“Please tell me there’s more," Katie said, gazing at me imploringly.
“Not really,” I said carefully. I glanced at Jessa again. She knew every one of these girls better than I did, so I tried to tell her with my eyes, Jump in here anytime you want. “We’ve been working together on the New Year’s Eve event for Dirty.”
“Oh, yeah,” Amber said. “How’s that going? Dylan’s excited about it.”
“It’s going great.” It really was going great. Here we were, only two-and-a-half weeks to New Year’s Eve, and the event was sold out. And pretty much everything was all set for the show. “I assume you’re all coming?”
“I am,” Amber said, smiling. “It’ll be my first Dirty show.”
“Girrrl. Your man’s gonna be wearing a kilt,” Devi informed her, “so you might wanna bring extra panties.”
“Devi,” Katie said.
“What?” Devi sipped her beer. “I’ve seen Dylan Cope in a kilt.”
Amber just smiled, looking a little embarrassed.
“Brody’s got a bunch of tickets set aside,” I told them, “and I have some too, so if you need a ticket, Devi—”
“I’ve got one for her,” Katie said. “From Brody. Already talked to him.”
“Perfect.”
“Now,” Katie leaned on her palm and gazed at me again. “Tell me more about Jude…”
“Katie, can’t you see she doesn’t want to talk about it?” Devi wore a hooked smile, and clearly she was daring me to talk about it.
“There really isn’t much to say,” I repeated.
“Come on,” Devi prompted. “We’re all girls here. I’ve always been so curious about Jude. Like is he all bulldog on the outside and cuddly little puppy on the inside?”
Well. He’d definitely cuddled me on my couch while I had period cramps, and been a total gentleman about it. Even brought me a chocolate bar when he showed up at my door, unannounced and uninvited. Which was pretty much the only reason I’d let him in.
“Uh… Sometimes…”
Jessa kinda laughed into her beer. She’d ordered a Guinness because she said her part-time nanny had told her it was good for her breastmilk. That theory worked for me.
“So… Does this mean we can double-date now and stuff?” Katie asked me. She glanced conspiratorially at Jessa. “Or triple date?”
“No,” I said.
“Oh.” Katie’s shoulders actually dropped, and I kinda felt bad disappointing her.
“I mean, it’s not that serious.”
“Sure it’s not,” Devi said. “Maybe for you. We saw him at the teahouse. He is all over that.”
“It’s not really like that.”
“Like what?” Katie said.
“He’s just… you know, a biker.”
They all stared at me. Then glanced at one another.
Apparently, they didn’t know.
“Let’s just say I’ve been with guys like Jude before,” I explained. “They’re just possessive like that. Think they own you even when they don’t, like they can just walk into a teahouse where you’re having lunch with your girlfriends and give you flowers because they feel like it.”
“Own?” Amber scrunched up her nose.
“Yeah,” I said. “Own.”
She stared at me, like she was waiting for me to explain further.
I didn’t.
“I think I get it,” Katie said. “Jesse can get pretty possessive. He definitely doesn’t like me flirting with other dudes.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Not like that. I’m not with Jude. He’s not my husband and he’s not even my boyfriend. We’ve just agreed to be exclusive, sexually, which means… he definitely thinks he owns me. At least, that part of me.”
The girls seemed to be processing that.
“Well…” Jessa offered, “Brody definitely thinks he owns that part of me. No way he’d be sharing that with anyone else.”
“It’s not necessarily about sharing,” I said. “It’s about owning. Different thing. Taze definitely thought he owned me, but he was okay with sharing me. Sometimes.”
“What’s that like?” Devi asked.
“Hot,” I said. I looked straight at Amber, who definitely knew what it was like, given her three-way relationship with Dylan and Ash.
Or her former three-way relationship.
“Yeah,” she said softly, and sipped her beer. “It’s that.”
“Oh my goodness,” Katie said. “I could never share Jesse. Two guys sounds kind of hot, but I think he’d have an aneurysm before he’d share me. Like his brain would just implode or something.”
“So how do you know he wants to ‘own’ you?” Amber asked. “If he’s not your boyfriend?”
Now there was a good question.
It was the demand of exclusivity, in Jude’s case. It was also the way he’d taken me back to his place and fucked the hell out of me on his bed while he did it. It meant something to him.
I could feel it.
“Hard to explain,” I said. “Just a feeling. I guess after being around so many bikers over the years, I just know the subtleties, and the not-so-subtleties. The differences between the way a guy treats you when he wants to lock you down, and when he couldn’t give a fuck.”
As I heard myself say those words, I considered where Jude fit on that spectrum. Definitely somewhere near the lock-it-down end of things. Though he still hadn’t made any attempt to lock me down.
So far it was only my pussy he’d placed under lock and key.
But yes, he’d definitely been acting possessive of me. He’d told me to break up with Taze. He’d contacted me almost every single night since we started being “fuck buddies.” He’d come over to my place at the end of each of those nights, no matter how late it was, and rocked my world.
Other than the night he’d cuddled me to sleep on the couch instead.
And now he’d even taken me back to his man cave.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was in hot pursuit. Something had definitely shifted forward between us.
And it felt good.
But I was still proceeding with caution, still trying to protect myself. Because he still hadn’t suggested changing the terms of our little “just sex” arrangement, which meant that neither would I.
“Hey. You texting your man in the middle of girls’ night?”
Katie was playing with her phone under the table, and her best friend had busted her.
“I thought this table was a husband-and-boyfriend-free zone,” Devi said.
“It is,” Katie protested, “but he was just checking to see if I needed a ride or anything. He says he’s just finished up with Jude and they’re splitting up.”
“Jesse’s out with Jude?” It bothered me how instantaneously bothered I was that she knew what Jude was doing tonight, and I didn’t.
“Yeah. Well, they were having a beer. But Jude took off to a Kings party, so Jesse’s heading back home. He’s got the Ferrari,” she said, getting all lovey-dovey-eyed as she tucked her phone away, “which means he’s probably horny.”
“And he thought of you?” Jessa teased. “How sweet.”
“Yeah. He’s romantic like that.” Katie snickered. “Don’t worry," she assured Devi. “I’m not going anywhere. Not until you divulge about that model guy you hooked up with last night.”
“What model guy?” Amber asked, and as Devi filled the girls in on her date of last night, my mind got stuck in a loop. A loop where I obsessed over the fact that Jude was heading to a Kings party… and he wasn’t taking me with him.
He didn’t even ask me if I wanted to go with him.
Secretly, I’d been really hoping to see him tonight. Last night he’d called me like I told him to, but I’d ended up working pretty late with Talia, tying up a bunch of random loose ends on a couple of events we were planning for January, and I didn’t end up seeing him. I didn’t mind brushing him off once. Keep him on his toes, right?
But when we’d texted
earlier today and casually talked about hooking up later tonight, he didn’t mention he was going to a Kings party. He didn’t mention a club party at all.
And all I could think was: Taze would’ve taken me.
And just like that, all the old wounds ripped right open.
Jude showed up at my place that night, just like he said he would—but half an hour late.
Toward the end of girls’ night, he’d finally texted me, putting out his usual feeler. The Wanna fuck? feeler. And yeah, I wanted to fuck. So I told him we could meet up at my place.
But then he arrived late. And by then, I was feeling raw all over again. And whatever warm and fuzzy feeling his texts had given me while I finished off my beer had frosted right over.
“Hey, fuck buddy,” I said as I opened the door to him.
His eyes immediately narrowed as he caught my tone. He stepped inside, and as soon I’d shut the door behind him, I walked right into the living room. No hug. No kiss. No welcoming ass-grab.
Nothing.
I stood in the living room with my arms crossed as he made his way slowly into the room. His dark eyes scanned me, head-to-toe.
“You alright?”
“Been better. Not feeling so much like fucking tonight, buddy.”
“Okay.” He slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans and stood there, staring at me. “You got somethin’ you wanna say?”
“Oh. I didn’t know we were actually allowed to have a conversation in the middle of the night. Usually we just fuck, then you go home.”
His eyes narrowed at me again, and he took a long fucking time to start talking. “If our arrangement isn’t working for you, V, you’ve got every right to say so.”
“It’s not working for me.”
“Okay.”
Okay? That was it?
Okay?
“I mean, I know I agreed to this whole ‘it’s all about sex’ thing,” I said, cranking up the bitch. “But I guess I didn’t realize that meant I’d just be your convenience fuck whenever you’re horny after partying with club sluts all night.”
“What?”
“You thought I wouldn’t find out you were at a Kings party tonight?”
He considered that, then said slowly, “It wasn’t a secret, Roni.”
“You think I don’t know what it means?”
“Tell me. What does it mean?”
“Jude. I’m not some regular ‘citizen’ girl who doesn’t have the first clue what goes on at those parties. I’m not even a regular girl who has some vague idea what goes on at those parties. I’ve been to those parties. I know.”
“You know what?”
“I know why you’d go to one without taking me.”
He cocked his head a little, like I was suddenly speaking some foreign language he couldn’t understand. “You want me to take you?”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
“Jesus.” He scraped a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re gettin’ at, Roni. So get at it already.”
“You said we were exclusive.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Which means until I tell you otherwise, or you tell me otherwise, we are.”
“Glad we made that clear. Because actually, what you told me was that I had to be exclusive with you if I wanted your dick. You never actually said you’d be exclusive with me.” Kind of an important detail I’d only realized tonight, while I stewed.
“I told you,” he said, looking right pissed, “I don’t cheat.”
“Well, there are only two reasons you wouldn’t take me to a Kings party.”
“Enlighten me.”
“One, because you’re messing around with other women—”
“Thought we just went over that.”
“Or two, you don’t want me around your brothers.”
He went silent, and I fucking knew.
“You don’t want me around Piper? Or Ben? Or your other brothers? Or all of them?”
“Never said that.”
He didn’t have to say it. Clearly he didn’t want me at the clubhouse, around his club brothers, and I wasn’t even sure why.
He was ashamed of me?
Or he just didn’t give that much of a fuck about me? Enough to put his dick in me almost every night, but not enough to be seen with me in public.
I couldn’t even stand to voice the former, so I said, “Then I guess I’m just not someone you’d want them to see you with.”
He stared at me, his dark gaze weighing heavily on me. “We agreed, V, that this was just about sex.”
“Yeah,” I said bitterly. “We agreed.”
Yes, I was being stubborn and guarded and ridiculous.
So was he.
He was being stubborn and guarded and oh-so-Jude—reminding me way too much of twenty-one-year-old Jude. The Jude who hurt me. Badly.
And it terrified me.
“So that it?” he asked. “You changin’ your mind?”
“Yeah. Maybe I am.”
I knew I was pushing him away. But I just couldn’t stop myself.
He stared at me for the longest minute in history.
Neither of us said another thing.
I watched as he turned and walked out, slamming the door behind himself.
Then I sank onto my couch and just sat there, kind of numb.
I knew why I was acting jealous and crazy.
Because I’d gone ahead and fallen for him again.
It really didn’t take much.
Or maybe the truth was I’d just never picked myself back up after the first time I fell.
Because Jude Grayson was the one.
He was my man; the one I’d wanted forever and a day.
And I still didn’t know if he could ever feel the same about me.
Chapter Eighteen
Jude
Saturday.
11:00 pm or whatever.
I sat at the bar at the clubhouse, nursing a beer that went warm long ago. Piper sat next to me, talking shit about whatever. Some girl whose name I couldn’t remember sat in his lap.
A friend of hers had tried to slither into mine, but I wasn’t having it. She had black hair and was pretty enough, but everything about her screamed fake, including her black hair.
Other than a few of the wives, most of the women who came through these doors seemed fake to me.
I wasn’t totally above it. It wasn’t like I’d never fucked around with anyone at the clubhouse. But it had been a long while, and with Roni on my mind, it wasn’t happening.
I probably couldn’t have gotten it up for another woman right now if I’d tried.
I just wasn’t wired that way.
My dick was hardwired to my head, and right now my head was all the way up Roni Webber’s ass.
Piper had straight-up asked me where my head was at when I’d turned out to be the world’s worst conversationalist tonight. And since I wasn’t interested in beer or pussy, he was at a loss for what to do with me.
Eventually, he’d told the girl with the black hair to put a smile on my face.
“Not tonight, darlin’,” I’d told her, because no reason to be rude. Wasn’t her fault she wasn’t Veronica Webber.
“What’s eatin’ you?” Piper asked as she wandered away with a pout. “Not like you to turn down good pussy.”
It was definitely like me, actually, to turn down club pussy. Which just went to show that my brother didn’t pay all that much attention where me and women were concerned.
He never really did.
“Just not feelin’ it,” I said.
I could’ve said, I’m feelin’ Roni Webber. Remember her? Yeah, her. I’ve got a thing for her the size of a Mack truck and it just keeps running me the fuck over, so I’m just gonna sit here for a while and look like this.
But I didn’t say that.
I hadn’t said it to anyone, even Jesse.
I hadn’t told any of the guys, the Kings or the band, that I’d been seeing her almost
every night.
Because we were just fuck buddies, right? Didn’t seem like I needed to send out formal fucking announcements to everyone I knew.
Right.
We were more than fuck buddies. We were exclusive fuck buddies, which was really fucked up.
And it was all my idea.
I was the one who’d suggested the whole fuck buddy thing. I asked her to be exclusive. Told her, actually, that she had to be if she wanted me.
And now she thought I didn’t want her around my club brothers.
Maybe I didn’t.
Fuck.
No wonder she was pissed.
Roni was gorgeous, sexy, witty and fun to be around, and any guy should be happy to show her off, show up anywhere with her.
I pushed my way out of the bar, outside, to get some space. To get air. The stink of booze and smoke and perfume faded and I took a deep breath. Sat my ass down on the rotten-ass old picnic table off to the side of the gravel lot. No one used it for picnics. It was so carved up with brothers’ signatures, no one wanted to put it out to pasture at the dump like we probably should’ve years ago.
I could see my name, JUDE, carved into the tabletop near one corner, where I’d carved it when I was, what? Fifteen?
And then when I was twenty-one, the big R I’d carved right into the opposite corner while I was seething over Roni, just days after I’d first had sex with her.
When I was avoiding her. Hiding out at the clubhouse so I wouldn’t have to see her.
Now, she’d accused me of not wanting her around Piper and the Kings, and she was right. Just not for the reason she seemed to think—that I didn’t want to be seen with her. Like she wasn’t good enough or something.
Obviously, she was good enough.
Maybe I just hadn’t figured out how to drag my heart totally out of the past yet.
I eased my Harley into my brother’s garage with an anvil in my chest.
The garage sat behind the house where Piper lived with a couple of other Kings. He’d wanted me to move in when I finished high school and moved out of Mom’s, instead of moving in with Jesse and those guys.
I didn’t.
The house was decent, nothing special, but the garage was huge. Though it was a disappointment to my brother, I didn’t share his love of restoring motorcycles. I was more like our dad that way; preferred to ride and let someone else do the mechanical work. But I didn’t mind tinkering, helping him out and tuning up my own bikes. Mostly because it meant spending time with my brother.
Dirty Like Jude: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 5) Page 21