The Charmer (Harbor City 2)

3. She needed to learn how to seduce Tyler, and Hudson was obviously willing to teach her.

4. Orgasms relieved stress, and she was feeling very tense right about now.

Nothing about her body’s reaction to Hudson changed her plans or her goal. It just meant that her lessons with Harbor City’s Professor Higgins had the potential to be a little more orgasmic than expected. Nothing to worry about there at all.

…

Well, it could have been more orgasmic if Felicia had actually gotten to see Hudson. Annoyed that four days and almost four nights had gone by without a peep from her professor, she tossed aside the journal she’d been reading in bed and grabbed her phone.

Felicia: Where are you?

A reply came almost instantly.

Hudson: Miss me?

Felicia: You’re supposed to be helping me.

Hudson: I am. I’m teaching you patience and anticipation.

Felicia: If you could see my face right now you’d know what I think of that.

Hudson: Show me.

Selfies weren’t her thing. Especially not selfies when she was in a raggedy old sleep T-shirt with her hair in a messy bun.

Hudson: Chicken?

“Fine,” she grumbled to Honeypot, who was curled up on the corner of the bed completely ignoring her, held up her phone and snapped a quick picture of her glaring at the phone, sending it before she could change her mind.

There was nothing for almost a full minute, then her phone vibrated.

Hudson: I’ve missed you, too, Matches.

She stared at the text, unable to unravel the meaning. She must have missed something. Scrolling up in the text stream so she could reread, her thumb hit the photo she’d sent, enlarging it. Her stomach dropped. Oh shit. Half her face took up the top quarter of the photo, but that wasn’t what had her cheeks burning. The white cotton of her T-shirt was thinner than she’d realized. There was no missing the dark shadows of her nipples against the threadbare material, and the stretched-out V-neck dipped at just the right angle to show off the upper swells of her breasts.

Felicia: I didn’t mean to send that.

Hudson: I don’t know, a lesson in sexting is good.

Felicia: I don’t know how to do that.

Hudson: Matches, you most certainly do. I’m so hard I could pound nails with my dick.

Her breath caught, and her nipples puckered against her shirt, and it wasn’t because of a chill. It was October outside but the dog days of August in her room. In a flash, her skin was flush, sensitive, hot, and needy. It was too much. Falling into the moment, in the name of this experiment with Hudson, was one thing. Doing it while he was God knew where with God knew who—a lead weight pulled her stomach down to her toes at that thought—and doing God knew what was not gonna happen. She shot off one last text to end the conversation.

Felecia: I have to go now.

Hudson: Chicken. ;)

Nope. That wasn’t going to work a second time. She all but flung her phone across her bed. It landed with a thud by Honeypot, who jolted up with a hiss and flew off the bed. If only she could get away from the way Hudson made her feel as easily as her cat stalked across the room.

…

A week spent painting at the cabin usually went by in a rush, but not this time. A certain pocket-sized ant researcher kept turning up in Hudson’s paintings, which wasn’t going to do him any good if he was going to make the deadline for his next gallery show. He sat down on the porch, a crunchy peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich held in his paint-stained fingers, and checked his texts. Nothing from Felicia—not since that wet dream of a photo two nights ago. Anyone else and he would have assumed the shot had been staged and one of fifty taken before a final picture was filtered and sent. Not with Felicia, though.

Unable to take the radio silence anymore, he put down the sandwich and started a text.

Hudson: Still in that T-shirt?