“I take back every nasty thing I said about that. I love that you’re a furnace.”
“You’re only sayin’ that because your feet are like fucking ice cubes. Jesus, woman.”
She spread out her toes, trying to reach every inch of warm skin he had to offer. “I’m not even sorry.”
He exhaled a laugh into her neck, and she couldn’t fight the shiver that spread through her body. Now that she wasn’t out of her mind with looming hypothermia, she was able to take in the myriad of sensations being this close to him afforded—the coarseness of his leg hair at the back of her knees, the soft rasp of his short beard as he rested his jaw against her neck, the bulk of his muscled forearm wrapped tightly just below her breasts.
And then, of course, there was the long, thick, very hard length of him nestled against her ass.
It took every ounce of willpower she had not to arch her back and press her bottom against his cock. Not to reach back and just…feel him. Wrap her hand around him and stroke. Reacquaint herself with the shape and size of him, feel the weight of it in her palm.
“What would you do?”
“What?” she squeaked—actually squeaked—jolting at his question. Oh my God, had she voiced her fantasies aloud? Did he want her to tell him what she’d do with hisdick?
He nuzzled into her, pressing a soft kiss where her shoulder met her neck. “Out by the fire, you said they don’t take you seriously… What would you do in Havenbrook if that didn’t matter? If you could do anything?”
A nearly hysterical laugh escaped her. “Oh, I thought you—” She shook her head, cutting herself off. “Never mind.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then when he spoke, his voice was low and rough, barely a whisper between them. “You thought I was askin’ what you’d do if we didn’t have these layers of clothes between us?”
She managed to get out some sort of garbled mix of vowel sounds.
He chuckled. “Good as it feels to have your tight little ass tucked all nice and snug against my cock, and as much as I’d love to do nothing more than strip off the rest of your clothes and reacquaint myself with the delicious taste of your pussy, I think discussin’ this is probably a safer bet.” He shifted behind her, the movement doing nothing to hide the steel pipe pressed against her backside. “Besides that, I want you to want it, Kenna. Really want it. Because you know I do.”
Oh, she wanted it, all right. Wanted it so desperately her body was aching for him, wet and ready. Her nipples were hard points against the cotton of her shirt, and it had nothing to do with the chill in the air and everything to do with the mind-numbing circles he was tracing against her lower belly, directly above her panties.
Three inches… He only had to lower his hand three inches, and he could make her see stars.
“What—what was the question?” she finally managed.
His cheek puffed up against her as he smiled. “If you had free rein to do whatever you wanted to in Havenbrook, what would you do?”
She sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly, ignoring the way the move pushed her up against him. “I’m not even sure.”
“Yeah, you are. I know you’ve got a dozen ideas floating in your head. I wanna hear what they are.”
She stilled for a moment, her breath held in her lungs, before she exhaled and poured out all the thoughts she had of what she’d do for her hometown—reinvesting real money in the Square to make it not only a destination but astaying pointto keep people her age and younger in Havenbrook. Maybe offer some sort of bonus to entice entrepreneurs to bring their businesses there. And, of course, finally fund and educate a true SAR team.
He hadn’t talked through any of her ramblings, just letting her spill her ideas into the quiet night air between them.
When she was done, he squeezed her tighter. “You should do it, then. All of it.”
“Hud…” she said, her voice incredulous. “I can’t just…like,dowhatever the hell I want.”
“Why not? Your daddy’s been doin’ it for years, and nobody’s had a damn thing to say about it. Why can’t you do the same thing?”
The question hung in the air between them, playing on a loop in her mind and lulling her to sleep as Hudson’s warmth seeped into her skin and his encouragement seeped into her bones. Making her feel like maybe, just maybe, she could be the woman he’d somehow always seen her as.
Hudson woke to Kenna’s ass nestled right up against his groin and her breast filling his palm. Without thought, he squeezed the soft flesh, his thumb stroking over her pebbled nipple.
It was still dark out, though no longer pitch black. Predawn hours and definitely too early to get up, but something had woken him from a dream. A dream in which Kenna had been rocking into him, begging him to fuck her from behind.
It’d seemed so real, and now he knew why—because he’d been acting it out in real life. Had even managed to slip his hand under the shirt she still wore so they were skin on skin.
Goddamn.
As much as he wanted nothing more than to memorize the exact size and shape of her breasts by feel alone, he wasn’t a fucking creep, and he certainly wasn’t going to do this without her consent.
