Page 46 of Abyss

Belinda told me his job used to require him to be outside a lot. He would work right along with his environmental and earth scientists, like himself, examining the soil and managing excavations. But since his company grew, he does less work outdoors.

So why are his fingers still callused?

God, those fingers. What is it about the man’s fingers that have me wiggling where I sit? What is it about his clean, short nails, and his—

“Take off your pants.”

A record scratch resounds in my head, all music abruptly coming to an end.

Did I hear him right? Maybe I was hallucinating a sex scene with him in it. God knows—He’s the only one who knows—I’ve done it before.

I blink at him. “Generally, you’d take a girl out to dinner before asking her to take off her pants.”

Hudson glares at me harder. As usual, he doesn’t have any laughs to spare at my joke. “Kavi, I said, take off your pants. I need to clean up your knee.”

“Absolutely not!”

I make an attempt to jump off the counter, but he’s caged me in with his hands on both sides of my thighs, his face inches from mine and his breath fanning my lips. “Kav . . .”

Oh, no. He must know my nickname on his lips is kryptonite.

With my heart thumping, my eyes drop to his mouth again. This time, I know he notices. I mean, how can he not? Especially when I’m licking my lips. I can’t help it, it’s like an instinctual reaction to those pink pillows of his.

Something sizzles, crackles, and hisses.

A charge that has my nerve endings standing.

Reluctantly, I drag my eyes up to meet his gaze. “Hudson, I’m perfectly capable of cleaning up my own knee. There’s no way I’m taking my pants off in front of my boss, for crying out loud.”

His eyes flare.

And for a second, I swear he’s inside my head, watching me wriggle out of my tights before I sashay toward him like a practiced seductress.

His voice is low and raspy when he finally speaks. “Then I suggest you get the fuck out of my bathroom before I make you take them off.”

And with that, I’m hobbling out of there as fast as the charged air can take me.

Chapter Fourteen

HUDSON

Temporary insanity can be defined as a brief loss of rational thinking at the time a decision was made.

Less than two days of living with the woman sitting at her desk outside this conference room, and I can unequivocally claim temporary insanity at the time I made the decision to move her in. There is no other explanation for it.

Why else would I purposely torture myself this way?

I knew it that drunken night when I told that weasel, Corbin, to keep his hands off my admin.

I knew it when my brain no longer had control of my mouth, and I told her she was perfect before succumbing to sleep in my hotel room.

I knew it when she stood in the foyer of my apartment this weekend, filling it up with her vanilla and lemon scent.

And I knew it when I was inches from her lips, seconds from doing something I’d forever regret, when she sat on my bathroom countertop with that innocent expression, searching my face like she was looking for something to grasp. To claim.

I knew I’d lost my goddamn mind and that I shouldn’t have ever moved her in.

Barely listening to updates my executive team is giving me, I watch through the conference room window as Kavi rises from her seat, picking up a colorful notebook and pen. She clasps both under her arm before picking up the large platter of cornbread and walks to the entrance.

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