Cockney:A Stepbrother Romance(44)

     



 



Fuck it; he's right and we all know it. It's go forward or go back, and  we all know we can't go back. I turn to Bryce and nod at his twisted  ankle; "You ok to walk?"



He shrugs, yanks the morphine pen out of his med-pack and stabs himself in the thigh with it; "Now I am." He grins.



Logan nods towards the pickup parked next to burning sheep hut that  looks relatively untouched; I'll drive if you can navigate, Hud."



Fuck, we're really doing this. "Any fucking idea where China is?"



"East?" He chuckles, winking at me; "Out of the frying pan, Hud, and out of the fire."



*****



Months later though, it still feels like we're very much in the fire.  When we're scraping by, making a living selling ourselves and our  services and parts of our souls to whatever awful piece of shit will pay  us the most, I know we all still feel the burn. When Logan goes a  little crazy, and Bryce goes to the needle, and I decided to be just  like my father and find peace in the bottom of a bottle, it sure as shit  still feels like we're in the fire. Maybe we can never go back, but  we've also got no place left to go.



We feel those flames for more than a year like that; the hurt and the  pain searing itself into us every single day. That is, until the day we  meet William Archer, and everything changes.





P R E S E N T



I wake up to the sound of my apartment door slamming shut, and sit bolt upright.



I live alone.



I'm out of bed before my head is even fully awake, and I grab the first  deadly weapon I can find, which happens to be one of the heels I wore  last night. With the fiercest face I can muster with my heart hammering  in my chest, I fling open my bedroom door and scream bloody murder as I  brandish the stiletto at the figure standing in my hallway shrugging of a  winter jacket.



He turns and grins that cocky, arrogant smirk of his at me; "And a good morning to you too, Princess."



Hudson?!



I freeze with the stiletto still brandished above my head, blinking as I  stare at him trying to figure out just what the hell he's doing  standing in my apartment and leering at me like that at 6:30 in the  morning.



"What- I mean, how-" I start to sputter, my mind still trying to piece  together the reality him being here right now when I see his eyes dip  for a moment, and his grin only gets bigger as his eyebrow arches along  with his smirk.



I am suddenly keenly aware of the fact that I'm standing in the hallway  with him in nothing but a thin t-shirt and panties, and with a gasp, I'm  dashing back into my room and slamming the door to the sound of his  laughter. "What the fuck are you doing here?!" I shriek through the door  as I press my forehead against the wood and groan to myself as my face  burns bright with embarrassment; "How did you even get in?"



Hudson is still laughing, and I can hear him jangling something against  the other side of the door that sounds like keys; "Donald gave me a  set," He chuckles, pointedly ignoring the first part of my questions. I  yank on some pajama pants and fling the door open again just as he  marches past my door into the kitchen. My eyes narrow at his back,  trying to will my cheeks to stop being so damned red.



"Aw, no battle-cry this time?" He turns and grins at me, his eyes twinkling; "I'm hurt."



"Yeah well, break into my place again and you will be hurt." I mutter,  feeling my ears burn as he only chuckles at my empty threat and breezes  past me into the kitchen.



I'm momentarily thrown off by suddenly realizing what he's wearing. He's  not in a tux this time, and is instead curiously in running shorts and a  black undershirt, despite the fact that it's freezing outside. I stare  at him as he pokes his nose into my refrigerator, totally forgetting my  train of thought as my eyes rove over the sleeves of tattoos running up  his muscled and defined arms and across his chest and collarbone. I've  seen them partially before I guess, but it's only now seeing them in the  daylight that I realize how beautiful they are. I recognize one image  as the same Marine corp emblem that my father had inked onto his arm as  well, but on Hudson the design is set into a twisting and complex  background of other images and inked names.



I'm once again drawn to his shorts and I wrinkle my brow; "Wait, what are you wearing?"



He frowns; "What do you wear to the gym?"



"We're not at the gym, though."



He grins; "Yeah, but we will be after we eat."



"Excuse me?"



He sighs heavily and rolls his eyes as he pulls away from the fridge  with a carton of Almond milk in his hands. My jaw drops as I watch him  open it before he brings it to his lips and takes a swig.



"What are you doing?"



"Oh relax, cupcake, I don't have cooties," He makes a face and stares at  the carton in his hand before turning to me and shaking his head;  "Almond milk? What the hell kind of-"



"What, I'm lactose intolerant," I grumble, brusquely pushing past him  and trying to shove the fact that his arm just brushed against my side  out of my head. I push the button on the espresso machine and turn back  to him.



Hudson snorts; "Of course you are."



"Remind me why you're here again?" I say, feeling the temper rising in  my voice. I'm taking the damn campaign money, and I'm even taking it  knowing that I'm going to have to deal with Hudson as a direct  consequence of that. But what I am not signing up for is him barging  into my home and seeing me in my underwear at a 6:30 in the morning.



"I told you last night, to protect our investment." He swigs from the  carton of almond milk again before I rip it out of his hands and throw  it away. Hudson grins at me, as if laughing at my admittedly childish  behavior.



"But why you," I say, venom dripping from my words.



"You mean, besides having been a soldier?"



"How could I forget" I snap. Actually, I don't know why I say that. I  mean I vaguely know he served just from hearing my father mention it  once or twice, but it's not like I've ever heard Hudson say anything  about it. For a moment, my eyes are drawn back to the marine emblem on  his bicep, and as my gaze looks higher, for the first time I notice a  shiny looking scar the size of a quarter on his upper shoulder.



"Thanks, yeah I've been hitting the gym a lot recently."



I shake my head and frown at him; "What?"



Hudson is smirking at me, and he leans forward towards me, one arm  reaching past my side to hold himself up against the countertop. He's  suddenly very close to me - closer than I want him to be - and in spite  of every part of me trying to stop it, I'm suddenly remembering the last  time he had me pressed against something.



"It's just that I saw you checking out my arms," He shrugs, looking so  fucking arrogant and so fucking hot at the same time that it's make the  gears in my head grind against each other.



Even though I can feel the heat from his body he's so close to me, and  my gut instinct wants to grab him and pull him crushing against my body,  instead, I narrow my eyes at him; "Do shit lines like that ever work?"



The smug look on his face drops for just a second; just long enough for  me to know I've scored a hit against great unflappable, unshakable  Hudson Banks.



His smirk is back in a second though, and he's grinning as he pulls back  from me and turns back to the fridge; "Oh you have no idea, Red."



I roll my eyes; "There's no reason for you to be here, you know." It's  weird, wanting him to get the hell out of here but at the same time  wanting him to stay so badly it hurts.



"This isn't some sort of spy movie you know," I snap; "There isn't a  terrorist outside about to crash through the window and murder or kidnap  a State Senate candidate. The world is not all a terrible, dangerous  place, Hudson."



He turns to me, slowly munching on what may or may not be Chinese food  from a week ago; "Do you really think of the world like that?" He shakes  his head; "That's adorable."



"Damnit, Huds-"



"The world is full of bad people, Reagan." He says quietly. For the  first time since he's let himself into my apartment - or my life, for  that matter - he doesn't have that obnoxiously smug grin on his face and  it's like I'm actually seeing the real him, with clarity and without  armor, for the first time.



"Anyways," he says, breaking the moment and grinning as his armor goes right back up; "Go put some gym stuff on, let's go."



I frown, finally reaching for the much needed espresso that's finally  stopped dripping from the machine; "Why? And where are we going?"



Hudson rolls his eyes; "To the gym, dummy. Unless you wanna work out in  those cute panties you had on earlier, in which case I'm all for it."



Yeah, moment of clarity shattered.



I stare at Hudson like he's nuts before gesturing towards the  icy-looking window with the wind whipping against it; "Are you kidding  me? I'm not going to the gym, it's freezing outside!"