Page 118 of Wilde's End
“What was your name?”
“Kurt. Blackwood. I named myself after Wilde’s End, because I really thought that living there was the end for me.”
“Kurt …”
The name doesn’t feel the way it used to. “It’s Wilde. Just Wilde. All I’m trying to say is that for the last twenty years, I’ve trained myself to ignore my emotions. Feeling anything brings it all back again. I can’t feel happiness without guilt. Can’t feel pride without pain. Can’t look at you and feel everything I want to feel without remembering that he never got that chance to experience it. I don’t know how to be normal. I don’t know how to tell you what I want because I stopped wanting a long time ago. But … all I know is that the second I came to find you and heard you’d left, it felt like something inside me died. You belong in the End, and I think you might belong with me.”
“I told you that I’m not the romantic type,” Hudson says,letting go of my hand to cup my face like I wanted to do to him. “I don’t need the grand gestures. I don’t need you showering me in affection or going on and on about feelings. All I need is to know that I’m worth something to you. Because I’ve never been worth something to anyone.”
The way he can say that and believe it is almost too much for me. When I look at Hudson, he gives me this overwhelming impression of life. There’s fire burning in his soul that draws me in, and I can’t stay away. Not from his teasing or his laughter or his determination to succeed even in the things I don’t want him to. That fire burns so brightly I swear I feel it inside me sometimes, and if Hudson can bring even my dead soul back to life, he’s worth everything.
Slowly, like I’m almost scared how he’ll react, I turn my head and press my lips to his palm. “Come back with me,” I whisper. “I can’t make you any promises other than I want to try. You deserve the world, and I can’t give you that, but I can give you my world. Because it’s been centering around you since the day we met.”
It feels like I’m holding my breath as I wait for him to answer, as he searches my eyes in that way he loves to do, and I can only hope that they show how serious I am. How, if he refused, I don’t think that I could ever recover.
“Okay,” he agrees. “But first, I need you to come with me.”
He leads the way down a short hall, and I trail behind him like he’s got me on a leash. If Hudson calls for me, I’m there, and this is no different.
He steps into a bedroom, and as soon as I’m inside, he closes the door and pushes me up against it.
His lips meet mine, warm and consuming, and I melt into his kiss. Everything I’ve kept bottled up in my chest rattles to break free as I let myself be in the moment, where it’s him and me, and everything else can wait. I reach up to cradle his head, soft strandsof hair slipping through my fingers. Hudson’s tongue brushes mine, and I answer him back with intensity. He kisses like he lives: no restraint, all passion, in a way that drives me out of my mind.
My cock is thickening with every passing moment, but I don’t want to let him out of my grip. This moment is fleeting and precious, and while I’d love to believe it’s the start of so many more, we have a long way to go yet.
“Bed,” he mutters, pulling me along with him, mouth still locked to mine. We stumble across his room, losing items of clothing as we go. When I’m naked, Hudson slows, and his gaze drops to my torso. The searing heat from his stare sets off the usual discomfort at having someone’s sole attention, but I’m unprepared for how deep it gets when he reaches up and runs his thumb over one of my scars.
“What are you doing?”
He doesn’t answer. His fingers skim further over my torso, lingering on old scars and tracing the remainder of memories I’ve run from for so long. He leans in, lips dusting over my shoulder, and I can barely breathe, let alone react to him.
“Your skin healed,” he breathes, lips drifting to my throat. “Now I’m going to spend the rest of my life helping to heal the scars inside you as well.”
“Hudson …”
“It’s okay.” He pulls me close. “You don’t need to think about any of that yet. I’ve got you.”
Hudson’s naked body pressed to mine is a familiarity I’ll never get sick of, and when we reach the bed and he drops backward onto it, I’m quick to crawl over him.
My mouth seals to his again as I run a hand over his chest. Soft blond hairs that are growing back tickle my palm, and I pause to run my thumb over his nipple. The deep groan, the wayit hardens under my touch, I’ll never get enough of Hudson and how he responds to me.
His hips tilt up to meet mine.
“I’m going to need you to put me out of my misery here,” he says, hands cording through my hair. “Thinking this was over has only made me need it more.”
It’s like he’s plucked the thoughts from my mind. This intensity is nothing new for us, but it has taken on a new edge. Like our bodies are desperate to make us deliver on all the words we gave each other.
I dip my head to taste his neck, and Hudson arches to meet me.
“Fuck, yes,” he rasps, that scratchy tone bleeding into his words and making my balls heavy. The sweet scent is almost overpowering, but I breathe every little bit in, trying not to focus on how I almost lost it and focusing on how I get to keep it instead.
Every moan, every sigh, every rock of his hips against mine as I drag open-mouthed kisses down his neck to his shoulder, then from his shoulder to the nipple I’m neglecting.
I grip it between my teeth, tongue flicking over the hardened peak before I suck the whole thing into my mouth. Hudson’s so fucking perfect, the way he’s writhing under me, uncomfortably hard, dick brushing mine with every upward thrust of his hips.
The urge to grind down against him until we both come is strong, but I want something else tonight. Something I’ve only ever used my fingers for and am ready to make happen.
“You know,” I say, pulling back to flick my tongue over him again before sinking down between his legs. “I really want this …” I suck his cock down to the back of my throat before releasing it. “In my ass.”
