by Stacey Lynn
He chews on his bread and takes a sip of his drink. “How much do you know about my family?”
I know he grew up mostly in New York, in a ritzy suburb outside the city where they grew up on a lake, ice skating practically in their back yard. There are photos of the Taylor boys all over the internet, skating as soon as Joey, the youngest, was old enough to be on skates. His father was a career player for the Rangers, something very rare, but he still holds several scoring records.
I’m not telling him how much I’ve looked into him over the last few weeks.
“I know you’re all hockey players. That your parents now live here in Chicago. And you have plans to head to North Carolina.”
“Cyberstalking me, Katie?”
Heat suffuses my cheeks. He’s too smart for his own good. “Maybe people talk.”
“And you like to listen?” His teasing grin is impossible to ignore. I give him nothing. Rolling my eyes, I rip off another chunk of bread. “Your family?”
He smiles easily and shrugs. “They’re my family. Not much to say really. Grew up playing hockey, Mom stayed home, constantly running us to games. Dad traveled, obviously, but I was young enough when he retired I don’t remember that much and then he was always around too, coaching us until we were old enough where he didn’t want to be accused of playing favorites with us and let us make our own way.”
“He never pressured you all into hockey? I mean, the four of you all making it… that’s pretty impressive.”
“You know, I think that’s the first nice thing you’ve said to me.”
I laugh. He’s probably not too far off. “I blame the Chianti.”
He joins me in laughter. “Then drink up.” He moves my wineglass even closer to me and winks. “I want to know all the other things you’ve thought about me and if it takes wine to do it, I’m here for it.”
Our server appears and delivers our food. An enormous piece of lasagna for Jude and manicotti for me before she walks away after we assure her we don’t need anything.
When she’s gone, Jude resumes, more serious. “Dad always said he wanted us to follow our dreams, whatever they were. Turns out we took to hockey like he did and none of us have ever looked back. We’ve got natural talent, loads of it, honestly. But we’ve all worked our asses off to get where we are.”
“You don’t like people thinking you get a free pass.” His determination and intensity is stamped on his features.
“People say shit. But we were raised to be hard workers, whether it was in school or sports. My dad was a hard ass, honestly, making us earn everything while teaching us respect. He’s the best guy I know.”
He cuts his food and chews a bite. I feel a large chunk of my heart soften for this guy. His family. I can easily fall for him, and I don’t know if I can stop it.
“What about you?” he asks, sipping his water. “Your family?”
“Ahh.” I sip my wine slowly, procrastinating. “Different from yours.”
I love my mom. She’s sweet and fun and artistic and as a babysitter or aunt or older sister, she’d be the coolest person I know in the world.
“That doesn’t sound like a good thing.”
“My mom, she’s like, the hippie of the twenty-first century. She raised me traveling up and down the coast of California, stopping long enough for me to start making friends at schools before a new wind blew and she found a new passion.” I shrug it off, but while I saw a lot of beautiful scenery and met some fascinating people, it wasn’t easy not knowing where our meals would come from, where we’d sleep. “Mom made things—crafts, knitting, crochet, other things. She used to sell everything at craft fairs or pop up a tent in a city that would allow them. We were, I don’t know… gypsies? Traveling homeless people?”
I’ve never been sure how to explain my mom or how I was raised, and after hearing talk of Jude’s family, it’s harder.
“She’s a good woman,” I tell Jude when he watches me with a look I can’t decipher. It’s not pity. “She really is. She just… I don’t know, likes to live free and by whims, not plans.”
“And your dad?”
“I don’t know. She says she got pregnant with me during a few months she was in San Diego. She was pregnant, she moved on, and that was it. She told me he was a good man, but the men in her life never stuck around long, or maybe it was her that didn’t. Either way, I don’t even know if she really knows who he is.”
There’s no way to make Mom look worse than admitting that, but while her heart is huge, she never learned how to live based on facts and not emotions.
“And Chicago? How’d you end up here?”
“Chicago College gave me an academic scholarship, and I took it. I wanted a normal life. Something stable.”
In truth, I had academic scholarships from all over. When I turned sixteen, I forced my mom to settle for two years while I finished high school. It was the first time she sacrificed herself for me, but I told her if she didn’t, I’d be emancipated from her and live on my own. The idea I wouldn’t be with her was worse than staying. Apparently, for as much as Mom hates settling, she still needs someone. For two years in high school, I was at peace, happy. Mom was miserable. I could tell it killed her to stay still, her wandering spirit always pulling at her. She compromised by taking a lot of weekend trips leaving me alone, but I was still thankful. For one, we’d had an apartment, food in the cupboard. I made a couple friends who I quickly lost touch with once I moved, but those two years gave me the time I needed to apply for colleges, get scholarships. I had them for a dozen colleges and universities throughout the country.
I chose Chicago because it was a big city in the Midwest. Far enough from the coast I was tired of traveling up and down, and I wanted my experience with the Midwestern-flyover-forgotten and what seemed like decent and simpler people. It was an incorrect judgment in some ways, and in others, they fit the stereotype exactly.
I’ve never regretted my choice.
“So, North Carolina, huh? Are you excited about the possibility of playing with your brother?”
I don’t like talking about my past or my mom for various reasons. Most people assume she’s a deadbeat, some loser. I can see their point, but it’s hard to explain how good she is. She’s just not maternal.
“Yeah. I’ll mostly play in their minor leagues for a couple years, though.” He switches topics easily and we finish our dinner, enjoying the time while I sip on a second glass of wine and we split a cannoli for dessert.
When we’re back in the Uber afterward, I slide my hand into Jude’s. He’s warm, his body taking up more than his share of the back seat of the Ford Fiesta.
Once we arrive back to my apartment and he walks me to my door, I place my hand on his chest.
For once, I’m taking a risk of my own.
“Want to come inside with me? Stay for a while?”
Chapter Ten
Our apartment isn’t anything to gush over outside the fact that Lizzie and I both have our own bathrooms, prime real estate for two college-aged females. Our living room is small, our kitchen is along one wall with a small island barely large enough for two stools.
Somehow, like everything else, as soon as Jude steps across the threshold into our open living area, he consumes the space. I toss my keys to the kitchen island and step back.
It’s been a while since I’ve had a guy over here and none of them make me feel the way Jude does—electrified, interested… wanting. I’m unnerved how to proceed, but Jude seems to show none of that while he scans the apartment, kicking off his brown work boots and kicking them to the side like he’s planning on staying a while.
And I can’t help but tease him for it.
“Make yourself at home.”
“I plan to,” he says, and he takes three strides before he’s reaching for me, pulling me to him. “At least until morning.”
I haven’t invited him for the night. But with his arms around me, I can’t, and won’t deny it’s exactly what I�
�m hoping.
“Are you going to ask me yet?”
My mind swirls. “Ask… what?”
“I said someday you’re going to ask me to kiss you and I think that day is here.”
I can keep teasing him. I think he likes I don’t fawn all over him and fall at his feet like other people. I think he likes I make him work for it, but it’s been too long since a man has been between my legs, and it seems like even longer I’ve imagined it being Jude between them so I’m all out of teasing.
“Kiss me, Jude.” I barely manage to get the words out, already pressing to my toes, and his mouth is on me.
Warm heat suffuses our lips together as he brushes back and forth and I moan almost instantly, gripping his arms so I don’t fall over.
He’s… heavenly. I can taste the mint he popped in his mouth as we left the restaurant, inhale the masculine scent of his cologne and his arms holding me up feel unbreakable. Like if he could hold me for the rest of forever, I would never bend, never break… he’d have me at all times.
And it’s silly to think, to hope. Our lives will soon take a shift, but I can still imagine that life with him.
I can feel it in the possessiveness of his kiss, the confidence as he opens our mouths, slides his tongue into mine, the way his hand slides up my back and grips the back of my neck.
Jude Taylor is a man who protects those who he cares about and the man will someday be a rock in the storm, unwavering in his support and love.
If only we’d met sooner. Or later.
“Jude,” I gasp against his mouth, breathless, needing a minute. There’s too much swirling, too much I’m feeling, and we’ve barely gotten started. “My room is down the hallway.”
“You ready for that?” His thumb brushes over my cheek. I love that he asks. My knees shake from the gentle brush of his thumb, the firm hold at my back.
Yeah… Jude Taylor is trouble for my heart. But for once, I’m riding the wave, arms in the air, intending on enjoying the ride.
“I feel like I’ve wanted it forever.”
My admission shocks him. His eyes widen in surprise before they flare with heat, darkening with his own lust, and then his hands are at my waist, lifting me.
My ankles cross around his back, and I squeeze tight to him.
“I can walk,” I tease, nipping at his neck, tasting, sucking playfully.
“Yeah, but I’ve been wanting this body against mine for weeks and I’m done waiting and jacking off to thoughts of you.”
“Seriously?” I pull back. He’s usually not so crude.
“I’m an honest guy, Katie. And you’ve had me so damn worked up. Can’t stop thinking about you.” His mouth slams into mine and then we’re falling, tumbling to my bed, shoving pillows out of the way, and shucking off clothes.
It’s a frenzied pace until I can’t take my eyes off him as he reveals his body to me, piece by piece. His hands move to his jeans. His dress shirt. Plain white t-shirt beneath. And then he’s all ripples of mountainous abs and muscles with his still covered arousal aimed straight at me.
I’m on my back on the bed, my bra gone, chest heaving, and pulse racing as I run my hand down his corded arms. He’s banked strength and restrained self-control, ready to snap.
“You’re so beautiful,” I whisper, and it’s not enough to describe him because he’s so much more than anything I’ve experienced.
“That’s what I was going to say about you,” he says. “But you know that.”
He winks and I think of the first night I was in his arms, weeks ago, when he caught me and I was so wrong about him.
“Come here.” I pull him to me and then our mouths are fused together, our bodies molded. We ride the waves of our desires as we strip away the remaining barriers until we’re flesh to flesh and heating the bedroom to volcanic temperatures. We pause only for protection and when we come together again, he slides in slowly with a hand at my cheek, tipping my head back until our gazes meet. His focus is on me, patiently, as he waits for me to take him, to surrender to his size and his strength. My hands are at his backside, pulling him closer and we find our rhythm, ride our pleasure as it builds and crescendos.
It’s minutes, hours, possibly days later before we settle from the haze of our lust and passion, a tangle of sweaty limbs, clinging together.
I’ve never had nights like this where we can reach for each other so often and the sun is almost rising before we succumb to much-needed sleep.
I’m sated. Pleased. Tiny little pieces of my heart splinter, and somehow, I give them to Jude despite knowing it will cost me.
I wake to the harsh light of the sun streaming in through my bedroom window. Reaching next to me, I grab a pillow and slam it over my face, groaning at the bright intrusion and then inhaling Jude’s scent next to me. We haven’t had much sleep, and it’s possible he’s gone, which would be disappointing, but before I give that thought too much credence, I kick it to the curb.
Jude’s not the guy to vanish at sunrise without letting me know, and I know he doesn’t have practice until this afternoon.
As I turn back to my side of the bed, a grin breaks out on my face. On my nightstand is the hockey puck. Sure, it could be any hockey puck, but I know without a doubt it’s the one I tossed back at him that he originally gave me.
And I know this because, for one, it seems like something Jude would do. Also, the note beneath it in scribbled writing that says, Keep it. It’s yours. makes it pretty obvious.
I reach out and squeeze the puck, grinning like an idiot. Last night was incredible but I think it’s Jude’s sweetness I like even more than the way he can play my body.
I slide out of bed intent on finding him and smile when I see his dress shirt from the night before still in a pile on my floor along with the rest of our clothes, sans jeans.
Swiping his shirt off the floor, I throw it on and button it up as I head to my private bathroom. I quickly freshen my breath and use the toilet before washing my hands and then my face to remove the remnants of last night’s makeup.
Jude doesn’t need to see me in full scary-girl mode after a night of crazy sex.
When I’m feeling slightly awake, I make my way through my room and head toward the kitchen, in a hurry to get to him. Perhaps we have time for another round or two before the day takes us in separate directions.
I’m smiling as I reach the living room, unable to help myself when I see Jude at the far wall, hand scrubbing his dark hair as he talks to someone on the phone.
“He’s okay though? I don’t need to get there first?”
Get there first?
He turns, and my smile falls at the look on his face. His eyes are lit with excitement and worry at the same time. Something is happening and whatever the person on the other end says makes his jaw clench and then he grins.
“Yeah, Dad. I know. I know. You’ll be there too?”
His family? I wonder what’s happened. Perhaps a brother if he’s wondering if he’s okay. I try to remember who would have had a game last night, but Jude didn’t mention anything.
I grab coffee that’s already brewed and once my mug is filled, I notice a half-emptied mug on my coffee table along with a small, magnetic notepad Lizzie and I usually keep on the refrigerator. It holds our notes to each other and shopping lists. It’s currently covered in the same chicken scratch as the note beneath the puck on my nightstand.
I force myself not to snoop while Jude’s voice quiets and he paces my living room.
There’s something wrong, based on his tone.
“All right. Call me if something changes…uh-huh… yeah, Dad. Thanks…. Dream come true… holy crap, I’ve done it…”
My head snaps up at that and it’s then I see his banked excitement as he hangs up. His eyes are so bright, his body practically vibrating like he wants to jump into the air. Like his team has just won another national championship.
He hangs up the phone, grips it in his hand and in a voice that sounds like it come
s straight from a tunnel, Jude says, “My brother got hurt last night.”
“Oh, Jude.” I’m on my feet. But he has his hand up in his hair, dropping it to the side.
“He’ll be fine in a few weeks. But Charlotte’s second string isn’t a hundred percent either. And I’m in top health right now.”
I’m frozen. This isn’t happening. We have months to worry about saying goodbye. At least that’s what I thought.
And then Jude shatters my heart that’s been softening to him. Pieces of him I already lost to him.
“I’m being called up. Charlotte wants me down there immediately.” His smile is infectious. So wide it could break his face in two. “I’m heading to the pros, Katie.”
He lunges toward me and before I can move, I’m in his arms, being swung in a circle so fast it’s dizzying. Perhaps it’s his news, but I wobble when he finally sets me down and it takes effort to match his excitement.
“Today?” I ask, and he frowns before that smile breaks through again.
“Yeah. I need to call Coach, but my agent says they’ll handle it. I need to get down there. They’ve got a four-day break before a home game and holy shit.” He collapses to the couch, hands scrubbing his hair, and when he looks at me again, he’s dazed.
I am too. So happy for him. He’s reached his dream. The opportunity of a lifetime. I’m ninety-nine percent thrilled for this guy who’s so good and has clearly worked so hard.
I go to him and hug him, standing in between his spread legs, and he drops his head to my stomach.
“Congratulations, Jude. You’ll do great. And someday, I’ll get to say I knew you when.” Tears burn my eyes, and I blink them back.
He grins up at me, most likely to see the torment in my eyes. “We’ll talk soon. I’ll call you when I get there?”
Now isn’t the time for my own selfish sadness.
It’s time to let him go so he can follow his own dreams, but now is not the time for us, and I knew that when I risked it.
“Bye, Jude.”
* * *
