“I hate you’re right,” she stated, staring him direct in the eye. “But you’re right.”
There it was.
She was smart enough to know she couldn’t know everything. She wouldn’t always make the right calls. There were always things to learn.
But the fact she copped to it right away, looking him in the eye?
Predictable.
And surprising.
“It’s more, though, Judge,” she said. “Even if she was intentionally meaning to hurt, I think there was honesty behind some of the things she said, and I need to reflect on that.” She lifted a single shoulder and went on, “Maybe there will be times I can continue to be the big sister, but I’ve thought it, Mi said it out loud, and the truth is, she and Matt aren’t kids anymore. They need to take responsibility for their actions and emotions. My main drive is to fix, nurture, guide. But I have to think on if that’s my job anymore. Because at this point in their lives, it might not seem like that to them. It might just seem like meddling. Or worse, judgment.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
“So it’s time to bite my lip and let them be who they are.”
She looked like those words caused her pain to say.
Which meant he was grinning when he repeated, “Yeah.”
“You think this is funny?”
“I think it’s amazing how deeply you care for the people you love. And how hard it is for you not to interfere in their lives so they’ll be happy.”
“Hmm,” she hummed irritably. Then she asked, “You have a stepsister?”
“You didn’t learn that in your research?” he teased.
“No,” she said bluntly.
He nodded. “Dad’s second wife, she had a daughter from a previous marriage. I’m actually not surprised you didn’t know about her. Dad’s really protective of her, keeps her under wraps.”
“Name?”
“Dru. Drusilla. It’s apparently a family name.”
“And?”
His body started shaking at Chloe’s interrogation, though it felt hella good she was determined to know all about him.
“And…I like her. She’s nine years younger than me, so twenty. Her dad is a twat, which means she thinks of mine as her real dad even if her father refused to allow Dad to officially adopt her without paying through the nose for it, something Dad agreed to do, the price just kept increasing. Eventually he and Rosalind, his wife, decided that he didn’t need it to be official for him to be Dru’s father. So they told the guy to go fuck himself, and even now, after Rosalind is gone, they’re tight. Probably because, since she was little, they were a family.”
She was studying his face closely before she asked, “Are you okay with that?”
“With what?”
“With this girl being close to your dad?”
“You trying to invent ways to look after me?” he joked.
She didn’t come close to cracking a smile.
So Judge rounded her with his arms and pulled her closer, dipping his head to hers as well as his voice. “I’m good, Chloe. I can’t say I know Dru real well, but I like her. I think she’d also like me to be more brotherly, but she lives in NYC, and I live here, and Dad and I have baggage, so that isn’t easy. Dad adores her, she calls him Dad, so that says it all about how she feels about him, and the bottom line is that every kid needs parents who adore them, blood or not.”
“Including you.”
Yup.
Inventing ways to look after him.
“That didn’t entirely work out for me and I’m okay with it,” he reminded her. “It was what it was and now my life is how I want it. So it’s all good.”
She didn’t believe him, he could tell.
“Okay, you want a problem you can sink your teeth into?” he offered. “Rosalind died too young. Dad wasn’t rocked by it, he was crushed by it. He lives his life but he’s not even close to dealing with it in a way he can move on. So someday, when you meet him, you can take him in hand.”
Her eyes lit at the prospect.
Which obviously made Judge burst out laughing.
When he quit, she was glaring at him.
“Do I amuse you?” she asked.
He bent in and touched his lips to hers.
“Constantly.”
There was a knock on his door.
Chloe twisted and Judge leaned left to see his volunteer coordinator, Alex, peering in the window.
He jerked up his chin, and she opened the door.
“Mr. Pierce is here,” she said, her eyes darting between Chloe and Judge.
Gently, Judge pushed Chloe back a step, jumped off his desk, and introduced, “Alex, this is Chloe, my girlfriend. She’s also co-chairing this project with her dad, Tom Pierce. Chloe, this is the Volunteer Coordinator of the Kids and Trails program, Alexandra Sharp.”
“Hello there,” Chloe greeted, her voice smooth and rich and just the sound of it was intimidating, add the outfit and her manner, forget about it.
Alex, smart, dedicated, passionate, but shy and introverted, was intimidated.
“Hey.”
He was looking at Alex so he didn’t see it, but he felt something coming from Chloe.
To ascertain what it was, he looked down at her to see her gaze riveted to Alex, and even in profile, he saw that gaze was calculating.
She’d noted the intimidation, and she didn’t like it.
Maybe it was because Alex was cute and petite and curvy, along with that smart, dedicated and passionate that Chloe didn’t know about yet. Introversion was what it was, a part of who you were. Shyness often stemmed from other things, and he had no doubt Chloe knew that.
So she intended to get a handle on it.
Though, maybe it was something else.
But his woman was locking and loading, ready to roll, he felt it.
Doing this approximately five minutes after she committed to butting out of her siblings’ issues.
As such, he asked, “Are you serious?”
She jerked, rearranged her face and looked up at him.
“What?” she inquired with sham innocence.
“Yo, Alex,” he heard Rix say, this dragging his attention from his woman.
And he saw Alex scurrying out of Rix’s way like he’d surprised the hell out of her as he rolled into the doorframe.
This meant Alex slammed into the door.
Rix didn’t seem to notice.
Sometimes, Rix wore his prosthetics. Lately, since he’d just introduced them to his cadre of mobility choices, so he was training on them and getting used to them, when they went for a run together, Rix wore his running blades. Sometimes, he was in his chair.
There were often obvious reasons for his decisions. Rix had a highly mobile chair, so he could go on hikes in it, but usually, he wore his legs. But he rarely wore them to work.
Judge had no clue why he’d choose one or the other.
He didn’t ask. He thought it was too personal.
If Rix wanted to share, he would.
If he never did, that was his prerogative.
So he was just about to greet his bud, who had important things to input, therefore he was going to attend this meeting, when he felt the back of Chloe’s hand brush his.
This was because she swayed.
His attention went back to her.
Oh shit.
He turned to Rix.
For a second, he didn’t get it.
Then he took in both of the people in his office door and he did.
Oh shit.
“Yo, Chloe,” Rix greeted Chloe as Alex stared at him like she didn’t know if she should get on her hands and knees and genuflect or if she should tackle him in a way that Chloe and Judge would need to give them the room. Rix looked up at Judge. “We doin’ this, or what?”
“Alexandra,” Chloe drawled her name, wrapping it around her tongue like it was a delicious treat.
A delicious treat Rix should try.
“Are you
attending this meeting with us?” she queried.
“Uh…yeah. I’m, uh…taking notes.”
Alex was a mess because she was trapped by the door and Rix’s chair and couldn’t get away from him.
Jesus Christ.
How had he not seen this?
“Excellent. I wish to know all about volunteering for Kids and Trails. I know!” Chloe clapped. Judge pressed his lips together. Rix’s brows drew down over his eyes. “How about, after the presentation, the four of us go to a late lunch?”
“Babe,” Judge growled.
“I already ate lunch,” Rix said.
“Me too!” Alex nearly shouted, her voice pitched so high, even Rix swung his head to look at her.
Rix knew her. They worked for the same company. She worked closely with Judge. Rix was close to Judge. He often helped with the Kids and Trails program.
But outside of understanding she existed and them sharing the same spheres on a frequent basis, that was as far as it went.
And now, with Rix’s gaze on her, something Alex was studiously avoiding, she was in hell and her blazing cheeks shared how hot it was.
Damn.
Chloe was not to be thwarted. “Perhaps another time. We’ll plan. Soon.”
Judge waded in. “Your dad’s here, babe. Let’s get this party started.”
She looked up at him. “Let’s.”
He widened his eyes at her in a stand down gesture.
She tipped her head to the side in a I’ll do as I wish gesture.
“Sorry…oh! Sorry!”
They both looked to the door.
Rix and Alex were doing a dance where Alex was trying desperately to escape, attempting to do this squeezing past him, which only caused Rix the inability either to shift in further or reverse, so he could get out of the way without running into her.
“Stand still,” Rix growled.
Alex played a statue it pained Judge to witness.
Rix backed out, looking ticked.
Fuck.
“Sorry,” Alex muttered miserably, dashing away from him to finally make good her escape.
Fuck.
It was impossible for Rix to avoid his change in life circumstances. And it wasn’t something he’d lived with for decades. It had only happened a couple of years ago.
That said, it was Judge’s opinion that, even if there were blips, and he was concerned some of them ran deeper than Rix was letting on (at least to the point of sharing with Judge), he handled things incredibly well.
He wasn’t totally adjusted, emotionally, mentally (even though he was physically).
But as far as Judge knew, he was good.
It was when people acted like he was an invalid, a different sort of person you were uncomfortable around or needed to be painfully polite to, it visibly pissed him off.
And Alex was that way a lot.
Now Judge knew why.
He reckoned it was one of the reasons, once they got over their tiff, Rix liked Chloe quickly and unreservedly.
He was not a disabled man to her.
He was a man to her.
Alex was being awkward because she was into Rix.
Rix just saw the awkward and that made him angry.
Which of course made matters worse for Alex.
Christ.
“Mm,” Chloe hummed as she caught his hand and they moved to the door.
He knew with that Mm she didn’t know Rix or Alex well at all, and she’d still sussed all this out.
“Let it go,” he ordered under his breath, moving with her to follow Rix who was rolling toward the conference room.
“Let what go?” Chloe asked, eyes fixed on Rix, and in front of him, a scampering Alex.
“She’s not his type,” he told her the truth, slowing their gait so they’d fall back, and Rix wouldn’t hear.
That was when she looked up at him. “Not his type?”
“No.”
“You mean adorable, and although lusciously curved, his strength is such, he could, perchance, when she was trying to run away from him, likely catch her, throw her over his shoulder, or, say, toss her on his bed? That’s not his type?”
Rix liked leggy, which Alex was not.
He liked ass, which Alex had in abundance.
He also liked blondes, which Alex was not.
But any man liked a lot of hair, and Alex had that, though it was a reddish brown. A shiny, healthy, reddish brown she wore up in a ponytail most of the time, but Judge had seen it down and it was something.
Rix was also an outside guy. He exclusively saw women who weren’t only down with hiking, camping, kayaking and the like, they were seriously into it.
Alex’s shrine was the out of doors. Sometimes, Judge thought she got itchy when she had to be inside too long. She took a walk on her lunch hour every day, and if they had a working lunch at some restaurant, she always piped up and asked for outside seating.
And they weren’t this type of bros, but things slipped, and he sensed Rix was probably even more dominant in bed than Judge was.
Alex was so shy, not to mention somewhat obsessive compulsive, it was just a guess, but probably a good one that she needed a man to take control so she could let go.
So a little thing with lots of hair and a round ass he had to chase, expend the effort to break through and then toss on his bed who maybe would complain Rix didn’t camp often enough (when he did it all the time)?
Fuck.
Even if Judge liked this, he’d lived through Rix losing the love of his life along with his legs.
Rix was not the kind of man who wanted for company.
That said, getting laid by a man like Rix, and taking on a man who lost the career he was dedicated to, the woman he was going to marry and his legs in the expanse of a few months, and what all that might mean to the now and a future wasn’t as attractive to most women.
He worried Rix wouldn’t have the patience for Alex.
And he knew Alex’s reserve and timidity would be hard to break through.
So he wasn’t sure either of them were ready for this.
Especially Rix.
“Stop it,” he ordered.
All Chloe did was again hum, “Mm.”
He let it go because they were walking hand in hand into the conference room.
Chloe only let him go when she greeted her dad, then Duncan.
They then sat down to do their presentation, and he was not surprised they knocked it out of the park.
With barely any discussion, they got the greenlight.
And during it, Rix, who’d not only visited a lot of forests in his previous occupation, as noted, he was an avid outdoorsman and liked to travel, gave his spiel about the trails in Cali and New Mexico he thought would work for the additional footage, including doing a slide presentation of pictures he took when he was in those places.
With Alex hanging on his every word.
Oh yeah.
Shit.
* * *
Late that night, Judge did his best to let Chloe have time before he took over.
He went the extra mile.
But her mouth was so sweet, eventually, he couldn’t hack it.
So when she was on an upward glide of his dick, he caught her under her arms, hauled her up his body…then to her adorable noise of frustration, he rolled them so she was on her back in his bed, and he was on her.
He then reached to his nightstand for a condom.
“I wasn’t done,” she huffed, even as she opened her legs for him, and his hips fell through.
“You were done,” he pointed out the obvious.
“Judge—”
“Coco,” he put his mouth to hers, “quiet.”
She gave him the stink eye, even if it was completely invalidated by her hands grabbing his ass.
Which meant he was fighting a smile as he dealt with the condom.
Then he slid inside her.
Christ.
That look on her face, the same she
had last night, when he first took her…
Fuck.
He started moving.
She anchored him to her with a long leg wrapped around his back.
Even so, he whispered, “Hold on.”
And the smile he got at that nearly made him come.
He didn’t.
Not until she did.
And then he let himself have it.
And as with anything with Chloe.
It was spectacular.
All of it.
Chapter 23
The Calm
Judge
Two days later…
“I can’t even…”
Judge had no more words.
Regardless if he did, he didn’t have it in him to give them.
This was because it was an imperative to shovel the scrambled eggs Chloe made him in his mouth.
She sat with him at her island, ate lazily and watched as he wolfed his food down.
She was wearing a smirk.
She knew how good those eggs were.
“It’s better if you prolong the pleasure,” she said with purposefully ironic timing.
He had one bite left.
He ate it.
Tender. Fluffy. Rich.
The best eggs he’d had in his life.
Only then did he ask, “How did you make those?”
“You don’t want to know,” she answered.
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want to know.”
“Then I made them the French way.”
“And that would be?”
She picked up a piece of bacon, also perfectly crisped, and broke it in half. “A squeeze of lemon, cooked slowly, whisking constantly, in one tablespoon of butter per egg.”
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