Page 121 of All the Ugly Things
When she licked her bottom lip, cleaning me off her, sealing me in, it was almost my undoing.
I stepped back and reached for the doorknob.
“Have fun studying. Can I text you later?”
She smiled. She did it more frequently now, daily. And they weren’t the tight fake smiles she gave to the customers at the diner, but the true ones that lit up her face and made my dick harden.
“You better.”
30
Lilly
It was late when I finally closed my laptop. My eyes burned from hours of staring at a screen. Admittedly, my schoolwork took me longer since I couldn’t stop thinking about Hudson.
Collapsing back to my couch, my fingers drifted to my lips. If I closed my eyes, I could see the way he leaned his head just so when he went to kiss me. The furrowed brow of his when he pulled back when he didn’t want to.
I could tell he was holding back. If it was for my benefit, he certainly didn’t have to, but as much as I tried to give him clues I was ready for more, he wouldn’t budge. There were moments I was with him, when his focus grew so distracted, I was worried I overstayed my welcome. Then there were moments when his focus was so intensely set on me, it felt like I could settle against him and stay there forever.
Somehow, in weeks, I’d grown to trust him. I wanted him in ways I couldn’t deny and in ways I would have assumed foolish months ago.
A man like him. A woman like me. If others knew our histories,myhistory, they would say we didn’t fit. That he deserved better. But Hudson had never once made me feel like that. He never once treated me as if I was less than him. And neither had the rest of his family, Brandon and Jenna included. They welcomed me into their chaotic home with open arms and wide smiles.
I never wanted to leave. And yet, there were still those moments, like at the office earlier when we were teasing one another, flirting, and then Hudson stepped back, and shook it off.
I wasn’t an idiot. I knew something was wrong. Something was bothering him.
Blowing out a breath, I shoved off the couch to head toward the kitchen for water. Maybe a snack before bed. As I did, my phone lit up with an unread text. I never studied with my phone nearby, too tempted to call Angie for a distraction or Hudson for an even better distraction.
The text was from Hudson, came in only ten minutes ago, right as I’d been finishing up.
Done studying?
I checked the clock on my microwave. 11:42pm. Why was he texting me this late?
Just finished. You okay?
Hudson tended to go to bed earlier than me. Of course, he also woke up at some godforsaken hour to work out, too.
Can’t sleep. Want to come keep me company?
If I was the kind of girl who squealed, I’d be doing it loud enough for him to hear me from floors above. As it was, my grip on my phone tightened and I read the message. Reread it. Surely he meant… didn’t he?
Are you asking me to come spend the night?
I squeezed my eyes closed. If I misinterpreted that text, mortification would melt me into a puddle of goo on my kitchen floor. Here lies Lilly—dead of embarrassment.
It took hours. Centuries. As I waited, I fine-tuned my epitaph. Possibly it was only seconds later when instead of a text, my phone rang, startling me so much I dropped it, caught it right before it hit the counter.
“Hello?”
“Is that okay?” Hudson asked. There was a rumble in his voice, like he was already in bed, and had been there for a while. I imagined him shoving back his dark hair and pressing his head into his pillow. A spark of desire flickered at the thought. Of Hudson. In his bed. Thinking of me. “To stay with me?”
“Yeah. Yeah, of course it’s okay.” My socked foot drew circles on my tiled floor. “Like… now?”
Through the phone, his laugh was even sexier. Deeper and rougher. “I’ve been trying to go slow, take our time.” He paused and cleared his throat. “But I miss holding you.”
“I do too,” I admitted. It’d only been one night. But it’d been the best night of sleep I could have had after all I shared with him, and that was due to him. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll be up.”
