Did he recognize the bear? Maybe he didn’t. Tumbles was worn and?—
His eyes met mine across the kitchen.
Fuck.
This was Matty. Of course, he remembered the custom bear he’d given me that summer.
My face flushed. I looked away.
Shit.
14
MATTY
He’d kept it.
Hudson had kept the bear.
I’d had it customized and had given it to him the night before I left to start the new semester at college. Hudson had laughed, taken it to be ridiculous at first, until I set the bear next to us on the bed and reached for him.
“It’s yours to cuddle with when I’m not around.”
I shoved his legs apart and rubbed my cock over his hole. A moan spilled from his throat. I would never get tired of that sound.
And he’d thought he was an exclusive top before we met. Not anymore. He was so greedy for it that he spread his legs the moment I reached for him.
Hudson clutched my hips, pulling me closer. “Matt, fuck. Why do I always want you inside me?”
I slid a hand around his neck, anchoring him to the bed. With a single movement of my hips, I drove into him, and his lips parted in a silent gasp. Pleasure wrecked him. He was beautiful, with his flushed face, heavy eyes, and trembling fingers digginginto the sheets. He grabbed me by the wrist, not to pull me away, but to press me harder into his throat.
He nodded, his eyes glazed like he was high, but all we’d done earlier was share a cigarette between us. “Fuck me. Yeah, just like that. Just like that, Matt.”
God, his whimpers were sexy as hell. Not for the first time, my chest swelled with the need to possess him.
“You only sleep next to this bear while I’m gone,” I rasped, pulling out slowly, teasing him with the tip, then sinking back inside him. “No one else, Hudson. No one else gets to see you like this. No one else gets to be inside you like this. No one else gets to know what a slut you are in bed.”
And he’d kept the bear.
Not stuffed it into a drawer. Not boxed it up with the rest of our past. He’d kept it out in the open. Given it to his daughter.
If it—I—hadn’t meant anything to him, he would’ve tossed it years ago. Burned it. Buried it. But instead, it sat beside her dinner plate like it belonged there.
Ivy’s halting words broke through my thoughts, and I smiled at her absentmindedly. I’d had no idea what my intentions were when I followed them inside the supermarket, but as I watched them leave, I knew I was already in too deep. Had been since I caught his daughter’s blown kiss in the bakery and kept it.
Still, I hadn’t acted right away. Even though I’d wanted to go after them and convince Hudson to let me buy her ice cream, I’d needed some time to think. To make sure whatever decision I made came from what I wanted and not a gut reaction after seeing his struggle to buy groceries.
So I’d gone home. Saddled up Junebug. Rode hard across the back end of the ranch until my lungs burned and my thoughts slowed. The wind in my face. The steadyrhythm of hooves beneath me. Junebug had always been good at grounding me.
By the time the sun sank and the ranch was bathed in that gold I always loved, I knew.
I couldn’t ignore Hudson. Or his child.
Did I forgive him? Hell no. My heart still dragged every time I looked at him. Still bruised from the betrayal.
But Ivy, the way she’d clung to me… she’d softened the edge of it. Lightened something that had stayed dark and heavy for far too long.
So I’d taken a shower. Thrown some clothes on. Bought the little girl her ice cream, sprinkles and all.
