were there for the rescue. In the beginning, when we were gone on a lot of missions, Jax started spinning tales to Riley about us being treasure hunters to explain us being gone and out of contact when we were on a case, and it stuck. She just doesn’t know we were hunting human treasure and not lost gold or artifacts.”
“If you trust her with secrets, why haven’t you told her?” I questioned curiously.
“Riley worried a lot when we were all in Special Forces in the military,” he explained. “She was ecstatic when we were all discharged and came back to San Diego to take our places at Montgomery Mining. There wasn’t a single one of us who wanted her to know that we were doing more of the same, as civilians this time.”
“But now that you aren’t traveling as much, couldn’t you tell her?”
He shrugged. “She’d be hurt and pissed off that we didn’t tell her in the first place, so we’re kind of fucked.”
I smiled as Hudson slipped his feet into a pair of casual shoes. “Are you more concerned about her being hurt, or being angry?”
He shot me a mischievous grin that made my heart skitter. “She’s happy now, and we don’t want to screw that up, but Riley can be pretty fierce sometimes. Most of her work as an attorney revolves around wildlife conservation, and I’d rather she continue to rip up large corporations that put profits over conservation than turn that anger toward me.”
Okay, so that surprised me. I’d expected Riley to be some kind of business or corporate attorney, not a woman who fought against them for animal rights.
I couldn’t help but find it a little amusing that her three older brothers, all alpha men who weren’t afraid to risk their own lives to save others, were worried about how their little sister would deal with the fact that they’d fabricated stories that weren’t true. “She sounds amazing,” I said with a sigh. “And she’s as beautiful as she is accomplished.”
I’d seen pictures of all of Hudson’s siblings around the house. Riley was absolutely gorgeous, just like all her brothers.
“She is,” Hudson agreed nonchalantly as he prowled closer to me. “Just like another stunning redhead I know.”
My breath caught as he placed a hand on both sides of my body, trapping me against the counter I was leaning on.
I shook my head slowly as I met Hudson’s intense, heated gaze. “I’m not beautiful. And now I have a couple of scars to go with the ugly freckles that never disappeared when I hit adulthood.”
I’d actually used one of the few foundation makeups my skin could tolerate to try to cover the small scars on my face, but it hadn’t completely erased the angry red marks.
“You’re never going to convince me that you aren’t the most gorgeous woman on the planet,” Hudson said with hoarse conviction in his voice as he put his hand on my face, and stroked one of the scars gently with his thumb. “So you might as well stop trying, sweetheart. Those little leftover freckles on your adorable face make me want to explore your entire body to see how many more I can find in other places. And these tiny scars are always going to get my cock hard because every time I see them, I’m going to be thinking about what a fucking extraordinary woman you are.”
My heart was racing as Hudson stroked his thumb over the second small scar on my face. “You’re crazy,” I said breathlessly as I wrapped my arms around his neck.
I wasn’t quite sure how to handle having this big, breathtakingly handsome man looking at me like he was right now.
I knew I wasn’t beautiful, yet Hudson made me feel like I was a beauty queen.
Maybe I’d never cared all that much if a guy looked at me with lust in his eyes before, but then, none of those guys had been Hudson Montgomery, either.
Now, I did care, and the way this man looked at me like he wanted to devour me whole was so damn heady that all I could do was drown in his masculine scent and wallow in the heat of his powerful body.
“I’m beyond crazy, sweetheart,” he muttered. “You sent me straight to insanity. Worse yet, I don’t even give a damn that you did it. Do you want to know what fantasy I used to get myself off after I sent you off to bed last night?”