“No, you don’t.” Brianna scooted closer. She tucked her legs beneath her on the couch. Her knees brushed his thigh.
He nodded, unable to look at her until he got it all out. “After that weekend, I took a long look at my life. My crazy, whirlwind, no-ties life, and I realized that besides my family, my life was pretty damn lonely. I realized that I had learned what I needed from my dad after all. I just hadn’t listened to what he’d taught me.” He blew out another breath, relieved to get some of the feelings that he’d kept trapped for so long off his chest. She watched him intently, and her trusting eyes gave him the strength he needed to continue.
“Brianna, I thrive on thrills, but it’s not who I am. I spent a few months trying to figure out who I was. I always thought I was so different from my brothers and my sister. They always seem to do the right thing. Even my love for them never kept me tied to the family gatherings for very long. I always had to be moving forward, looking for the next thrill. I’m not proud of all of that, but I am proud of the changes I’ve made.”
“Cutting back on your racing?” she asked.
“That and other changes. I’m reaching out more to my family, spending more time with them. I spent time with Dane on his boat recently. Just stuff like that, and I’m taking more downtime now. I think one reason I never took time off before was that I had built this rep that everyone expected of me, so I felt like I had to live up to it.” Hugh felt the tension in his neck ease. “I like who I am, Bree. It took a little getting used to, not going out all the time, slowing down, but I’m a good man. I’m a nice guy, and I’m learning about things I’ve never even considered before. And mostly…” He took her hand in his. “I realized that I want what my father had.”
“Hugh, you don’t have to tell me all of this.” In Brianna’s eyes he saw the same unconditional love that his father had for him. He knew she didn’t need to know everything he was telling her, but he wanted to tell her.
“You asked about my schedule, and I know I’m giving you a diatribe about my life, but I think you need to understand why I made the changes. The main reason I cut back on racing was that while it filled my need for thrills, it left other parts of me empty. I can’t build a relationship or have a family if I’m racing every week. I need to nourish all the parts of me, not just the thrill-seeking part. I want to love the way my father loved and the way my brothers and sister love their partners. I want to be a good boyfriend and a great husband, not just a fun guy. I want to have children and raise them to be good men and women.” He searched her eyes for a hint of what she was thinking. She swallowed and licked her lips. What did he expect? He just laid a future out before her when she’d asked for a little background.
Brianna looked down at their hands; then she put her hand on his cheek and said, “You are a good man. I always thought Mack was the best man I knew, but you’re right there with him.”
He tried to swallow past the lump that was now firmly lodged in his throat. In lieu of words, he kissed her hand again. He loved her hands. He loved when she touched his cheek, or held his hand, or touched his body. I love her. All of her. He suppressed the urge to tell her. She had a heavy enough load as it was.
“Can I ask you something else?”
“Anything,” he answered.
“How does it all work? If you race twice a month, where do you live? How would you maintain a relationship with so much travel?”
Hugh reached around her and pulled her closer. She stretched her legs out behind her on the couch and leaned across his lap. Gazing into Brianna’s eyes, Hugh didn’t need to dig too deep to find the answer. Truth found his lips again.
“Until I met you, I didn’t have to worry about that.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “All I know is that I don’t want to leave your side, and now that I've met Layla, I don’t want to leave hers, either.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
BRIANNA COULD COUNT on one hand the number of times she knew she was making the absolute right decision in her life. The first was when she went away to college. The second was when she decided to study photography. She’d always felt as though she was looking at life through a filter, trying to rid what she saw of the blurry edges and bring it all into focus. The third time was when she found out she was pregnant and knew she was going to keep the baby. There had been a click in her brain that afternoon, probably much like the click Hugh spoke of a few minutes earlier. Each of those decisions had been the right ones, and they’d led her to a happy, productive life that had served her well, even if it was a bit closed in. Now she looked into the dark eyes of the man she was falling head over heels in love with. The man who was kind, generous to a fault, and the most honest man she could ever ask for. Brianna knew this fourth and most important decision in her life came with major consequences. She had Layla to think about after all. The words balanced on the edge of her tongue, and she closed her mouth to keep them in. What if she was wrong? What if he meant every beautiful word he said, but meaning them wasn’t enough? What if…No. She wouldn’t go down that road tonight. She’d asked him what it all meant, and he’d told her. She owed him the same honesty.
She placed her hand on the spot on his stomach that she’d come to believe was hers and hers alone. The spot just above the rivet of the right pocket of his jeans. The spot where her fingertips melded perfectly to his abs. The spot that always rewarded her with a widening and then, almost instantly, a darkening and narrowing of his eyes as he leaned forward and—Oh God, yes—lowered his mouth to hers. Every kiss was like a renewal, a crazy tossing up and mixing together of the lust and love that bloomed within her, spilling over with each press of his lips. And, Jesus, he tasted good. She wrapped her arms around him and he moved with her, pressing his chest to hers and dragging his hand—How I love those big, glorious hands—down her side the way he did, making her feel feminine and aroused in ways she never dreamed possible.
He slid his hand beneath her T-shirt, caressing her bare skin and sending a shock of greediness right through her. He read her need with pinpoint accuracy, cupping her breast and moving his mouth to her neck as he whispered her name.
“Bree…”
His voice slayed her as it had since the first night she’d met him. He came in like the wind, soft and alluring. He brushed softly against the walls she’d erected, and they fell away when she wasn’t looking, leaving her with only a few thin layers of protection around her heart. Hugh lifted those layers right off of her with every consideration, every loving kiss, every longing look, exposing her vulnerable heart—and now, as he lifted her shirt and settled his mouth over her breast, she never wanted to find a windless spot again.
With one arm beneath her and one arm around her waist, Hugh shifted his body above Brianna’s. He felt so damn good—every hard inch of him. She tangled her hands in his hair and brought his mouth to hers again, disappearing into the heat that arched her hips to his and pulled hungry moans from deep within her lungs.
“Jesus, Bree.” He moved down her body, kissing her stomach and shifting his hips to the side. His mouth found hers again as he slipped his hand down the front of her pants, his fingertips brushing her center. He groaned against her lips. “You’re so wet.”
Hearing him talk dirty spurred her to him again, and she met his mouth with a clash of tongue and teeth as he pushed his hand deeper. His fingers entered her, and she pulled back from his mouth with a whimper of need. She tugged at his shirt and pulled his bare stomach to hers, pressing her hips against his. He took her in another rough kiss, and the combination of want and need meshed together with the sensations of his loving touch and sensuous tongue and she spiraled up and over the edge. Her head fell back, and he captured her cries of pleasure in his mouth as a thousand pinpricks lit her limbs on fire and stole her concentration. As she eased down from the blissful crest, their kiss became tender.
“Wow,” she whispered, brushing her hair from her face.
Hugh glanced down the hall. “As much as I want to take you into your bedroom and make sweet love to you, you haven’t told your little princess about us yet. I have a feeling that if she woke up and found a strange man in her mother’s bed, it might ruin her for life.”
Brianna traced the outline of Hugh’s biceps with her finger. “Don’t you mean her handsome prince?”
Hugh smiled down at her. “Well, there is that.” He scooped her into his arms. “So, mama bear, how does this work?”
“What do you mean?”
“Was there anything else you wanted to know about me before you talk to Layla?” The seriousness returned to his voice.
“I feel like you’ve bared your soul to me, and everything you’ve told me just draws me even closer to you. I’m just trying to figure things out, and I know we've only been seeing each other for a few days...”
“It feels like a lifetime.”
You have no idea. “For me too. I just worry that if we continue to get close and then you’re gone for weeks at a time, that’ll be really hard on Layla.” And me too. “I’m not trying to push our relationship forward. I just…as a mother, I have to think ahead. What I do affects Layla.”