Buns (Hudson Valley #3)

I let out a watery sigh, squeezing my eyelids shut tight. “No, you really don’t.” Outside. “How was the rest of the day?”


Footsteps across the floor. When he spoke, he was just inside the balcony door. “Fine. Good. Smooth. Terrible.”

“Terrible?”

“It wasn’t the same,” he said softly. “Without you.”

I wanted to be inside. Oh God, I wanted it more than anything. I wanted my own piece of it, my piece of this American pie that everyone else had. To be included, in step, in touch, cared for and caring, inside. But could I do it?

I heard him take one more step, his footsteps changing from soft muffled carpet to sharp scraping slate. He was outside now, with me.

I stood, turned, and saw him standing there. Tall and strong, freckled and bespectacled, his warm eyes connected with mine and there he was.

“Hi,” he said, his voice low and raspy. He’d worked hard all day, making this day special for everyone he encountered.

“Hi,” I said, my own voice sounding breathless. I hovered just out of reach, on the balls of my feet, teetering right on the edge. I wanted to turn around, to sink back into my rocking chair and tell him to go away, stay inside, stay safe. But then he smiled, you see. And I ran. What had been cracking open wide all day now completely disintegrated and I gave in and fucking ran. Toward him.

I threw myself into his arms, and he caught me, half inside, half outside. I was overwhelmed, but this time instead of panic, I felt butterflies and moonbeams and no small amount of straight-up lust.

I ran to him because I had to. Under a night sky literally on top of the world, where no one could see and no one could hear, and then my mouth was on his and it was everything.

I hit him with such force he groaned, but he groaned into my mouth, which was a little piece of sexy heaven. In an instant his arms went around me. In that same instant, I wrapped around him, my hands wild and my fingers searching, seeking, finding heat and warmth and smooth skin and a tie goes flying. And then his hands were all over me, pushing at my dress straps, his lips pulling at my skin there, on my shoulders and on my collarbone, finding willing and wanting and wanton flesh there, and my breath goes sighing. Walls are crumbling down and feet are stumbling around and the stars are above and my fingers are below and a belt goes zinging while my skin is singing.

His fingers plunged into my hair, anchoring me rough and tender as I sank to my knees, cracking my kneecap on the cold slate, but I didn’t even care because his breath is uneven and choppy and his back thuds up against the stacked chimney and tiny bits of sooty brick rain down on me and everything smells like forgotten bits of burn and char and what once was, but under that there is the hint, the promise of underground green growing things and renewal and spring.

New. Fresh. Clean. Untarnished. Simple.

And, oh my God, I need to have this man now.

“Clara. Clara.” He said my name with urgency, scraping the sky with heat and need. I scrambled at his zipper and he’s there, he is heat and need, and as I open my mouth and bring him inside, his entire body stiffens and his hands freeze in my hair and my name becomes the only word he knows because right now, under these stars, I’m the only woman he knows and needs and wants and . . .

He’s fucking incredible. And he’s fucking my mouth. This man with the pocket square is fucking my mouth. I chanced a look up and good lord he’s silhouetted against blazing stars, his head thrown back and the world is his jawline and it’s the single most erotic thing that I’ve ever experienced.

Guttural. Frenzied. I released him only to take him back into my mouth again, licking and thrusting with my tongue as he thrust against it, barely in control, and that was more than okay because I love when this man loses control and puts his hands on me.

And he did. Holy fuck, he did. His fingers dug deep into my hair, tugging and pulling, and why does that feel so empowering when it shouldn’t, but holy fuck, it did. His hands were large, his fingers long, wrapped around my head, lost, then found again as he moved me on him.

I grasped him firmly at the base, fingertips trailing up and down as I released him from my mouth slowly, only to take him in again once more, slow and sure.

“That’s. Incredible,” he murmured, and his fingertips moved, untwisting from my hair, sliding across my face, slow and sure. Sweetly, he traced down over my cheekbones, along my jaw, so gently. “Incredible.”

And then he moves, pulling me off him and kneeling in front of me, kissing me again, licking at my lips, and once more I opened for him, tasting salt and sweet and Archie everywhere.

“I need to see you,” he whispered, and both of us scrambled for the buttons on my dress. In a tumble of hands and fingers, my elbow goes one way and his face goes another and his glasses went flying off into the darkness.

“Sorry.” I chuckled, but marveled at how open he seemed like this, nothing between me and those beautiful indigo eyes.

He hung his head, laughing himself. “The terrible part is I can’t see a thing without those, everything is literally a blur.”

His hair tickled pleasantly at my collarbone. “That’s something a girl loves to hear.”

“Won’t be a moment,” he said, patting around on the balcony next to him. “Now, this is sexy, isn’t it?”

“Are you kidding?” I asked, leaning up on my elbows to watch him, trousers askew, tie hanging sideways, hair every which way. “It’s ridiculous how sexy you are.”

“Hmm,” he said, still looking for his glasses.

“Go right.” I guided him. “They’re right there by the—”

“Shit.”

I gulped. “—railing.”

They were long gone, pushed over the side by Archie’s roving hands. “Unbelievable,” he muttered. “Of course this would happen.”

I sat up, then crawled toward where he was. “Come on, you don’t need to see me,” I said, running one hand down his back. “To see me.” I picked up his left hand and brought it to my breast. His breath caught. “Tell me.”

“Tell you?” His voice was thick and strangled.

“What you feel. How I feel.” I brought his other hand to my face, turning into it and pressing a kiss in the center of his palm. “What you’re thinking.”

“Eventually, Clara, you’re going to have to tell me what you’re thinking.”

Oh. I nodded, unable to speak, unable to answer, but knowing if I was giving over to this, I was giving everything over. I nodded again into his hand, and that was what he needed.

The hand on my breast brushed lightly across, the cotton of my dress thin enough that I could feel his fingers curving as the heat of my skin guided him. I shivered, my skin reacting to his touch instantly. Reaching up, I thumbed one button open, then another, pulling at the bodice of my dress to grant him access. I wanted, no I needed, to feel his hands on my bare skin.

“Tell me,” I murmured again, needing his words as much as his touch.