“You agreed!” I tell him. “Your exact words were ‘I can totally live with that’!”

“I can live with it,” he tells me with a shrug. “You’re the one who seems to be freaking out here.”

“Because you said—” I break off as his eyes narrow, become predatory.

“What?” he goads. “What did I say?”

“You know exactly what you said!” I snap at him. “And it’s not fair—”

“Fair?” he shoots back, the British coming on thick. “I was half asleep. No, I take that back. I was three-quarters asleep. I can’t be held responsible for what I say when I’m barely conscious.”

“It’s not that you said it!” I’m almost yelling now, but panic is a wild animal within me. It’s clawing at my throat, making my head spin and my lungs close up. “It’s that you feel it.”

“Excuse me?” he snaps, his eyes going Pacific-during-a-thunderstorm dark. “You don’t get to tell me how I feel.”

I’ve never heard him sound more insulted, but that just pisses me off more. “Yeah, well, you don’t get to tell me how I feel, either.”

Now he’s the one looking at me like I’ve got issues. Which, not going to lie, I totally do. “I have never tried to tell you how you feel.” His voice cuts like broken glass. “Last night, you told me it was the mating bond on your side, and I told you I was okay with that.”

“On my side? Now it’s suddenly that mating bond heat is only on my side?”

For a second, I think Hudson might actually explode, just spontaneously combust right where he’s half sitting up now. But then he takes a deep breath and lets it out in slow, ragged increments.

Then he takes another one and another one before he finally looks at me again and asks, “Can we please just talk for a second without throwing accusations at each other?”

I have to admit, I appreciate the way he said that—especially as I’m the one who’s been throwing all the accusations this morning.

But that means it’s my turn to take a few deep breaths before saying, “You told me that you love me and it freaks me out. A lot.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, his shoulders slumping forward. “I didn’t mean to say it. I wouldn’t have said it if I had even half my wits about me.”

“So it’s not true?” I ask, and there’s a sinking feeling in my stomach that makes absolutely no sense. “You don’t love me.”

He shakes his head, his jaw and throat working as he looks anywhere but at me. “What do you want me to say, Grace?”

“I want you to tell me the truth. Is that so much to ask?”

“I love you,” he says with no flourish, no fanfare. Just three stark words that change everything, whether we want them to or not.

I shake my head, scramble to the corner of the bed. “You don’t mean that.”

“You don’t get to tell me what I mean,” he answers. “Any more than you get to tell me how I feel. I love you, Grace Foster. I’ve loved you for months, and I’ll love you forever. There’s nothing you can do about that fact.”

He reaches for me then, pulls me across the bed, and settles me on top of him. “But I’m not trying to use my feelings as a weapon, either. Did I plan on telling you? No. Am I sorry you know?” He shakes his head. “No. Do I expect you to tell me that you love me back?”

“Hudson—” I can’t help the high, panicked note in my voice.

“No,” he says. “I don’t. And I don’t mean to make you feel pressured to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

Tears clog up my throat, burn behind my eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“That’s not on you.” He lifts a hand to my face, strokes a tender finger down my cheek. “You’re responsible for your feelings, and I’m responsible for mine. That’s how this works.”

Somehow, hearing him say it like that hurts worse than anything. Because I do have feelings for him, whether I want to or not. Big feelings, huge feelings that scare me so much that I can barely breathe. Barely think.

I loved my parents and they were murdered.

I loved Jaxon and he was ripped away from me.

If I love Hudson—if I let myself love Hudson—what’s going to happen to me if I lose him? What’s going to happen to me if this new world I find myself in won’t let me have him?

I can’t do that. I can’t go through that again. I just can’t.

The panic gets worse, my throat clogging up to the point that I can’t breathe. I claw at it, try to force some oxygen in, but Hudson clasps my hands. Holds them tight, even when I try to pull away so I can claw at myself some more.

“It’s okay, Grace,” he says calmly, his voice warm and reassuring and right, so right. “Let’s breathe in.”

I shake my head. I can’t.

“Yes, you can.” He answers the protest I didn’t even say out loud. “Come on, in with me. One, two, three, four, five. Hold it. Good. Now out. One, two, three…”

He does this several times with me, and when the panic attack passes, when I can breathe and think again, I know two things.

One, I feel more for Hudson Vega than I ever imagined I would.

And two, I can never, ever tell him.

88

The Same

Kind of Stardust

“You okay?” he asks when my breathing finally returns to normal.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Good.” He smiles at me, even as he slides me off his lap. “I should probably get—”

I stop him with a kiss. Not one of the sizzling, burning kisses from last night but a sweet kiss. A warm kiss. A kiss that tries to show him all the things I feel inside but can’t bring myself to say.

“Hey.” He pulls away. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to,” I tell him as I scramble back onto his lap. As I straddle his hips with my knees. As I press my body to his own. “I can’t tell you what I feel, Hudson.”

“It’s okay,” he says. But his hands are on my hips, and I know he’s going to push me away.

“I can’t tell you,” I say. “But I can show you.”

I lean forward and once again press my lips to his.

For a long while, he lets it happen, his lips moving under mine. His mouth touching, teasing, tasting.

And then he pulls back, cups my cheek in his hand, drops several tender kisses on my forehead, my nose, even my chin. “You don’t have to prove anything to me,” he whispers. “You don’t have to do anything—”

“That’s not what this is.”

“Then what is it?” he asks.

Trust Hudson to ask the hard questions, to lay it all on the line just to make sure that I’m okay. That I’m not doing anything that might hurt me or might not be what I really want to do.

I’m grateful for that part of him, the part that always looks out for me no matter what. But right now, I want to look out for him. For both of us.

“I want this,” I tell him, because it’s easy to talk about the need that burns so brightly between us. “I want you.”

This time, when I kiss him, he’s all in.

And so am I, even if I can’t tell him. Even if I can’t yet tell myself.

This time, when his hands move to my hips, it’s nothing—and everything—like I thought it’d be.

His mouth, dark and possessive.

His skin, warm and fragrant.

His hands, firm but tender in all the right places.

And his body, his beautiful, strong, powerful body, protecting me, arching against me, pressing into me, taking all that I’m offering and giving me so much more in return.

Nothing has ever felt so good.

Nothing has ever felt so right.

And when it’s over, when my hands have finally stopped shaking and my heart has finally stopped racing, I realize the stardust has yet to settle. All the pieces of me and all the pieces of him mix together until it’s impossible to tell where I leave off and he begins.

Until it’s impossible to tell what either of us is, was, or will become without the other.

89

The Big Apple

Bites Back

Hudson and I woke up, had breakfast in bed, and lolled around watching Netflix as long as we could, but eventually he said he wanted to head back to his room and shower.

He’s been gone about an hour when Macy discreetly knocks. I open the door and can tell she’s trying not to be obvious—but is totally being obvious—as she checks to see if there’s anyone in my bed.

I roll my eyes at her but can’t help the slight blush warming my cheeks. “Hudson’s in his room taking a shower.”

She grins and rubs her hands together. “I am going to want all the details.”

I turn back to the bed so she can’t see my blush has turned into a full-on scarlet burn. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”

She pouts. “Fine. But when I get a mate…mum’s the word from me.”

“Deal.” I chuckle.

She’s about to plop on the bed next to me—probably to begin the best friend’s rightful interrogation—when there’s another knock on the door, followed by Eden calling, “Hurry up! My hands are full!”

Seconds later, Macy opens the door and Eden comes in carrying a bag of the most amazing-smelling food ever.

I jump up to take the bags from her. I have worked up a serious appetite. “Whatever you’ve got in here—I’ll take it all.”