“Floaties?” he asked.
“Those plastic things kids put on their arms in a swimming pool so they don’t drown. Keep your floaties as long as you need them, and unless you’re as sure as hogs are made of bacon, don’t take them off. Not for Audrey or anyone else.”
By anyone else, she meant Cleo and the boys. Judd could see that side of it. It was the safe path that he’d been taking to stay sober. Safe by not putting himself out there and not taking any risks. The exact opposite of what Cleo was doing. Her entire life right now was one big risk.
He looked at her, and while she was still playing with the dog, Cleo was also keeping an eye on him, apparently making sure he wasn’t getting in some kind of verbal tussle with Audrey’s mom. When they got back in the car, she’d no doubt apologize for insisting that he come along for this.
“I know that look,” Blanche said, drawing his attention back to her. “Do you have the hots or nots for her?”
Judd had to give her a blank stare.
“Hots is just lust,” Blanche explained a moment and an eye roll later. “Nots is a whole lot more.”
He was pretty sure the answer was only the hots. But maybe with a side order of nots thrown in. “Cleo’s a good person,” he said blandly. Which, of course, wasn’t what Blanche had been asking.
The silence held between them for a few more seconds before Blanche looked at her watch and muttered some profanity. “Gotta get to the vet.” She hurried off the porch and went to the puppy to scoop him up. “I’ll get this little guy over to Buck’s as soon as we’re done,” she told Cleo. “It was nice seeing both of you.”
Cleo echoed something similar, and they watched Blanche drive away. “I’m sorry,” Cleo told him as they got back in her car. “I shouldn’t have asked you to come here.”
Judd smiled. He’d been right about the apology and the speed of it. Even though there was no way Cleo would understand why he was smiling or what he was about to do, he hooked his arm around her neck, pulled her to him and kissed her. Considering they were sitting there where anyone could see them, it was a little too long and a whole lot too hot.
He pulled back to give her some air and stared at her. Not especially wise since along with her looking amazing, she now looked aroused. Still, he’d given up on being wise when it came to Cleo. Even with all his walls and missteps, he still wanted her, and that apparently wasn’t going away anytime soon.
“I think this is a good thing you’re doing for Beckham,” Judd said as Cleo started the drive back to the ranch.
She glanced at him, studying his face as if trying to suss out if he was telling the truth. He was. Well, it was truth with an asterisk. It was a good thing even though training the puppy would be a pain in the ass. It would be many steps beyond PITA if Beckham had to leave and couldn’t take the dog with him. Still, this was a shot in the dark for all the right reasons.
“So, should I ask what Blanche and you talked about?” she asked after several long moments.
“Old times.” Again, that was the truth.
“You didn’t talk about Audrey and her pie-making attempts?” she persisted.
“Only in a general kind of way.” He wanted to groan when Cleo quit pressing because he figured she was filling in the blanks with the wrong info. Wrong info about Blanche trying to push Audrey and him to be together. “Blanche and I have a history that doesn’t involve Audrey.”
Judd didn’t bother wishing that he hadn’t brought that up, but he was sorry he hadn’t worded it better because it caused Cleo to give him a funny look. Hell. Was she thinking he’d had sex with Audrey’s mom? Good grief.
“Not that kind of history,” he amended as fast as he could. The next part didn’t come so fast, though. “She knows about my drinking problem, knows that I did some stupid things when I was younger, and she’s always been fair with me.”
But that didn’t include tact and the kid-glove treatment. Still, fair was fine with him and better than he got from a lot of people.
“She was on the city council when Kace approached them about hiring me,” Judd went on. “Technically, he didn’t need their permission, but since I’m his brother, he didn’t want to be accused of nepotism. Blanche stood up for me, squelching any arguments that the other council members had. She fought to make sure I got the job.”
Cleo stayed quiet, maybe processing that, when she pulled to a stop in front of his cabin. “I hate not to give her the benefit of the doubt, but she could have wanted you back here for her daughter. Maybe that played into it. Even if Blanche had reservations about you, she knows that Audrey cares for you, and she might have wanted to see her daughter happy.”
Since that was as much conversation as he wanted to have about Audrey and her mother, Judd went in for another kiss. He caught her little sound of surprise with his mouth. Ditto for her sound of pleasure that followed.
Cleo kissed like the way she did everything else in life. No floaties for her. She just slipped right into that kiss, adding a nice touch of her own when she nipped his bottom lip with her teeth.
“Better than peach pie,” he drawled.
“You don’t like pie,” she pointed out.
“Better than Rocky Road,” he amended.
She made a sound as if impressed and pleased. “Since that’s the second time in the past fifteen minutes that you’ve kissed me and now you’re flattering me with chocolate comparisons, I’m detecting something.” She slid her hand over the front of his jeans. “Yep, it’s something all right.”
His eyes crossed, and he went hard as steel. Maybe he wasn’t a “no floaties” kind of guy, but that little hand maneuver of hers had him ditching any concerns or doubts he had about diving in headfirst with Cleo.
“If you want to get lucky, and I’m reasonably sure you do, then we’ll have to make it inside your cabin without someone seeing us,” she said. “Think we can manage that?”
Probably not. He figured Rosy or Buck had noticed them drive up, but Judd pushed aside that thought, kissed Cleo again so it’d keep the heat simmering and threw open the car door. Hurrying with a hard-on wasn’t easy, but he managed it. He caught onto Cleo’s hand, and the moment they reached his front door, he practically pushed her in.
Cleo did some pushing of her own. Proving that she, too, had some immediate lust issues that needed tending. She backed him against the door, and her mouth took his. It was another scalding kiss that didn’t stay a single shot. She went after his neck all the while her breasts pressed against his chest.
Judd figured they were in for some body-hardening foreplay, but Cleo proved him wrong about that. Breaking the neck kiss, she caught onto a handful of his shirt, locked the door and dragged him across the room.
“This time you’re getting off,” she insisted.
Judd just held up his hands. Sex with Cleo might turn out to be a stupid mistake, but he wasn’t a stupid man. He wanted off. He especially wanted off with her.
Cleo shoved him back onto the bed. Clearly a woman on a mission because she dragged her dress off over her head and sent it flying. Her underwear was lacy and tiny, just the way he liked it. Of course, as hard as he was right now, he would have approved of flannel long johns as long as he could get them off her.
He got these off her with little effort.
Cleo just let him have his way with the underwear removal because she continued her own mission by unbuttoning his shirt. She left it on him, though, and went after his jeans.
“This time, I’m not going to be gentle with you,” she insisted. Cleo said it like some kind of warning instead of the really good suggestion that it was, and she unzipped him.
“No floaties,” he mumbled.
She gave him only a split-second confused look that he hoped hadn’t killed the mood. It didn’t. Cleo went after his mouth again.
Sensing that her good suggestion was g
oing to move even faster, Judd fished out a condom, got it on and then flipped her so that he was on top of her. Cleo flipped, too, somehow managing to put him on his back. In the same motion, she pinned his hands to the bed.
And she took him inside her.
Apparently, her previous orgasm had only whetted her appetite for him because her hips pistoned, pumping him, driving herself against him until he felt the new climax ripple through her. Even then, she didn’t stop moving.
Cleo had been right about two things. He got off, and this time she wasn’t gentle.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
That thing you told me about—well, it wasn’t really a secret, was it?
Let’s just do this sex tape. No one will ever see it, promise.
Your ass is a lot bigger than my other girlfriend’s.
“THAT LAST ONE started a fight,” Tiny pointed out to Cleo as she was reading it.
Cleo was betting it had, but she turned her attention away from the Stupid Sh*t Men Say board to Tiny, who was behind the bar shelving some liquor bottles.
“A bad fight?” she asked.
“Naw, the lady just threw her Squirrelly Spider at the guy, and he left.”
Cleo hoped that was the name of a new cocktail and not an actual critter, but even if it had been, at least the fight hadn’t been rowdy enough that the cops were called. It was somewhat depressing that the lack of police involvement was now her benchmark for what she considered a good night.
Well, lack of police involvement that didn’t include Judd, that is.
He had certainly given her a good morning. Her body was still tingling from the climax he’d given her just hours earlier. Like a buzz that no cocktail could have ever managed. The buzz came with incredible memories, too, of his naked body.
“Your ass is a lot better than my last boyfriend’s”—she could have written the words on the Stupid Sh*t Women Say board, but it wouldn’t have been shit. It was the truth.
She wanted to be in Judd’s bed again, wanted to keep playing with fire, wanted to believe that nothing could go wrong with this. Which made her a candidate for even more entries on the board.
It’s just sex.
No chance of a broken heart.
But, of course, there was a chance of that. Her broken heart. Judd would probably never let himself take a leap and fall that hard, but Cleo could already feel herself leaping and falling.
Pushing that aside, Cleo went to her office and was surprised to see Daisy there at her desk. “I came up for an hour or so to catch up on things,” Daisy explained. “Just processed the final payment for that graduation party we have booked...”
Daisy stopped and practically did a double take when she lifted her head and looked at Cleo. A slow smile curved her lips. “You had sex with Judd.”
Cleo glanced down at her dress to make sure it wasn’t inside out or there wasn’t stray underwear or a condom wrapper clinging to it.
Nope.
No signs of sex, and she’d already made sure there weren’t any visible hickeys, either. However, there was one on top of her left breast, and she checked now to be certain that it wasn’t showing. It wasn’t unless Daisy purposely looked past the scooped neckline, which she couldn’t have done since she was sitting down.
“How’d you know I had sex?” Cleo asked. “Please don’t tell me I’m glowing or anything.” Though maybe tingling could produce a glow.
Daisy shrugged. “No glow. I just knew there’d be no way you could hold out against Judd the Stud.” She paused, stared at Cleo. “Did something go wrong?”
“Not with the sex,” Cleo assured her, but she sighed when she looked at the stack of folders, each of which would hold contracts that needed to be reviewed, invoices and such. She knew there’d be plenty more on her computer. “When I first bought the bar, the paperwork felt more like paper than work,” she added in a mumble.
With her gaze still fixed on Cleo, Daisy slowly got to her feet. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
Cleo wished there was an easy answer to that. Maybe it was the fatigue just below the tingle or the fact that she’d been going nonstop in dealing with problems with both the boys and the bar. Heck, maybe it was the sex, and her body was shoving another round with Judd to the top of the list of things it wanted. But she knew bone-deep that it was more than that.
“This place just doesn’t feel as important to me as it once did,” Cleo admitted, and then she silently cursed when she saw the alarm that put on Daisy’s face. “I’m not sure it’s what I want.”
Daisy came out from the desk, taking hold of Cleo’s arms. Daisy didn’t say anything, didn’t press for her to launch into a blathering explanation of something she couldn’t explain. She just waited Cleo out.
“I’m sorry,” Cleo finally said. “I talked you into this arrangement, and you’ve been pouring yourself into making the bar a success.”
She was disgusted with herself when she felt the tears sting her eyes. Talk about overreacting, and it wasn’t an overreaction she cared to have. Cleo waved off her comment, squared her shoulders and stepped back from Daisy.
“Everything’s fine,” Cleo assured her. “I’ll be fine.”
Cleo probably would have added a whole bunch more to that, perhaps even some semi-untrue reassurances, but she heard the footsteps in the hall. For some reason her brain went into fantasy mode, and she imagined Judd striding in to rid her of all doubts and give her another orgasm or two. But it wasn’t Judd.
“Cleo?” someone called out.
“Harmon,” Cleo groaned, and she said it in a tone that suggested she had a persistent toenail fungus. Definitely nowhere near her fantasy realm.
“You want me to kick his ass, Cleo?” Tiny called out.
She stepped into the hall to tell Tiny no and to tell Harmon to get lost, but she hesitated for a moment when she saw the objects Harmon was holding. At first she thought it was some kind of club in his right hand, but when he held it up, she realized it was a plastic cow leg.
“Someone left this on my doorstep this morning.” His tone wasn’t exactly pleasant or welcoming, either. She couldn’t blame him. The leg was splotched with red gelatin. “And this,” he added when he lifted his other hand.
Even after carefully looking at it, Cleo had no idea what it was. Potatoes, maybe?
“Bull balls,” Daisy said, peering over Cleo’s shoulder. “Tiny said when they collected all the parts that they were missing two sets of balls.”
Good grief. She didn’t want to know why Lavinia had kept those. Or where the other set of them would turn up. Cleo didn’t like to toss ewww’s around, but this situation seemed to call for it.
Tiny must have sensed a butt kicking wouldn’t be required because he headed back toward the bar.
“I took pictures, and I’m letting the cops know,” Harmon went on, anger in his voice now. “My agreement with Lavinia was that I wouldn’t press charges if she left me, you and the boys alone. This is obviously harassment. Maybe even a threat.”
He waited as if he expected Cleo to give him a rousing reply of agreement, but the best she could muster up was a nod. “Handle it as you see fit,” she added when he just stared at her.
“I thought you’d be upset. I thought you’d be on my side,” he complained.
Mentally repeating what she’d said earlier about the bar, this just no longer seemed important to her, and it definitely wasn’t what she wanted, Cleo steeled herself and put on a metaphorical pair of those balls so she could put an end to this once and for all.
“Harmon, I’m sorry you’re going through this feud with Lavinia, but I don’t want to see you.”
He tucked the cow leg under his arm, nodded and then shook his head. “I know. I really blew things the last time we spoke and I offered to take custody of the boys. You probably thought I was saying that so you’d
get back together with me.”
“Yes, actually, I did think that.”
Another nod. “I just wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I’m still not, Cleo. The signs—”
“Don’t matter,” she interrupted. She might not be certain of what she wanted, but Cleo was crystal clear about what she didn’t want, and Harmon was in that “didn’t” column.
“Harmon, it’s over,” she said, looking him directly in the eye. “And as for Lavinia, the best way to get her off your scent is to quit having any kind of connection with me. No more calls, visits or signs.”
“But I wanted to help you keep Lavinia away from Miranda’s sons,” Harmon protested.
She heard what he said over the ringing of her phone, and the moment Cleo saw Judd’s name on the screen, she knew it was a call she had to take.
“Goodbye, Harmon,” she said, hitting the answer button as she stepped back into her office. “Hello, Judd.”
She was about to hold her breath and brace herself for whatever bad news he was about to give her, but she could have sworn she heard Judd laugh.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Fine. I’m sending you a picture. A selfie,” he added, and yes, it was definitely a laugh.
A horrible thought popped into her head, and she hoped Judd hadn’t been drinking. Cleo was about to jump to so many bad conclusions when her phone dinged with the photo. Not the image of a drunk man. It was an off-centered, somewhat blurry shot of Judd, Isaac, Leo, Beckham and the puppy.
“I picked up the boys from school. It’s their lunch break so they’re not missing any classes,” Judd explained. “I knew you’d be late getting back so I thought you’d like to see their reaction when they met the dog.”
Cleo saw it all right. She saw four very happy guys and a puppy who’d leaped up to lick Beckham’s face just as the group selfie had been snapped. Leo’s head was thrown back in laughter, and Isaac was grinning. Judd was the only one who was looking at the camera, probably because he’d been the one taking the picture, but there was a grin on his face, too.
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