After a minute, I realized he was whispering into my ear so low I almost missed it in the noise of the water.
“I know you’re not ready. Maybe you’re scared, and I get it. But please don’t give up on me. Please give us more time before you decide I’m not the right one for you. I’m going to fix this. I’m going to find a way for us to be together.”
I felt the sting in my eyes and the lump in my throat grow stronger. I turned around in his arms and buried my nose in his neck before the tears came against my will. Thank god for the shower water and the noise.
His arms held me tight, and I wound up lifting my legs to wrap around him.
“Baby, it’s okay,” he said in a hoarse voice. “You don’t have to say anything. I just want you to know… I can’t… Charlie, honey, I can’t not tell you that I love you. I love you so much I feel like my heart is going to break.”
“I love you too,” I breathed into his skin, letting go of my stupid urge to protect myself. What the hell did it matter? It wasn’t like keeping the truth from him was going to keep me from getting hurt when it ended.
I could tell by the way his arms pulled tighter that he’d heard me. “But Hudson…”
“No. No buts. No buts tonight. Just you and me and this right here. Please.”
We shared tender, wet kisses with our naked bodies pressed so tightly together not even the shower water could get between us. I finally pulled away and sniffled.
His beautiful blue-green eyes held everything I’d ever wanted from a lover, and seeing them locked on me right then pushed me over into stupid love territory. I had to scramble back to lighten the mood.
“Can there be some butts? The good kind of butts?” I asked with a smile. “I don’t mind which. Your butt or my butt. Any butt will do.”
Hudson set me down and swatted my arse. “First butt in the bed gets to choose.”
For once, being smaller and faster had its benefits.
43
Hudson
Hudson’s Revelation:
Making love is a completely different thing than having sex.
Even though our words were playful, the touches we shared when we came together in bed were tender and loving. The words were still there between us, wrapping us in that warm, fragile feeling of new love.
I may have been unsure about how our future would look, but I wasn’t confused one bit about the man himself. He was mine and I was his.
I rubbed my hands up and down his back and down to his little rounded ass. I’d never known what an ass man I was until seeing and feeling Charlie’s. Maybe it was because I’d never felt the freedom to maul my lover’s cheeks with firm squeezes and periodic smacks, but I thought it was more probably the knowledge he would welcome me into that tight heat anytime I wanted it.
Tonight I wanted it. I needed to as close to him as possible.
“Please,” I hissed as he continued to writhe above me, rubbing our naked erections together and driving me insane. “Want to be inside you. Need you.”
His green eyes were half-lidded, lips cherry red and slick from our kisses. His fiery hair trailed down onto my chest and cheeks. Charlie was the very picture of sex, and the image burned into my memory like a brand.
He reached for the supplies, and I had a thought of what it might be like one day when we were able to move past using condoms. To feel his bare skin inside me. To feel his naked channel around my own cock with no barrier between us. I wanted that with him.
His lips grazed the spot behind my ear that made my balls heavy and my stomach tight. He moved wet lips down my neck to my collarbone where he sucked up what would surely be a bruise tomorrow. I ran fingers through his hair to hold it back from his face. I wanted to see.
I love you.
He was so beautiful. I still saw the creamy skin with youthful freckles, the thick hair with a slight wave to it. But now I also saw the man inside. The beautiful, flawed human whose heart was made of the thinnest of spun glass. I wanted to hold it steady, keep it safe, make sure no one ever had a chance to crush it.
Please don’t leave.
I wondered if I had the guts to follow him. What was I saying? Of course I’d follow him. It wasn’t an issue of guts; it was unthinkable to let him go so far away from me forever. So much for bravery; it would be cowardice that led me there… fear of being apart from him for the rest of my life.