“Jude—” I struggled to sit up, but Smoke held my shoulder down.
“He’s being debriefed by the feds. He’ll be here in a couple of hours. You get some rest so you can be there for him when he returns.”
“Is he okay?”
“Yeah,” he said with a wince. “He’ll be fine.”
When I woke up it must’ve been hours later, given the sliver of moonlight I spotted through the thin curtains. My throat felt itchy and raw, and when I coughed, something heavy shifted at my feet. Ace readjusted himself at the end of the bed, and then I felt Patch’s downy hair against my arm. Vaughn must’ve brought my dogs to me. When the hell had that happened? And where was Chopper?
Though my head felt as if it were sitting in a pressure tank, I attempted to push up on my elbows. It was then that I heard someone stir in close proximity. Was I under guard or something?
It took me another moment to acclimate myself to the room and remember exactly what had gone on earlier in the day. Or was it yesterday?
“Oh God, Jude.” I bolted up, causing my muscles to revolt against me. My pulse roared in my ears, and I wondered whether I’d only dreamed that conversation with Smoke. “Fuck.”
“I’m here.” At hearing Jude’s voice, I almost sprang out of my skin.
He was sitting across the room, the glimmer of a moonbeam washing across his cheeks. Chopper lay on the couch next to him.
“When did you…?” I tried to place my feet on the floor, but when the whole room swayed, I had to shut my eyes to regain my balance. I didn’t give a fuck about my head. I needed to get to Jude. “Are you…?”
He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Elias is dead.”
Dead. As dead as Jude’s voice, and maybe his eyes, if only I could see them from this distance. Would they be flat, inert pebbles, the way they looked when he shut the world out?
“How is he dead?” I asked, sinking one foot to the floor.
He shrugged. “He went for his gun, but Alex was quicker.”
My pulse spiked, imagining the ordeal Jude must’ve gone through in the past twenty-four hours. “Why are you all the way over there?”
“Your head—” He blew out a breath, and I noticed how weary his features looked. How his body was slumped in the cushion with exhaustion. “I… I was just… They said you needed to rest.”
“So do you.”
“Alex said you helped find me. Thank you.”
“Please, Jude. I need you over here. In bed with me. Let me hold you.”
Gingerly, he rose from the couch and staggered across the room, as if he’d sink through the floor at any moment. He discarded his pants and shirt and crawled in the sheets next to me. My face immediately nuzzled the side of his neck, my hands reaching for his shaved head, and I nearly wept from relief.
Still, my stomach was in my throat because something was definitely wrong. Maybe he was in shock. Or numb. Maybe he needed time to process everything that happened.
“Jude…”
“Shhh…” He laid his head on my chest. “We’ll talk later. Just want to sleep now.”
“Okay,” I whispered. I weaved my fingers through his, and he let out a soft breath. Within minutes we were both dozing.
37
We slept for several hours, twisted around each other. Smoke arrived the following afternoon with some of our possessions, which included a change of clothes and told us all was cool. He suggested we stay at the cabin for a couple more days to recover. In fact, he insisted we do so to allow the dust to settle.
As a show of good faith, Malachi had still given Elias’s organization—what was left of it—proof that he had destroyed the evidence, so that they didn’t suspect the Disciples’ involvement with the feds. I’ll admit, that information stunned me.
And when I looked at Jude, at the intensity in his eyes, I knew he also understood that lives were put on the line to not only take down his stepfather, but to save Jude as well.
As the day lapsed into night, I felt better. My head was merely a dull ache, and the painkillers were definitely helping. Jude stayed quiet and remote, as if he’d curled up inside himself. I didn’t want to force him to talk, because even though I saw no visible signs of injury besides his battered cheek, I knew what he’d gone through had been emotionally distressing.
The dogs played as we walked along the property to get some fresh air. We’d barely spoken two words. It was like being back at square one with Jude. And I didn’t have the wherewithal or guts to drag anything out of him. Deep down I was terrified to find out what was going on inside his head, because I could only imagine the posttraumatic feelings Jude was facing. I’d overheard when Alex had given him a number to call should he need to speak with a trauma expert.
As we got ready for bed, it felt like we were going through the motions. When he lay beside me and stared at the ceiling, it seemed like we only coexisted. Though we still reached wordlessly for each other in the middle of the night, it felt different. More desperate. Despondent. A last-ditch attempt to cling to something normal, something real. But nothing was normal. And I questioned whether it would ever be normal again.
By the following night, I’d convinced myself that Jude was gearing up to tell me something. To tell me we were over. After all we’d been through.
Now that the threat was gone and we could live out in the open, we were finished. Maybe he wanted to start a new life someplace else, far away from the people who used him as a pawn. Maybe it would help him feel free. To at least breathe more freely.
Perhaps he felt guilty that I’d been waiting on him and now he wanted to leave. The fear of hearing those words from him was enormous; it felt like a lead weight pressing directly on my chest and crushing my soul.
After another quiet night sitting on the back porch, Jude finally looked at me. Really looked at me. As if seeing me for the first time. As if he’d stumbled out of a dense fog.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, shocking me out of my own head.
“I… What do you mean?” I mumbled. “Nothing.”
“Then why haven’t you tried talking to me?” His tone was wary, hesitant.
“What?” I was completely confounded by his question. “I was giving you space. Time.”
“Just tell me straightaway,” he said, and there was a steely resolve in his eyes.
It seemed as if a full minute went by as we stared each other down.
“I guess…” I swallowed roughly. “I was preparing myself.”
The hands on his lap turned into tight fists. “For what?”
I broke eye contact with him and studied the floor. “For you to tell me goodbye.”
His shut his eyes and inhaled a deep breath. “Why the hell would you think that?”
“Thought maybe you’d want to start off fresh. New town, new people. I might remind you too much…” I sucked air through my nose. “I can take Chopper. You can make a different life for yourself.”
He stood up suddenly and stalked over to me. “Do you know what I was thinking about when Elias was holding me captive?”
I lifted one shaky hand to my hair. “I can only guess. I was afraid you were going to find a way to…to…after what you told me about never being hurt by him again…”
“Fucking Christ.” He knelt down in front of me, his hand reaching for mine. “I thought about you. Hoping you were alright. That you were waiting for me. Hoping like hell you were waiting for me.”
My breaths were harsh and choppy.
“Since my mum was killed, I haven’t belonged anywhere. To anyone. And then you came along.” His eyes drilled into mine. “This stunning man who’d somehow managed to gather the shredded pieces of my heart blowing adrift in the wind. And suddenly there was someplace I desperately wanted to belong.”
I felt a tear roll down my cheek, and he swiped it with his thumb.
“Jesus, Cory.” He brushed his fingers through my hair. “I imagined what you were going through and how it would be so much wo
rse if I…if I… The thought of you waiting for me kept me going.”
I bit my lip hard, trying to keep my emotions in check. So that I didn’t slide to the floor in a boneless heap.
“And when Malachi told me you were alright, God, I was so relieved,” he said, closing his eyes. “Then I was scared. That you…that this was too much for you. That you wouldn’t want me after all this and it gutted me. I felt so fucking guilty about what I’d gotten you involved in.”
That was why he hadn’t been responsive to me. I was waiting on him, and he was fucking waiting on me. Goddamn it.
“Jude—”
“But I’d go through it all over again,” he said, cutting me off, “if it meant I got to have you.”
His head sank to my lap, and I heard a whimper burst from his throat. I burrowed my fingers in his scalp as he opened the floodgates and finally allowed himself to cry.
For himself. His sister. His mother.
His shoulders shook as he wept openly. As if he’d been holding it in for years.
I looked up at the stars in the night sky and thanked the universe for bringing this incredible man into my life.
“Baby, I’m not going anywhere.” I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and pulled him into my chest. “I want to be with you so much that everything aches.”
“I need you to show me.” He grabbed my face and smashed his lips against mine. There was an overwhelming desperation in that kiss, and I felt it viscerally, a direct blow to my gut. Like that kickflip stunt of his. “Show me I belong to you. Please fucking show me, Cory.”
And then realization dawned on me. I understood what he wanted and what he needed. I stood and pulled him with me, gathering his face and devastating his mouth with a deep and bruising kiss.
I led him to the bedroom and took my time undressing him, feathering tender kisses over every part of his beautiful body. I got him ready for me. My mouth on his cock. My fingers in his ass. My heart in my throat. I was nearly blinded by how profoundly I wanted him. In my life. Forever.
I laid him on his back and knelt between his legs. I fished a condom from my wallet, and used my saliva as lube. It was the best I could manage under the circumstances.
He lifted his knees as I pressed inside him. Slowly and deeply, I filled him as his nails embedded into my thighs. I nipped and kissed his neck and shoulders and lips, relishing the moans emitting from his throat.
“You belong to me,” I growled between quick, shallow thrusts. “And I belong to you.”
He trembled and studied my face, as if searching for the truth inside my eyes. I sank down on my forearms, my choppy breaths against his lips as I continued to plunge inside, filling him up with everything I had.
“You fucking mean everything to me.” I roughly kissed his lips. “And you’re all mine.”
I tried not to focus on how tight and hot he was. How painfully hard I was. How close I was to losing my mind and coming undone inside him.
This was about him. Giving him what he needed. And right then he needed me.
I captured a patch of skin at the hollow of his throat, marking him with my lips and teeth and tongue. I bit and licked my way down his collarbone and sucked on his nipples until he thrashed and whimpered. Clutching his cock between us, I pumped him solid and steady.
“I love you, Jude York,” I whispered as he shuddered beneath me and blew apart so hard, his teeth clattered.
38
The next morning, Jude joined me on the porch with a fresh cup of tea, and I smiled because it was another thing he had in common with Gram.
“It’s nice out here,” I remarked, looking toward the woods. “Do you miss the countryside?”
“Sometimes,” he replied, his eyes taking on a dreamy quality before clearing. “But I can’t go back there. Not anymore. My memories will have to be enough.”
Somehow, I understood exactly what he meant. But maybe one day, we could revisit this conversation, and then he’d be ready. And I’d love to be the one to accompany him.
“Besides,” he scoffed. “I’d miss the pavement.”
I snickered, finding it hard to reconcile these two versions of him. But they made him who he was, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. “Bet you would, Mr. Daredevil.”
When he finally smiled at me after such a long stretch, I thought my chest would burst open with relief. As if everything was coming back in crisp focus again.
We took the dogs into the yard and threw them the ball for a long while until there was a rumble of thunder. We both arched our heads toward the sky.
Then he kissed me, soft and slow, his lips tasting mine, top and then bottom. His mouth was warm and gentle, almost cautious. Like he was showing me how much everything meant to him. He murmured my name and told me he loved me.
When we pulled apart, Jude laid his head against my shoulder as a light mist coated our skin. We stayed that way with our fingers interlaced—leaning, shifting, breathing—until we collected ourselves.
We went inside, and with little spoken between us, began gathering our belongings, both of us having the exact same idea. To go back and resume living. This time, more freely.
I reached for him and held his face in my hands.
“So what now?” he asked, his breath heavy, his eyes dreamy.
“Not sure,” I murmured, kissing his ear. “Guess we’ll figure it out.”
His voice was cautious, momentarily uncertain. “Together?”
“Together.” I breathed against his hair. “Always together.”
My lips trailed down his throat. “Just like this.”
I felt him shiver against me.
“And this.” I placed his hand on my pounding heart and held it there, letting him feel what he did to me, what he meant to me. Fucking hell, I didn’t know what a mess I’d be if I’d lost him.
“And this.” My thumb skimmed over his bottom lip, right before he pulled my mouth to his, his tongue plunging and tasting, kissing me senseless.
“Let’s go home,” he whispered against my lips.
“Where’s home?” I asked, hoping this meant we no longer needed to be apart.
He stared into my eyes. “Anywhere you are.”
39
Three months later
Our three dogs rested under the bench I’d parked my butt on near the bowl as I watched Jude and his skater friends perform some newer aerial tricks. As one of their boards twisted upside down, I thought of how our lives have felt much the same, except we’d finally landed on more solid ground.
The rest would take time. And patience. But we had enough love to go around, and that would carry us through.
Before coming here, I’d met Emmy at the dog park so she could get her Patch fix. Quite honestly, I thought she was just happy to see him go to a good home. She was equally thrilled that Jude and I were officially together, and even though everyone at Raw Ink teased me mercilessly, they had come to adore Jude and knew we were good for each other.
Patch had fit in well and was comfortable with us, as was Chopper, even though he could still give me trouble every now and then. The little shit. But having Jude in our lives had provided a security and calmness we all needed, and I wouldn’t have traded it for the world.
As Jude walked toward us with his board firmly secured to his backpack, Chopper lunged, practically throwing my spine out of whack. Fortunately, thanks to regular massages, it hadn’t acted up since the incident that almost took Jude from me. I shivered. Some nights I still woke in a cold sweat, panicked, until I felt the warmth of Jude’s arms wrapping around me, and then I could relax again and live in the stillness with him.
“Calm down,” I cooed, trying to soothe Chopper. “He’ll be here soon enough.”
Jude was like some sort of superhero to these dogs—to me as well—and I tried to let him know it any chance I got. Which was normally while in the throes of passion because there wasn’t much I enjoyed more than being buried deep inside him.
Jude lean
ed over to give me a sweet kiss before grabbing hold of Chopper’s leash and giving all the dogs the attention they craved. Attention whores. But who was I kidding? So was I. If Jude loved on me the way he did them, we might never leave his apartment. It was already difficult enough since we’d begun going bare, which added to our intimacy and pleasure.
“Ready to head home?” he asked with a smile, and I might never get used to seeing how easily his eyes crinkled at the corners with happiness.
I stood with the leads, and we headed out of the park toward Jude’s apartment. I’d officially given up my place and moved in with him last month at Mal’s insistence, so they could still keep an eye on us for the time being, even though Alex assured us the threat was gone.
The former Disciple who lived in the house in front of ours also provided an extra layer of security. Nowadays he’d come out into the yard more often and had officially introduced himself to me and the dogs.
And though the crew at Raw Ink didn’t know what had gone down with Jude and the Disciples that one weekend, we decided to fill Gram in on some of it. Who was I kidding; she had most of the story figured out, so we didn’t deny any of it.
She considered Jude family now, and they’d become thick as thieves, even watching some British baking show together. He visited her more frequently than I did, not that it was a popularity contest or anything. But watching Jude find that sense of familial belonging he craved warmed my heart. And though Mal was also softening toward Jude as the weeks progressed, he represented more of an authoritarian figure, whereas Gram was the indulgent relative.
Christ, who knew I’d be referring to the prez of the local MC club as some sort of friend? Maybe the world had gone mad.
“How about some walleye?”
“Or some bar food,” I suggested, arching an eyebrow.
“That sounds better,” he replied with a laugh.
Jude hadn’t gotten back on a paddleboard yet; it was too traumatizing. But he’d made an appointment and had been seeing a therapist about everything that happened in his life the past few years. He was working through it, piece by piece. Some days he came home quiet and pensive, and other days it seemed like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
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