Bruiser (Seattle Sharks 7)

She came apart with another cry, warmth flooding my hand as she orgasmed again.

I slipped my fingers free, then grabbed a condom from my nightstand, losing precious seconds to rip open the box I’d purchased that morning on a whim.

She leaned up on her elbows, licking her kiss-swollen lips as she watched me roll the condom down my length.

“You’re gorgeous. You know that, right?” she asked.

I slid back over her, my cock resting at the juncture of her thighs like it belonged there.

“Not compared to you,” I assured her. “You’re perfect.”

She smiled, raising her knees to cradle my hips. Then she kissed me, and I lost my damn mind. Her tongue darted between my teeth, taking possession of what was undeniably hers.

I’d never be able to kiss another woman without tasting Shea.

Never fuck one without feeling Shea’s curves beneath me.

She was branding me, making me hers even if she wasn’t entirely mine.

I used my thumb to work her clit, bringing her to another fever pitch, and just before she was ready to tumble over, I looked her in the eye. “Tell me you want this, because I’m on the verge here, Shea.”

“I want this,” she assured me, wiggling down so my cock met her entrance. “Take me, Hudson.”

My forehead rested against hers as I worked in the first inch, tasting her gasp with my lips, feeling beads of sweat slide down my back from the exertion of going slow.

“More,” she urged. “God, more.”

“Fuck. Hold on. Don’t wiggle like that, Shea. I’m trying to make this good for you.”

She gripped the sides of my face and looked in my eyes. “It’s already good. God, it’s amazing. You’re amazing. I won’t break, Hudson.”

I gripped her hip with one hand and wove my fingers through her hair with the other. Then I kissed her, thrusting my tongue into her mouth as my cock plunged into her heat, sliding through her taut muscles and velvet flesh until I was balls-deep and in serious danger of coming without another movement.

“Holy. Shit. Shea.” I bit out each word, grasping the thin string of my control as I looked down at her, searching for any discomfort.

“Hudson!” she groaned, swirling her hips in a way that made me bite down on the inside of my cheek to keep from coming. “God, yes. You feel so good inside me.”

Whatever control I had left snapped.

I pulled out slightly, then thrust back in, living for her moans, her cries as I did it again and again, rocking within her, using my cock to stroke every ounce of pleasure from her body. I gave up trying to kiss her, and let my face rest at her neck as I picked up the pace, swinging my hips to the rhythm of her pounding heart. Or maybe it was mine. Or maybe they were one and the same.

“Harder,” she urged, her back arching. I slipped an arm through the space.

“Hold on,” I ordered her, and she looped her arms around my neck, and her ankles around my hips, taking me even deeper. “Fuck,” I groaned.

Then I let loose, thrusting, working us both to the edge, watching her neck arch, her eyes glaze, her lips part again and again as she began to whimper, her muscles locking.

“Yes, Shea. That’s it. Give in.”

“God, Hudson. You have. To. Come with. Me.” She was living, breathing, writhing sensuality, lost to the feeling, the sensation underneath me.

“I’m with you, baby,” I promised, biting the edge back from my impending orgasm. It barreled down my spine, demanding release.

She clenched around me, her pussy locking down on my cock with a velvet grip that ripped my orgasm from my body as hers consumed us both, locked us both in a world where nothing existed besides the pleasure we’d found in this bed.

I growled out her name as I came, like I could claim her, mark her, brand her as she’d done to me.

She answered with her own cry.

I swear, I blacked the fuck out.

When I came to, I quickly rolled to my side so she could breathe, taking her with me, unwilling to withdraw, to lose the connection.

“I think I’m dead,” she groaned.

“I think I’m finally alive,” I said in a burst of honesty.

She peered over at me, her eyes soft, something I was scared to call affection caressing me with her gaze.

We lay there for countless minutes, staring, letting our hands stroke each other, learning the little lines and curves.

When I slipped free of her body, I excused myself to dispose of the condom, then got right back in that bed, tucking her under the covers with me.

I kissed a line across her collarbone, stopping at a scar that ran the length of my pinky finger.

“Glass coffee table,” she answered.

My eyes flew to hers, but she just gave me a warm, sleepy smile, and touched my eyebrow. Quid pro quo.

“Beer bottle. Courtesy of my father. I was eleven.”

My finger grazed her scar again, hoping she’d give me the same honesty. “Elliott’s father. I was sixteen.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

She nodded slowly.

Then I thanked her again, this time using my body until she cried out twice more.

Chapter 10

Shea

I half-shifted half-stretched, my eyelids firmly closed as I crawled my way up from one of the deepest sleeps I’d had in years. The motion slid my leg over a very large and very naked Hudson.

My eyes peeled open, warmth pooling deliciously in my core as I took in his sleeping body. His broad chest, the smooth, inked skin stretched tight over muscles that were strong even in sleep.

A pleasant soreness throbbed between my thighs, and for a few moments I simply reveled in the way sparks crackled under my fingertips as I grazed them over his chest.

Then my brain caught up with my body.

I shot straight up, my eyes snapping fully open.

“Oh my God!” I gasped.

Hudson, brow furrowed and eyes barely open, pushed up to his elbows. “What, woman?” he breathed, my jolt scaring him awake. Then he bolted upright, his hand gentle on the line of my jaw, concern coloring over the surprise in his eyes. “Is it your head? Are you all right?”

“No!” I said, though something warmed inside me at his immediate worry. In truth, my cheek did hurt and my eye felt like it might pop out of its socket if I moved too fast. I glanced at his naked torso, the crisp silk sheet covering his lower half, and then took in my own body.

Naked.

Bare.

I’d laid everything before this man in a way I’d never done before.

And him?

He’d taken me to places I didn’t even know existed.

“Shea,” Hudson grumbled, that gravelly voice shooting chills down the middle of me.

I tucked the sheet higher over my breasts, not from shame but from the raised chills across my skin. “I…” I clenched my eyes shut. “Oh my God, your alarm didn’t go off. It’s six-fifty! And I promised myself I wouldn’t do this.”

Hudson fell on his back, the pillow puffing in protest. “Do what?” he asked, a slight tease in his voice as he tucked one bulging arm behind his head. “Wake me up like the house is on fire?”

I bit back a laugh, my head jerking toward his nightstand. Six-fifty-one. I had minutes, minutes before Elliott woke up and then she’d find me here and—

Panic, cold and searing, soared through my blood, propelling me out of Hudson’s king size bed. The sheet still covering me slid off him, and I stood on my bare feet, gaping at him for a few seconds.

Good gracious, what did the man do to his body to make it look the way it did? Like he’d been carved of muscle and smooth skin and whorls of ink to create this perfect balance of enthralling and intimidating.

He cocked a brow at me, never once flinching away from the way his body was on display.

A slickness made my thighs warm, but the panic did its best to stop it in its tracks.

“Gah,” I groaned, racing around his room in search of my clothes. “I swore I would never bring men into Elliott’s life like this,” I said, huffing as I found my blouse but not my pants.

Where the hell were my pants?

I dropped to my knees, the thunk audible as I scanned under his bed.

“Not before marriage,” I continued to rant, popping back up to standing, hands empty. Abandoning all hope of tracking down my entire outfit, I grabbed the T-shirt Hudson had worn last night—the same one he’d slid over his head before he’d kissed every inch of me—

Focus.

I yanked it over my head, the shirt swallowing my body. The hem stopped just short of my knees, and it smelled like him. I breathed deep, my body and mind and heart at war.