And really, I didn’t care either. Not in the least.

I undid his belt and unzipped his pants. He lowered his clothing enough to release his cock. Immediately I circled my hands around it. He was so hard that his veins protruded from the soft skin of his shaft.

He didn’t let me fondle him as long as I would have liked. Instead, he lifted me, my back still against the wall, and pushed into me, hard.

“Goddamn, your pu**y is so good.” He drove into me with rapid, staccato thrusts. “Do you hear me? Your pu**y makes me this hard. No one else’s.”

I admired his ability to talk, to be able to speak to me with such coherence while I was a puddle beneath him. And his words—his amazing words—they melted me even more. I soaked them up as I clutched onto him, as he undid me again and again.

His voice strained as he neared his cl**ax, but still he spoke. “When we go back down to dinner, I will smell like you and you will smell like me. And you’ll remember that we are together. I am with you.”

We came together, me biting into his shoulder to suppress the scream that threatened to escape my lips, him grunting, “No one but you.”

No one but you.

I wrapped the sentiment around me like a child’s favorite blanket. If I could stay like that, stay embraced in the knowledge that I was there for him, then I could dismiss all the doubts that crept into my heart. I could forget about Stacy and her wild claims of proof. I could believe that Celia was merely a friend.

If I could believe that one statement, Hudson and I would be just fine.

Chapter Twelve

Amazingly, the calm Hudson gave me on the rooftop continued as we made our way back to the restaurant. Even Sophia’s peeved glare didn’t fluster me as the waiter pulled out my chair for me.

Sophia took a sip of the brown liquid in her hand. “It’s about time you returned.”

I remembered what Hudson had said as we’d left—that I’d forgotten something in the car—and I started to apologize, using that as the basis of my excuse.

But Hudson beat me to answering. “We got distracted.” He squeezed my hand before relinquishing his hold on me, letting me sit in my chair. As soon as I sat, he took my hand again under the table. I couldn’t think of another time that I’d been so publicly claimed. And after his private appropriation of my body minutes before, relaxing into a comfortable doubt-free place with Hudson seemed like a real possibility.

Not just a possibility but a reality.

“Laynie!” Mira seemed about to burst out of her chair. “I’m so glad you made it!”

The last time I’d seen her, she’d been worried I was done with her brother. My presence was a declaration otherwise.

“Me, too.” I smiled back at her and passed the same grin on to the others at the table, including Chandler’s head that was bent over his iPhone and the Werners. But I didn’t look Celia in the eye as I did. I could feel her trying to catch my gaze, but I wasn’t interested. She hadn’t told me about the dinner either and that made me suspicious. Perhaps wrongly so, but suspicious all the same.

“Me, three,” Jack said, winking at me.

Maybe it was my imagination, but Hudson seemed to snarl at his father’s statement. His protectiveness of me was silly at times, yet it also warmed me.

Sophia finished off her glass and set it on the table with an attention getting thunk. “Well, we already ordered.”

“That’s fine. We’ll catch up.” Hudson signaled the waiter, who hastened over. He ordered for us both, in beautiful French that made me slick between my thighs. Or, rather, slicker.

“And while you’re here, I’ll have another of these.” Sophia held up her empty glass to the waiter, and I saw Mira and Hudson exchange a glance. I could relate all too well to what they were feeling—the dread of having an alcoholic parent, the questions and worries that occupied every moment. Would she drink too much tonight? Would she make a fool of herself? Of us?

Except in my life the she’s were replaced by he’s. It was my father who had been the alcoholic, the one who had caused me anxiety. Was that where I had first learned to worry? Maybe something I should talk to a therapist about sometime. Or, since I wasn’t seeing a therapist anymore, then maybe my counselor at the group I attended on a somewhat regular basis.

The thought was interrupted by Hudson leaning in to whisper in my ear. “I hope you don’t mind that I ordered for you.” The feel of his breath on my earlobe caused my hair to stand on end.

I didn’t. It saved me the trouble of having to decipher the menu. And listening to him speak in a foreign language….I sighed as the smooth lilt of his words lingered in my memory. “As long as my dish doesn’t have mushrooms, I’m happy.”

“No,” he chuckled, the sound sending an electric spark through my body. “I wouldn’t want you gagging at my mother’s birthday dinner.”

“Quite the opposite.” I leaned toward his ear now, so that only he could hear me. “The way you ordered, I’m salivating. I didn’t know you could speak French.”

“Fluently.”

My eyes widened. “Say something else?” We were flirting, something we didn’t do often in front of others, and it came so naturally that I let myself be carried where it took us.

“Oui. Plus tard, quand tu es enveloppée dans mes bras, je vais en parler jusqu’à ce que tu en frissonnes de plaisir”

His husky tone combined with the return of the accent drove me mad. “What did you say?” I was breathless.

He moved his arm around me, pulling me closer before speaking again. “I said, ‘Yes. Later, when you’re wrapped around me, I’ll speak it until you shudder with delight.’”

My face blazed with heat.

“You know there are other people at this table, Hudson,” Sophia chided.

I hoped those other people didn’t understand French better than I did. And that his translation had truly been quiet enough for only me to hear. But the darting eyes of Madge Werner across the table from me made me think Hudson had been heard.

Oh, well.

Mira rolled her eyes. “Mother, leave them alone.” Usually Mirabelle had endless patience for Sophia. Perhaps she was becoming more short-tempered as her pregnancy proceeded. “Can’t you see they’re in love?”

Hudson turned his head to smile at me. We were still so unused to the word—it felt odd hearing it being said about us. And it also felt apropos. Obvious, even. Like, duh. How could anyone not see it?