by Jill Shalvis
standing beneath him. Every time he moves I get to meet Jim and the twins all over again.”
Inside the warm office both Lily and Bailey snorted and choked on their shocked laughter.
Thirty minutes later their two men walked into the offices.
“The menfolk returning home from the hunt to collect their women,” Lily whispered to Bailey and giggled. She covered her mouth with her hand.
Bailey grinned too. She was absolutely drunk. But then she got a good look at Hudson’s beautiful face and the black eye, and her grin faded.
Chapter 25
Hud walked into the offices where he’d left Bailey an hour before. Aidan was right on his tail, trying to get an ice pack on Hud’s eye. Which wasn’t going to happen.
“Hud, man, you need to ice it.”
“It’s fine.” Okay so it throbbed like a bitch and so did his knuckles from where he’d punched the idiot after getting sucker-punched himself, but hell if he’d admit that.
“It’s going to swell,” Aidan said.
“Back off.” All he wanted to do was to collect Bailey and get the hell out of work mode for half an hour. Hell, he’d take ten minutes. But since Mother Nature had granted him a stay of execution with a glorious storm, he was thinking he might actually have all night.
And he wanted every single minute of it.
Aidan was hovering again, still trying to get the ice pack on Hud’s face. Hud pushed him away. “If you don’t get the fuck away from me with that thing right now, I’m going to shove it so far up your ass you’ll be shitting blue gel for the rest of your natural life.”
“If you won’t let me look at it,” Aidan said tightly, all pissy as he always got when he didn’t get his way, “we’ll need to have medical look at it.”
“Man, we are medical.”
“But—”
“Jesus. I’m an EMT and I say I’m fine,” Hud snapped.
“I’m an EMT, too, jackass, and I overrule you.”
“How the hell do you figure that?” Hud demanded.
Aidan looked smug. “I’m older than you.”
“Oh, shut up.” Hud turned to face the room and found Lily and Bailey sitting on his desk with their legs folded beneath them Indian-style. The radio sat between them, as did a bottle of Jack—which if he wasn’t mistaken was nearly empty—and two Dixie cups.
He went brows up. “Ladies.”
Bailey looked at his face and gasped. She went to hop down off the desk but got tangled in her own legs and would’ve fallen on her face if he hadn’t caught her.
When she got her sea legs, she blinked up at him. “You’re hurt.”
“And you’re tipsy.” Hud turned to look at Lily, who was beaming dreamily at Aidan. “You were supposed to watch her, not get her drunk.”
“Hey,” Lily said, slurring her words a little bit. “She’s a grown-up. She didn’t need a babysitter.”
“Nope,” Bailey said, popping the P sound. She reached up and touched Hud’s eye.
He sucked up a wince and caught her hand in his because she was more likely to poke out his eyeball than gently touch his bruise.
Aidan scooped Lily up off the desk and gave her what looked like a bone-crunching hug.
“You okay?” she asked him.
“I’m perfect,” he said, sending a smug smile in Hud’s direction. “No one got a shot in on me tonight.” He kissed her and tossed the ice pack to Bailey. “Good luck with that,” he said. “He’s a terrible patient.” And then he carried Lily right out of the office. Given the giggles coming from the latter, he wouldn’t be bothered by Hudson’s countenance again until at least tomorrow.
“Does it hurt?” Bailey asked him softly.
“No.” Liar, liar…
Reaching back, she locked the door and turned to him. He stepped into her at the same moment and they reached for each other. The kiss started out gentle but didn’t stay that way. Finally she stumbled back a step and gave him another of those brain-melting looks that made him want to beat his chest and drag her off to his cave like the Neanderthal he was.
Still smiling at him like maybe the sun and the moon rose and set in his eyes, she slowly lifted his hand… and very gently guided the ice pack in to his goddamn throbbing eye.
He opened his mouth, but she set a finger over his lips.
He stared at her as the cold absorbed into his skin, soothing the ache as surely as having her pressed up against him soothed the rest of the world away, back behind a brick wall where nothing could get at them.
“Better?” she asked, her hand over his on the ice pack.
“Yes, but that’s because you’re pressed up against me,” he said. “It’s not the ice pack.”
She shook her head. She was onto him. Then her smile faded. “What happened?”
He shrugged. “He got in one good punch before I restrained him. It happens.”
But not to him. It’d been a damn long time since anyone had gotten the jump on him, and he had no idea why it had happened tonight.
Don’t you? a voice asked inside his head.
Yeah, okay. So he knew exactly what had happened. Bailey. He’d gone into that call thinking about her, soft and warm in his bed for the whole night. And suitably distracted, he’d been taken by surprise.
That shit had to stop.
But now here he was with a soft, warm, sweetly sexy woman in the circle of his arms, and not just any woman but the one he hadn’t been able to stop thinking of since he’d first seen her on top of the mountain.
An instant connection, his first in too damn long.
Somehow she got him. She got him on a level that no one really had, not since… Jacob.
And even knowing that this was going to come back and bite him on the ass at some point didn’t stop him. He drew her close and breathed her in and said her name on a shaky exhale.
“Yes,” she murmured back, her fingers sinking into his hair, answering the question he hadn’t voiced out loud.
As Hudson’s arms tightened around Bailey, she became aware of the closeness of their bodies. No, that was a lie. She was always extremely aware of Hud’s body.
He walked her backward and she came up against the credenza. He dipped his head and even as her brain screamed, You need to think this over, she was lifting her face and parting her lips to accept his.
Once his mouth fastened on to hers, she was lost. It had seemed so complicated, but when he was with her like this, it was suddenly the opposite. It was the simplest thing she’d ever done to pull him in and give him everything she had. She arched her back to get even closer. He was hard.
Everywhere.
Her heart had gone haywire and she was already breathing in little gasps as they broke apart to stare at each other and then dove back in. Desire was a living thing within her, coiling out from her core and bringing a warm tingling wave of pleasure with it.
Hud’s hands slid up from her hips to cup her breasts. Making a sound of low male appreciation, he slid those hands down again and then back up, beneath her shirt this time. His thumbs glided softly over her pebbled nipples standing at full, happy attention.
She was still fully clothed and she was seconds away from an orgasm… And then he stopped. She moaned in protest but he was firm. “Let’s go,” he said.
“Where?”
“Much as I’ve enjoyed the memories we’ve made here, I’m not doing it in my office again. I still have rug burns—” He broke off at her laugh and narrowed his eyes. “You think that’s funny?”
She made an effort to stop smiling but couldn’t pull it off. “You weren’t the only one who got rug burns,” she reminded him.
“Yes, but yours are on your back and hidden,” he said. “Mine are on my knees and we wear shorts when we train in the gym.”
She clamped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God.”
“Uh-huh—which is exactly what you were moaning when I got those rug burns. That and a bunch of ‘oh please’ and ‘yes, there, oh,
Hud, there!’”
She couldn’t really object to the truth…
Hud poured Bailey into his truck and gave her a quick once-over. She was definitely tipsier than he’d thought. “You okay?”
She gave him a long look. Right. That question was not allowed. “Okay,” he said, “how about—are you going home with me?” He held her gaze, watching her reaction closely. Any hesitation, even a flicker, and he’d tuck her into his bed and walk away, no qualms.
But she didn’t hesitate. She blinked slowly and smiled at him, a little goofy. “Yes, please.”
He grinned. “How many shots did you have?”
“Um… one.”
Okay, one was good. One wasn’t drunk—
“Plus three,” she said, and then looked confused. “Or four.”
Ah, hell. That was most definitely drunk. Which put her in the off-limits zone.
She smiled at him. “You’re pretty. Anyone ever tell you that?”
He had to laugh. “You’re completely shit-faced.”
“Am not.” She flashed another silly grin. “I know you probably think ‘pretty’ is an insult to your manhood, but I’ve seen your manhood and it doesn’t have any reason to be insulted.”
He scrubbed a hand down his face. She was a happy, silly, sexy adorable drunk. And one hundred percent irresistible. And damn, his phone was buzzing in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the screen. Aidan. He hit ANSWER. “Yeah?”
“Lily’s bombed.”
“I know.”
“I’m getting lucky tonight,” Aidan said.
“And you’re calling me why?”
“Because you’re not,” Aidan said. “Getting lucky, that is. If Lily’s this far gone, so’s Bailey. You can’t tap that tonight, man.”
“You think I need you to tell me that?”
“Just making sure you’re thinking with your big head and not your small one.” Aidan laughed a little and started to say something else but Hud disconnected him. He looked at Bailey.
She blew him a kiss.
Damn. Only a real asshole would take advantage of her tonight. The question was, was he that asshole? He took her hand in his.
She brought it up to her mouth and kissed the scars on his palm. “You’re a good man,” she said softly.
Was he? At the moment, he didn’t feel like it. He parked at his place and when they walked inside, he saw neither hide nor hair of any annoying Kincaids.
A miracle.
He took Bailey into his bedroom and she sighed dreamily at the sight of his bed. “Looks nice,” she said, and walked toward it.
“Take off your shoes,” he said.
“Mmm, I like it when you get all commanding and bossy,” she said with a wicked grin.
Jesus, she was killing him.
She laughed a little at his expression and kicked her first shoe off. It flew across the room and nearly gave him a second black eye.
“Ohmigod,” she gasped when he caught it in midair an inch from his face. “You’ve got good reflexes.”
That he did. Which was how he managed to control his expression when she bent to more carefully remove her other boot and fell over.
“Whoops.” She laughed. “I swear I’m not a walking DUI. I’m just a lightweight cuz I never drink alcohol.”
He scooped her up off the floor and set her on his bed. He yanked the comforter down and pointed for her to scoot in.
With a laugh, she tugged him down over the top of her and then wrapped herself around him like a monkey. “You smell good,” she murmured, face plastered to his throat. “You always smell so good. What is this stuff you wear?”
Her entire body was glued to his. He could feel her soft breasts pressing into his chest, her thighs cushioning his, and between those thighs the heat of her drawing him in like a bee to honey—
“Hud, are you listening?”
“Of course I’m listening.” He totally wasn’t listening. He was thinking about how she’d look if he stripped her naked. She’d be all flushed and gorgeous, and he wanted to taste every inch of her and then nibble some of those inches. Just thinking about the sounds she’d make as she got closer to orgasming made him painfully hard.
It required every ounce of control he had to break free of her and get off the bed, but he did it. He tossed his blanket over her.
“But I have all my clothes on,” she said, blinking confoundedly up at him, then rolling over to try and get off the bed.
“No,” he said, tucking her in. “Stay.”
“I can’t sleep with my clothes on, silly.” Wriggling free of the blanket, she unbuttoned and tugged off her sweater, which somehow got caught on her knit cap.
This left her in just a little lacy-nothing bra and jeans, arms up over her head, fighting the sweater that was covering her face. Every panicked move she made had her breasts jiggling, and he couldn’t tear his eyes off of them.
“I’m going to suffocate!” she gasped.
Shaking his head, he put a knee on the bed and bent over her to free her. She was warm and soft, and her cap came off. Her very short hair was strawberry blond and baby fine. Soft. The scent of the silky strands had him inhaling her like she was crack. He’d noticed every time his fingers brushed the nape of her neck, she shivered. So he did it on purpose now, stroking his fingers over her soft skin, and a low moan escaped her, which didn’t help his situation any. He finally freed her from the sweater.
“My hero,” she said with huge relief. She went to work on her jeans. Not easy since they were snug. When she shimmied them down past her hips, her panties started to go with, giving him a heart-stopping view of the promised land.
He abruptly turned away.
“Hud?”
Killing him. She was killing him. It wasn’t the first time she’d shortened his name the way everyone in his world always did, but she didn’t do it often. On her tongue it sounded… perfect. Which was why, against his better judgment, he turned back.
She was sitting in the middle of his bed in just her undies, his comforter clutched between her breasts. “Is that okay?” she whispered. “That I call you Hud?”
“Yes.” His voice came out unintentionally husky and a little thick, and she dropped the comforter. Her bra wasn’t doing much in the way of hiding her from him. The skimpily cut cups had most of her spilling out. She was either cold or turned on, and that question was answered when she spoke.
“I want you,” she whispered.
Oh, Christ. He didn’t have enough control for this. Not even close. He backed to the door and ran right into it. He turned to face it, his fingers on the handle.
“Hud?”
“We can’t,” he said to the door.
“Because you’re a good guy. Lily said that I was falling for you because you’re hotter than sin on a stick, but I don’t think that’s it. I think I’m falling for you because you’re everything I want in a man: strong from the inside out, steady, calm, smart… sweet.”
While he grappled with that—sweet?—she went on. “I know I said I didn’t want The One,” she said. “That I had a lot to do before I found The One. Like the stuff on my list.” She sighed. “I know I also said that you weren’t The One, but I think that was me just trying to protect myself.”
Oh, Christ. “We shouldn’t talk,” he said desperately. “Until no one in this room is sloshed, we should have some quiet time.”
