Accidental Abduction (Masked Men of Sage Springs #1)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Charley

Hazel encouraged me to get cleaned up and ready for my shift while she continued to work on her lewd sketches before she had an appointment later today. If she thought Hudson was protective now, I knew he could never learn about the turn her illustration commissions had taken.

Apparently if the characters had their clothes off, then she got paid twice as much. I admired the entrepreneurial spirit, but it was kind of comical knowing my virginal best friend was drawing naughty illustrations to pay her bills.

I kind of wanted to commission a naughty UNO inspired deck from her, but that might be crossing way too many boundaries with all parties involved. Hudson would be into the cards but mortified that his sister knew we’d defiled her favorite childhood game. Hazel would be grossed out by all the above. And I’d have to describe sexual positions to my best friend so she could illustrate them because she didn’t have any first-hand knowledge.

Maybe she had some other naughty artist friends I could hit up with my idea.

By the time I got downstairs, the bar had opened but we only had a few patrons seated in their usual spots. Once they were served, they usually kept to themselves, so I sat down at the other end to chat with Annie. I wanted to make sure there hadn’t been any more drama over the weekend.

“So, you are alive,” she teased, sliding a glass of water in front of me. I took a long drink, knowing I was probably dehydrated from all the fluids I’d expelled over the weekend. “Hazel said she’d heard from you, but when Hudson wasn’t anywhere to be found and you were both gone all weekend, the gossip started.”

“How bad is it?” I cringed, hating that we’d been a topic of discussion among my co-workers. But they were bound to figure it out fairly quickly when they saw Hudson and I interact.

“The cooks have a bet going that Hudson will mysteriously disappear because you disposed of his body in the woods after being snowed in with him for three days.”

“He is alive and well. Or at least he was a few hours ago.”

“That’s what I figured. The waitstaff has an over under on how many times you guys fucked over the weekend. Apparently, they’ve been getting sexual tension vibes off you two for months. They were just waiting for him to kick Viv to the curb and realize you were a better suited match.”

“How exactly did they plan on verifying that?” I laughed, knowing that neither of us had really kept a count, but I wasn’t planning to tell them anyway. Maybe the slight limp when I walked would clue them in that we didn’t spend the entire weekend playing checkers.

“I think they were hoping for one of you to slip. Hell, just make up a random number and have Hazel bet, then you can clear them all out for being nosy bastards.”

“Anything else? Did the she-witch show back up?”

She laughed, knowing exactly who I was referring to.

“No, after Hazel using your bat for the money shot and Reid toting her ass to the parking lot screaming so loudly he threatened to call the cops, none of us saw her again.”

Thank God.

“Do you think she’s going to come back now that the weather has cleared?”

She shrugged, wiping away the sweat ring my glass had left on the bar. “That chick is seriously delulu, there’s no telling what she’ll do. But I thought her head was going to explode when Hazel insinuated that he left with you. So, you might want to watch your back. ”

Great. Just what I needed, a psycho ex stalking me because I stole her boy toy. Now that he wasn’t drinking her Kool Aid anymore, she was clearly panicking that she’d actually have to be a nice person to attract another man. Although some guys were into harpies, maybe she’d luck out and find one of them to train.

“Fuck,” Annie hissed, slowly darting her eyes toward the door to the bar.

Shifting slightly, I leaned over to look at the mirror behind Annie which reflected the front door. I should have known by the cold draft and the sense of dread slowly creeping up my spine that talking about her had summoned her evil ass.

“What’s she doing?” I whispered, paying more attention than warranted to my glass of water.

“She’s wiping down the menu with a hand sanitizer wipe she pulled out of her purse.” Annie curled her lip and shook her head. “Now she’s turning the pages like she’s going to catch an incurable disease from the laminated pages.”

“Ugh. She’s so annoying.”

“Now she’s glaring over here, snapping her fingers in the air.”

“Does she think you’re her servant or something? I don’t understand this entitled shit. Her father runs the fucking discount shoe store in Butterfly Ridge, it’s not like she’s royalty.”

“I think she noticed you. She just moved to a closer table and is typing something furiously into her phone. I don’t know how anyone can type with fake nails that long. They look like talons. And they probably have more bacteria than the menu did. How do you even wipe your ass with those things on?”

I stifled a laugh, recalling the several inch long fake nails she was poking me with at the party. She must’ve had to drive to Pueblo to get those things done, because I knew the local nail techs didn’t do those.

“What should I do? Should I try to sneak out?”

“Fuck no,” she laughed, continuing to ignore the woman who was now audibly huffing behind me. “Maybe you should accidentally tell me all about your weekend with our naughty boss. ”

“Ann, really? I don’t kiss and tell...much. Hudson tries so hard to be professional, I don’t want him to think I’m gossiping about our private business to my co-workers who are his employees.”

“It’s me. You know I’m not going to say anything, and I think bitchella needs a little wake-up call that Hudson has upgraded. And judging by the marks, you didn’t do a very good job of covering, he’s a bit of an animal in the sack.”

Subtly glancing over my shoulder, I made sure Viv was listening before I raised my voice. “Oh my God, I didn’t know he could be like that. Like, I know he’s our boss, but that man is seriously dirty. The mouth on him. Fuck.”

“Sounds like someone had a better weekend than I did. I was stuck here covering for your ass while you were off screwing Hudson.”

“And I don’t regret a second of it. It was so worth all the tips I lost.” And it really was. No amount of bar tips would offset the feeling of Hudson pressing me down and whispering dirty things in my ear as he fucked orgasm after orgasm out of my body. “I’m so tired, but I guess that many orgasms in just a few days would make anyone exhausted.”

Annie sputtered, her lip quivering with suppressed laughter before she got control of herself. “Looks like it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this relaxed.”

“It kind of hurts to sit down,” I chuckled, pushing my hair over my shoulder to make sure that the bite marks on my neck were visible from where Viv sat behind me. I wished I could record the look on her face right now, but as Annie’s eyes widened and she bit her lip to hold in a laugh, I knew it had to be epic. “I may need one of those donut things for like the next week. But we’ve got plans for later. So maybe I just need to woman up and take it like a... What did he call me? A naughty little devil.”

Annie’s attempt to hold back the laughter cracked and I lost it with her, giggling as a growl sounded from behind me.

“Um, excuse me?” Viv’s shrill voice called out, approaching the bar from behind me. “Does anyone here actually work? I’ve been sitting over there for five minutes and no one has come to take my drink order.”

Annie rolled her eyes, throwing the bar towel she’d been holding across her shoulder. “It’s a weekday, ma’am. We don’t have any servers on table duty until eight. You’ll need to come to the bar to place an order.”

“ Fucking worthless ,“ she hissed under her breath, but both Annie and I heard her. “Fine. I’ll take a dry martini. Do you have any top shelf liquor?”

She’d only been in this place about a million times over the last four years, and she had no idea what we carried behind the bar? “I don’t want any of that cheap shit you put in the college kids’ drinks.”

Clenching my fists in my lap, I tried not to rise to her bait. She knew I was in grad school, so I had a feeling the kids’ comment was aimed at me. I was only two years younger than her, but apparently that meant I was a child.

“We have Tito’s. If you want something different, you’re in the wrong bar, ma’am .”

“Excuse me? Does your boss know you’re trying to turn away business?”

Annie had been around long before I’d been hired. She was one of the original bartenders Hudson had trained when he started working here full time straight out of college.

“Is there anything else I can get for you?” Annie growled with a strained smile that was bordering on frightening.

“Well, since everything you serve here is gross and fried, I guess just the drink. You can put it on Hudson’s tab. I’m waiting for him right now. Has he come in yet? He’s supposed to be back today.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but Hudson doesn’t allow anyone to add drinks to his tab. And no, he’s not here yet. He had a very, very long weekend being stranded by the snowstorm. I’m the only bartender on shift right now.”

“But he’s always here,“ she pouted.

“Not right now. But I’d be happy to pass the message along that you stopped by to meet him. ”

“ Meet him? He’s my boyfriend,“ she laughed, but she sounded a bit manic.

I tried not to let the comment sting, because I knew better, but she had better be fucking wrong. Hudson hadn’t acted like he was going to go running back to bitchtastic as soon as we got back to town.

“Hardly,” I coughed under my breath and Annie shot me a look with wide eyes that I should probably keep my mouth shut. But fuck that shit.

“He’ll probably be in soon,” I mentioned casually. “He was planning to take a nap because he was exhausted from digging out the drive from the main road to the cabin this morning.”

“And you know this how?” Viv asked, leaning on the bar next to me and narrowing her eyes.

“Because I helped him.”

“ You were at the cabin with him?”

“Sure was.”

“Do you make it a habit of spending the weekend snowed into cabins with other people’s boyfriends? Or did you sneak up there, so he’d be stuck with you?” she asked, but judging by the daggers she was staring at my neck, she’d noticed his work. Not that it’d be familiar to her.

“Well, that would involve Hudson having a girlfriend. Last time I checked, he was single. For now. Someone decided last week that it was better if they explored their options . And Hudson spent the weekend exploring the fuck out of his. He explored so hard he almost blacked out once.”

“Uh,” she sputtered, her face turning red. I watched as her fingers balled into fists, her knuckles turning white. “Look, Cherrie, or whatever the fuck your name is. Hudson and I are not on a break. He’s been my boyfriend for four years. We’re planning on moving in together after Christmas and I’ve already picked out a ring for him. I’m willing to overlook whatever you think happened this week, but you better start packing now, because I’m going to make sure you’re completely gone from his life and this building. Erasing a nobody won’t be very hard.”

Spinning on my stool to face her, I stood, looming over her in my platform combat boots. We may have been built similarly, but I sure as fuck wasn’t going to let her talk to me like this. Things may be uncertain with Hudson, but one thing I was absolutely certain of was that he deserved better than this manipulative bitch.

“Listen here, you thundercun—“ my voice cut off as a palm covered my mouth. My body was suddenly crushed against a hard chest, Hudson’s familiar comforting scent wafting over me.

“Viv, that’s enough,” he growled, the menacing tone from when he’d chased me through the woods returning, sending goose bumps crawling up my spine. “You’ve been told to stay away twice now and chosen to ignore it, should we make it a third time? Because if you don’t leave, I am going to call the cops. And then I’m going to have both Hazel and Charley file harassment complaints against you assaulting them in my bar. I doubt your boss would like to hear about the protective order I file next for stalking.”

“But...” she whimpered, her eyes as wide as saucers as they bounced between his possessive hold on me and his face. “Your sister hit me with a bat. I could sue.”

“Self-defense,” Annie chimed in. “I saw the whole thing and already pulled the camera footage. It clearly shows you yanking Hazel’s hair and dragging her away from a table before she was forced to use the bat to get you to let go.”

I was so sad I didn’t get to witness it in person.

“And I’m not stalking you, I just want to talk to you. Clearly, you misunderstood our conversation last week. Because I…”

Hudson cut her off with a growl. “You made your decision—the bullshit you fed me was perfectly fucking clear—and I sure as fuck made mine. Get out. You’re trespassing.”

“But this is a public bar and I’m a paying customer...”

Annie cut in again. “Technically, you haven’t paid yet. But you still have an outstanding tab from the last two times you were here. I’m sure the police would love to add a misdemeanor for failing to pay a bill for services rendered to the felonies of assault and harassment.”

I almost felt sorry for the way Viv was looking at him. She’d obviously felt very strongly about him at one point, but that time was over. She’d thrown him to the curb like a piece of garbage because this sweet and responsible man wasn’t exciting enough for her. If she only knew what he was truly capable of back then, but now she never would.

“Get the fuck out,” he growled again, his hand slipping from my mouth to possessively cup my neck. “I don’t want to ever see you in here again. And stay away from my house. My doorbell camera caught your car driving by twenty times over the last three days, so that should help with the restraining order paperwork.”

“I need to talk to you,” she hissed, her earlier surprise morphing into anger. “You can’t just kick me out.”

“I can,” he laughed, pointing toward the door with his other hand. I tried not to swoon as I watched the tendons in his forearm flex enticingly. Even pissed off at his ex this man made my pulse race. “Because you’ve done nothing but disrespect me, my business and my employees for days. And no one talks to my woman like that.”

“But she...”

“She didn’t fucking do anything, Viv. I took her to the cabin—where she actually loved spending time with me —and I chose to spend the weekend with her. And I’m choosing her now. I should have chosen her a long time ago.”

“Did you cheat on me with this…” she sucked in air before she hissed out. “…this home wrecking whore.”

“The only time Charley is a whore is in my bed, Viv. And believe me, it’s all consensual and she loves it.”

My face turned red as I watched Viv’s previous ire transform into pure rage. But Hudson just chuckled, leaning down to kiss my cheek. Guess I didn’t need to worry about him being upset about me telling people details about our bedroom habits .

Before I could anticipate the move, he spun me around and hoisted me against his chest. “I’m sorry,” he mouthed before he leaned over me and pressed my back against the bar. His eyes softened as he looked down at me. I opened my mouth to ask him what was going on and he captured my words with his lips, grasping both cheeks with his strong hands and forcing his tongue past my lips.

It took me a moment to catch up, kissing him back just as fiercely as my hands dove into his hair, gripping tightly.

The shriek that sounded a few feet from us, followed by the stomping of heels and the door to the bar slamming didn’t even register as we devoured each other.