Hudson

Chapter Twenty-Eight

I wake Monday more excited than I can ever remember being. Having spent a lifetime pushing down emotions, I’m frequently thrown off guard when I experience one. I’m not prepared for the adrenaline pumping through my veins or the sweat gathering above my brow. I know Alayna isn’t an early riser so I get in a few miles on the treadmill in the Pierce Industries gym before I have to head over to the penthouse to meet her. The run helps calm me.

I wonder if that’s why Alayna loves the sport so much.

At the penthouse, my excitement returns. Or maybe anxiety is a better term. I pace the length of the hallway, up and down, twenty times. A hundred times. It’s unbelievable that she can turn me inside out like this. That she can bring a powerful man like me to my knees. I’m helpless about her. I’m hopeless without her.

While I wait, I try to settle myself by thinking about what I expect from our encounter. It’s akin to creating a hypothesis in an experiment. This time there’s no manipulation though—just predictions. I often do it before an important business meeting, sorting the realistic possible outcomes from the fantastical. It was a trick that Jack taught me, actually.

The dream, of course, is that Alayna will want to try to be a couple again. She’ll accept my mistakes and learn to forgive me. It wouldn’t matter if we stayed at The Bowery or if we got engaged right away. The dream is that we’re together, period.

But that’s not a practical prediction. I slow my pace as I imagine what’s likely. She’ll arrive, she’ll see the empty house, and she may feel uncomfortable. She’ll refuse my offer to let her stay here with Liesl—she’s too independent to take what would be perceived as a handout. But she’ll see yet another demonstration of how my life just doesn’t work without her. And maybe I’ll win a pity date.

I could handle that scenario.

There’s another scenario though. One I don’t want to think about. Now, for the first time since our breakup, I imagine her without me. I test the idea softly with my mind, focusing on what that life would mean for her. She’s strong and healthy. She’s in control of her emotions. She runs The Sky Launch and makes it one of the hottest clubs in town. She’s happy. She finds someone to love her—someone who doesn’t lie to her, someone who isn’t so bossy. Someone transparent and open.

It’s a good outcome for her. But I can’t hold on to that image. It doesn’t resonate in my mind. Because I know Alayna. I know that she will settle for less than she’s worth. She’s too worried about her obsessive tendencies to put herself out there. She thinks she’s a burden to men, so she folds herself up and inward. Closes herself off.

If I could be convinced that her future would play out better without me, then I would walk away, despite the fact that it would kill me. I would let her go. I know I don’t deserve her more than anyone else, but there is no doubt in my mind that we belong together. We fit together. We fix each other. We make each other whole.

It’s this conviction that makes me realize it doesn’t matter what happens today. I’ll see Alayna. We’ll move forward in some way, and whether we take baby steps or leaps and bounds, we’ll be headed in the right direction. Together.

My pacing has me near the bedroom when I hear her arrive. The ding of the elevators sends my heart into my throat, and my mouth goes dry. Cautiously, I duck out of sight. It’s quiet so I can hear her gasp as she realizes the place is empty.

I give her a minute to acclimate. Or I give myself a minute to get it together. Either way, eventually, I find my way to her.

She’s in the library, standing over the boxes of books that I’ve given her. We chitchat and it’s safe. The way she looks at me, though, is anything but safe. Her eyes travel greedily up and down my body, and it’s all I can do not to take her up on what her body language is proposing.

Thinking of Mirabelle ends my contemplation of inappropriate advances. Besides that the thought of my sister is a turn-off, she had so wisely pointed out that I was not just trying to get laid. So I’m a good boy. And Alayna’s a good girl with a wicked smile.

“I didn’t expect you to be here,” she says after another round of ogling. Her tone suggests she’s not upset. If I had to bet, I’d say she’s even happy about it. Steps in the right direction.

“You didn’t say I couldn’t be.” There’s nowhere else I’d be today.

“It was implied,” she teases.

“You don’t seem that horribly pissed to see me.” My eyes meet hers, and they dare her to deny it.

She bites her lip, and I can tell she’s warring with herself. I can read her so well, but there’s still so much I don’t know that goes on in her beautiful mind. If only I could know right now what she’s thinking.

But she’s not willing to let me in there again. Not yet. She changes the subject. “Where is everything?”

“Your stuff is still all here.”

“But where’s your stuff?”

I’m not sure I’m ready to let the easiness of our banter go. I take a deep breath. Then, ready or not, I tell her, “I can’t live here without you, Alayna.”

She attempts to hide a frown and fails. “So you’re moving out?”

The idea seems to bother her. Good. It bothers me, too. “Actually, I hope I’m moving in.”

“H, you confuse me enough without you trying to be confusing.” Exasperation lies under her words. “Could you say something I can understand?”

“I confuse you?”

“Is this a surprise?”

I shrug. I’d forgotten how fun it is to tease her. I’ve missed it.

“So you’re moving in?” she prompts, her hands gesturing in the air, perhaps as a substitution for throttling me.

She’s losing her patience now, and that’s not what I want. I answer her question. “One day. I hope. But for now, I want you to live here.”

“What?” Her expression turns irritated and her tone weary.

She thinks I don’t understand what she wants from me. But I do. She doesn’t want me to flaunt my money or give her ridiculously expensive gifts.

It’s me who’s misunderstood. I’m not trying to buy her love. I simply want to know that she’s taken care of. And I want her in our home.

As best as I can, I try to make her understand. “I can’t live here without you, precious. But I don’t want to sell it, because I love being here with you. Someday, you and I will be here again. While I’m waiting for you—scratch that—while I’m groveling for your forgiveness, it’s a shame to let it sit empty. You and Liesl should move in.”

“I can’t accept that, H.” But she seems less angry now.

“I had a feeling you’d say that. Then it will have to sit.” I’d known she wouldn’t accept. I still had to offer.

She bites her lip as if working out a problem in her head—God, how I want to suck on that lip—then she suggests, “You could rent it out.”

“I could rent it out to you.”

Alayna laughs, and every dark cloud in the sky scatters. I’ll do anything to keep that smile on her face. Anything to keep the flirting and the warmth that passes between us. We tease like this, back and forth, her smile remaining, her eyes gleaming. The day is already worth it just because I got to see the sun in Alayna’s face.

She asks me again, “Seriously, though, where’s all your stuff? Did you get another place?”

I shake my head. “I gave it all to a charity fundraiser.” This is true. For the most part. Minus the pieces I destroyed.

“Lifestyles of the rich and famous,” she teases.

As much as we’re both enjoying the playfulness—it’s obvious she is as much as I am—there are still mountains between us. There are still things to say and explain. We have wounds that need dressing and scars that haven’t finished forming.

I start toward her, tightening the gap that feels like a cavern between us. “I wasn’t attached to any of it. This entire apartment was perfectly designed to my tastes and style, but it never felt like a home.” I stop a short distance from her. “Not until you, Alayna. You made it come alive. The things that were here—they were chosen for me by someone I want completely removed from my life. Right now, the things here are the only things that made this house a place I’d want to live. Your things. You.”

She starts to say something, but then closes her mouth before anything comes out.

I take advantage of her loss for words. And the fact that she hasn’t kicked me out yet. “And when I move back in, we can refurnish this place from scratch. Together. You and I.”

She takes an audibly shaky breath in. “You’re so sure that one day I’ll take you back.”

I study her. I know her so well, can read her emotions from her body language better than I can read my own. Maybe I’m fooling myself now, seeing what I want to see, but her features, her expression, her carriage—it all says that the outlook for us is good. Really good.

She’s looking at me with love, her eyes begging me to take her into my arms, and I’m carried away in the moment. “I’m hopeful,” I tell her with a smile. “Would you like to see how hopeful I am?”

“Sure.” The word falls easily, and that only makes what I’m going to do that much easier.

I dig in my pocket and pull out the ring. When I put it there this morning, I told myself it was for good luck, that I had no intention of presenting it to her today. Turns out I was fooling myself.

I hold it up in the air, my thumb and forefinger grasping the bottom so that the diamond is standing straight up. “I bought this.”

It takes her a second to register what it is. Then her eyes widen. I take her hand and drop it in her palm. I haven’t quite decided if I’m showing her just to let her know how serious I am about our future or if I’m actually proposing. Again.

Her eyes start to fill, and her expression is confused and hopeful. It’s then I decide what this will be. I’m perfectly aware that this is exactly the opposite of giving time and space. I’m prepared for a second no, but honestly, I’m prepared for a third and fourth as well. I can wait for her.

But she needs to know that I’m here now if she wants me. “There’s an inscription,” I tell her softly. I hear her breath catch as she reads what I’ve had added. I give you all of me.

I fall to my knee. “I realized something about the last time I asked this.” I haven’t prepared anything, but the words come easily. “I did it wrong. First, I didn’t have a ring, and second, I should have gotten on one knee. But more importantly, I didn’t give you the right thing. I offered you everything I had, thinking that was the way to win your heart. That wasn’t what you wanted at all. The only thing you ever asked for, the only thing I would never give you, was me.”

She tries to swallow back a gasp, but it comes out anyway.

“But now I do.” I throw my arms open wide. “Here I am, precious. I give myself freely. All of me, Alayna. No more walls or secrets or games or lies. I give you all of me, honestly. For forever, if you’ll take it.” It’s the most naked that I’ve ever been. The most vulnerable. And the absolutely most honest.

I take the ring from her and slip it onto her shaking hand. Or is it mine that’s shaking? No, I don’t think so. For the first time ever, I feel completely steady.

She stares at it, the reflection of the ring seemingly sparkling in her eyes. She’s an open book, and each doubt and worry cross the landscape of her face. But in the end, it’s affection that settles on her features. Love deeper than any that has ever been shown to me.

I’m certain that she can see the same on my face. My mask is down. My feelings apparent. But I’ll speak them as well. “Alayna, I love you.”

She moves her gaze from the ring to meet my eyes. God, how they find me. I’m forever found in her, and though I’m prepared to wait, I hope and pray that I won’t have to anymore. “Will you marry me? Not today, and not in Vegas, but in a church if you like, or at Mabel Shores in the Hamptons—”

“Or the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens during the cherry blossom season?”

“Yes, there.” She has excellent taste. And then it hits me what she’s said. “Is that a—”

“Yes.” She nods. “It’s a yes.”

Alayna loves being engaged.

She’s worn the ring a month, and she still shows it to everyone. Even our doorman has been forced to fawn over it. The other night, I double-tipped the Chinese take-out deliveryman because he stayed for seven minutes after I’d paid just to listen to her go on about her diamond. If I didn’t know her as well as I do, I’d suspect she only said yes so she could wiggle her finger in front of people.

But since I do know her, I understand her compulsion to cling on to the object of her affection and parade it possessively. It’s behavior that drove others away from her, which is something I can never understand. I thrive on her attention. I respond to it in kind. We tangle ourselves together with our need to belong to each other. And our love grows stronger through it. More sure.

Along with my twice-weekly meetings with Dr. Alberts, we see a couple’s counselor every Monday. Dr. Lucille Parns. She insists that we call her Lucy. For Alayna’s sake, I actually succumb to the nickname. I’d worried at first that Lucy would frown upon my and Alayna’s attachment. Call it unhealthy. Surprisingly, she doesn’t. Instead she nurtures the aspects that have worked as strengths in our relationships. She encourages our high-level infatuation and our sex life as a means to connect.

Not that Lucy would have any impact on our sex life. I can’t keep my hands off Alayna, and fortunately, she can’t seem to keep her hands off me either.

Despite what we have going for us, Lucy does expect a lot of work. She focuses on our lack of communication and trust. It’s a mystery to me how I can be determined to share everything with Alayna now, and yet, when Lucy presses us, it’s still so hard to be that transparent. “Old habits die hard,” she reminds us. Then she assigns us a new exercise that sounds easy and proves to be a struggle.

Tonight, our assignment is full disclosure. From me. Though Alayna has figured out the basics of my games with Celia and my scheme regarding her, I’ve never told her all of it. Alayna’s not even entirely sure she wants to hear it.

But Lucy has insisted on it. “Alayna’s already forgiven you,” she’d said. “Use that knowledge to erase any fears you have. But there’s no way for you—for both of you—to put this fully to rest without letting light into every corner of this darkness.”

So this is the night we’ve chosen for my confession—exactly one month after she accepted my proposal. My chef prepared a dinner that we ate together by candlelight on our brand new dining table. We still don’t have living room furniture, and summer’s quickly flying away, so after our meal we take advantage of this warm evening and move to the balcony.

The new outdoor furniture is better cushioned than the set I’d had before, yet I can’t get comfortable in my seat. Alayna offers me a drink, but I turn it down. I don’t want to suppress any emotions that come from this confession. It may not be easy, but I want to feel all of it with her.

She angles her chair to face me head on and curls her feet underneath her. She doesn’t pressure me to start, and we sit for several long minutes in silence. Then I begin.

I start with the emotionally closed-off young man I’d been, the man who wanted to understand the relationships he was missing out on because of his lack of feeling. I tell her how he experimented on people he knew. How he experimented on his closest friend and turned her into a hateful, bitter woman.

I tell it all—how I’d kissed Celia, how I’d fucked her friend, how she’d fucked my father, how she’d gotten pregnant. All of it.

Alayna doesn’t interrupt. She listens intently, her expression changing with the particularly disturbing details. It isn’t until I tell her about the night of the symposium, the night I’d first seen her and my life instantly changed, that the tears start. They’re sweet tears that fall quietly down her face. They make it harder for me to go on to the part where I betrayed her. But I do. I tell her all the things I thought and felt, and how I convinced myself I was doing something good, but I always knew that it was wrong.

I end at The Sky Launch, when Alayna realized the truth. It’s the worst part and the best part. It was the moment I almost lost everything. But it was also the moment that I was finally free to love Alayna in the way she deserved, and in that way, it was the moment I gained everything.

I don’t tell her that the whole thing was Celia’s game. I will, one day. But tonight is for my faults, my mistakes. No one else’s. Admitting my own role as victim shifts the focus away from that.

It takes over two hours to complete my story, and when I do, I’m exhausted. Mentally and physically. And I can’t hide that I’m down. It’s been an evening of recalling my sins. I’m humiliated. I’m ashamed.

Alayna stares at the skyline past me, a breeze blowing her hair behind her so her face is clear and visible. Still, it’s hard to read her thoughts as she takes everything in. I start to think that maybe now I need that drink, but then her eyes swing to meet mine and she speaks.

“It’s not on the agenda for me to disclose anything,” she says, “but I have my own confession.”

I’m not worried about anything she has to tell me. The things she thinks are her flaws are the very aspects of her that I adore most. But I am intrigued.

She clears her throat. “It could be easy to listen to what you’ve said and focus on the heartache that you say you caused. But the part that’s missing is that your experiments were done on grown-up people. Adults who are, in the end, responsible for themselves. You hurt Celia. She had a chance to walk away, and she didn’t. She’s culpable for what she became after that. That’s all her, H. Not you.”

I tilt my head and study her. “You had a chance to walk away, too.”

“I did. And me coming back to you—that’s all me.” Her lips twist into a smile. “Though you did do a damn good job of making yourself impossible to resist.”

Weakly, I return her smile. It’s a small comfort against the weight of my past.

Alayna gets up suddenly and crawls onto my lap, straddling me. My cock stirs automatically from our point of contact, but I ignore it. She wraps her arms around my neck, and my own hands settle around her waist.

“Here’s my confession, H. It’s a difficult one to admit because I don’t want it to sound like I condone the things you did.” She takes a deep breath. “But, honestly, I wouldn’t have given you the time of day if you hadn’t manipulated me. No matter how you chased me. Nothing you could have done would have made me start any sort of relationship with you.”

My eyes narrow. She’s told me before that she was as instantly attracted to me as I was to her. It was in her face, in her body language from the moment we first interacted. Surely if I’d approached her in the conventional method of courtship, I could have won her attention.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she says, apparently picking up on my confusion. “I was attracted to you at first sight. You pulled me to you inexplicably. I was instantly fixed on you. And that made you everything that I should stay away from. I’d been well for a long time before you, Hudson. I’m pretty sure I could have stayed on the wagon. It would have been difficult, but I would have avoided you like the plague.”

She moves her hands around to caress my jaw. The soft flutter of her thumbs against my stubble sends shocks to my groin. “Then you waved money in front of me. And I convinced myself I needed that money enough to break my rules and do the thing you asked of me. If you hadn’t done that, Hudson, if you hadn’t played me…” She shakes her head at wherever her thoughts trailed off to. “Honestly, I don’t think there’s any other way you could have won my attention. Unless you held a promotion over my head in exchange for spending time with you, and that would have been just as shitty.”

She leans down and kisses me softly then leans her forehead against mine. “I would never have given myself the chance to fall in love with you if you hadn’t forced me to. It doesn’t excuse you. But it’s the truth. And for that, I have to say that I guess things happened how they should have. If I had the chance to rewrite it all, I don’t think I would change a thing. This is the path that led to me with you like this. It’s the reason I came back to you so easily. Because I realized I’d rather live through your betrayal and end up with you than never to have gotten you at all.”

She kisses me again, deeper this time. Her tongue pushes through my lips and wars aggressively with mine. I’m moved. Not just my cock, that is now hard as stone, and not just by what she’s doing now, but by everything she’s said. She’s way too forgiving. Way too open-minded. But I’m so fucking grateful that she is because now she’s mine.

Her kiss grows more frantic, and I know what she needs, but as I’m about to take the reins, she stops me. “Let me, Hudson. You told me things that were hard for you to say. Let me show you how much it doesn’t matter. How much I love you anyway.”

So I do. I wait until she asks me to touch her breasts before I cover them with my palms. I let her unbuckle my belt and release my cock. She’s the one who lifts her skirt and pushes aside her thong underwear. Then it’s her who positions herself over me and slides down on me. She’s tight, but she pushes her hands against my chest and leans back until she’s seated comfortably. I fill her so perfectly like this, her pussy pulsing around me as she moves up and down.

I lean in and tug at her nipples through her shirt and bra with my mouth. Alayna tilts her hips forward, and I can tell she’s found the right angle when she starts to moan. She speeds up, talking in breathy gasps as she rides. “I love you, Hudson Pierce. Every part of you. Every flaw, every scar. Just like you love me.”

She tightens, and I can feel she’s close. “I love the way you take care of me.” Her words are a struggle now. “And the way you accept my jealousies and insecurities. I love your cock and the way you fuck me. And the way you make love.”

She’s bouncing up and down in a frenzy now, and we’re both on the edge. Just as she clenches around me, she says, “Did you say that I can’t come when I’m in control? Because I’m coming.”

I start to laugh, but then I’m coming too, the dark disappearing in a flash of white as my orgasm steals my vision. We soar together like this, riding the wave of our simultaneous climax, climbing higher and higher as we fall deeper and deeper into each other. I’m lost in her and found in her all at once.

And as I am every time we touch, every time we speak to each other, every time our eyes meet—I’m made new. There’s a past that led me to this moment, but it’s not holding me back anymore. Even in the dark of this New York City night, the only thing before me is sun.