I nodded and kissed him again.
And again.
And just as I was about to go for another, the door of the library flew open.
I gasped as heels clicked on the floor and from the light, I could see her—could see the fury in her wide eyes. She was looking right at us, stopping a few steps short of the door.
Mrs. Clement.
EIGHTEEN
JENNA
“What the hell is going on here?” Mrs. Clement demanded. Jude turned, holding his hands up and gesturing for her to stay calm. I slid off the table, my eyes wide and my heart racing.
“Mom, please,” he said. “Just give us a moment.”
She scoffed. “Give you a moment? Are you kidding me! You’re in here with your secretary while your future wife is out there looking for you!”
“She is not my future wife! I wish you would stop saying that!” Jude snapped, and Mrs. Clement was taken by surprise.
“Oh, I see.” She laughed a little. “I see exactly what is going on here.” She took a step forward. “I understand not being ready. No one is ever exactly ready for such a big step, but Judas…rebelling with the secretary is unnecessary—”
“For Christ’s sake, Mom, just stop doing that! Stop calling her the secretary or the help or whatever the hell else you call her! She’s more than that to me.”
“Judas, I think you’ve had a little too much to drink,” she stated, trying to keep her voice calm.
“I’m going to leave,” I murmured.
“Jenna,” Jude called, meeting my eyes. I picked up my clutch that I’d dropped on the ground when he first kissed me. “I’ll see you at the hotel.”
I walked past Mrs. Clement who was practically staring a hole into the side of my head.
“The hotel?” she hissed. “You have her staying in the hotel room with you?”
That was the last thing I heard before scurrying down the hallway. I heard Jude’s voice booming, but the words weren’t very clear.
I scurried down the hallway and found the exit, on the hunt for the car I’d ridden to the gala in. I told the driver to take me back to the hotel, and kept my tears at bay the entire ride, but when I got to my hotel room, the tears were impossible to prevent. I was a mess and I was certain that I was going to lose my job now.
His mother despised me and she had a bad habit of getting into Jude’s head. She was going to tell Michaela, who would be upset. She would give him an ultimatum, which would leave him no choice but to get rid of me.
I stripped out of my dress and went to the bathroom to scrub my face as much as possible, getting rid of the majority of the makeup.
I didn’t know when Jude would be back at the hotel. Hell, would he even return after what happened? After being caught?
I had no clue. But, I waited anyway.
Waited for my boss to come back to me.
NINETEEN
JUDAS
I left during the middle of the argument with my mother. I couldn’t stay there and be criticized and looked down upon. I was so tired of her judgmental attitude.
I knew she was going to tell Janelle, Michaela, and my father eventually but I didn’t give a single fuck. There was only one person I wanted to be with—one place I wanted to be—and that was in the hotel room with Jenna.
My driver dropped me off and took me straight there. I walked through my hotel door and it was quiet. The door that led to her room was shut and there was no sign of light. I assumed she was sleeping, but I knew the chances of that were very slim. If something really bothered her she’d let it eat her alive before falling asleep.
Sighing, I grabbed the door handle and pushed it open. Her room was dark, despite the light of the full moon shining in. I looked at the bed but she wasn’t there. My eyes ventured over to the window, and I saw a figure sitting in a cushioned chair. From where she sat, there was a distant view of the Golden Gate Bridge.
“Jenna,” I said softly. I shut the door behind me and met up behind her. My hands capped her shoulders and lightly massaged them. “I’m sorry about what happened. It shouldn’t have gone down that way. She never should have said those things about you.”
“Why?” she muttered. “It’s not like she didn’t mean them.”
I pulled away to walk around the chair. I stood in front of her, sliding my hands into my pockets.
“She’ll tell them and they’ll make you fire me. I’ve already accepted that.” Her head tilted up and her eyes found mine. “If you let me go, at least leave me a good letter of recommendation so I can easily find another job.”
“That won’t be necessary. I’m not letting you go.”
Her eyebrows dipped. “You’ll have no choice, Jude. You know how your family is. They’re conniving and manipulative and not to mention Michaela is a vindictive person. If you don’t do it, they’ll figure out a way to do it themselves.”
“Jenna,” I breathed, smiling. I grabbed her hands and squeezed them, pulling her up to a stand. She stared up at me, confused as hell, the worry clear on her face. “I am the C.E.O of Clement Architecture. Everything my father owned was handed down to me. The decisions that are made for that company come down to me. They can demand it all they want, it doesn’t mean that I’ll give in or cater to their demands.”
“I don’t want to ruin your future or the future of the company because of an arrangement we made, Jude. An arrangement that was supposed to be temporary.”
“It won’t be ruined, babe.”
Her lips pressed together. It was clear she didn’t believe me. I led the way to the bed and sat her down, then went to turn one of the light switches on. It was a dim light, but enough for me to see her clearly.
“I wanted to wait until Monday to tell you this,” I started, holding her hands.
“Tell me what?”
“The plan I told you about last Sunday—the one I said would secure the company and its name and keep us on top for years to come?”
“Yeah?” she asked eagerly, intrigued. “What about it?”
“It’s going to happen. I signed on Monday. It’s why I had to stay a little longer. I got through to them and they are going to give a very large investment.”
“Oh, my gosh!” she gasped. “That’s great! So that means that you won’t have to go through with marrying Michaela?”
“No, babe. I don’t. They want me to marry her because her father was putting up the most money, but only if her future was secure too. But now…well, I don’t need them. The company, Joles, is offering way more. My family doesn’t need Michaela. We’ll be fine. I just have to fill them in.”
“Wow…Jude, I—” Her mouth opened and then clamped shut, her eyes glistening. “Did you…”
“What?”
“You said you were going to work on something so that you wouldn’t have to marry her…” Her head shook slowly. “All this time I thought you were just feeding me lies—making up excuses to keep me around longer.”
“What? Jenna, no.” I grabbed her waist and lifted her up, bringing her onto my lap. “I…well, shit. I can’t picture going on without you anymore. There are times when I’m sitting in my office or traveling, where I just have moments that I wish you were there. Moments that I wish I could talk to you or be with you. I…I haven’t felt like this with anyone before, Jenna. I’ve spent so many years by myself, abiding by my parents’ rules and succumbing to their lifestyle, that I realized I wasn’t actually living until I met you. When the arrangement first started, I knew—I just fucking knew that things were never going to be the same again. That I was never going to let you walk away from me.”
Her eyes shimmered with hope as she looked down at me. “You mean it?”
“I do. I kissed you tonight because you mean a lot to me. To them you’re just a secretary, but to me you’re so much more.”
She smiled and laughed a little, turning in my lap and wrapping her legs behind me. She undid my tie and then draped her arms around the back of my neck. A sigh left
her as she rested her forehead on mine.
“Tyler called when I got here,” she confessed, and my back straightened, my grip slacking at her waist. “I broke it off with him.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. He called and was talking, but all I could think about was that kiss. Your lips.” Her eyes dropped to my mouth. “I just flat out told him I couldn’t keep talking to him. That I was interested in someone else.”
“Good girl.” I smiled, and shifted over, placing her on her back. I slid between her legs. “Couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss, huh?”
“No,” she breathed.
“I can’t even remember the last time I kissed a girl on the lips. Had to be college—maybe high school.”
“Careful,” she teased. “I might get jealous again.”
I laughed. “I don’t ever want you jealous. You hear me?”
She nodded. “Okay.”
I lowered my face to hers with a hand on one side of her face. My lips pressed on hers and I sighed, deepening the kiss. I meant this. I’d tried for so long to avoid her mouth—to pretend it was only meant for sucking and fucking—but this was ten times better than any of that.
Her mouth was sweet and her lips were so soft. I’d been missing out on claiming these lips—truly owning and devouring these sweet, pouty lips.
She got excited when she felt my cock getting hard in my pants. I could tell she didn’t want to, but she broke the kiss to reach down and unbuckle my belt.
She moved to the middle of the bed and I moved forward on my knees, taking my tie off and unbuttoning my shirt. My pants came down next and I kicked them off, and when I got rid of my boxers, Jenna sat up higher looking up at me with big, doe-like eyes.
“Go ahead,” I murmured, and she eagerly did as told.
That beautiful, sweet mouth of hers wrapped around my cock and I let out a heavy groan, resting a palm on the back of her head.
She took me deep down her throat and then came back up for air, still staring up at me.
“God, you’re so beautiful, babe,” I rasped. “So fucking beautiful.”
She was sucking my cock like she’d been dying to suck it and after dealing with the frustrations of that night, I was about to blow. I pulled her mouth away, clutching her hair and tugging on it lightly. I bent over, keeping her face up in the air, and kissed her mouth, sucking on her bottom lip.
She moaned and I pushed forward, laying her back. Her shorts came down in a flash and I got between her legs. I couldn’t wait any longer. I needed to be inside her.
One full, hard thrust, and I was buried deep. Her chin dropped as she stared up into my eyes.
“Show me,” she whispered. “Show me that you really love me.”
Her words were fucking hypnotizing. From that moment on, I had no self-control. I drove in and out, sliding a palm up her arm until I found her fingers, and kissing her like my life depended on it.
She squeezed the hand that’d found hers and used her other hand to sink her fingernails into my hip. I grunted, my cock hard as hell inside her. I was on the verge of coming.
“Say you love me,” she begged on my lips. “Tell me.”
The sensations had taken full control of me. I dropped my face into the crook of her neck, giving full, hard thrusts, repeating the action over and over again until I felt her clenching around me.
“Oh, Jude, yes,” she breathed out. “Yes.”
I picked my head up again, kissing her harder. Once. Twice. “I love you, Jenna Taylor,” I breathed on her lips. “I fucking love you.”
And with those words alone, she shattered.
She came all over my cock, her legs wrapped like steel around me, leaving me no choice but to come inside her.
“Oh, shit!” I dropped my head again, grabbing her ass with my other hand. “Shit, Jenna. You’re so amazing.”
She whimpered and moaned, shuddering beneath me.
“Fuck,” I panted, rolling over and catching my breath.
Jenna moved closer, resting her head on my chest. Then she said the words I never thought I wanted to hear a woman say. Words that would have scared me months ago, but instead made me feel like the greatest man on earth.
“I love you too, Judas Clement,” she whispered. “So much.”
TWENTY
JENNA
A loud knock woke us up the next morning.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes as Jude groaned, rolling to his side. We were in his bed, completely naked beneath the sheets.
The knocking happened again and Jude pushed out of the bed, going for his pants that were on the floor, and sliding into them.
“Open the goddamn door, Jude!” the voice yelled from the other side and my eyes stretched wide.
Shit! Michaela!
“How did she find you?” I asked hurriedly. I hopped out of bed and picked up one of Jude’s dress shirts, sliding my arms into it and buttoning it quickly.
“My mother knows what hotel I stay at when I come here,” he grumbled as he peered through the peephole. He sighed and looked over his shoulder at me just as I was about to dip off and slink into my room to hide.
“No, Jenna.” He shook his head. “Stay.”
“But she’ll—”
“I don’t give a damn what she does,” he said, voice still thick and deep with sleep. “I’m not hiding you anymore.”
It was a bad idea and I knew it, but I swallowed hard and nodded anyway. I sat in the recliner and when Jude opened the door, I practically held my breath.
Michaela came waltzing in like she owned the place, wearing a pink sweater, jeans, and red-bottomed heels. “Please tell me your mother is lying,” she hissed at him. “Please tell me this is some kind of sick, twisted—”
She was about to go on a rampage with him, but then her eyes went over his shoulder and she spotted me. I sat up a little higher, pressing my lips together.
Michaela scoffed, taking a step to the left to get a better look at me. She must have realized I was in his shirt because her head shook, and she shut her eyes for a brief moment and throwing her hands in front her before focusing on him again.
“I want her gone.” She faced him. “I want her fired immediately.”
“You can’t tell me who to fire, Michaela.”
“If we are to be married then yes, I can.”
“But we aren’t.” Jude quirked a brow. I noticed he was still holding the door open. “Let’s make something clear, Michaela. I don’t love you—hell, I hardly even like you. Whatever my parents arranged with your parents is between them, but I’m sure it will be over soon.”
“How?” she barked. “You need me—”
Jude’s chuckle stopped her from talking. “Wrong. I don’t need you at all. I never have. My parents may rely on your family’s bullshit, but I don’t. I don’t need it and I don’t need you. I’m a businessman, which means it is my job to find other ways to keep myself afloat, other than having to rely on marrying a woman I literally despise.”
Michaela was shocked. Tongue-tied.
“You won’t show up at my office anymore. You won’t call, or text me, or tell me what to do because you think you own me. Your family thinks I’m their pet—their dog—but they’re wrong in that aspect. See, my parents may go and fetch their little bones and wag their tails when they call, but I won’t. I’m the fucking owner and no one will have a claim over me.”
Wow. I had never heard Jude talk this way to her. And better yet, I had never seen Michaela at such a loss for words.
“You can leave now,” Jude told her, looking out the door.
She let out a short, dry laugh, staring at him as if she had more to say, but couldn’t find the right words. Then she looked back at me, shaking her head.
“Slut,” she spat, and then she stormed out of the door. The door that Jude had no problem slamming behind her.
Jude sighed, coming toward me. He pulled me to a stand and then cupped my face in his large hands. “She’s the slut,” he ch
uckled, and I laughed, dropping my gaze.
“Did I ruin things?” I asked softly.
“No.” He kissed me on the lips. A full, warm, slightly damp kiss that made heat swim to my core. “You made things better, baby.” He picked me up in his arms, taking long strides to get back to the bed. “Today is Sunday.” He smirked, looking at me with mellow eyes.
I laughed and he kissed my lips first, then kissed his way down. “My favorite day of the week.”
I flew back home with Jude the next morning. His mom wanted him to meet her for breakfast but he told her he had things to catch up on. He knew all she was going to do was talk him back into being with Michaela and he wasn’t in the mood for it.
Christmas was coming, which meant that our hours were going to be shorter in the office. I had to catch up on some work by that upcoming Wednesday and then the rest of the week would be mine.
Jude drove me to my apartment when we landed. I wanted to talk to him a little more about Saturday night, but I also didn’t want to ruin the moment. One of our hands were clasped together as he drove with his left hand on the steering wheel, and I couldn’t help the smile that swept over me every few seconds.
He was holding my hand.
He was driving me home.
Maybe he did love me.
Jude had to meet with someone for dinner, so I spent that night alone, but of course I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I told Carrie all about my misadventure when she got home and she devoured every single word. She couldn’t believe he’d stood up for me—that he’d actually kissed me and wanted more.
I couldn’t believe it either.
The next morning, I was on my way to work early.
I needed to see him. He’d sent me a text last night and told me he’d be in the office in the morning, which meant I had to be patient. I could only be patient for so long. I got to the Clement building around 7:00 a.m. and took the elevator up with a smile, eager to see him.
Dirty Little Quickies Page 15