Love, Tussles, and Takedowns (Cactus Creek #3)(51)

Better question was why they’d never tried it before outside of grappling.

Don’t go there.

Trying in vain to keep her head in the fight, Lia stubbornly clung to the leg-lock, knowing damn well that Hudson could’ve gotten out of it by now.

The man could be such an ass sometimes.

So they stayed there in a stalemate.

Until Hudson eventually broke the silence with a quiet question. “Lia, how can you want to be with a man like me?”

Now? He wanted to have a heart-to-freaking-heart now?

She unlocked her leg hold and sat up. Grabbed his jaw with both hands to drive her point home. “I love you, Hudson. Why is that so unbelievably hard for you to accept?”

“But how can you? After what I’ve done? After knowing that I can’t ever be a father?”

Her voice gentled. “Why do you keep insisting that you can’t be a father?”

His eyes hardened to steel. “A man who kills a child should never get to have one of his own.”

“You’re sentencing yourself unjustly for your actions, with no chance of parole.”

“There’s no redemption for what I’ve done. Regardless of the reasoning, I failed in humanity. Period. There’s no going back from that.”

She shrugged. “Of course not. That’s why you go forward. That old saying about forgiving and forgetting? Completely flawed in my book. Forgiveness should come with remembrance, not be the door through which we escape and lock behind us, never to be thought of again.”

“Hudson, I’m not saying you should excuse your actions, but I’m saying that you need to find the peace to forgive yourself for choosing one of two impossible choices. Be strong enough to bear the weight of your decision—both the good and the bad that came of it.” Sliding her lips against his softly, she added, “And let those of us who love you spot you, brace you just in case that weight gets to be a little too hard to bear.”

When he remained mulishly silent, she shot forward, ready to spar with the stubborn ass all over again. With a modified ankle pick, she flipped him back into a guard position. “Whether you feel you’re worthy of having kids or not, Hudson, I’m not letting you walk away from us. Live in a different state if that’s where your job takes you. But I want you in my life. And I’m digging roots in yours.”

Bucking up sharply, Hudson rolled her up and over, swiftly catching both of her wrists in one hand and pinning them above her. “I wasn’t just camping this whole time,” he admitted gruffly.

“You weren’t?”

“No. I had a bunch of interviews and auditions. To get gigs here in Arizona, mostly Yuma. I even took over the rental agreement on my mobile home.”

The hammering of her heart made her rib cage suddenly feel too small for the hope exploding in it. “You’re moving here for good?”

That, she had not been expecting.





HUDSON RELEASED HER and hopped to his feet.

Pulling her up to eye level, he gazed at her and tried to put into words just how crazy she made him, how deeply she already owned him. “Even though I’ve been telling myself that I don’t deserve you, the thought of losing you makes me want to fight for you anyway.”

She backed up a step and smiled. “Prove it. We still have to determine who gets to do the taking after this. So prove—”

He struck before she finished her sentence.

And that earned him a grudging smile. And a vicious strike combo back, along with a bastardized Muay Thai move that nailed him in his obliques.

When her next kick combination proved to be too ambitious, Hudson pounced and had her arms barred up quickly. Over the weeks, he’d learned that joint locks and grappling moves were sometimes the only way to counter her rabbit punches. She attacked his legs viciously to try and get him to free her arms. He blocked kick after kick and countered with enough rapidfire succession that Lia had to scramble around the clearing to avoid falling on her ass.

When he countered, she pummeled and slipped into a grappling position, dropping down to escape his hold. He spun with a chambered punch, letting go of her arms, but still holding onto one of her wrists.

The second she saw an opening, she turned and struck him in the shoulder with pinpoint precision, hitting several pressure points.

Hudson instantly let go and jumped back, shaking out his arm to relieve the tingling in his forearm and wrist.

He eyed her sardonic amusement. “Pressure point fighting? You really want to go there?”

Her grin wide, she reset her stance. Bring it on, her taunting look declared.

Dammit, he was so freaking in love with her.



*



THE NEXT MORNING, Hudson was shocked to find that Lia was awake before him.

And it was still pitch-black out.

Funny, he didn’t even hear the dozen alarms that had to have blared to get that feat to happen.

At his astonished expression, Lia gave him a mildly insulted look, followed by a brilliant smile. “Get up sleepy-head. You didn’t think I lo-jacked your phone and tracked you all the way out here just to declare my love for you and take advantage of your body, now did you?”

Well, yeah.

But judging by the decidedly non-lusty excitement brewing in her eyes, he could tell they had very different ideas of how this morning was going to play out.