Page 119 of The Art of You

His face muscles relaxed, and it was actually kind of comical.

“You can’t get pregnant quite that fast,” I teased, and Hudson squeezed my hand, a little,Don’t push your luckwith him, embedded in his touch.Right.The idea of us being together-together was still new for my family.

Constantine stared at Hudson, eyes narrowing. “You may not have to worry about me anymore, but let’s not give our dad, who just survived two rounds, a heart attack, okay?”

“You have my word on that,” Hudson was quick to say. “I, uh, mean it this time.” He looked at me, giving me an innocent shrug. “Babies after marriage only.”

Marriage. Babies.We’d gone from being held hostage and nearly murdered to celebrating life and fresh starts in the blink of an eye.

It felt like yesterday I’d sold myself on the idea I needed to officially move on from Hudson, worried he’d never feel the same, and there he was looking like he just might drop to one knee any minute.

Before I could make any more comments or push my luck with my siblings, there was a knock at the door. Constantine opened up, letting in Adelina and Sydney. He also went forround two of blocking Hudson’s dad from joining with a lovely door to the face again.

“Thank you for your help. And please send my gratitude to Roman’s teammates, too,” I told them, then zeroed in on Adelina in particular. “Will Agent Clarke give you a hard time about what happened?”

“Clarke’s had a change of heart. Which is the only reason why I’m not going to ensure he gets strung up on charges himself for passing the AAR from Hudson’s op over to Kit,” Adelina answered. “He’s assured me the intel has all been destroyed, and she’ll be writing a retraction piece.”

“We believing him?” I asked, eyes on Hudson.

Hudson’s mouth tightened into a firm line, before he remarked, “I’m going to try. He didn’t stop us from doing what needed to be done, so.”

“At least the AG survived. Seems like, despite Keith’s best efforts to bring us down, the only ones that did die were the terrorists.” Adelina mirrored what I’d said not too long ago in my efforts to not fall victim to what I’d learned Keith had done.

“How’s that boy, by the way?” I asked at the memory. “Will he be okay?”

“Alfie’s team handed him over to his aunt who lives in Paris,” Hudson let me know. “Found out on the way to the factory, but I was a bit too focused on getting to you to process that development. The aunt seems stable. Safe. He should have a much better life with her and will hopefully not follow in his father’s footsteps.”

I let go of a sigh, one other thing I didn’t need to worry about. “Everyone and everything really turned out okay.” Maybe I’d need to repeat that a few hundred more times to believe it.

“Maybe not my ex-husband’s job at the Pentagon,” Sydney commented in a serious tone. “And he’ll have to do some majorgroveling after hiding what happened from me, but yeah, looks like everything worked out exactly how it was meant to.”

“Except one thing,” Hudson remarked, drawing my eyes.

“What’s that?” Constantine asked before I could.

“The expose´ Green wanted shared with the world.” Hudson smoothed his free hand over the top of mine. “Maybe that intel should be leaked. All twenty case files. The only way to pressure the government to do better might be to make sure the people know the truth.” He added quickly, “Maybe not have Kit write it, though.”

A slow smile crossed Adelina’s face. “I just might know the perfect journalist for the job. Not really in the media business anymore, but I think my twin could still write the hell out of that article.”

“Done.” Hudson focused on me next, and second by second, I could see the dark edge and heavy pain losing its hold on him. He was coming back to life. “Maybe we should give your brother and Callie some privacy and get you into your own room.”

Ah, he wanted me all to himself, he just couldn’t say that in front of my brothers. I was ready to also be smothered in kisses for hours. Hugged for days. “Or, after we check on Dad, we could just head home.”

“You can’t seriously be thinking about going back to your place after what that animal did,” Alessandro barked out, and uh, way to remind me.

I needed all new things. Clothes. Perfumes. Furniture. Everything. I’d be hitting reset after this. I angled my head at Hudson. “Mynewhome,” I said with a small smile. “If you think you can handle me living with you?”

Hudson leaned forward and brought his mouth to my ear, ignoring the fact we weren’t alone. “Oh, I can more than handle you. All. Fucking. Day. Sweetheart.”

Mmm.Nothing like my guy punctuating sexy words to officially suck me free from the orbit of what was left of my bad thoughts and back to sexy la-la land.

We had a lot of time to make up for, and I refused to let Keith’s failed revenge plan stand in the way of our happiness.

I’d been a little nervous after being abducted that Hudson might use that as an excuse to pull away, blaming himself for my being taken. Then I’d have to spend a lot of energy bulldozing through his reservations. But he didn’t appear to be pushing back, and instead, was drawing me closer. Quite literally. He had his arm wrapped around me, practically joining me on the bed.

Of course, he’d told me I had nothing to worry about in that hotel in Spain, and he really was a man of his word.

Now I was ready to give him one of my own.

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