Curiosity overtook me even though my body was already vibrating under his ardor. “Why do you call me that, anyway?”
He answered without looking up from my bosom. “Because you are.”
“You started calling me precious before you could ever possibly know.”
“Not true.” He propped his elbow up on the bed and leaned his head on his hand. “I knew the minute I first saw you.”
For a brief second I thought he meant at the bar—the first night I had seen him. Then I remembered he’d seen me nearly two weeks before that when I was still working on my MBA and he’d been in the audience during my graduate symposium. I hadn’t found out about that until later, and he’d barely told me anything about it.
I propped my torso up on my elbows and eagerly waited for him to continue.
“You were on that stage at Stern,” he said, his hand stroking along the dip and curve of my waist to my hip. “When you started your presentation, you were nervous. It took you a few minutes to fall into the rhythm of your speech. But when you hit your stride, you were magnificent. Yet you had no idea. It was completely obvious that it never crossed your mind that the room was full of people who would have hired you had you spoken to any of them. Thank god, you didn’t. Because I watched them watch you and I knew. I knew that they saw you were smart. They saw you had business savvy. But none of them recognized the rare jewel that stood before them. Precious.”
Tears stung at the corners of my eyes. No one had ever seen me like that, no had ever even looked. Not my parents before they died or my brother, Brian, or any of the men I’d ever dated or obsessed over. No one.
“I love you, Hudson.” It was out before I could think not to say it, before I could worry about him freaking like he had the first time I’d voiced my feelings for him. I wouldn’t have been able to keep the words inside if I’d wanted to—they were always at the surface now, at risk of tumbling off my tongue at any given moment. If we were going to make a relationship work, we’d both have to get comfortable with it.
My eyes never left his while he processed my declaration.
Then, in a flash, he covered his body with mine. Bracing one hand under my neck, he circled my nose with his. “You can tell me that as many times as you like,” he said, repeating my earlier words.
“I plan on it.” But it came out mumbled, lost inside his mouth as his lips overtook mine, and we expressed our emotions with our tongues and hands and bodies and a slew of other ways that didn’t require talking.
Chapter Two
Awareness of movement in the room woke me the next morning. I opened my eyes and saw Hudson adjusting his tie in front of the dresser mirror, his back to me. He had yet to put on his jacket so I had a full view of his tight behind. God, that man could wear a suit. He could wear nothing as easily. I wasn’t choosy.
He met my eyes in the mirror and a slight smile graced his lips. “Good morning.”
“Morning. I’m enjoying the view.”
“So am I.”
I blushed and pulled the sheet up over my naked body. The room seemed awfully light for as early as it had to be. “What time is it?” I glanced around for a clock and found none.
“Almost eleven.” He finished with his tie—a silver patterned one that brought out his eyes—and opened a drawer, retrieving a pair of dress socks.
Eleven? Hudson was usually at work before eight. “Why are you still here? Shouldn’t you have made half a million dollars by now?”
“Half a billion,” he said, straight-faced, as he sat on the bed next to me. “But they don’t need me for that. I canceled my morning.”
“When did you do that?” I was mesmerized with watching him put on his socks. It shouldn’t be so sexy to watch a man get dressed, yet my belly tightened and my girl parts started humming.
“Last night. Before you got here.”
“Smart thinking.” His invitation to spend the night in his penthouse had come at the beginning of my shift at The Sky Launch. I’d obsessed about it the entire evening, but being at work, there was nothing I could do to prepare for it. I didn’t even have a change of clothing or a toothbrush. It hadn’t occurred to me that Hudson would have used the time to get ready for my arrival. But of course he did. He was a very organized man, a planner with a fine attention to detail.
And since two rounds of lovemaking had transpired, we hadn’t gone to sleep until nearly six in the morning. Canceling his morning was good planning indeed.
I yawned and stretched my arms over my head, the sheet falling below my breasts as I did.