Accidental Abduction (Masked Men of Sage Springs #1)

Chapter Twenty

Hudson

Sunday passed much the same as Saturday. We spent the day talking about anything and everything—playing several games of twenty questions, getting progressively dirtier as the day went along. By the afternoon we were desperate for each other again, falling into bed exhausted and sore. We ate sandwiches in bed at midnight after we woke up again and then talked until the sun came up.

By the time Monday morning rolled around, my anxiety had started taking over, knowing our time living together inside these four walls was fleeting. The snow had tapered off and the temperature had risen, the sun shining brightly outside.

Part of me wanted to completely ignore the thawing snow, staying here long after it melted off and ignoring the world outside. But when I pulled my phone off the charger after I’d made Charley breakfast and left her to shower by herself, the screen was full of text notifications.

Hazel: Are you two ever coming up for air? Mom is about to send Dad up there to dig you two out. She’s worried that Charley will never come to Christmas this year if she’s stuck there with you for too long.

As if I intended to give Charley another option. She was now welcome at all the family events she’d been welcome at before this, but for a whole new reason.

Hazel: I didn’t tell her you were probably doing gross things to her furniture.

Laughing, I responded, ignoring her digging for information that little sisters shouldn’t know about their brother’s sex lives. If she and Charley were really as close as they appeared, she likely knew this confinement was not platonic.

Hudson: She’s fine. And I’ll drag her up here if she tries to back out of it. White elephant stockings is a tradition, and she’s not missing it.

Hazel: Does that mean that you two...

Hudson: It means that I really like your friend.

Hazel: And...

Hudson: And I don’t want to let her out of my sight long enough to get sick of me.

Hazel: Sounds counterintuitive. But maybe the Stockholm Syndrome has finally set in.

Hudson: She’s here because she wants to be, not because I accidentally kidnapped her.

Hazel: Mmhmm, sure.

She sent a GIF of a woman nodding and mouthing the same words.

Hudson: She’s mine now.

Hazel: She’ll always love me more.

Not if I had anything to say about it.

Hazel: The county has been plowing for the last two days straight. They’re hitting the pass today. The bar is fine. Annie made sure everyone made it in for their shifts .

Fuck. That meant our hours were dwindling.

Closing out of the thread with Hazel, I clicked on one from Reid’s cousin Jayden who lived in Butterfly Ridge.

Jayden: Reid told me you were stranded.

Jayden: Just cleared the pass. You should be able to dig out now.

Jayden: Let me know if you want me to come back and help, I can switch out my blade.

Hudson: Thanks man, I think we’re good, but I’ll let you know.

Jayden: We? Reid told me you were up there with Hazel’s bestie.

Hudson: I am. Long story. We’ve been stranded since Friday night.

Jayden: Want me to push the snow back into place?

I laughed, kind of wishing he hadn’t been able to make it up here. But with the weather clearing, I knew we’d need to get back to open the bar. Annie, my head bartender, would continue to cover like she had for the last few days if I needed her to, but I knew Charley and I were both on the next shift together.

“Everything okay?” Charley asked, sitting down on my lap sideways and wrapping her arms around my neck.

“Yeah. Road is clear.”

“Oh,” she whispered, her eyes scanning my face. I think she could tell I wasn’t thrilled about the development, but we couldn’t keep living up here and ignoring the rest of the world. At least not until my next stretch of uninterrupted days off.

“I’ll need to dig out the gravel part of the driveway by hand.”

She nodded, running her fingers through my hair and scratching my scalp in the way she’d realized made me want to purr like a cat and rub up against her. One of the perks of not being able to keep our hands off each other for three days straight was knowing what touches the other craved.

“I’ll help if you find me pants.”

Squeezing her thigh, I rubbed the damp skin, smoothing my palm over her knee. “I kinda like you without pants.”

“And I kinda like not having a frozen vagina. So, find me something warm to wear and I’ll help you.”

“That eager to get out of here and away from me?”

“No,” she shook her head, leaning down to kiss my lips softly, lingering briefly. “But if I help you then you won’t be too tired to fuck me before we have to go back into town.”

“So dirty,” I whispered, tugging on the ends of her damp hair.

“I’d like to think of it as filthily well endowed. Like someone else I know who has a very creative vocabulary.”

Shaking my head, I rose from the couch, pulling her into my arms. She laid her head on my shoulder as I carried her down the hall, sitting her down on the bench in the mud room. I crossed the room and pulled out all the cold weather work gear from the wooden trunk in the corner and started sorting through it for something that might fit her.

Once I’d found what I was looking for, I returned to where she was quietly watching me, pulling my old, insulated base layer, followed by a pair of thick, waterproof canvas pants up her legs, and cinching the waist belt so it was snug around her waist. I wrapped the black coat she’d worn before around her, zipping it up until the collar covered her chin.

She was drowning in my old gear as I pulled on a thick pair of wool socks and the snow boots that’d fit her before. A thick knit cap covered her blonde hair, and I carefully tucked it inside the collar.

“I am capable of dressing myself, you know,” she teased with a muffled voice, her eyes full of mirth through the narrow space surrounding her eyes as she watched me pull on my gear across the room.

“Don’t be a brat, Charley. You wanted to help and I kind of like your parts not frostbitten. ”

“But I’m so good at being one,” she laughed, pulling on the pair of gloves I’d tossed in her direction.

“That you are,” I agreed, pulling on my hat and grabbing the metal industrial snow shovels from the closet in the corner.

“I bet this thing can do some damage,” she commented, teasingly lifting it and pretending it was too heavy for her to carry.

Deciding to lean into this new me who didn’t bury his intrusive thoughts, I grasped her hand and held it to my heavily covered crotch. “I know this can.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” she scoffed, rolling her eyes. “I’m gonna walk funny for days.”

“Not sorry,” I laughed, leaning in to kiss her temple before I opened the back door.

The cold wind bit at my exposed cheeks, and I wanted to slam the door and lock it, but I followed Charley out into the snow, to clear the path to our way home.

The sun was high in the sky by the time we finished, the remaining snow on the driveway melting off as we cleared the snow off my car.

For the first time ever, I prayed for the Chevelle not to start, but the engine purred to life on the first try. Charley’s defeated expression as she sat in the passenger seat surely matched mine as I turned it back off and pulled out the key.

“We can stay here.”

Her voice was quiet as she covered my hand, squeezing it briefly. “No, we can’t. But I wish we could too.”

“Fuck,” I sighed, reaching over to cup the back of her neck. She hummed against my lips as I kissed her, my panic at the thought of leaving making me desperate to touch her now. “Inside or I’m fucking you in this car. ”

“I’d much prefer on this car. But it’s a little too cold right now for that.”

“We’re coming back to that later once it’s warm outside,” I promised, opening the door and heading toward the house. She followed, and by the time we’d made it to the bedroom, we were both naked and desperate to reconnect.

But as I came inside her for the last time during our seclusion, I wasn’t as scared as I thought I’d be. She seemed just as eager to be with me, never allowing more than an inch of space between our bodies.

“We need to pack,” I whispered into her sweaty neck, softly kissing the bruised bite mark that’d started to yellow around the edges sometime in the last day. The horny demon hoped she wouldn’t cover it up tonight. Because I wanted everyone to know she was mine. Maybe I could have Reid tattoo Property of Hudson across her cleavage instead of her ass.

She nodded, reluctantly untangling our limbs before she sat on the edge of the bed beside me, pulling on her borrowed clothing.

“We’re going to have a talk about your lack of panties.”

She looked over her shoulder at me with a smile. “I’m behind on laundry.”

“I may have a washer you can fill with your load,” I teased, pulling her backward and wrapping my naked body around her clothed one with my face tucked in her neck.

“Pretty sure I’m the one that gets filled with your load.”

“That’s during the spin cycle. My machine is off balance.”

She giggled as I let her go. “And I’m the one with the dirty mind.”

Standing from the bed to gather the clothes I’d been wearing at the party, I got dressed and extended my hand toward her. “Want to wear the snow boots back? You can leave them in my car, and I’ll bring them back with me next time I come up.”

She held her knee-high boots in front of the pair of flannel pants she was wearing. “You don’t think they match? The website said they go with any outfit. ”

“Come on,” I reached for her hand, lacing my fingers with hers. “It’s time to go home.”

I wanted to ask her to come to my house instead of me taking her to the apartment, but I knew we both had things we needed to take care of.

Charley was quiet as she followed me to the car, her hand clasped in one hand while I held the cooler with leftover food in the other since the power still hadn’t been restored.

Not knowing what to say, we remained silent on the ride down the mountain, my hand resting on the soft cotton covering her thigh and wishing I could touch her bare skin. I craved the connection, but I knew this couldn’t be the last time I’d have her in this car with my hand in the same place. Touching her like this felt as natural as breathing. Just like everything else where she was concerned.

When I parked the car near the freshly plowed back entrance of the bar, my fingers tightened, her smaller hand covering mine as she turned toward me.

“I don’t want you to go,” I whispered, leaning in to softly ghost my lips across hers.

“I don’t either, but we can’t sit in this car for the rest of our lives.” She sounded sad, and I felt the same way, but I wasn’t sure what to say right now.

“I’ll be back once I dig out my driveway and take a shower.”

She nodded, hesitating before she gathered her things and reached for the door handle.

I wanted to beg her to stay, or for her to let me come upstairs with her—suddenly terrified if I let her out of my sight that something bad would happen—but we both knew I needed to go home.

She stepped out of the car, and I watched through the frosted glass of the windshield as she unlocked the back door, turning to wave before she stepped inside and let the door close behind her.

I stared at the back door for longer than I should have, willing her to come back out before someone standing beside the car startled me.