Blimey, does she have any idea how she just erased every girl who came before her?
And the way she orgasmed, her inner muscles tightening around me as those angelic eyes fluttered shut on a blissful sigh. I feel my knob hardening just thinking about how her gorgeous face looked at that moment.
I should have known how much trouble I was in before I took her to bed, but I hadn’t been thinking of much else except seeing Aria naked for the first time.
The damage is done now, though. I am more than smitten … I have fallen into her. It’s been happening for a while, the slow slide of my heart conjoining with hers. No one else possesses me like Aria does, and with this final act of shedding any barriers between us … the collide has happened.
How am I to tell her? Does she know? Better yet, does she feel the same?
As a cocky shite, I’ve always clung to my freedom. Relationships and commitment are the enemies. It’s almost laughable; the universe playing a funny trick on me, that my reserve had collapsed so quickly when Aria walked into my world.
Begrudgingly, I get out of the black car Barry sent when it arrives at the location he specified. I am a little more than annoyed that he interrupted my day in bed with Aria to demand I meet him for lunch. It meant having to forgo a second round with my girlfriend and taking the ride back to Clavering with her.
She had to work, and so was forced to take the town car home by herself while I stayed back in London.
“You’re a real git, you know that?” I curse my publicist as I walk into the restaurant.
It’s a real old-school type place, something out of Goodfellas or Boondock Saints.
“I wanted you to have lunch with someone.” Barry stands, obscuring the other diner from view.
Shaking his hand, I speak in a clipped tone. “You know I have to get back to the academy or Harrington will have my balls.”
“I don’t think old Niles will mind if he knew you were having lunch with me.”
Peering around Barry to discover who spoke, I almost drop to the floor with surprise. Standing in front of a pushed out chair with a glass of stock in his hand, is none other than Killian Ramsey.
I’m not the kind of man to be shocked easily, or in awe of someone. I play on a world’s stage with its superstars and puppeteers almost every week, and my life has been that way since I can remember.
But having Killian Ramsey standing two feet in front of me … I’m as big of a fanboy as can be found.
This man is a legend. He is the football player. Killian Ramsey holds all the titles, he’s the player I’ve always looked up to, the one I watched on TV at the academy and who all of my friends want to play as when we put FIFA in the video game console.
Killian brought honor to England and set me down a path where I wanted to accomplish the same.
“Mr. Ramsey … it’s nice to meet you, sir.” Who the hell is this blubbering idiot I’ve been replaced with?
And since when do I call people sir?
Killian chuckles. “I’m not your father, boy. Call me Killian. Seems you’ll be trying to erase my records in those holy football books, so you might as well call me by my first name.”
“Killian, then. I’m Jude, by the way.”
“He knows who you are, or he wouldn’t have asked to meet with you.” Barry snorts and rolls his eyes. “I’ll leave you two to it.”
With that, my publicist walks out of the room, and Killian gestures for me to have a seat across the table from him. A waiter appears out of nowhere, setting down a glass in front of each of us. From the smell coming off them, it’s definitely scotch.
“You wanted to meet with me?” I ask him as plates are placed in front of us.
Typically, a T-bone steak such as this, with a side of steaming potatoes and green beans, would be half-finished in three seconds flat. But I’m too nervous to eat, a feat not typical for me. I guess sitting in front of my hero will do that.
Killian nods slowly, cutting into his steak. “I’ve been watching you for a while now, Jude. You’re a hell of a football player. Probably better than me, though if you tell anyone I said that, I’ll deny it.”
I almost choke on my tongue. “Th-thank you. But you’re wrong. The matches you’ve played … you’re the man to beat.”
“I have a feeling you might beat me. But that’s not why I brought you here … your ego is stroked enough by the entire bloody country.”
That has me chuckling because he isn’t wrong. Though what he says next slaps the smile right off my face.
“I feel as if it’s my duty, as England’s former great player to its next prodigy, to ask you why the bloody hell you’re allowing your life off the pitch to affect the one on it?”
My stomach drops as the tips of my ears begin to burn. Shame and anger mix into one potent combination, setting my heart pounding as I try to calm myself enough to answer him.
“I don’t see what my personal life has to do with how I play,” I grit out.
Killian chuckles. “And that’s why we’re here. You’ve been horsing around with your friends for too long. You should have been playing for RFC two years ago, but you can’t keep your act together long enough for Niles to trust you won’t kill yourself on the big boy stage in London.”
Folding my arms over my chest, my answer is almost pouty. “I’ve been doing better, starting games for them.”
“Only because the Rogue owners threatened to sell you,” he retorts.
How did he know that?
“The girl you’re pictured everywhere with … is she your cover? The thing that will make you appear to be a reformed bad boy?” Killian sips his drink, eyeing me knowingly across the table.
I can feel my jaw tense with annoyance. He can pick at me all day long, but now he wants to poke holes in my relationship? He wants to go after Aria? I don’t care who he is, I’ll rip his throat out.
“Don’t speak about her like that.”
He nods, a small smile on his lips. He doesn’t speak for a minute or so. “So you love her, then?”
Something inside my chest loosens because thus far, I haven’t put a name to what Aria makes me feel. Hearing Killian say it … I know that I am. But he doesn’t need to be privy to that information.
“Why are we talking about this?” I frown.
Aria is none of his business, just like she’s no one else’s business. If I want to have a girlfriend, I can have one without detailing every aspect of our relationship out to every bloody citizen under the Queen’s rule.
“Because she’s in this now … Aria, that’s her name, right? You made her a part of this circus you’re about to embark on, simply by holding her hand yesterday on Bond Street. You’re a smart chap, Jude, you wouldn’t have done it if you weren’t, one, using her as a good girl cover to make yourself look better to Niles. Or two, if you were really in love with her. I’m going with number two, because from your attitude alone, I can distinctly tell you don’t give a rat’s arse what Niles or the country thinks of you.”
I gulp down my glass of water and wipe my lips. “Well, you’ve got one thing right about me.”
Killian tilts his head, regarding me while my jaw clicks as I try to keep my temper at bay.
“I used to be exactly like you, Jude. A hothead, angry at the world for taking the people I love most away from me. I knew everything, and fuck anyone who tried to tell me I didn’t. I was in a dark place for a very long time, and both my playing and my life suffered because of it. It took me too long to dig myself out of it, and when I met my wife, it was clear I needed to straighten up. You think you can walk around London like you bloody own the place, getting into trouble and acting like a cocky arse with your friends. You’re wasting time! Jude, you can be one of the greatest talents this sport has ever seen. But if you keep pissing away your God-given ability out in Clavering because you can’t keep your nose clean long enough to let Niles promote you to the first squad, then you’re a bigger twit than I thought you were!”
/> His open palm slams down on the table, and I’m left stunned. I’ve forgotten …
For almost ten years, I’ve lived as the only adult in my world. I took care of my little brothers, but I had no one to answer to. No one has spoken to me, like Killian just did, in a very long time. My parents are gone, and with them, they took any life lessons to be learned or any guidance to be taken.
“I’ve been trying …” I say weakly to the tabletop, finally succumbing to the humbling he’s trying to give me.
When I look up at him, his eyes are a little less clouded with rage. “Lost my temper there for a minute, see? I forget at times that I’m now a family man and a role model. Something you should aspire to be because you have all the capacity to get there. If you’re trying to be better, keep trying. And keep your Aria around … from how protective you got, like a rabid dog with a bone, I can tell you love her. She’ll be a guiding force of light in your life, don’t squander that.”
Killian’s advice, as daft as it sounds, allows something to click in me. He’s right, it’s time to abandon the ways of a naughty boy and become a man. Both on the pitch, off of it, and where Aria is concerned.
29
Aria
“Would you like to have tea with me?” Jude asks me as his hand runs up and down my arm.
Jude’s question comes as he’s walking me home after his last practice of the day. It’s a Sunday, a day I shouldn’t be at the academy, but Patricia had some extra work and I could always use the pay, so I agreed to go into the sew house.
It’s been two weeks since we arrived back to Clavering from London. And I’m not sure what happened at that lunch Jude told me he had with Killian Ramsey … but the football legend must have smacked some sense into my boyfriend because he’s been as angelic as the winged creatures in heaven.
Jude has been attentive, kind, studious in class and a force to be reckoned with on the pitch. He’s asked about my father, treated us to dinner, stayed in his dorm room both Friday nights with me after I got off shift, and just seems like a completely different person. Well, not completely different … he’s still got the biggest ego I’ve ever seen, besides Kingston, and can make me blush with just one dirty sentence.
“Um … sure. Right now? Because I kind of wanted a nap,” I confess.
“Well, actually, yes, right now. You could nap on the drive? It’s about half an hour.”
I tilt my head as we walk along, our interlocked hands swinging between us. “Oh? And where is this tea we’re attending?”
Jude smiles. “It’s with my brothers, at our family home.”
My breath halts in my lungs. “You want me to meet your brothers?”
“Yes. Should we walk back to my car?” Jude turns us back up the road and I follow along as my thoughts race at a hundred kilometers an hour.
That’s a big step, meeting his brothers. Jude rarely talks about his family, or his parent’s death, and I can only imagine what has possessed him to ask me to tea today with his relatives.
I can somewhat imagine the responsibility on his shoulders to care for his little brothers, a similarity between us that actually makes us rather well-suited for one another. But … it’s different. Jude has cared for two people who could barely care for themselves for much longer than I’ve been caring for my dad. With Dad, he can tell me all the ways he needs help. He has the knowledge of health care, of paying bills, of … life in general. Jude had to take on looking after not only his childhood self, but two other children. His brothers were just babies when their parent’s died.
And now he wants to bring me into his world, the one he let no one else see. To say that I am nervous would be an understatement.
We climb into Jude’s BMW that is parked on the side of the academy grounds closest to the road leading to my home.
“I get to pick the music,” I tease as we buckle our seatbelts.
He nods, picking up my hand to kiss it. “I wouldn’t argue with that, you always have better taste in song choice anyway.”
I haven’t heard much from Ian about the demo. I’ve checked in three times, and he says he’s still cutting it to make it perfect, and/or trying to pitch it to higher-ups. Trying not to let the hope reach my heart has been the most difficult thing I’ve done in a while, because if it’s received even decently well … it could change my family’s life.
As Jude winds the car out of the academy gates and through the streets of Clavering, I pick up his phone to scroll through his music selections. He’s only let me do this a handful of times, mostly because I think he’s embarrassed that his music library only has about three hundred songs and my old iPod contains over three thousand.
“Marilyn Manson … really?” I raise an eyebrow at him, bemused.
Jude shrugs those big, brawny shoulders. “I liked one of his songs once and added the rest for good measure.”
It’s not my taste, so I keep scrolling. Until I land on one of my favorite songs. The opening chords of “Rhiannon” by Fleetwood Mac start to play over the state-of-the-art sound system, and Jude looks to me with a megawatt smile on his face.
“She is like a cat in the dark and then she is the darkness. She rules her life like a fine skylark and when the sky is starless,” he sings, drumming his hands on the steering wheel.
I’m a little shocked that he knows one of my favorite songs, and I sing along. A minute into the song, Jude pulls one of his hands from the wheel to stroke it through my hair, and I lean into his palm.
The rest of the short trip is spent singing along quietly to songs I pick, and by the time we pull up in front of a quaint home three towns over, I’ve forgotten all about how nervous I was.
The moment Jude steps a foot outside of the car, the front door of the house opens and two gangly boys come running out.
“Jude!” the smaller one yells, clearly not old enough to be embarrassed about catching his brother up in a hug.
I get out, standing there as a grin splits my mouth watching Jude greet his siblings. They’re all clones of each other, and I can immediately see what teenage, and young child Jude looked like. These two are going to be heartbreakers just like their brother.
“Mates, I want you to meet my girlfriend, Aria.” He waves me over.
“She’s really pretty,” Jude’s younger brother Charlie says candidly.
I can’t help the chuckle that leaves my throat. “Well, thank you. It’s lovely to meet you.”
We shake hands, and I turn to Paul, the fourteen-year-old. You could tell he is in that stage, the sullen teenage one where he isn’t quite sure what to do with the new feelings coursing through him or the way his body is growing like a weed. He’s in that awkward stage, the one all teens go through and then forget about because it’s nasty business. I hated my own if I’m being honest.
“Paul, I’m very glad I get to meet you.” I nod at him.
He tentatively nods, which I’ll take as a warm greeting, before turning to Jude and enveloping him in a hug. I haven’t known the boy more than two seconds and I can tell that he needs the most love and comfort. That he counts on Jude even more than Jude counts on himself.
“Shall we come in?” A woman appears at the door, and I know this must be the aunt who takes care of the younger boys.
After introductions are made, we all sit down to tea in the living room. Paul and Charlie tell Jude about what’s going on at school, their new favorite movies, the outcomes of their individual football games and ask him about his last match in London. Jude’s aunt Tilda and uncle Brenner ask me about my job, home, and family. I give vague, amicable answers … because no one needs my sob story bringing the mood of the day down.
Once the teacups are empty and we’re all a bit talked out, Jude takes me for a tour around the house. It’s not quite a cottage, and yet it isn’t a mansion. It’s a middle-sized family home, but you can tell some of the bells and whistles have been added. Posh countertops, a sunken tub in the master bedroom, a swimming pool out back … it�
��s clear Jude has spared no expense for his family.
“Is this … is this your childhood home?” I wonder, looking at the pictures on the wall going down the stairs.
If it were his aunt and uncle’s place, they’d have pictures of themselves. But these photos, the ones hanging in frames everywhere, are of a different couple … two people who are the perfect combination of Jude.
“Yes, sort of. The grief counselor the court mandated after my parent’s died thought it would be best for Paul and Charlie to keep living in their own home. My aunt and uncle were close by and didn’t object, so they sold their home and moved into ours. But … this isn’t my childhood home. It’s the one my parents purchased after my first decent contract came through.”
I cock my head to the side. “Does it ever bother you? That your parents lived well because of your money? That your brothers do now?”
He shrugs and says his next words as if they make the most sense in the world. “No. They are my family.”
Skimming my fingers over the three Davies brothers as little boys, I speak but don’t look at him. “Sometimes it bothers me … in my family situation.”
“That’s because your mother only left, and my parents died.”
His harsh sentiment slaps me square in the face. “Wha …?”
Jude laces his fingers in mine. “You know I’m not great with the whole sensitivity thing … but I don’t mean that as an offense.”
“Sure felt like one,” I mumble, a lump of shame forming in my throat.
“I mean, that our situations are different. I have no problem supporting my brothers because our parents died. Left this earth without their own consent. You resent the situation you’re in because with another mother, one who deserved a daughter like you, you wouldn’t have to be doing it alone. There would be a parent there with you, helping to pay for your family’s bills. I don’t blame you for being angry, in fact, if I were you, I’d be furious. I’m not trying to be harsh, I’m trying to tell you that I admire the shite out of you for being in an impossible situation and making it work.”
The Second Coming: Rogue Academy, Book One Page 13
