My body begged to give into his demanding passion, his mouth and tongue coaxing me to bend to him, but my brain still held onto our disagreement and our whereabouts. Jesus, we were in the goddamn office of the nightclub!
I broke away from his lips. “Hudson, stop.”
But he didn’t stop. He continued kissing down my neck and his hand found my breast, which he squeezed and fondled roughly over the fabric of my dress. His cock pressed into me at my thigh, and I felt it stiffen.
“Stop!” I said again, pushing at his chest with both my hands.
“No,” he rumbled in my ear. “I have to fuck you. Now.”
“Why? Are you marking your territory?” I’d only been half serious with the comment, but he pulled back and the look in his eyes said that was exactly what he was doing.
I wriggled out of his grip, the nausea returning in painful waves. “You don’t own me, Hudson! Stop messing with me like I’m one of your other women. Not with me, remember?”
“Don’t you think I know that? Every minute of every day I remind myself that I can’t conquer you. That I can’t do that to you.” His jaw twitched. “But it doesn’t mean that I don’t want to.”
He might as well have struck me. Even though I’d told myself that it was possible that I was merely another on his list of women he’d played, I’d truly believed that I was different. The tears that had threatened earlier spilled freely. “So I am just like the others.”
“No. You’re not.” His voice tightened. “I told you before. I don’t want to hurt you more than I need to win you.”
Sobbing now, I choked out, “You’ve already done both.”
“Fuck!” His features were overcome with horror, as if I’d told him I’d killed his mother. Or maybe not his mother, but someone he was fond of.
He took a step backward, away from me. It was devastating, to be hurting so deeply, to see my pain echoed on his face through the torrents of my tears. I couldn’t stand to feel like that, like I was losing him. I needed his comfort and to comfort him the only way I was sure that he would let me—I lunged for him, seizing his lips with mine.
It took only seconds for him to give in to me, and then he was the way I liked him most, dominating and in command. And I took the reverse role and gave myself over to him.
“Alayna,” he growled. His hand found my breast again, and he kneaded the ache away as he devoured my mouth. He wrapped his other arm around me, drawing me to him so tightly I felt consumed from all sides. Even inside, the flames of lust licked intensely, my arousal immediately kindled by the welcome assault on my body.
“Hudson,” I cried against his lips, not caring this time that we were in the middle of a fight or that the office door might not be locked. “I need you, too.”
He’d known we’d needed this before when I’d pushed him away. He was such a perfect lover, understanding my body and its demands even better than I did. Submitting to him, everything became easy. I could forget for a moment what barriers lay in between us while he took me in the way where no barriers separated us at all.
Hudson moved my body backward until the couch bumped against the back of my calf, and a fleeting thought of, “Oh, yay; we’re going to christen the couch!” passed through my mind when he let go of me to reach under my short A-line dress and pull my panties down below my knees. He pushed me back on the couch, spread my legs open and gathered the material of my dress up around my stomach, completely exposing my most private parts for him.
I felt beautiful like that—lying in wait for my lover who I knew would give and take as he pleased.
He gazed down at me, desire clouding his eyes as he undid his belt and lowered his pants only far enough to release his bulging cock from its prison. As fast as he moved, it seemed forever before he lowered himself on top of me, urging my legs further apart with his knees. Then he shoved into me with such force I gasped.
He pounded into me with driving thrusts, focused on his own need, his own desire for orgasm. But even through the fog of his own lust, he attended to me, his thumb pressing expertly on my clit, massaging me toward my own climax.
The act may have been primarily physical, but a deeper connection resulted from the joining of our bodies. Each stroke eased the sting of his earlier words, and I was certain that the motivation behind each deep lunge was to chase away his own torment, to release himself from the guilt of wounding me.
He didn’t shower me with his usual sex words, but we were hardly quiet as I whimpered under him and he repeated my name over and over like a mantra, like a prayer. And then the sound turned guttural as he flexed into me, coming in me with such violent eruption that it spurred me to release with him on my own shaky cry, “Hudson!”