Must have been a real show, considering ten seconds later I chomped into my bagel, spilling garlic flakes down my body.
“You’ve got a good memory,” I said as I chewed.
Slowly, he crossed the room and rifled around for his overnight bag, which he’d oh-so-smoothly brought in last night during our nightcap. “I’ve got a terrible memory, actually. Deadlines, phone calls I need to make, my library card number. No way I remember any of that. But I learned that about myself years ago, so now I write everything down in my Notes app. My calendar is literally documented to the minute. And when I meet someone, when I like them, I write things down to help me remember.”
“Likes everything bagels with garden veggie schmear.”
Or like fucking me dirty against a mini golf rocket ship because of one offhand remark made during your little kink experiment.
“Don’t forget your dessert breakfast. Blueberry bagel with butter.”
He gestured to a brown paper bag on my bedside table, which I hadn’t seen before. My pulse fluttered.
“But there are other things, too. If someone tells me their birthday or this movie that I ‘have to see’ or what baseball team is their favorite, I just jot it down. That way, I keep on top of our friendship.” He scrolled down his Notes app, the lighted screen illuminating his handsome face. “Like, Terrence is a level 82 mage inWorld of Warcraft. Addie’s mother makes the best chili momo in the world, apparently. Clara’s home FC is Tottenham. I just…This is a really messed-up world. It’s so easy to feel lonely and miserable, like you’re totally forgotten by everyone else. I don’t want anyone to ever experience that if I can help it. I always want people to feel comfortable. Considered. Cared about.”
He trailed off. The weight of his words hung in the air, heavy as storm clouds. I’d never thought of Hudson as a frivolous person by any stretch of the imagination, but this added a new depth to him I hadn’t expected.
Ilikedthat depth. He wasn’t just a happy-go-lucky golden retriever of a guy. He was intentional with his kindness. He recognized that he wasn’t perfect, wanted to be better, and found a way to be good to people anyway.
It made me like him even more, which was quickly becoming a recurring theme—and a huge problem.He’s leaving at the end of his contract and you don’t have the time, capacity, or experience necessary for a relationship.
It worried me, too.
He refused to pick dinner on our first date. Refused to even give input. He refused to say whether he’d be into pegging. He never took the lead on anything. He always wanted to do what Iwanted to do. He’d dropped a not-insignificant amount of money to rent out a mini golf course so we could fuck on itandbought the slightly wonky club we’d used as a sex toy.
All just to make me happy.
Did anyone do the same for him?
And, given what he’d told me about not wanting people to get too close, would he even accept it if they did?
“You said you’re afraid that people won’t like you if they get to know you, Hudson. But the exact opposite has happened.”
He could no longer meet my gaze. I pierced the intimate moment in the only way I knew how: terrible humor.
“So, you want people to feel comfortable. Considered. Cared about. The three C’s. Or four. You forgotcocked.”
A hungry but playful look overtook him. On instinct, I tossed my bagel aside. Prowling up the bed, he moved along my body until I had no choice but to sprawl out beneath him. He brushed my nose with his own. “There’s only one person I want to feel cocked right now, and that’s you.”
“Well,” I said, nudging his head down toward my now aching cunt, “why don’t you start by being considerate and caring about me first?”
“My pleasure.”
No, the pleasure would be all mine. Spreading my legs, he gently kissed my left thigh. Then my right. He took his time. Dragging his nose along my folds. Breathing me in deeply.
I fisted the sheets. I didn’t want teasing. I wanted his mouth around my clit and a dildo deep inside me. I wanted to cum. I wanted him to make me cum—
That was when someone knocked on the door.
No, not knocked.Pounded.
We both stilled. “Landlord?” Hudson breathed against my folds.
“Definitely not. I own my unit.”
I moved against him, wanting more friction, wanting his tongue to part my lips and give my clit the attention it deserved.
Instead, I got more knocking.
