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“Bullshit. Those are crutches. Sean doesn’t have passion, all he has is a phony imitation. You have passion when you’re on the stage with your violin. The kind of passion everyone watching you hears and, more importantly, feels through your music. If you could see what other people see when you’re playing, hear what they hear, feel what they feel … shit, you’d never doubt yourself again.”
My chest swells with a heady mixture of emotions. If Hudson believes in me this much … maybe I should believe in myself more, too. Maybe Jeremy and I can win the Mozart competition.
Maybe we will win.
“Maybe you should become a motivational speaker,” I joke to lighten the mood that’s suddenly grown thick and heavy around us.
A low chuckle rumbles from him. “Wouldn’t be easy to find things I believe in as much as I believe in you.”
We skate silently around the rink for a bit. Hudson’s confident words are still bouncing around in my head; as they settle, I feel them sinking in. I need to just be me on the stage. Play music the way it feels right to me. Not keep worrying to myself if there’s some indescribable something that I’m somehow missing. Just play the music I love the way I love to play it.
My right blade slips a little bit underneath me, and I let out a quick yelp. I’m hardly off-balance for a fraction of a second, but already Hudson has his arms wrapped around me to hold me up.
I’m pressed flush against him, feeling the waves of warmth radiating from his stacked body, cutting through the chill of the rink. We’re both wearing hoodies, but I can sense the hard cut of his muscles where I’m pressed close to him.
“I … I don’t think I was going to fall,” I say.
“Can I admit something?” His lips tilt into a roguish grin. “I know.”
I flash back to when he caught me outside that PMA party, when he held me and told me that if I were his real girlfriend, he’d be doing that all the time. Carrying me, lifting me, finding any excuse to hold me in his arms.
Now I do feel like I’m about to fall, not off my skates and onto the ice, but into Hudson’s pale blue eyes. They grow into glistening pools as I look into them, unable to break the grip of his gaze. The grip of his arms around me doesn’t loosen, either.
Warm, buzzing tension coils low in my stomach when I notice the indentation of his tongue pressing against his bottom lip.
I still remember the firm pressure of his lips on mine when he kissed me. When he kissed me for other people to see. What would it feel like if he just kissed me for us? For me? For him? Because he wanted it, because I wanted it?
What would a real kiss from Hudson feel like?
Sparks dance all over my body like droplets of water sizzling on a hot skillet. A thick, electric charge laces through the air around us, drawing away the chill of the ice.
I want to know the answer to that question.
“Summer.” Hudson’s voice is suddenly hoarse, my name a plea on his lips. “I feel like I’m about to do something. Something I shouldn’t. Something that …”
“Just kiss me, damn it.”
My eyes flutter closed, and his lips are on mine.
This kiss is different. The caress of his lips against mine is gentle, mellow. He’s not kissing me like he’s staking his claim for all to see; he’s kissing me like he’s cherishing me. But there’s still a firmness to the motion of his mouth as he deepens the kiss, a possessive edge.
Hudson tils his head, slanting the kiss deeper, and I feel lost in him. In his touch, his taste, his woodsy and manly scent that floods my senses.
His hand grips the side of my neck, the rough pad of his finger scraping over where my pulse gallops. I press myself into the kiss, wrapping my arms around the corded column of his neck. His tongue laps at the seam of my lips and I open, letting him push inside me.
Our tongues tangle, and suddenly there’s nothing mellow about this kiss. I moan into his open mouth; pressed tight against his chest, I feel the rumbly vibration of his groan. I push myself closer against him, greedy to feel the outline of his muscles.
Last night, I got off thinking about him. I saw his jersey crumpled on my bedroom floor, and instantly imagined what it would be like to see him stripping that jersey off his body. I made myself come thinking about tracing the stark outlines of his tattoo-coated muscles with my fingertips.
Hudson’s so different underneath the grumpy exterior that he shows to the world. He’s kind, selfless, funny. Supportive. Genuine. So many things Sean wasn’t. Why does he hide all that? Why did it take a fake relationship to find out what a good guy he really is?
I don’t want this kiss to end. I want it to go as far as Hudson is willing to take it. I want it to …
My chest drops in disappointment when Hudson suddenly pulls back, just as I was about to swirl my tongue around his.
“Shit,” he sighs, the word a self-reproach.
I can read regret in his eyes, and it makes me feel cold all over, the chill of the ice rushing back in and clinging to me.
