I hear the click of her door opening and then—
“Goodnight, Hudson.”
Chapter 12
Hudson
It’s the flicker of a bright light, burning behind my eyelids, that makes me stir.
Then the gentle shake of my shoulder.
“Mh?” I grumble, turning my cheek further into the pillow beneath my head. After everything that had gone on tonight, it had taken me a lot longer than usual to fall asleep. I’d lain awake, my feet hanging over the edge of Giselle’s sofa, desperately straining my ears to hear her behind her bedroom door. For half an hour or so, minutes after she’d disappeared, I catalogued the sound of pattering footsteps moving about, the glide of a drawer being opened and then shut again, the rustle of curtains being pulled over the window and then… silence.
Through the thin paned glass of her living room window, I could still hear London and beyond – the monotonous hum of a car engine driving past, the beep of a horn, the whirring of a car alarm – until eventually, I must have passed out from sheer bodily exhaustion.
“Hudson?”
I smack my lips together.
Another shake. “Hudson.”
I crack my lids open at the sound of my name, crumbs of sleep dust coating the line of my lashes.
“You don’t look very comfortable.” Giselle stands just off the side of the sofa, her unbound hair hanging in a sheet between us. My gaze dips down her frame noticing the large navy coloured t-shirt she wears, the hem of which barely grazes her mid-thigh. The rest of her long legs are bare, except for a pair of fluffy white socks, bunched up around either of her ankles.
Beneath my gaze, I see Giselle shiver, although that could be that her apartment is fucking freezing cold. Something I’m only realising now I’m awake, nothing but a thin blanket to keep my body warm.
Yawning deeply, I shake my head. “It’s fine. I’ve slept in worst places.”
She pauses, staying silent, until nimble fingertips reach for my own. “Come to bed, Hudson.”
I’m not sure if I’ve heard her right, but then the tug on my arm becomes more insistent, pulling me to stand.
Half asleep and in just my black boxers, I watch through half lidded eyes as Giselle switches off the lamp that had awoken me, plunging us in darkness, and begins to pull me down the hallway and into her bedroom.
The scent of Giselle assaults my senses, as does the feel of soft sheets beneath my hands as she leads me to her bed. To the place she sleeps, fucks, makes herself cum in…
“No funny business,” she warns, but I couldn’t even if I wanted too, my eyes are too heavy, my body moving too slow and my brain, my brain is still hung up on her accusation from our fight.
“Sleeping with someone isn’t as simple for me as it is for you, Hudson.”
“And if I’m not ready…then what?”
God, the way she’d asked me that question, her voice the softest I’d ever heard it, as if she was afraid of my answer.
Who the fuck had put that seed of doubt in her mind that it isn’t okay to go at your own pace in life?
Whoever the dickhead is, my fist aches to connect with his fucking face.
Beneath the soft duvet, I lay my head on the pillow beside Giselle’s. She turns her body away from me to lay on her side, but even though we’re only inches apart from touching each other, it still feels like too much.
Reaching out my arm, I band it around her waist, her large t-shirt scrunching up under my fingers. In one fluid motion, I drag her along the mattress, erasing the space between us until she sits, oh so prettily, in the cradle of my thighs.
Lying in Giselle’s bed, sleep claims me a lot easier than it had on the sofa. Although I think it has less to do withwhereI’m sleeping, and more with the girl I finally have in my arms.
Cold air nips at my toes; the sensation tickling at the edge of my consciousness.
I drag my foot back under the blanket, reaching out for the body beside mine in an attempt to fuse together our body heat.
