I found it more attractive than I cared to admit out loud.
If he barged into my bedroom at this very second, what would I do?
I know what my body wanted me to do; nipples standing to attention and brushing against the thin cotton material of my shirt with every breath I took, stomach flipping upside down, the empty space between my legs tingling and pulsing.
But my heart?
What did my heart want to happen?
Crawling beneath the sheets, I’d raised my left hand in front of my face and stared blindly at the ring on my middle finger. The binding contract from myself to myself. It was difficult to see in the dark, but I could just make out the sheen coming from the precious gold metal.
For the first time since I’d slipped the ring onto my finger all of those years ago, I wondered what it would feel like to go without it. What would it feel like to have fresh air tiptoe across the space of my flesh? Would it tingle? Would it burn? Would it turn cold and numb after just minutes in the freezing cold February air outside like the rest of my gloveless fingers?
Would my hand feel lighter?
WouldIfeel lighter?
Where would I keep the ring if it was no longer wrapped around my finger?
I let my hand flop against my mattress, tightening my fingertips to make a fist and centring myself into the cool, smooth texture of my ring pressed up against the flesh of my palm.
My eyes fall shut but my brain won’t turn off – no matter how many fluffy, white sheep I counted.
I was hyperaware of Hudson sleeping just outside of my bedroom door.
Surely, he couldn’t be comfortable out there. My sofa wasn’t the smallest thing ever, but at Hudson’s height…
Before I really knew what I was doing, I was pushing the bedcovers back and stepping out into the hallway.
Hudson had switched off my living room lamp before he’d fallen asleep, so my apartment was steeped in darkness, but I kept it fairly tidy so there was no risk of me falling over something on the floor and with my hand on the wall to keep me steady, I knew how many steps it would take me to reach the sofa.
It took me all of a few seconds to shake Hudson’s shoulder and wake him up, clutching his hand and forcing him to stand before I’m sure he was even properly awake.
He’d followed me into my bed as if he belonged there, as if this was nightly reoccurrence; mashing his face into the spare pillow beside mine, claiming it for his own and then draping his arm over my waist to pull my back into his chest.
I held my breath somewhere at the base of my throat, listening to the deep, rhythmic sounds of Hudson falling back to sleep, my entire focus on the way his large hand was spread out over my ribcage as if to keep me there.
Maybe it was the extra warmth Hudson’s large body provided me with, or maybe just the simple presence of him, but sleep claimed me much easier than it had when I’d been lying in bed, alone, with nothing but the seemingly heavy weight on my middle finger to keep me company.
It felt like only minutes ago I’d fallen asleep, but when I came to this morning, it was to Hudson stirring beside me, my leg hiked up high and resting on his pelvis, his hand still banded around any part of my body he could reach.
I wonder if our bodies had separated at all during the night…
Hudson shifted, pressing his hips upward into my inner thigh, searching, while I bit back a moan at the pressure building in my core. He’d hardly touched me, but I could feel him, rock hard and warm through the thin material of his black underwear and the thought of me moving over just an inch, reaching down to pull aside the gusset of my knickers and notch him at my entrance…
God, I bet the stretch would be otherworldly.
But I’d keep going, breathing through the painful pinch, taking him deeper and deeper, feeling him bump against my front wall, hitting that spongy spot I could never reach by myself…
With a rush of horny filled endorphins coursing through my veins, I indulged, like a decadent dessert, Hudson’s flirting, my half-awake mind turning to nothing but mush.
My body begged me to give in to the ache between my thighs in a bid to take justthe edgeoff. While my mind begged me to give in to the filthy scenarios it had been creating since the moment I’d laid my eyes on Hudson.
Neither my body nor my mind, however, was to blame for my lips slotting against his.
I kissed him because I wanted to.
It was as simple as that.
