Thirty-Nine
Hudson
“Yeah, it’s definitely a wok.”
I hold up the curved piece of carbon steel like it might magically transform into normal cookware if I stare at it long enough. “How do you not have a standard frying pan?”
Rowan doesn’t answer right away. She’s leaning against the opposite counter, crossing her arms beneath her chest in a way that pushes her breasts up against the low neckline of my gray T-shirt—the one she stole and has claimed as her own.
She shrugs, her green eyes bright with mischief. “I’m an artist. I work with what I have.”
My throat goes dry because I know that look in her eyes.
“What are you doing?” I ask, even though I know exactly what she’s doing.
“Nothing,” she says innocently.
Pushing off the counter, she saunters over to where I’m standing and glides right into my space.
She steps directly in front of me before turning around to bend at the waist, pretending to search through a lower cabinet.
The deliberate movement brings her ass straight back, pressing flush against the front of my sweatpants.
Against my already hardening cock.
“Fuck,” I grit out, my hands tightening on the edge of the counter until my knuckles turn white.
Rowan glances over her shoulder, red hair spilling over her cheek. “I really wish you would.”
Christ, am I ever going to get enough of her?
Looking at her now, I can see how much lighter she looks lately.
It’s a subtle shift, but I’ve spent months learning the topography of her stress, and I can see the change in her shoulders unclenching and the softness around her eyes.
Dropping the weight of that two-year-old secret in Madison’s living room last week took a visible toll, but leaving it there did something better: it set her free.
On the drive back from Beckett and Madison’s apartment, she’d stared out the passenger window for ten quiet minutes before admitting she always knew her siblings would understand.
She’d just put it off for so long that the idea of telling them had turned into a mountain she wasn’t sure she could climb.
Sitting in my car in the dark, she’d exhaled a long, shaky breath and admitted how glad she was that they finally knew.
I could still feel the lingering apprehension humming beneath her skin, though.
When I brought up her parents—when I gently probed about when she planned to give Donna and Arthur the same honesty—the sudden tension in her jaw told me everything.
“I will,” she’d promised softly, her fingers tightening around mine across the center console. “Just… not yet. I’m not ready.”
I didn’t push her. There’s a much larger, far more exhausting conversation that comes with admitting the truth to her parents, and after everything she’s poured into the show and her family this past week, she simply didn’t have it in her just yet.
Right now, though, all I want is to lose myself in her.
I pull her back hard against me, bending her forward over the edge of the kitchen counter. Before she can even catch her breath, I clear her underwear and line myself up with her slick center.
I drive all the way to the hilt.
A sharp, breathless gasp tears from her throat, echoing off the kitchen walls.
Her heat wraps around me, tight and wet. I hold her there, buried deep, feeling the subtle hitch in her posture and the way her muscles react to the depth. I hold back just enough to make sure her joints aren’t taking the brunt of the impact.
“Harder,” she begs, her hands reaching out to brace herself, her back arching.
She feels me hesitate and glances back.
“Hudson,” she groans, her voice thick with pure need. “You won’t break me. Harder.”
Something inside me shatters at the command.
I set a relentless, punishing pace, pulling back until the tip almost clears before driving all the way home. My hands stay locked on her hips, lifting her slightly to take the pressure off.
She’s right on the edge. I can feel her clamping down around me, every thrust dragging me closer to the brink right along with her.
I lean over her back, my chest pressed against her spine, my mouth finding the warm spot where her neck meets her shoulder. Biting down, I suck her skin while my hips drive forward again and again.
Look at her.
She’s completely gone.
The stubborn, defensive wall she builds around her pain, her health, her secret fears—it’s all stripped away. She’s just heat and movement and raw, unfiltered trust, handing me total control of her body without a second of hesitation.
What the hell is she doing to me?
Rowan’s inner walls pulse violently around my shaft, clamping down so tight it takes the air out of my lungs. She throws her head back with a sharp, shattering scream as her orgasm rips through her.
I drive deep, my voice breaking into a low roar as I follow her over the edge.
∞∞∞
I wake to the frantic tap-tap-tap of glass and the rapid buzzing of Rowan’s phone.
I open my eyes and see her pacing the length of her bedroom floor.
I sit up, my chest tightening. “Ro?”
She spins on her heel, and she looks fucking terrified. Her skin is drained of color, her green eyes wide and wild.
“What’s wrong?”
She holds up her phone. “It’s the group chat. It’s Madison. She’s losing her mind.”
I swing my legs out of bed and lift her straight into my lap.
She doesn’t resist, but her whole body is wired tight, vibrating with nervous energy.
“She was fine when we left her apartment,” I remind her.
“Madison isn’t fine. Madison is an overthinker. She’s spent the last week spiraling about everything. She’s been stewing on it.”
“And what’s the verdict?”
She lets out a breath that’s half laugh, half sob. “The verdict is that she’s demanding a mandatory family dinner today at my parents’ house. Everyone has to be there. Including you.”
“Okay.”
Rowan snaps her head around, staring at me like I just spoke in tongues. “Okay? Hudson, none of this is okay. She’s going to tell my parents.”
“Good.”
“Good? Are you insane?” Her voice climbs an octave. “She’s dragging you into it.”
“I’m a big boy, Ro,” I tell her. “I can handle myself.”
I look at her face—really look at her—and the clinical part of my brain turns cold.
The shadows under her eyes are dark and purple.
Her breathing is too shallow, her pulse humming too fast against her skin.
She spent months pushing through a creative block, poured her soul into twenty canvases, ran herself into the ground for the show, and then spent the last week handling her siblings’ shock.
She never fully came down after the show. The adrenaline crash is coming, and I know it. Her body can’t sustain this level of friction much longer without something giving way.
I’m fucking terrified for her.
I hide it behind the same calm mask I wear every day, wrapping my arms tighter around her waist.
“Can you relax?” I ask, pressing a kiss to the side of her neck. “We’ll get through it.”
Rowan groans, throwing her head back onto my shoulder.