“Sorry Dad.”
Mr. Ashland laughed. “I was young once too.”
“Nah. You were never young Dad.”
“Of course not son.” Jude’s dad shook his head, dropped his cigarette into the coffee can on the porch and then went back inside.
Jude popped a breath mint into his mouth and then handed one to Mellenda. “I really want to kiss you but I doubt you’ll appreciate my morning breath. I really want a cigarette too, but I think I want you even more.”
“That was almost sweet Jude.” Mellenda rolled her eyes and put the breath mint in her mouth.
Jude kissed her. It turned into a lengthy kiss, which led to them making out like it usually did. She pulled back a few minutes later, feeling breathless. “We need to get dressed and go inside.”
Jude grinned. “I got you horny huh?”
“I didn’t know it was possible for me to be this horny all the time until I started dating you.”
Jude’s smile widened. “Oh Mellenda, you make me want to marry you more and more every day.”
“What if I don’t want to marry you?”
“Damn. Such a woman. You make my heart soar one minute and you shoot it down the next.”
“I was teasing.”
“I know baby. We should get dressed. My mom is going to come out here and yell at me soon if we don’t go inside.”
Jude dressed quickly and stood on the porch and smoked a cigarette while she finished dressing. They went inside. Jude’s mom looked at him and laughed.
“Nice mark of ownership your girlfriend put on your neck son.”
Jude grinned. “I think it was her way of telling me that she had a really happy birthday.”
Mellenda blushed. “I did. Thank you.”
They ate breakfast. Jude’s brothers and sisters returned. They played games together until late afternoon. Jude let Mellenda drive his truck to the old make out spot, where they made love. Then he took her back to school.
Mellenda asked her parents for the money to buy a prom dress. They agreed to send it to her though they didn’t bother to ask any questions about her new boyfriend. Mellenda wasn’t sure whether she was relieved or disappointed.
Prom was still weeks away but there were already dresses for sale in town so Mellenda started looking right away. She wished that she had someone that could go with her so that she could get someone’s opinion on how she looked in the dress she had picked out, but not only did she not want to let too much slip about her relationship with Jude until she had to, she didn’t trust the opinions of any of the silly, slutty girls at her school anyway.
She thought that maybe if she’d been closer to Tory she might have asked her, but it would have felt too weird even if they were friends since she was going with Tory’s ex. She knew that Tory was fully over Jude but she didn’t think she’d want it shoved in her face that someone was happy with her ex. She still didn’t like to think about the fact that Ricky and Molli were married and having a baby, though it sat much easier in her mind as time went on.
She would have asked Jude his opinion on the dress, but she wanted it be a surprise. The dress cost a lot of money but she thought it looked good on her.
It took her forever to get ready on prom night. She applied a little more makeup than she was used to anymore but she wanted to look really good. She wanted the night to be special for both of them.
When it was time to go she slipped out the door. Mellenda felt silly to be dressed in a fancy dress and walking through the woods. A couple girls had remarked that she was dressed up really fancy when she didn’t have a boyfriend anymore, but she’d told them to mind their own business and walked away. She had a feeling that she wouldn’t be very welcome in the popular crowd anymore come Monday, but she didn’t really care. She had fallen head over heels for Jude. She wanted to finish out her time at Crestview and move the hell on. Hopefully with Jude. She knew that he liked her, and had a feeling that he was in love with her, but she thought that it might be her heart seeing what she wanted to see.
She picked up the edge of her skirt so that it wouldn’t drag on the ground and hurried through the woods. She’d never been to prom before, and she was more excited than she wanted to admit.
Jude’s truck was behind the old shack. He was leaning against the side, smoking a cigarette. He dropped his cigarette and put it out under his foot. He let out a low whistle. “Damn baby, you do look even better in a dress. Will you take a picture of yourself in your uniform and send it to me?”
Mellenda rolled her eyes. “You are so horny Jude. Can we get out of here? I was afraid the whole way that I was going to rip this expensive dress.”
“It was worth every penny. It shows off your body perfectly. Of course I think your dress will look even better when it’s on the floor beside the bed in our hotel room. Are you sure you don’t want to skip the dance and go straight to the room?”
Mellenda shook her head. “Control your hormones. This is your senior prom Jude. You can’t miss it so that we can have sex. We’ve already had sex, and it’s not like we’re never gonna have sex again.”
“But the way you look in that dress already has me rock hard. If I have to dance with you all night and have your hot body rubbing up against me, I’m gonna come in my shorts.”
“Gross. You sound like such a horny teenage boy. We’ll only dance to fast songs so my body won’t be rubbing up against yours.”
“I can’t dance to anything but slow songs. You look so hot. Do you wanna do it before we go to the dance? Turn around so I can see your ass. And look at your cleavage. Shit I think I already came in my shorts.”
“If you don’t stop talking like that, I won’t go to the dance with you and you’ll have to spend the night with yourself in the hotel room.”
“Baby come on. I was kidding. You look fucking gorgeous. I’m gonna have the best looking date in school. I know it.”
“Uh huh. Let’s go. I wanna get out of this dress and not just so that we can have sex. It’s tight around my butt and my boobs.”
Jude groaned. “You’d better not show me your butt then, because I really will have a premature ejaculation. Your ass looks so hot when your clothes aren’t tight that I can only imagine how good it must look right now.”
“You are a pervert. Let’s go.”
“I am a pervert, but you do look gorgeous. I’m really proud to be taking you to prom. There’s nobody in the whole world that I’d rather go with.”
“Uh huh.” She winked at him. “Am I driving or are you?”
“You’d better drive. I might get distracted by your cleavage and kill us on the way.”
Mellenda rolled her eyes. “Jude what am I gonna do with you?”
“Don’t get me started on thinking about that.” He gave her a quick kiss and then opened the door for her.
Mellenda got behind the wheel and then pulled back out onto the road once Jude had gotten in the other side of the truck and shut the door behind him. “It’s at your school right?”
“Yep. In the gym.”
“Okay. Are you nervous?”
“Why would I be nervous? I’m gonna be outta there in a few months and I will have the best looking date there. You look like you should be on the cover of a magazine.”
“Ha ha. I already said I was gonna have sex with you tonight Jude, so you can stop trying to butter me up. You’ve already talked your way into my pants so give it a rest.”
“If I recall, and I’m pretty damned sure I do, because that was one of the best nights of my life so far, you seduced me the first time babe. You were begging me for it.”
“Oh please. You’re the one that’s always like ‘Mellenda let’s go outside so we can fool around.’ Women have so much more willpower than men do.”
“You had zero willpower that night. Yeah, count it girl. Zero. You came the second I was inside of you.”
“Maybe I faked it.”
“Mellenda, you’re talking to your man. I’ve giv
en you an orgasm so many different ways that I think I kinda know what it feels like when you have one. And you um, well yeah you know what I’m talking about but it’s probably better if I don’t say it out loud. But it’s pretty obvious when you have an orgasm.”
Mellenda’s face was hot. “No more dirty talk Jude. You’re embarrassing me.”
“I’m sorry baby. But I do know when you have an orgasm.”
“Shut up or I’ll make you give me a cigarette.”
Jude chuckled. “I thought you only smoked after I’d totally blown your mind in bed.”
“Oh my god Jude, I am serious. Shut the hell up or I will drop you off on the side of the road and drive your truck to Vegas.”
“Vegas? What can you do in Vegas when you’re not twenty-one? It’s not like you can marry yourself.”
“Who said I wanted to marry you? I was using Vegas as an example. I don’t think I’d ever want to go there. It sounds trashy. A town that makes its living off of making people broke.”
“You’d bankrupt yourself driving this thing to Vegas anyway. If it made it all the way there. I gotta get some new wheels before I go to school.”
“I need to get a car period before I go to school.”
“Why can’t you ride with me? I thought you had an almost full scholarship. I already got my acceptance letter and my grants look good. Don’t tell me you’re backing out on me now. I can’t lose you after we barely started dating.”
“Don’t be so melodramatic Jude. You sound like a girl. My scholarship is fine, and I’m not backing out on anything with you.”
“So you’re gonna marry me someday?”
“Now you really sound like a girl. If things continue to go well then yeah, I’ll probably marry you someday. But you’d better save up for a nice engagement ring. I want one even nicer than Tory’s.”
Mellenda turned to Jude after she had parked the truck in the parking lot of Brentwood High. She thought he looked a little pale, and had to stop herself from laughing. “I’m kidding Jude. I’m sure that if you decide you want to marry me someday that whatever engagement ring you pick out will be fine.”
“I knew I wanted to marry you the first time we had sex.”
“Enough. Let’s go see if they’ve spiked the punch. I’m in the mood to get drunk.”
“I knew that there was a reason that I loved you.”
Mellenda’s heart beat faster. “What did you say?”
“Huh? Oh, you mean that I loved you? I thought that you knew that. Don’t you love me too? You don’t have to say it if you don’t. I’ve never felt this way before. I thought that I loved Tory and that I loved Molli and even this other girl three years ago, but those were just words. With you I mean it. So yeah, I love you Mellenda. Now let’s go get drunk. I’m sure they’ve already spiked the punch.” He grinned. “It’s a good thing that the hotel is only a few blocks away and that the school doesn’t care if kids leave their cars here all night huh? Let me get the door for you.”
Jude started to get out of the truck, but Mellenda stopped him. “Jude. Wait. Did you really mean what you said? Do you love me? I mean really love me?”
“Mellenda, I feel like the luckiest guy in the whole damned world. Even if you don’t love me the way I love you, you’ve chosen to share your life with me. Maybe it won’t last forever, but that’s still pretty damned special.”
“Oh Jude.”
She wanted to cry. Ricky was cultured and brilliant and looked like a man. At nineteen, he acted more mature than she figured a lot of men twice his age acted. Jude could be crude, he wasn’t quite as smart as Ricky, and he could be an asshole, but he was making her feel things that Ricky had never made her feel. She was suddenly glad that Ricky had started sleeping with Molli. She truly wished them the best for the first time since Ricky had broken up with her.
“I love you too.”
Jude grinned. “Beautiful words from a truly beautiful woman. Now let’s go get drunk, and dance a little so we can go back to the hotel and make a perfect end to a perfect night.”
“Did you already rent the room?”
“Yep. I rented it way ahead of time on the hope that you’d say yes when I asked you to prom and I picked up the key this afternoon so we’re all set.”
“Jude, sometimes I don’t know whether to be pissed off at you or love you even more.”
“That’s a relationship for you. Let’s go babe.”
Jude got out of the truck and shut his door and then came around and opened her door for her. He helped her step out and then took her into his arms for a brief embrace and a lingering kiss.
They walked hand in hand to the entrance of the school. A woman took their tickets and they walked down the hall to the gym. Music was blaring and the dance floor was crowded. Mellenda felt overdressed, because even though the other girls were dressed up, none seemed to be wearing a dress quite as nice as hers.
She saw a group of girls from Crestview gathered around a large table with their boyfriends and hid her head in Jude’s shoulder. “So much for our dating being a secret. It’s gonna be all over school by Monday.”
Jude shrugged. “Who cares? Fuck ‘em if they want to talk shit. Are you afraid Tory will find out? I’m pretty sure that she’s totally over me now since she’s marrying Tony.”
“It’s not that I’m embarrassed to be going out with you. It was just so much easier when we kept everything between us and your family you know? Have you told Brendan about me?”
“He knew that I was bringing someone tonight, and that I’ve been seeing someone. But I let him think it was casual so that he wouldn’t ask too many questions. I love the guy like a brother, but he spreads gossip like a bitch.”
Mellenda laughed. “I’m sure he’d love to hear you say that.”
“I tell him all the time. There he is. I’ll introduce you.”
Jude took her hand and pulled her over to a tall, good looking guy who was standing next to a pretty girl who was wearing a dress with a dangerously large slit up the side.
“Hey Jude. And who’s this? I thought you were bringing the chick you’ve been hanging out with and not a supermodel.” Brendan winked at her.
“Brendan, Shayla, this is Mellenda. Mellenda, this is my best friend Brendan and his girlfriend Shayla.”
“Nice to meet you,” Mellenda said. She thought she could detect a scent of alcohol coming from one of them.
Brendan took her hand and kissed it. “And it’s very nice to meet you. Don’t you go to Crestview? How’d you manage to snag yourself another hottie from Crestview Jude? I think she’s the best yet.”
Shayla frowned at him. “She’s Molli’s roommate isn’t she Jude?”
It bugged Mellenda that the girl hadn’t bothered to address her when she was talking about her, but she tried not to let it get to her.
Jude nodded. “She was. What’s your point Shayla?”
“It seems that you like to trade girlfriends. Why don’t the six of you get married and have one big continuous orgy?”
“Really Shayla? What was your nickname before you hooked up with Brendan?”
“Chill man. She was giving you shit.”
“Was she really Brendan? That sounded like a pretty big fucking insult to both me and my girl.”
“Bro, if you don’t like the truth that’s your problem. It is a little weird that you, Wilson, and Ricky played merry go round with your girlfriends. Is that why you’ve kept her hidden for so long?”
“What the hell is with you tonight? You two are already drunk aren’t you? I haven’t kept Mellenda hidden. I’m very proud to say that she’s my girl. It’s because of ignorant comments like the one you just made that we don’t go out in public a lot.”
“You’ve never taken her out in public that I know of. And so what if I’m drunk? Not everybody can be perfect like you and your prissy Crestview girlfriends. Jude is too good for the girls that go to our school. Except when he’s fingering them under the bleachers during a
football game or getting blow jobs in the janitor’s closet. Your man is far from perfect Mellenda, so why don’t you find yourself another college boy and leave the trailer trash in the trailer park?”
“Fuck you Brendan. I don’t need to listen to you talk shit when your girlfriend has spread her legs for half the guys in school. Including me. You know when I asked you about going down on a girl? It wasn’t so I could go down on Molli. Well, I did that too, but it was so your girlfriend could sit on my face. Damn. You wanna talk shit? Tell him how you many times I made you come that day Shayla.”
Shayla’s face colored. Mellenda wanted to disappear into the floor. She took Jude’s arm and started to pull him away. “I’m thirsty Jude. Let’s get some punch.”
“Yeah, let your girlfriend drag you away like the punk you are. Is it so hard for you to get a piece now that you’re that pussy whipped?”
Jude pulled his arm from Mellenda’s grasp. “You wanna take this outside? I wouldn’t mind punching that look off of your face.”
“Ooh Jude’s gonna kick my ass. I think I’m gonna shit my pants. Take your sloppy seconds and get the hell out of my face.”
Jude snorted. “Sloppy seconds? What does that make Shayla? Can you count that high?”
Mellenda stepped between Jude and Brendan. “Enough. Let’s go Jude. Your friend is drunk, and you’re egging him on. I’d like to spend the night in our hotel room and not sitting in the police station waiting to bail you out of jail.”
“Damn she’s gonna let you give it to her in a real bed Jude? You must be moving up in the world. I don’t think you can convince her to marry you and live in a double wide like your parents though. I think she’s too high class for that. Or I might be wrong. She was fucking Tony last year wasn’t she? Yep, I seem to remember that she was. So it’s not too big of a leap from a drug dealer to trailer trash. Those girls at Crestview sure like their dick don’t they?”
Mellenda shook her head at Jude. “Don’t. He’s not worth it.”
Brendan laughed. He reached out and gave Mellenda’s ass a good squeeze. “What are you gonna do now Jude? Wanna see if she’ll let me touch her tits?”
Misty Reigenborn Romance Boxed Set Page 181