Page 35 of The First Lost Boy (The Shadows of Neverland Duet #2)

Hudson

A month later…

Ava’s hair is piled into a mass at the crown of her head, the tiny dark strands that grace her neck curling to touch her skin. I can’t stop staring at her. She’s sitting on the porch with her ankles crossed in front of her, leaning back to enjoy the last orange rays of sunlight.

I walk out and stand beside her, smiling when she tips her head up to look at me. “Want to go for a swim?” I ask, hoping to every star in the sky that she says yes.

She playfully rolls her gray eyes. “Duh.” Then stretches, stands, and swats my ass cheek before darting away as I reach out to catch her.

But turnabout’s fair play.

I lower a shoulder and hoist her onto it, carrying her out our door and down the path that leads to The Falls.

Halfway down the trail, she convinces me to let her down and I do, slowly, enjoying the feel of her body sliding down mine and the hitch in her breath. When her feet are on the ground, she turns and leads the way and I enjoy watching the swish of her hips, the way her muscles curve, and how she instinctively reaches back for me.

She doesn’t shy away from my hook despite its sharpness. She doesn’t shy away from me despite mine.

The sound of the water finds us before we can see the waterfalls, and she looks back at me with a challenge in her smile. “First one to cross under The Falls wins?”

I quirk a brow. “Wins what?”

“Maybe the winner should choose her prize?”

Both my brows raise. “ Her prize?”

“Yep.”

At the edge of the lake, I pull off my shirt and shove off my pants as she does the same. I’m in my boxer briefs and she’s in a… fuck. A tiny – and I mean tiny – yellow bikini with thin strings and a pattern of dainty white daisy flowers.

She steps into the water and waits for me to do the same. The temperature is perfect. Not too cold. Not too hot. And nowhere near as hot as Ava in that fucking bikini.

“Ready?” she asks excitedly.

I wink. “You’re about to find out.”

“Set…” she says.

Then the cheat jumps in without saying Go , cutting through the water at an impressive speed. She’s under the falls in a handful of seconds.

I swim leisurely to the cascading water that scours skin and hair and feels like a dream until I make my way under it. I find Ava waiting in the shadow of the water with her back pressed against a slick rock wall.

“You let me win,” she accuses, splashing water at me. It hits my chest.

I smirk. “Have you chosen your prize yet?”

She bites her bottom lip, reaches out for my hook, and pulls me closer, her hands moving over my abs before she wraps her legs around my waist. My heart thunders at the feel of her against me. We’ve slept pressed against or tangled with one another for weeks, but this feels different.

“What do you want, Lifeguard?” I push against a rock under my feet and position her even closer as she grips me tighter.

Water drips from her lashes and carves crystalline paths down her skin and over her lips as she finally breathes her answer. “You. All of you.”

I lean in so that my mouth is inches from hers. “Then claim me.”

She wraps her arms around my neck and presses her chest to mine as she sensuously presses her mouth to mine, lingering there as her dark lashes fall shut. She opens them, her smoky eyes sparkling. “I want to make new memories with you, Hudson.”

My fingers tighten against her soft skin, and I raise my hook from the water to drag her hair across one shoulder. “Nothing could make me happier.”

Despite the darkness beneath the falls, the moon spilling in from the water’s sides highlight a wicked gleam in her eyes. “In your journal, you wrote in explicit detail about the first night we spent together on your ship…”

I match her flirty grin. “Definitely didn’t want to forget that .”

“It was quite detailed. And if I’m being honest, I’ve never read anything hotter,” she admits. And then I feel her press her heat harder against my stomach. “But…”

“But?” I ask.

“I think it would be fun to try to outdo ourselves…”

This woman.

I wet my lips. “Is that so?”

At her little nod, I guide her down and position her where I need her most, where she wants to be if her little moan is any indication, and press her back against the rock. “I’m so glad you’re here,” I whisper in her ear. “I wasn’t sure you’d come, and didn’t know if you’d stay.”

“What if I hadn’t?” she asks. “Or what if I left?”

“Then I’d still be lost,” I admit. “But if you were happy, it wouldn’t matter.”

Ava pulls back a fraction. “It would matter to me . Lost is the worst feeling in the world.”

She’s not wrong about that. “Seeing you on the shore after you came back was one of the best moments of my life.”

“Like you have many memories to compare it with,” she teases.

“Ah, but I recorded the important moments, so I can make that claim with confidence.”

Ava laughs and my chest feels like it might break open.

The water laps at our chests as she stares, her smile slowly falling before she kisses me again, holding me tightly against her. Our mouths move until we’re breathless. Until my foot slips on the slick rock I didn’t even know I was moving on and we dip into the water.

I guide her to the right, to a spot where some of the cliff face has slipped and fallen into the water, leaving behind a natural shelf. “This is convenient,” I purr as I sit her on the shelf. “And this…” I lightly pluck at the bikini string stretching between her breasts with my hook, “…is devastating.”

She places her hands on the rock beside her thighs, leaning forward so her chest is in my face. “It’s just a swimsuit.”

I drag my hand and the side of my hook up the outside of her thighs all the way to her hips where more of the little strings cling to her. “These might be even more ruinous.”

She grins. “I’m glad you like them.”

“I loathe them.”

The little yellow fabric triangles covering her nipples don’t even stretch to cover her entire breasts, and those scraps of dainty, daisy-covered fabric move along those glorious fucking strings. She demonstrates by pulling them an inch to the side but stops short of revealing herself to me.

I can barely breathe.

“Most people aren’t lucky enough to see their lover for the first time twice.”

“Thank the stars,” I mutter as she cups my face and drags me in for a sensuous kiss. I nibble her bottom lip before releasing it and drink the little noise of pleasure she makes. And then I kiss her jaw, make my way down the slender column of her neck, and brush my lips across her collar bone. “Keep your hands under your thighs.”

Her brows kiss, but she does as I ask.

Ava’s chest heaves and crashes like waves in a stormy sea as I lean in to kiss the exposed underside of her breast, listening as she gasps and a piece of the brittle rock under her grip crumbles into the lake. I kiss the side of her, the plump top, and then lave the triangle of fabric, delving into it with my tongue until she’s panting and lifting her thighs to free her hands.

I stop and put them back where they belong. “Not yet.”

Paying equal homage to her other side is only fair. But then she lowers her body into the water, wraps her legs around my waist again, and kisses me until I can barely think.

I pull away. I need her to know. I can’t wait another second. “Ava, I love you.”

She freezes, her body going taut against me. Her gray eyes flare and hold mine. “What?”

Fuck. It’s too soon.

I don’t know what to say or how to fix it. Flustered and frustrated with myself for fucking this up, the only thing I can do is try to explain my feelings for her.

“I know it doesn’t make sense and I probably just ruined everything, but I do. And I needed you to know. I couldn’t hold it in another minute. It’s fine if you don’t feel the same way. You might never, but it’s how I feel.”

She’s quiet for an agonizingly long moment, where the only sound is the waterfall roaring at my back. And then she lowers her legs, planting them on the lake floor. She’s about to swim away and my heart splinters at the thought.

Stupid. I was so stupid!

I rub my forehead.

She draws my hand away and wraps her fingers around my hook. “I can’t believe you said that.”

“I’m sorry.”

She squeezes my hand. “I love you, too.”

My chest nearly collapses. “You do?”

A soft smile. “Of course I do. I’m here.”

“When did you know?” I wonder aloud. “Because I knew the moment you opened your eyes.”

“Part of me knew then, too. I followed you outside because I didn’t want to be away from you. But I was sure I loved you when the letters started, and I couldn’t stop wondering where you were and how to find you.”

I grin. “Your sister hates me.”

She smiles. “I don’t care.”

“Nyin, too,” I warn.

“Hudson…” Her brows raise. “I. Don’t. Care how they feel about you. I love you.”

A tense throb of my heart and hers… and then we collide. There’s no other way to describe how our bodies and mouths crash together, then entangle. We’re reduced to panting breaths and desperate hands that hastily work to shed the infernal clothing that separates us.

My hook makes quick work of her bikini’s taunting strings, and she shoves my briefs down my thighs. I kick them off and abandon them to the lake. I pick her up again and focus on the feel of her bare skin on mine. She’s soft but strong. So damn strong.

My thumb skims the scar Wendy Darling left on her stomach.

“Hudson,” she whimpers against my mouth.

I move away from the cascading water and press my back into the rock wall. Squatting against it, I guide her hips in place so she can straddle my lap. I spread my legs wider so that hers do the same.

She reaches out to feel my body. Her hands drift from my shoulders, to my chest, to my abs and then she tentatively explores me under the water. When I reach out to search her heat, she stops me. “You’re my prize. Remember?”

“How could I forget?”

She moves her body forward and lowers herself onto me so slowly, I bite through my bottom lip.

Then she kisses me again.

“You’re bleeding,” she gasps, pulling back in surprise.

“I’m fine,” I grit.

I am absolutely not fine.

My hand grips her hip. My forearm is locked at her back, my hook possessively curled toward her side. To feel her for the first time – again – is ecstasy. She’s perfect. She loves me.

She’s mine.

At first Ava sets a slow pace, allowing her body to adjust, but soon enough, she writhes and her hot breath fans my ear. We’re need and want, giving as we take. We’re undone and remade again. Our longing melds with our relief in the form of sloshing water and cries of pleasure. Humid air meets cool mist. Hard muscle meeting elegant curves. Eyes pressed closed and hair raked between fingers. Nipping teeth and the taste of her on my tongue. I can’t get enough.

I don’t want enough.

I just want her.

Our crescendo comes, but it’s not the end. This is a new beginning. And I don’t want to waste a second of our second chance.

A few moments to compose ourselves have us each searching for the clothing we tore away in the face of our frantic need. There’s enough on the shore to cover up with, thankfully, and we abandon my briefs and her bikini to the lake.

On the shore, I slide my shirt over her head and tug on the pants I left behind.

“Hudson?” She takes my hook and tugs me down the path.

“Yeah?”

“Do you still have the swing on your ship?”

I smile. “Of course, love.”

“And the copper tub?”

“Mhmm.”

She grins back at me. “I want to see them.”

AVA

Hudson and I sit on the ship’s rail and gaze out over the calm midnight sea. Its facets shimmer in the light of a full moon. The sky is so clear here. There’s no electricity, so candle glow is the only source of light at night. I’ve never been happier for darkness.

The stars are incredible.

Hudson stares at the two we know better than anyone else. “Do you think they’re watching?”

I crane my neck. “Yeah. I think they are.”

I don’t know what they think of what they see, but I think they’re watching. I get that skin-crawling feeling sometimes when we’re outside at night.

“Belle told me that the First Star said the universe demanded balance. And with you and me, that’s true enough,” I tell him.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re the first Lost Boy and I’m the last Lost Girl. There’s a balance to it. A beginning and an end.”

He smiles. “New memories that will become old.”

I grin. “See? Balance.”

Pensive Hudson is sexy Hudson, I decide.

“How’d you get my address to send the letters?”

“I stole it from Belle.” An ornery smile tugs up one corner of his lips. “That’s why she was surprised when you showed up on Neverland. She had no idea I’d been writing you.”

“Where was it?” I demand, sitting up straighter.

“It was tacked to your wall, along with Devin’s name.” His words grow tense. “Was he good to you?”

“Devin?” I laugh. “You can’t be jealous of Devin. He’s my work bestie, but we weren’t… anything more .”

“Thank fuck,” he breathes.

He hugs me to his side, and I stiffen when I remember something Belle said today. “Did you really threaten to kill Peter today?”

Hudson laughs and the softly churning sea swallows the sound. “I absolutely did.”

My eyes widen. “What did he do?”

“He suggested that we cut down the Name Tree.”

I gasp. “He did not!”

Hook gives a dark chuckle. “Don’t worry. My crew and I made our feelings on the matter more than clear. He won’t dare to even touch the bark. Your sister could do better.”

“She’s trying to see if they still might… fit after all that happened. I’m not sure if they will or won’t, yet. Sometimes, I see them talking and laughing and they seem happy enough. Other times, it’s like they don’t know how to talk at all.”

Hudson throws a leg over the rail and jumps down to the deck. “I don’t want to talk about Peter and your sister right now.”

A thread of anticipation worms through my middle. “Oh? What do you want?”

He scoops me off the rail and carries me into his quarters, where he shows me instead of telling me. I thank the stars above for bringing us back together.