“Angel and Joaquin need to know that Judith is here. I don’t want Teresa getting riled up.” Emma had let Teresa off of bed rest just for that night, provided she sat in her seat and didn’t get all worked up. Being faced with a woman who had threatened and verbally abused her on several occasions definitely qualified as something to get worked up about.
Chris nodded when Julián shared eye contact with him, stood, and went with her. He’d heard through the grapevine that Gwen had been party to those confrontations and felt very protective of Teresa. He didn’t want any confrontations happening that night if he could avoid it. He also didn’t want to be very far away from her if Hatch recognized Gwen. She had never told him the full story about Hatch but something was just off about the guy.
Gwen got Angel’s and Joaquin’s attention and discreetly pointed out Judith Bowers’s presence to them. Teresa had her back to the largest part of the room and so she might never even notice Judith.
Doing that took care of part of the problem. The other issue was that Julián had hooked up with Judith on a couple of occasions and she’d always made it clear that she was available to him anytime their paths happened to cross. She’d walked in with Hatch but Judith had a way of shifting in midstream to suit her fancy. Julián didn’t care to have either Hatch’s or Judith’s attention directed their way.
Angel and Joaquin nodded and thanked Gwen, careful to keep their conversation “light” looking in case Teresa noticed. At the moment Teresa was busy talking with Grace, Rachel Wolf, Emma Rivers, and Lydia Carlisle, while all of their men congregated around them.
Chris tapped Julián to get his attention and showed him his phone. “Message from my sister, Simone.”
Julián took the phone and read the message. “We looooove Gwen! Your new girlfriend is a goddess! Think she could show us some of those asskicking moves?”
He smiled and handed the phone back to Chris. “I guess the evening hasn’t been a total loss.”
Julián and Chris’s boss, Del Cook, his wife, Lily, and brother, Clay, all showed up at that moment. Del shook hands with the men and hugged Gwen as they found a chair for Lily. Julián and Chris chatted with him, Gwen secure in their midst.
Chris asked Gwen to dance, which made Julián a little tense, but he didn’t say anything as Chris escorted her to the dance floor. Joaquin Martinez must’ve noticed because he nudged Julián.
“You okay, man? You’re watching her like a hawk but you know she’s safe, right? We watch out for all of them, not just our own.”
Julián nodded. “I know. We’ve just had a rough night. We’ve both got old hookups in the club and I don’t feel like playing ‘old home week’ with Judith if you get my drift.”
Joaquin grimaced. “Damn, man. Judith? You know she and Gwen have history, right?”
Feeling slightly nauseated as he nodded, Julián looked him in the eye. “If I could, there are some things I’d go back and do a little differently.”
Joaquin nodded with a look of understanding in his eyes. “I know exactly what you mean. But Gwen understands what it’s like on the road. You’re with her now and that’s the past,” he said, tilting his head in Judith’s general direction.
“Should I tell her?”
Joaquin weighed his words for several seconds and then his expression changed to one of sympathy. “It looks like you may not have the chance. Judith is staring right at you. Sorry.” He turned and spoke hurriedly to Angel, who spoke hurriedly to Rachel, who grabbed all the girls for a bathroom break, and herded them in the opposite direction.
In a brief pause between songs, the buckle bunny in question shrieked, “Julián Alvarez! Is that you? Oh. My. Gawd!” Then she did what she always did. She came running.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
There was no way that Gwen didn’t hear that. One look at the dance floor confirmed it. She tried to break away from Chris, but he wouldn’t let go and pulled her back into his arms for the next dance, all the while talking in a calming fashion to her. Hopefully talking her into forgiving Julián for not telling her about Judith before she found out on her own.
A cloud of perfume engulfed Julián as Hurricane Judith hit. For a surreal split second, Julián thought Gwen would be even more pissed because the perfume Judith must’ve bathed in would stick to him for the rest of the night.
“Hoo—lee—ahn! Where have you been! I’ve missed you!”
“Hey, Judith. Didn’t you come in with a boyfriend?”
“Oh, Hatch? He’s just a friend. We came in to party and dance but if you wanna hook up later,” she whispered in a suggestive tone. “I—”
Here we go.
“Sorry, Judith. I’m here with my girlfriend, Gwen Henderson.”
Her face scrunched up in surprise and then she curled her lip derisively. “Gwen Henderson?” She said Gwen’s name as though it was distasteful which pissed him off. “Where is she?”
“She’s on the dance floor with my best friend.”
She rubbed the buttons on his shirtfront and gave him a pouty look that she probably thought would result in her getting her way. “Tell you what—why don’t we get the hell out of here before anyone notices. We can go back to my—”
Julián gently removed her hand from where she’d slid it between the plackets of his shirt to rub his chest. “Judith, I’m here with someone I care for deeply. I’m not interested in a hookup. Hatch looks like he hasn’t even noticed you’re gone yet. Why don’t you go back over to the man you came here with and have a good time?”
Just then, Chris escorted Gwen back to the table, her hand clasped securely in his. Gwen looked ready for a smackdown, judging by the color in her cheeks and the fire in her eyes.
Damn, she’s even more beautiful when she’s mad. Don’t fuck this up, Alvarez.
Chris leaned toward him and looked apologetic as he murmured, “Gwen wanted another drink and she wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. She promised no fists.”
Yeah, but what about the hair-pulling and eye-scratching, asshole!
Gwen never took her eyes off of Judith, who curled her lip as she looked Chris up and down, noted their hands that were still clasped, and his hand which still rested on Gwen’s hip. She looked down her nose at Gwen and stared challengingly at her.
Judith looked up at Julián again, anger making her face darken. “I see you joined ‘Ménage Central,’” she said as she pointed at the table next door. Angel and Joaquin watched her but said nothing. “You really should raise your standards, Julián. I’ll see you later, but you’d better have a doctor’s bill of good health with you if I do.”
She turned on her heel and stalked away as Chris wrapped his arms around Gwen’s upper body and held her in her seat as she struggled to get up.
Julián went to her and whispered, “Gwen, she’s in the past. I can’t help that. I don’t want anyone but you. But if Teresa sees you like this when she comes back from the restroom she’ll want to know what happened.”
Gwen settled and looked down, drawing a deep breath as she glared at Judith’s receding figure. “Fucking skank,” she muttered. “She’s got a lot of gall talking about low standards.”
“‘If she had as many sticking out of her as she’s had stuck in her, she’d look like a damned porcupine,’ is the expression I recall being used regarding that woman,” Grace said as she joined them. “I thought Judith was a brunette?”
The men chuckled in amusement and even Gwen had to fight laughter.
Grace smiled at Adam when he handed a wineglass to her. “Teresa is still in the restroom fixing her lipstick and washing her hands. I wanted to know if the coast was clear.”
“Thanks for helping with that, Grace,” Angel said as he watched for his wife’s approach. “Here they come.”
Grace smiled at Joaquin and Angel and said, “She didn’t see Judith but there’s no guarantee that’ll last all night. Judith seems to get around…a lot.” She glanced at Julián and patted his shoulder and held his gaze. “
Julián, why don’t you take off your jacket and stay a while?”
Damn, maybe she’s psychic or something.
He pulled the jacket off, grimacing when he caught a whiff of the residue of Judith’s perfume on it. “Good call, Grace. Thank you.”
“No problem. I think I want to dance.”
“I was just thinking the same thing, baby,” Adam replied as he wrapped his arm around her and took her to the dance floor.
Julián peered at Gwen, waiting for her to look up at him. “Gwen? Would you like to dance?”
She nodded. “Sure.” Her tone was forgiving as she stood from the chair and slipped her hand into his as “If I Didn’t Have You” by Thompson Square began to play.
When he faced her on the dance floor, he pulled her close and held her hand against his chest as they two-stepped. “She and I hooked up a couple of times a few years ago. I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“You didn’t really have time to tell me, did you?”
He shook his head. “Forgive me?”
Gwen kept perfect time and didn’t miss a step as she mulled over her response. “Judith pissed me off with her nasty remark, that much is obvious. But I would be the biggest hypocrite in the world if I was mad at you because you fucked her. Like Teresa always says about Joaquin and Angel, and their cowboy pasts—what’s in the past is staying there. And I don’t really have the right to feel jealous.”
“For however long we have you with us, feel as possessive as you want.”
“I do feel possessive, even though I shouldn’t. I just hate Judith’s guts. She’s cruel to any woman she sees as a rival, and we’re all rivals.”
“Would you like to go home? I’d say we’ve all had enough confrontations for one night.”
Gwen smirked. “Are you kidding? And let her run me out of a club on my home turf? Hell, no. Let’s stay until midnight.”
Julián was pleased by her unhesitating reference to Divine and The Pony as “home turf.”
She snuggled up to him and then pulled away with a repulsed look on her face. “Ew. Do you mind?” She unbuttoned the second button on his shirt and his cock tingled at the way her fingertips traced through his chest hair.
“Not at all, love. Have at me. I’m just glad I’m forgiven for my bad judgment.”
She grinned up at him as she undid another button. “That’s not my brand of Bath & Body Works I smell on you.” She stroked his chest right where Judith had touched him and then snuggled against him. “And there’s nothing to forgive. My old whatever-you-wanna-call-him is standing not fifty feet away being obnoxious and getting drunk. I’m not a stellar example of good judgment myself. I should be asking you for forgiveness for not ditching his lame ass the night you and I met. I wish I had.”
“When we get back to the table, we’ll drink a toast to leaving the past buried.”
“Six feet deep, baby.”
The night progressed more smoothly from that point. Because Judith was rather loud and spent a lot of time flitting around the dance floor with Hatch’s friends, Angel and Joaquin finally told Teresa that Judith was there. Teresa was made of tough stuff because she stayed right in her seat and continued on with her evening unaffected. Her doctor was sitting right next to her so her men seemed comfortable with the situation.
Chris had Gwen on the dance floor as the clock ticked down to midnight. Seizing the moment, Julián joined them as the lights sparkled and streamers flew everywhere. They closed in around her and Julián kissed her, pouring all his longing into it. Longing for a new year that was filled with her, all twelve months, and not just two. He ended it reluctantly, knowing that Chris wanted her just as much.
She clung to them, refusing to let go of either of them. Chris stroked her throat as he stood behind her, then cupped her cheek in his hand. He kissed her, tangling tongues with her until Julián could see her pulse pounding at her throat as the lights danced brightly around them.
When Chris finally let her come up for air she giggled and looked from one to the other and said, “This is the happiest new year ever.”
I hope so, love. “About ready to go home?”
“Yes, just let me run to the ladies’ room real quick.”
She scampered off to take care of business while he went to the bar and paid the tab. Hatch Dunlap made eye contact with him and nodded succinctly before looking away. Judith was nowhere in sight.
A few minutes later, he and Chris were waiting near the restrooms as Gwen, Grace, and Rachel came out looking like they were up to no good.
Grace’s blue eyes were round and innocent as she shook her head. “I didn’t see a thing. I don’t know what happened.”
Gwen nodded and tried for the same look. “Judith was being rude. I told her to fuck off and went in the bathroom stall. Next thing I hear is her ass hitting the floor.”
Rachel looked completely unrepentant and said, “I refuse to speak on the grounds I may incriminate myself.”
All of their men had gathered around them by that point. Ethan looked as though he was struggling to not laugh as he said, “Okay, ‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,’ it’s time to get you all home.”
Eli chuckled as he put an arm around his feisty wife and kissed her head. “Fess up, angel,” he said quietly.
Rachel smiled at Julián and whispered so Chris couldn’t hear, “Judith told Gwen that she looked like she had put on a lot of weight and that she should stick with Shrek and leave you here for her to handle. I didn’t handle it in a very ladylike fashion. Gwen was nice. I wasn’t. So spank me,” she added with a shrug as she winked at her husband.
Judith chose that moment to exit the restroom, seething mad.
From behind them, Hatch Dunlap hollered, “Hey, Judith! We’re leavin’. Unless you want me to leave your ass here, get a move on!” he got up from his chair and walked toward the door without waiting for her.
Judith looked like she wanted to say something to the group but glowered hatefully instead, rubbing her left ass cheek as she tilted her nose up and skirted the group.
“What’s her problem?” Ethan asked. He’d been working that night so he hadn’t been privy to a lot of the conversations regarding Judith.
Grace patted his chest and said, “Just mean girl drama. It’s a good thing we had Rachel with us.”
Ethan winked at Rachel and she said, “Gwen’s one of us. I’ve got her back too. I’ll cut a bitch.”
“Come on, killer,” Eli said, looking like he was fighting laughter as they all headed toward the door. Both Rachel and Eli were dressed in leathers, while surrounded by people dressed in western wear, but they always were a part of the group no matter what. Julián liked that about this close-knit little family he’d found himself a part of. He’d miss it if he ever left Divine. He realized it was the closest thing to roots he’d ever known as he walked out with the group.
“You okay?” Gwen asked as he held the door for them to walk out into the chilly night air.
“Perfect, love. I’m grateful that Hatch never approached you.”
Chris said, “Me too. I'm not sure he ever left that barstool except to go pee.”
“He may not have seen me. He’s not much on dancing or mingling. I’m passing out the second my head hits the pillow. This has been an exhausting day.”
Julián kissed the top of her head as he put his arm around her shoulders and said, “We’re getting in your shower and working out all the tension that I can feel in your shoulders first.”
“Yeah,” Chris agreed. “It’s the least we can do after how you handled yourself today. My family thinks you’re a goddess, and I know how upset you were earlier but you kept it together. That had to have taken its toll on you.”
“We insist.”
Gwen looked between the two of them. “Well…who am I to turn down that kind of attention? I’ll even return the favor,” she said as she slid her other arm around Chris’s waist.
Revisiting his earlier feelings about the att
achment he felt to their group of friends, Julián was suddenly broadsided by one of those proverbial defining moments. He’d always felt rootless, rolling through life like a tumbleweed. With her usual wisdom, Kate Benedict had used those very words with him in a conversation the previous summer back in Lusty. He was a tumbleweed. He’d spent his life searching for a place he fit in, where he would know to put down roots, and it had never happened. Now he knew his roots weren’t in a town. They were with the woman he loved, and his best friend, and a group of friends he could count on to watch out for them. He’d thought the realization would never come but there it was.
Chapter Sixteen
Gwen moaned happily as she was squished between two hot men first thing the next morning. Hot flesh enclosed her from the front where Chris nuzzled and kissed her breasts, and from the back as Julián pressed searing kisses to her shoulder and palmed her hip as he rubbed his rigid cock against her ass.
She opened her eyes and glanced at her alarm clock. “Yeah.”
Chris chuckled and sucked gently at her throat, sending a rush of pleasure to her cunt as he pushed her onto her back. “You cheering us on, darlin’?”
“I’m happy we’ve got time to play before we have to go to work.” Something akin to euphoria filled her as she stretched and reveled in their attention. Chris sucked at her nipples and Julián slid farther down in the bed to lick his way to her pussy. Waking up with them was nearly as wonderful as falling asleep between them at night. She moaned as she brushed her fingers through Julián’s hair, enjoying its soft texture.
They’d done exactly as they’d said they would the night before. They’d taken her into the small tub in the guest bathroom of Wilbur Wilson’s ranch house, and after bathing her they’d rubbed out every bit of tension she’d felt. By the time they were finished and had bathed themselves, they’d both had fiercely hard erections. She wouldn’t allow them sleep in that condition, although they would’ve, so she’d sucked their cocks in the shower until they’d both come and the hot water had turned cold.
Tangled in Divine [Divine Creek Ranch 14] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 23