by Aly Martinez
“You’re crazy,” I informed, because I was starting to think she really was.
She aimed that brilliant, white smile in my direction and coupled it with a wink.
A. Fucking. Wink.
Christ, you didn’t even have to work at Guardian to catch the crazies. Apparently, it seeped through the floors and infected the neighbors too.
“Am I, Jude?”
I raked a hand through the top of my hair. “I’m thinkin’ it’s a strong possibility.”
“Because those were the exact words you said”—she swayed her sexy, smiling face from side to side as she corrected herself—“or actually slurred to me on Friday night when I was freaking out.”
I turned to stone, but my mind suddenly found the superhuman strength to concentrate on something that wasn’t her mouth or her body. “Wait. What? I said that to you? About what? What were you freaking out about?”
She shook her head and turned to the door. Then she paused to peek at me over her shoulder. “You’re real. This guy. Friday night and again right now. It’s who you really are.” She barked an I-told-you-so laugh. “I knew it!”
Yep. Pure fucking head case.
“What does that mean?” I shouted, lunging for the door, but she was already squeezing through it. “You can’t leave me with that bullshit,” I said, following her out. “Quit playing goddamn games and tell me what the fuck happened Friday night already.”
She didn’t reply.
Someone else did though.
“Friday night?” Johnson rumbled as he suddenly appeared beside the door.
Chapter Fourteen
Rhion
“Shit!” I yelled, jumping back at least a foot and slamming into Jude’s chest as he emerged from the stairwell. “Don’t scare me like that!” I gave Johnson a hard shove, which did absolutely nothing to move him out of my path.
But that was completely okay with me. I wasn’t going anywhere. Not after Jude’s arm had protectively wrapped around my waist.
Johnson didn’t miss it. His gaze pointedly dropped to the hand splayed across my stomach then back up to Jude. “Something I should know about Friday night?”
My huge smile returned. “Yes. Actually—”
Jude’s hand spasmed as he told Johnson, “You and me should talk. In private.”
I glanced over my shoulder and found his stoic gaze locked on Johnson.
“I’m thinkin’ that’d be good,” Johnson replied, menacingly cocking his head. “Though I’m thinkin’ that conversation should have happened before whatever the fuck happened on Friday night.”
“Agreed,” Jude replied curtly. “But it didn’t. So now’s gonna have to do.”
Wait. Wait. What?
“What conversation?” I asked, swinging my gaze between the two equally pissed-off men.
Jude’s arm tightened around me as he murmured, “Go home. I’ll be down in a little while.”
While my insides flashed warm about the idea of him being “down in a little while,” I was still confused about what Jude and Johnson were going to chat about.
And the longer I thought about it, the less I wanted said talk to happen. Johnson knew entirely too much about me. Things I’d eventually fill Jude in on. Keyword: eventually. No one saddles the new man in their life with baggage right out of the gate. And, after that little pinning-me-against-the-wall bit in the stairwell, I had every intention of making Jude the new man in my life.
“I’m not going anywhere. You two have nothing to talk about,” I announced.
“Babe,” Johnson answered at the same time Jude said, “Sweetheart.”
“Don’t alpha pet-name me!” I exclaimed. “You two have nothing to talk about. Actually, as of right this second, Jude, I forbid you from ever talking to Johnson.”
Jude’s chest got tight at my back, and when I glanced up, he was staring down at me like I had three heads.
“Never,” I confirmed just to make sure he understood the seriousness of this situation.
His eyes turned dark, and not in the sexy way—well, okay, it was still pretty sexy, but also a little scary too.
“You forbid me?” he said slowly.
“Prohibit. Ban. Outlaw. I also forbid you from listening to him. If he starts talking, you run. Got it?”
“Run?” he asked, incredulous. His expression remained hard, but when I nodded, his lips twitched.
Gorgeous.
I couldn’t afford to get lost on Jude’s mouth until I was positive my point had been made. “Sprint. Race. Dash.”
Johnson piped up. “Babe, he works for me. He can’t run every time he sees me.”
I kept my focus on Jude. And this was because he was still holding me securely against his chest and still staring down at me, but his face had softened, so I was back to having only one head.
When my cheeks heated, I hid it by looking back to Johnson. “Right, okay. Well, you work for me. So, how about this? I forbid you from talking to Jude. You can listen to him though. That should make things slightly less awkward around the office.”
Johnson stared at me blankly and announced, “I don’t work for you.”
I scoffed. “Oh, really? Did the adoption paperwork come through and I don’t know about it yet?”
Jude’s body turned to stone. “Adoption paperwork?”
Johnson smirked and shrugged. “I refused to marry her.”
Jude released me so fast that you’d have thought he’d been struck by lightning.
“Marry her?” he breathed ominously.
I spun to face Jude. “It wasn’t a real proposal.”
He gripped the back of his neck and clipped, “A fake proposal, then. That’s good to know.” Only he said it in a way that said that it really wasn’t good to know.
Nerves buzzed in my stomach and, as they seemed to do so often with Jude, escaped in the form of words. “I was just trying to save some money, so I asked him to move in.”
Jude’s eyes darkened—in the scary way.
“I mean…not like that. We would have had separate bedrooms and sneak people in in the middle of the night. I’m not his type anyway. Full disclosure: I thought he was hot when I first met him, because look at him.” I pointed toward Johnson.
Utter disbelief flashed on Jude’s face.
Uh Oh. I kept rambling. “But then we started spending time together and it turned into something totally different.”
“Right,” Jude snapped.
Shit! “No! Not that kind of different. I mean, we’re tight, but I’ve never seen him naked. Except that one time…”
I thought his eyes would bulge from his head.
I waved the rest of the thought off. “You know what? That doesn’t even count. It was an accident.”
Johnson chuckled behind me.
How could I write one-hundred-thousand-word novels but not string together a complete thought to explain my relationship with Johnson. What the hell was wrong with me?
Oh, right. Jude.
“He likes men!” I finally blurted.
Jude blinked, and Johnson let out a burst of curses.
“Which…there’s nothing wrong with.” Why can’t I shut up! “I just don’t have the right equipment for that. But that’s okay. Once I got to know him, I quickly realized that he wasn’t my type, either. Not to say that he’s not a real catch. He’d make someone a great husband. Unfortunately, his boyfriend didn’t realize that and cheated on him about a year ago.”
“Jesus Christ,” Johnson mumbled.
Jude’s eyebrows popped up in an unbelievably sexy display of shock.
Surprise, surprise. My mouth kept moving. “I still want to egg his house, but Johnson refuses to take me.”
Suddenly, Jude’s mouth twitched and his face gentled.
“Rhion, stop fucking talking,” Johnson growled.
“I can’t!” I slapped a hand over my mouth.
“I think what she means is we aren’t together, Levitt. I’m her bodyguard.”
Jude’s lip
s turned up in a full grin as I nodded, my face so hot with embarrassment it was a wonder I didn’t spontaneously combust. “Yeah. That,” I mumbled from behind my hand.
“Paragraphs,” he grunted, tugging me against his chest.
I went willingly, keeping my mouth closed. Partially because I feared what else would come out. Partially because, as his arms folded around me, my nerves faded away.
“Now that we’ve got my life story out of the way, someone wanna to fill me in on what the fuck is going on here?” Johnson demanded.
“Well, ” I started.
“Quiet, Butterfly,” Jude rumbled as his arms flexed around me.
My breath caught in my throat. Butterfly. I didn’t even care that it had been preceded by a rude order to be quiet. He was sober. And I was still Butterfly.
Oh my God.
I curled in closer, a huge smile splitting my mouth.
“I got drunk,” he announced to Johnson. “Went back to Rhion’s on Friday night. I don’t remember much. And she’s refusing to fill me in. But, as you can see, some things happened between us. But, if what Rhion so eloquently told me about you two is true, then none of it’s your concern.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Everything to do with her is my concern.”
Uh oh.
“I’m starving!” I said on a rush. “We should probably get inside before all the food’s gone.” I grabbed Jude’s hand and started toward the door.
Only Jude was huge and had me by a lot of inches and a lot of pounds. So, instead of following me in, he remained rooted in place.
“Come on. I bring breakfast so I can hang out with the guys every Friday morning. Besides, don’t you have a team meeting?” I hooked a thumb over my shoulder and partitioned my mouth off with a hand while saying loudly, “I hear the boss is a real dick if you’re late.”
Jude’s lips did that twitch I was quickly falling in love with, and when I released a dreamy sigh, it transformed into a full grin.
“I do have a meeting,” he confirmed.
“Maybe we can talk tonight? I could make dinner,” I offered, hope swirling inside me.
“I can’t.”
“Oh. Um…that’s okay. Some other time.”
“Val. She’s flying in tonight,” he stated as if I should have remembered.
“Oh, right. The phone call.” I smiled sheepishly. “Is she by chance a Pomeranian?”
He laughed. “What? No. She’s my stepdaughter.”
My hand jumped to my mother’s diamond as I quietly asked, “Like your wife’s daughter?”
He smirked knowingly and tucked a stray hair behind my ear. “Ex-wife’s daughter.”
“Oh,” I breathed.
“Let’s get you inside and out of the cold,” he said, placing a hand on the small of my back to guide me with him.
I strategically avoided Johnson’s gaze. I’d deal with his shit later. Right then, I had Jude—my Jude, not the asshole Jude. I was going to take full advantage of it.
When we got inside the office, Jude’s smile fell away almost as fast as his hand.
I hated it because all I wanted to do was walk in and introduce my new guy to all of my friends. However, they were his coworkers and Jude didn’t seem like the type who would be big on PDA. Not to mention that teensy, tiny problem: He wasn’t actually my new guy.
Not yet, anyway.
For ten minutes, I felt Jude watching me as I made my way around the room, exchanging hugs and conversation with everyone. He kept his distance, but it was always the same distance. I moved. Jude moved with me. It was kind of sweet.
When I’d finished making my rounds, I sat down and went to work on a blueberry muffin. Jude walked past the two chairs on either side of me and settled into the one at the end of the table. Turning to the side, he crossed his long legs ankle to knee.
I bit my lip to stifle a laugh. He was wearing one navy dress sock and one black.
“You know,” I said, sliding down the table with my plate until I was in the chair beside him. “Avoiding me is going to ping on more radars than just talking to me.”
“Two sentences. I’m impressed. And I’m not avoiding you. I’m observing.”
“Funny. I’m observing you too.” I pointed to his socks.
“Shit,” he rumbled.
“Looks like someone got dressed in the dark.”
He uncrossed his legs and shoved them under the table. “Actually, I’m colorblind.”
“Oh crap. I didn’t mean to laugh. It’s not a big difference. Really. No one will notice.”
“Relax. I was kidding. I got dressed in the dark.” Slowly, he tipped his head back, revealing a mouth-watering smile and a pair of green eyes dancing with humor.
I glanced up and saw Devon standing across the room, carefully studying our exchange. His forehead was wrinkled in concern, but when he saw he’d been busted, he shot me a wink.
Jude saw this too.
“You two tight?” he asked.
I abandoned my muffin and brushed my fingers off over the plate. “I’m tight with all the guys.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned back in his chair. “They seem to be pretty fond of you. I’ve been pulled aside and threatened with bodily harm every day this week.”
“I wish I could apologize, but you kinda deserved it.”
“I did,” he agreed immediately. “And, for the record, I’m sorry.”
“So…did you observe anything good?” I asked to change the subject.
“Actually, yes.”
I leaned in close and whispered, “Anything you care to share?”
He shrugged and lifted his coffee to his lips while keeping his gaze trained on mine. “I don’t know,” he said, setting it down. “You have anything to share about Friday night?”
I smiled. “Are you proposing a mutually beneficial exchange of information?”
“Perhaps.”
I leaned back in my chair and crossed my legs. His gaze drifted down, sliding all the way to my ballet flats then back up again. I fought the chill. And lost.
His lips seductively curled up. “So, what do you say?”
I steepled my fingers under my chin. “Depends. What kind of information could you possibly have that I’d want to know?”
He tipped his chin at the men huddled around the boxes on the counter. “Well, one of your so-called friends is avoiding you. Another is talking shit behind your back. And another wants to fuck you so hard that his balls are aching. Tell me why you were freaking out on Friday night and I’ll fill in the names for you.”
“No fucking way,” I exhaled dramatically.
“Way,” he confirmed, leaning forward and propping himself on a forearm. “Now, spill it. I remember following you into the pantry. You were crying, but I can’t for the life of me remember why. What were we talking about?”
I leaned in until I was only inches away from his face and kept my voice low. “I meant no fucking way am I taking that bait. I already know the answers.”
He arched an eyebrow and twisted his lips. “Okay, then, little Ms. Know It All—who’s avoiding you?”
I laughed. “Leo. He’s been avoiding me ever since I put the menu for this year’s Thanksgiving dinner on his desk. See, I’m the official—or unofficial, depending on who you ask—planner and host of Guardian’s Thanksgiving Feast. It’s only unofficial because Leo took my title away last year when Johnson ratted me out for not sticking to the budget. Yes, it was an extra three thousand dollars out of my own pocket, but I hired a chef and a full staff. My boys work hard and deserve more than just a turkey and boxed stuffing. They don’t half-ass anything when it comes to me. So yeah, I said fuck the budget and full-assed Thanksgiving. Leo will get over it.” I shrugged. “He kinda has to, considering I’ve already booked the chef again.” I lifted a finger in the air and added, “Third Thursday in November. My place. Save the date.”
He barely contained his mirth as he said, “You full-assed Thanksgiving?�
�
“Damn straight.”
That time, his lips didn’t twitch; they jumped straight into a grin.
I raked my teeth over my bottom lip, and he followed the movement with his eyes.
Still watching my mouth, he prompted, “And the one talking shit?”
“Devon. Let me guess: He’s telling everyone I’m a stripper?”
His brow furrowed. “You know about this?”
I clutched a hand over my heart. “Awww, I love that he’s been talking about me. It means he’s thinking about me.”
“No. What it means is he’s thinking about you naked and on a pole.”
I waved him off. “Devon’s harmless.”
“Harmless, yes. But he’s telling everyone in a fifty-mile radius that you’re a stripper.”
“Nah, he knows better than that. No one believes him anyway. You’ll find all of the guys think I have a different job. I like to keep them on their toes.” I made a show of glancing around us, and then I whispered, “Truth is I’m actually an aquatic veterinarian to the stars. Mum’s the word.”
“Aquatic veterinarian to the stars,” he repeated dryly.
“Yep. You can call me Dr. Koi.”
“Jesus Christ. You really are crazy.”
“Actually, what I am is private,” I informed. “Unfortunately, I’m also very social. Making friends is hard when you aren’t willing to tell them what you do for a living. And you’ll learn that the men of Guardian are more than just my friends. They’re my family. So yeah, they all get a different piece of me that allows them to accept me into their life, all while I keep my personal life private.”
He eyed me curiously. “And my piece of you is an aquatic veterinarian to the stars?”
“For now.” I grinned.
“Right. And what about Johnson? What kinda piece of you does he have?” he asked in the rough tone of Asshole Jude.
Only it made my stomach flutter this time. Was he jealous?
“Johnson’s…different.”
“Right. Of course,” he said, jerking his chin to someone over my shoulder. “What’s up, man?”
Lark twisted the chair beside me around and then straddled it, crossing his arms over the back of it. “Devon says you’re looking for a babysitter.”
“Desperately,” Jude sighed. “My stepdaughter’s flying in tonight. But I’ve got the senator’s son detail on Saturday. You know someone reliable?”