She arched her back. “Perhaps you should take a taste.”
Hudson groaned his agreement against her skin as he latched on to her nipple, sucking it gently before releasing it and blowing a stream of cool air across the glistening tip.
Allie’s hips began to move of their own accord, gyrating against him as he dragged his tongue across her chest, leaving a smear of red icing in his wake. His teeth closed around her nipple and it was almost more than she could bear. She couldn’t wait any longer. She needed him to take her, right there on the stairs. Her fingers twisted into his hair, tugging his head up to hers. “Hudson . . .”
He gazed at her with hooded eyes. “Do you want me inside you?” he asked. The rasp of his voice sent a shiver of awareness down her spine. His hand smoothed up her ribcage, caressing the side of her breast. She glanced down at the heavy rise and fall of her chest as he brushed his thumb back and forth across the swollen nipple.
“Yes,” she panted. “Hudson . . . please.”
She felt his rough stubble on her skin as he dragged his tongue down the center of her stomach in a sleek, wet glide. “Slow and easy or fast and hard?” he murmured against her skin. His hands glided up her thighs. In one smooth movement he pushed her skirt up and swept her panties down her legs. They fell open, shamelessly offering him more room to maneuver. “Which is it, Alessandra?”
Allie’s head dropped on a frustrated groan, her body sinking back against the hard and uncompromising stairs. “Either . . . both . . .” She knotted her fingers in Hudson’s hair as a barely audible whimper escaped her lips. “I want you.”
He settled his shoulders beneath her thighs.”Mmm, hard and fast then. I want to feel you come against my mouth.”
Her lips parted on a silent gasp as his tongue, slick and warm and right on target, tortured her, flicking and stroking her sensitive flesh. His arms looped under her legs, holding her in place as she tilted her hips to match his strokes. Then his lips closed around her, sucking in an unrelenting rhythm, and a single finger pushed inside.
“Is this what you wanted?” he asked, although he didn’t need to. Hudson knew her body so well, he knew without asking that she needed more. But he wanted to hear her say it. The realization made her skin tingle with anticipation.
“More,” she pleaded. “I need more.” She rocked against his hand, near mindless with the need to come.
He eased a second finger inside. “Does it feel good, Allie?”
“God, yes . . .”
His mouth was on her again, his fingers and tongue stroking her rhythmically, driving her hard and fast to the release her body so desperately craved. She glanced down, and the sight of him, his head moving between her thighs and his fingers moving inside her, sent her over the edge. She cried out, spiraling unexpectedly into an orgasm that stunned all her senses. Hudson’s hand shot to the small of her back, holding her tight to his mouth. Only when the last convulsing wave of pleasure wracked her body, did he position himself between her thighs. Lifting her leg, he entered her on a solid stroke, shoving her further up the stairs. Almost immediately he began an unyielding rhythm that had her insides quickening once again.
“That’s it,” he coaxed, his words and body driving her to the clenches of another orgasm. “Give it to me.”
Allie’s hand curled around the lip of the stair as a second orgasm rolled through her, no less devastating than the first. Hudson followed a moment later. He came growling her name as his hips jerked in one last powerful thrust.
Pressing a kiss to her temple, he slid an arm under her boneless body and gathered her up. He held her tight against his chest as their bodies cooled and their breathing slowed.
When he finally spoke his voice was a hoarse whisper. “I believe we’ve settled the matter of the decorating competition.”
Allie nearly snorted. “Hardly.”
“How do you figure?”
“You had an unfair advantage decorating, um . . . nonedible items.”
A soft chuckle vibrated deep in his chest. “I beg to differ on the nonedible.”
She gave his shoulder a shove. “You know what I mean. I was limited to cookies.”
The words had no sooner left her mouth when a decidedly naughty thought crossed her mind. She reached for the tube of frosting and her gaze dropped to Hudson’s already hardening arousal. Slowly and deliberately she swept her tongue over her bottom lip. “Of course there’s one way to level the playing field, so to speak.” Shifting off of Hudson’s lap, she slid to the stair below. “If you’re game for a rematch, that is.”
He grinned as he repositioned himself against the stairs, bending a knee and dropping back on his elbows. “I’m not stopping you, baby.”
Chapter Twenty
The doors to the walk-in closet stood open, and in the bathroom steam still hung in the air. On the bed a deep crimson silk tie lay strewn across a crisp dress shirt. At Allie’s insistence, formal had been ditched for comfort. So in a quick shift, Hudson ducked his head through the neck of a navy V-neck sweater and pulled the cashmere down his torso. He had offered to take her out to some fancy dinner, as was the thing among the Gold Coast crowd she ran with. Shit, and according to his address, so did he. But Allie had wanted to cook for the three of them. She’d had enough formal holidays to last a lifetime and wanted something small and intimate, the opposite of what her mother used to throw to please her whims and fancy.
On his way out of the room, Hudson paused in front of the full-length mirror for a quick check of his fly. He stared at his reflection and thought of the way his life had played out and an unfamiliar feeling took shape. He was happy. The two things that mattered most to him were coming together.
One was his brother, who he’d do . . . had done, the unimaginable for. The other was the woman who owned him and was probably making a damn mess of his kitchen. Like he gave a flying fuck. As it was, women’s clothes were multiplying by the day, and for some reason he didn’t care if tampons appeared next to the toilet paper. Then he thought of the time he’d spent shaving and arranging his hair. And the gel, he’d even used goddamn gel and it still looked like shit.
He hit the lights on his way out, laughing quietly at what a whipped sonofabitch he was, and set off for the kitchen. In front of him Mother Nature was delivering a white Christmas to Chicago and snow swirled outside the floor to ceiling windows. But it was the sound of the door slamming shut on a Viking oven and the clanging of pots and pans that drew his attention. The scents wafting through the living room teed off his hungry stomach as he closed in on the source of all the noise.
Allie, in his kitchen.
God, she was a sight.
He leaned against the wall just on the periphery of the room and watched her, absorbing her determination to make this dinner the best damn one in history.
She pirouetted to grab pot holders that were taking a nap in between two mixing bowls. When she pulled them up, two wooden spoons clattered to the floor. Allie was clearly in way over her head. His lips twitched on a suppressed laugh as he surveyed the damage. The granite counters were littered with bowls, spoons, knives, and cutting boards of every size, make, and model. The sink was piled high with colanders, more bowls, and what must have been his entire set of All-Clad. He wondered if there was still a clean dish left. If there was, it was only a matter of minutes before it would be used and abused.