Forever With You by Laurelin Paige
Apparently it wasn't Gwen’s, either.
"Well this year it's draggier than usual," she said, shifting her weight from one heel to the other.
JC suddenly appeared behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. "I'm so glad to hear you say that. Does this mean we can leave now?"
"We just got here," she laughed. "We have to put our time in."
"Can we put our time in alone, in a secluded part of the garden? Just you and me?" JC rubbed his nose along her jawline, and Mira and I groaned in feigned disgust.
"No," she said, though her expression betrayed that she was thinking about it. "I'm having me some girl time here. Go find Adam and have some guy time." She handed him her empty glass. "Oh, and get me another one of these. Please." She batted her lashes, a very un-Gwen-like move.
He rolled his eyes, but we all knew he would do it. The guy was head over heels for his wife.
With the momentary distraction of JC gone, my brain headed right back to where it had left off—my relationship with Hudson.
"Do you guys think I had too many children?" I asked, circling around the real issue.
"You have as many as I do," Gwen said, "and with fewer pregnancies. Better bargain, if you ask me.”
“I don’t know about that,” Mira came to my defense. “You worked until the day you went into labor with all three. Bedrest is hell on earth. I would rather have ten pregnancies than another one with bedrest.”
I nodded in agreement. I’d spent nearly four months on my back with the twins. “But do you think I had them too close together? Not the twins, obviously. I mean the pregnancies. Should I have waited longer after Mina?”
Mira put her arm around me, her expression taut with concern. “Are you stressing out, hon? Do you need more help? You need to tell us if you’re feeling overloaded.”
I bit back the annoyance that crept up at her worry. While I was genuinely asking for my friends’ input and I appreciated that they cared, I also hated that everyone around me felt like they had to look out for signs of my anxiety taking over.
That was my cross to bear, though. No one would be concerned at all if I hadn’t given them reason to be.
This time, it wasn’t my obsession talking. At least, I didn’t think it was. “No. I have all that managed, as much as you can manage mommying. It’s not like that.”
Mira relaxed a bit. “Then where is this coming from?”
I bit my lip, glancing from her to Gwen. “Do you think Hudson’s over me?”
Mira nearly dropped her drink. “Oh my God, no! Never. That man is the definition of only lives for you.”
“He has mad love for you, Laynie,” Gwen agreed. “It’s gross.”
I glared at Gwen. This from the woman who’d just let her husband practically feel her up in front of us? She wasn’t fooling anyone.
With a frustrated sigh, I sank back in the sofa. “I know he loves me,” I said. “I really do. And I love him. Just...can the magic really last forever? Day in and day out. Does it get old after a while? What if there’s an expiration on happily ever after?”
My friends stared at me, neither of them speaking for several long seconds.
Finally, Mira broke the silence. “I knew it! Those women did bother you.”
“What women?” Gwen asked. “Scoot over. I want to sit now.”
“These women who were ogling Hudson earlier,” Mira replied as she and I moved to make room for Gwen on the other side of me. “It was serious sexual harassment, if you ask me.”
“They did not bother me,” I protested. “Okay maybe they did. A little.” I thought for a second. “But not because they were looking at him. It’s just, what if he starts looking at them? I would, if I were him.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Gwen said. “You are hot.”
“He would never look at anyone but you. I know my brother,” Mira added.
“Mira,” I looked her straight in the eye. “You know that this is a size up from what I used to wear.” I’d bought the figure-flattering wrap dress at her boutique, so she was definitely aware of the change in my measurements.
“You had twins!” she exclaimed.
“Almost a year ago, and I still haven’t gotten my body back. And it’s been five days since we had sex.”
“Five days. Really? Five whole days.” Mira chided me in the same tone I’d chided Hudson when he’d suggested it was too long between rounds.
“I realize that’s not long for some people, but it is for us. And it was five days before that, too.”
“Because you have babies!” Mira reminded me. Yet again.
“Who aren’t little anymore. They sleep through the night pretty well now. I have nannies who help me catch up on sleep during the day. And look—we’re out tonight, for the first time in weeks, and Hudson has spent the whole night on his phone. He didn’t even try to fool around in the car on the way up.”
“Because I drove with you, you sillypants.” Mira would defend our relationship to the death.
“He still used to try. No matter who was around.” Tonight, he’d flirted when I’d first come out of the bedroom, but after that, nada. I might as well have been wearing a sackcloth. To further prove my point, I added, “JC still tried just now with Gwen.”
“JC has no class,” Gwen stated. Which was a lie, but nice of her to say.
“And Hudson was on his laptop the whole ride, Laynie,” Mira continued. “There’s probably some work crisis he hasn’t told you about, and he’s dealing with that. You said he’s been on the phone? That proves it. I’m driving home with Adam. You’ll be alone with him then. Don’t let him work anymore. Give him a little... you know. I don’t want to think about what the you know entails because he’s my brother, but make it good, and you’ll see it’s all as it should be.”
I chewed some more on my lip. Was I being crazy?
Gwen seemed to read my thoughts. “Every woman has these worries now and then. This isn’t weird. It’s part of the hormonal cycle, I swear. It pops up somewhere between needing to consume all the chocolate in the world and wanting to hump the first dick that walks in the room.”
Mira and I both eyed Gwen.
“Maybe that’s just my cycle. Point is, it’s natural to worry about our marriages. It’s a good thing even. It makes us think about our relationships and not take them for granted. That’s what keeps them alive.”
Somewhat comforted, I managed a reluctant smile. “You’re right, you’re right. I know you’re right.”
“Where is Hudson now, anyway?” Gwen asked.
“Over there.” I nodded to where he’d been before, but found he wasn’t there anymore. I looked around and spotted him not too far off, more in the shadows, farther away from the party.
And he was no longer alone.
Gwen found him too. “Who’s that with him?”
I sat up straighter, my skin suddenly feeling tight and itchy. “One of the women who was ogling him.”
“Oh, shit,” Mira said. “I do know her.”
I didn’t take my eyes off the woman as she cocked her hip and twirled a strand of her long dark blonde hair. “Who is it?”
“Well,” Mira fretted. “You’re not going to like this. She’s Christina Brooke—or that was her maiden name. She’s married. I’m not sure what she goes by now. She used to be Celia’s best friend.”
My vision went red at the mention of Hudson’s old friend. “Fabulous,” I said, sarcastically.
“This is probably fine,” Gwen said, calmly. “They’re probably doing the obligatory catch-up. ‘How have you been?’ ‘How’s the wife?’ ‘How’s your mother? I hear she’s sober now.’”
“I should go over there.” It was a party. Mingling was a party thing.
“You don’t need to make a scene, though,” Mira cautioned.
Christina Used-To-Be-Brooke took a step closer to my husband, her arms folded across her chest so her tits popped up nice and high.
I knew that move. I used to use th
The part that had my blood boiling was that Hudson didn’t back away.
Mira amended her statement. “Okay. You might need to make a little bit of a scene.”
I was out of my seat before anyone said anything else, nearly bumping into JC who had returned with Gwen's drink.
"Where's she off to so fast?" he asked, but I didn't hear anything else, my clipped pace carrying me across the courtyard in record time.
I kept my eyes pinned on Hudson and Christina, neither of them had noticed me coming up to them.
"—know how I feel about fidelity?" Christina was saying in a hushed tone when I got close enough to hear.
"I thought I did, certainly," Hudson responded. "You might've changed your mind." His eyes flicked to the side, and he saw me, so even though I'd considered, for a brief second, just hanging back and listening in, now I had to continue on toward them.
When I got to him, I slipped my arm around his. "Hi, I am Alayna Pierce. I don't believe we've met." I stuck my other hand out in greeting. Pretentious, perhaps. Possessive, definitely.
"Alayna, this is Christina Rodham. We used to run in the same circles. We haven't seen each other for quite some time. Christina, this is my wife."
Christina took my hand and shook it weakly. She likely didn’t have much room to give it any force. She hadn't bothered to step back when I'd arrived. Hadn't bothered to wipe the drool off her mouth after slobbering over my husband.
"Nice to meet you, Alayna." She dropped my hand, then turned her focus back to Hudson. "I should get back to Thaddeus. He's here… somewhere." She put her hand on his bicep and ran it down the length of his upper arm while I tried not to scream bloody murder. "It was really good to see you again, Hudson. Ta-ta."
She sauntered off, her tight behind swaying much more than it needed to, even walking in heels.
I shot death rays after her.
When I glanced up at Hudson, I discovered he was also watching her walk away, his jaw ticking as though he was deep in thought.
"H, what did she mean when she said that you knew how she felt about fidelity?"
"She was talking about the past," he answered quickly. "Are you ready to go? I'm not in the mood to be here anymore, if that's all right with you." He put his hand at the small of my back and started ushering me toward the house.
"That's fine. But." I stopped walking. "Hudson. Who was that woman?"
He spun to face me, his forehead wrinkled in puzzlement. "Christina Brooke. Rodham. I told you. I knew her when we were kids. Let’s go." He turned to leave again.
"Hudson."
He stopped.
"You fucked her. Didn't you?" I didn't know how I knew, but I did. Suddenly and certainly.
His eyes searched mine for a moment. "A long time ago. Yes. When we were kids. Now can we go?"
I let him escort me out then, stopping briefly to say goodbye to his sister and her husband, and to Gwen and JC. There was another round of goodbyes to Nash King and his wife and a few other important figures from the financial world. It was hard for me to stay focused on the people in front of me when my head kept thinking about Christina Brooke and her perfect plump lips and her flawless figure and the way she touched my husband and how my husband had once been inside of her.
Of course I knew that Hudson slept with people before me. Hell, I hadn't been a virgin when we'd met. But I'd never been introduced to any of his former lovers. I'd never seen him interact with them. I'd never had to wrestle with this jealousy in the flesh.
It didn't help that Hudson returned immediately to his phone once we got into the back of the limo.
I sat on my side of the seat and tried to figure out why it bothered me so much. Christina. Her fawning. Her history with my husband. Why did any of that matter? I knew he was loyal. I knew he loved me. There was no way he would have an affair.
But did he have regrets? Did I bore him? Was that why he worked so hard, disappeared so much into his job the last couple of years?
Was that why I couldn’t be happy sitting at home and wanted so desperately to go back to The Sky Launch?
Maybe the solution was no more kids.
“Hudson?”
“Hmm?” He didn’t even look at me.
“I think you should have a vasectomy.”
“No,” he said with finality.
I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled, trying to decide if I wanted to fight about it. We were definitely done, as far as I was concerned, but maybe the children weren’t the actual problem.
Maybe it was as simple as Gwen suggested—it took effort to keep the magic alive.
We just needed to always keep making an effort.
"Crisis at work?" I asked, when I finally decided to act like an adult instead of pouting silently.
He glanced over at me, almost like he’d forgotten I was there. "Yes." Immediately, he looked back at his screen.
I wasn't giving up that easily. "Who do you keep texting? Norma?"
“Right. Norma.” His eyes never left the phone. "Who else would be working this late on a Friday?”
I put my palm out toward him. "Hand it over. I want to talk to her." Wanted to tell her to give my husband the night off.
"No.” He typed something off quickly.
My temper started to rise. "Why not?"
He didn’t say anything as he clicked the button to darken his screen and pocketed his cell. The he swiveled toward me. "Because I'm done playing with my phone. Now I’m going to play with your pussy."
Fury turned to desire, and, slowly, I grinned. "Really?"
"Really. You’ve been neglected tonight. I have making up to do. Give me your foot." He held his hand out.
I lifted the leg closest to him and swung it around to put my shoe in his palm, spreading my legs wide at the same time, open for him.
He set my foot on the seat against the back, propping my knee up.
"Good girl," he said, low and husky, eyes piercing mine with greedy lust, even in the dim light of the interior.
I shivered.
Scooting closer, he ran one hand up my bare leg and then farther up my thigh, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. When he reached the top of my leg, he moved to the knot at the waist of my dress and undid the sash, opening the wrap so that I was left in my black panties and matching bra.
He surveyed me with the same hungry gaze he always had. "I've been wanting to get under your dress since the second you walked out of our bedroom," he hissed.
"Sure couldn't tell. All night, the only two things you had eyes for were that phone and Miss Christina Perfect Tits."
He raised a brow before bending to kiss lightly along my inner thigh. "She had perfect tits? I hadn't noticed."
"How could you miss them? If not now, then ten years ago. When you fucked her." Yeah, so I was going there. Sometimes I couldn't stop myself.
He continued kissing up, up, until his kiss pressed along the crotch of my panties. "I wouldn't know. I only fucked her once, and it was from behind."
"Oh my God," I moaned as he dragged his teeth along my clit through the material. After all these years, he knew just how to touch me. How to make me get there. How to undo me with a single breath along my skin.
But I wasn’t done with this conversation.
"Why would you tell me that?” I asked, breathily. “I don't want to hear that." My comment dissolved into another moan as his tongue took a turn swirling my swollen nub.
"You don't?" he asked, lifting up. "That's not like you. You usually want to know everything."
This time when he put his mouth down there, he sucked, hard, until my fingernails were clawing into the car’s upholstery.
"Okay, okay, I want to know," I said when I could speak.
He smirked, sitting up to look me in the eye again. "She might as well have been anyone. She was part of a game. Like every woman was before you." He wrapped his fingers underneath the waistband of my panties and paused. "Are you
"Not yet." I nodded toward the place down between my legs, indicating exactly what would make me all the way better.
He chuckled. "I'm working on it, precious. Patience."
With my help, he maneuvered my panties off. Then he buried his head between my legs and licked and sucked and fingered and made me all the way better. After three orgasms, I climbed onto his lap and rode him until we got home.
There was definitely still magic between us.
But I thought about his strange encounter with Christina as I fell asleep, the fragments of the conversation I’d overheard between them remained a puzzle still unsolved.
And when Hudson slipped out from under the covers in the middle of the night with his phone in hand, I worried again. Even Norma went to bed eventually.
6
Hudson
The first time I received a threatening letter, I was twenty-three and still working with my father at Walden, Inc. When he saw it, he shrugged, patted me on the back, and said, “You’ve made the big time. Hire a security team. Stop opening your own mail."
I started Pierce Industries soon after that, took his advice and hired a company to handle my security. Besides handling everything in the building, they looked over me personally. While I still opened my own personal mail, they drove me places when needed and monitored my home and computers. Anything that bothered me got flagged and dealt with straightaway.
The agency sent a rotation of men—one was as good as another, as far as I was concerned. I didn’t take the whole thing very seriously. What did I have to protect? My money? My life?
Neither meant that much at the time.
It wasn't until Alayna came into the picture, until I finally had someone worth protecting, that I truly got serious about my team. I paid more attention to who was on staff. I required detailed resumes before choosing who would be her driver. There were several with qualifications that fit the bill nicely, but in the end, I chose Jordan Black, a man I'd worked with several times. I didn't choose him because of his skills, though he had them. I chose him because once, when Celia had tried to flirt with him, he'd turned her down, saying he was gay.