Page 27

She wrapped her legs around my waist, holding on tight as the moonlight gleamed off her skin.

One hand slid down her ribs, fingers tracing the line of her bikini bottoms. “Let me in. I can make you feel so good. Worshipped even,” I whispered.

She nodded, breath catching.

My fingers slipped past the fabric, teasing soft and slow. Her forehead dropped to mine, breath shuddering. I parted her seam and found her clit. To the tune of her moans.

“Oh, Hudson…”

“I’ve got you, baby. Just let go.” This was everything I’ve wanted since the night she waltzed back to town. Me and her. Together. This was only the start.

She clutched my shoulders, gasping as I strummed. Her hips worked with me, grinding against my hand, as I slowly brought her toward the edge she hadn’t known she needed.

“Yes. That’s it. Such a good girl. Don’t hold back,” I encouraged, claiming her lips with mine. Our tongues danced, the water rippled around us, and I hoped this night would last forever.

Her moans grew loud, echoing out into the lake, legs squeezing around me.

“That’s it. Come for me, baby. Let me hear it.”

She cried out my name, her breath hot against my neck.

This was what I craved. Not the act. Not the pretending. Only her.

And given my enlarged cock, I wasn’t pretending a damn thing.

“I need you so fucking much.” I carried her out of the lake toward the camper, water sluicing off of us. All went well until she broke away at the door, landing on her feet.

“Wait. Hudson, we can’t. I-I mean, we shouldn’t. Right?”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re you, this pillar of the Goodson family, and shouldn’t be tainted by me. Then there’s Carson?—”

I scoffed and shook my head, my cock deflating. Dammit, I should have known. “First of all, you’re not tainting anything. Don’t let other people tear down your confidence, baby. And as for my brother, do you still have feelings for him?”

“No. Not like that. Not anymore. As a friend, though, yes. He and I shared many wonderful times before we broke up and went our separate ways after graduation.”

I ran a hand through my hair, trying to wrap my head around this tangled web. “I know he was your first. I get that may seem awkward, but I don’t care. Lace, you’re not that girl anymore. You went off and proved us all wrong, moving to New York so bravely on your own. You lasted ten years there, which frankly is about six years longer than most people who leave Poppy Valley and return. I respect you so much for that.”

I stepped closer to her once again. “I’m so fucking attracted to you. I only see the woman you are now before me as someone I’d like to get to know a whole lot better. Because I think you deserve a real man. Me. Not Carson.”

“You’re wrong.”

I blinked back. My heart sank. The air left my lungs leaving a hollow in my chest.

“Carson wasn’t my first. In fact, we never went all the way,” she said, clearing up a fact I’d always presumed.

A smile burst onto my face. “That’s good. Great, in fact. But something still holds you back.”

“I just don’t want things to be awkward if we push this further.”

I shirked at the notion. “What makes you think it would get awkward?”

“Hudson, if there’s one thing that’s become all too clear since I’ve been back here is that I don’t have a family anymore.” She paced away, shaking and rubbing her arms.

I grabbed a towel and came up behind her, wrapping her with it and my arms. “You have us. You’ve always been a part of the Goodsons.”

“That’s what I mean. Talking to Mama and being around you and your brothers has reminded me just how much I love and respect you all. It’s the closest thing I have to a family in this entire, lonely world. What if anything you and I do jeopardizes that?”