I felt beautiful like that—lying in wait for my lover who I knew would give and take as he pleased.

He gazed down at me, desire clouding his eyes as he undid his belt and lowered his pants only far enough to release his bulging c**k from its prison. As fast as he moved, it seemed forever before he lowered himself on top of me, urging my legs further apart with his knees. Then he shoved into me with such force I gasped.

He pounded into me with driving thrusts, focused on his own need, his own desire for orgasm. But even through the fog of his own lust, he attended to me, his thumb pressing expertly on my clit, massaging me toward my own cl**ax.

The act may have been primarily physical, but a deeper connection resulted from the joining of our bodies. Each stroke eased the sting of his earlier words, and I was certain that the motivation behind each deep lunge was to chase away his own torment, to release himself from the guilt of wounding me.

He didn’t shower me with his usual sex words, but we were hardly quiet as I whimpered under him and he repeated my name over and over like a mantra, like a prayer. And then the sound turned guttural as he flexed into me, coming in me with such violent eruption that it spurred me to release with him on my own shaky cry, “Hudson!”

He collapsed onto me, his head buried in my neck where his warm breath against my skin felt soothing. I loved it there, buried beneath him, his c**k still buried inside me, our precious bond so fragile it required this carnal connection. Hudson’s breathing becoming even, and his body became lax until his weight pressed into me with sweet agony.

Just as I began to wonder if he’d fallen asleep he whispered, “I wanted to win you. But I didn’t want to hurt you.” His arm tightened around me. “That’s the last thing I wanted.”

I understood him completely. After destroying so many people, after ruining my relationship with my only living relative, it was hell to imagine hurting even one more person. It had kept me from becoming close to anyone for so long. But now, I was ready to move past that fear so that I could earn the reward of intimacy.

I stroked Hudson’s hair. “That’s part of relationships, H. People get hurt.” I kissed his head. “But you can make it better, too.”

He lifted his head to meet my eyes. “Tell me how.”

Cupping his face in my hands, I rubbed my thumbs across his skin, rough from five o’clock shadow. “Let me in,” I pleaded.

“Don’t you see I already have?”

I closed my eyes, hoping to stop a fresh stream of tears. He had opened up, but only enough for me to slip the tip of my toes past the threshold of the door he kept so tightly closed. It was a big step for him. But it wasn’t really letting me in. Everything he shared with me I had to pry from his lips. He hadn’t given me his trust. It wasn’t enough to build upon and if that was as far as the door was opening, we had no hope for a future.

I swallowed hard and opened my eyes, letting one teardrop escape. Wiping it away, I rolled out from underneath him and pulled my panties up as I stood.

Hudson sighed. Then I heard the sound of his zipper and, to my ears, it was a metaphor—putting himself away, shutting himself off. Again.

But when he stood, he wrapped his arms around me from behind. His voice rasped in my ear. “Why do you act like I’m running?”

“Because you shut me out. Isn’t that the same as running?”

“What about you? What about how you showed up in our bedroom crying and couldn’t even tell me why?”

“That was different.” But maybe it wasn’t. I hadn’t told him what his mother said because it hurt too much. Because I was embarrassed.

He spun me around to look at him. “What did she say to you, Alayna?”

He’d thrown down the gauntlet. If I wanted him to be open, I’d have to be too. “That I was insignificant. She called me a whore.” I looked at a chip of paint on the wall, not able to meet his eyes.

He cursed under his breath. “My mother’s heartless and cruel.” Putting two fingers under my chin, he turned my face to him. “You’re not a whore, Alayna. Not even close. And the magnitude of your importance in my life can’t be put into words.”

“She also said that you can’t ever love me.”

He froze. Then his hand dropped from my face. “I’ve told you that before.”

The pain of his statement hit me hard in the gut. I pulled out of his arms. “Well, she told me again.” I swung back toward him. “So there, I opened up. Are you happy?”

“Alayna…”

I ached in the center of my being. This was why I hadn’t told him—because despite what he and Sophia had said, I’d believed that he could love. That he could love me.

Tears flooded my eyes and splashed down my face. “How could you not think I’d fall in love with you, Hudson? Even if you didn’t mean for it to happen, how could I not?” I wiped at my damp cheek with the back of my hand. “Does that mean anything to you at all?”

He drew back as if I’d slapped him. “How can you ask that? Of course, it does. But, Alayna, you don’t know that you’d still say that if you knew me.”

“I do know you.”

“Not everything.”

“Only because you haven’t let me in!” We were spinning in circles, getting nowhere.

He spread his arms out to the sides. “What is it you want to know? About what I did to other women? About Celia? I’m the reason she got pregnant, Alayna. Because I spent an entire summer making her fall in love with me when I felt nothing for her. For fun. For something to do. And then, when I’d completely broken her, she became destructive—sleeping around, partying, drugs. You name it, she did it. She didn’t even know who the father was.”

I heaved a breath, wiping the lingering tears from my face. “So you claimed it was yours.”

“Yes.”

“Because you felt responsible.”

“Yes. She lost the baby at three months. Likely from the drinking and drugs she’d consumed early on. She was devastated.”

“That’s awful.” I could sense he felt as responsible for the death of Celia’s unborn baby as for its conception in the first place. It was a lot of weight to carry, a lot of blame.

But even though I could concede Hudson had a role in the situation, it didn’t scare me away. “It’s awful,” I repeated, “but I don’t understand. You thought this would make me not love you…why?”