I’m in over my head for this girl more than I expected.
Pecking Giselle’s soft lips one last time, I pull away, turning away slightly to grab my clothes from the living room floor. At least this way I get to hide my face for a moment so I can pull myself together.
I dress quickly, handing Giselle her robe back, the scent of my aftershave tainting the collar.
“See you later, then,” I say, taking three steps towards the door to her apartment. After everything we’ve done together yesterday and early this morning… I’m feeling a little bit off balance. This isn’t me. I don’t date, I don’t get in relationships, I don’t fall for women like Giselle who are marriage material.
But I like her.
I really fucking like her.
Everything feels so new, but the risk of fucking it up…
The risk of fucking it up feels so overwhelming.
Even more than the terror of opening myself up for potential pain.
God.
I need a breather; I need to clear my head.
Grazing my fingertips along Giselle’s waistline, I watch as she unlocks the door to her apartment with a quick twist of her key.
I already have one foot out of her apartment, when I hear her, voice soft. “Happy twenty-sixth birthday, Hudson.”
I glance back once and then I’m gone, feeling like a dickhead, but unable to stop my feet from running away.
Chapter 14
Giselle
Iclose the door to my apartment behind Hudson, locking it tightly, and then, on shaky legs, I pad to my bedroom, flopping backwards onto the creased bedsheets with a stuttered exhale breaking from my lungs.
What the fuck just happened?
The last twenty-four hours… they’ve been shocking to say the least.
Certainly unexpected.
After our heated argument yesterday evening, I’d shut myself into my bedroom and then collapsed against the door.
Hudson Millen was outside, in my living room, only meters away.
It was hard to wrap my head around it all.
I knew he found me physically attractive, but it was his worry for my safety, his worry about where I’d disappeared too after I’d taken off at the pub, that made my heart pitter patter in my chest cavity and my stomach flip upside down.
Flattening the palms of my hands against the cool door of my bedroom in an attempt to ground myself into the present moment, I’d taken three deep breaths and then tried to go about my night-time routine as usual. Maybe that way, I hoped, mybrain would switch off easily and allow sleep to catch a hold of me.
Yeah.
As if, Miss Wishful Thinking.
I’d headed to my chest of drawers, pulling out a fresh pair of underwear and an oversized t-shirt – my usual to-bed attire.
But even as I shimmied my leggings off, feeling goosebumps erupt over my calves at the sudden cold air kissing my skin, I couldn’t stop imagining Hudson barging in here the way he’d barged in through the door to my apartment.
He’d looked more tightly strung than I’d ever seen him, with waves of ‘I’m taking no more shit’ attitude spilling off on him.
