And ever since Dad’s accident, seeing the way Ozzie cared for him, I’d been thinking people could fade from ourlives too fast. I’d been thinking how love might not come in neat boxes. I’d been thinking…and thinking. Then Dad called me, ripping me a new one for leaving the ranch hands alone. That because I’d abandoned my post, Hudson got into a fight defending me. The man he walked away from.
Maybe love was more complicated than I’d ever let myself believe. Maybe it wasn’t so black and white. That would explain why, even after four years, I still felt caught in the in-between, unable to fully let go of Hudson Granger. Unable to walk away.
If I’d wanted him gone, all I had to do was ask. One word to Dad, and Hudson would’ve been off this ranch. But I never said it. Not once.
That would explain why I had endured four years of torment, seeing his face every holiday I came home from university, and almost every damn day since I graduated. I hated him, but a day without seeing him left an ache in my heart.
“Get on your knees,” I said, voice flat.
His brows jerked up. “What?”
“You heard me.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Are you fucking with me again?” His voice cracked, raw like sandpaper. “Because humiliating me once was enough.”
The day he’d offered himself to me and I’d turned him down. Treated him like trash.
I leaned in, close enough to smell the lake water on his skin. “You don’t get to negotiate, Granger. Not after everything. Now kneel for me the way you used to. If you could pretend that you loved it back then, you can pretend to love it now.”
He stared up at me. Silent. Processing.
I held my breath. Would he do it? A part of me wanted him to shove me away and turn his back on me. On us. Then I could finally let him go. Let go of this crazy obsession with a man who was not mine. Not anymore. Too bad my heart never caught up that it was supposed to give him back.
The breeze whispered past us, the leaves overhead shivering in the hush between us. The water lapped against the lake’s edge. My blood rushed in my ears.
Hudson lowered himself to his knees.
God.
My heart slammed once—loud and hard. That was all it took. That surrender. That desire, still there beneath the resentment.
He lifted his fingers, slow and unsure, to the button of my jeans. “Do you want me to do this for real?” he whispered.
I doubled my hands into fists to refrain from reaching for him. “You know what to do,” I said, voice controlled, confident, cocky. “You always do.”
Inside, I was shaking.
I hadn’t touched Hudson like this in four years, but I didn’t know what was scarier. That things between us would feel the same or that it might have changed.
Hudson exhaled like the breath cost him something and popped the button open. Slid the zipper down.
I bit the inside of my cheek, pulse hammering like I was nineteen again and seeing him for the first time.
He looked up at me, eyes blown wide, his bottom lip tucked between his teeth like he needed something to anchor himself. Like he needed me.
God, I wanted to kiss him. Wanted to bury my face in his neck and inhale every breath he had left. But kissing him was the one thing I couldn’t let myself do.
Because it felt too much like love.
My cock sprang free, already aching. He moaned. A second before his lips wrapped around my cock. The whole world dropped out from under my feet.
“Jesus—” The word punched out of me, raw and helpless.
My hand flew to the back of his head, threading into his damp hair. I didn’t push, didn’t need to. He took me to the back of his throat like he’d been waiting for this. Like he remembered every damn thing I liked about his mouth.
I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t think. The slide of his tongue, the heat of his mouth, the guttural hum he made. Every bit of it pulled me closer to the edge.
My hips bucked.
