Page 48 of The Wedding Fake

“Night,” I echoed, my heartbeat picking up pace with every step Emily took.

And then we were alone, and my heart thundered away in my chest. I didn’t know why I was this nervous. It felt like my first time, when in fact I’d had sex countless times. Hell, I’d lived with Dan for years. But he was the only one I’d ever been with. Hudson was obviously going to have so much more experience. Would he expect me to? Would he be disappointed?

“Hey,” he said gently, drawing me from her thoughts.

“Hmm?”

Hudson slipped out from behind me, standing up and holding out his hand. I placed my palm in his and he drew me up until I stood mere inches away. Then he leaned down, brushing his lips to my forehead. “Let’s go upstairs.”

This moment had been all I could think about all day, but following him up the stairs to my childhood bedroom, doubt crept in from every direction. Inside the room, he closed the door with a soft snick, then leaned against it, watching me.

I held perfectly still, not taking my eyes off of him. I wanted him to close the distance, to kiss me until I forgot all the worries. I wanted to feel the way I’d felt earlier in the day.

Finally, his body left the door, and he stalked across the room to me, landing next to me on the bed so we were shoulder-to-shoulder. “I’m a little nervous, Claire.”

My eyes darted to his, trying to measure how much sincerity was there. Was he nervous, or just mirroring my emotions in an attempt to seduce me more quickly? Nothing in his eyes suggested he was lying, and he bumped his shoulder into mine. “What are you nervous about?” I asked, accusation lacing my voice.

He shrugged. “Nervous I missed my shot, that you’ve had time to reconsider since this afternoon, or that I might push for something you don’t really want.”

“I want it.” The words popped out before I had time to think them through, and I flushed a deep red.

“I want you,” Hudson said. I wanted him too, and yet I felt I was missing some message in his words. I leaned in, kissing him softly, my hand landing on his cheek. “Claire,” he murmured, tunneling his fingers into the hair at the base of my neck, pulling me closer until I was out of breath and scrambling to eliminate the distance remaining between us.

“Hud,” I replied between those amazing kisses, my voice a hoarse whisper. “I know how to get myself off, so you don’t have to worry about it.”

23

HUDSON

If I’d had a million guesses as to Claire’s next statement, I wouldn’t have come up with that assortment of words. I still held the back of her head, but the words paused me. Now I stood, looking down at her, the corner of my lips twitching up. “What if I want to?”

“Want to what?” she asked, and I chuckled at the absurdity of the conversation we were having.

“What if I want to get you off?”

She shrugged, looking off to one side. “Statistically speaking, ninety percent of women don’t have an orgasm during one-night stands. I thought, maybe if you were nervous about that, I could help…” Her voice trailed off at the end as she saw my smile deepen. It was a smile I should’ve smothered, because I knew it would make her self-conscious, and yet I could do nothing to hide it. Claire had searched up statistics on one-night stands. Of course she had.

I slid a hand up her side until I cupped her breast in my palm. They were neither big nor heavy, but they were a spectacular shape, and I longed to feel them without the barrier of her clothes. My thumb ran over her nipple, and it pressed into my palm, hard and eager. “Do you want me, Claire?”

My thumb never stopped moving, and she arched into my touch, emitting a low moan. “God, yes, Hud.”

I wasn’t sure if she was agreeing to wanting sex or wanting me. I hoped the latter, but at this particular moment, with my erection straining in my pants, I’d take either. I shifted my body over her until she pressed back into the comforter. She was soft and small under me, and I held my weight off her carefully. “If you want this, then you don’t have to help. I’ll make sure you come, Claire.”

I hadn’t meant it to be dirty talk—hadn’t even thought of the words as dirty—but Claire groaned, writhing against me as she dug her hands into my hair.

I rolled us over, putting Claire in charge, but we both froze as my back hit the bed and it creaked under me. “I didn’t notice that yesterday,” I whispered.

“Me neither,” Claire said, experimentally rolling her hips. My breathy sigh was drowned out by the noisy bed springs. “But shit.”

“Get up” I replied, lifting her by the hips. I popped out of bed and walked to the closet, where I’d seen an assortment of blankets, pulling out the fluffiest two then fanning them out on the floor next to the bed. I raised a brow in question, and Claire scrambled down to the floor, pulling her shirt over her head as she went.

For a moment I only looked at her, marveling over her beauty and her sweet, open demeanor. I barely knew her, and somehow she was quickly becoming one of my favorite people. I’d been staring too long, and Claire looked down at her body, running a finger across her chest plate. “I’m so pale. You can see my veins.”

“You’re beautiful,” I replied, a single breath as I fell to my knees, my lips tracing over those faint blue lines, kissing over the smooth skin. “Absolutely beautiful.”

Claire lifted a shoulder, reaching back to unhook her bra, and I kissed my way across her chest, using a single finger to drag the bra down. Her breasts were lovely, exactly what I’d expected, and I ran my lips over the pink blush of one nipple and down the curving underside of her breast. “Hud,” she moaned quietly.

I made my way down her stomach, one hand remaining at her breast, loathe to let go, until my lips brushed over her belly button. She giggled, and I smiled, unbuttoning her shorts and dragging them down her legs, then dropping my lips to her cotton panties, my cock growing impossibly harder as I felt the moisture there. “Hudson,” she whispered urgently, pulling one shoulder.

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