Page 77 of Cherish

“Pleeeeeeease, Hudsy-Wudsy.”

Full-on dismay ripples across his face. “What did you just call me?”

“Hudsy-Wudsy?” I give him my most charming grin.

“Nevercall me that again.”

“I swear I won’t—ifyou pose for me.”

He shakes his head, walking over to the dresser and pulling one of the drawers completely out. “There is nothing on this planet that will make me strike that pose for you.”

Hudson carries the drawer to the side of the bed and sets it on the ground. He then grabs one of the pillows off the bed and tosses it into the drawer.

“Nothing?” I repeat, eyes open extra wide.

“Absolutely nothing,” he tells me, getting down on his haunches to carefully lower the sleeping umbra onto the pillow. She makes a snuffling whiny noise but settles back into the pillow, sound asleep.

“That’s okay,” I say with a negligent shrug. “If I wait long enough, you’ll just do it naturally.”

He stands up again, his back ramrod straight. “I most certainly will not.”

“Oh, sure you will. I mean, your chest never sticks out quite as much as that statue’s does, but other than that? It’s a carbon copy of your—”

I break off, breath whooshing out of me, as Hudson leaps across the room and tackles me onto the bed.

“Take it back,” he says, his beautiful face inches from mine.

“Take what back?” I ask innocently.

He narrows his eyes. “Grace.”

I narrow mine right back. “Hudson.”

“This is seriously how you want to play it?” He grabs my wrists in one big hand.

I buck against him, twisting and rolling my hips in a playful effort to get him off me. But dislodging a normal guy built like Hudson would be a struggle for me on a good day. Dislodging a vampire who has absolutely no desire to go anywhere? Next to freaking impossible.

And that’s before he pins my wrists over my head. “Take it back,” he says again as he straddles me.

“Or what?” I ask, refusing to give an inch.

He doesn’t answer, despite the diabolical gleam in his eyes. Instead, he just smiles his most charming smile.

And that’s when I know I’m really in trouble.

43

Red-Hot

Shadow Nights

The first thing Hudson does is slide his free hand underneath me.

“No,” I tell him, squirming with laughter. “No, no, no, no, no!”

He ignores me, his fingers sliding lower and lower along my side.

“Don’t you dare!” I screech at him, my eyes going wide.

---