by Unknown
“Beautiful,” he mumbled when he lifted his head a moment later and studied what he’d done to her. Her nipples ached. She wanted his mouth back on her. “Prettiest breasts in existence.”
“Jude,” she moaned, and she sounded angry to her own ears. She palmed his head and pulled him down to her forcefully. And then it was happening: their mouths melding, tongues tangling in a deep, wet, completely intoxicating first kiss. He came down onto her, pressing her into the mattress. He felt so hard, like every muscle in his body was coiled tight, and ready to spring.
She writhed against him, loving every new nuance of how they felt together, drowning in the evidence of his obvious desire for her. She couldn’t get enough of his taste. He nudged her naked sex with his heavy cock. She groaned, straining against him. He felt long, rigid and ready. She twisted her head, consuming his mouth at a different angle, digging her nails into his scalp. It almost felt like a restrained struggle, like they were fighting on that bed, their bodies seeking and pressing and writhing, years of longing suddenly liberated in a concentrated blast. Some primal force flowed through her, and she was powerless to stop it.
She abruptly pulled her mouth from his and stared at his rigid face, panting. She circled her exposed sex against the heavy erection behind his pants.
“Fuck me, Jude. Please…Just get this damn thing done.”
A muscle jumped in his lean cheek as he looked down at her. Then he was pushing himself off her and unbuttoning his shirt.
“No,” she insisted, sitting up slightly and stopping him. She reached down to his pants and cupped his balls, then ran her hand along the long shaft of his cock. A shudder of pure arousal seemed to go through them simultaneously. Jesus. He was big and heavy. For her. She met his stare. “Now,” she invoked.
His glance raked over her, lingering on her bare breasts and then her exposed crotch. He cursed, pressed his mouth together hard and pushed himself off the bed. He took out his wallet, moving rapidly. Condom pocketed in one palm, he fleetly unbuckled his belt and went about ridding himself of his shoes and pants. A second later, she watched, her lungs burning, as his cock sprang free of his boxer shorts.
She wasn’t surprised at his size. Teenage girls talked. Possibly even more than teenage guys did. Esme had been friends with plenty of his old girlfriends. Jude’s cock—and what he did with it—was legendary in Tahoe Shores. But his masculinity was a new, stark revelation to her in that moment. She’d known him all these years, and yet only glimpsed the edges of him. She almost called out in protest when he began to roll the condom over his erection. He was so beautifully shaped, so potent. She despised the idea of even the thin separation between them.
Then he was crawling back on the bed, his expression burning and hard, and she was opening for him. He pressed against her entrance, lodging himself there and pausing. He hooked her knees on his forearms and leaned down over her, his hands cupping her hips.
He entered her slowly.
She cried out at the feeling of him penetrating her. She gritted her teeth and lifted her head, watching him sink into her. Her hazy world suddenly became utterly clear and lucid. He stretched and filled her until her head fell back to the mattress and she let out a muted, frustrated scream of anguished arousal. She looked up at his hovering face while he flexed his hips, and his balls pressed tight against her outer sex.
“Fuck,” he bit out viciously, clamping his eyelids shut.
He opened them a second later. “This is what you wanted?” he demanded.
“Yes,” she managed.
“It’s been a long time coming,” he said, before he began to thrust.
His upper body remained mostly immobile while his hips flexed, fucking her in short, firm strokes. He watched her with a burning stare as she panted and struggled to match him. But he held her hips and legs firmly, preventing her from moving much. It drove her mad. She wanted to thrash and bite at him. Scream at him. Tempt him to her. But he wouldn’t let her.
She was reminded again of his strength, a lean, precise kind of power. He held her at his mercy, his cock piercing her in rapid strokes. She moaned helplessly.
“God, you’re tight. And warm. I knew you would be, but Jesus,” he grated out from above her. He sounded mad at her for it.
She lifted her head, mesmerized by the image of his cock piercing her. He abruptly pulled out of her, his cock bobbing upward. He shifted his hips and immediately penetrated her again. She screamed in surprised pleasure.
He did it again, withdrawing and then sinking into her with bulls’ eye precision. They groaned in unison. Again, he popped out of her. This time, she freed her hips sufficiently to meet him on his down stroke. He plunged into her deep, his ragged roar ringing in her ears. His hands dropped down next to her head and he was leaning over her, thrusting harder now. Savagely.
She blinked, willing her vision to clear, her rocking world to steady. She drank in the vision of him. He paused, filling her—overfilling her. He leaned down and nuzzled her temple.
“Why are you looking at me like that, baby?” he whispered harshly in her ear.
“I want to remember. I want to remember you like this,” she replied, gripping his head with both hands and drawing him down to her mouth.
Chapter Five
She awoke to the sensation of a dry, sandpapery mouth and radiating heat. Her head felt like a bowling ball. Wincing, she came up on her elbow with effort. Some instinct told her to stay very quiet. Instead of loudly spitting a tendril of her own hair out of her mouth, she used her fingers to swipe it away silently. She stared at luxurious closed curtains. Sunlight peeked around the edges of them. She took in the couch…and the coffee table.
The coffee table.
Eyes springing wide in recognition, she warily looked over her shoulder.
Oh, dear God, no.
What the hell have I done?
The steady source of heat became abundantly clear to her. Jude Beckett pressed to her backside, his eyes closed, an appealing morning shadow of dark whiskers on his jaw and upper lip. Her heart seemed to die in her chest. She glanced lower. A sheet draped across his lower hips, but it couldn’t have been clearer that he wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing on his long, muscular body.
Disjointed images and sensations flashed through her mind. Panicked, she reached for her thighs, her fingers encountering leather. He hadn’t removed her pants entirely, only the breakaway.
He hadn’t seen.
Relief made her feel dizzy and nauseous at once.
For a few seconds, she remained as still as she could, her mind spinning as she struggled to keep the acid contents of her stomach in place. Then, holding her breath, she slowly eased out of Jude’s arms.
Five minutes later, she plunged into her own room at the hotel. Relief swept through her at the evidence that Thor hadn’t stayed the night, waiting for her. She really didn’t know him very well. For all she knew, he took her absence as an invitation for a free night at a luxury hotel. She wouldn’t really blame him, given her rudeness in standing him up. But apparently, she’d been underestimating Thor by suspecting that. The room was empty, the beds made. She clumsily locked the door and stumbled into the bathroom, where she was hideously sick.
Miserable minutes later, she used the toilet to steady herself while she stood. Her eyes watered. Her limbs felt shaky and weak. She stared at her pale face in the bathroom mirror, disgusted by what she saw.
She hadn’t gotten that drunk or sick since her first night away at college. The excitement, stress and awkwardness of starting college and hanging out with the strangers from her dorm had gotten the best of her. She’d cockily told three other girls she was positive she could get them served at a local dive. When she’d succeeded in her boast, she’d proceeded to make a fool of herself by drinking way too much. That night was one of the reasons she typically didn’t overdrink.
But even at eighteen, she hadn’t been this stupid.
She’d slept with Jude.
&nb
sp; “What the hell is wrong with you?” she accused her image bitterly. In spite of her angry scolding, memories popped into her brain of them having sex, some of them vividly sharp, some of them hazy…all of them intensely, overwhelmingly erotic.
She couldn’t think about it right now. She needed to clean up and get out of there, before…
Before what?
She paused in the process of whipping her blouse over her head. What did she think? That Jude was going to come down here and demand to see her? Chances were, he probably was more horrified at what they’d done than she was.
Stand up, baby. Turn around. If you won’t let me take those damn pants off all the way, then I want to see you from the back while I’m inside you.
Arousal shot through her with shocking accuracy, causing her to clamp her thighs together, bend her knees slightly, and groan in misery. Oh, Jesus. We did it more than once!
And Jude had never called her baby before. He’d done it several times last night, she was suddenly quite sure. Each time, what should have been a cliché had sounded incredibly exciting, possessive, and unique uttered in his deep, desire-roughened voice.
He’d made her feel treasured.
The graphic memory sobered her. The boundaries of her mistake had just widened immeasurably. It frightened her that many of the details were still murky. Part of her wished those memories would remain forever in the dark.
She finished undressing and draped a towel around her. Another wave of nausea swept through her. She sat on the edge of the bathtub, breathing shallowly, trying to calm her protesting stomach.
After the nausea had subsided some, she gingerly moved the towel upward and spread her thighs. Her fingers brushed against the secret message there, just half an inch above where shorts would normally fall. She leaned down to read the small, dark red letters enclosed in a heart.
A moan of pure misery escaped her throat. She’d branded herself a fool, a stupid, infatuated girl, for a lifetime. She clenched her eyelids shut, tears squeezing out onto her cheeks. But the message, tattooed on her inner thigh—on her very heart—since she was an impulsive, wild sixteen-year-old girl remained burned behind her closed eyelids.
JB4EVR.
Three months later
The first thing she saw when Esme left the secure area of the Reno airport was Sadie standing at the bottom of the escalator, waiting for her. Sadie stood there with her hands deep in the pockets of a brown suede and sheepskin coat, appearing as cool and regal as always, despite her faded jeans and scuffed boots. She looked like she might have just walked off the set of a gritty, yet glamorous western set on a ranch. Secret, admiring glances were being thrown Sadie’s way from the small, waiting crowd. Esme wasn’t sure if the looks were due exclusively to her older sister’s celebrity status. At five foot nine inches tall, with long, coltish legs, tousled golden hair framing kill-worthy cheekbones, plump, unadorned lips and large, soulful brown eyes, Sadie drew looks like those as a matter of course, Hollywood star status or not.
Simmering sibling rivalry aside, Esme was thrilled to see her. She adored Sadie, even if Jude Beckett had made them into Eskimo sisters in addition to biological ones.
Yuck. So gross. Do not think about that.
A big part of her resented Jude like hell for erecting a partial barrier between herself and her sister, way before Beverly Hills ever happened. Esme had never told Sadie what she’d seen by the pool that day years ago. The secret made a difference to Esme, and that, in turn, had taken a toll on her and Sadie’s relationship.
Nevertheless, she rushed into her older sister’s open arms. Sadie hugged her so tight, Esme couldn’t breathe for a full three seconds. That was Sadie for you. So cool and in control on the outside. But for those she loved, Sadie’s passions ran deep and powerful.
They broke apart, but still held each other loosely, both of them grinning identical grins at each other. They studied each other for a few seconds. Esme brushed her fingers through Sadie’s blonde, butterscotch, caramel and light brown tendrils, as admiring as all the strangers around them of how awesome Sadie’s shimmering hair looked next to the rugged sheepskin and brown suede.
“You got a good tan in Vietnam,” Esme said. “Did it go well?”
“I’m exhausted.”
“I’ll bet. You’ve lost weight.”
“It was grueling. We worked fourteen, sometimes sixteen hour days for months.”
“Tyrant director,” Esme scowled.
Sadie laughed brightly and kissed Esme’s cheek before pulling back and taking her hand. “I missed you, Es. Tell you what, I’ll sic you on the tyrant the next time we’re both in L.A., invite you to a cocktail party where I know he’ll be or something. It’ll do me good to see my little sister tell one of biggest directors in Hollywood what a swine he is for expecting me to work as hard as everyone else on the set.”
“He’d deserve it,” said Esme with a sniff, shifting her bag on her shoulder and walking side by side with Sadie.
“So, do you have any idea—”
“None. I was about to ask you the same thing,” Sadie replied, giving her a sideways glance. There was anxiety in her sister’s expression. Esme understood that. She was very worried herself. All she knew is that she’d received a call from her mother two weeks ago. Ilsa Esterbrook had mysteriously told her that she was calling a family meeting, and that she expected all three girls to be home for Christmas. No excuses. When Esme had demanded to know why (repeatedly), Ilsa would only say that she had news.
“You just came from home?” Esme asked as they entered the baggage claim area.
“Yeah. I got there last night.”
“And you haven’t got a clue? Not even a tiny hint?” She grabbed her sister’s arm, and Sadie paused. “Mom doesn’t look sick or anything, does she?” Esme asked under her breath, dread in her tone.
Sadie shook her head.
Esme swallowed thickly, thinking of her mother rambling around that huge Tahoe home, missing her father for different reasons in each room.
“Depressed?” she prodded.
“To be honest, she looks great,” Sadie said. She did a double take when she noticed Esme’s preoccupied expression. “What?”
“I thought the same thing when we were here on Labor Day,” Esme said as they resumed walking through the airport. “I mean, she seemed sad sometimes, of course. But there were a few times that if I didn’t know how flattened she was by Dad’s death, I’d have said she was…”
Sadie gave her a pointed glance when she faded off.
“Glowing,” Esme finished hesitantly at last.
The Esterbrook home was nestled in Sierra Estates, a wooded community of twenty homes set on a large track of land along Tahoe’s north shore. The residences shared a community clubhouse and gardens for parties and gatherings, along with a stretch of white sand beach—the location of thousands of happy summertime memories for Esme and her sisters. She stared out the passenger window of her mother’s Tesla while Sadie drove through the front gates of their complex. Almost everywhere she looked was as familiar to her as the back of her hand…
And yet things were changing, too.
“The Saderthwaites finally sold?” she said disbelievingly, staring at an empty lot and mountains of dirt that had used to contain an older split-level home. That depression in the ground made her feel like a hole opened up in her stomach. When Esme and Sadie were young, four of the twenty homes on the established property had been older vacation homes that had been passed on through several generations of families. Despite the modesty and seasonal quality of these four homes, the properties themselves were worth millions of dollars because of their desirable locations near the lake and private beach. The families who owned them were regularly being offered outrageous sums so that the old vacation homes could be torn down, and large, luxurious houses, like the Esterbrook’s, built in their place.
“Yeah,” Sadie sighed. “Mom told me Doug and Ava took the pile of money from the sale and re
tired to Arizona, now that Elle is married and Finn has moved to Boston.”
“But Saderthwaites have lived there for three generations,” Esme said sadly as Sadie continued down the curving drive. There was snow in the distant mountains, but none had fallen yet at the Tahoe basin. Most of the houses had cheerful Christmas lights decorating their expansive lawns. It was just before sunset. Behind the towering pines, Esme could see the familiar pink and gold tinted sky as the sun began to dip behind the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
“I know. Grandpa Joe’s place is the only old vacation lodge left on the place. I can’t see him selling Beckett Lodge, though. He’ll pass it on to Z and Jude, for sure. I can’t imagine coming home and not seeing or visiting that old house.”
Esme braced herself against the inevitable mention of Jude’s name, staring out the window without responding.
Of course she’d known she’d hear his name often on this trip. She’d hardened herself to the idea that she’d be reminded of him constantly. It was inescapable, what with Stephen and Grandpa being next door at the Beckett Lodge. Plus, nearly everything her gaze landed on in Tahoe Shores brought up memories of Jude. But what else could she do? Her mom had requested the family meeting, and she had to come, despite all the reminders in the world.
After that impulsive, drunken, regrettable…embarrassing night she’d spent with Jude in Beverly Hills, she’d done her best to avoid him. She’d packed up and left her hotel room in a flurry of haste. He’d texted her just as she was pulling off US 101 to Chinatown toward her loft. Dread mingled with her hangover when she saw it was him texting, amplifying her nausea all over again.
DID YOU REALLY JUST LEAVE WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING?
I’M SORRY, she texted back while she waited at a stoplight. I HAVE AN IMPORTANT FITTING AT THE WAREHOUSE I NEED TO MAKE.
There was a pause in which her dread swelled.
ARE YOU BLOWING ME OFF?
Knowing Jude as she did, she sensed the incredulity in his brief words, not to mention a rising, focused anger. Feeling both helpless and annoyed, she texted quickly.