“You should’ve told me. You could’ve told me that, Jude.”
“I didn’t want to involve you.”
“In what?” I fired back, exasperated. “My own life?”
“In anything that could be dangerous. I don’t want you hurt, Roni.”
“You have to tell me this shit, though. If it’s about me, I want to know.”
“It’s not about you. It’s about Taze and me. I just want to make sure you’re safe, that’s all.”
“For how long?”
“Not long. Maybe a few more weeks. A have a guy watching Taze, too. Just making sure he’s not gonna stir up shit.”
That actually made me pause and take a breath. “You think he will?”
“No. It’s not fuckin’ likely.”
I stared at him, letting the implications of those words sink in…
“Jude. What did you do? Did you hurt him?”
“No. No, I didn’t hurt him.”
Then it very slowly dawned on me…
“Oh my God. That horrendous bruise on your back?” I took a step toward him, so I could see his face better in the dimly-lit hall. “Your face? That was Taze?”
“It’s nothin’ you need to worry about, darlin’.”
“He hurt you? Because of me?”
“Nothing’s because of you,” he said firmly. “It’s just guy shit. It’s got nothing to do with you.”
Holy shit.
The thought that Taze had done anything at all to Jude because of me… It was because of me. I wasn’t born yesterday. For sure, the Sinners and the Kings had some bad blood between them. That wasn’t exactly a secret. But Taze and Jude never would’ve looked at one another twice, probably, if not for me.
If Taze even said a nasty word to Jude because of me, I’d be choked.
The fact that he’d put his hands on him… or a weapon? Whatever had left that horrible bruising on his back…
“Jude…”
“I’ll introduce you to Bane.” He shifted closer to me, his voice softening. “I’ll give you his cell number, so you can communicate with him if you need to. That make you feel better?”
“Fuck, yes.”
His eyes held mine, and the tiniest ghost of a smile played at his lips. “Good.”
I swallowed, softening a little. “Look… I’m really sorry, okay? For that stupid fight, the other night…”
He shook his head. “You were right. I didn’t want you around Piper.”
Oh. Well, that hurt.
“You’re ashamed of me,” I said, quietly. I couldn’t even look at him. “Just like you were back then.”
He took me by the shoulders and got close to my face. “I am not ashamed of you, Roni. I was never ashamed of you.” I looked up into his dark eyes, and he said, “I just don’t want to even think about you bein’ with anyone else.”
What?
“With Piper?” I was so fucking confused. I’d rarely even run into Piper over the years. I’d never even had a real relationship with him, and we’d only had sex once, a decade ago. Piper didn’t care about me. I didn’t care about him.
Why did Jude still care?
“With anyone,” he said.
I took a slow, deep breath, just feeling those words.
“Come on, darlin’,” he said, slipping his arm around me. “Let’s sit down. We can talk.”
He steered me from the foyer into a dark living room and sat me down on the couch. But he didn’t sit down beside me. He knelt on the floor in front of me, between my knees… just like he had that first night we’d ever had sex.
And it killed me.
I wished we could just rewind, go back to that night, and start over.
Because that night… it was perfect.
Before we fucked it all up.
“I don’t even wanna talk,” I whispered.
“What do you want, V?”
“I want to kiss you.”
He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me towards him, and I kissed him. He ran his hands down my thighs and then up, under my dress. I put my hands on his, but I didn’t push them away.
“Jude…”
It was the feeblest attempt in the world to curb a guy’s attempt to get under my dress, and it was quickly abandoned as he slid the sparkly fabric up, exposing my lace panties. They were skimpy and red and had a sparkly little candy cane on the front, right above my clit.
He grinned.
“Merry Christmas?” I whispered.
He chuckled. Then he slipped a finger under the lace, yanked the panties aside, and shoved his face between my legs. I had no choice, really, but to fall back on the couch and enjoy it.
“Fuck… ahhhh… Jude… shit, I love it when you go down on me.”
“Yeah, darlin’…?”
“Mmm. You’ve got a magic mouth…”
He said nothing, just used his magic mouth to make my eyes roll back and my pussy clench.
I wanted him to fuck me, but maybe that was too rude? I glanced toward the foyer; I could hear the party, the voices and music in the distance, but no one seemed to be coming.
“Should we… uh… be doing this in here…?”
“Please,” he said, between licks. “It’s Zane’s couch. It would be depressed… if it didn’t get any action… at Christmas.”
I giggled.
His big hands pressed down on my inner thighs and his thumbs spread me open, and he drilled his tongue into me, making me forget about anything else. Then he lapped his tongue up and sucked on my clit. He kissed me and then sucked on me again, kinda groaning as he did it.
“Jude… you’re gonna make me come…”
My whole body was starting to shake.
“Yeah, babe,” he murmured, kissing me again. “Missed this fuckin’ pussy…” He sucked on me again. His tongue played with my clit and swirled around…
When the orgasm gripped me, I gasped and plunged my hands into his hair. I held him to me as he sucked on me, as the waves of pleasure rolled through my body.
“Yeah…” he murmured. “This pussy is mine…”
I never would’ve thought words like that out of a man’s mouth would turn me on so damn much.
“You can have my pussy, Jude,” I said with a sigh, giving in to the fact as I collapsed on the couch. Really, my pussy had never been able to resist him. “But what about the rest of me?”
“Yeah…” he said, his hands sliding up over my curves. He drifted his fingers up my throat and into my mouth; I bit down lightly on his fingertips as his eyes met mine. “That’s all mine, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jude
It was Sunday, the morning of Christmas Eve, when I woke up with Roni.
It was the first morning we’d ever woken up together. The first time one of us had spent the night in the other’s bed. We were at my place, where I’d brought her after Zane’s party last night.
Although… as it turned out, I wasn’t exactly in bed with Roni.
Just her candy cane panties and a hint of her sex kitten perfume.
I heard the clinking of dishes and smelled toast.
I got up, pulled on some briefs and a T-shirt, and wandered toward the smell of food. This place had definitely never felt more like a home than when I found Roni Webber in the kitchen, wearing one of my T-shirts, making me breakfast in the sunlight.
“Oh, hey,” she said, perking up when I walked in. “You want some toast?”
“Sure.”
She grinned and popped a couple of slices in the toaster for me. Then I swept her up in my arms. I kissed her a few times, softly. Lips, cheeks, eyelids, nose.
“Sorry,” she said softly, “I’m really not much of a chef and you don’t have much for groceries, but I made do. There’s some fruit sliced up. And by the way, if you want a girl to make you breakfast after you fuck her brains out, you might wanna buy some eggs or something.”
“What can I say…” I kissed her cheek again and let her go. “I eat on the
go a lot. I’m not home much. And I don’t want girls cooking me breakfast.”
Her face fell.
“Shit. Except you, V. I meant, except you.”
“Oh.” A tentative smile played at her full lips.
“Jesus. Did I just say that shit to you when you’re standing in my kitchen wearing my shirt and makin’ me breakfast?”
“You did.”
“Foot-in-mouth disease. I have it.”
“It’s okay.”
“I’ll eat whatever you wanna make, darlin’.”
“Cool.” The toast popped and she put it on a plate for me. “Butter?”
“Just a bit.”
“You want coffee or anything? I couldn’t find where you keep it.”
“I don’t. You need one?”
“No. I’m a casual user.” She smiled. Girl was pretty as hell with her unbrushed morning hair and no makeup on her face. “Here you go. Fruit?”
“I’ll grab some.” I helped myself to some of the apples and strawberries and whatever she’d sliced up into a bit of a fruit salad, throwing it on my plate. Looked like she was already finished her breakfast. “You could’ve woken me up. No idea why I slept so long. I’m usually up pretty early.”
She shrugged. “I dunno. You looked so cozy there, and I was hungry.”
“Thank you.” I leaned against the counter and bit into my toast. “Best toast any girl’s ever buttered for me.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re not gonna sit?’’
I looked at the chairs around the table, which I rarely pulled out. “Just always stand here to eat breakfast,” I said. “Usually I just have a smoothie.”
She smiled a little. “You want some jam on that?”
“I have jam?”
“I found this on the porch,” she said, pointing out a little mason jar of what looked like homemade jam, on the table. “Went out there with my juice to check out your sad little garden. Someone named Janice left it for you?” She raised an eyebrow as I glanced at the little tag on the jar.
“My neighbor,” I said.
“Did you screw her?” She looked away as she sipped her juice. “I’m not jealous. Just wondering. It’s good jam.” She turned to put the bread away and I wrapped my arm around her from behind.
“I didn’t screw her,” I whispered in her ear, then bit her lobe a bit. “Why you so interested in Janice? You into athletic blondes?”
She made that throaty little giggle of hers. “Sometimes.” Then her eyes met mine, and her face fell. “Kidding,” she said. “I didn’t mean Taze… or whoever.”
Whoever. That meant Piper or Zane, no doubt.
I released her. “Sorry I brought it up.”
“I don’t have a thing for blonds, Jude.”
I didn’t say anything.
She stared at me, biting on her plump lip a bit. “You’ve mentioned it a few times. Said stuff about Taze being blond…”
“Have I?”
“I don’t have, like, a blond guy fetish or something.”
“Good to know,” I said, putting my empty plate down on the counter. “’Cause I’m not blond.”
“No. You’re…” She looked at my hair. “Dark.”
I drank my juice.
“Hawaiian, Brazilian… English and Swedish.”
Good memory. Couldn’t even remember telling her all that, but I must’ve, at some point.
“So is Piper,” I said. “Think there’s some Norwegian in there, too.”
“And you look it. All of it.” She stared at me. “He does, too, kind of. Just… differently.”
“Uh-huh.”
She seemed to be about to say something else, but turned away to put her plate in the sink instead. Then she turned back to me, suddenly, like she’d just gotten the nerve to say what she wanted to blurt out. “Do you want me at the dinner tonight?”
I stared at her. Huh?
“I mean, Jessa invited me, but I know it’s a traditional thing you guys do, and… I don’t have to come. Really.”
I knew Jessa invited her, and I’d just assumed she was coming.
“Yeah,” I said. “I want you there.”
“Oh.” She seemed to relax a bit, but still looked kinda on-edge. “Okay.” She turned away.
Then she turned right back again.
“Is that… like… a weird thing for you? That… your brother’s blond? And you’re… not?”
“Well. It wasn’t not weird when I was a kid, tell you that.” I finished the rest of my juice and looked at her.
“Oh,” she said. “But. I mean… obviously, you know you’re gorgeous, right?”
Right. I knew that like she knew I wanted her to come to this dinner.
“Knowing isn’t the same as feeling, darlin’.”
Her brow scrunched up a bit. “I guess…” She picked up our juice glasses, slowly, as she thought that through.
“Put the glasses down.”
She put them in the sink.
I took hold of her hips and turned her to face me, smashing my mouth down over hers and giving her a long, steaming-hot kiss. And I was patient as fuck about it. I kissed her and kissed her until she let the rod drop out of her ass and she relaxed back into her curvy, confident self in my arms. I could feel the shift, the way she suctioned her body up against mine and kissed me back.
When I finally broke away, I told her, “That’s how much I want you at the dinner tonight.”
“Okay,” she said, her voice all throaty with lust; way more convincing.
“I’ll be there around three,” I told her, releasing her.
“Oh. We’re not… going together?”
“I’ve gotta head out to Piper’s first. He’s deep frying the turkey. Told him I’d give him a hand with the deep fryer. Bringin’ it over in his truck.”
“Oh. Right.”
“So?”
“So what?”
“What time are you gonna be there?”
“I don’t know. Maybe four? To give Jessa a hand if she needs it.”
I watched her as she cleared the breakfast shit off the table. “I’ll need to head out soon. You want a shower first? The shower in the master bathroom is shit, so we gotta use the one down the hall.”
She looked at me sideways and smiled softly. “Why do you live here?”
“You don’t like my place?” I looked around. Yeah, it was old. Smallish. But it was clean. Simple. I liked simple.
“I just mean, it’s not your place. It’s a rental, right?”
“That obvious?”
“You could afford much nicer, I’m sure.”
I shrugged. “Better things to spend my money on.”
“Such as?”
“Bikes. Travel.” I checked out her bare legs. “Women.”
She rolled her eyes. “You go shower. I’ll finish cleaning up.”
“You really don’t have to do that, darlin’.”
“Just go.” She was fussing over the dishes in the sink, and I slipped my hand around her hip to her stomach, that slight curve of her belly that fit right into my hand. I brushed her hair out of the way with my chin and kissed her temple.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I left her there. I could feel her pulling away a bit, but fuck if I knew why. I told her I wanted her to come to the dinner. If she was nervous about seeing Piper or something, not sure what I was supposed to do about that.
I was uneasy about it myself.
I’d told Jesse at the party last night that I wouldn’t be coming by his place this morning to work out, and he’d definitely seen me leave with Roni. So he could connect the dots there.
Other than that, I hadn’t said shit to anyone yet—including Piper.
Was definitely gonna fill him in that I was seeing Roni when I went by his place today, though, before he ended up in a room with her and a beer in his hand and said something stupid.
No idea what he’d make of it. Really didn’t care. As long as Roni was mine, we’d work the rest
out.
And last night, when I screwed her on Zane’s couch in the dark, I’d definitely told her she was mine.
She didn’t argue.
As I got into the shower, I realized I wasn’t even sure what time it was, which was fucking rare. Something about Roni, about spending time with her… She sucked up my focus, made all my attention converge on her.
Made the clock in my head shut the fuck up.
And I liked it.
I figured I had enough time, though, to get cleaned up, very possibly screw the hell out of her again, and head out to Piper’s place, with time to spare.
This Christmas Eve dinner thing—the Orphans’ Potluck, we called it—had been a tradition between Jesse, Brody, Zane and me, ever since we were about twenty. We’d started the tradition when the four of us were renting that shitbag apartment together. The year Jesse’s mom died.
We called it the Orphans’ Potluck because none of us had parents to spend Christmas Eve with. Jesse’s and Zane’s were dead, Brody hated his, and my dad lived out of town. My mom lived in the city but she always spent her Christmas Eve at church, so I’d see her on Christmas Day. Back then, Jesse and Zane would spend Christmas Day with Zane’s grandma, Dolly, Brody would spend it with his parents—when they managed to force him to—or at Dolly’s, or he’d come with me to my mom’s.
Couple of years after that, Brody’s dad died anyway and his mom fucked off to wherever with her new husband.
So, Orphans’ Potluck.
We still did it every year on Christmas Eve. Each year, one of the four of us guys took our turn hosting. We kept the invite list pretty tight, just the inner circle, but everyone brought food to contribute and it was always one hell of a feast.
As for Christmas Day nowadays, we all had family we loved, to celebrate with. I still had my mom and my brother. Zane still had Dolly. But Jesse now had Katie and her family, and Brody had Jessa and Nick.
Actually, it definitely felt like this year, with Jessa back and a new baby in the mix, we all had a little more to celebrate.
And now… I had Roni.
When I stepped out of the shower, I wrapped a towel on, loosely, and wandered out into the hall, just in case she felt like celebrating the holiday season again. But she dashed right by me and into the bathroom. “Thanks,” she said, “I won’t be long.” Then she shut the door in my face and turned on the shower.
Dirty Like Jude: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 5) Page 26
