My Kind of Wonderful (16 page)

This time everything flew off, her skis, her poles… her good wits, scattering along with her equipment.

“And
that’s
what you call a garage sale,” Hudson said.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped, sprawled out over the top of him. She pushed up off his chest and stared down into his face. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Wait.” He cupped the back of her head, his gaze dropping to her mouth. “You have a little something…”

She touched her face. “Where?”

“I’ve got it.” And he pulled her face down to his, kissing her long and wet and deep.

“Get a room,” someone yelled from the ski lift above them.

Bailey ignored it and so did Hudson. Only when he was apparently finished thoroughly ravaging her mouth did he let her go. “Ready?” he asked.

Ready? For what? She no longer knew her name. That she was still on a ski slope shocked the hell out of her. She looked down at herself to make sure her clothes hadn’t melted off. “I’m always ready,” she said.

He grinned. “That’s what I like about you.” He got to his feet in one move that made it look easy.

It wasn’t. First off, her legs still weren’t working, so it took her a minute to get them beneath her. Hudson patiently straightened her out.

Dazed, she stared at his mouth, which she knew could drive her halfway to orgasm with just a kiss. She let out a rough laugh and shook her head. “Hudson?”

“Yeah?”

“I know I’m the one who put limits on this… this
thing
,” she said, and bit her lower lip, suddenly nervous. “But I’m pretty sure we’re not quite done with each other.”

He looked at her for what felt like a long time. “You want another night.”

Still unable to take her eyes off his mouth, she didn’t muzzle herself. “I want as long as it takes.”

He cupped her jaw, lifting her head up so that she was looking into his eyes again. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“What makes you think I can’t keep it?”

“Because you seem to like things one night at a time,” he said in that low, sexy voice. “But no way is one more night going to be enough.”

Again, her heart skipped a beat. “Cocky much?” she managed.

His smile was slow and sexy as hell. “That wasn’t bravado, Bailey. That was fact.”

A
t the base lodge, Bailey removed her skis next to Hudson. He scooped up all of their skis and poles and set them over his shoulder.

While she gaped at the easy strength, he held out his free hand for hers.

“What?” she asked.

“You have a promise to fulfill.”

Oh boy. Everything was about to change, and she could feel it. She’d had a lot of changes in the past few years. More than most had in their entire lives. Was she ready for another?

No way is one more night going to be enough…

At just the memory of his words, she quivered, even as she knew he was right. With Hudson, one night would never be enough. Waiting patiently while her mind sorted through all of this, Hud merely kept his hand out.

When she took it, his eyes heated. A sexy smile curved his lips as well, and then he was pulling her through the
crowd in the lodge, past an
EMPLOYEES ONLY
door, down a hallway of offices…

A few people looked up or said something briefly to Hud. He nodded and responded in kind, but Bailey couldn’t keep track of any of it, and then Hudson had opened a door and pulled her inside. Completely lost in thought, she stumbled. He used her momentum against her, tugging her so that she fell into him, and the two of them tumbled into his office.

She knew this room—intimately.

Hud kicked the door shut, slapped a hand out to lock it, and then dropped his jacket and pressed her into the wood.

She smiled but as Hudson took her hands and slowly slid them up the wood on either side of her face until they were over her head, her amusement died. It was replaced by sheer, unadulterated lust. Body vibrating with need, she tried to reach out to kiss him but he held her off.

“You still want this?” he asked in a low and gravelly voice.

He was vibrating, too, and that gave her a surge of feminine power. She tugged her hands free and set them on his chest, letting them trail down his rock-hard abs.

“Bailey.”

“Yes,” she said, loving the feel of his six-pack. She let her hands drift down to the waistband of his ski pants, and the question of the day became what to touch first.

Everything
, she decided, and grabbed a handful of his shirt, yanking it free of the pants. “Yes, I still want this,” she said. “I want you. I want you now. Please, Hud—”

His mouth came down on hers hard, locking them in a battle to get closer, then closer still. A battle fought with hands, arms… tongues. Still not feeling close enough, she squirmed and Hud responded by tightening his grip on her, deepening the kiss ever further.

She could feel every part of him plastered against her, and there were some really great parts she wanted to get up close and personal with. She’d been so nervous their first time, but ever since then her nerves had been replaced by a bold need to know every inch of his glorious body. To that end, her hands found their way beneath his shirt. Her fingers retraced the path they’d taken a moment before up his chest, stroking over one side and then the other, thrilling to his sharp intake of breath and the way his nipples tightened into little beads—

The knock at the door made her jump.

“Hud.” The male voice that came through the door was Gray, she thought half hysterically, and started to pull away. Hud made a low male sound, gripped her harder, and kept kissing her.

Oh, thank God, was all she could think. This was going to happen, hopefully before she combusted. But then the door handle rattled at her hip and she gasped.

Gray was trying to let himself in!

“Dammit, Hud!” Gray muttered. “Open up!”

Hud didn’t answer. Couldn’t, seeing as his tongue was currently caressing Bailey’s in a delicious fight for sexual dominance that had her whimpering and trying to climb up his body.

She’d never felt so electrically, erotically charged. Never. This was
not
the cozy sex she was used to. She loved cozy sex, at least as much of it as she could
remember. But this… this was in a whole other league from anything she’d ever experienced.

“Asshole,” Gray said from the other side of the door. When silence followed this, Bailey hoped that meant Gray had walked away.

Hud’s hands came up to cup her face and his lips found hers again. “I can’t get enough,” he whispered huskily against her mouth. “I can’t get enough of you.”

She nodded because she couldn’t get enough of him either.

“Say it,” he said.

She swallowed hard and stared up at him. “I can’t get enough of you. I wanted to but I can’t.”

He closed his eyes for a beat and then scooped her up. Turning with her in his arms, he swiped an arm across his desk, sending everything flying to the floor.

She nearly had a mini-O on the spot.

At the whimpering sound she made, his gaze turned to her, hot. Hungry. He set her on the desk, pushed her legs apart, and stepped in between them. He stripped off her jacket. Her shirt and bra took even less time, and he shook his head.

“What?” she asked, lifting her hands to cover herself.

He caught her hands in his and held them out to her sides. “I thought maybe I made some of this up in my head,” he murmured.

“Some of what?”

“How beautiful you are.” He shook his head again. “I didn’t. You undo me, Bailey.” And then, still holding her hands in his, he kissed his way down her body, paying special homage to each spot. When he licked her nipple before very gently biting down, she barely held
back a cry for more. Needing a handhold, she sank her fingers into his hair, holding him to her as he sucked her into his mouth. She tried to squeeze her legs together to alleviate some of the ache between them, but he stood in the V of her thighs, holding her spread open. He rocked into her, pressing into her right where she ached the most.

Not wanting to be a slouch, she shoved his shirt up and undid the button on his ski pants.

And then the zipper.

Their gazes met.

“Condom,” she whispered.

He pulled one from somewhere just as a sudden and firm pounding at the door had her nearly jerking out of her skin.

“Hud!” A woman’s voice came through the wood, sounding stressed. “Half your guys screwed up their time cards
again
!”

Hud lifted his head from Bailey’s breast and gave her a slow headshake. He wasn’t going to fix the time card problem, at least not right now. And then he went back to driving her crazy with that tongue. When she gasped again, he reached up and covered her mouth.

Right. Quiet
.

But how was she supposed to be quiet? Especially when—oh, sweet baby Jesus—he crouched low, undid her ski boot, and slipped it off, careful to set it on the floor instead of letting it hit with a
thunk
. Then he lifted his head and met her gaze. His head was level with her crotch.

It was a shockingly intimate position and her body liked it.

A lot.

He did the same for boot number two and then unbuttoned and unzipped her ski pants, and he wasn’t nearly as slow as she had been. In two seconds she was sitting on his desk in nothing but her leopard-print bikini panties.

H
ottest sight Hud had ever seen. Fantasies set aside, he’d never had a woman sitting on his desk in just her panties before. And that this was Bailey… damn. Better than any dream. Better than any of his wildest dreams.

“Your turn,” she whispered, and slid her hands into his pants to lower them to his thighs. He expected a reaction from her but he didn’t expect her to freeze in shock.

Which was when he remembered—he was wearing the Big Dog briefs from Aidan, the ones with the words
CHOKING HAZARD
written in bold block letters down the fly.

Jesus.

She blinked and then read the words to herself. He knew this because he watched her lips move and form the words
choking hazard
. She then made a rough sound that please God was a laugh and not a horrified sob and covered her mouth with her hand.

“Fucking Aidan,” he muttered.

She made the sound again and yeah, it was most definitely a laugh. He looked into her smiling eyes. “You think this is funny?”

Hand still on her mouth, she nodded.

He blew out a mock sigh, but God he loved her smile and her laugh. “Not exactly the mood I was hoping to set here, Bay.”

She dropped her hand and gave him a look from beneath her lashes. “You set the mood just fine.” And then she slid off his desk to her knees on the floor in front of him. Her mouth headed south down his abs. When the briefs impeded the process, she tugged them out of her way.

He sucked in a breath and tipped his head down to make sure this was still Bailey because the whole thing felt surreal. His Bailey was sweet and maybe even a little introverted. Hell, she still blushed when he kissed her. She wasn’t a woman who—in his office, no less—would drop to her knees in nothing but skimpy panties and—“Oh, Christ.”

She pressed a hot kiss about an inch to the right of where he really wanted her and then slid her gaze up at him and smiled.

“You like this?” she whispered. Not being coy, genuinely wanting to make sure.

In spite of himself he let out a rough laugh. “Keep that up and you’ll see just how much in about sixty seconds,” he managed.

Her grin widened.

“I’m just amusing you all over the place today,” he said.

“Maybe I just like the idea of making a big, tough guy weak in the knees with nothing more than a kiss.”

He didn’t tell her that she’d made him weak in the knees from their very first moment together, with one wide-eyed look on the top of the mountain.

She slid her hands up his thighs, licked her lips, and then licked
him
—

“
Hud!
” someone yelled through the door. Aidan, this time. “A surprise storm’s moving in by nightfall.”

Used to people pounding on his door day and night, Hud didn’t so much as flinch. But Bailey—her mouth on her admittedly favorite part of his anatomy—nearly went through the roof.

Ignoring Aidan outside the door, Hud pulled Bailey back up. “When I die,” he whispered against her lips, “I want to go just like that, with your mouth on me.”

She smiled and kissed him deep and hot, and from very, very far away he heard his brother mutter “shit” through the door.

Hud didn’t respond. Instead he kissed Bailey, his hands slipping into the back of her panties, feeling nothing but smooth, velvet-soft ass. Cupping a cheek in each hand, he lifted her back up to his desk and pressed his hips hard into hers.

Her eyes were worried. “But people keep coming—”

“The next person to come is going to be you,” he said. He dropped to his knees then and hooked his fingers into the lace on her hips. “Lift up, Bailey.”

“Um,” she said even as she lifted up for him.

He slowly slid her panties down her legs and then held those legs open with his shoulders.

He lifted his head from the gorgeous sight of her all soft and wet. Very wet. “Okay?”

She bit her lower lip. “I don’t know yet.”

He leaned in and kissed her inner thigh. “You just let me know when.”

Eyes wide, she nodded slowly, clearly unsure. So he bent his head and did his best to make her very, very sure.

It took less than three minutes, and by the end of those three minutes she’d squeezed his head between her thighs like a grape, sunk her fingers into his hair, and nearly made him bald.

He’d loved every second.

She was still panting when he rose up to his feet. She stared up at him in dazed shock. “I liked that.”

He grinned. “I know.”

“No, I mean I
really
liked that,” she said. “We need to do that again.”

“Yes. After this.” He pulled her off the desk and then turned her to face it. “Bend over,” he murmured, pressing the front of his body to the back of hers and running his hands down her arms. He used his fingers to guide her palms flat to his desk so that her ass pressed into his groin.

She went still. “Hudson—”

“The desk isn’t the right height when you’re sitting on it,” he whispered. “This will be a better angle for you, I promise.” As he spoke, he pressed open-mouthed kisses to the sweet spot just beneath her ear as his hands found her breasts. When his rough fingers teased her tight nipples, she went soft and compliant.

Very gently he inserted a foot between hers and urged her legs farther apart. Keeping an arm around her waist to cushion her from the edge of the wood, he trailed a hand between her trembling thighs.

She moaned and squirmed, and he sank his teeth into
the nape of her neck. “Shh,” he reminded her, loving the scent of her—coconut shampoo, soft and willing woman, and maybe a tinge of apprehension. She shivered and pressed back against him.

Nope. Not apprehension. It was arousal, in every beat of her heart and every hitched breath.

“Please,” she breathed, and pushed her hips back into him, gripping the edges of his desk and quivering like a bow strung as taut as it could get. “Oh, Hud, please…”

Making quick work of a condom, he thrust into her and she came. Instantly. Barely managing not to do the same, he held her through the tremors and stroked her up again. He was trying to slow her down, trying to slow them both down, but she kept rocking those hips back for more and he lost himself, just completely lost himself in Bailey.

When their frenzied need overtook them both, they detonated. Hud just barely managed to keep them both upright in spite of the fact that his legs weren’t a solid bet. He was still working on that and also trying to catch his breath—
and
come to terms with what had just happened. He was pretty sure that what happened was his heart had just rolled over and exposed its tender underbelly—when there was another knock at his door.

“Hud?” It was Penny this time. “Hud, have you seen Bailey? Her car’s in the lot but no one’s seen her. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”

Penny was smarter than both of his brothers. In fact she was smarter than all of them added together. “She’s okay,” he said to the door.

There was a beat of silence from Penny. Never a good sign. Then, “So is that ‘she’s okay’ as in you just want me to go away and leave you the hell alone?” she asked.
“Or ‘she’s okay’ as in you’ve got her in there with you and you’re making good use of your desk the way I do with Gray’s?”

Bailey squirmed. “Door number two!” she said.

Jesus. Hud dropped his forehead to Bailey’s shoulder. “Now you’ve done it,” he murmured. He could feel her shaking with laughter and it occurred to him that any other woman might have been pissed. And with good reason. He’d just bent her over his desk and taken her. And also, his family was certifiable. Completely. “Now that you know she’s okay,” he said to Penny through the door, “you can go away.”

“Will do,” Penny said, sounding very amused. “I’ll retract the search party. Hey, you guys want to come for dinner tonight?”

Hud closed his eyes. “Penny?”

“Yeah?”

“Go away. And if you tell, I’ll let Gray know you’re the one who put that dent in his precious truck.”

There was a shocked beat of silence and then “I was never here!” This was followed by the sound of her footsteps hurrying away.

“Shit,” Hud muttered, turning Bailey in his arms to face him. “She’ll have told everyone by the end of the day.”

Bailey, looking soft and dazed and sated, smiled and he gave her a kiss. Then he propped her up against his desk and picked up her clothes for her. Since she still looked boneless and adorably wobbly, he ended up helping her get back into them. He added his own sweatshirt to the top of her ensemble to keep her warm.

Bullshit. You just like the way she looks in your clothes…

When yet another knock came on his door, he just about blew his gasket. Since they were both put back together, more or less, he yanked his office door open and was prepared to blast whoever stood there.

It was Penny again. He’d have to kill her. He’d have to kill Gray, too, of course, but Hud thought he could easily learn to live without them both—

These thoughts collided on themselves when he realized that Penny was looking extremely sorry to be interrupting, and also that she wasn’t alone.

Behind her was a fiftyish woman—

“Mom?” Bailey asked, sounding shocked as she came up to Hud’s side and peered around him. “What are you doing here?”

The woman looked at Bailey with such shocked horror that Hud turned to look at Bailey too.

Shit. The sweatshirt she wore—his—was on inside out, her ski cap was askew—from his hands—and she was hopping into her other ski boot without a sock since they’d been unable to locate it.

“What’s going on here?” Bailey’s mother asked dramatically, slapping a hand to her own heart as she divided a gaze between Hud and her daughter.

“A meeting,” Penny said smoothly. “Just an everyday old average meeting. Isn’t that right, Hud?”

But Bailey’s mother’s eyes ignored Hud entirely, locking on Bailey. “Then why are you all flushed and sweaty? You’re either running a fever or you were just—”

“Mom,” Bailey said, righting her cap. “Just give me a minute here to finish up and I’ll take you to the cafeteria where we can talk—”

“I came up here to see the mural you’re always talking
about. I wanted to take pictures for all my friends who are constantly asking me how you’re doing and if you’re needing any more help, financially or otherwise. I thought—” She broke off and shook her head, and turned her hard, angry eyes on Hud.

He held out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Moore.”

She stared at his hand and then whipped back to Bailey. “We’ve been worried sick about you. You’ve been putting so many hours into work, and then on top of that coming up here to work some more—or so I thought.”

“Mom,” Bailey said with quiet reproof. “You’re being rude.”

“
I’m
being rude? I thought—” She broke off and shook her head. “Well, it doesn’t matter what I thought. I was wrong. You’ve been up here cheating on poor Aaron!”

Bailey stepped forward to take her mom’s arm and steer her out the door, carefully not meeting Hud’s eyes.

Which, for the record, Hud hated.

Bailey’s mom tugged herself free and shook her head again. “No. I’m not staying.”

Bailey sighed. “Mom—”

“I can’t,” her mother said, voice quavering. She took a step back, eyes shimmering. “I don’t even recognize you,” she said, and then she was gone.

Bailey started to go after her, but Hud caught her and held on when she tried to break free. He bent a little to look into her eyes.

Yep. Filled with humiliation.

Dammit all to hell.

He easily switched his anger from Penny to Bailey’s mother. But much as he’d like to, he couldn’t strangle the
woman. She was Bailey’s mother. “Hey,” he said softly, holding her gaze and wishing she’d let him console her, wishing she’d acknowledge that what they’d just shared was worth fighting for. “That was pretty rough. Take a minute.”

She turned her head away from him so he couldn’t see but it didn’t matter. The stricken look in her eyes was now burned in his brain.

“I have to go after her,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “I don’t want her on the curvy roads upset.”

And he didn’t want Bailey upset at all, but this wasn’t Christmas and wishes didn’t come true. “Bailey. Bay, look at me a minute.”

She turned back to him, eyes downcast. He waited and she finally lifted them up to his.

“Don’t let her cheapen what just happened,” he said quietly.

“You can’t cheapen a one-time thing,” she said just as quietly.

“This has never been a one-time thing.”

She shook her head, pulled free, and walked away.