“No,” she responds, matter of fact.
I roll my eyes at her stubbornness. “Okay, then wasn’t it something extremely similar?”
“Yes.”
“And do you remember how that conversation went?” I glance toward her and she nods. “Then just repeat that. Ya know, minus you throwing stones at me about lying. Let’s leave that part out, huh?”
Sighing, she relents. “Fine. Surprise away, mister master of surprises.”
After another mile or two, I pull off onto the side of the road and instruct her to follow me. I stop at the back of the car, grabbing a blanket and small cooler, and head down the shallow embankment with her on my heels.
“Hudson, where are we? What are we doing here?”
I ignore her questions and keep moving forward, knowing she’ll follow. Once I find the perfect spot, I spread out the blanket and set the cooler down, pulling Rae down along with me until we’re cozied up together with her between my legs.
“What is this?” she asks sweetly.
I take a moment to respond, enjoying the view before me and the feel of her in my arms. I take in the ocean and its beauty, the sunset reflecting off the waves, casting an orange hue to everything around us. This moment is serene, and everything I’d hoped for.
“This is us, Rae. This is our time. Our re-do. Our new beginning. This is how it should have happened the first time.”
“How what should have happened?”
I don’t respond because the moment isn’t right yet.
She sighs, knowing I’m not going to give anything up. Rae leans back into me, making herself comfortable in my embrace. I squeeze her tighter, afraid that she and this moment are going to disappear any second.
“How’s Joe?”
“She’s good. I swear she gets taller and smarter every day. She’s with my mom this weekend. Surprisingly, she didn’t even ask to come along. Something about a girls’ day Nanna promised her.”
“I miss her.”
“She misses you too.”
“I miss you.”
My heart swells at her words.
“I miss you more.”
We sit, quietly, and watch the sun set over the glittering water. We don’t leave when the clouds cover the sky and leave only the light of the moon to illuminate the area around us. Not even an inch is taken when the bugs start biting at our skin and we start to shiver from the cold. No. We just…sit. And enjoy the moment.
“Rae…”
“Hudson…”
“Are you… Are we…” I can’t seem to get a full sentence out and my throat is suddenly scratchy. I sit up some, shuffling her back a little, searching around for the cooler. Rae sits forward, giving me room to grab a bottle of water. I chug at least half of it until all the stickiness is out of my mouth. The words should be able to easily glide past my lips, but…they hesitate. Again.
“Hudson?” she presses.
Licking my lips, I try again. “Where are we, Rae?”
“The beach?”
I smirk at her. “I only missed your mouth sometimes.”
She laughs, but it’s a short one. It’s almost like she’s too afraid to enjoy the moment now. Scared of what’s about to happen. I am too.
She lets out a sharp breath. “I…don’t know, Hudson. I wish I had all the answers here, but I don’t. I know I want to move on. I want to move forward. I want to… Fuck. I just want you, okay? Can’t that be enough for now?”
Closing my eyes against her words, I bite my tongue. Physically, not metaphorically. Honesty, right? That’s what Rae’s after. So I give it to her.
“No.”
“Huh?”
“No, that’s not enough, Rae.” She turns toward me, giving me her full attention, her face scrunched up in confusion. I meet her stare. “Look, I fucked up. I’ve admitted that. Several times. I’ve also apologized several times. I need to know what the future holds for us. Not that I’m giving up, because I swear to you, I won’t. But I need to know.”
Radio silence.
“I did it for you. For you, Rae. I know I shouldn’t have lied. I get that loud and clear. I just can’t apologize for wanting you to have a relationship with your father that I never got. All I can ask is that you try to see it from my perspective. You don’t even have to understand it all at once. I just want a chance, an inch at a time even, because I’m dying over here.”
She takes a deep breath before she answers me, almost like she’s choosing her words very carefully. I don’t know how I feel about that. I do know that my heart leaps at the single tear that runs down her cheek, at the look of pain that etches itself into her features. I want to wipe away the tear, wipe away our past, our hurt. But I can’t.
“You don’t think I died a little when I found out about your lies? Your repeated lies. You think it doesn’t still hurt?”
“I know it does, Rae. I know it. But you have to let me help you heal.”
“How?”
“Let me love you again.”
“I haven’t stopped, Hudson. Not a day has gone by where I haven’t pined for you, where I haven’t cried myself to sleep at night at how cold I felt without you there. Not one day has been spent without wanting you or loving you. And that’s not going to change. I swear to you, I won’t stop.”
I wipe at my face, at the tears I don’t realize I’m shedding. “I wish I didn’t do that to you. I wish I could take it all back, that it never happened. But it did. And we have to work through that. Are you ready to? To move on?”
“Yes.” Her answer is swift and sure. Exactly what I wanted to hear.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know, dammit! I don’t know!”
“Marry me,” I blurt. “Marry me. Work with me on this. Work through this with me. Spend your life with me.”
“I plan to, Hudson. I do. Just not yet. I’ll gladly come home, but I’m not ready for that just yet. I still need some time for something that heavy.”
I stare down at my lap, taking in what she just said. I get it. I understand where she’s coming from on that front. And deep down, I know she’s right. Getting engaged right now would be an act of desperation. That’s not how I’d want to start this. That perfect moment Ted told me about weeks ago? This isn’t it. I should have known.
“Is that not enough?” she whispers, mistaking my silence for something it’s not. “Is that not what you wanted to hear?”
I look up at her. “No, that’s perfect. That’s right. I was wrong. Again. I’m just mentally berating myself for proposing out of line. Again. I suck at this.”
She laughs lightly, scrubbing her hands down her cheeks. “Yeah, you kind of do. Come here.” Rae leans up on her knees, stretching over to me and pressing a kiss to my lips. “I love you, Hudson. And I want that. I want forever with you. I really mean that. I just want that moment to be perfect. So far, it’s not been. But we’ll find that again. We’ll find those little moments we had, and one day, we’ll be us again. We just need to work toward it.”
I gather her in my arms and lie back, pulling her until she’s on top of me, stretched out. I wrap my arms around her as she lays her head on my chest right over my heart.
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “I shouldn’t have walked out on you when I did. I feel like I messed some shit up for us that shouldn’t have been messed up with that move. I mean, this really is all your fault, but it was unfair of me to punish Joey like that too. You, on the other hand, totally deserved it.”
I laugh because this is typical Rae. Straight to the point. This is the her I love more than anything in the world.
“I’m sorry, Rae. So fucking sorry. I hope one day you’ll be able to understand it all from my point of view.”
“I’m going to try.”
We spend two hours lying on the blanket, watching the waves knock against one another like an aged whiskey knocking against the inside of a barrel—smooth and natural.
It’s almost midnight w
hen we enter the beach house for the second time today. A sense of peace had settled over us at the beach, but tension revs high once we’re faced with choosing our sleeping arrangements. If it were up to me, I’d choose naked and tangled up in the sheets. I have no idea what Rae wants.
“So…”
“So…” she repeats.
“Are we, uh, heading to bed?” My cock aches at thoughts of us in the king-sized bed. I want so badly to wrap myself around her, to be inside her again.
She takes a step toward me. It’s a steady, sure step. A step I take as a sign. I move toward her, trapping her, and she retreats, backing into the wall. I cage her in with my arms braced on the wall, dipping my head to run my tongue the length of her neck. She arches into my touch and grabs at my sides, pulling me into her. I settle my weight against her, giving into her silent begging. I pull away and strip my shirt off; she sighs. I fall back onto her, crushing my lips to hers. I beg for entrance with a trace of my tongue; she grants it. I grind my lower half into hers; she grinds back. It’s a game of push and pull between us, and right now we’re both winning.
“Bedroom,” she states, dragging her mouth from mine with reluctance.
We stumble our way down the hall, not wanting to let go of one another long enough to walk there carefully. By the time we make it, I know I’m going to wake up sore after banging both of my knees on two different tables and stubbing my toe on the doorjamb. But none of it matters, none of it registers. The only thing I can feel right now is Rae and her warm body pressed against mine.
Rae bumps into the bed and abruptly sits, her hands going to my zipper immediately. She pops open the button and we work together to drag them down my legs. I stand before her, my dick proud and ready to go. She stares up at me and her look is lustful…heated…filled with love.
“Why am I the only one without clothes?”
She lifts a shoulder, a coy smile playing at her lips. “You’ve got your boxer briefs on. Not that they leave much to the imagination, but still.”
I squint my eyes into slits. “Doesn’t count.”
She lets out a playful sigh and begins pulling her top off. “So technical,” I hear her mutter. She pushes back on the bed a little more and shimmies off her jeans, leaving us even in the clothes department. Or lack thereof.
Rae lounges on her elbows in an unintentionally sexy pose, looking up at me with that sexy smile still in place, her breasts on the verge of falling from her bra, and her hair in disarray. “Happy now?”
I crawl up the bed, fitting myself between her legs until she drops down on her back. She winds her arms around my neck, but I don’t want that. I grab them and hold them firmly to the bed above her head. Giving her a small kiss, I say, “Stay.”
I run my lips down her chin, over her neck, and straight down until I reach her heaving chest. Her breasts brush my face with every harsh breath she takes. I push the cup of her bra aside and run the tip of my tongue over her right nipple. She inhales sharply, arching off the bed to press into my touch.
Chuckling, I pull back some and whisper, “I thought those weren’t ‘hooked up’?”
“I’m so fucking keyed up right now that every part of me is hooked up. I swear, you could probably tickle the back of damn knee and I’d orgasm.”
I trail my hand down between us, pausing to swipe at the heat between her legs but not long enough to give her any sort of release. She arches into me again, but I keep moving, tracing an invisible pattern across her thigh, curling my hand around her leg right above her knee. And then I do just what she said—tickle right behind her knee. And damn does she react. She convulses, and laughter begins pouring out of her in waves.
I sit up and put my hands out in an act of surrender. “I can see my work here is done.”
She laughs and pulls at me, bringing me back down on top of her. “You’re such a smartass.”
“Yeah, but I’m your smartass.”
“You are.”
The only thing that runs through my mind is that she said I was hers. I’m hers.
“Say that again.”
“What? That you’re a smartass?”
“No, not that. That I’m yours. Because you sure as fuck are mine.”
Sadness creeps into her stare. “Of course you’re mine, Hudson. There was never a moment where I doubted my love for you. I questioned my trust, but never my love.”
“And now?”
“Now…”
Her hesitation sends my heart into panic. Now what? Does she still not trust me? Does she still see lies and deceit every time she looks at me? Because I can’t live with that. I can’t live without her looking at me and seeing hope, a future.
“Now I’m working on it. We’re working on it. I love you, Hudson. I’ve already told you that won’t change. Not now, not ever.”
I kiss her, because for right now, that’s good enough for me. Our lips fuse together in a heated moment and our bodies search for one another, seeking warmth and love. If the house burned down around us right now, we’d know the fire started right on this very bed.
I snake my arms around her and strip off her bra, not pausing as I pull down her panties. We part long enough for me to shed my boxer briefs and cover myself with a condom. Not even thirty seconds later, I’m back between her thighs, feeling her legs wrap around me like a blanket. There’s not an inch between us, but it takes no time for me to slide right into the warm center I’m seeking. We create a beautiful symphony with every thrust and pant, glued together by sweat and the greed for release.
“Rae…”
“I know. I’m almost there.”
I lift some, reaching between us to massage her clit, knowing it’ll send her over the edge that I’m clinging to like it’s my last hope. She lifts from the bed, back arched high, hovering for only a moment before crying out in pleasure. I can feel her spasm around my dick, every squeeze dragging me closer and closer to the edge. With two more thrusts, I follow her release, surrendering myself to the pull.
I collapse in a heap on top of her, conscious of my weight on her small frame.
“Hand to God, I just had the best fucking orgasm of my life.”
She slaps my back. “Hudson! You can’t say ‘God’ and ‘fucking’ in the same sentence. Or ‘orgasm.’”
“Says who?”
“Me!”
Laughing, I roll off her, pulling her with me. She rests her head on my chest, snuggling closer into me. I kiss the top of her head, letting my lips linger because the last thing I want is to let this blissful moment go.
“You ruin all my fun,” I say, brushing my lips against her head.
“You love when I do.”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
Every time she’s said that these last few weeks, I’ve had these odd aches in my chest like someone’s there with a chisel, carefully carving those two words into my chest cavity. Slowly.
But now? Now it feels good. It feels hopeful. It’s enough.
“We’re good together, huh?”
I know she’s not just talking about the amazing sex we just had, but us in general. And she’s right. We have issues, that much is clear. But I think our willingness to work through them makes us strong—stronger than our issues. Even though Rae walked out and I fucked up, no matter how many times I felt those little fissures in my heart grow, I always knew we’d find a way back to each other. Because we’ve always done that. Shit, we technically spent almost twenty years apart and still—somehow, someway—we found our way back. As unintentional as it may have been, it happened. And it’s led us to this moment. Despite the mistakes we’ve both made, the problems we’ve had, I wouldn’t change where we’re at right now for anything.
“We are.”
“I think it’s because of what happened on the beach all those years ago. You rescuing me.”
“Why do you think that?”
“You saved me, Hudson. You gave me life. Shit doesn’t get more intimate and ingraine
d in your soul than that.”
I chuckle at her eloquent way of putting it. But I don’t disagree.
“That could be the case. Or I could just be so amazing that you can’t resist me.”
“Or that. But I doubt it.”
Shuffling around until I can reach, I smack her ass. “You’re a shit.”
“But I’m your shit.” I lift my brows at her choice of words and she laughs. “Doesn’t work there, huh?”
“Not at all.”
I wake with a full heart and an empty bed.
Only one of them is satisfying.
Reaching over, I feel that the sheets are cold, like they’ve been abandoned for hours. Where in the hell did she go?
I sit, swinging my legs off the side of the bed. Panic washes over me like a tidal wave. It’s quick and harsh, pressing on my chest. Where is she? Did she change her mind? Is she not ready to move on? Fuck!
It’s almost as quick as the tidal wave crashes that a quick smack of shut-the-fuck-up-and-stop-being-dumb hits me. I ignore my idiotic brain, because I know none of that’s true. She didn’t change her mind. She’s ready to move on. We’re ready to move on. After the way we made love last night, there’s no denying that. It wasn’t a moment of goodbye; it was a new beginning.
I laugh to myself. A new beginning? We’ve had one before. Almost a year ago now, actually. After the accident involving Rae and Joey and almost losing them both, we started over. We built something new from scratch. So maybe this isn’t another beginning. Maybe it’s just the next chapter. Or even a second act. Either way, it’s new, it’s fresh, and it’s what is needed.
Pushing myself from the bed, I go in search of Rae. I have a hunch she’s out on the beach, standing there staring out at the ocean with the wind whipping her auburn hair around in a crazy-beautiful way. My suspicions are confirmed when I reach the full-length windows in the living room facing the shores. It’s easy to spot the outline of her small stature standing just at the water’s edge. Even from here I can tell she’s deep in thought and can just imagine she’s sporting that little crinkle between her brows as they’re drawn together tight in concentration. I can’t help but wonder what it is that’s got her so pensive.
Here's To Box Set (Complete Series) Page 60
