“Do that again,” he said. “Slower this time.”
She shot him the finger as she hopped her way into the pajama pants he no longer had use for. “I’m takin’ your dog out to do her business. You should be nice to me.”
“My dog? Since when is she—” He cut off his words midsentence as the dog continued lapping at his face. Picking her up off his chest and holding her at arm’s length above him, he shot her a scowl. “No,” he said sternly. “Quit tryin’ to French kiss me, CB.”
“CB?” Mac asked, slipping her feet into her hiking boots. “See? You’ve already named her.”
“A nickname.”
“I don’t know—initials show you really takin’ your time and thinkin’ long and hard about it. When’d you come up with it?”
“Just now. On account of the little cockblocker always cockblockin’ me.”
Mac pressed her lips together, trying not to grin. Lord knew Hudson didn’t need the encouragement. “Well, I’m takin’ CB for a little walk so she can do her business. And, apparently, tryin’ to think of another name those initials could stand for.”
She reached down and scooped up the dog, lightly pressing on Hudson’s stomach with her booted foot as she stepped over him to unzip the tent. “Make me breakfast while I’m gone, will you?”
“No sweat. I’ve got a sausage right—”
“Oh my God.”
His laughter followed Mac out of the tent as she set down the dog, keeping an eye on the fluff ball until she was certain CB wasn’t going to take off again like yesterday. Then she lifted her gaze to the view that stretched out in front of her.
It was breathtaking, to say the least, and they hadn’t even made it to the higher summit they’d planned to in order to catch the sunrise. Though, she couldn’t say she minded, considering how she’d been otherwise occupied during that time.
She sensed Hudson behind her before she felt him, his arms wrapping around her and his face nestling in the crook of her neck. He inhaled her deeply, then sighed as he squeezed her back against his chest.
“What’re you even wearin’?” she asked. “I stole your clothes.”
“You think I only came up here with a single pair of clothes?”
Now that she thought about it, he’d probably managed to cram a week’s worth into that pack of his.
“Point taken,” she said, settling back into his body, her hands covering his.
They were quiet for long moments as CB trotted around their feet and they stared at the glory that was Mississippi in the fall. By some miracle, the trees hadn’t lost all their leaves yet, and the kaleidoscope of reds and oranges and yellows was interspersed with the dark green of pine trees.
And this, right here, was what Mac lived for. It was why she loved going on the outdoor adventures with the kids, why she spent all the time she could with Ella in the wooded area on her parents’ property. She felt the most herself when she was outdoors, surrounded by nature and breathing in the scent of fresh earth.
“We never made it to the higher summit to watch the sunrise,” she said, taking her eyes away from the view for a moment only to make sure CB was close. She was, sitting dutifully at Hudson’s feet, as if waiting for his command to move.
“Can’t say I minded at the time.”
She smiled at how his words echoed her thoughts from earlier. “Me neither.”
“Though I am bummed we missed it.”
“Yeah,” she said on an exhale. True, she could have an unobstructed view of the sunrise any day of the week from nearly any spot in Havenbrook, but this? Being up here, so high it felt like she could reach out and touch the clouds? This was a whole different realm.
“Well…” he said, drawing out the word slightly. “We could fix that, you know.”
She tipped her head to the side enough and looked back at him. “Oh yeah? You got an in with the big man upstairs so you can make the sun come up again?”
He grinned, leaning down to press a quick kiss on her lips, murmuring against them, “Smartass. And no, but I was thinkin’…”
She rolled her eyes. “Jeez, Hud. Just spit it out already.”
“Will got your shifts covered all weekend, right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Well, who says we have to go back today?”
She opened her mouth to say exactly why they needed to, only nothing came to mind. Her shifts at the bar were covered, and there was absolutely nothing at town hall she needed to be doing. She could text Will—hopefully there’d be a signal as they hiked higher—and tell her she wouldn’t be at Sunday supper. Mac and Hudson would be up early to catch the sunrise, and they could hike down right after, which meant she could definitely be to town hall on time. Or at least at a reasonable hour. Will would understand and cover for her if she was a little late.
“What about food and water?”
He snorted. “What do you think I am, an amateur? Condoms weren’t the only thing I brought extras of.”
“You did bring an awful lot of those. Plannin’ to get lucky on this trip, were you?”
Humming, he lowered his head and pressed his lips to her neck. “Not so much plannin’ as prayin’ to every deity in the world you’d let me between those gorgeous thighs.” He scraped his teeth along her skin then laved it with his tongue, sending a shudder through her. “Just so I could get a feel of heaven again.”
Oh. My. Word. The Hudson she’d been with so long ago had been amazing—kind and caring and generous and gentle. But this Hudson? With his dirty, uncensored mouth and his rough, demanding hands setting her entire body on edge, making it feel like she was balancing on the precipice of a near-constant orgasm—not that she minded. Well, he was something else entirely.
“And yet you’ve only done it once.” She tilted her head to allow him more access. “You waitin’ on something? An invitation, maybe?”
With a growl, he lifted her up with a hand around her waist and another tucked between her legs, only the thin cotton of his pajama pants between them as he rubbed his fingers against her clit and walked them toward the tent. “You sure you want to play this game? Get me all worked up, and you might be too sore to hike up to that summit after all.”
That was a gamble she was willing to take.
“Are you gonna do this all day?” Kenna asked against Hudson’s lips. “Because I’m not sure we’re gonna make it before sunset.”
So he’d been stopping her every five minutes to push her up against a tree and kiss the living hell out of her… So what? It wasn’t as if she weren’t enjoying it. Her smiling eyes and the hungry way she kissed him back told him as much.
“If you’d stop shakin’ your ass in my face as you climb, I wouldn’t have to.”
She huffed out a laugh. “Apparently in Hudsonland, hikin’ is ‘shakin’ my ass,’ huh?”
“Yes,” he growled. “And it’s drivin’ me fucking crazy.”
“Do you want me to stop?” she asked, batting her eyelashes, all faux innocence. His Kenna didn’t have an innocent bone in her beautiful body.
“Fuck no.” And with that, he lowered his head to hers, taking her mouth in another heated kiss. Christ, it was like being seventeen again—although, even at seventeen, he hadn’t been this hungry and wild with anyone, because he hadn’t been able to do this with her.
By the time they came up for air, they were both panting hard, and his cock was pressing insistently against his zipper, aching to be released.
“That reminds me,” she said, still trying to catch her breath.
“What?”
“You never told me when we said fuck for the first time. Because I don’t remember this at all, and I think you’re lyin’.”
“That’s what me kissin’ you within an inch of your life reminded you of? Not of earlier when you were ridin’ my cock while kissin’ me the same way?”
“Such a dirty boy.” She shook her head, but the breathless quality of her voice negated any berating she might’ve intended.
“C’mon.” He pressed a kiss to her nose before grabbing her hand and tugging her behind him. “If we don’t start movin’, I’m gonna fuck you against that tree.”
“You’ve said that at literally every other tree we’ve stopped at.”
“And I’ve meant it at every other tree we’ve stopped at.”
She hummed. “I expected more self-control from an army captain.”
“Oh, I’ve got all the self-control in the world when I’m on the job. Around you? Nada.” He tugged her into him and planted a kiss on her lips. “Complainin’, Ms. Haven?”
“No. Just, you know, observin’.”
Unabashedly, he placed a hand on her ass and pressed her into his never-ending erection. “I’ve got something much better for you to observe.”
Without restraint, she tossed her head back and laughed, the sound shooting straight up into the cloudless November sky. When she finally quieted moments later, she was wiping tears from her eyes. “You are seriously like a fourteen-year-old boy. What’s gotten into you?”
“You bring it out in me, I guess. Can’t say I mind.” He squeezed her hand, earnestness replacing his joking. “I’ve missed seein’ this part of you.”
Her smile slipped away slowly, and she tucked her lower lip between her teeth as her eyes tracked over his face. “Yeah,” she finally said. “Me too.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then led them up the path toward the higher summit they’d be camping at tonight. CB—yes, the name had stuck—was being a trooper, trotting along beside them and sticking tight to Hudson’s side.
“As I was sayin’…” Kenna elbowed him lightly, then took up her position in front, leading the way. “Your potty mouth reminded me that you never told me when we said fuck for the first time. Because I don’t remember it at all…”
“Probably ’cause you were worried about other things.”
She glanced back at him, her brows drawn. “Like what?”
“Like me losin’ your granddad’s marble.”
Hudson could count on two fingers the number of times he’d hurt Kenna, and one of them had been that day. They’d been at the lake cabin, and he’d been teasing her about always lugging the marble around. She’d carried it like it’d been a piece of gold. To her, it had been, seeing as it’d been the last thing her grandpa had given her before he’d suddenly passed from a heart attack.
And, like a jackass, Hudson had gone and lost it at the bottom of the fucking lake. He hadn’t meant to—of course he hadn’t. He’d never do anything to hurt her intentionally, even back then when he was a dumb-ass adolescent. But it’d slipped from his wet hands, nonetheless, and had sunk straight to the bottom of the murky water. No amount of searching on his part—and he’d done hours of it…until his body was wrinkled and the sun was setting—had done a damn thing.
“Oh,” she said, her tone soft, her expression wistful.
Hudson had tried to make up the loss to her, sending her marbles from all over the world just like the one she’d lost. He still sent her those damn things—he couldn’t help it. Any time he came across a tiger’s-eye marble, he thought of her, and he had to buy it. It’d been the one steady thing they’d kept on with in all the years they’d been apart, even when they hadn’t spoken.
“Yeah, ‘Oh.’” He reached up, tugging her ponytail. “So, I can see why you wouldn’t remember how colorful our language got after that, but believe me, it did.”
Kenna hummed in acknowledgment but otherwise didn’t say anything, just continuing along the rocky path toward the top.
Eventually, she broke the silence. “I’ve forgiven you, you know. You don’t have to keep sendin’ me marbles.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
She glanced back at him, her eyes searching, as if looking for something in his expression. Finally, she shook her head. “I didn’t say that.”
He exhaled, not even aware he’d been holding his breath in anticipation of her answer until she’d said the words. Maybe she felt as connected to him when she received them as he did to her when he purchased and sent them.
The two of them might’ve been thousands of miles away and on different continents, but they’d shared this. This tiny, inconsequential thing that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else but them. And there was little else in the world he loved more than sharing secrets with Kenna. Besides maybe Kenna herself.
“I’ve kept them all,” she said.
“Yeah?” He’d hoped she had, of course, but he knew he had no hold over her. No obligation that would make her do so. But the thought that she’d kept something from him for all these years lit a fire inside him.
Had him aching for a future with her he now knew, without a doubt, he desperately wanted.
“They take up a whole shoe box, I hope you know. You’ve sent me a fuckton of ’em.”
He chuckled, catching up with her and tossing his arm around her shoulders. Pulling her into his side, he pressed a kiss to her temple. “Any time I found one—and I mean any time—I bought it.”
“And mailed it.”
Nodding in agreement, he echoed, “And mailed it.”
“You really know how to blow through your money, don’t you?”
He grinned. “That I do.”
And, truth be told, he’d spend every penny in his bank account if it’d make her smile exactly like she was as she stared up at him.
BY THE TIME they arrived at the higher summit—the highest point one could safely climb Havenbrook Ridge without equipment—the sun was low in the sky. They’d wanted to do some exploring up here today, but he’d delayed them because he couldn’t keep his hands off Kenna. Not now that he’d had a taste.
Fortunately, they were both on the same wavelength when they arrived late. Without exchanging a word, they each settled into their duties from the night before. While setting up the tent, Hudson snuck glances at Kenna as she gathered logs and built them a fire, something warm settling in his chest at the ease with which they worked around each other.
After cooking their dinner over the open flame, he surprised her with marshmallows he’d forgotten he’d packed, and the grin she shot him could’ve melted a snowman.
“You tryin’ to get into my pants tonight or what?” she asked, plucking the marshmallow from his fingers and stabbing a stick through it.
The answer to that was obviously an unequivocal yes.
“Maybe.” He speared a marshmallow for himself and held it out over the fire as he slid her a look out of the corner of her eye. “Is it workin’?”
“Depends.” Her voice was dead serious. “You got any chocolate and graham crackers in there?”
Without comment, he pulled the other items from his pack, offering them to her with a flourish.
She hummed. “I think the odds of you gettin’ lucky are definitely stacked in your favor.”
His cock responded to the raspy tone in her voice, his thoughts focusing intently on all the things he was going to do to her tonight. “Then I should warn you…”
“Hmm?”
“You’ve got about five minutes before I haul you over my shoulder and into the tent.”
She grinned. “But then you’d disturb your snoozin’ CB.”
He glanced down at the ball of matted brown fur currently curled in his lap. “She’ll be fine. Fall right back asleep, I bet. I’ll even make her a little bed from my sweatshirt.”
She stared at the two of them for long moments before the smile slowly slipped from her mouth.
His brows drew in as he scanned her face, trying to get a read on what was going through her mind. “What is it?”
She bit her lip and shook her head, dropping her gaze to the fire. “What’re you gonna do with her when we get back to town?”
“Get her in to see Atticus at the groomers.” He rested his hand on the dog, running it over her matted hair. “CB could also be short for cruddy bastard.”
“Hey!” Kenna said, laughter in her vo
ice. “Leave her alone. Poor thing was abandoned out here. It’s not her fault she smells.”
“Horribly. She smells horribly. And it might not be her fault, but it doesn’t change the fact that she does.”
“Okay, smartass.” Kenna rolled her eyes. “After the groomer, what are you gonna do with her? Are you gonna take her to the shelter?”
Honestly, he had no fucking idea. He wasn’t exactly in the market for a dog. And if he were, it certainly wouldn’t be one that could fit in one of his hands. But the thought of dropping her off at the shelter when they got back to town made his stomach clench tight.
“I don’t know.” He petted CB, settling his hand over the entire expanse of her body. Quietly, he admitted, “I don’t want to.”
Kenna didn’t say anything, but he could feel her studying him. He just wished he knew what she saw when she did so.
They sat in front of the fire for a while, Kenna nestled into his side, until the call of her body got to be too much for him, and he couldn’t keep his hands off her. Didn’t matter that he’d managed to have her twice already today—he had a hell of a lot of time to make up for. And he intended to do quite a bit of it tonight.
With the fire sizzling out behind him, he walked her backward toward the tent, dropping his mouth to hers and not hesitating before slipping his tongue between her lips, desperate to taste her. He groaned as soon as her tongue slid against his, his cock already hardening in his pants.
“Christ, Kenna, I’ve needed to be inside you all day,” he said against her mouth.
“Then what’s taken you so long?”
With a handful of her ass, he hauled her up against him, growling into her mouth. “I already fingered you against a tree—I didn’t want to fuck you against one like a horny teenager who couldn’t control himself.”
“Just so you know,” she said between kisses, “I wouldn’t have minded.”
Jesus, and now he had enough fodder to jack off to for a whole fucking year.
“Then that’s what you’ll get tomorrow, naughty girl. Right now, get on your back.” He hadn’t tasted her yet, and he was done waiting. He needed to get his tongue on her pussy, and he needed it yesterday.
Captain Heartbreaker (Havenbrook Book 4) Page 15
