“Like what?”
He stared at my mouth. Then his gaze dropped lower again. The way he looked at me, there was no doubt in my mind that he remembered exactly how I felt, how I tasted.
Then he locked eyes with me again. “You playin’ games with me, darlin’?”
He’d asked me that once before. So long ago…
“I never play a game that I can’t win,” I told him.
“Neither do I.”
“Then I guess that makes us both sore losers.”
After the waitress returned with our shots, he slipped her a credit card. His dark eyes met mine as we clinked and downed our shots.
I asked him, “What if you realize, at some point, that you’re losing the game?”
“Then I change the fuckin’ rules.”
Chapter Nine
Roni
After dinner, the night pretty much deteriorated, professionally speaking.
It wasn’t that we were drunk. We were, probably, but that wasn’t the cause. It was that Jude was, apparently, bent on tearing my relationship with Taze up at the root and stomping it into dust.
And when I let him take my hand and pull me into the back of that first taxi, I knew I was going to let him.
We ditched our vehicles and headed from one bar to the next. I stuck to one drink per bar, so I didn’t get totally shit-faced. Though I was definitely partway there.
I insisted on paying for drinks in every bar we went into, because he was kinda sorta like my client, this was supposed to be a business meeting, and no way was I letting him get some imagined upper hand by being all chivalrous and generous with his wallet.
I even opened my own doors.
Though Jude got pretty surly-looking about both the money I forked over for the drinks and every door I opened—for him.
I made sure to check a few mirrors along the way, and I didn’t look shit-faced, which was probably the important thing. I looked a little flushed. My eyes were shining. My wavy hair was a little tussled, wild and sexy around my face.
Honestly, I looked pretty damn DTF.
Unfortunately, so did Jude.
By the time we’d walked into the second bar, his hand was on the small of my back, on my bare skin. By the time we sat down in the third, we’d smoked a joint I had in my purse, together, I was feeling incredibly warm and fuzzy and, well, loose… and his hand was on my thigh.
I knew I had a boyfriend. He wasn’t here, and since I wasn’t about to break up with anyone by picking up the phone at midnight and telling him, Hey, guess what? It’s over, I was still going to have a boyfriend when I woke up in the morning.
A boyfriend I didn’t love.
A boyfriend who didn’t love me.
And another man’s hand was on my thigh.
The man.
The man I’d always wanted, would probably always want, no matter how many times he rejected me. Because—dare I acknowledge it to myself?—I’d gone ahead and fallen the fuck in love with him, years ago, and that love had just kinda stuck around.
Even though he hadn’t.
His hand felt heavy, possessive and presumptuous, on my thigh. Daring. He was daring me, really, wasn’t he?
My lace skirt ended just above the knee and he wasn’t touching my skin, but I could feel his heat soaking through the fabric. He knew I was with Taze. I told him Taze made me feel safe. And here he was, his hand on my thigh, offering—no, threatening—to rip that all to shreds.
It was if he was saying with that hand, He’s not here, darlin’.
What are you gonna do about it?
At one point, when I was telling him about the party I’d thrown at this bar last month, he removed the hand from my thigh. He was leaning into me, close, with his ear to my mouth so he could hear me over the loud music, and it was all I could do to keep from touching my lips to his ear, his neck. From licking his skin. I just kept talking, a kind of half-drunken rambling, because I felt like I had to talk about something, as if talking about something could erase the fact that he’d just had his hand on my thigh.
When I was finished talking, he looked at me.
He slipped his arm around my waist, drawing me closer against him, then leaned into my ear and said, “You look gorgeous.”
When he drew back enough that I could see in his eyes, I said, “Did you hear anything I just said?”
“I heard everything you just said, V.”
Oh, fuck.
Why did it make me melt when he called me V?
Because it felt intimate.
Because it felt like a term of endearment.
He was still holding me, his arm around my waist, and my back was arched as I leaned up into him. My head was tilted back so I could see into his face, and his was tilted down to mine. We were inches apart.
He put his other hand on my ribs, just lightly.
His eyes stayed locked with mine as he ran his hand up my side… and grazed my breast through the silk of my shirt.
My breath caught.
His hand lingered there, and his thumb skimmed over my taut nipple.
A shiver ran through me.
He said nothing. He just watched me, watched my face, my eyes as he did it again… his thumb touching my nipple, slowly, drifting over and then around… as the delicious ache spread through my entire body.
I watched his eyes darken as whatever guise of respectable professionalism we’d both brought to this “meeting” evaporated… along with any hope in hell of me remaining faithful to my boyfriend tonight.
After we left that bar, we got into another cab. I was just finished telling the driver which bar to take us to next, when Jude leaned in and laid his warm mouth over mine, just like that.
His lips parted and mine went with them, and then his tongue slid into my mouth and his hand went around the back of my head, gripping my hair. He groaned into my mouth… and it was all over.
Desire swept through my body as his tongue ravaged my mouth. I let him do it, kissing him back, sort of, but I barely moved. I barely breathed.
When he broke away, he told me, “Message Taze. Tell him you’re done.”
I blinked at him. “You want me to break up with a man via text message?” No matter how sacred my relationship with Taze wasn’t, I would not do that to any man I was involved with.
“Right now.”
“I’m not doing that.”
He kissed me again anyway.
Deeper.
Hotter.
He took my hand and pressed it down on his cock. He was hard in his jeans, and his dick was, just as I remembered, more than a handful. I didn’t squeeze him but I didn’t exactly resist as he held my hand against himself, tight, and slowly rocked his hips, grinding his hard-on into my grasp—so there was no mistaking what he was offering.
When his mouth broke away from mine again, I was panting softly.
“You want that dick?” he murmured against my lips.
I did. I did so want that dick.
But I was dimly aware that I still had a boyfriend. Which meant I was still trying, really trying not to participate in this.
But I did not stop him when he fisted my hair, pulling me tighter against him, and squeezed my hand around his shaft.
“You want that dick, deep in your mouth, V?”
Oh, God. He lapped his tongue deep into my mouth, hot and slow, for effect.
Then he left my hand in his lap and drifted his hand up, skimming his fingers over my nipple through my shirt. “I want you in my mouth.” He drifted his mouth over to my ear. “I want you to sit on my face… feed me that beautiful pussy.” He brushed his mouth over mine. “I remember…” he told me between kisses, “I remember how fuckin’ beautiful…”
After that, we didn’t make it to the next bar.
We were kissing as we stumbled through my front door. If you could call it kissing. We were feasting on each other, Jude’s mouth totally dominating mine and mine trying to dominate his… and fuck… I’d missed h
is kisses.
I’d been dreaming about Jude’s kisses since I was sixteen years old, and unfortunately not much had changed since then. He still kissed me like I was his whole world.
I still knew that I wasn’t.
In the moment, I just didn’t care. Not enough to stop this.
My purse landed with a thud on the hallway floor as he pushed me up against the wall. He smashed his lips against mine as our tongues fought for dominance. Our bodies fused together, my hands in his hair, his hands in mine, his hips slamming against me. His thigh pressed between my legs, my tight skirt preventing him from getting where I wanted him.
I wanted him to throw me right down on the floor and fuck me. I didn’t care that it was hardwood. I didn’t care about what came after this… or didn’t.
I didn’t care about Taze.
I just wanted Jude Grayson to lose his shit over me, right now, and fuck me on the floor.
When we’d left the restaurant and climbed into that first taxi, it had started to feel like a game of chicken. Both of us gunning it at each other, holding strong—waiting to see who ditched out of the way at the last minute.
Except no one ditched.
So now it was more like a car crash. Like a head-on collision—see who came out alive on the other side…
Me.
It definitely had to be me.
I wasn’t going down in flames over this.
As soon as we’d clawed our jackets off, I tore his shirt off over his head.
He gripped my shirt and ripped it down over my shoulders, tearing it right down the middle, exposing my breasts. “This fuckin’ shirt…” he said.
Okay, so he won that one.
I went for his jeans next, popping the button and flipping up the tab on the zipper so I could rip them right open.
He pushed up my skirt and pulled me right down to the floor—and onto his face.
Jesus. He was so winning this battle…
He didn’t even take off my panties first. Somehow, his tongue was in me. His thumb was digging in, dragging my panties more or less out of the way, as he fucked me with his tongue.
“Omigod…” I moaned, mostly to myself. His dick wasn’t in me, but his tongue sure as fuck was, and this was definitely cheating territory.
We’d crossed that boundary somewhere between that last shot at the restaurant and his hand taking mine. I knew that.
I was still fighting it.
It wasn’t even about Taze.
It was about me.
He rolled, taking me down with him. He laid me out on my back on the floor, pushed my skirt up farther around my hips, and dragged my panties down and off. Then he hiked my thigh up and went to town on my pussy with his mouth.
I laid back and took it. His swirling tongue, the heat of his mouth, those soft lips of his… all the while, the guilt swimming in my head… along with the liquor and the weed and the desire.
I was vaguely aware of his jeans coming off and the condom going on, and when he prowled on top of me, much like that first night we’d ever had sex… I knew where this was headed. When I glanced down he was suited up, stiff and ready, and when I looked up—his eyes said it all.
Brace yourself, darlin’. That’s what that look said.
Shit.
“Wait.” I held him off with one hand on his naked, rock-hard chest.
His dick was about a millimeter away from obliterating the view I’d always had of myself—of a girl who didn’t cheat—while I managed to grab my phone out of my abandoned purse and write a text to Taze.
I was pretty sure it said something like We’re breaking up. It’s over. No doubt it was riddled with typos. Maybe it was totally fucking unintelligible.
I sent it. Hopefully Taze could decipher it.
“There,” I said.
Jude ripped the phone from my hand and tossed it across the living room rug, and in the next second, he was in me—in one forceful, animal thrust.
He fucked me the way he always had. Deep. Dominating.
So I’d feel it for days.
He fucked me on the hallway floor, halfway between the living room and my bedroom. It was my home, I’d had sex here many, many times, but I’d never been fucked right here, in the hall, on the floor. It felt dirty and amazing, and the only thing that could’ve made it any better was if he’d really let loose.
But something was holding him back.
It was subtle. But he was holding himself up over me, on his arms, and he was definitely holding back.
“Fuck me harder,” I urged him.
He did, but he was still holding back. Maybe he was afraid of hurting me on the hard floor?
“Come on, Jude,” I groaned. “Make me feel it.”
“Jesus, V…”
But he fucked me harder. He adjusted a couple of times, repositioning himself, for what reason, I had no idea. Every which way he came at me felt fucking perfect.
Not only was he fucking gorgeous, the sexiest man I’d ever been with, the one I was the most attracted to, but Jude’s dick was huge and filled me in a way that just drove me fucking crazy. Every part of his body just lined up perfectly with every part of mine.
Physically speaking, we were fucking made for each other.
“Don’t stop…” I clutched at his ass, clawed his back, tried to pull him down on top of me, desperate for his weight. But he grunted and kind of locked up, and that’s when I realized something was wrong. Or at least, it definitely wasn’t right.
I was hurting him. Or something.
“You okay? What’s—”
He pulled out suddenly, and got to his feet, taking me with him.
“Are you alright?”
He kissed me, silencing me, and started pushing me up the hall. By the time we’d made it to my bed, we’d peeled every remaining stitch of clothing from each other’s bodies. He pulled me with him onto the bed, laying back as he drew me over his hips.
I straddled him and took him inside, and when I started fucking the hell out of him, he grunted again. “Agh. Shit. That’s worse.”
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked, softly, but he just rolled me off, put me on the floor again, on the rug by my bed, and started pounding into me. He held my hips with one hand, the bedside table with the other, and gave it to me. He pounded me so hard my eyes watered from the intensity.
Not pain; emotion.
A swell of lust and gratitude, relief and affection, desire and satisfaction… So many emotions at once, I couldn’t separate one from the next. It was all just one astonishing blur of… pleasure.
I screamed as the pleasure gripped me, thrashing beneath him as I came.
I whacked my head on the bedside table.
A vase fell off the table and smashed on the hardwood floor, narrowly missing us.
It was like two-thirty in the morning.
I didn’t even care.
“Roni,” he breathed, “you okay, darlin’?” He’d stopped pounding, and as the slight pain rang through my head, I looked up at him in a daze.
“Come,” I said. “Jesus Christ, don’t stop.”
So he dragged me a safe distance away from the table and kept at it.
“Fuck,” he groaned. “Fuck, you feel so good…”
“Yeah,” I moaned right back, “yeah, that dick…” And I came again, totally losing it beneath him.
“Yeah, V…” He pounded into me with short, deep thrusts as I rode out my orgasm. “Gonna fuck that pussy…” Then he lost all his rhythm as he fell apart. He came with a growl, and as I felt his release, his muscled body locking up and his cock firing inside me… then his body going limp as he panted over me… it was pure fucking glory.
I did that.
I turned him on like that.
I made Jude Grayson totally lose his shit on my bedroom floor.
It wasn’t until after he’d come that I glimpsed, in the mirror on my closet door, the horrendous black bruise on his lower back.
“Jude!” I g
asped, as he eased himself off of me. “What the hell happened to your back?”
“Nothing.” He eased the condom off and kissed me.
“But—”
“It’s nothing…” Then he kissed me many, many times, until I got the message and stopped asking.
Chapter Ten
Jude
Monday night.
11:03 pm.
I fell into bed, spent.
Stared at the fucking ceiling, spread out on the king-sized mattress that no one ever slept on but me. I was a king-sized dude. It never occurred to me before that that was weird. That no one had ever laid in this bed with me.
This bed that I’d never shared with a woman. Had never thought about bringing a woman home to.
Had never laid in by myself, either, jerking off and longing for a specific woman… until recently.
Until her.
This morning, I was late to meet Jesse. Combination of being out late, drinking with Roni, fucking the hell out of each other at her place until almost four in the morning, then dragging my ass home… and the residual discomfort of my injuries.
Taze. Fuck, that little shit.
I’d tossed the painkillers this morning thinking I could go without them, and I was feeling it, but it wasn’t too intense. Just exhausting as my body struggled to heal while I instead punished it with shots of bourbon and wild-ass sex.
I didn’t need anyone to know how wrecked I was, though, so I downplayed the damage on my cheek and I definitely didn’t tell anyone about my back.
I’d spent the day at the recording studio with the band, but all the while Bane had kept me posted on Roni’s whereabouts. She’d gone straight home after work and stayed in for the evening, and Taze hadn’t reared his head.
After getting her breakup text late last night, twenty-four hours after he’d pulled a tire iron on me, he was probably worried that I’d gotten to her.
Good start.
But I wanted to be sure she’d stay the hell away from him. I had no idea if she really would. Just because she dumped him last night, via text, when I was a nanosecond from fucking her, didn’t mean it was gonna stick.
Dirty Like Jude: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 5) Page 10