Page 117 of None Of Your Business

He increases the speed, his thumb swirling over my clit with a heavy, fast pressure while his fingers stroke deep and hard inside me, hitting that exact, swollen spot over and over. He watches every shift in my expression, taking in the ruin he’s making of me.

The coil tightens past the point of endurance and shatters. A sharp scream tears from my throat, echoing off the wet glass as a blinding orgasm crashes over me. My walls clamp tightly around his fingers in hard, violent spasms, my body shuddering uncontrollably as he holds me up against the wall, riding out every single pulse until I’m left completely breathless in his arms.

When the last pulse of the orgasm subsides, my knees give out completely.

Hudson catches me before I can slide down the wet tile, scooping me up against his chest under the warm water. I lean my face into his neck, holding his damp shoulders as my heart slows.

He turns off the faucet, leaving the room quiet except for our breathing.

Grabbing a towel from the rack, he wraps it around me and lifts me out of the shower. He carries me into the bedroom and sets me gently on my feet.

I stand there wrapped in the towel, watching him pull on a pair of gray sweatpants. Drops of water run down his chest, and his dark hair is messy. The polished doctor looks completely undone.

“A delivery came for you while you were in the shower,” I finally tell him.

I watch the realization settle over him when he looks at me.

“It was you,” I whisper, the words catching in my throat. “You were the buyer.”

“I didn’t think you should have to hand over so much of yourself. I witnessed what you put into it. I bought it for you.”

I blink, confused. “For me?”

He nods once.

I wait for him to say more, but he doesn’t.

He simply steps closer, runs his thumb over my cheek, and presses a quick kiss to my forehead. “Come on. Let’s get some breakfast.”

Thirty-Four

Alistair calls before I finish my coffee.

I sit very still at Hudson’s kitchen island, preparing myself for either enormous success or immediate death.

“You’ve seen the reviews?” he asks.

I have not seen the reviews.

I have been actively avoiding the reviews with the same commitment I usually reserve for my mother’s medication cabinet, because there is absolutely a version of this morning where I open my phone, read one bad sentence, and spiral so completely that I never pick up a brush again.

He tells me three embargoed reviews landed this morning.

I immediately stop listening. “I’ll call you back.”

“Rowan—”

“I mean it. I just need to either read them or die first.”

I hang up before he can argue.

Hudson takes one look at me working myself into a state over opening a browser and volunteers to find physical copies instead.

Something I can hold in my hands and, if necessary, throw across the room.

I used to imagine it this way. In my head, success always came on paper. A review I could hold. Something I could fold up and keep forever.

I never once imagined I’d be sitting on Hudson’s kitchen island in nothing but his shirt, waiting for him to bring the verdict home with coffee.