Page 52 of The Art of You

And he didn’t. Shit.She was right. Hudson could’ve easily spent those two nights I was at his place with another woman.Instead,he came back every single night, moody and scowly, but he always returned. “You’re giving me too much hope.” My stomach knotted, nerves returning for a different reason than before.

“Well, as Dolly Parton likes to say, ‘We can’t justhopefor a brighter day, we have toworkfor a brighter day.’”

“Seize the moment.C’est la vie,huh?”

“Absolutely.” She settled on something from the dresser and tossed it at me. “Now, go fight for what you want.”

Chapter 20

Isabella

Beyond offering a stellar pep talk,Callie ran a wicked game of interference. As I got dressed, she left my room and told Malik she twisted her ankle and needed help walking back to the pool house. It was the perfect opportunity to escape my shadow and head to Hudson’s bedroom.

Callie’s beautiful words replayed in my head, serving as the ammunition I needed to propel me down the back stairs and to the other end of the house, where Constantine had strategically placed Hudson’s room.

With my heart in my throat, I stopped outside his door, surprised to find it cracked open. I took that as an invitation to intrude before I lost my edge and remembered why we were at the house in the first place.

Hudson was sitting on the bed, seemingly in a daze. Shirtless and in sweatpants, barefoot and hunched over, his tee dangled from one hand. His strong back muscles were flexed, and with the bandage from his arm lying on the comforter next to him, the marks the accident left on his skin were starkly visible.I shuddered inwardly at the evidence of what he’d been through. His wounds were worse than mine.

He slowly lifted his head, locating me. He was an elite operator, so I knew he’d sensed me coming before I’d even opened the door.

“You okay?” I asked while closing and locking up behind me.

“Isabella.” I ignored his use of my name as a reprimand, opting to stay bold in my determination to communicate with him.

We had to start somewhere, and I didn’t want his statement to Constantine this morning to be the end of things between us before they ever had a chance to begin.

“There aren’t cameras in the bedrooms.” My reminder only had him standing.

“And that means what exactly?” He tossed his shirt on the bed, then planted his hands on his hips while scowling.

My eyes skated to the visible waistline of his briefs that had the Lululemon logo on them.

“I’d meant that gift as a joke, you know. I honestly didn’t think you’d wear them.”

“Can’t waste a perfectly good pair of underwear, now can I?” He followed my line of sight to the view I was very much enjoying. “Better question is, did you tell your brothers you bought me these briefs for my birthday to get arise out of me?”

This man was a masterclass in rolling with it and giving it back to me as good as I gave it to him. God help me, I was in trouble. And it was the only kind of trouble I wanted to be in.

Unable to stop gaping at him, I mumbled, “Mmm. Nope.” I never expected to see him in the briefs, even if it was a partial view. I’d bought them one night after two martinis, and it took a half a bottle of wine to actually gift them. My nerves weren’t always made of steel.

And on that note, internet trolls be damned. They were officially banished from my head, right along with that bullshit story Kit wrote. I’d deal with that woman later. Well, soon-ish. Someone had to go after her for her egregious words about my sister, as well as her lies in regard to Hudson’s service time.

But right now, hello distraction in the form of gray sweatpants, perfect abdominal muscles, and the delicious V-line disappearing into his briefs.

My hand had a mind of its own, and my finger ran along the seam of my mouth. “Are you okay?” I asked again when realizing he’d avoided answering me the first time.

“I’ll answer that if you stop staring at me like you’re starving.” His tone alone had me almost going feral. I was borderline there before, and his words, so deep and masculine, hit every pleasure sensor in my brain and body.

And God help me, some men really did age like fine wine. Hudson was proof of that. He’d become even sexier over the years. Considering he’d already started out hot as fuck in his twenties, it was no wonder I had trouble maintaining my self-control ever since he’d crossed over to the forties.

He had a hard-as-granite body, jawline sculpted from concrete, and eyes that could burn a hole through my panties with the intensity of his stare. And yet, it was his intelligence, big heart, the way he made me laugh, not to mention how he dealt with my attitude in his own special way, that had me falling all over myself far more than just his physical appearance.

“So help me, Bella. You have to stop looking at me like that.”

Boom goes the dynamite.I was acting no different than a character from anAmerican Piefilm.Jeez.

Attempting to act my age, I met his eyes and said, “I came tocheck you out.”

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