Jude stared at his former superior officer until the implication of those words sunk in. “You want me to pretend to be her lover? Like none of the past shit happened and we got back together?”
“It’s a plausible reason for you to be around here all the time.”
“No.” Dread coiled its greasy fingers around his throat and squeezed. “No, no, no.”
Pruitt paid no attention to his protests. “If you agree to my terms,” he said to Greer, “he can start tomorrow morning.”
“Do I really have to repeat my answer? How about, hell no? That sink in, Colonel?”
“This is not a request, Marine.”
Jude got in Pruitt’s face, his teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached. How dare the man ask this, after everything? He had some massive, steel-lined balls to come in here and dredge up a past Jude had spent eight years doing his damnedest to forget. “I’m not active duty. You can’t order me around anymore. Sir.”
Pruitt’s rigid features softened—only the slightest bit, but Jude had seen that face screaming into his so many times over the years, he noticed and backed off a step, his anger draining away. Sure, Elliot Pruitt was a hardass, in-it-for-life jarhead, but he wasn’t a deadbeat father. His love for his only daughter was deeper even than his love for the Marines and that was saying something. The strain he felt for her situation showed in the lines around his eyes. He just wanted her safe, and nobody could fault him for that.
“Find someone else,” he told Pruitt softly and shook his head. “This plan? With me? Won’t work.”
“Yes it will. I know the feelings you had for her, Wilde.”
“Had. It was eight years ago, sir. People change.”
“Not you.” Pruitt jabbed a finger into his shoulder to enunciate each word. “Not about this.”
What could he say to that? That he’d wanted the man’s daughter more than he’d ever wanted anything? That he’d contented himself with a slew of nameless, faceless women who all blended together in his memory because none of them were the woman he loved? That he’d been noble one fucking time in his life and it had cost him more than anyone could imagine?
No. He had too much pride to admit all that, but any argument he made to the contrary would bounce off the Colonel like a rubber bullet, so he kept his mouth shut. At his back, he could almost feel Camden twitching with eagerness to ask him about Libby Pruitt.
Greer shifted in his seat and the springs of his chair squeaked as his two-hundred-thirty, six-foot-five frame reclined, breaking the silence. He folded his hands across his abs and studied Jude for a long moment, then sighed. “Give us a moment, Colonel? There’s water and soda in the fridge out the door and to the left. Please, help yourself.”
Pruitt gave a curt nod, nailed Jude with another stern look that was somehow a cross between an order and a desperate request, and then let himself out.
“I don’t want to see her,” Jude said once he was gone. “It’s not fucking happening, Greer. Libby will castrate me if she sees me again. She won’t go for the whole pretend relationship thing. Pruitt’s out of his mind.”
“What did you do to her?” Camden asked.
“The usual college romance sob story. College love and all that, then I went and broke her heart in the worst way I knew how.”
“You cheated,” Greer concluded.
It took every ounce of control he had not to show his internal wince on his face. Cheater. Man, he hated that word, but he shrugged like it was all no big deal. Just Jude being his usual fuck-up self. “And rubbed her face in it. I was young and stupid.”
“You aren’t still?” Reece asked.
Jesus. Sometimes he wished his second oldest brother’s snark came with a mute button. “We had something good and I fucked it up. As usual. C’mon, you can’t tell me you’re surprised by that.”
“No,” Greer said. “I’m not.”
Jude refused to let that answer sting. It was the truth, after all.
“How long were you with her?” Camden asked.
He thought about the ring in his pocket and considered lying, because they sure as fuck wouldn’t believe the truth, but what was the point? “A year. My senior year at Old Dominion.”
His brothers stared at him.
“No way,” Camden said. “You’ve never stayed with anyone that long.”
“Well, I did with her, okay?” Jude snapped. “And don’t look at me like that. You all met her once at my apartment in Norfolk.”
“Then why don’t we remember her?” Greer asked.
“I do,” Vaughn said.
“That’s cuz you have the memory of an elephant,” Cam said and elbowed his twin in the side.
“Pretty girl. Smart. Very sweet,” Vaughn continued without missing a beat. “I thought she was too good for you.”
“Yeah, I can’t argue that.” Jude dropped into the chair vacated by Pruitt’s pretentious lawyer and rubbed both hands over his face. “When we were dating, I was always real careful about where we went, what we did, who we saw. Always took her out of town or to places where there was no chance of me being spotted with her.”
“And why was that?” Reece asked, his tone full of disgust.
Because he’d wanted her to himself. He’d wanted her to know the real him and not the image he projected. And because he’d been warned away from her—several times. But his brothers didn’t need to know any of that. “Because I didn’t want this third degree.”
Reece snorted. “More like you didn’t want one of your other girlfriends to catch you.”
“Yeah,” Jude muttered and touched the ring in his pocket again. “You know me too well.”
As his brothers processed the situation in silence, the dread tightening his chest started edging dangerously close to panic. He couldn’t face Libby ever again. If it came to it, he wasn’t sure he’d have the strength to hurt her a second time.
“So it’s settled.” He made sure there was no room in his tone for argument and got to his feet again, intent on making a quick escape. “I’m not doing it.”
“No,” Greer said, “you definitely are.”
“What?”
“You always admit when you fuck up—I gotta give you credit for that—but you never really face your mistakes.” Greer leveled that dark, all-to-knowing gaze on him and handed over the folder containing Libby’s personal data. “It’s long past time, bro, and after I hash out the details with Pruitt, you’ll start tomorrow.”
Chapter Two
“Late again.”
“Dammit, I know.” Libby Pruitt shoved into her office, hooked her purse over the back of her chair, and searched her desk drawers for a hair clip. Noah Saunders, her research assistant for the semester, lounged in the doorway, his skinny arms crossed over his chest. He already had a coffee stain on his tie even though it was barely eight-thirty and his kinky, orange-red hair looked as if he had styled it with an explosion.
Unfortunately, he was the more organized out of the two of them this morning. Where was that damn clip? Despite her efforts, her hair was already out of control.
“You can’t keep doing this,” he said.
“Again, I know.” Especially since her boss expected nothing less than one-hundred and ten percent from his underlings. But it didn’t help that her father seemed intent on making her life into a special kind of hell. With one ten minute phone call, he’d managed to ruin her entire day before she’d even had her first cup of coffee.
Noah frowned. “You never used to be late for work. What’s going on?”
Ah ha. Hair clip. She twisted her hair into a ponytail and clipped it up. “We need to analyze the police reports regarding the Gatewood case—”
Noah straightened. He may have been a toothpick, but he was a tall toothpick and used his entire height to block her escape. “Libby, slow down a second. You can talk to me. Is something wrong?”
Her heart tripped, but she managed a smile she hoped didn’t look as fake as it felt. “Of course not. It’s
just stress.”
“Over K-Bar’s release?”
Sure, she’d go with that. In a roundabout way, it was the truth. “He shouldn’t have gotten out and I feel somewhat responsible that he did.”
“You did everything you could.”
“Yes, but it wasn’t enough. He’s still free to terrorize people.” One of those people being her, but she didn’t mention that to Noah. He didn’t need to know about the messages. The dolls. The disturbing voicemails. The distorted videos sent to her email. Besides, she honestly didn’t think K-Bar would try anything more than make scary, but idle threats. She’d spent enough time studying him to know that if he’d wanted her dead, he would have convinced someone from his gang to get rid of her a long time ago. It would’ve been a quick, execution-style kill that she never would have seen coming.
So, no. K-Bar didn’t want her dead. Of that, she was certain. He just wanted her terrified.
Now if only she could convince her dad of that. He was just compounding her stress by inviting a bodyguard into the mix—one he expected to play her boyfriend, of all crazy things.
“Libby?” Noah’s hand passed in front of her face.
She blinked. “Sorry. What?”
“This zoning out…it isn’t like you either.”
“I know.” Shaking off her fears over her father’s mental health, she bit her lower lip. “I’m okay. Really.”
“If you’re worrying about K-Bar walking, don’t. Your case is airtight. He’ll be back in jail before New Year’s. You got him,” Noah said and offered a shy, goofy smile. “You’re amazing.”
Libby laughed and patted his arm. “I already told you, I’m too old for you.”
His face flushed to a color that nearly matched his hair. “I-I didn’t mean…”
“Joke. Relax.” She gave his arm another pat then ducked under it. Noah raced after her, stammering apologies for once again being unable to tell when she was joking with him.
“Noah, stop. It’s fine. You have no need to apolo—” At the other end of the hall, a man stepped off the elevator with Kenneth and her heart did a loop-de-loop. Around six-one, the stranger’s wide shoulders tapered into slim hips and his jeans clung to his thighs as if they never wanted to let go. His dark hair was short on the sides and spiky on top and she could just barely make out the ink of a tattoo on the side of his neck. Another tattoo on his bicep peeked out from under the sleeve of a dark blue t-shirt. The shirt declared, “Trust me, I’ve done this before,” in white letters. A wide stainless steel hoop glinted from his earlobe as he nodded at something Kenneth said.
Earring? Tattoos?
Libby willed her heart to start beating again. Her imagination must be playing tricks on her, conjuring the image of the one person she thought about far too often but never wanted to see again, because for a moment, she thought this man was—
As if sensing her, he glanced up from his conversation and met her gaze with eyes the color of a cloudless morning sky. A flicker of unease passed over his expression before he gathered himself and straightened his shoulders as if preparing for battle. His dimples flashed and the entirety of her existence flipped on its axis.
What. The. Hell?
Before she realized she was moving, she stalked down the hall and stopped in front of him. His grin only widened and he snaked an arm around her waist, pulling her against all that hard muscle she remembered too well. He used to pull her in like this and kiss her every time he saw her, no matter if she had been gone for an hour or a week. It had made her feel special, wanted, adored.
What a crock.
“Hey, babe,” he said with the same crooked half smile that at one time made her go all gooey-kneed. Except there was something different about him now, tentativeness as he held her, a trait she’d never associated with him before. “I missed you.”
She opened her mouth to tell him off—but his lips descended, hesitating only the barest of moments before lightly brushing hers. He lifted his head and stared into her eyes with an unreadable expression in his own. Then, with a groan, he drew her tighter against his body and his lips dropped to hers again in a crushing, desperate kiss that crushed the last eight years into mere moments and short-circuited her mind with an electric pulse of sheer desire.
But she was…angry. Right? At him. Yes, the man that was currently rubbing his tongue over her bottom lip, seeking entrance, the man she didn’t want to want—she should be furious at him right now. She just couldn’t remember why as his kiss sizzled over her nerve endings and filled her head with white noise. God, did the man know how to use his lips or what? He always had, could always make the world melt away until she was nothing but a bundle of sensation.
Off to her left, Kenneth rudely cleared his throat and the world snapped back into sharp focus.
Wait.
Babe?
Libby ripped away from the kiss and stared up into pale blue eyes rimmed with ridiculously long lashes. “Jude?”
His expression was a little dazed and his breathing ragged, but that didn’t stop his gaze from dropping to her mouth. “Yeah?”
She rolled her hand into a fist, hauled it back, and punched Jude Wilde so hard the impact rung up her arm and into her own teeth. “Don’t call me babe ever again.”
…
The woman had a fist of steel.
Jude’s head snapped back at the impact of Libby’s punch and he was pretty sure he had cartoon tweety birds circling his noggin when he straightened. Even getting socked in the face by Vaughn, who expressed some of his more aggressive urges as a cage fighter, didn’t rattle him half as much, but he’d long suspected his brother of pulling punches whenever they got into it.
Libby wasn’t going to afford him that courtesy.
She balled up her fist like she planned to hit him again, but a giant matchstick, complete with the flame-red hair, stepped in front of her.
“Libby, stop!”
Burke sucked in a sharp breath through his nose. “Libby, what is wrong with you?”
She shook out her hand and drew a shuddering breath. Then, like nothing had happened, she straightened her suit jacket and turned on her heel. Matchstick spared Jude a confused glance before chasing after her.
Holy fucking ouch.
Jude worked his jaw. He’d be surprised if he didn’t end up with a bruise as bad as the one Vaughn currently sported around his eye from yesterday’s office rumble. “I thought Pruitt explained this charade to her?”
“He did,” Burke said stiffly.
“Did he mention that I’m the guy he hired for the job?”
“It didn’t come up.”
“Of course not.” Goddamn Pruitt. If he really loved his daughter so much, why would he spring this on her without preparing her first?
Burke paced the hallway, indignation seeping from his every pore. “I told Elliot this was a bad idea. We should have handled this on our own. We didn’t need to bring in outsiders.”
Jude didn’t waste time with I-told-you-sos even though he sorely wanted to say it. Maybe he was becoming a masochist, but now that he’d seen Libby again, and had tasted her, he couldn’t leave without talking to her for real, no pretense.
And maybe one more taste.
Christ, that kiss. It should have been just a quick hello, a smooch from him playing the part of her lover. But once he felt her soft lips yield under his, he’d lost his fucking mind. He’d needed to kiss her.
So much for his acting skills.
He started down the hallway, intent on finding Libby and apologizing for the way her father blindsided her with him—but Burke caught his arm.
“Who are you to her?” Burke demanded. “Elliot won’t tell me why he trusts you of all people to protect Libby.”
The lawyer had the hands of a pansy, soft and thin, and Jude peeled those fingers from his arm with ease. “I could ask the same of you, GQ.”
“We went to law school together.” Burke sniffed, straightening the lapels of his suit coat. “We�
��re friends.”
Man, that uppity tone of his really grated on the nerves. “Friends. Aw, that’s cute. I was her fiancé, so back off and let me do what Pruitt hired me to do.”
Scowling, Burke backed up a step and then another. He kept backing away until he reached the elevator, then turned and jabbed the button.
Jude
continued down the hallway on his mission to apologize to Libby. The place was a maze of office doors. After two wrong turns and a set of ass-backwards directions from a flirty brunette paralegal, he found her seated at her desk in her office, flipping through a stack of files. Matchstick stood beside her with a clipboard in hand and seemed to be taking notes.
Jude tried the doorknob. Nope. Locked. Damn.
Going with plan B, he tapped on the window with his knuckle. Matchstick looked up and scowled. Libby’s shoulders stiffened, but she didn’t lift her eyes from the papers on her desk.
Okay.
He doubled his fist and gave the lightly frosted glass a few good thumps. Matchstick, the flame-haired prick, positioned himself like a human shield between the door and the desk, then went back to note taking. Libby still didn’t move.
Plan C then.
Jude grinned and stated banging out a rocking drum solo on the window. Before he was even half way through Another One Bites the Dust, Libby shoved away from her desk. By the time she twisted the lock and yanked open the door, an aura of pissed off all but sizzled the air around her. She had never looked hotter and his cock took instant notice. Man, this woman could still turn him on like no other and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
She grabbed hold of his arm and dragged him into an empty conference room across the hall from her office.
“What grade are in you in?” she demanded as soon as the door clicked shut behind them. “Second?”
“Fifth. Never grasped the concept of long division and they kept holding me back.”
“Unbelievable.” She pushed out an exasperated breath. “You’re still the same asshole I know and hate.”
“Whoa, now, Libs. Hate? That’s a strong word.”
Wilde Nights in Paradise Page 2