A moan escaped my lips and he chuckled softly. His fingers slipped under the band of my panties, pulling them off and tossing them aside. He hooked my leg over his shoulder and then his mouth was back on me, licking and sucking greedily at the bundle of nerves between my thighs.

I was already delirious from pleasure when he slipped two fingers inside me, probing and twisting until he pulled my orgasm from me with ease. I shuddered and quaked while he climbed up to reclaim my mouth where he kissed me with deep hunger.

The soft sounds he made as he devoured me, the taste of me on his tongue, the jab of his c**k in my thigh—it was only half a minute before the tightness built again in my belly, ready for another ride up the hill to ecstasy. Drawn to touch him, my hand found his c**k and rubbed it through his underwear.

His mouth broke from mine with a groan. I nudged at him to roll to his side while I continued to stroke him. “Boxers? Do you wear these often?”

“To bed.”

“I like them. I’ve never seen you in them.” My hand slipped inside the opening of his shorts, marveling as I always did at the softness of his thick shaft in my hand, at the heat rolling off his skin.

“Because when I go to bed with you—” His voice broke as I ran my hand across his crown. “I wear nothing.”

“Oh, yeah. I like that even better.” It was my turn to slip my hand into the band of his underwear and pull them down his strong legs, my eyes pinned on the gorgeous sight of his erection as I did.

As soon as his boxers hit the floor, he drew me to him again. “I like it when you’re wearing nothing.” His fingers were already tugging my dress up over my belly. “You need to be wearing nothing right now.”

“I won’t argue.” I sat up to help him pull the outfit over my head. He tossed the dress aside and his hands circled around me to unhook my bra, freeing my br**sts. Then he was stretched out over me, his penis hot at my entrance for only a second before he plunged inside of me, penetrating me, stretching me, filling me the way only he could.

He turned to his side, taking me with him, and I wrapped a leg around him, urging him deeper. He’d wanted to savor me, but either he changed his mind or he couldn’t contain himself, unleashing his passion with rapid thrusts. Each time he drove in, he hit a tender spot that made me crazy, drawing another cl**ax to surface, starting in my core, tightening my thighs, traveling down to curl my toes as it rolled through my body.

Hudson continued his assault, increasing his speed until he grunted out his own release. He collapsed, still inside me, and gathered me in his arms to spread kisses down my face—an unusually tender gesture from the guarded man I’d grown to love. I delighted in the sweetness of it.

“Did I mention that I’m awfully glad you’re here?” he asked, breaking his sentence to continue his trail of kisses.

Hearing those words meant everything. I recognized it as Hudson’s version of I love you. He hadn’t brought himself to say it to me directly—he was too new to the emotion, and I didn’t expect it. Though he had accepted it earlier in the evening when I’d informed him that I knew he was in love with me, and he hadn’t freaked when I told him I was in love with him.

Still, I didn’t fool myself into thinking we’d have instant hearts and roses. Baby steps. Saying how he felt at all was a step in itself. That it included how he felt about me equaled two steps in my book.

I ran my hand through his hair as his mouth lowered to my neck. “You did say it. And if you hadn’t, I think I figured it out.” I waggled my eyebrows to make sure he knew I was referring to what had just occurred physically. “But you can tell me as many times as you’d like.” In as many different ways as you’d like, I added silently.

He shifted over me and sucked further down my body, heading toward my br**sts. Obviously, we were already headed for round two. “I’m glad you’re here, precious.” He tugged my nipple between his teeth then eased the sting with a swirl of his tongue.

I drew in a deep breath, delighting in the mix of pleasure and pain as he showered my other breast with the same attention. His nickname for me, precious, floated through my mind as his mouth licked at my skin. He’d called me that since our first sexual encounter, nearly two weeks before. Had it only been that long? And had it only been another week before that when I’d first met him at the club, when I didn’t yet know he was the Hudson Pierce? It already seemed like a lifetime. The term of endearment he used for me had held weight from the first moment he’d said it. But we’d only just met then. Maybe it didn’t have as much meaning as I attributed to it.

Curiosity overtook me even though my body was already vibrating under his ardor. “Why do you call me that, anyway?”

He answered without looking up from my bosom. “Because you are.”

“You started calling me precious before you could ever possibly know.”

“Not true.” He propped his elbow up on the bed and leaned his head on his hand. “I knew the minute I first saw you.”

For a brief second I thought he meant at the bar—the first night I had seen him. Then I remembered he’d seen me nearly two weeks before that when I was still working on my MBA and he’d been in the audience during my graduate symposium. I hadn’t found out about that until later, and he’d barely told me anything about it.

I propped my torso up on my elbows and eagerly waited for him to continue.

“You were on that stage at Stern,” he said, his hand stroking along the dip and curve of my waist to my hip. “When you started your presentation, you were nervous. It took you a few minutes to fall into the rhythm of your speech. But when you hit your stride, you were magnificent. Yet you had no idea. It was completely obvious that it never crossed your mind that the room was full of people who would have hired you had you spoken to any of them. Thank god, you didn’t. Because I watched them watch you and I knew. I knew that they saw you were smart. They saw you had business savvy. But none of them recognized the rare jewel that stood before them. Precious.”

Tears stung at the corners of my eyes. No one had ever seen me like that, no had ever even looked. Not my parents before they died or my brother, Brian, or any of the men I’d ever dated or obsessed over. No one.

“I love you, Hudson.” It was out before I could think not to say it, before I could worry about him freaking like he had the first time I’d voiced my feelings for him. I wouldn’t have been able to keep the words inside if I’d wanted to—they were always at the surface now, at risk of tumbling off my tongue at any given moment. If we were going to make a relationship work, we’d both have to get comfortable with it.