“Uh-oh,” she said, moving in closer. “You have a little…” Pretending she was going to brush some snow off of him, she instead smacked his ass in the same way he’d done to her. Except maybe harder. Or, you know, a lot harder.
Hudson’s eyes lit with a heated challenge as he gave her a look that had every bone in her body melting. It was the only reason that she plowed right into him, taking them both back down to the snow.
This time everything flew off, her skis, her poles… her good wits, scattering along with her equipment.
“And that’s what you call a garage sale,” Hudson said.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped, sprawled out over the top of him. She pushed up off his chest and stared down into his face. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Wait.” He cupped the back of her head, his gaze dropping to her mouth. “You have a little something…”
She touched her face. “Where?”
“I’ve got it.” And he pulled her face down to his, kissing her long and wet and deep.
“Get a room,” someone yelled from the ski lift above them.
Bailey ignored it and so did Hudson. Only when he was apparently finished thoroughly ravaging her mouth did he let her go. “Ready?” he asked.
Ready? For what? She no longer knew her name. That she was still on a ski slope shocked the hell out of her. She looked down at herself to make sure her clothes hadn’t melted off. “I’m always ready,” she said.
He grinned. “That’s what I like about you.” He got to his feet in one move that made it look easy.
It wasn’t. First off, her legs still weren’t working, so it took her a minute to get them beneath her. Hudson patiently straightened her out.
Dazed, she stared at his mouth, which she knew could drive her halfway to orgasm with just a kiss. She let out a rough laugh and shook her head. “Hudson?”
“Yeah?”
“I know I’m the one who put limits on this… this thing,” she said, and bit her lower lip, suddenly nervous. “But I’m pretty sure we’re not quite done with each other.”
He looked at her for what felt like a long time. “You want another night.”
Still unable to take her eyes off his mouth, she didn’t muzzle herself. “I want as long as it takes.”
He cupped her jaw, lifting her head up so that she was looking into his eyes again. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“What makes you think I can’t keep it?”
“Because you seem to like things one night at a time,” he said in that low, sexy voice. “But no way is one more night going to be enough.”
Again, her heart skipped a beat. “Cocky much?” she managed.
His smile was slow and sexy as hell. “That wasn’t bravado, Bailey. That was fact.”
Chapter 19
At the base lodge, Bailey removed her skis next to Hudson. He scooped up all of their skis and poles and set them over his shoulder.
While she gaped at the easy strength, he held out his free hand for hers.
“What?” she asked.
“You have a promise to fulfill.”
Oh boy. Everything was about to change, and she could feel it. She’d had a lot of changes in the past few years. More than most had in their entire lives. Was she ready for another?
No way is one more night going to be enough…
At just the memory of his words, she quivered, even as she knew he was right. With Hudson, one night would never be enough. Waiting patiently while her mind sorted through all of this, Hud merely kept his hand out.
When she took it, his eyes heated. A sexy smile curved his lips as well, and then he was pulling her through the crowd in the lodge, past an EMPLOYEES ONLY door, down a hallway of offices…
A few people looked up or said something briefly to Hud. He nodded and responded in kind, but Bailey couldn’t keep track of any of it, and then Hudson had opened a door and pulled her inside. Completely lost in thought, she stumbled. He used her momentum against her, tugging her so that she fell into him, and the two of them tumbled into his office.
She knew this room—intimately.
Hud kicked the door shut, slapped a hand out to lock it, and then dropped his jacket and pressed her into the wood.
She smiled but as Hudson took her hands and slowly slid them up the wood on either side of her face until they were over her head, her amusement died. It was replaced by sheer, unadulterated lust. Body vibrating with need, she tried to reach out to kiss him but he held her off.
“You still want this?” he asked in a low and gravelly voice.
He was vibrating, too, and that gave her a surge of feminine power. She tugged her hands free and set them on his chest, letting them trail down his rock-hard abs.
“Bailey.”
“Yes,” she said, loving the feel of his six-pack. She let her hands drift down to the waistband of his ski pants, and the question of the day became what to touch first.
Everything, she decided, and grabbed a handful of his shirt, yanking it free of the pants. “Yes, I still want this,” she said. “I want you. I want you now. Please, Hud—”
His mouth came down on hers hard, locking them in a battle to get closer, then closer still. A battle fought with hands, arms… tongues. Still not feeling close enough, she squirmed and Hud responded by tightening his grip on her, deepening the kiss ever further.
She could feel every part of him plastered against her, and there were some really great parts she wanted to get up close and personal with. She’d been so nervous their first time, but ever since then her nerves had been replaced by a bold need to know every inch of his glorious body. To that end, her hands found their way beneath his shirt. Her fingers retraced the path they’d taken a moment before up his chest, stroking over one side and then the other, thrilling to his sharp intake of breath and the way his nipples tightened into little beads—
The knock at the door made her jump.
“Hud.” The male voice that came through the door was Gray, she thought half hysterically, and started to pull away. Hud made a low male sound, gripped her harder, and kept kissing her.
Oh, thank God, was all she could think. This was going to happen, hopefully before she combusted. But then the door handle rattled at her hip and she gasped.
Gray was trying to let himself in!
“Dammit, Hud!” Gray muttered. “Open up!”
Hud didn’t answer. Couldn’t, seeing as his tongue was currently caressing Bailey’s in a delicious fight for sexual dominance that had her whimpering and trying to climb up his body.
She’d never felt so electrically, erotically charged. Never. This was not the cozy sex she was used to. She loved cozy sex, at least as much of it as she could remember. But this… this was in a whole other league from anything she’d ever experienced.
“Asshole,” Gray said from the other side of the door. When silence followed this, Bailey hoped that meant Gray had walked away.
Hud’s hands came up to cup her face and his lips found hers again. “I can’t get enough,” he whispered huskily against her mouth. “I can’t get enough of you.”
She nodded because she couldn’t get enough of him either.
“Say it,” he said.