Page 111 of Abyss

“You’re welcome back on anytime.”

I chuckle against him.

Grasping him tighter with my palms sweaty over his slick skin, I lift my head to meld our lips once more. They tangle languidly, without any of the frenzy and madness we seem to gravitate to in our lovemaking, before I rest my head on his chest once again, listening to the drum of his heartbeat.

Feeling the type of peace that people look for all their lives but never find.

Hudson lays a kiss on my sweaty temple before slipping out from under me. He leaves me on his bed while I’m still seeing stars on the outskirts of my vision, beyond sated.

A minute later, he’s back with a wet rag. Without a word, he opens up my thighs and drags the warm towel over my center carefully, as if he’s doing the world’s most important work.

Once he’s discarded the towel in his hamper, he strolls toward me, letting me shamelessly admire the way his powerful thighs coil and flex with each step he takes. Before he can get into bed, I grab the box I put on the nightstand and hand it to him.

“Put them on me,” I whisper.

His Adam’s apple bobs as he gently releases one earring from the box. Leaning over me, he gently threads it through my earlobe before doing the same with the other. I take the moment to pepper a kiss or two over that scruffy jaw I love so much.

I lift a curious brow when he’s finished, brushing the tip of my finger against the dangly earring. “Well? How do I look?”

His eyes roam over me. “Like the sweetest thing I’ll ever have on my lips.”

But like the season of cherries, I should have known nothing lasts forever.

Sometimes it even ends abruptly with an unforeseen wintry frost.

Chapter Thirty-One

KAVI

“You do that a lot.”

Following Hudson’s gaze to notice what he’s talking about, I look at my thumb. “Fiddling with my ring, you mean?” A chuckle erupts from my lips, and I slide both my hands down to rest on my laptop. “Yeah, I guess I do. Just a habit at this point.”

We’re both in our pajamas—me in one of his button-downs and him in sweatpants and a distracting T-shirt displaying his pecs—working at his dining room table with our laptops out the following Wednesday evening. The RCS project is nowhere close to being done since excavations of that size take months, but I’m trying to write up the project updates so I can hand them back over to Belinda when she returns from maternity leave.

We’ve been staying in touch weekly, and not necessarily about work stuff. Not surprisingly, she asks how things are going between Hudson and me at least three times in our five- to ten-minute conversations. As in, frequently.

After Madison’s wedding, I’d let Hudson know that I’dcome clean with Belinda. And though I expected him to be angry, he just sighed, saying he’d prepare himself for the barrage of her questions, but that he had no doubts about her loyalty. She wouldn’t speak of us to anyone.

Truthfully, having someone I can talk to about him, especially someone who knows him too, has been pleasantly reassuring, unlike the response from my mom.

Where Belinda is more accepting of our situation, Mom’s been concerned and somewhat dubious. It’s not that she’s against us being together; she’s just worried about me getting hurt.

Considering Hudson and I have yet to discuss our next steps, my mom isn’t completely wrong, either.

Hudson gently pulls my hand toward him, laying a soft kiss on my knuckles and for whatever reason, I decide to share a bit more. “It was Nathan’s.” I peer down at the silver band on my thumb. “We’d both gotten ones and had them engraved in high school, but I lost mine.” I clear my throat, blinking back the mist collecting inside my eyes. “His mom gave his to me after . . .”

Hudson brushes his thumb over my ring as I trail off. “You turn it whenever you’re nervous.”

Do I?I mull over his words for a moment. I suppose I do. Subconsciously, it helps me relax. Nathan always had a way of calming me down. I suppose, even in death, he’s left me something in lieu of his words to do the same.

“Are you?”

My eyes snap back to Hudson’s. “Am I what?”

“Nervous,” he probes gently, still dragging his thumb over mine.

Yes, I want to admit.

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