by Lori Foster
“Promise you’ll let me see after you get it all on.”
May stared at the beautiful wispy top and the designer jeans. They were… lovely. Not at all risqué. But it appeared to be an outfit for a much younger, much skinnier woman.
“No way am I promising any such thing.” If she looked bloated, she didn’t want any witnesses. If the clothes enhanced her weight instead of minimizing it, hell would freeze over before she paraded around in front of him.
Shoring up her defenses, she put a hand to his chest and pushed him out of the room. “If it looks okay, then I’ll show you.”
“There’s more,” Jude said as he allowed her to eject him. “I bought you panties, too, and a couple of bras, but you won’t need one with that top—”
She shut the door in his face. He’d bought her bras? And panties? Her face burned. Then she glanced at the delicate top. She’d never owned anything like it, had never even dared to think of buying such a thing. It was so feminine and delicate and… beautiful.
Biting her lip with growing excitement, she fingered the material, smiled, and slipped it on.
Chapter 17
Jude held his breath when the bathroom door finally opened. He said a quick prayer that he’d gotten the sizes right, because he knew damn well May wouldn’t give him a second chance. If anything was too tight, she’d probably take his head off.
In a way unfamiliar to him, she was touchy about her weight. Most of the women he knew, skinny women, went on and on about their weight while picking at salads without dressing and sipping diet colas. Not May. She ate with a hearty appetite that matched his own, and rather than make excuses about it, she dared him to say a word. Jude grinned.
In his attempts to be “sensitive” to her more generous proportions, he’d blundered a few times. He wanted her to know that he loved her figure with the added curves and softness. How better to do that than to dress in clothes that showed her off, while still respecting her personal modesty?
Her head down in unaccustomed reserve, her fingers laced together in front of her, May stepped out.
“Wow.” Even better than he’d imagined. The chiffon top molded around her lush breasts before dropping in a soft cascade to her waist. The cropped jeans hugged her sexy ass without being uncomfortably tight. And the heeled sandals added just the right touch to pull it all together, and to show her off as a sexy, confident woman. “You look incredible.”
Her cheeks heated, and a nervous smile flitted about her lips. “It fits.”
“I’ll say.” He reached out for her hand, and when she gave it to him, he turned her in a circle. “If I wasn’t so elated over this little wardrobe rebuilding,” he growled, “I’d just drag you back to bed right now.”
Face lighting up in pleasure, she asked, “You really like it?”
“I’m male, I’m alive, and I have eyes. Of course I like it.”
She ran her hands over the top, and admitted softly, “Me, too.”
His heart expanded. “Good. Now try on this one.”
Laughing, she snatched up the clothes and darted back into the bathroom. Jude sat on the foot of the bed, smiling from the inside out, so happy to see her happy. He didn’t think May had ever gotten enough compliments, and he intended to remedy that. He loved seeing her giddy. He especially loved seeing her look as good as he’d always known she could.
One by one, she modeled the clothes for him: more camis, skirts, Tshirts and blouses, sundresses, jeans, and casual slacks. He liked the new, shorter pastel jackets on her, and the summer sweaters. An array of shoes cluttered the floor, one pair to go with every outfit.
Naked again, May collapsed on the bed in high spirits. “I can’t believe you bought so much.”
Levered on one arm, Jude balanced himself over her, gazing over her body that looked even better nude than dolled up in great clothes. “There’s more in the hall.”
She groaned. “No.”
“Just purses and jewelry and stuff to go with the clothes.”
“It’s too much.”
Her protests had weakened to a mere formality. “Don’t steal my fun.”
Eyes closed, mouth in a sweet half smile, she made him wait while she considered things, but finally whispered, “Okay. Thank you.”
Running his hand from her rib cage to her belly, Jude said, “Know what I want to do now?”
Her smile widened. “I could maybe guess.”
“I want to take a bath.”
May’s eyes fluttered open, and she rose up onto her elbows. “A bath?”
“Yeah.”
Giggling, she dropped back. “The way your mind works is not to be believed.”
He’d never heard her giggle, but he liked it. He loved it. He… No, it was too soon for anything like that.
“Easy enough to explain. I enjoy seeing you naked. Bathing together pretty much guarantees you’ll stay naked a little longer.” He kissed her again. “See, it’s simple.”
“What about breakfast?”
“It’ll wait.”
“But will Denny?”
“If he knows what’s good for him.” Jude pulled her to her feet, wrapped her in a sheet, and dragged her to the door.
“No way!”
He peeked out. “The coast is clear. Besides, it’s your fault we’re in the wrong room.” He tugged her into the hall. “I want you to see my bath. I want you to see the grounds. I want to show you everything.”
Holding the sheet with one hand, May went along. “I can think of a lot of paintings that’d look great in this hall.”
“There, you see? I told you that you needed to visit. We’ll tour everything later, and you can make a list of pieces to show me, okay?”
With new reserve, she said, “You haven’t had many friends to share with, have you?”
“Not here, no. Other than family and Denny, no one’s been in my house.” Walking backward, he led her into his room. “But I put a lot of work into, getting everything just as I wanted it. I argued with contractors, oversaw the small details, and now I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”
Her expression carefully blank, May asked, “What about Hollywood?”
Aware of her caution, Jude kicked the door shut. “What about it?”
“You don’t plan to go back?”
Was she worried about losing him, or just making conversation? “I don’t know. But whatever I decide, I’ll always have to travel.” The SBC required as much if not more travel than acting. “Why?” He pulled away her sheet and tossed it across his bed. “You trying to get rid of me?”
“No, of course not. I just… I’ve never really heard you say if you intend to stay here, or if Ohio is just a getaway for you.”
At first, it had served as a place to hole up and heal. A place where he could have moderate anonymity. Leaving Hollywood had been as much about leaving his problems behind as deciding what he wanted to do for his future.
He’d made some decisions on that, but he wasn’t ready to share them with May. Not yet. He didn’t want to spook her, and he was afraid he might not like her answers.
“I like it here,” he said only. Then he took her into his spacious bathroom. By anyone’s standards, it surpassed decadence with every luxury imaginable.
Three wide marble steps led up to his enormous tub big enough to count for a pool. While May looked around in wonder, he turned on the multiple brass spigots. By specific design, the water pressure was such that the tub would fill quickly.
After retrieving thick towels from a built-in wall cabinet, Jude watched as May ran a hand along the ornate, double-bowled sink and the Italian marble top. Lips parted, she moved to the separate steam cabinet, the fifteen-foot-long shower, and the etched glass window that allowed in a stream of sunshine.
“Heated towel bars?” she asked.
“Naturally.”
She stopped in front of a niche where water cascaded over a granite wall. “And another fountain?”
“Like it?”
Steam rose ar
ound her, already curling her hair and making her skin dewy. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“But do you like it?”
“A sultan could live here. Two sultans. It’s… incredible.” She turned flirtatious eyes on him. “And with you standing there in the nude, how could any woman not like it?”
Jude fought a chuckle. By the hour, she became more daring and more openly sexual. “Are you telling me I could have saved all the money I spent in here?”
She shrugged. “You’ve worked hard for what you have—you deserve it all.” She sashayed toward him. “But you could stand in a mud puddle and make it look appealing.”
The past few hours had been so enjoyable, like a special moment in time. Jude had to kiss her, and once he went down that path, he didn’t want to stop. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave herself over to him, kissing him back, leaving no space between their bodies.
Jude held the back of her head with one hand, and lifting her thigh with the other, fit himself tight against her. The urge to move inside her, to make love to her here and now, tested his control. But he didn’t have a condom in the room with him, and he really did have to get a handle on his excesses.
He turned and pinned her to the wall, in the same move sliding his hand between her legs. Fingers moving over her, he found her soft and hot, slippery wet, and he groaned. “You’re making me insane, May.”
“I don’t see how,” she breathed, already shimmering in excitement. “I’m so agreeable.”
Because she was by far the least agreeable woman he’d met since gaining fame, her words struck him as funny. The shot of amusement cooled his ardor enough to lead her into the tub. “Come on, Agreeable May. You can wash my back.”
But rather than soap up a cloth, Jude turned her so she sat with her back to him and settled her between his legs. He shut off the water, turned on the jets, and took pleasure in kissing her temple, in idly touching her breasts, her belly. He lined his feet up next to hers, comparing her smaller, narrower feet to his size twelves.
“Jude?”
Contentment filled him. “Yeah?”
“While I was waiting for you last night, I got on the computer, too.”
Only part of her statement registered. “So you were waiting for me? You weren’t so angry with me that you wanted to be left alone?”
“If I’d wanted to be alone, I’d have kicked you out of bed.”
In two days with her, he’d smiled more than he had over the entire past year. “I figured as much.”
“I looked up bombs.”
The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Whatever her reasoning for doing such a search, he didn’t like it. “Want to tell me why?”
She twisted free of his arms, turned, and positioned her legs as if preparing for meditation. The pose, which left her fully exposed despite the churning of the water, distracted him in a big way.
Until she said, “I think I know how you were set up.”
Jude’s gaze shot up to hers. Just that easily, he began breathing too fast, and tension crept into his muscles. “Set up?” he asked with laudable skepticism, almost afraid to hear her out. Only he and Denny had ever made the assumption that he’d been deliberately sabotaged.
She practically bounced with enthusiasm. “It had to be a setup. I read through all the articles and news transcripts I could find. The only thing that made you look guilty was—”
“The lack of any other suspect.” His guts churned. “I know.”
“But the bomb could have been a contact bomb. That’s where the bomb doesn’t go off by the use of a fuse or a timer. It literally has to hit something, and then it explodes.”
“I know what a contact bomb is, May. The experts nailed that little detail right off. You throw the thing, and when it hits, ka-fucking-boom. Detonation.” Why he felt so angry, he couldn’t say. Maybe because he hadn’t expected her to go beyond believing him. He hadn’t expected her to care enough to want to prove his innocence. More likely because her involvement meant danger for her—and he’d rather die than have her harmed.
“Exactly. So it makes sense that—”
“None of it makes sense. In order for that type of bomb to work, someone had to toss the thing into the limo. It…” His jaw clenched. His fingers flexed. “From what they could tell, it practically landed on Blair. Someone made her a damn target—but as the world sees it, I was the only one around.”
“No, you weren’t.”
Knowing it to be a futile discussion, one he’d gone through over and over again, Jude sat up, too. He put his hands on May’s thighs while looking at her body, desperate for a diversion. It amazed him, but around her he stayed hard all the damn time—even now, while talking about a subject that left him hollow and cold. “It’s a dead issue, May. Let it go.”
She disregarded that order. “Did you ever hire your own investigators to find the real culprit?”
Beneath the water, he moved his fingertips closer to the apex of her legs. “The cops did that. I was too busy trying to keep my damn neck out of the noose.”
“But the cops didn’t!” She pushed his hands away, frustrating him. “They spent all their energy on trying to figure out how you did it. I don’t think it ever occurred to them that someone else could be guilty. I realize the explosion left little evidence to work with, but—”
“What was there was singed and misshapen and… grotesque.” He did not want to talk about this.
“I’m so sorry, Jude.” She reached out to him, her small hands cradling his face. “But I have a theory.”
Memories of how the bodies looked when he’d raced back to the scene pounded through his head. He could still hear the broken glass crunching beneath his feet. Still see the smoldering, twisted pieces of metal that had blown yards away from the limo.
His heart thumped too hard and fast, and he felt a prickle on his nape. “I wasn’t that far away you know—just fifty yards or so.”
“Thank God you weren’t hurt, too.”
He barely heard her as he relived that awful moment in time. “I had just bent down to get the Coke that dropped out of the machine.” He didn’t look at her. He couldn’t. “I felt the impact in the air. The noise was deafening, the scent acrid. But there weren’t any screams. I don’t think anyone had time to scream. At first, I didn’t know what had happened. I thought… I don’t know. That a bad wreck had happened nearby or something, even though that didn’t make sense.”
In a low and soothing voice, May gave him the precious gift of her understanding. “Things rush through our minds when we’re startled. Naturally, you didn’t realize it was a bomb. The idea that someone could do that would be ludicrous, the last thing to occur to most people.”
Yet someone had done it. Someone—some nameless person—had murdered Blair in his limo. No matter how he looked at it, he felt guilty. If he hadn’t given her a ride. If he hadn’t allowed her inane chatter and immature seduction to get on his nerves. If he hadn’t gotten out of the car. So many “ifs” to live with.
And no way to turn back time.
“Even after I saw the limo, it didn’t sink in what had happened. I ran back, but it was too late. Body parts were… detached. I couldn’t tell…” He shook his head, unwilling to say it aloud again. Repeating it all helped nothing. “I’ve been through this a hundred times, May.”
“I’m sorry to dredge up such awful memories. I know this has to be hard for you.”
Hard didn’t begin to describe it. Nightmarish. Horrific. Bloodcurdling. “You can’t imagine what it’s like to know you’re indirectly responsible for such a thing. Blair was so young.”
“Twenty-one, isn’t that right?”
He nodded. “Despite being discovered by Hollywood, she was still naive about so many things.”
“She had a crush on you.”
That information had been in all the news, too. It sickened Jude to remember how much he’d hated Blair’s infatuation, the silly way she’d tr
ied to cling to him.
God, he’d been such an unfeeling jerk.
“She was a little scared. Unsure of herself. But she had such a promising future. She was adjusting to the popularity. Given a chance she’d have worked it out.”
May ran her fingers through his hair, petting him, making him feel like a sappy, sad kid.
But he didn’t ask her to stop.
“The reports claimed that the bomb had to come through a window, because the explosion happened from the inside. Isn’t that right?”
Grim memories of his interrogation clashed with May’s gentler questioning now. “No windows were open.”
“But your door was?”
He nodded. “I didn’t close it behind me when I got out. I don’t know why. I just… I felt bad for escaping Blair to begin with. But she kept…” He locked his jaw. Blair was dead, and yet her death had forced him to answer questions that portrayed her in a less than favorable light. He didn’t want to tarnish her memory, and had caught hell from her fans, friends, and family for doing so. If there’d been any way to keep most of it private, he would have.
But he’d been fighting for his life, unjustly accused. And he didn’t lie.
May gave a slight, understanding smile. “She adored you, Jude. What woman wouldn’t? I bet you were kind to her.”
“She took it for more than it was. I felt sorry for her. I wanted to be her friend, but she wanted more.”
“It speaks of your honor that you didn’t take advantage of her.”
Jude snorted. Honor? During the murder investigation and the trial, he’d felt stripped of any redeeming qualities, especially his elusive honor. He’d blackened Blair’s name in order to protect himself. Nothing honorable in that.
“Jude, stop it.”
He glanced up, startled. “Stop what?”
“Blaming yourself. You’re not responsible for how someone else feels. You had no way of knowing what would happen. You couldn’t have done anything to prevent it. While Blair was alive, you were her friend. I’m sure that meant a lot to her.”
“Being her friend got her killed.”
“No, some whacko running loose killed her.”
