Hudson (17 page)

I nodded once slowly.

“Have you learned anything?”

“I’ve learned a lot.”

“But you still don’t feel things?” She was curious but accepting.

“I don’t.” I gripped the arms of the chair and let them go again. “I don’t think that’s something that will ever change. It’s not why I do it. If anything, the more I experiment, the less I feel. Except with you. You…I don’t know.” It wasn’t that I didn’t want to share. I just didn’t have the words. “You’re too much like family, I think. So I have…I did feel…
something
.”

“You don’t know what, though?”

“No.” I’d tried to figure it out so many times. “Obligation, maybe. Responsibility.”

She fiddled with the edge of her bedsheet but kept her focus on me. “But with the others, you didn’t feel anything?”

“No.”

She let go of the sheet, turned and propped her head up on one hand. “Do you ever feel anything else?”

God, we were actually doing this, then? Examining all the pieces, letting all the walls down.
Might as well get comfortable.
I crossed an ankle over my jean-clad knee. “Not really. Anger sometimes. Disgust.”

“You’re never happy?”

“I’m often content.” I didn’t mention that the only excitement I felt revolved around the manipulation of others. I was stripping myself in front of her, but I didn’t need to be vulgar.

“What about sorrow?”

“It’s more like disappointment.” I cleared my throat. This was the closest to sympathy she’d get from me. “Right now, I’m disappointed for you.”

Though, there had been a moment—the moment that I’d learned Celia’s baby was dead—and the disappointment had been something else. Something more intense, more intolerable. It seemed to start in the center of me, the sensation so strong it sounded in my ears. Soon it reverberated in my bones, in my skin, until every part of me had…
ached
.

But all it took was a straightening of my spine and a decision to not feel it anymore. And with a whoosh, it was silent. Gone. I was hardened.

It had been a unique incident. One I’d never experienced. Perhaps it warranted a relabeling for Celia’s benefit. “
Very
disappointed for you.”

She bit her lip as if she were fighting a fresh set of tears. “What about guilt? Or compassion? Or love?”

I shook my head.

“You don’t love your mother? Or Mirabelle?”

“That’s more complicated.” It was difficult to explain my lack of emotion to someone else when I barely understood it myself. “I have a fondness for them. I feel an affinity toward them. But that’s all.”

She took in a ragged breath, and I could only assume this revelation disturbed her.

“Don’t get me wrong,” I added, “they do mean something to me. But it hardly measures the depths that I believe others feel for people they care for.”

“Does that bother you?”

“It intrigues me. Bother me? Not really.” I was grateful for the semi-dark room. It made the honest conversation less intense. “It actually makes me strong, I think. No one has the power to hurt me.”

This idea had itched at me for a while, but had never fully formed. Now that I’d said it out loud, I sat back in the chair and soaked in the revelation. This incident had actually been the best test of the notion. This had
almost
hurt me. Not quite, but almost. And watching the Werners and my mother and Celia bear the pain like a terrible fever with no relief was exhausting in itself. If I’d ever thought my impassivity was a curse, I didn’t now. It was my blessing.

Accepting this didn’t change anything—didn’t change me—but perhaps it propelled my interest in studying the human psyche. It gave me a mission. Because in learning why others behaved the way they did, I discovered more of my own strength.

“Hudson.” Celia’s small voice drew me from my reverie. “Teach me, Hudson.”

I raised a questioning brow.

“Experiment with me.”

“What? Why would you want me to…?” I didn’t know how to react to the insane request. “I’m not experimenting on people I know anymore.”

“Not
on
me.
With
me.” She sat straight up. “I want to learn how you do it. Teach me.”

Understanding her real intent didn’t make the request any less strange. “No. That’s absurd.”

“Please.”

“No.” But now she’d planted the thought, and I couldn’t help but explore it. “Why?”

“Because I want to be like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like someone who doesn’t feel.” She fell back into the bed. “I don’t want to feel anymore. I said I felt numb, but there’s worse hiding underneath that. Jagged spikes of pain. I wanted that baby, Hudson. And before that, I wanted
you
. Not anymore, but I did. All that’s left from all that want is hurt. I tried to hate you, and I do a little. But mostly I can’t help but admire you. Your methods are impressive. Maybe you’re an example of evolution. Maybe a lack of emotion is what it takes to move the human race to the next level. Because I think you’re right—it is your strength. And I don’t know if you were born that way or if you turned into this over time because of your fucked-up family—sorry, but it’s true—but I think I could learn that. Or at least try. What’s the harm in letting me try?”

Her voice had strengthened as she talked, and now her words echoed in the quiet room. Honestly, there was little to refute. And the possibilities her monologue had inspired…

“Okay.”

She perked up in surprise. “Okay? Really?”

My mind was already swimming with plans. I never went looking for experiments. They’d arise out of situations and relationships around me that were interesting, that I wanted to explore. As it happened, there was a newly married couple that had just moved into my parents’ building. Though they’d recently pledged their lives to each other, I couldn’t help but notice the way he eyed other women. There was a lot I wanted to study there. Celia would actually prove helpful. “After Christmas. If you’re up to it.”

“I’ll be up to it.” She was excited.

My pulse kicked up a notch. How sick was it that her enthusiasm was a mental turn-on? I stifled my adrenaline rush by adding practicality. “There will be rules. Some we’ll have to make up as we go since I’ve never worked with a partner.”

“Of course. What’s the fun of a game without rules?”

“They aren’t games.” It came out harsher than I’d intended, but it was important to me that she understood the difference. “They’re experiments. It’s science.”

“Whatever you want to call it, Hudson. It’s semantics. There’s nothing wrong with having a bit of fun with it. I know you do.”

So it didn’t matter that I hadn’t told her the games excited me. She already knew.

And Jesus, I was already referring to them as games myself. If I weren’t so looking forward to the new phase of my research, I might have been irritated.

“Maybe,” I conceded. “There is an enjoyment at correctly predicting how people will react.”

She smiled—the first sign of joy since she’d awoken in the cold, sterile room.

“What have I agreed to?” But I genuinely smiled back.

She took a deep breath. Then her expression eased into something more solemn. “Thank you, Hudson.”

“You’re welcome.” Also genuine.

We settled into a comfortable silence. My mind swirled with ideas and notions. Perhaps good really had come from all of the Celia mess. Though somewhere deep inside of me, a warning bell sounded, and while it was quiet enough to ignore, it was persistent and left me with the slightest niggle of doubt and dread.

After a moment, she chuckled. “You’re so ridiculous, you know. You’re like the Tin Man in
The Wizard of Oz
. All the time he doesn’t think he has a heart and yet he really does.”

“An interesting comparison.” I’d always identified more with Hannibal Lecter from the famed Thomas Harris series about a psychologically curious sociopathic serial killer. Though I wasn’t a serial killer, the way the character molded and manipulated others, studying and predicting their behavior—reading him had felt like looking in a mirror. “Except I don’t really have a heart.”

Even in the dim light, I saw her roll her eyes.

I tapped a finger on the arm of the chair and considered the basis of her analysis—she saw kindness in things I’d done, I guessed. Though she may have perceived benevolence, it wasn’t sincere. “You realize, Celia, anything that appears like an act of compassion on my part is simply that—an act.”

“Why act at all? I mean, with me, for example. Why claim to be my baby’s father? Why let me bully my way into your ‘experiments?’” She used quote fingers when she said the word
experiments
.

There were a handful of answers I could have given, some with a bit of truth, some downright lies. The fact of the matter was that I felt obligated. It was the one emotion I owned, and as such, I owned it well. If my sense of duty was going to be the reason for most of my existence, then I’d make sure I lived up to it with all I had. I was responsible for Celia’s predicament—there was no doubt in my mind of that—and for that alone, I was obligated to her, no matter how strong the alarm of doubt in my gut.

“I see you formulating a response over there, Hudson. Don’t bother. If you aren’t going to answer honestly, don’t answer at all.” She looked up at the ceiling. “I’d prefer if you just said you didn’t know.”

So that was what I chose to say. Because it was easier. “I don’t know.”

The nurse arrived then, and I slipped out. It was near seven and I had to get home and changed before heading into work. A night with no sleep was going to make for a miserable day at Dad’s office, but worse would be a day with my mourning mother.

The nursery was on the way to the elevators, I told myself, when I found my feet heading in that direction. A lone male figure dressed in a suit and tie stood peering in the windows, and even down the hall, with his body half-turned away, I recognized him.

I didn’t say anything as I approached the windows next to him. I forced myself to look in, forced myself to gaze at the newborn babies. Forced myself to recognize that there had been a loss in this world—in
my
world—and there should be at least a moment of grieving.

The disappointment from earlier returned. But that was all.

For my dad, though, there was more. Tears streaked his face, and I realized I’d never seen a grown man cry, let alone my father.

Without any greeting, without looking at me directly, he asked. “Was it mine?”

Perhaps it was appropriate that he was the one in mourning. But the facts surrounding his bereavement—the too-young daughter of a friend that he’d knocked up, the wife he’d driven to drink, the secrets that required him to be there incognito in the early hours—angered me too much, overwhelming all else.

“I didn’t sleep with her,” I said, confirming his suspicions. “But that child was never yours. Don’t ever speak like it was anything but mine again.”

He closed his eyes as a new wave of pain furrowed his expression.

I left him there at the windows and headed for the elevators. Left him to struggle through his regret and guilt and sorrow and heartache—all those ridiculous emotions that made him weak.

Chapter Fifteen

After

I only have a few minutes before Alayna returns from the bathroom. I’m supposed to be waiting for her naked on the bed when she returns, and I will be. I’m already half-undressed and full-hard. But as I finish shucking my pants and briefs, my mind sifts through a vacation’s worth of thoughts at lightning speed.

This room, this place—I’m overwhelmed.

Mabel Shores holds a lifetime of memories, yet the prominent ones right now are the summer with Celia’s experiment. It taints every wonderful thing that has happened here in the Hamptons this weekend with Alayna. It buzzes in my ear as a reminder of my faults, of my flaws, and there’s very little I can do to silence it.

My father’s presence here this weekend doesn’t help. While I should be grateful that he is a counterbalance to my mother’s bitchy welcome, I don’t trust his motives with Alayna. I don’t want him to befriend her as he has. Though she would never betray me the way Celia did, though he’s never made a move on anyone I’ve known in the years since, I can’t stand the idea that he might try something with Alayna. It frightens me, and I’ve never been one to scare.

The memories haunt others too. My mother is constantly reminded, and she takes it out on Alayna. Her unwillingness to move past Celia’s miscarriage and embrace Mirabelle’s pregnancy as her first grandchild makes me suspicious. In the back of Sophia’s mind—does she know? Does she suspect the secrets that surround Celia’s baby? Probably not, but how can she not feel that there is something off about it?

I suspect that’s why she brought it up again today, throwing it in Alayna’s face. I understand that the recollection doesn’t let my mother go—it doesn’t let me go either. But it’s no excuse for the way she hurts Alayna. The way she hurts me. It’s another new emotion that has cropped up in my repertoire in the last few days, but I’m not sure of its name. Sympathy? Compassion? It’s a pain that digs deep into my chest whenever Alayna is hurting, and I’m desperate to prevent it—not for my sake, but for hers.

And the way I had to dig myself out of that revelation with Alayna…

I’ve vowed to be as honest with her as I can despite the one lie—the
huge
lie—that I carry with me always. So when she asked about the baby, I told her what I could. For the first time, I wanted to tell her all of it, but I didn’t know how I could without exposing the worst parts of me. Yes, she knows of them, but she doesn’t truly know how awful I’ve been. Where does Celia’s baby’s story end, anyway? At her miscarriage? When she asked me to teach her how to be like me?

The only thing I could do was beg for Alayna to trust me. She’d given me her trust before, and I had no right to it then or now, but she gave it to me again. It’s another brick in my pack of guilt. How long can I drag this around before it weighs us both down?

And it’s not just the guilt pulling me down. There’s more—the emotion. There’s so much of it wherever Alayna’s concerned. It’s all new and intense, and it feels like a smear of colors on a painter’s palette—all of it so blurred that I can’t identify any colorful emotion for what it really is. Sometimes from the look in her eyes and the soft pressure of her lips and the way she gives and gives and gives—I wonder if she doesn’t feel it all too. I’ve told her, I’ve warned her that this can’t be real. But is she as powerless as I am in all of this?

Isn’t that just the question Celia’s putting to the test?

Alayna’s more experienced with feelings. I can only hope she’s unaffected. But if she
is
unaffected…

God, that might kill me too.

I hear her stir in the bathroom, so I rush to get in place on the bed. Suddenly I’m struck with a very different memory of Mabel Shores.
Mirabelle’s wedding day.
While I didn’t put any faith in romantic relationships, I knew she did. Her deeply rooted trust in Adam perplexed me so entirely that I eventually had to ask her how she could be so certain about marrying the man.

“Because when you love someone,”
she’d met my eyes and answered without a flicker in her confidence,
“their world interests you more than your own.”

I don’t have time to examine why that memory came to me now because the bathroom door opens and Alayna’s standing there, ready for me. She’s wearing a red lace nightie that draws attention to her gorgeous tits. Her hair spills around her shoulders, and she looks so incredible. My breath catches.

“Jesus, Alayna. You’re so goddamn beautiful,” I say, surprised I can speak. I kneel, my cock standing at full attention between my legs. “I might have to let you wear that while I fuck you.”

She blushes, and I wonder if I’ll be able to last until I touch her. “Come here,” I growl.

She starts toward me and then halts. “Wait, I’m in control, remember?”

I’d forgotten I’d agreed to that. I’m not usually comfortable giving up the reins, but for Alayna, I’m actually looking forward to it. She might not understand it, but this is my way of saying
I trust you too
.

I sit back on my heels and invite her to take the power. “Then take charge.”

A spark flashes in her eye. She bites her lip and then issues her first command. “Sit back against the headboard.”

Fuck, she’s sexy. I can’t help grinning as I follow her orders.

She climbs up the foot of the bed and crawls up the length of my body. Her breasts are on perfect display and they steal my attention, but I’m also drawn to her eyes. They’re on fire with lust and something else. Something soft and beautiful that I can’t quite make out.

Then she’s licking my cock, and I forget all else but her wonderful tongue. “Do it again.” I haven’t forgotten who’s in charge, but she needs to know what I want.

“Maybe I will,” she teases.

Jesus, she’s so goddamn adorable.

She bends to my dick again, kissing and licking my crown before she takes me into her mouth.

I groan. “Oh precious, you suck me so good.” She teases me—licking and sucking and fondling without taking up a steady rhythm. Soon I have to take over or I’ll die. I tangle my fingers through her hair and hold her still as I thrust into her mouth.

She doesn’t let me get away with this for long, and when she resumes control, she releases me. I moan at the loss of her warmth.

“You want more?” she taunts. “You’ll have to wait.”

I do want more, but I’ll take anything she’s giving. She climbs further up my body and straddles my waist. My cock nudges against her ass. Fuck, it’s pure torture. I’m in heaven.

She spreads her hands across my chest, and as my skin burns from her touch, she bends down for a kiss. She tastes so good. I cradle her face with my hands, holding her in place so I can devour her.

But she shakes her head free, and I’m reminded how out of my comfort zone she’s put me. I don’t know what to do when I’m not directing the scene. “What do you want?” I ask, though I wonder if it sounds more like begging.

“Touch my breasts.”

Gladly.
I slip my hands inside her nightie and fondle her tits. I’m rough because I know it’s how she likes it, but also because I’m so turned on I can’t be gentle. I pull down her gown and sit up to take her breast in my mouth. I suck and bite at her nipple, and I’m rewarded by her cry. “Hudson, oh, God.”

I love her reaction, and I have to have more. I slip my hand under her panties and swipe across her clit, through her folds until I find the opening of her pussy. “You’re already so wet, precious.” I lick across her peaked nipple, and she shudders. I’m about to shove my fingers into her hole when I remember she’s in the driver’s seat. So I urge her to drive. “Shall I put my fingers inside you? Tell me.”

“I want your cock inside me.” She’s tentative with her request, and it only makes me harder.

There’s nothing more I want than to bury myself in her warm cunt, yet I force myself to hold back. I suck on her other breast until she moans. “But you aren’t ready for me, precious.”

“I’m ready enough.” She’s demanding. “I want to ride you.”

That’s all it takes. I rip the sides of her flimsy panties open and throw them aside. She grasps my cock, and I jerk in her hand. She balances over me. I’m so close to being lost inside her.

“I can’t imagine why I deserve this,” I say, palming her breasts. I know from our times before how it will be, how I’m going to feel when her pussy clenches around me. Not just physically but emotionally.

And I spook.

So I say something shitty as a reminder to both of us that none of this can be real. “I should be rewarding you for your very believable girlfriend act today.”

She stills, and I realize instantly that I’ve hurt her. And the implications of why that statement would hurt her tell me what I didn’t necessarily want to know—she
is
feeling it too. All of it.

I’m not sure how to deal with that knowledge. A bubble of euphoria has burst in my chest and spreads through my limbs. But my brain tries to halt it. She can’t fall for me, it says. She cannot. Because if she does, it’s going to hurt her more when all this comes to an end, and it has to come to an end. And that will destroy me.

I just don’t know what will destroy me more—that it ends or that she’s hurt. Shit, I’m so fucked.

Her eyes seem to recognize everything going through my mind. Then, with a defiance that almost makes me proud, she lifts her chin and slides down on my cock. She’s tight and raw. She wiggles, trying to work me in deeper. It’s a metaphor, I think, how she’s trying to slip further into my life and how she meets resistance from me time and again.

Though there’s nothing to be done about the metaphor, I can help her with the literal. I place my hand on her belly, pushing her back slightly until she opens up and glides down until I’m buried completely.

“Fuck,” I groan. “You’re so tight, Alayna. So good.” They’re sex words, but in my head, the meaning is hazy. Is it her clenched wet cunt that feels so good? Or is it everything else about her that feels so fucking good?

Or is it all of it?

She lifts up and down my length. I try to command the tempo, but she maintains her steady pace, sliding up and down. Up and down. It’s the most erotic sight, and my inability to direct any of it makes me restless. My hands wander over her body, touching her, caressing her, finally settling my thumb on her clit where at least here I can take some control.

“God, oh, god,” she cries, squeezing my cock with her pussy. She’s close, and I’m caught up in the way she writhes and squirms on top of me. Her skin glistens with sweat, and her cheeks are flushed so beautifully.

She talks as she rides me, her words mixed with broken moans. “I’m happy, Hudson. You’ve made me happy.” She’s not usually a talker, and I absorb every single sound she makes, every sentiment she shares.

All of it heightens the confusion of desires within me. I don’t want to hear these things. I want her to say more.

She does say more. “And I’ve made you happy too.”
I want her to stop. I want her to go on.
“We’re falling in love. This is us, falling in love.”

Those words are the death of me. They’re beautiful poison, and I can’t listen anymore.

“Enough.” Instantly, I flip her underneath me. I bend her legs and push them back while I pound into her with a rebellious force. I drive to silence her words that still echo in my head—
in love, we’re falling in love.
She shouldn’t have said that. I thrust into her, punishing her for voicing the ridiculous thoughts. If there’s any truth to it, I refuse to acknowledge it.

But I know. As Alayna comes undone underneath me, as I spurt my own release into her with long, hot pulses, I know that she’s right. That this can’t be thrashed out of our systems with desperate, frantic sex. That this can’t be forgotten or buried or ignored. There is emotion between us, and if that’s what it’s called—if it is actually love—it isn’t going away.

And what the fuck do I do with that?

I roll off her and fall onto the bed. As much as I want to be, I’m not angry with Alayna. I’m angry with myself. And Celia. Angry that she has any part of my relationship with Alayna, of what might be the most genuine moment of my entire life.

Most of all, I’m affected. When I’ve never been affected by anyone, and that means I’m also confused and maybe a little afraid. Or maybe a lot afraid.

Not knowing what else to do, I pull Alayna into the crook of my arm, close my eyes and pretend to sleep. I wish that I could fall into the bliss of unconsciousness, where thoughts and feelings can’t bite and nip at me as they do as I lie here wide awake. It’s not like there’s anything new to dwell on. The same thoughts recycle through my mind:
We’re falling in love. Can I actually be in love? I have to end this game. I have to tell her everything. But then I’ll lose her. And won’t I lose her anyway? Eventually doesn’t all love end?

Or what if it doesn’t end? What if this door she’s opened, if the flood of sensation she’s unleashed, is a permanent part of me now?

It’s nearly an hour later before her breathing settles into a deep rhythm, and I know she’s asleep. I slip out of her embrace and throw on some sweats. Even with clothing on, I feel stripped naked. Is this what love feels like?

I take a seat in the armchair next to the bed and watch her as I try to sort it all out. Mirabelle’s wedding-day words return to me:
When you love someone, their world interests you more than your own.
Everything about Alayna interests me more than myself. That’s why I’d thought of that memory. Because somewhere in my fucked-up psyche, I understood that what I felt for her was love before she even named it. I’d avoided the acceptance of it, knowing that this amazing, wonderful birth of love inside me couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Whatever I do next—and I still have no idea what it will be exactly—I do know that there will have to be a denial. Either I’ll deny this emotion and all that this woman brings to me, or I’ll deny Celia and her fucked-up game. Denying this love would be painful for us both, but admitting my hand in deceiving Alayna…I can’t even bear to think about how much she’d despise me for that.