He walks to stand at my back. I can smell the wool of his suit, a suit warmed by his body—the body I barely learned to touch and kiss . . . and why is it I can’t have more?
Too young.
Too starry-eyed.
Too damaged to hold it together.
Damn. I haven’t had a wrong-brain thought that powerful in a long time. It rings true in every corner of my mind and every place in my body—except in my heart.
I am a good person.
I deserve good things.
He leans near, an unconscious echo of how Adelaide stood over me while I waited rigidly on the bench. I can smell more of him now, that hint of expensive cologne and the fresh, masculine fragrance that is simply Jude. The smell of his skin.
“We were working,” I manage to say.
“I didn’t say the lesson was over.” He strokes my hair back from my temple. I’m wordless, motionless, breathless. “Will you play it for me?”
“Do you need a laugh? Some angst? Do you want me to make you angry?”
“No,” he says quietly, still petting my temples. “I want you to turn me on.”
I’m trying to remember what breathing was like. It must’ve been nice. “And how am I supposed to do that?”
“I’m not the performer,” he says softly.
“Do you want me to perform? Or be truthful?”
He stops touching me and sits on a chair against the wall. His posture remains intimidatingly upright, all powerful grace, but if I knew him better . . . If I knew him better, I’d say he looked exhausted. Under his sunny midday blue eyes are deep circles of fatigue. Because of work?
“Turn me on, sugar,” he says, smoldering and daring. “Just you and that piano.”
I close the key cover. “I came here to vent to someone who’s becoming a friend. And I was here to practice, for real. I’m not playing games. Besides . . .” I shake my head and turn away. I gather my music to keep from trying to read the tea leaves of his expression.
“Besides . . . ?”
“If I’d had any clue what turns you on, I’d have done it already. We’d have gone to a hotel that night, and . . . Never mind. I don’t know what you want from me. I haven’t from the start.” I’m like an opera singer stretching a note too thin, running out of air. “I’m not going to make a worse fool of myself.”
The silence between us is a thin sheet of glass. I don’t want to move for fear of smashing it. Glass would rain down around us both, but I don’t think any would land on Jude Villars.
“Keeley?”
I flinch. He doesn’t use my name often. I always notice when he does. It’s like a code. I’m being serious now. I wish the rest of him were that easy to decipher.
“What?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, words low and rumbling. “About our argument. And about how I ended it. It wasn’t fair of me.”
Spinning faster than thought, I face him dead on. “Then why did you say it? Do you know how something like that sticks? Words last a lot longer than bruises and broken bones.”
He frowns, that classic drawing together of masculine brows. His mouth pinches tight.
I’m so not finished with him. “You seem to think that just because I’m a virgin and I can’t keep up with your head games that I don’t know anything. Do you want someone fragile, Jude? Keep touching me, jerking me around, telling me to turn you on—then, sure, you’ll have a fragile girl at your beck and call. Because I can’t keep up.” I wipe surprising tears away. “But I don’t want to be fragile. If that’s the price for being around you, then you need to leave.”
With the subtle grace of a big cat predator, he stands. Three strides later, he’s beside me on the piano bench, where I’m both numb and raw. He takes my upper arms in his big hands. “I don’t want you fragile.”
“I feel that way when you’re with me. You’re in charge. Your pace. I’ve been so amped up about some of it, and good-terrified about some of it. But there’s no way to catch my breath.”
I find the strength to look up at him. His eyes are stormy and dangerous, but deep inside, I see a shelter. If I can only run fast enough to reach it . . .
“I want to be your first,” he says plainly. My heart jumps, my belly turns to fire, and I know he can feel another flinch. “Before the other night, I never thought about the consequences. About how you’d take it. Or how I would. I do have responsibilities in my life, and I wasn’t prepared for how you’d fit in that way. I took my mistake in judgment out on you.”
He soothes his hands up and down my arms, which are covered in goose bumps.
“I can’t trust you,” I reply. “Do you see that? I stumbled after you like a blind puppy because I didn’t have reason not to. Now I do. You have to know what you’re doing. You’re overwhelming!”
He barks out a sharp, bitter laugh.
I fling my arms to get free of him. “Start talking, Jude, because you’ve got a lot of ground to make up. What’s so special about me? Forget the piano and all the other pretty words. Why me? ”
“Same question back to you,” he says, his words clipped. “Forget my damn money and my tragic headline life. Why me? Why were you willing to follow me like that? Why did I deserve your trust?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
Hands in his pockets, he radiates that sexy, so-unfair combination of confident, powerful man and lonely, lost soul. I want to touch him and say it’s okay, that I’m sure it was just a miscommunication. Then I can turn myself over to his care and command again. All will be fine and thrilling again. But I can’t unlock my jaw to form the words.
I won’t.
“You want to know why you?” he asks quietly. “Why you stood out to me like one of those spotlights at the club?”
“Yes.”
“Because there’s always a spotlight on you. You may as well have a neon sign above your head flashing ‘Over Here.’ ”
“You have me confused with someone like your sister.”
“Don’t tell me my mind, sugar. You’re just the opposite of Adelaide. You’re so closed off that I want to pry you open and find out what no one else ever has. That’s intoxicating.” He stops pacing and returns to my home turf—stitting on the piano bench. “You told me that you showed the club all you have. All you are. What did I say?”
“That you didn’t believe it.”
“Because I don’t. I’ve kissed your lips, but I don’t think I’ve kissed you. I could get you stark naked and we could be lovers for months, and it wouldn’t matter.” He’s within inches of me. He brushes his lips across mine. I tingle and jump. “Do you know the biggest fight I’ve had since my parents died?”
“Adelaide?”
His smile is rueful. “With her? Always. But about her.”
“She told me about keeping the headquarters here in New Orleans.”
“I figured she’d say something about that. You’re turning into the friend I hoped she’d find.” Before I can process the pride that blooms beneath my breastbone, he blows a long exhale through his nose. His shoulders are bunched, with his hands fisted on his thighs. “I took a huge chance as a fresh from school kid, and I won. No one has dared go up against me since, except you—you, like a bolt of lightning out of nowhere. From everyone else, it’s bow and scrape and Yes, sir.”
“You won’t ever hear me call you sir.”
His rueful smile takes on a salacious edge. My body prickles and heats in response. “Good. I don’t want you fragile. I want Keeley Chambers.” He clears his throat. “I just didn’t know how to answer questions about anything outside of . . . the seduction. Not to you. Myself. Anyone. If someone on the board asked me what I’m doing with a college student? Oh, I’m teaching her how to fuck. Can you imagine?”
“I don’t have to. I’m not anyone on the board.” I stare at him—stare and wait
. I feel a surge of power when I realize that I’m in charge now. I’m the one to say yes or no. That power burns in my blood, but it doesn’t point me to the right answer. “I’m just me. I’m the one you need to convince.”
My hands are clasped together at my waist. He takes them in his and tugs them apart. Slowly—God, so slowly—he pulls them up, up, to circle behind his neck. There he lets them rest as he undoes his tie and unfastens two buttons of his dress shirt. “Touch me there. At my nape.”
I’m a melty puddle of guh before I take my next breath. He’s all around me, invading every sense, seeping into my pores and turning all my thoughts toward sex. I could be with him in the way I’ve never been with a man. His voice is so inviting, so riveting. It’s deep swamp voodoo, the way he can bind me without even touching me.
I sink my fingers into his hair and tighten them until my nails scrape his scalp. His arms crisscross my back. I’m pulled flush against his chest. So close now, I can reach even more of his hair, and the skin of his back and his shoulders. He cups my head and angles my mouth to meet his. I’m shocked by taste and heat. My thoughts are burned away like fall leaves in a bonfire. There’s nothing but the feel of Jude beneath my palms, and how masterfully he uses my body against me.
His tongue sweeps over mine, pebbled and sweet as if he’s been chewing cinnamon gum. I can’t get enough. I need more, tipping my head, fighting his hand to find the angle I need. He lets up just enough, smiling briefly, until we’re kissing again. I swirl. I clutch. He’s got me. I know that somewhere—somewhere deep and in charge of protecting me from danger. He has me in his arms, and despite all good sense, I feel safe there. I go practically limp. Only with my mouth and hands do I keep questing, keep searching for more of what he can give me.
He slides one hand down toward my ass, but pauses at the waistband of my jeans. I moan and nod my approval. But instead of simply grabbing my ass, he forces his fingers between skin and denim, pushing, hooking my lace thong. Even that isn’t enough. He undoes the top button of my jeans and dives again. I’m filled with the hot, pulsing taste of him and trapped by curiosity—his and mine—as he finds the bare skin of my ass. I gasp into his mouth. He returns my gasp with a moan.
“I—”
That was me. One syllable. At least it’s a start, because there’s no more to say.
“You’re still content with just the back of my neck,” he whispers against my mouth.
I blink, then flex my fingers. Sure enough, they haven’t strayed beyond what I can reach behind his head—nape, hairline, the muscles along the base and column of his throat. “Seems a shame,” I manage to squeak.
“So that’s not all you want?”
I shake my head. He gives my ass another long, languorous squeeze, pulling up, fitting me against his pelvis, testing me. Now I know how ready he is. If he reached down a few more inches, between my legs, he’d know I’m turned on too.
“That’s not all I want.”
“Then tell me,” he says. “Tell me, Keeley.”
“I want to forget how that night ended, because I want to trust you again. Fresh and new. I want to know that if you take me home right now, you’ll be amazing to me. But that won’t be enough.”
“So we’re not talking about a onetime deal here.”
“No,” I say, my tongue tingling, feeling thick and hard to manage. Too much of me is screaming, More, more, more. All of you. As long as you’ll have me.
No, that’s not right. I’m screaming, Forever.
Little-girl fantasies. Fantasies of never being afraid.
I try to veer my thoughts back to the physical. When it comes to Jude and losing my virginity, I know I’ll be protected. He’ll do exactly what he promised.
“You have to give me an answer, sugar. We have to be clear.”
I find the courage to say what I need to, because he’s right. I need to know going in just how much I’m putting on the line. “You’re the one who said we aren’t dating.”
He finds my stiff knuckles and kisses them. His earnest eyes hold mine, still and calm. “I should’ve introduced you to that lawyer and his wife. I’m sorry I hurt you. And what I said—hell, I didn’t mean it.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“As for dating, I think we got it all backward. We agreed on a seduction, but not how to share a beer in public. I’m supposedly the big bad grown-up.” He shrugs, then smiles the most self-deprecating smile of all time. “Instead, I was an ass. I was probably a coward. Until I screwed up the ending, that was one of the best nights out I’ve ever had. Kissing, teasing, talking, laughing—you gave me a little of everything, and I never knew where I stood.”
“You didn’t?”
“I’m floundering too, sugar.” He rakes his hands through his hair, way more angrily than I’d done when stroking his nape. “Every day, I put on one of these damn suits and see a fraud in the mirror. I’m blustering my way through, trying not to fuck up Adelaide’s life and lose everything our parents worked toward. You called me overwhelming. It’s more like overwhelmed.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Then I met you,” he continues. “I’ve been thinking about you, sleepless over you. I made something complicated out of something pure and full of potential.” He draws in a breath. “I never know what to expect with you. You have me so tied in knots. And for the first time in a very long time, that feels like a good thing.”
Protest bubbles on my tongue, but I’m too busy reveling in the idea that I tie this amazing man in knots.
We’re in this together.
“So call it seduction,” he says. “Call it dating. Call it spending as much time together as we can and seeing what happens. All I know is . . . I want no regrets.”
When I finally speak, it’s with a throaty voice I don’t recognize as my own. But it’s true—the only truth I’m one hundred percent certain I believe. “No regrets.”
Twenty-Eight
Apparently “no regrets” starts in a horse-drawn carriage through the Garden District. We’re wrapped up in each other, emotionally and physically, as a new sort of tension builds between us. One storm has passed. A new one is gathering, despite clear early evening skies.
“Tonight’s the night, isn’t it?”
I don’t know where I get the courage to say it out loud, but I do and the look on his face reminds me of the power I have. That’s why I said it. His eyebrows shoot up, and he clears his throat. “If you want it to be.”
“Of course I do.”
“Believe me, sugar. There’s no ‘of course’ with you.”
I grin, then kiss the hollow under his jaw. Soon we’re kissing for real, with the rustling willows and the steady clop-clop of horse hooves as our soundtrack. I make him ditch his suit coat. He dares me to reciprocate by taking off the sheer black blouse I wear over a strappy camisole, which I flat-out refuse. Instead, I shed my purple jacket while he takes way too many liberties over my leggings, with his hands roving beneath my houndstooth skirt. Not that I stop him. The driver does his job, guiding us through the most picturesque streets of New Orleans and keeping his eyes front and center.
We wind up at a nondescript corner, where what must’ve once been mansions push right up to the slim sidewalks. Now they’re hotels and restaurants.
“Your choice,” he says. “Cheap authenticity, medium-priced touristy stuff, or damn expensive?”
I laugh. “Who’s paying?”
“Moi. No Dutch dates for us. If tonight’s the night, I want to treat you like a princess.”
“And if tonight doesn’t happen to be the night, mister?”
He grins and nuzzles where my sheer top brushes my collarbones. “What, the carriage ride isn’t enough for you?”
“Not when I’m starving and you can’t keep your hands off me.”
His smile is out in ful
l force—the one I can’t resist. I can’t even resist touching it. With light fingertips, I trace his lips and the near-dimples that dot the smile lines that dig into his narrow cheeks.
“Don’t move,” I say. “And keep smiling.”
“So bossy.”
“That’s what my roommate says.”
That only makes him chuckle a little more, smile a little more. I lean up to kiss those teasing dimples, one on each side, before diving in for a completely mind-warping war of tongues and lips and even a nip of gentle teeth. We break away laughing. I think it’s a release. Still a release. We came so close to losing everything, but Jude made it right and I was brave enough to trust him again. This is how it’s supposed to be.
I shoot down all of the protests that come to mind. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. He’s supposed to know who I am. I can’t ever let that happen, or magical rides and beautiful kisses will disappear. He’ll disappear. Jude Villars could have his pick of just about anyone. Why would he stay with a girl whose past is as shady as these tree-dappled streets?
Taking his head in my hands, I kiss him even harder, until he moans. The driver could’ve heard that one. I don’t care. I want to get lost with Jude as my only guide. He thinks I’m wonderful, and nothing will jeopardize that—not when I’m finally beginning to believe it. Parts of me are wonderful. The rest can stay hidden deep down. They don’t deserve the fading light of sunset.
We wind up disheveled and grinning like cats in the cream by the time we reach our destination. Apparently he’d already decided on “damn expensive,” because the combo restaurant/hotel is absolutely gorgeous. Only when I inhale the amazing scents coming from inside do I realize I haven’t eaten since that disastrous lunch with Brandon. Ugh. I need a meal do-over. This looks like the perfect place.
He helps me down from the carriage and discreetly pays the driver, who winks. I dip my head to hide a blush, then smooth the ends of my hair. I hope I look okay. I’ve been practicing all afternoon. Jude, by contrast—despite how tired he appears—is a god come down from on high to dine with us commoners. He has the jacket slung over one shoulder. His tie and collar are artfully mussed, and his hair just a little wild. His expression is what pulls it all together. He’s amused, confident, and strides with my arm tucked in his, as if the whole city belongs to him. No, the whole world.
Blue Notes Page 19
