"Have been for a while." His fingers traced lazy patterns across my lower back, and I felt goosebumps rise on my skin. "Didn't want to wake you. You needed the sleep."
"What time is it?"
"Almost eight."
I should get up, shower, start the day. There was so much to do. The bar needed to be opened. My staff needed to be checked on. The trial was still looming.
Hudson's hand kept moving on my back, those slow, hypnotic strokes, and I found myself sinking deeper into him instead of pulling away.
"Betty." His voice was strained now.
"Hmm?"
"You need to stop moving."
I froze, suddenly aware that my leg was draped over his thigh and that certain parts of my body were pressed very intimately against certain parts of his. Specifically, the hard ridge of his erection pressing against my hip.
Heat flooded through me. Not embarrassment. Something far more dangerous.
"Sorry," I whispered, but I didn't move away.
"Don't be." His hand stilled on my back. "I'm not."
The air between us shifted. Thickened. The comfortable warmth of the morning became something else entirely, something charged and electric and full of possibility.
I lifted my head from his chest and found him watching me. His eyes were dark, almost black in the early morning light, and the want in them was so raw, so naked, that it made my breath catch.
"We shouldn't," I said, even as my body screamed at me to shut up.
"Probably not."
"I'm still angry at you."
"I know."
"I haven't forgiven you."
"I know that too."
His hand came up to cup my face, his thumb tracing along my cheekbone. The same gesture he'd made in the kitchen two nights ago, right before he'd almost kissed me. Right before he'd stepped back and told me he'd wait.
"What changed?" I whispered.
"Nothing." His eyes searched mine. "Everything. I told you it would happen when you asked for it. When you couldn't stand being apart anymore."
"I didn't ask."
"You didn't pull away either."
He was right. I was still lying on top of him, my body pressed against his, my heart hammering so hard I was sure he could feel it.
"Hudson." His name came out broken. Pleading.
"Tell me what you want, Betty." His thumb traced over my lower lip, and I felt the touch all the way to my core. "Tell me, and I'll give it to you. Anything. Everything. Just say the words."
I wanted to be strong. I wanted to maintain the walls I'd built, the distance I'd insisted on. I wanted to remember all the reasons this was a terrible idea.
But I was so tired of fighting.
