Chapter 14

14

Charlie

Charlie’s Words To Live By:

Fuck Forever Man.

After the second pair of orgasms, it took us a while to catch our breath. Any trace of alcohol buzz had long since worn off, and I got up to fetch a bottle of water on the desk.

“Want some?” I asked, returning to the bed. The duvet was piled up in a messy heap at the bottom of the bed, and Hudson lay sprawled out under just a thin white sheet. His hair looked like he’d gone hillwalking in a stiff wind.

He sat up and leaned against the headboard before accepting the bottle. “Thanks.”

“Feeling okay?” I asked. “No regrets?”

Hudson swallowed a few sips. When he handed back the bottle and looked up at me, his eyes were intense.

“I regret you’re not in this bed with me right now.”

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

I set down the water and climbed onto his lap, straddling him again the way I had in the chair earlier.

“Better?”

“Mm. Much.” He kissed me softly and ran his fingers through my hair. “Your hair is the first thing I noticed about you. Did I tell you that already?”

“Not in so many words. With you it was those eyes. They kill me,” I admitted. “They make me want to do things to you, Hudson.”

“I give you permission to do things to me as soon as I recover from the last time,” he said with an enthusiastic grin.

His hands kept playing with my hair, and it was putting me into a trance. “I take it you’ve never had the luxury of playing with a man’s long hair before,” I teased.

He chuckled softly. “A man’s? Definitely not. I’ll just add that to the list.”

“What list?” My own fingers found the edges of his hair on the back of his neck and began returning the favor. I ran blunt nails lightly along his scalp until he hummed in pleasure.

“The list of things I thought I’d never do.”

I rolled off him and lay on my side next to him. He slid down to mirror my position so we were facing each other, heads on separate pillows. I reached for one of his hands to thread my fingers through it. Part of me was laughing at myself for acting like he was my boyfriend instead of a hookup, but I wasn’t experienced enough with casual sex to know how to behave with a one-off.

“What’s something else you think you’ll never do?” I asked.

Hudson thought for a minute. “I mean, besides the obvious ones like murder… I guess… I don’t think I’d ever quit my job without having another one lined up. What else? Run away from my family. Deliberately let someone down. Those are probably the biggest ones. What about you?”

“Mmm, probably leave Ireland. Certainly I wouldn’t turn my back on my family which means never leaving Fig and Bramble either. I’ll protect our heritage with everything I have.”

Hudson seemed to pale. “Wait, what? You’re related to Devlin Murray?”

My stomach dropped as I realized I hadn’t told him I was a Murray. Why had I thought that was a good idea?

I winced. “I’m his nephew. My dad and Dev own the company jointly. But my dad recently remarried and fucked off to Brazil, leaving Uncle Dev with power of attorney.”

Hudson fell onto his back, pulling his hand out of mine and putting his arm over his face. “I didn’t know.” His voice sounded hollow. “So when you sounded so proud of the inn’s history it was because…”

“It’s my family legacy. My dad still owns the majority share, so when he passes, the business comes to me. I’m the heir for what that’s worth.”

He was quiet after that for a while. I wasn’t sure if it had something to do with mixing business with pleasure or if he’d suddenly felt like he was sleeping with the boss or something, but there was a noticeable difference in his body language. There might as well have been a wall of ice bricks between us in the bed.

After a while, I couldn’t stand the distance any longer.

I climbed on top of him and pressed my nose into his neck, opening my mouth and sucking some skin between my lips until I could nip it hard with my teeth. Hudson yelped and pulled away.

“Fuck, Charlie. Ow.”

“You said I had permission to do things to you. I’ve come to collect,” I promised with a thrust of my hardening cock into his belly. “Whatever got into your brain needs to get the fuck out. You’re mine until the wee hours of the morning when you have to catch the airport shuttle, yeah?”

Hudson let out a defeated sigh and smiled that soft smile of his. “Yeah.”

“Say it,” I growled, thrusting again.

“You’re awfully cute when you get mean,” he said with a soft smile, pushing my hair behind an ear again and peppering soft kisses on my chin, my jaw, my cheeks, and eyelids. “Feisty redhead,” he murmured, continuing the sweet and tender torture.

“Fuck that, Hudson Wilde. Say it,” I gasped.

His lids dropped as his face flushed. “I’m yours, Charlie Murray. Yours.”

This time around there was nothing sweet about what happened between us. I braced his hands above his head with a tight grip and attacked his mouth with mine. I ground my cock into his until he was gasping and begging, and then I refused to let him come. Over and over again.

When he tried to bring his hands down to touch himself or me, I barked at him to stop. When he was unable to stop arching up into me, I shoved him onto his belly and thrust my cock along his crease instead, my copious precum providing more than enough lube to slick the way. He begged for relief until his words no longer made sense. Until he was shaking and sobbing and I thought we both might break apart into a million pieces.

There was a tiny hidden part of me that was furious—angry beyond measure for him coming into my life just long enough to get me on the fucking hook before he took off again forever. That part of me wanted to punish him. Wanted to make him regret his little “experiment” and vow never to try it on with another man.

I licked and kissed and sucked down his back until I was tasting the sticky trail left by my own pulsing cock. Hudson’s wrecked voice was muffled by the pillow, but I could make out whimpers of need to come and Charlie and please, baby.

My hands spread his cheeks with zero tenderness, and my tongue landed on his arsehole with even less. I ate him out like I was teaching him a fucking lesson, but god only knew what it was a lesson in.

My balls were crying out for relief. All I wanted was to kneel up and shove my dick so hard in that virgin arse, Hudson would walk funny for weeks. But I didn’t. Of course I wouldn’t.

Instead, I licked and sucked and pressed my tongue into him until he was just loose enough for me to slide a spit-slicked finger in and find the spot that would bring his big crazy experiment to an end.

Once he was almost passed out in a pool of his own cum and drool, I shot my load all over his beautiful muscled back and arse before washing up and tiptoeing out into the night.

If there was one thing I knew for sure, it was that one more look at his bedroom eyes would tumble me right over the cliff into a deep fucking vat of wanting what I couldn’t have.

My sister had been right. Fuck Forever Man. From here on out it was One-Night Man or nothing. My heart couldn’t take anything more than that.