by Naima Simone
Numbly, I take the money, and with one more bruised glance, he stalks away, headed in the direction of the bathrooms and the alley that runs alongside the bar.
Good. This is good. He walked away before I could do something incredibly stupid like ask him what’s wrong. Leave myself open for him to dig in my life.
It all worked out the way it was supposed to.
And minutes later, when I shrug into my coat and trace the same path he took, it’s because I’m taking my last break of the night. Not to find out if he’s out there.
Maybe I would be able to believe my own lies if anticipation wasn’t speeding through my veins at just the thought of seeing him again.
Chapter Two
Jude
“Hell,” I snap, striding down the hallway that leads to the bathrooms and the exit with the red, blinking sign and its dark, blown-out X.
Pushing open the heavy steel door, I step out into the cold February night. It’s a balmy forty degrees out, and I’m thankful for the thick lining in the black peacoat I shrug on. Snow from the previous week stubbornly clings to dark corners near the green garbage dumpster and crowds up against the basement windows of the building across from the bar. Still, even the crisp wind and the small piles of snow can’t completely conceal the dank scents of trash and stale piss. I can imagine more than one customer venturing out here to take a leak when the bathroom isn’t available.
It smells awful. Which matches my mood perfectly.
My fingers curl around my cell, a tactile reminder of the reason I’m out here pacing in the alley. A reminder of why getting involved with another woman—even if just for a night—would be a mistake.
Ana had originally been a one-night stand. And now… I glance down at my phone, even though the text is cleared off the screen. Now I can’t escape my ex-girlfriend.
Sighing, I drag my hand through my hair, fisting the shorter strands at the back before dropping my arm. Anger, grief, the clawing-at-my-throat suffocation…they’ve all been my constant companions for too many years to count at one time or another. But lately—lately, they’ve gathered for a gangbang on my ass, and I’ve just been bending over and taking it.
And tonight, I’d come to The Rabbit Hole to escape it all—or at the very least drown it out in alcohol.
But then I’d seen her. The waitress. Ro.
If I’d had the sense God gave a doorstop, I would’ve sat my ass down in another section, ordered a drink from a server who isn’t a Mila Kunis doppelganger with curves more dangerous than the Talladega Superspeedway, and continued with my initial plan of getting blind drunk. Instead, I’d figured out which booth was hers and made the unwise decision of putting myself in her path.
I snort at the understatement of the century.
Unwise is leaving my classic, black 1970 Dodge Charger out on the street unlocked and the alarm disengaged. Unwise is ordering anything from The Rabbit Hole’s kitchen after midnight. Unwise is showing up late where I work at Hard Knox Ink, the tattoo shop my older brother owns, and risking an epic ass-chewing from Knox.
I’ve done all three at one time or another, so I know what I’m talking about. So with definite authority, I can state those are all foolish decisions.
But waylaying the new, hot-as-fuck waitress at the dive bar that not just my brother and the other artists from the shop patronize, but my ex tends to haunt, as well? That’s just stupid as hell. Justin-Bieber-pissing-in-a-bucket stupid as hell.
Maybe Ana’s text begging me to see her, to talk to her, was a blessing. A reality punch to the gut. I’m leaving Chicago in a matter of weeks. And knowing my luck, getting involved with anyone before I go could mean another “Ana” happening. Not worth the risk.
At twenty-seven, I know that the time I thought with my dick has long passed. So siding with common sense and leaving before I could cave into that grinding, dark lust Ro stirred in me is the best idea I’ve had in days. I can pick up a six-pack on the way home and get drunk in my apartment, where it’s probably safer. Yeah, I’m out…
“I know what you’re thinking.” A voice to my right that doesn’t carry a hint of Chicago in it slides under my coat and shirt to stroke phantom fingers over my suddenly fevered skin. Shocked, I spin around and meet the dry, slightly mocking smile of my waitress. “But I’m on my break, and after spending hours in that place, believe me, you would prefer the smell of garbage over body odor and fried food.”
Here’s where I should offer another apology and get the hell out of here. As I stare into those oval-shaped eyes, the words shrivel up and lie limp on my tongue, useless.
In the dim lighting of the bar, I presumed her eyes were dark like her hair. But illumination from the bare light bulb above the door disabuses me of that assumption. They’re blue—the denim of brand-new jeans—with striations of lighter shades running through them. I bet when she’s angry, laughing—turned on—those paler flecks burn brighter. If I were an honest man, I would admit that testing the hypothesis heads tonight’s to-do list. But lying to myself and others has sort of become second nature.
“I thought there was a break room here.” At least according to Hakim, one of the artists at the shop. A break room and a separate bathroom for employees. He should know since he’s screwed one or five of the waitresses in there.
She shrugs a shoulder. “There is, but that’s not really getting away. Not when other people come in and out. But here”—she lifts a shoulder again—“I can hear myself think. It’s the only quiet I’ll get in the six hours I’m working.”
I arch an eyebrow as the sounds of a Chicago night filter through the air—the honks of passing cars, laughter, and loud chatter from people heading to The Rabbit Hole or the all-night diner across the street, the barking of a stray dog.
The corner of her pretty mouth quirks. “It’s a virtual library compared to inside,” she drawls. “But anyway, I’m lying.” A small smile curves one corner of her mouth. Sliding her hands into the pockets of her camel-colored coat, she dips her chin. “You looked upset when you left. I came to see if you’re okay.”
My throat tightens at her nonchalant words. Which is just odd. Of my brothers, Knox is the selective mute. Hands down Connor is the charmer—was the charmer.
Was.
Pain slices through me like a razor-sharp blade dipped in fire, and I curl my fingers into a fist, breathing deeply. I crawl away from the reminder in a desperate mental crab-walk and focus on the woman standing in front of me like a shipwreck victim clawing at pieces of burning wreckage.
Focus on the sleek, dark bob that falls a couple of inches below a delicate chin with the slight indentation that’s a cleft but not a cleft. On the slashes of eyebrows and sensual, slumberous eyes that turn a lovely, almost ethereal face into strong, powerful…stunning. Or the elegant slope of her nose, the dent above her top lip that looks like God personally pressed his finger to, creating the dip.
On the just-a-shade-too-wide mouth with its lush, overtly sensual curves that any man could be forgiven for imagining slipping and sliding over his chest and stomach before parting under the pressure of his cock. And I’m a man with more imagination than most.
Lust shudders through me in hot, body-shaking ripples. Please God, let her attribute the shivering to the cold. Although, truth be told, I can’t feel the cold with need turning me into a human bonfire.
Glancing away from her, I narrow my eyes on the nearly empty parking lot and convenience store on the other side of the fence. But, almost in a middle finger salute to me, God sends a brisk wind my way that carries the sweet, dark scent of roses in full bloom and apples. And underneath, the headier musk of golden, slightly dampened skin. Her. I haven’t been up close and personal with her body—haven’t hid my face in that special, sensitive spot where a woman’s neck and shoulder connect—but somehow, I know it’s her. And now I have a preview of the fragrance that would be thicker, headier between her thighs if I parted them and buried my tongue inside her.
I gr
ind my teeth against the unwanted knowledge. God, 1. Me, 0.
“Why are you working here?” I ask the question harshly, more abruptly than I intended. But I’m fighting a losing battle against the grinding urge to press her against the battered brick wall behind her, claim that sin-and-temptation mouth, shove down those ass-and-thigh-hugging jeans, and push inside that hot, wet pussy until I bottom out.
Her shoulders straighten, and that gently dimpled chin notches up. “Because I need a check,” she says, the words carrying just enough bite to clue me in that I’m treading on sensitive ground like an overweight elephant.
I should back off, change the subject, or, I know, walk. The fuck. Away. But that itchy, restless thing that had me sitting in her section in the first place returns in full force, crackling underneath my skin and down my spine. It has me needing to push, to poke. To see those sky-blue striations in her denim eyes glow.
“You don’t belong here,” I state, my voice intentionally flat. Blunt. And truthful. She doesn’t. The impression struck me the minute I first saw her.
“Really?” She removes her hands from her pockets and crosses her arms. “And where, pray tell, do I belong?”
The sarcasm is as much of a warning to back off as her tone. Still, I ignore it. Maybe I’m purposefully trying to blow my chances of getting between her legs. Or maybe I just want to know more about her. This living, breathing dichotomy of delicacy and strength that has me more intrigued than I should be. Than I can afford to be.
“Somebody’s boardroom. Or a classroom. Or in an office with a view of Willis Tower and the skyline. That coat,” I add, nodding at her luxurious, wool outerwear that traces the sleek lines of her body and ends just above her knees. “No one who serves drinks and greasy food for a living could afford it.” I should know since I bought one similar to it for Mom a couple of years ago, and it’d set me back a cool fifteen hundred.
“There’s nothing wrong with serving drinks and greasy food,” she damn near growls. And fuck if that isn’t sexy. I want to hear that same sound wrapped around my name while her nails bite my back and her ankles ride my waist while I’m sinking balls-deep inside her.
My dick throbs in agreement even as my mind rails at me for the dirty, AVN Award-worthy images bombarding my brain.
“I didn’t say there was. Just that it isn’t you.” I move forward and gently but firmly grab her wrist, turning over her hand. Heat emanates from where I touch her. For the first time. It’s innocent, innocuous. But the pulling of my gut and hardening of my body say otherwise. As does the soft catch of her breath.
Tracing my touch over the slightly callused fingertips, I lift my head and meet her hooded gaze. This close, I glimpse the small mole that punctuates a corner of her mouth. Note the faint shadows bruising the skin under her eyes. Wonder what put them there. “These callouses are pretty new,” I murmur, continuing to trace the roughened skin. “And no doubt they match the ones on the bottom of your feet.”
She tugs back her hand, and I plow both of mine into my coat pockets. My fingers curl into my palms, trying to capture the memory of how soft and smooth her skin felt under mine.
“I thought you might need to vent about your shitty day, not my choice of career paths,” she snaps. And there are the specks of light blue. Like stars in a midnight sky.
Yeah, but as long as I’m standing outside keeping her talking about herself and inhaling her flowers-and-fruit scent, it prevents me from dwelling on the job offer my brother extended this afternoon. Or the career opportunity that’s waiting on me thousands of miles away from home, the flood of texts filling up my phone even now. The nightmare images of blood, tears, and pain that lurk in the darkness of my brain, anticipating the moment I close my eyes. Images from my past and my present.
“You have things you don’t want to talk about. Secrets.” I nod. “I get it. Sorry for prying.”
“You have things you don’t want to talk about, too,” she says softly.
Again, I nod, slower this time, part of me wondering what the hell was in that beer to have me admitting this to her. The other part…just wants her to make it better.
Apparently, I’ve lost my ball sac along with my mind.
“Look.” I rub a hand over the back of my neck, glancing from one side to the other. Maybe eying the mouth of the alley as an escape route. “Thanks for coming out here but—”
I break off, frowning as I catch the small shiver that ripples through her frame. Acting on instinct, I move forward, blocking her body from the wind with mine while shrugging out of my coat and draping it over her shoulders. I’m a born and bred Chicagoan, a Southsider, so forty degrees won’t break me. Though she has her own coat on, it’s made for a California fall, and mine will provide added warmth.
Her eyes flare, surprise and a flicker of heat sending those stars glittering again. An answering rush of desire pitches and heaves inside me.
“Tell me something you don’t want to talk about,” she murmurs, stepping closer. She tips her head back, and my gaze drops to her pretty mouth before lifting to meet her eyes.
I’m not into sharing. Hell, since I was twelve, my life has been about not sharing—
“My brother offered me a job opportunity that most people would kill for. Would be damn fools for passing up.” Shit.
For a moment, her eyes narrow as she silently studies me. “And you passed it up,” she says.
“Yeah.” And Knox’s disappointment when I turned him down still eats away at me.
“Why?”
Because for once in my life I want to be known as Jude Gordon, talented tattoo artist, instead of just “Hard Knox” Gordon’s younger brother.
Because my older brother’s shadow is a cold, lonely, invisible place to live, and lately it’s become uninhabitable.
The selfish, self-serving words shove against my vocal cords, but I push them back. Some things you can’t say aloud. They’re painful enough admitting to yourself because they sound whiney and ungrateful.
“I wasn’t completely honest with you earlier,” I rasp, needing to change the subject, to wash the bitter taste of failing the ones I love, the ones I’m supposed to protect, from my mouth. And she can do it. Her taste. Her tongue wrapped around mine. Her bare, smooth skin connected to mine by hard-won sweat. “True, when I walked into the bar tonight, I wanted a diversion, an escape. I saw you, and then wanted you. I wanted to fuck you.” I lower my head until her small puffs of breath forming soft clouds in the air ghost over my lips. “I still do.”
Chapter Three
Jude
Her eyes dilate until the midnight sky almost swallows up the stars. So I was wrong about how desire would affect her gaze. Need doesn’t light it up but darkens it.
I could drown in those bottomless blue depths.
“Does that put me in the same category as the other assholes in this place?” I ask, already knowing the answer to that question. It’s a resounding hell yes. But I push forward. Mainly because I can’t stop myself. With her, the stop button on my mouth—my brain—seems jammed, stuck. “Am I an asshole because I’m wondering if you’ll scream in bed, or will you moan your pleasure? Or maybe you don’t make a sound at all. I would be lying again if I said I don’t want to find out,” I murmur, aware that I could be forcing her to ditch me like LeBron abandoning the Cavaliers. Or I could be stoking that hunger I glimpsed, making it blaze fiercer, brighter. At the moment, I don’t know which one has me more on edge. Which one I want—or need—more. My indecision doesn’t stop my mouth from running, though. Apparently, it knows which option it’s voting for. “Does that make you want to slap my face? Tell me to fuck off? Or are you now picturing the same thing? You spread wide for me, thighs squeezing my head, fingers trying to tear my hair out as I tongue fuck you?”
Her lashes lower, hiding those amazing eyes from me as another shudder quakes through her body. This time, though, I doubt it’s from the cold. Not when a strangled half groan, half sob escapes from her. Not whe
n her hands grip the front of my shirt.
Not when she rises on her toes and opens her wet, hot mouth over the base of my throat.
“Goddamn,” I growl, my fingers tangling in her dark hair, fisting the strands, holding her to me. Electric pulses crackle up and down my spine, transforming me into a human tuning fork.
Her teeth graze my skin, and it’s not gentle or timid. No, that rake of teeth has a hint of meanness in it that has my dick hard enough to pound a nail through the brick wall behind us. I tighten my grip in her thick, soft-as-silk hair and jerk her head back.
And attack her mouth.
That’s the only accurate description of how my lips crash down over hers. How my tongue thrusts its way inside her like a conquering army laying siege to a fortified castle. Not that she’s just accepting this claiming. Hell no, she meets me stroke for stroke, lick for lick, suck for suck. It’s mortal combat, and we’re both taking no prisoners.
I’ve never been this close to coming from a kiss. A not-so-simple, incendiary kiss, but still… I can’t get enough of her, of the moans that trickle from her throat, of the demanding twists and licks.
Impatient for more, I angle my head and lift the hand not woven into her strands to her chin, pinching it and tugging her mouth open wider for me. Then I dive deeper. Take more. Twist and tangle my tongue around hers. The slick slip-and-slide has my gut clenching and pulling tight as if each sexual glide is another yank on my steadily unraveling control.
Damn, her taste. It’s an erotic confection of dirty promises made in the dark, of whispered fantasies…of the filthiest sex. She’s sweetness and musk. She’s water for the dying man and painful greed for the starving one.
In this one moment, she’s become that elusive high that’s forever chased but usually unattainable. But one I’ll willingly crash and burn pursuing.
Her teeth sink into my bottom lip, and the minute sting drags a rough grunt from me that’s more animalistic than human. She sweeps the tip of her tongue over the slightly abused flesh, then delivers a small flick to each corner of my mouth, my chin, my jaw. Every caress is a lick of flame over my chest, stomach, cock. I’m strung tighter than a notched arrow ready and eager to be loosed. It won’t take much to make me snap…