"Hey, come with me for a second," Hudson says. "We've got a few minutes before you have to give your little speech."
Right. My speech. I really don't want to give a speech, but I need to thank everyone for coming. Hopefully I don't throw up in the process.
Hudson leads me out into a garden right outside the gallery. It's almost dark, and the heat is dropping quickly the way it does in the fall. Our shoes crunch in the rocks of the garden. "Do you know what today is?" he asks.
"Other than the gallery launch?"
He laughs. "Yeah, other than that."
I try to think and come up with nothing. "I'm sorry, my brain is fried. I can't think of anything."
A hand slides around my waist and pulls us together so we're pressed front to front. "Today is the anniversary of the coffee incident."
"Is it really?" I gasp. "I'm so sorry I didn't remember."
"As long as you remember it in the future," he says, voice filled with mock admonishment. "But even if you don't, I'm never going to forget the day I met the love of my life."
It feels like everything goes quiet, like it's just the two of us in the whole world, the way it always does when he talks like this. I love it.
"Which is why," he says, "I thought it was the perfect day to give you this."
"Give me what?"
"Just something I've been saving for a while. I can't think of a better time."
I suddenly feel vertigo because he lets go of me and it feels like he's falling. But he's not falling, he's kneeling. Oh my god. "Christine Everett. I will forever be grateful to the universe that you spilled coffee on my shirt. I love everything about you, and I always will, and I don't want to go any longer without knowing I'll be by your side forever. Will you marry me?"
Tears spill over my eyes and it's hard to find my voice. "Yes, of course I will."
Hudson places the ring he's holding on my finger, and then he's standing again and he's kissing me and it's the best kiss ever. "I love you," he says in between kisses. And he keeps saying it. Keeps saying it even as he lifts me up and presses me against the wall of the gallery, a window just to our right. His hands raise the hem of the dress I'm wearing, and I hear a zipper. "I need to be inside you right now," he says.
"Yes." I don't care that we're feet away from the people that are there to see me as an artist. I'm getting married and I want my fiancé to fuck me like he never has before.
Hudson pushes aside my underwear and then he's inside me. God, I'll never get tired of the way we fit together. Every time he pushes himself inside me it feels like we were meant to be that way. He thrusts his hips upward, and I lose my breath. I grab onto his shoulders, bracing myself against the wall and squeezing down on his cock just the way I know he likes it.
He groans, moving harder, faster, and the stucco of the wall behind me scrapes my shoulders through the fabric of my dress. I love it. I bite my lip to keep from crying out, this angle allowing Hudson to thrust against the spot where I need it most, and I'm already moaning. His breathing is hard too, and I know we're both too caught up to last long.
"Miss Everett?" The voice of the gallery director calls out into the darkness.
"Shit," I whisper. "They must be ready for me."
"I don't care." Hudson increases his speed, and I know him. He isn't going to stop until I come. He's grunting with the effort, and through the sudden blaze of pleasure I hear the director call my name again. God, I'm so close. She's going to hear me come. Hudson crushes my lips with his just as he plunges deep. It's the last spark I need, and I go over the edge, shaking in his arms. He's coming too, I can feel the warmth spreading in my pussy and it sends me further into my orgasm. It feels like hours until I come up breathing again, completely wrecked from all the sensation.
Hudson lets me down slowly, and I'm glad that I wore a long dress because his come is now running down my legs and into the rocks. The director calls again. "Over here," I answer back.
She peeks around the corner and spots us in the dark. "We're ready for you."
"I'll be there in just a second."
I watch her nod and head back inside before turning and playfully punching Hudson in the arm. "She almost caught us."
"I know," he grins.
"You're lucky I love you."
He catches me around the waist again. "I love you too." His voice is serious. "Now let's go and make your speech and wine and dine these people so I can take you home and fuck my fiancée all night."
"All night?" I ask him as we walk back inside.
"You better believe it," he says. "You can challenge me, if you like."
I roll my eyes. He loves his challenges. "I think you do that enough all on your own."
The gallery director spots us and waves us over to the low dais where I'm supposed to make my speech. Oh man, I'm going to feel sick. There's a tray of champagne nearby, and Hudson grabs two glasses and hands one to me. "Everyone, can I have your attention?" he calls.
"In just a second, this lovely lady is going to thank you for coming, but I wanted to say first that I'm the happiest man in the world because she just agreed to become my wife."
There are cheers and applause and I find myself blushing. He doesn't stop though. "So please join me in raising your glass to my new fiancée, Christine Everett. One of the best people I know and a rising star on the photography scene."
Everyone in the room raises their glasses, including Hudson, but he doesn't drink. He presses a soft kiss to my lips, to the cheers of the crowd. "Knock ‘em dead," he says. "I love you."
"Thank you," I whisper. "I love you too."
I look out over the crowd and take a breath, not afraid anymore.
THE END
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The Billionaire's Revenge
The Billionaire's Revenge
Copyright © 2017 by Penny Wylder
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Prologue
5 Years Earlier …
I hold my breath as I jump off the wall.
The walls around my father's estate aren't high, and below is a spongy strand of grass that will buffer my fall. I know this because my younger sister Cece sneaks out when she visits. She's the crazy one. The fun one. The one who moved to California with Mom after the divorce 4 years ago. The regular teenager who gets to go to a normal coed school and go on dates.
Me? I'm the well-behaved daughter. The oldest. The good example, the protective one.
And yet, Dad still doesn't trust me.
He still made a point to stop me on my way to school this morning-my all girls' school because god forbid he trusts me to attend high school where there might be boys or alcohol or parties or anything he deems even vaguely "inappropriate"-and he told me that I need to stay in tonight. No going out after school, not even to watch my best friend Lace's soccer game, which I promised her I'd be able to make.
Worse, he didn't even explain why I'm suddenly being punished.
Screw him, I think as I land hard on the grass and roll to break my fall. I'm breathing hard even though sneaking out wasn't that difficult, barely involved more than shimmying out my window, scaling the ivy lattice on the roof outside it, and then climbing a ladder get up this wall, my last hurdle. It's probably just that this is the first time I've ever done something like this. It's exhilarating.
Disobeyed my father.
He had it coming, I remind myself. I dust off the legs of my tight black jeans and adjust the crop top I put on especially for tonight. Lace has been texting me about this party for weeks, knowing that there was only a snowball's chance in hell I'd ever show. But it's not often that St. Augustine's, the boys' Catholic high school a few towns over, hosts big parties like this one. One of the guys' parents is out of town, and he lives on some epic estate, probably almost as big as my father's, so he invited everyone from his school and ours. Lace went to the last one he threw, five months ago, and she hasn't stopped talking about it since.
When I texted her this afternoon to say I was in, I'm pretty sure she nearly had a stroke, she was so shocked. But it's my birthday in 5 days; I'll be 17, and it's time I started acting like it. Hell, I've never even danced in the same room as a boy, let alone kissed one. I could stand to get a little life experience.
I take off down the road following the GPS on my phone. It's not too far, just a 20 minute walk, though I've never walked the roads of our upstate New York town this late at night. Or alone.