His answer both stuns me and makes my heart melt. While being completely transparent and honest, Jude has managed not only to give me an insight into his own situation but commend me on the job I’m doing for my family.
Closing the space between us, I push up on my toes and gently press a kiss to his cheek. I let my mouth linger there, to drink in his scent, and I feel his eyelashes flutter closed on my opposite cheek.
“Thank you.”
He pulls back, and my heart jumps into my throat. Because the look he’s giving me, one of intense emotion that so closely mirrors the words I’ve been keeping inside … it’s almost as if he’s going to tell me he loves me.
I wait with bated breath for him to utter the sentiment I’ve been trying not to blurt out.
“Jude! Come play a bit of footie out back!”
Charlie’s voice interrupts the moment, and Jude drops the hand that was about to smooth back a lock of my hair.
“We should go see what he’s up to,” Jude says quietly, seeming to be having an internal war with himself.
I nod and follow him out, trying not to let my pounding, disappointed heart get the best of me. I’m not brave enough to say it first, either.
But I can see that Jude is changing, and he is transforming into what might just be the perfect man the universe could have ever sent to me.
30
Aria
Two more weeks pass, with Jude going to London for both of RFC’s matches.
He starts, scores three goals between the two games, and the papers herald him as finally coming into his own. I know now that it’s just a matter of time before Niles Harrington calls him up for good, but I try to push it to the back of my mind.
My life stays the same, mostly; I go to work; I come home to take care of my father, and then I go back to work. Jude has offered thrice more to take some of the monetary burden off my back by paying for Dad’s hospital bills, but I refuse. Even though I love him—not that I’ve told him yet—I won’t be beholden to him.
Jude left for London yesterday to play a mid-week game, and I find myself at home on a very rare night off. There is a soiree at the academy tonight, which means a catering staff will be responsible for cleanup for the night. I am taking the opportunity to just … relax, a novel concept for me. Which I am probably failing at because, currently, I’ve thrown the contents of my dresser onto my bed to sort and fold.
In the next instant, my bedroom door opens and I nearly fall on the floor.
“Wha … what are you … how are you in my bedroom?”
Jude makes my room look miniature, that’s how much space he takes up. All of that gorgeous caramel skin and jet-black hair intimidates my measly twin bed and old rickety desk as he stands in the doorway.
“Well, I walked down the road from the academy, rang your bell, asked your father if you were home, and poof, here I am!”
I scowl at him. “I’m aware of how humans transport themselves. I’m asking how you found out my address. And aren’t you supposed to be in London?”
In all the time we’ve been together, I’ve always hidden my home from Jude. I never told him where our row house is, and that was done purposely, as I never wanted him to witness the kind of poverty I come from.
“Country? I didn’t know English people liked this genre of music.” Jude ignores my questions and observes my ancient, second-hand laptop, which is pumping Old Dominion’s “One Man Band” through its pathetic speakers.
I shrug. “Music is music, in my opinion. I love the lead singer’s voice, and the song is catchy.”
Part of me wants to run around the room, cleaning up or shoving things in drawers, but I know it will do no good. My room will still be a dingy, musty, tiny space that is embarrassingly less decadent than any place Jude has ever stayed.
“Aria, stop fretting,” he says without looking at me as he walks around my room. Though … how he can walk three steps without hitting a wall, I’m not sure.
When I begin to chew my lip, Jude crosses to me and swipes his thumb across it so that I release the skin from my teeth.
“Whatever you’re thinking I think about the place you call home, I’m not. I think this is just a place, and it has nothing to do with how wonderful you are. So, stop worrying that I’m judging you, or that you need to impress me. I think we’re far past that. Yes?”
Now his hands are buried in my hair as he tilts my head to look up at him. I nod, fisting my hands in his shirt and pulling him down as he pulls me up. Our mouths meet, and suddenly, the tense worry I felt just seconds before evaporates into an intense need to get as close to Jude as possible.
“When you leave, I miss you terribly,” I whisper, my most secret thought slipping out.
“Being away from you is torture,” he agrees, slanting his head more so that he can plunge his tongue deeper into my mouth.
Without preamble, Jude lifts me like a feather onto the small desk in my room, spreading my knees with his big hands and stepping into the embrace of my legs. I wrap them around his waist as we dissolve into moaning, lust-filled creatures.
Backing off, with breathing so ragged I’m afraid he might pass out, Jude’s eyes blaze into mine. Will this be the moment he tells me he loves me?
“With a single look, you can bring me to my knees.” Jude sinks to the floor instead.
My mouth goes dry and falls right open. “Me?”
“Yes, you. Only ever you.”
It’s a heady thing, having Jude Davies tell you you’re the only woman he’d ever get on his knees for.
It might not be a club in London or an airplane ride to New York or the freaking Grammys, for all I know he’s been to those somehow … but initiating in foreplay with the most gorgeous specimen I’ve ever encountered while my father watches TV downstairs is …exciting. That sounds wonky, but it’s a risky business that I get turned on from. The fact that Jude and I have to be quiet as he unbuttons my jeans and pulls them down my legs, that I have to slap a hand over my mouth as he licks up the seam of my core, that my hips are clamped down so hard by his nimble fingers as to keep them from wiggling the rickety old desk.
That he can’t make a noise when I push my hand past the elastic of his boxers to brush the tip of his hard cock.
Why is having sex so much more illicit when there is the possibility of being caught in the act? Why does holding your moans in your throat make the impending orgasm that much more exciting to reach?
Jude grinds his tool into me at a slow, mind-numbing pace. He’s holding himself back, so much that I can feel his shoulders trembling beneath my arms where I grip them around his neck.
“Come for me,” he whispers in my ear, teasing a hand between us and rolling my clit between his thumb and forefinger.
At the angle he’s penetrating me at, it’s all I can do to keep quiet. It’s so good, so good, but I just need a little bit more.
“Harder … please …” I gasp.
A trickle of sweat beads on Jude’s brow as he pulls back ever so slightly, smirking. “You have no idea what you just asked for.”
I have to stifle a yelp as Jude lifts me from the desk, holding me in midair, while he’s still buried deep inside of me.
“Now we won’t make noise on the desk, but you have to promise to be a good girl and keep quiet,” he taunts me.
As he starts to move, picking up the pace, I have to bite down on the sensitive skin of his neck to keep from screaming in pleasure. Jude holds me under both knees, plunging my body onto his cock as if I were nothing more than a doll for his eventual release. In this instant, I couldn’t care less how objectifying that might be … all I can think about is the orgasm that is about to smack me over the head.
And then Jude slams me down once more, hitting the exact spot that sends me combusting into a million tiny pieces. I have to bury my face in his neck and swallow the wail that rises from my throat, the sensations of my climax rolling on and on as Jude keeps his punishing pace before stilling to surrende
r to his own release. I can feel the rumble of his chest as he grips me tighter to him, the growl he wants to roar into the air held back only by the lips planted to my scalp.
In the middle of my tiny bedroom, he holds me up while the world itself floats away, leaving only the two of us.
31
Aria
Jude is still hovering over me, where he set me back down on the desk to catch his breath, when he says, “Niles Harrington asked me to go to London, permanently. I’m going to be the starting forward for RFC.”
At that exact moment, my heart shatters into a thousand pieces before dropping to my feet. Even though he is still inside me, it already feels as if Jude is a million miles away.
“You came here to have sex with me one last time?” I gape at him, too shocked to push him off me.
“That’s not what this is at all and you know it.” He glowers, but steps away from me, tucking himself back into his pants and straightening his clothes.
Suddenly, I feel overly conscious of my disheveled, half-nude state. I gingerly jump down from the desk and begin to straighten myself and pull my clothes on. Something about the air in the room, the sharp change from borderline love to betrayal, makes the whole encounter feel like a cheap one-night stand instead of a sexy tryst with your boyfriend.
I am trying not to look at Jude, because if I do, I know I’ll start to cry. “But you did want to fuck me one more time before telling me your splendid news, right?”
My voice is bitter and Jude’s eyes slash with the hurt I just hurled at him. “Aria, don’t be a child. I missed you and wanted to show you how much I thought about you while I was in London.”
“Well, I guess there will be a lot of that in our future, huh? The thinking about the distance?”
Our voices are raising now, and there is no way Dad doesn’t know something is going on up here. I pray he’ll let it go once Jude eventually leaves because I know after this I won’t be able to talk about what was going to happen.
I have to get Jude away from me. I can’t go through one more person smashing my heart to pieces, so I’ll smash his first in hopes that it will keep mine intact.
“I get it. You’re doing what you have to to succeed. We both knew this wasn’t … it was convenient. Both being at Rogue, Clavering is hard up for any real dating opportunities.”
As I say the words, it’s as if my heart is being pulled out of my throat with them.
“Aria …” Jude shoots me a look of sympathy as if his goal to make it to London also means my disappointment.
That’s the thing though, it’s sympathetic, not empathetic. He feels sad for me, not for leaving me. It doesn’t seem as if he feels any upset at having to walk out on whatever it is that we’ve started here.
“You were always meant to go to London, we’ve just been ignoring that fact. You’ll be brilliant, and soon enough, you won’t even remember the small town of Clavering.”
“Aria …”
I cut Jude off again. “So just, go pack your bags! I’m sure they want you there for the match, straightaway. You’ll be in the starting lineup this weekend—”
“Aria!” Jude bellows, the muscles in his neck and jaw tightening.
“No!” My rebuttal is more forceful. “No. I don’t want to hear whatever it is you’re going to say because I can’t have your voice in my head telling me whatever it is. I don’t want to know how much you care, or how you wish you didn’t have to leave. I don’t want to hear all the lame, cliché excuses people give when they walk out on someone else and don’t want that person to be too crushed. Believe me, I know what it’s like. So don’t say them, Jude, because I can’t listen to the echoes of your goodbyes resounding in my head for the next however much time.”
“Would you—”
The only way I’ll get through this is if I keep cutting him off. “Don’t you dare. Jude, don’t you dare ask me to come with you to London. You know I can’t do that, and you know it will only break my heart more.”
But he is already breaking my heart, in ways he should have known. The most detrimental thing that has ever happened to me, that has ruined my self-esteem and my worth and the chance at regular, healthy love, was my mother leaving us. Abandoning my father and me to pursue bigger dreams.
And right now, Jude is doing the exact same thing.
I’ve always suspected that, in the end, we would be ruined dramatically, in the fashion of a firework exploding. Jude would cheat on me, or his partying ways would be too much, or my inability to give time or affection would cause him to blow up in spectacular fashion.
This is so much worse. The slow conclusion, the grinding to a halt of our relationship … it guts me worse than any sudden parting could have. I knew it was coming, that impact was bound to happen, and still, I chose to ignore it. We imploded at a snail’s pace, in the weeks and days leading up to this.
I would never ask him not to go, this is his destiny, after all. But some irrational part of my brain feels like I am ten years old all over again, being abandoned by the person I’d come to love the most.
“So we should end it.” His voice is stone cold as he glares at me, the walls in his green eyes going up.
“I don’t see any other way.” We can’t do long distance, our lives will be too different.
“Great. Then it’s done.” Jude drops the guillotine over my heart, and I feel it cleave in two.
There’s nothing more to say, so he walks out. In an instant, the future I never wanted to hope for has just been pulled out from under me.
This is why I never allowed hope in. It’s why I’ve never let it light up my heart again.
32
Jude
London is its usual dreary, foggy self in my first few weeks of living here.
Which is fitting, as my mood isn’t drastically different than the weather. My attitude matches the grey, sunless days and bitterly cold evenings. The flat Barry procured is a twenty-something bachelor’s dream; complete with a sauna shower, retractable movie theater size screen in the living room, and a scotch slash wine room with perfectly attuned temperature settings. It’s lavish and unnecessary, and I wonder more than once how Aria would make fun of me for moving in here.
I wonder all the time what Aria would say. We haven’t spoken in the month since I left the academy and Clavering behind for good. And that’s how long the organ in my chest has been weeping for.
I knew I’d gone about things all wrong. Going to her house, making her vulnerable about the place that she lived … and then attacking her like she was my last meal. I suppose she was …
Aria tempted me too much, and with how much I’d been going back and forth, I had been like a one-minded fiend until I could get inside her. I should have told her before I’d shed her clothes that Rogue had finally called me up in a permanent capacity. That had been my fault, but what had happened next … well, I can’t take all the blame.
The girl I love … she was petrified of her feelings for me. I saw it the moment I told her about London. Those walls had come up, she’d shut down, and in turn, put a firing squad in front of her heart if I even dared to get near it.
Aria is too scared to admit that she loves me, but I am a coward for not telling her, too. We are both bloody fools, and now, I am alone and sulking like a dog that has been kicked one too many times.
Today’s match had been abysmal. A three to two loss that I’d been the deciding factor in, and I have a feeling all of London will be calling me a flop tomorrow.
I learned a long time ago never to blame one player for a loss because a squad has many chances to win a game. However, the penalty kick I missed contributed greatly. I never miss a shot like that, and it was bloody fate not on my side this time that I overshot the net.
No one in London is close enough to me to know how to comfort me. If Kingston and Vance were here, they’d suggest a round of FIFA or a couple of beers in our dorm room. Or a prank to cheer me up. If Aria were here, I could bury myself in
her and forget about the shite day I’d had.
But I burned that bridge … and my heart along with it. And my mates are still at the academy. So drowning my sorrows in a pint, alone, is my best option.
The Bock Club is a high-end gentlemen’s pub frequented by British actors, artists, businessmen, and athletes. There’s a wait-list to be accepted as a member, which I bypassed a year ago when the owners decided they wanted to extend membership to England’s future football star.
I didn’t feel like a crowded nightclub, there was no need for half-naked birds; a leather armchair in a quiet corner seemed the best company for my mood. So I head to the club, ask for a table in a private alcove, and the staff sets me up with an expensive bottle and lets me go to town.
My third glass is on the way to being finished when I see Franc Nasri walk in with his bloody band of tossers. Praying he’ll leave me be, I scoot back in my chair more as they crowd up to the bar of the back room I’m currently occupying.
Nasri is France’s number one goal-scorer, and a total twit. He is technically bereft, with sloppy footwork and a penchant for dirty tricks. The refs always happen to be looking the other way when he elbows someone in the throat or stomps on their boot.
The group orders their drinks, and I busy myself trying to think of the best way to slink out of here. I don’t want to speak to anyone, especially Nasri, right now.
“Ah, if it isn’t the loser of today’s match.” Nasri turns with a sneer on his face directed right at me.
My plan of escape is quickly thwarted and with just that simple sentence from the Frenchman, I feel my jaw click with fury.
I tip my head to him, trying to keep my tongue in check … which is hard after three tumblers full of alcohol. “Nasri, what a pleasure to see you. Didn’t realize they let rats in here. Perhaps I need to think about that when it comes time to renew my membership.”
The Second Coming: Rogue Academy, Book One Page 14