ever examined me.
He doesn’t do any of that.
Hudson drops to his knees right there on the kitchen floor.
His hands settle on my hips, big and warm and sure, and he leans in until his mouth presses against the first raised line of scar tissue on my ribs. The contact is so gentle it makes my breath catch. He kisses the next one. Then the next. Slow. Deliberate. Like he’s memorizing every inch.
“These don’t make you less,” he says against my skin, voice rough enough to scrape. “They’re proof you fought. Proof you survived when they tried to take everything from you. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met, and I want every fucking inch of you. Scars included.”
My hands find his shoulders because I need something to hold onto. My fingers dig into the solid muscle there as he keeps going, mouth moving lower over my hip, tracing the worst of the damage with a care that makes my eyes sting.
“Hudson—”
He looks up at me from his knees, blue-gray eyes dark and completely certain. “I’m not going anywhere. You can show me every mark, every fear, every reason you think I should walk away. I’m still staying.”
Something inside me snaps.
I don’t know who moves first. One second I’m standing there with my shirt still lifted and his mouth on my scars. The next his hand is in my hair and he’s rising to his feet and his mouth crashes into mine.
The kiss is not gentle.
It’s hungry and filthy, and months of loneliness poured into one desperate connection. He tastes like coffee and heat. His tongue slides against mine, and I make a sound I’ve never made before. His free hand grips my hip hard enough to bruise, and I want more of it. I want everything.
He lifts me like I weigh nothing and sets me on the counter.
The cold granite against the backs of my thighs makes me gasp into his mouth.
He steps between my legs, spreads them wider with his hips, and kisses me deeper.
One of his hands slides under my shirt and finds bare skin.
The other stays locked in my curls, holding me exactly where he wants me.
“Fuck, Willow,” he groans against my lips. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this.”
I should tell him it’s only been one night. I should tell him this is moving too fast. Instead, I wrap my legs around his waist and pull him closer, needing the solid heat of him pressed against me.
His mouth leaves mine and trails down my neck, open and wet and claiming.
I tip my head back to give him more access and feel him smile against my throat like I’ve just given him everything he wanted.
His hands find the hem of my shirt and pull it up and off in one smooth motion.
Cool air hits my skin, then his hands, then his mouth again.
He cups my breasts through my bra like he’s been starving for them.
When he tugs the cups down and takes one nipple into his mouth, I cry out, loud and shameless.
He doesn’t ease up. He sucks harder, teeth grazing just enough to make me arch into him, while his free hand works the button of my jeans open.
“Hudson—please—”
“I’ve got you.” His voice is pure gravel. “I’m going to take care of you. Going to make you feel so fucking good you forget every reason you ever had to be scared.”
He gets my jeans and underwear down my legs somehow without ever fully stepping away.
Then he’s back between my thighs, looking down at me spread open on his kitchen counter like I’m the only thing in the world that matters.
The hunger in his eyes should embarrass me. It doesn’t. It makes me wetter.
He drops to his knees again.
This time there’s nothing soft about it.
He hooks my legs over his shoulders and puts his mouth on me like he’s been thinking about it since the second he walked into that bakery.
The first stroke of his tongue makes me shout.
The second makes my head fall back against the upper cabinets.
He doesn’t tease. He doesn’t ease me into it.
He licks and sucks and works two thick fingers inside me until I’m shaking and begging and completely gone.
I come hard, thighs clamped around his head, fingers buried in his blond hair. He stays with me through every wave, slow and relentless, until I push at his shoulders because it’s too much.
He rises, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and looks at me with pure possession.
“I’m not done with you.”
“Good,” I manage, still breathless. “Because I’m not done either.”
He shoves his jeans down just far enough. I get a glimpse of thick, hard cock before he's lining himself up.
"I'm clean," he says, voice rough. "Tested two weeks ago."
"Me too." I'm breathing hard, already anticipating. "And I'm on birth control."
He nods once, like that's all the permission he needs, and pushes inside me in one long, slow thrust that steals whatever air I had left. The stretch is intense. Perfect. He holds still once he's buried to the hilt, forehead against mine, breathing hard.
"You feel that?" he rasps. "That's me inside you. That's where I belong."
I nod because words are impossible. He starts moving—deep, powerful strokes that rock me back against the cabinets.
One of his hands stays on my hip, holding me exactly where he wants me.
The other braces on the counter beside my head.
Every thrust drags against the spot that makes my vision blur.
I dig my nails into his shoulders and hang on.
“Louder,” he orders when I try to muffle a moan. “I want to hear every sound you make. Don’t you dare hold back on me.”
I stop trying to stay quiet. The kitchen fills with the sound of skin against skin and my broken cries and his rough praise.
He tells me how perfect I feel. How long he’s wanted this.
How he’s never letting me go. Each filthy promise drives me higher until I’m coming again, clenching around him so hard he curses and follows me over, burying himself deep and spilling inside me with a groan that sounds like my name.
We stay locked together after, breathing hard, his face pressed against my neck. His hand strokes up and down my bare back in slow, soothing passes. I feel claimed in a way I’ve never felt before. Safe in a way I didn’t know was possible.
Eventually he pulls out carefully and lifts me off the counter like I weigh nothing.
My legs are useless. He carries me upstairs to the big bed I woke up in this morning and lays me down on the soft sheets.
He disappears for a minute and comes back with a warm cloth, cleaning me with a gentleness that makes my throat tight.
Then he strips the rest of the way and climbs in beside me, pulling me against his chest.
I fit there like I was made for the space.
His hand settles on the scars at my hip, not hiding from them, just resting there like they belong to him now too. I listen to the steady beat of his heart under my ear and feel the last of the fear from last night finally loosen its grip.
“This isn’t just protection anymore,” I whisper into the quiet.
His arm tightens around me. “No. It isn’t.”
I close my eyes and let myself believe him.
We fall asleep tangled together, his body wrapped around mine like he's already decided I'm staying. And for the first time in seven months, I don't dream about the crash.