Variation: A Novel

OuchPouchhtr5: What a fucking liar. She’s not recovering. She’s done.

“You what?” I stepped back, and his hands hung midair for a few heartbeats before he lowered them.

“I was there,” he repeated slowly.

“No, you weren’t.” I grabbed onto the thick wooden rail of the footboard to steady myself.

He sat on the edge of the footboard and gripped the unfinished wood. “I was two rows from the back. Dead center. You saw me.”

My lips parted and my stomach fluttered straight out of my body. “I don’t understand.”

“I tried to buy the back row center seat, but I couldn’t get it. It must have gone within seconds when they put the tickets on sale.” He stared straight ahead at the closed cabin door. “I was so pissed when whoever bought it didn’t bother to show up. I saw your mom in the box with Anne, saw Eva in the corps, saw you—” His eyes drifted shut, and my nails bit into the footboard. “You were so beautiful.”

Breathe. I had to remember to breathe.

“I saw you fall to a knee at the end, a little more uncontrolled than I remembered it being when we were younger, but I didn’t question it until you screamed.” His head hung. “You screamed. The orchestra stopped. The whole place went silent when they carried you offstage. I climbed over every person in that row to get to the aisle, but they don’t exactly let ticket holders backstage to see one of the most famous dancers in the world, you know.”

“You were there?” A sweet, stinging ache threatened to crack my chest open, threatened to dig its way out of the decade I’d spent ignoring it, and expose an inconvenient and dangerous truth I wanted no part of. But I was so over being numb, over not allowing myself to feel anything but anger and sadness.

“I was there.” He looked up at me, tracking my movements with those gorgeous eyes as I slowly made my way to stand in front of him. “Of course I was there. You told me once that you needed me in the audience for that piece, remember?”

“Before the Classic,” I whispered. Mom had told me to pick something else because Lina had just been offered the role in the fall program for MBC and she didn’t want any comparisons made since members of the Company were there judging. I’d done it anyway, my first and only true act of defiance.

Hudson had snuck into the back row to watch so my mother wouldn’t see him. That part of the day was still crystal clear in my memory.

“I’d already let you down in the worst way.” His voice lowered. “I knew it wouldn’t make up for it, that you’d never see me, but I was there.”

“How did you even know I had that role?” My brain tried to make sense of it, but my heart was quickly shoving logic out the door.

“I have . . .” A flush crept up his throat. “I have an alert set to email me if your name is in the same headline as Giselle, but I didn’t know that you were still out, how bad the injury had been, until Juniper told me you were at the beach house.” He searched my eyes. “I didn’t know you’d see me, and I sure as hell never thought I’d distract you. I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault. The turns didn’t cause the tear. It would have happened whether or not you’d been there.” I stepped forward, between his knees. “You’ve really had an alert for all these years?”

He nodded.

The silence grew thick as my heart continued the battle with my head, then finally won. He’d been there. He’d come. Juniper hadn’t forced his hand, he’d come to New York for me. “The middle seat of the last row is always empty. It’s in my contract.”

Two lines creased the area between his brows.

“And if you’d gone to will call and given them your name, they would have handed you that ticket. That’s in my contract too. It’s always your seat. Every venue. Every performance. I don’t even know why I did it, except I guess I never gave up hope that you’d walk in one day.” There, I’d said it.

“All these years?” His voice came out like it had been scraped over the campfire embers.

“All these years.” My gaze dropped to his mouth and my pulse quickened. I wound my arms around his neck and accepted the simple fact that I would always want him, and for this moment, I could have him. “Hudson?”

“Allie?” His hands moved to my hips.

“I need you.”

He didn’t hesitate, not even for a heartbeat. Our mouths collided, and I melted at the first thrust of his tongue, surrendering completely as he kissed me breathless. Heat and need exploded between us like a match tossed into a vat of gasoline.

His hands slipped to the backs of my thighs as he stood, lifting me against him. I wound my legs around his waist, locking my ankles at the small of his back, then knocked his hat to the ground so I could sink my fingers into his hair.

My back hit the wall, and I used it as leverage, breaking the kiss so I could get his shirt off. Watching him walk around shirtless the last two days had been torture. I lowered my mouth to his throat, his two-day stubble rough against my lips, and I savored every one of his indrawn breaths as I reached the curve of firm, warm skin where his neck met his shoulder.

Before I could demand another kiss, he took hold of my hoodie and started to tug it upward. “As delicious as you look in my clothes, I need it off.”

Me too. I lifted my arms, and he made quick work of removing it. It hit the floor and I grabbed the bottom of my tank top and hauled it over my head, then threw it so I could feel his skin against mine.

Our mouths fused, and I kissed him long and hard, running my hands down his arms, his back, across his chest—anywhere I could reach—as he kneaded my hips and thighs, growling when my shorts blocked the access he sought.

He speared his hand into my hair, banded his arm under my ass, and then we were moving again. The room spun momentarily, and I felt the bed at my back, then the perfect weight of him above me.

I let my ankles fall from his back, leaving my knees bent so my thighs bracketed his hips. His hands skimmed over the fabric of my bra, and I whimpered in frustration. That needed to come off too. Right now. I tugged at his bottom lip with my teeth, pushed at his chest, and rolled.

He got the message, flipping us so I sat astride his hips.

“You want me.” I grinned against his mouth, then ground my core against the hard ridge of his cock, gasping at the jolt of pleasure. His answering groan was absolutely everything.

“Every day since I met you.” He sat up and kissed me until I wasn’t sure what day it was. Time began and ended with him. “You are the subject of every fantasy I’ve ever had.” His mouth moved down my neck, and I rocked my hips when he found that sensitive spot. “Fuck, you’re killing me.”

“Good.” I reached behind my back and unfastened my bra, then slipped it off my arms and tossed it.

“If you knew half the things I want to do to you . . .” His hands slid from my waist to cup my breasts, and I sighed as he stroked the hard peaks with his thumbs.

“That sounds good.” I kissed him once, then slid off his lap to stand in front of him, quickly kicking off my sandals. My fingers moved to the button of my shorts, and he captured my hand with his.

“You’re sure you want this now?” The heat in his eyes scalded me.

“Yes.” I slipped my hand free, then flicked open the button.

“You don’t want to wait until I can get you into a real bed?”

“Looks real enough to me.” I tugged the zipper down slowly and watched his jaw flex as he followed the movement with his eyes. “Do you want to wait?”

“I’m not thinking about me.” His hands fisted in the fabric of his sleeping bag. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I would take you however I can get you. My bed. Your bed. This bed. That wall. The back seat of my truck. I don’t care, if it means I get to hear your breath hitch right before you come.”

My core clenched, and heat gathered in my stomach, low and insistent. “Those all sound good too.” I hooked my thumbs in the waistband of my shorts at my hips, catching the strings of my underwear, then dragged them both down at the same time. I kicked them aside and stood up straight. “But no, I don’t want to wait.”

“Oh fuck.” His gaze ran over me like a caress, heat licking my skin everywhere he lingered. “You’re absolutely perfect, Allie. So damned stunning.” Our eyes met. “Come here, love.”

My heart galloped as he gripped my hips, his fingers digging in slightly as he lifted me onto his lap. He claimed my mouth with a deep kiss that had me whimpering for more, chasing his tongue with mine as he lay back, my hair falling around us as I followed him down.

His hand slid between my thighs, and I felt his moan vibrate through his chest as my own answered at the touch of his talented fingers. “Hot and slick.” He nipped my lower lip, then licked over the soft flesh before sliding his open mouth down my neck. “How many times do you want to come, Allie? How many ways? Tell me, and I’ll give it to you.”

I fought for breath as he stroked and teased, then gasped as he flicked my clit with his thumb. “I don’t care as long as you don’t make me wait for the first one.”

“First one.” His hands shifted to my hips and he dragged me up his torso. “You’re learning.”

“You’re going to ruin me for anyone else, aren’t you?” I fell forward, bracing my palms on the bed above his head as his mouth caressed my breasts, the curve of my ribs, sending little shocks of bliss throughout my body.

“There’s no one else.” His lips ghosted across my stomach and his hands slipped under my shins. “Never was. Not for either of us.” He kissed the crease of my hip, then dragged my knee over his shoulder. “They were all just placeholders.”

I shivered as he turned his face into my upper thigh and sucked, leaving a mark before hauling that knee over his shoulder too.

“The only thing that’s ever mattered is you and me.” He hooked his arms over my thighs, then arched his neck and ran his tongue from my entrance to my clit.

I gasped, my hips rocking on pure instinct.

“Sit up so I can watch you come.” It wasn’t a request.

I fought against every impulse to melt into a puddle right there, and sat up on my knees, hovering inches above his mouth. My pulse skyrocketed and my breath caught as our eyes locked.

“Sit,” he ordered.

Every muscle in my body clenched.

“Sit, Alessandra.” He tugged on my thighs, and I buckled.

He rewarded me with a groan, then pulled me against his mouth and stole my entire soul with his lips and tongue. Heat and need spiraled through me. I muffled my first cry with my fist, but my second slipped as my hand fell away.

There was no thought, only feeling. I existed only for him, my hips rocking, my breaths ragged, my vision consumed with the mind-blowingly erotic sight of him beneath me, watching my every reaction. He adjusted immediately to what drove me higher, wound my body tighter, and then drove me relentlessly out of my mind.

He was absolutely ruining me, and I was letting him.

“Hudson,” I whimpered, then slammed my hand over my mouth, remembering we weren’t alone out here. “It’s too good.” And that was too loud.

He reached up, covering my mouth with one hand and pulling me harder into his mouth with the other, holding me prisoner for every lash of his tongue.

I held on to his arm for balance as my muscles locked, and that spiral of tension stuttered my breath into shallow pants. He worked me relentlessly to the edge of the cliff, then sent me flying. The release took me in colossal waves that arched my back again and again, drowning me in pleasure so sharp I almost forgot to breathe. His hand muffled my shout and every moan that followed as he stroked me down, dragging out every last aftershock until I fell to the side, gasping for air.

He followed, rolling me to my back, then lightly traced my clit with the tip of his tongue, setting off another shudder of pure bliss. “I can’t get enough of you.” He repeated the caress, and my stomach tightened.

“I want you, Hudson.” I ran my fingers through his hair and tugged. “Inside me. Now.”

“And I want you desperate.” He gave me another series of gentle licks, and my back bowed as that sweet tension built within me again. God, it felt so good. “Writhing and needy and begging for me.”

I propped myself up on my elbows and watched his next strike. “I don’t.” I gasped as he dragged his tongue over my swollen clit. “Beg.”

His slow smile was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. “You will,” he promised, sliding off the edge of the bed and stripping out of his remaining clothes.

I watched like the show it was, my tongue wetting my lower lip as he pulled off his shorts, then the black boxer briefs underneath. Every inch of him was cut, defined by hours in the water and gym. He was beyond words, beyond my ability to grasp what I’d thought perfect was. My core clenched just looking at him, my gaze lingering on the hard length of his cock as he stepped free of his clothes. “You are . . .” I swallowed. “You’re beautiful. Please tell me you had more foresight than I did and brought condoms.”

For the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure I cared. I was on birth control, trusted Hudson more than any partner I’d ever had, and needed him inside me. It was that simple.

“I’d call it more like wishful thinking than foresight.” He reached into his pack and brought out a foil packet.

I sat up and took it from him.

His eyes flared as I ripped it open and threw the wrapper on the nightstand next to the lantern. Then I rolled the thin layer of latex over him slowly, my mouth curving as his breath caught, his abs tensed, and his hand fisted in my hair. Finally, I reached his base, then wrapped my hand around him.

His low groan gave me life.

“Sure you want to wait until I’m begging?”

“Holy shit, Allie.” He grabbed my waist and all but threw me back onto the bed, then prowled over me, positioning himself between my thighs. “Writhing. Needy. Begging. We’ve waited too long for it to be anything less.”

He kissed me with an urgency that demanded my response, and I gave it, arching up for his mouth again and again while his hands roamed over me, setting me on fire with every touch. I arched as he worshipped my breasts with his mouth, then cried in frustration when he flipped me to my stomach and trailed kisses up my spine.

I reared back when his mouth reached my neck, pushing my ass against him in clear invitation. The ache winding within me throbbed.

“Fuck, you’re almost there. Almost but not quite.” He flipped me again like I weighed next to nothing and ran his hand up my inner thigh.

“Hudson . . .” My hips squirmed, trying to put his hand where I needed it.

“Do you need me?” His fingers dipped between my thighs and I cried out when he stroked the hypersensitive nerves. “Your body sure as hell does. God, you’re drenching my hand.”

“I need you!” The man had the self-control of a saint, and I was going to burn alive if he didn’t give in.

“Right now?” He swirled around my clit, then sank a finger inside me. My core locked around him, and I moaned. So, so, so good, but not enough.

“Right. Now.” My hips rocked, my nails dug into his shoulders, and when he slid in a second finger and curled them upward, stars winked in my vision. “More. I need more.” If it wasn’t for the way he looked at me, the way his arms trembled, I would have thought he was completely unaffected. “Hudson.” My hands slipped up to his stubbled cheeks as I writhed. “Don’t make me wait. Please.”

His fingers withdrew, only to be replaced by the blunt head of his cock at my entrance.

Finally.

He braced his weight on his forearms, leaned down, and brushed his lips over mine. “Are you desperate?”

“Yes.” I drew my knees up, so consumed with wanting him that I didn’t care what he needed me to confess. I’d give him any truth he wanted.

“Wild?” He pushed in, consuming that first tight inch.

“Yes!” Holy shit, he felt incredible.

“Like you won’t survive the next heartbeat without me?” Another brush of his lips.

“Yes.” My hands slid to the back of his head and I swiveled my hips.

He groaned low in his throat, dropping his forehead to mine. “Good. Because that’s exactly how I feel every minute of every day. I’m losing my fucking mind over you.”

“I’m right with you.” Even if it killed me.

“Yeah, you are.” He cradled the back of my head and drove into me in one powerful thrust, taking every inch I had and stretching me for more. He was too much, and it was divine.

We muffled each other’s moans in a kiss, and he shuddered, the muscles of his back rippling under my fingers as I splayed my hands wide.

“My Allie.” He lifted his head, locked his awe-filled gaze with mine, and withdrew, hitting every nerve ending within me. “You’re so hot. Tight. Perfect. Fucking made for me, and I want to be gentle—”

“Don’t.” My hands slid to his ass. “Don’t be gentle or careful. Fuck me like you mean it, Hudson.”

His eyes flared again, and he slammed home. The pleasure of it rattled my wits and a cry slipped free. “Like that?”

“Just like that.” God yes.

He kissed me deep as he withdrew, then snapped his hips, setting a hard, deep rhythm that had me straining for the next thrust, meeting him every time, curling my leg over his hip to take him deeper.

“Don’t stop,” I begged. I wouldn’t survive it if he did.

“I’m never going to get enough of you,” he said against my mouth as his hips drove into me again. My cries softened to keening pants as sweat slickened our skin. “You feel. So. Damned. Good. Allie.” He punctuated every word with a thrust, and I lost the ability to form sentences.

“More.” It was my only demand. My only thought.

He drove us across the bed, then wrapped his arm around my back and lifted, straightening us. “Headboard.”

I threw up my hands, then grabbed the wood and braced, using it for leverage to rock back into his thrusts so he’d hit harder. Deeper. And he so fucking did. Wood creaked as he surged over me again and again, and the sight of his wild eyes, his body moving with mine, sent my temperature skyrocketing. Each thrust coiled that sweet tension tighter within me, stringing me like a bow until my body vibrated and pulsed. I felt Hudson everywhere. He was in the very marrow of my bones, the breath in my lungs, the demanding beat of my heart—they were all his.

“I want you from behind, so I can watch this perfect ass bounce as you take my cock,” he growled as his hips continued to swing, wringing soft, keening cries from my lips. “And against the wall. And on top of me, riding me hard. Once isn’t going to be enough. I want everything.”

“Yes. All of it.” I rocked faster, demanding he pick up the pace. This slow, thorough fucking was exquisite, but I wasn’t going to survive if he made me wait much longer for my release.

“Next time.” He kissed me hard and gave me what I wanted, swinging his hips faster but just as deep. “This time I want your eyes.” He kept his gaze locked on mine, then reached between our bodies. “You’re right there, I can feel it. Every muscle is tight, every breath shallow. I need to feel you come around me, Allie.” He strummed my clit, and I stopped meeting his thrusts, only capable of receiving as my body locked at the new onslaught of sensation, my thighs clenching around his hips. “That’s it, love.”

He pressed lightly, and I saw stars. The edges of my vision darkened as the orgasm tore through me, breaking me apart while Hudson somehow kept me together, never ceasing the relentless drive of his hips as he covered my mouth with his to capture my cries. My body arched again and again.

Only when I fell back against the pillow, gasping for breath and completely wrecked, did his control break.

He curled his arm under my shoulder to keep me from sliding into the headboard, and then unleashed, losing all rhythm in a handful of hard, voracious thrusts.

I brought my hand to his face and took his line as he came undone. “So fucking mine.”

His eyes flared, and he kissed me hard, smothering a moan. The sound rumbled through his chest, low and guttural, as he found his release with a final, deep thrust that struck my very soul. He collapsed onto me for a heartbeat before rolling us to the side, holding me close.

We never took our eyes off each other as we came down, our breaths gradually slowing as the sweat cooled.

“We’re really good at that,” I said once my heart finally stopped slamming.

“Yeah. We are.” He ran the backs of his fingers down my cheek. “I’ve never felt anything like that in my life.”

“Me either.” We let the words hang between us for a perfect quiet moment I knew couldn’t last.

“Let’s stay tomorrow,” he suggested, catching me off guard. “My family is taking off, but I have one more day of leave, and I rented the cabins for an extra day just in case plans needed to shift. Let’s shift them.”

I swallowed. “And do what?”

“Not leave this room for anything but the necessities.” He stroked his thumb over my swollen lower lip.

That sounded absolutely scrumptious, but I had to get back. I needed to be in the studio. But I also wanted to be here. Maybe he was right, and I could balance. I could be the best, and have a life—have him, even if only for now.

“Okay.” I nodded.

He grinned, and I didn’t feel the slightest ounce of guilt over playing hooky when that dimple popped in his cheek.

We stayed in bed that night, muffling each other’s moans over and over, then spent the next day in the shower, on the shore of the lake, and on one of the picnic tables after his family left.

By the time we pulled in my driveway the day after, I was sore in places I’d forgotten existed and thoroughly . . . happy.

“Who’s here?” Hudson asked as he parked next to a car I didn’t recognize.

“Not sure.” We walked hand in hand up the steps, Hudson carrying my pack for me.

The door swung open before we reached it, and Anne stepped into the doorway. “Where have you been? We’ve been trying to call you since yesterday.”

“Not a lot of service in the woods, so I turned it off.” The panicked look on her face sent my stomach into a deep dive. “What’s wrong?”

Kenna appeared over Anne’s shoulder, then squeezed by her to step onto the porch.

“What’s wrong?” I repeated. “Why are you here?”

“I have a month of use-or-lose vacation and a best friend in dire need of help.” Her expression softened with . . . Wait, was that pity? “I’m guessing you haven’t been on the internet?”

“No.” I shook my head. I’d been too wrapped up in Hudson to check in on the real world.

Kenna swore, then took her phone from her pocket and swiped open the screen. “I don’t know what bug crawled up Vasily’s ass, but he announced partial casting for Equinox.”

“He never announces this early. It’s only the middle of July.” Dread perched on my shoulders. “Please don’t tell me Charlotte . . .”

“No. She didn’t.” Kenna’s shoulders drooped as she turned the screen to face me.

I read the casting announcement, and my stomach twisted. Saliva filled my mouth, and bile rushed up my throat. Ripping my hand from Hudson’s, I leaned over the porch railing and vomited up my breakfast into the bushes.

“What the hell happened?” Hudson grabbed my hair as my stomach heaved.

“Eva took her part.”