Small Town Girl (16 page)

***

The water whirred and rushed past my ears
as I swam lap after lap in Hudson’s saltwater pool. The waterfall from the
grotto combined with the birds chirping above provided the sweetest sounds I’d
heard in a long time. I loved being in his backyard. It was peaceful. Serene.
Beautiful.

“Brynn, come eat,” Hudson called out from
the covered patio as he put his tablet down.

Flor sat a tray down in front of him that
was loaded with fresh fruits, various muffins, eggs, and a carafe of fresh,
squeezed orange juice.

I climbed out of the pool and wrapped a
towel around my black string bikini. As I took a seat next to Hudson, the sun
began to peek through the canopy of trees
above us and filter
down,
warming my skin. Hudson looked gorgeous in any light, but in that
light, he looked spectacular. I couldn’t believe this was my life. It didn’t
feel real.

“It’s good to be back,” I said to him as
I noshed on some scrambled eggs.

“It’s good to have you back,” he said
with a smile. He couldn’t take his eyes off of me, which was a good thing. I
wasn’t wearing a speck of makeup, and he still found me utterly desirable.
“Say, I was going to talk to you about that premier.”

“What premier?” I asked as I tried to
rack my brain.

“Remember, a couple weeks ago I told you
about a red carpet event I had to go to as part of this media blitz?” he said.
A nervous look washed over his face. “It’s this Wednesday. You said you’d go.
You’re still going, right?”

“I completely spaced it off,” I said.
“Um, yeah, I can go.”

I didn’t want him to know that the idea
of being around all those cameras and all those other famous people made me
want to throw up. Despite the changes in my outward appearance, I was still an
easy target for the media to dismember and throw to the wolves as long as I was
hanging on Hudson’s arm.

“You look nervous,” he laughed.

I shrugged. “I just hate people looking
at me.”

“Is it because of what happened a month
ago? With the tabloids and the fall?” he asked. “Brynn, you’ve got to get over
that. Do you want me to go online and show you horrible photos of myself? I
will. They’re out there. They exist. You just have to push them out of your
mind and move on. For every bad picture of you floating around out there, there
are a hundred good ones.”

“I suppose,” I said. I’d suddenly lost my
appetite. Of course I was going to accompany him, but it wouldn’t be without
reservations. This sort of thing went along with being his girlfriend. It was
pretty much a packaged deal.

“No one’s going to be looking at you as
much as you think,” he said. In his attempt to reassure me, he almost offended
me. He laughed, “That sounds bad. I didn’t mean it that way.”

I laughed. “I knew what you meant. People
will be talking to you and asking you questions, and I’ll just be one of those
people who stand in the background holding their clutch and looking pretty.”

“Exactly,” he said as he reached over and
patted my hand. “You’re so good at this already.”

“I’ve never had to get dolled up this
way,” I told him. “Except for prom, which is hardly comparable.”

Back in Rock River, getting ready for
prom meant donning an off-the-rack dress from the nearest department store,
going to a local salon for a tight, bobby-pinned up do, and getting together
with your girlfriends to slap on a little bit of drugstore makeup.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” he said.
“I’ll have my team get you ready. You don’t even have to lift a finger. Just
send Alec your measurements. He’ll pull some dresses. My hair and makeup team
will come here. It’ll all be a piece of cake.”

I wrapped my hands around my glass of
chilled juice and leaned back, wet hair dripping down my back.

“Sounds fun when you put it that way
actually,” I said as my lips curled into a smile. “A girl could get used to
that.”

“And a girl should,” he smiled as he
winked at me.

***

The day of the red carpet event was
nothing but a blur of makeup, hairspray, perfume, double stick tape, and a steady
stream of cocktails to ease my nerves. As my long, chestnut hair was back
teased and brushed into the most elegant, glam style I’d ever seen, Hudson was
on the phone with his “people” going over talking points for his interviews.

Hudson slipped me a Xanax on the ride
over, and I silently told myself everything would be fine. The press wasn’t
vicious like the paparazzi. This was all work.

I did my best to look confident and calm
in the background while Hudson fielded questions from various media outlets. He
did a few interviews and then we were whisked away to the theatre where we were
able to get cozy and watch his film besides other a-listers and Hollywood
business-types.

In all my life, I’d never seen such a
beautiful theatre before. Plush, velvet seats and ornate gold leafing on the
ceiling were just a few of the incredible details that surrounded us. I
probably spent more time admiring the insanely elaborate surroundings than
actually watching his movie.

Just as soon as it had started, it was all
over, and by the time we reached our limo, my buzz had worn off. I suddenly
found myself looking after a very drunk Hudson Smith. I’d never seen him so
drunk before, and I chalked it up to the fact that he was so busy that day he
didn’t eat much. He wasn’t as tanked-up as he was the night I didn’t come back,
but it was a close second.

“This way,” I said as I led him to the
waiting car and helped him climb in.

He slid across the black leather and
leaned back. With his head resting at an awkward angle and his eyes closed, a
huge smile crept across his face.

“What are you smiling about?” I asked,
curious.

“Everything,” he said. He opened his
mouth to elaborate more and then stopped. “Just everything. I’m so happy,
Brynn. You make me so happy.”

“Okay,” I said. He was just drunk. I’d
taken care of Luke a million times before in his various stages of drunken
stupor and he was a million times worse. This was nothing.

The limo dropped us off at Hudson’s
house, and I escorted him inside. A half hour in the car had done him a little
bit of good, as he was becoming more and more coherent.

“Let’s go sit out by the pool,” I said.
It was a clear, starry night and I was all jacked up on adrenaline still. I
wasn’t ready to retire just yet.

Hudson followed me outside where we
pulled up chairs together, and I finally kicked off my painfully gorgeous
Louboutins.

“Oh,
my gosh
,” I
sighed. “They can breathe now.”

“Here,” he said as he grabbed my feet and
sat them in his lap. His muscular hands began gently rubbing all the aches and
pains away, just like he had that night after my shift at the diner. He was
always taking good care of me and had from the very beginning.

“That feels amazing,” I moaned. “Thank
you.”

“No, thank you,” he said. “I always hate
going to those things. Having you there by my side made it a little more
bearable.”

“You hate red carpet events?” I asked.
“Isn’t that sort of a huge part of your job?”

“My love of acting has nothing to do with
loving publicity or being in the spotlight,” he said. “But at this point in my
career, they kind of have to go hand in hand.”

I realized then that there was so much I
didn’t know about him. I’d always kept my questions to myself because I didn’t
want him to think of me as some fan girl.

“How did you get into acting?” I asked.

“I did a few commercials as a kid,” he
said as he continued working wonders on my poor toes. “Just went from there.”

“I don’t remember you being a child
actor,” I said.

“I wasn’t,” he said. “Just commercials.
Nothing you’d probably remember. But the acting bug bit me young. I did a lot
of
community theater
, set up shop in L.A., waited
tables for a while, and waited for my big break.”

“You waited tables?” I asked as I leaned
over and slapped his arm. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“That was a long time ago, Brynn,” he
laughed. “It was such a boring time in my life. It’s not even worth talking
about. And it’s so damn cliché.”

“True,” I laughed.

I sat quietly for a minute, admiring his
ridiculous good looks under the pale
moon light
that
trickled through the trees above.

“What?” he asked. “Why are you staring at
me like that?”

I smiled a Cheshire cat grin. “I’m just
happy.”

“Good,” he said. “You should be.”

“It’s so funny,” I continued. “I had
posters of you hanging on my wall when I was in middle school and now I’m
sitting here. With you.”

“Way to make me feel old,” he teased.

“Oh, stop,” I said. “It’s just crazy that
I’m here with you now. I never in a million years thought this was remotely
even a possibility for my life. It doesn’t even feel real.”

My mind wandered back to Rock River for a
second as I thought about what I was missing out on. Luke was definitely down
at the Manhattan bar getting drunk off his ass, and Piper was probably
somewhere nearby. She never had anything better to do. Heck, the entire town
was probably there. Luke was probably cooling off after a long day in the
field, and if I knew him at all, he was probably working on his third or fourth
beer by now. Had I never met Hudson, I’d be right along there beside him.

“Everything happens exactly the way it
should,” Hudson said in a moment of clarity. He moved my feet off his lap and
stood up to stretch. “Now, come inside so I can rip that dress off and have my
way with you.”

I took his hand and followed him in, his
hand wrapping back and resting on my lower back as he pushed me towards his
room. My heart pounded in my ears as I anticipated what was to come.

The minute we stepped into his room and
shut the door, his hand reached behind and gently unzipped the back of my
dress. It fell to the floor, revealing my silky, black strapless bra and lace
thong. He tugged at his tie and pulled it off as my fingers fumbled to unbutton
each and every button of his white shirt.

His mouth trailed kisses down my neck and
collarbone as I was finally able to rip him free of his shirt. My hands
wrestled with his belt buckle and unzipped his pants, as I lowered myself to my
knees and pulled them off of him. The bulge in his underwear was all I needed
to see. I pulled his perfect member out, gripped it with my hand and placed my
wet mouth around it.

The taste of him was indescribable, but
the moans I heard escape his lips were even better. I swirled my tongue around
his cock as I sucked and licked him into near unconsciousness. After a few
minutes, he reached down to pull me up. Saying nothing, he led me over to his
bed and threw me down on my back.

He had that hungry look in his eyes again
as his single hand reached down and yanked at my panties, ripping them off with
one swift pull.

He climbed over top of me and we were
skin to skin, his cock resting on top of my wetness. I wanted him inside me so
badly. I wanted all of him. I wanted nothing between us, but I didn’t know how
to tell him that.

“Are you on the pill?” he whispered into
my ear as his smooth chest rubbed against me. If anyone else were to ask that,
it’d be a total mood killer but not with Hudson.

“Yes,” I whispered back.

“Good,” he said. “I want to feel you. All
of you.”

I nodded.

“Is that okay with you, Brynn?” he
whispered again, his nose tickling my ear.

“Yes,” I sighed breathlessly.

Without any further hesitation, his cock
was plunged deep inside me. I could feel him.
All of him.
And it was nothing shy of amazing.

My fingers dug into the flesh of his back
as he thrusted so hard my body slid against the silky sheets of his bed. Thrust
after thrust, our bodies moved all over the bed. It was like we couldn’t get
close enough and we couldn’t get enough of each other.

He flipped me over, his member still deep
inside me. “Ride me.”

My hips began to gyrate as I rocked back
and forth on top of him, my hands holding onto his smooth, hard chest. His eyes
locked into mine as his face studied mine intently. Everything about making
love with him was exhilarating and intense.

“Come with me, Brynn,” he said. “I want
to feel close to you.”

I shut my eyes and concentrated on the
way he felt inside me. The way he filled me and tickled every fiber of my
insides. The way his body owned mine. The way I could always give myself to him
fully and on command.

As soon as it was over, I slowly climbed
off of him and curled into the crook of his arm. It was becoming my favorite
place in the whole entire world.

“God, you’re amazing,” he said as he
leaned over and kissed me.