by Simone Elise
I’ll have eyes on ya darling, just lock the rest out and look back at me.
I stared at the screen, tears beginning to form. Because those words made me feel better. Then another message popped up.
I’ll be the dickhead at the end, standing next to the fool who is in love. Then there was eye rolling emojis. I cracked a smile. And wrote back.
I’ll be the one in black. The fact that we were having a conversation that normally the groom and bride had wasn’t lost on me.
“It’s showtime girls.” Lacie all but squealed, and then I locked my phone just as she gripped my hand. “I can’t thank you enough for everything Gabriella.” She said while giving me this sweet smile.
I smiled back. “Let’s get you married.” And she squealed walking towards her other bridesmaids.
Okay I can totally do this. I kept telling myself that, as I grabbed the bouquet. And handed it to Lacie. Then I told myself that still, as we walked through the common room heading for the chapel.
Okay. I can totally do this.
Then the flower girl went first. And I froze. Okay I can’t do this. I turned to Lacie, and helped with her dress, and then the bridesmaids started going down the aisle and then Lacie looked at me with a smile, nodding her head, shit it was my turn. The prospects held the doors open and I inhaled sharply, stepping into view. I looked up the aisle and my eyes landed on Hudson’s.
I saw his eyes widen slightly, as he looked at me, almost amazed. I slowly started to walk down the aisle his eyes then locked with mine, and I didn’t break eye contact with him.
He was dressed in clean jeans and dress shirt and cut over top. He had run the clippers over his hair, and I swear he had even changed his lip piercing. But it was iron grey eyes locked with mine that kept me going up the aisle.
The first time I locked eyes with them, ran through my mind. He was a prospect I was at the bar, and he asked me how I felt about coming over to his house that night. I choked on my soda. He thought I was older. He also learned by getting a backhand and a bark from my dad, that I was the president’s daughter.
Just as I made it to the end of the aisle, Hudson winked at me, and it’s as if he knew the only reason I wasn’t freaking out was because his eyes were locked with mine. So he didn’t break our eye contact. Hell he didn’t even look up the aisle as Lacie walked down it. It’s only when Lacie and Ribs hold hands that we both turned to look at the bride and groom.
My dad nails the service and Ribs even teared up. It was within twenty minutes, the bride and groom were announced and then walked down the aisle. I walked straight for Hudson, threading my arm through his.
“Ya fucking stunning sweetheart.” He says in my ear, as we walked down the aisle, and I looked back into his eyes. It’s the tint to his eyes mixed with his expression that makes me think, if he had a shot again with me, he wouldn’t fuck it up.
And that thought itself, made my breath catching.
HUDSON
It was like all celebrations, until the music ticked slow for the wedding dance. Then suddenly I was fucking nervous. Was never a dancer. I was many things but good on my feet, wasn’t one of them. However when I see Gabriella giggling to the side with the bridesmaids, and the other groomsmen taking my lead. I walked towards her.
She glanced up at the same time, as I decided on this suicide mission. I saw a genuine smile spread across her lips, as I put my hand out and she slipped her hand into mine.
Guiding her to the dancefloor, while everyone stared at me—was fucking getting under my skin. Till I spun her around into my arms, and she looked up, into my eyes. Suddenly didn’t give a fuck if everyone was staring at me or not, all I cared about was my purpose.
My hand stayed on her lower back, didn’t dip any lower, had more respect for her than that.
She was the one to curl into my chest, as the music played. I couldn’t think of a better day than this. I get a reason to hold her close, and she doesn’t push me away—which makes everything better.
“Hudson?” She whispered in my chest and my hand was running across her back.
“Yeah darling?”
“Stay with me tonight?”
And I stilled. Fucking stay with her, she had to know I had control but it was being pushed to it’s limits. I don’t know if I can torment myself with her in arms reach all night again. Then again, what if I finally did it, and made my move?
9
Hudson
I had monitored her drinking since she asked me to spend the night with her tonight. Switched her to soda hours ago, she was still giggling, and let me keep a hand on her the whole night. I told myself it was because of her anxiety. But when she looked at me, it reminded me of how she used to look at me.
I had eased back on the drinks myself, since dancing with her—and her words ringing in my ears again. She wanted me to stay with her tonight. I knew that didn’t mean we were having sex, we had spent nights together before tonight, but something about tonight felt different.
The bride and groom had left, and the party was winding down, when I saw Gabriella yawn. I walked back to her and she gave me this knee buckling smile, and I fucking had to remind myself I had to keep standing and not drop to my knees and beg her to wipe our past.
She turned to face me, “Wanna call it a night?” she said that like I wouldn’t walk her to her dorm room, and I nodded my head, putting the full bourbon down, and taking her hand.
“You have a good night?” I asked our hands linked and I brought the back of her hand to my mouth kissing it.
“Yeah I did,”
I glanced up and she’s looking directly at me. Those cider green eyes staring at me. I swallowed sharply, and she made it sound like I was the one to make her have a good night. I shrugged it off, and I felt nervous, so very fucking nervous as we reached her door. I knew I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t fucking be with her tonight, not when liquor had touched her lips.
She leaned back against her door, this dress just highlighted her every asset even showing the top of her scar.
She’s looking up at me, as I take a step towards her and not away. She’s looking at me, and I swear she is telling me to kiss her.
My eyes dropped to her blush rose red lips.
Fuck I might have read it wrong, but I brought my other hand up, putting it beside her, on the door, and lean down. She’d stop me right?
My heart is racing so hard, and everything in my body is on the fucking edge. I’m nervous, and the type of nerves that came before I made a life altering decision.
I brushed my lips against hers. It was like a heroin addict, getting their first dose of the drug they had been sober from. I can’t stop my hand from going off the door, and my other from unlinking with hers, and I cupped her face, kissing her, as if I’d never get another fucking shot at her.
It’s sweet, I’m kissing her, so she knows that she is my world. I had one soul mate on this earth and she was it. I’d do anything for her, be any type of man she needed If she needed a serial killer, I’d be it. If she needed me to work a nine to five, I’d fucking do everything possible to do it. She wasn’t a woman, she was the woman, since I laid eyes on her at eighteen. I prospected late for the club.
The point was, the day I laid eyes on her, I found the purpose to me breathing. She was the only fucking woman I’d ever consider marrying, and she was and will forever be the woman that could say she got inside Hudson St Jame’s heart. I can honestly say, that no other woman would come close to her. Wouldn’t marry another, or tell another I loved them. Because Gabriella Hart had my heart, my soul and would forever be my fucking purpose.
She wasn’t mine, but I was hers. And I kissed her, so she knew that.
Finally I pulled back, I’m expecting to see regret in her eyes. Only when I looked into her green cider eyes, I see… and I’m fucking taken back by it. I remember that look clearly, it was the same look she gave me when I told her I loved her, it was the same look she gave me when I c
arried her home, after she broke her ankle. Only this time, it’s tinted with lust but I know that look. It’s fucking… love.
Her hand goes to my cheek and her breathing is shaky as she looked at me.
I don’t know if its her, or me, but our lips reunited and this time it’s not sweet, it’s heated and I’m kissing her with demand and need. She’s kissing me back with just as much passion. My heart is beating at a rate that is flooding my body with desire, fucking raw need.
Getting her suddenly was a do or die feeling.
I needed her under me, gasping—I needed her, and with that thought I lifted her from the ground and carried her to my room. Had enough respect for Maddox not to fuck his fiancé on his bed.
But that was were I drew the respect line. Because this was my second shot with Gabriella Hart; and I wasn’t going to fuck it up.
GABRIELLA
He kissed me like I was his purpose. He kissed me like I belonged to him. He kissed me like I was his world, and the reason for his existence. And how did I kiss him? Well to me Hudson mouth was poison yet heroin to me. I’d die before withdrawing from him again, because I was letting him in, my walls were falling with every moment we spent together.
I never stopped loving him, I think that’s where the problem was. I never switched my ability to love Hudson off. I loved him, even with my new heart, that heart still would drum a beat for him.
Right now as he leaned me back against his dorm room door. I was drunk on the feeling of his lips on my body, when he kissed me he had the ability to wipe my mind of concerns. I was lost in him—his cologne, his touch, everything but mainly the feelings that flooded me.
His door swung open, and he carried me in. My legs wrapped around his body, my arms wrapped around his neck. I was clinging to him like he was my current reason for breathing. Because he was my reason for breathing currently. He was breathing life back into me. He was my life support.
His lips pulled back from mine, and I’m dazzled as I stared into his honeycomb eyes.
“I ain’t fucking you tonight.”
And my heart skipped a beat, “Oh.” Is all I can manage.
And he brushed his lips against mine again, before locking eyes with mine. “I’m making love to you like I should have when we were together.”
“Hudson,” and my hand spread across his cheek. “You did use to make love to me.”
“Nah darling, I never worshiped you, like you deserved.” He lowered me to the bed. “I now know what it’s like to be without you. I now know the feeling of getting drunk on your memories at two in the morning, just to wake up in the morning to be reminded you aren’t mine anymore.” He slowly untangled our bodies. He kisses down my neck. “I don’t just love you Gabriella. You fucking consumed me.” And he then pulled the knife from his leg holster, and he paused before taking it to my dress. As if wondering if I was in love with it, and I arched my back slightly, giving him the sign to slice it—and that’s exactly what he does. Slowly tearing the dress from my body.
As more skin is revealed, he kisses me. At first in the centre of my chest, and then he kisses me as he lowers down my body.
It’s not loud, it’s small, barely auditable. I gasp, as his lips touch my stomach. Because in that second I remembered. And it fucking made me question everything. If this was the right time. If being with Hudson would just enrage him when he found out.
I swallowed, perhaps he wouldn’t notice?
Then I felt it and I went stiff, and he would have had to have felt that. I went stiff as a board.
His fingers ran over the c section mark. I opened my eyes, looking up.
His dark haunting iron grey eyes locked on to mine. He doesn’t say anything, not one word and I knew a man like Hudson, knew what a c section mark looked like. But he doesn’t say one word. Instead he lowered back down my body, pressing a firm kiss on the middle of the scar.
I swallowed sharply. My need to touch him, running through my body, but I knew when it came to sex with Hudson, he was in control.
But fuck it. I needed my hands on him. So my hands went to his shoulders. He sliced the dress that bit further, and I heard him groan.
“Fuck. You know it will be the death of me, knowing you are walking around with no panties on.” He then ripped the dress, the rest of the way, and dropped the knife on the ground. His mouth back at my ear. “Knowing I could slip my cock into you at any moment, with you wearing a skirt.” He groaned slightly, and he was tormenting himself.
I knew it was dancing with the flame, but fuck it—I was going to dance back with the flame that was flirting with Hudson.
“Or a dress,” I added, arching my back slightly, by chest going up and down with each inhale and exhale. “You could take me where you wanted and when you wanted.”
“Don’t fucking do it Gabriella.” He words darkening.
My eyes flashed open. “Maybe I should stop wearing a bra too, so you can feel me whenever you wanted to.” I didn’t even see him pull his jeans down, or anything—I just moan loudly, as he thrust into me.
“Still want to keep filling my head with fantasies baby girl?” he says, stilling in me, and then I tightened around him. And I know he feels it because he groans slightly. And I hear a fuck me come off his lips lowly.
He’s staring down at me, like I’m his world, and he can’t believe his fucking luck.
He smiles, not smirks or grins but smiles, and then nipped my bottom lip.
And I finally had an answer to the question I had kept on asking myself since Maddox was hurt. That question being, would I be okay? Would I be able to take the shattered pieces, and piece myself back together to keep breathing? I knew in this moment.
I’d be okay. Nothing more and nothing less. But I knew, for the first time, since it happened. I’d be okay.
When he lowers his lips to mine, and I kissed him back like how he kissed me before outside my dorm room. He didn’t gently kiss me, he gave me a piece of his soul, like I was his purpose. My hand went to the back of his head, and I kissed him—so he knew that he had a bit of my soul, he always had.
His hands ran over my body and he slowly moving inside of me at a speed that I couldn’t get enough of. He’s soft, gentle—two things when you looked at Hudson, you don’t expect.
I nipped his bottom lip, and then I push my hips up to meet his thrust, so he knows—I want more. I’m ready for more, I lock my arms around his neck, and I gasped, as he thrusts firmer into me, causing pleasure waves through my body, and I gasped.
“Come on darling, don’t tell me I can’t make you moan my name.” he says, and kisses along my neck. “Don’t make me prove it to you.”
I clenched my lips shut at that. I was not going to give him the pleasure of having me moaning.
Then I gasped, and my lips broke, because of the sharp dominating and claiming thrust, and he looped his arms under my legs, placing them on his shoulders. I knew then, I was a goner.
As if he knew I wasn’t ready to be moaning another mans name, his lips went over mine, just as I broke and moaned his name. He suffocated the word with his own mouth.
My heart began to burst waves of love for Hudson, which slowly coated over the lust feelings I had for him. And I was letting myself feel the love that I had always held for him in my heart—and last time I let that happen, I died.
But in this moment, as he made love to me, worshipping my body. I knew deep down, I knew that I couldn’t deny my love for him any longer. It just couldn’t be worse timing, after all Maddox’s life support gets turned off in three days.
Laying in his arms, I felt his hand run up my bare thigh, as my back was to his chest. His fingers moving slowly over my skin.
I felt his kiss on the back of my head.
I clenched my eyes shut, as chills ran up my spine—because I felt safe. Home. And mainly, I felt okay.
“Hudson?” I murmured.
“Yeah, darling,” he said, as his hand stilled on my bare hip, under his blankets.
I inhaled sharply. I knew he always had a right to know, but I didn’t know then how to tell him, and I turned to drugs to it right after. Never dealt with it. Till Maddox. Who helped me get through it, face the pain, so I could heal. “I have something I need to tell you.” I said, my hand going to his, covering his hand with mine. “I lost our baby. I was thirty seven weeks along, when I had stillborn.” I felt him go tense, his hand coming stilling on me.
Then his hand is off my body, and my eyes clenched shut. In some ways I was just fucking scared to let him in, in other ways I knew he would react like this.
Then I felt his finger run along my c section scar. Under the blankets.
I then felt a kiss on my back, and my eyes fluttered open. Not because he had kissed me and comforted me without saying a word. No it was because out of every where he could kiss me on my body, he kissed my tattoo which marked me as Maddox. And he hadn’t done it disrespectful, no he had done it in away, that he accepted me, as I was. Broken, shattered and glued back together. I turned onto my back, my hand going to his cheek, because I see the tears in his eyes.
And for the first time ever, it’s me comforting him. Wiping the tears away from under his eye. Before he acknowledged he was crying. He pulled me towards him, kissing my lips.
It’s short but passionate before he pulled back. “I love you Gabriella.” And I had never heard more honesty in anything he had said. He meant those words fully.
I opened my mouth when my phone started ringing. And I frowned hearing that tone. It was the ringtone I had set for Maddox’s phone. Which was impossible. Hudson didn’t understand why I pulled away from him, leaning over the bed, I picked up my phone, seeing Maddox’s name across the screen.
