by Kira Blakely
The fourth floor, I realized quickly, was only for the wealthy. A big, burly man stood in front of a doorway. Jude led me past him and down the hallway to a door on the very end.
“Is there a celebrity in there?” I whispered, glancing at the man who kept his gaze focused on the elevator doors. “I feel a little out of place up here.”
“Money talks to anyone,” Jude said and punched his hotel card in the slot on the door. “It doesn’t matter who you are. If you can afford to pay for a suite, everyone treats you like royalty.”
He pushed the door open, reached inside, and clicked the lights on. I stepped past him when he motioned for me to come inside first. My breath caught in my throat as I took in the lavish living room with nice furniture and decorations throughout. There were a few vases of roses on various tables. Large windows overlooked the entire city of Charleston. I slowly slid the strap of my purse down to set it on the couch while Jude shut the door behind us and locked it.
“Wow,” I said. “I mean, wow. I never expected—”
“Someone like me to have this type of money?” Jude finished with a smirk. He glanced around the living room with a small frown. “It’s strange for me, too, sometimes. I think back to that shitty living room in my parents’ house that had cigarette burns in the carpet. It used to smell of mold and rotten milk.”
I wrinkled my nose in disgust. “Major upgrade.”
“Agreed,” Jude said. “I don’t have a spare room in this suite, but you can stay in the bedroom.”
“I can’t do that,” I protested, turning back to look at him.
My heart thrummed anxiously in my chest at the sight of him unbuttoning the top of his pressed, white shirt. I didn’t dare tell him that I liked this version of Jude—the tall and tatted man with black silk hair, dressed sharply in casual trousers and a white button-up. Elegant but masculine and dangerous, all combined in one.
Jude cocked his head to the side with a frown. “Why not? It’s my hotel suite. I paid for it.”
“I know,” I said, clearing my throat. “That’s what I’m telling you. You deserve to sleep in the bedroom. I can stay out here.”
“Don’t be so damn stubborn,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’m going to sleep on the couch tonight. I invited you to have a place to stay, so follow me to the room.”
His tone left no room for argument. I followed him reluctantly through a pair of white doors to the master bedroom. A king-sized bed faced the large windows, while a couch and table faced a large screen television on the opposite wall. I glanced through the cracked bathroom door to see a deep tub and fresh towels folded neatly along the rim.
I eyed the couch near the television nervously as Jude grabbed one of his bags from the foot of the bed. He slung it over his shoulder and nodded curtly at me.
“If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask,” he said. “I’m going to turn in. It’s been a long day. Tomorrow is even longer, so I suggest you get some sleep.”
The tension in the room was thick. I could barely breathe through it as Jude turned on his heel to march out of the room. The doors closed shut behind him but my suspicions lingered about what sort of game Jude was playing. He had kissed me, hot and hard, back at the restaurant. I doubted that he was acting like a chivalrous gentleman out of the kindness of his heart. This had to do with something else entirely.
After slipping into a sleeping shirt, it occurred to me that he might be biding his time. He was waiting for something to happen or some sort of sign.
Fuck him. I clenched my thighs together, and I rolled over to stare out at Charleston’s city lights. It was working, too. Every inch of me felt taut and ready for him. My stomach knotted into a million knots when I tried to concentrate on anything besides that kiss in the restaurant, or how it had felt to have Jude’s mouth sucking feverishly on my breasts. Too good. It had felt too good.
Sleep took me, but even then, I didn’t get an escape from him.
He tormented my dreams. Jude’s bare body pressed up against mine. I could feel his hands sliding along the inside of my thighs. Those deft fingers were calloused over from gripping the handlebars of his motorbike. Pleasure bubbled in me as those fingers brushed over my center again and again. I moaned his name and writhed on the mattress.
It felt so real…
I turned and buried my face into the side of the pillow.
The threat of orgasm overtaking my body dragged me out of my dreams.
Still half-asleep, I curled up onto my elbows to gaze down at the broad, naked shoulders between my legs. The dark head buried against my pussy. The panties he’d pulled to the side.
It wasn’t a dream.
My heart slammed into my ribcage. I took in every inch of Jude’s muscular body covered in tattoos. His erection gleamed in the moonlight as he knelt back on his knees to give me a wicked grin that instantly made my stomach feel like Jell-O.
Jude’s hands slid down my inner thighs in sensual strokes, and he reached up to grab the elastic band of my underwear. I reached down to grab his wrists while I stared up at him, sucking in harsh breaths. I was on the verge of giving in, but I also knew what would happen if I did. We could never be together. It wasn’t possible. Not after everything. My parents would never accept Jude into our family.
All those thoughts disappeared when Jude hooked his fingers in my underwear and tugged them down past my hips and thighs. He tossed the garment to the side of the bed. I swallowed thickly when a wave of heat crashed over me. Sweat was already beginning to pool in the palm of my hands as I felt my fingers finally let go.
Wordlessly, Jude slid down to lay between my bent legs. His hands reached beneath me to grasp my ass cheeks firmly before nudging me with his nose. The tip of his tongue traced the outline of my clitoris teasingly until I was squirming helplessly beneath him, ready to be sucked. This was fucking new, and I loved it.
“Tell me that you want it,” Jude whispered hotly against me. “Tell me, Ava. Tell me that you want it.”
I clenched the bedsheets with my fingers when his tongue teased the bundle of nerves that were straining for his touch. I was utterly helpless against the power of him. His fingers gave a hard squeeze on my ass cheeks. There would be marks there tomorrow.
“Jude…”
He kissed my right inner thigh before looking up at me. “I like the way my name sounds on your lips. Say it again.”
His tongue flicked against me. I let out a ragged gasp while my hips rocked forward in yearning for it to continue.
“Jude,” I whimpered, trying desperately to keep control of my fraying nerves. “Please. Please.”
“Say that you want it,” he commanded roughly. “Just fucking say it, Ava.”
“I want it!” I cried out desperately. “I want it! I want you! Just fucking do it, please.”
“That’s my girl,” Jude growled. “Hang on, sweetheart. This isn’t going to be a slow and sweet lovemaking session. We’ve got plenty of time for that shit later.”
None of those words processed fully in my brain. His lips sucked me. Hard. I was a hot mess, thrashing beneath that sinfully skilled tongue and lips as he stuck true to his word. Higher and higher, he took me without pause. There was nothing slow about it. Nothing sweet. This was carnal and unadulterated pleasure.
My peak came crashing over me in a suffocating wave that left my body twitching. A scream tore past my lips while Jude’s fingers tightened on me to keep control over my bucking hips. The tips of my fingers and toes tingled as Jude sat up quickly between my legs to reach for something alongside the bed. I heard the foil of a condom wrapper being torn open, followed by the smell of latex.
“Much better than years ago, huh?” he asked.
I forced my eyes open to take in his smug grin. His hair was everywhere and flattened from my fingers running through it. His eyes were dark and wild while he rolled a condom down onto his straining erection.
“Much better,” I managed to say. A whole new apprehension spir
aled through me when Jude settled between my legs.
He smoothed a hand along the outside of my thigh. Goosebumps covered my skin when the tip of his cock pushed up against me intimately. My fingers dug into Jude’s shoulders as he pushed into me in one deep thrust.
The sting of it brought tears into my eyes, but all of that faded away quickly as he rammed himself hard into me. He set a brutal pace while gripping the back of my right thigh, propping my knee up on his shoulder to go deeper.
I was pinned to the mattress beneath his rock-hard body in all the right ways. Our skin smacked against one another’s. Pleasure spiraled through me. I wanted to push him away because it felt fucking amazing. I wanted to pull him even closer because it felt fucking amazing. He panted harshly against the side of my neck, too lost in his own pleasure to see that I was being swept away with him.
The pace and intensity of it stole the breath right out of my lungs. It was like being on the world’s most thrilling ride. We clicked higher and higher up to the peak while our hearts beat wildly in our chests, waiting for the steep fall that would come, no matter how hard we tried to slow down. Bright lights flashed behind my eyelids. I distantly heard a grunt catch in Jude’s throat before I was freefalling back down to earth in a shattered abyss of bliss.
Chapter 13
Jude
I was fucking Ava James for the first time in years. The thought seemed surreal through the haze of pleasure clouding my brain. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t think of anything besides the sweet, hot flesh that clenched around my throbbing cock. It was happening finally, after the past few weeks imagining what it would be like after all this time.
Fucking fantastic. It was the best damn sex I’d ever had in my entire life.
I forced my eyes open to take her in. Ava’s eyes were clenched shut while her forehead was furrowed in concentration. Perspiration beaded at her dark hairline. Her tits bounced in time with my thrusts while her fingers dug into my shoulders. Gasps escaped her lips steadily as she neared her climax again. The pressure of her inner muscles contracted around my throbbing dick and pushed me over into that abyss of pleasure.
My heart hammered wildly in my chest. Sated relief filled me. After all this time imagining how it would feel, I wasn’t disappointed in the least.
“Holy shit,” Ava whispered, chest heaving from the aftermath of her own pleasure. “I don’t remember that summer being like this at all.”
“To be fair,” I said and sat up, making quick work of the condom and tossing it into the trash bin next to the bed. “I wasn’t very experienced back then. Hell, I was fucking happy that a girl was touching me back then.”
Ava giggled breathlessly, and I collapsed into the bed next to her with a sated groan. My body tingled pleasantly while sleep tugged at my brain. It had been a long fucking day of practice and thinking about what to do with Ava. Now, she lay naked next to me in bed. It was funny how unexpected things like this happened.
I reached out to find her hand resting on top of her thigh. Threading our fingers together, I brought our joined hands up to kiss the back of her knuckles before settling comfortably into the sheets and pillows. Ava chewed on her bottom lip for a long time but she didn’t pull away like I had expected she would.
“What now?” she asked.
I forced my eyes open to stare at her in confusion. “What do you mean, what now?”
“Don’t you think we should talk about what we are going to do now?”
“No,” I responded, shutting my eyes. “I’m going to sleep. I have an early morning, so you should get some sleep, too.”
“Jude—”
“What do you want me to say, Ava?” I asked. Frustration boiled in me. “We just had sex. We’re both consenting adults. It’s not a foreign concept for people to enjoy sex with one another.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Ava said. “I just want to keep this as professional as possible. You know that we can’t ever be together. There’s too much damage on both ends.”
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe Andy would want us to move on with our lives?”
The question was met with pointed silence. I opened my eyes when I felt Ava’s fingers loosen through mine, but I refused to let her escape that easily. I held on firmly to tug her back into the bed. Tears were streaming from the corner of her eyes, and she shut them quickly to hide her emotions from me. It was hard sometimes to tell which one of us was the more damaged and dysfunctional. It ping-ponged between the two of us. A rational part of me agreed that a relationship would be too hard for me right now. My schedule was crazy enough without trying to fit in a girlfriend.
“Hey,” I murmured, reaching around to wipe those tears away with my thumbs. “I’m not saying that to be an ass. I’m saying it because I was close to Andy, too. He knew how I felt about you then.”
Ava sucked in a watery breath. “What did you tell him?”
“I told him that I really cared for you,” I said. “I told him that it wasn’t like the other girls. It was different with you. It still is different.”
“He accepted that?”
“He said as long as I didn’t break your heart, he wouldn’t break my neck.” She giggled quietly. “It’s been a few years, Ava. You need to let it go because Andy wouldn’t want you to linger.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s just so hard, Jude. You have no idea how heart-wrenching it is to see you out there.”
I traced the contours of Ava’s cheekbone with my fingers. I let the pads of my fingers dip down farther, past her soft petal lips to the valley of her breasts. Tracing her hardened nipple, I watched as her skin flushed with desire all over again. I slipped between her legs, relishing in the fact that she didn’t push me away. I nestled against the heat of her while resting my elbows alongside her face. The touch of her slick flesh against the tip of my cock was enough to harden me all over again.
“Open your eyes,” I coaxed. “I want to tell you something that I’ve never told a single person in my life—including everyone on my team.”
Ava opened her eyes to gaze up at me. Those forest-colored eyes were full of so many emotions it was impossible to decipher every single one of them.
“You’re telling me a secret?” she asked.
“Not a secret. Just something I’ve never said to anyone before.” I brushed a thumb up against her temple while gazing down at her. “I didn’t ride for a few months after Andy’s death. I was fucking terrified to get on a bike after watching what happened to him. That’s all I could think about for the rest of the summer.”
“It haunted you?”
“More than you probably believe,” I said. “It wasn’t until later that fall when I realized that I couldn’t let that fear scar me from what I felt passionate about. You were already gone by then. I just needed something to focus on, other than my dead best friend.”
“It wasn’t just you that I blamed, you know? I blamed my parents. I blamed them, and I even blamed Andy for it.” Tears filled her eyes again as she sucked in a watery breath. “I’m just scared to get close to you, Jude. I’m so scared that if I let myself feel for you again, something will happen.”
My heart soared to hear the confession. She was afraid of getting close because she didn’t want to lose me. I pressed a long and hard kiss against her mouth, pouring all my assurance into her the best that I could. My life was a series of dangerous events. I knew it. She knew it. I just wanted her to be there when all of it finally came to a standstill.
Ava kissed me back just as passionately. Our tongues tied together, and I didn’t waste any time sliding my cock between her legs again. There was no condom this time, and the feeling of having nothing between us was exquisite. It sent almost painful stabs of pleasure through me as I moved desperately against her, exploring the sensation. Her hands pushed at my shoulders frantically, but her thighs pulled me deeper.
“Yes,” she gasped, her eyes fluttering shut. “Jude. Condom.”
“Fuc
k that,” I grunted, planting my hands on the mattress next to her. “Can’t you feel that?”
Her fingernails cut into my shoulders. “Yes,” she agreed, eyes going into the back of her head.
I ground our hips together to silence her protests. There was no way I could wear a condom now that I knew how good it felt to be bare for the first time in my life. I slammed into her as another explosive orgasm came down upon me once more. The feeling of Ava’s tight walls clenching down on me, even tighter than before, tossed me right over the edge. Releasing inside of her pulled me closer than I imagined. I buried my fingers into Ava’s thick, luxurious hair that smelled sweet of shampoo.
There was no resisting now. We had tumbled over that edge together.
“You need to sleep,” Ava whispered when I settled into the bed next to her. “You have a big day tomorrow. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
Bone tired, I still managed to reach out to grab her retreating hand. I pulled her back into bed with me and curled an arm around her waist to pull her close to me.
“Stay here and sleep,” I said. “You don’t need to go running off now.”
“I wasn’t running away.”
“Yes, you were.” I yawned against the back of Ava’s head. “Did anyone ever tell you what a horrible liar you are sometimes?”
I didn’t even hear Ava’s response to that. A deep and dreamless sleep took over for the first time in my life. I couldn’t remember the last time I slept so peacefully, but I knew it had to do with the comfort of Ava’s legs wrapped around mine.
I woke to the sound of my phone ringing in the living room. I cursed inwardly as I gently moved away from Ava’s sleeping form, wishing that I could take in the sight of her, naked and peaceful in my hotel bed, a bit longer.
My phone was still in the same place where I had left it on the coffee table next to the pile of clothes on the floor. I glowered down at the caller ID before hitting the answer button.