“I’d say you’re doing all right.” I rub my hands over his back, relishing the strength of him beneath my palms and the way his muscles bunch and stretch. Relishing also how this feels right in a way that few things in my life ever have.
I don’t know what it means, and I don’t want to know. Tomorrow is soon enough to take that bill out of the drawer. Tonight, I just want to be here with Hudson, just him and me for a little while. “Oh yeah?” He crooks a brow. “Do tell.” “I think I’ll just show you.” I grin and push him over onto his back, my hand sliding to his belt again. This time, he doesn’t push me away. Hudson groans, and his eyes are wide, his pupils blown out, as he arches into my touch. He’s trembling now—his breathing shallow, his skin flushed and a little sweaty. And watching him like this is the sexiest thing that’s ever happened to me. Even before his fingers clutch the sheets and my name pours from his lips like rain over the desert. After we both come down, we get ready for bed. I expect him to lay down beside me, maybe go to sleep. But instead, he rolls over until he’s settled between the V of my legs again. His face is inches from mine, his fingers playing with my curls as he watches me with eyes gone cloudy with release…and with something more that I’m not ready to think about. It does strike me, though, how natural this feels, like this isn’t the first time we’ve ever been like this. I know it can’t be true, know that I would never have been unfaithful to Jaxon while I was locked in stone. But it does make me want to know more—if not about that time specifically, then about Hudson. And him currently giving me shivers by pressing a line of kisses down my neck is not going to stop me from finding out. “Can I ask you something?” I whisper. He lifts his head to look down at me, brow furrowed. “Of course. Do you really even have to ask?” “Tell me something I don’t know about you.” “What, now?” He looks totally confused. “Am I not doing this right?” He gestures to himself currently lying on top of me, his mouth inches from my skin. I laugh. “You’re doing it great, and you know it.” I take his hand, press a kiss to the palm. And watch his eyes go blurry with want all over again, which makes my stomach do a half dozen backflips even as he asks, “So why now?” “I don’t know.” I kiss my way over his knuckles and around his wrist. “I was just thinking—” “So I am doing it wrong, then,” he interrupts dryly. “I thought the goal was for you not to think.” “Yeah, well, you covered that portion of the program pretty well, too. But seriously.” I push up onto my elbows. “You know so much about me, and I know that I used to know just as much about you. “But I can’t remember, and I hate it so much. Can you…” My voice wavers as I think about how much I’ve missed—and how much I’m missing. “Can you tell me something about you? Something I used to know but can’t remember now?” “Oh, Grace.” He drops his head down until his forehead rests against mine. “Of course. What do you want to know?” “I don’t know. Anything. Everything?” “That’s really broad, but okay.” He presses a kiss to my lips, then rolls off me and onto his side. “I didn’t mean you had to go.” I clutch at him, try to bring him back. He laughs. “I’m not going far. But if you want me to be able to have a real, coherent discussion, I need to not be on top of you.” “Maybe we can have the coherent discussion later, then.” Once again, I try to pull him back over me, but there’s no moving Hudson when he doesn’t want to be moved. “Something about me you used to know.” He thinks for a second. “I’ve read every play Shakespeare ever wrote at least twice.” “Yeah, no shit.” I roll my eyes. “I didn’t need you to tell me that.” “Seriously? You’re going to judge what I decide to share?” He looks offended. “When it’s that obvious, yeah. No offense, but I’m pretty sure you’re a living, breathing library. And not just like a regular community library. Like the Library of Alexandria.” “You think I’m like a library that burned to the ground?” Now he looks more than offended. “Turns out it didn’t actually burn to the ground,” I tell him. “Didn’t you listen to the TED Talk?” “Somehow I must have missed that.” He makes an are-you-serious face. “Your loss,” I tell him with a shrug. “It was a good one.” He nods, even makes a fairly decent attempt at not laughing as he answers, “Apparently.” “It went up in flames when Julius Caesar set the ships in the harbor on fire. But I guess there’s a ton of evidence showing that a bunch of writers and philosophers continued to use the library years later. It wasn’t the fire that got it so much as all the subsequent leaders who were afraid of the knowledge it held.” As I finish, I realize Hudson is staring at me with the most bemused look on his face that I have ever seen. “What?” I ask. He just shakes his head. “I’ve got to say, Grace, that is some seriously sexy pillow talk.” He leans in for a kiss, but I stop him by pressing my hand to his mouth. “No. No way. No pillow talk for you, and no kisses until you tell me something I actually don’t know.” His eyebrows shoot up. “Are you kidding me? You’re cutting off kissing now?” “Umm, yes. Until you follow the rules set down, damn right I am.” I reach for the duvet, start to pull it over me for good measure. But Hudson isn’t having it. He yanks the blue silk away again, this time going so far as to drop it on the floor, well out of my reach. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not very good at following rules. Besides, there are lots of other places I want to kiss you.” And then he starts tugging down my sweats. 87