“You have no idea.” She went straight for the coffee maker and poured herself a cup. She went to the table and sat. “Jude is back.”
Bree looked at the archway between the kitchen and dining room as though she expected him to be standing there. Rachel’s expression went comically incredulous.
“He’s not here now,” Petra said with a small laugh, buoyed by her friends’ presence.
She sipped her coffee and told them the story. By the time she was finished the answers she couldn’t give Alex the night before had made themselves perfectly clear.
Chapter Nine
Alex had just showered and was getting dressed when the doorbell sounded. He muttered a curse full of regret for not going to Petra before she felt she had to come to him and headed out of his bedroom and down the hall barefoot and shirtless, buttoning the fly of his jeans on the way.
He never should have left her in the first place, but he hadn’t been thinking in terms of what she might have needed at the time. He’d woken up and reacted to finding a man standing next to the bed in the dark. It had left him rattled. All the possibilities of what could have gone wrong had been running through his mind all morning.
And when he started thinking of why Jude had been there and what he wanted, the rage Alex had woken up feeling had only become worse.
Yes, he’d needed to get out of there and clear his head before he said anything worse to Petra than he’d already said. And yes he should have gone back and made things right with her sooner. But she was here, and damn if he wasn’t going to work his ass off to make it up to her.
Only it wasn’t Petra who stepped out of the elevator a couple of minutes later.
It was Jude.
He stopped just outside the elevator doors and looked at Alex cautiously.
“As long as I never wake up to find you standing on the side of my bed in the middle of the night again you’re safe,” Alex told him.
Jude gave him a rueful look. Alex thought he heard him mutter “your bed” and then shake his head as he started down the hall. “Can we talk?”
“Sure.” Alex wasn’t particularly interested in what Jude had to say, but he stepped aside and let him into the apartment anyway. “I just made coffee if you want some.” He closed the door. “The bar is fully stocked as well. Help yourself. I’ll be right back.”
He used the extra minute it took to put on a clean t-shirt to get his head on straight. He needed to remember that he and Jude had been friends until a few short months ago. While he’d always envied him his girlfriend on some level, Alex had been able to keep that feeling far enough at bay that it hadn’t affected how close they’d once been.
Jude was standing in the same spot just inside the door when Alex returned to the living room.
“Listen, about this morning,” Jude started, then stopped as though he needed to collect his thoughts. “I want to apologize for what happened. I don’t know what I was thinking, assuming it would be all right to just let myself in that way.”
“You’re apologizing to the wrong person, man. It’s Petra’s house, not mine.” Alex crossed his arms. “Did you consider how much you would have frightened her if she had been alone and woken up to find a dark figure standing over her bed like that?”
Jude’s expression told Alex he was tortured by the thought.
“Every second since it happened,” he answered. “I didn’t come here to get scolded for my bad choices. Can we please sit and talk?”
Alex sat. Jude sat on the couch across from him. Alex waited.
“I’ve spent the past few hours thinking about nothing but this, so please hear me out,” Jude said.
Alex sat back in his chair.
“I want her back if she’ll have me.”
Anger burned white hot through Alex’s veins, but he refused to react.
“But I don’t want you to have to give her up either,” Jude added after a moment.
The silence stretched between them while Alex processed what he’d just said. A range of emotions ran through him, with everything from incredulity to fear to pure, unadulterated rage tumbling together in an out-of-control snowball effect. Mostly he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.
Alex sat forward. “What does that mean? You’re moving back to Chicago?”
“No. I can’t quit my job. It’s the best work I’ve done so far.”
Alex’s eyebrows went up, then slammed together. “So you want me to keep her company while you’re gone and then just step out of the way when you want a turn?”
“No.” Jude gave him an impatient look but Alex still wasn’t clear on what he was asking. “I don’t want you to step aside at all, Alex. I want the three of us to be together.”
Every muscle in Alex’s body primed to strike and then he went completely calm.
“She’s always loved you the way you love her, you know,” Jude said.
The impact of his words hit Alex like a rogue meteor falling out of the sky.
“She might not have realized it until recently, but I saw it,” Jude continued. “It was in the way she looked at you and talked about you when you weren’t together. It’s in those damn nicknames you have for each other.” Something that looked a lot like hate flashed in his eyes for a fraction of a second. “You know she never once called me by a nickname? Not once in all the years we were together did she call me her Judy the way she calls you her Lexi.”
Jude stopped and drew in a deep breath as though he was regrouping his thoughts.
“What I’m trying to say is you and I have always been good friends, Alex, and we had a lot of fun that night we spent together.”
He was referring to the night of the bisexual key party Alex had attended. While Alex had admittedly been hoping to get set up with Petra, he hadn’t been disappointed to get Jude instead. And he couldn’t deny they’d had a really damn good time.
Alex had always been mainly attracted to women, but he’d occasionally found himself curious to know what sex with a man would be like, and Jude had given him answers.
They’d been rough with each other in ways Alex found himself holding back with even the kinkiest of women. The fact that anal was a certainty—both ways—had been a high point. And while he had not been a natural at giving head, they’d shared a laugh over his sad first attempt in a way that had not made him feel like an idiot for trying.
Still…
“Have you talked to Petra about this?” Alex needed to know.
He saw the answer in Jude’s expression before he spoke.
“No. I wanted to talk to you first.”
Alex blinked several times as his answer sank in.
Then he threw his head back and roared with laughter.
“She is going to have your balls for not coming to her first.” When he got himself under control he stood and went to the window overlooking the street, shaking his head as he looked down. “You might have taken a little more time to think that one over before you came to me.”
Alex stood there reining in the rage that burned through him on a fresh wave.
He waited a moment for it to subside before he turned back. The moment he laid eyes on Jude he felt sorry for the guy. It was clear he knew how badly he’d fucked up when he left Petra and he was hurting.
“Will you think about it?” Jude asked, standing.
Alex shook his head. “No. There’s nothing to think about. This isn’t about you and me and both of us getting her. In the end this is going to be about what she wants, who she decides she wants to be with.”
His stomach was sick with fear but his thoughts were calm.
“I will not share her with you,” he continued. “And I will not just let her go without a fight. Go ahead and try to get her back if you think you have a shot, but know this—if you pursue her the gloves will come off. I will never hurt you physically, but I will do whatever it takes to keep her if I have even a slim chance of being with her.”
Jude looked at him a long moment. �
�Understood,” he said and then let himself out of Alex’s apartment without another word.
The idea he might lose her made Alex’s chest ache. He fought the urge to run, to try to beat Jude back to her house, knowing damn well that was where he was going next. He wasn’t exactly sure what to do next, but making a mad dash for her in a desperate attempt to get his plea in first did not seem to be the wise choice.
He called and got her voicemail.
“Whatever happens next, Pete, whatever you decide, I am always going to be your Lexi. That will never change,” he told her and left it at that.
He went to his room and changed into workout clothes. He would never lay a hand on Jude again, but he could hit a punching bag as hard and as long as he liked, and there was one at the gym that was about to take the brunt of his frustration.
* * * * *
When Jude told Petra what he’d proposed to Alex she laughed until tears streamed from her eyes and the muscles of her stomach ached.
Jude laced his fingers together and hung his head.
“That’s the same thing Alex did,” he told her.
“He laughed?” she asked, incredulous. “He didn’t follow through with punching your lights out like he almost did last night?” When he shook his head she added, “That’s amazing.”
Jude chuckled, clearly in spite of himself. “He told me you would have my balls. I expected him to be right.”
“No. Not this time.” She wiped her streaming eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. “You get one free pass.”
When she looked up she was surprised to find him coming toward her. She watched as he knelt in front of her with tears in his eyes. When he laid his head on her lap and wrapped his arms around her waist she let him.
“If I get one free pass I want to use it to get you back,” he said quietly. “I never messed up once the entire time we were together. I never cheated or raised my voice in anger, and I never would have dreamed of striking you outside the context of some of the kinky things we did. I loved you. I still love you.” He tightened his arms around her waist. “Can I please have this one fuck-up?”
She ran her fingers through his hair, fresh tears in her eyes and her heart in her throat. “Jude, I can’t.”
He groaned miserably and relaxed the hold he had on her waist.
“Yes you can.” He sat up. “It’ll be easy. I’ll make it easy. Try it.”
After all the time she’d spent desperately wishing he would come back, how was it that she wasn’t the least bit tempted to ruin what she’d started with Alex for him? And his idea for them to live as a threesome—while she might have jumped at the chance when she was younger—was even less appealing.
“You know what Busha always says, don’t you?”
He groaned and sat back. “Here we go,” he muttered.
She ignored him. “‘If you spit on the ground, do you pick it up and put it back in your mouth?’” she asked, using Busha’s thick Russian accent.
He gave her a bland look. “That’s disgusting.”
“But wise in its way.” She took his face in her hands. “Jude, you were right to pursue your dream. It was cruel of me to ask you to stay and selfish to not talk to you about it because I knew I wasn’t going to get my way.”
He closed his eyes and turned his cheek into her palm.
“And you were right to insist that I not wait. I would have been miserable without you for months at a time. The end would have dragged out for who knows how long before I got tired of our situation and broke it off.” She lowered her hands. “Neither one of us handled the end the way we could have, but from this perspective, at this moment in time, I can see it was inevitable.”
He shook his head. “Don’t say that,” he whispered.
“Nothing has changed, Jude. I still don’t want a relationship where I have to leave home for any certain amount of time just to be with you.”
“Would it be different if it were Alex?” he asked.
She knew him well enough to know he wasn’t asking to draw her into a fight.
“It doesn’t matter because he doesn’t want to leave Chicago,” she answered.
He groaned and hung his head. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Petra didn’t have it in her to try to convince him differently. She could imagine living without Alex even less than she’d once been able to imagine living without Jude.
Jude got to his feet and she rose with him.
“Do you like the work you’re doing now?” she asked.
A small smile touched his lips, but the effect on his eyes was profoundly more enlightening. She could see before he answered that the answer was a resounding yes.
“It’s far harder and unbelievably more rewarding than I could have imagined.”
“Then you didn’t make the wrong choice.” In spite of her newfound happiness with Alex, it hurt a little to say the words.
He nodded and looked at some unknown point over her shoulder.
Tears sprang to her eyes. “I will always love you, you know.”
He stood and drew her into his arms, holding her as tightly as she held him. She breathed in his familiar scent and let the memory of all the times he’d held her in the past settle someplace happier in her mind.
“You will always be important to me, and I will always cherish the time we were together.” She touched her lips to his temple and something she’d been holding on to way too long gave up the uncomfortable hold it had on her heart. “And you will f—”
“Oh, don’t say it,” he groaned, holding her at arm’s length. “Do not tell me I will find someone better suited to me one day because I had the best and I ruined it.”
“I thought the same thing until the craziest thing happened a few weeks ago,” she told him, her stomach doing a little flip-flop at the thought of that first night with Alex.
His mouth pressed into a thin line and he nodded. “Can I call when I come home?”
“I would be insulted if you didn’t.”
He stepped in and kissed her, warm and soft, then released her and headed for the front door without another word. He didn’t look back, didn’t so much as look left or right before he stepped onto the sidewalk, so she was surprised when she went to the door to watch him leave and found Alex sitting off to one side on the wide front stoop.
Petra grabbed her coat off a hook and went out to sit next to him. The air was cool, but the sun was shining bright.
“How long have you been out here?”
He took off his sunglasses and propped them on top of his head. The blue of his eyes was shocking in the bright daylight, sending a little shiver along her spine.
“Not long.” His gaze scanned her face, searched her eyes. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”
“We got to say goodbye the right way.” She felt a lightness she wasn’t expecting. “You know there was never a decision for me to make, don’t you?”
Alex simply looked at her.
“The choice was made the moment I drew your keys at the party that night.”
“I know it was the luckiest moment of my life,” he said.
“I love you,” she told him, finding relief in finally being able to say the words.
He gave her a cocky, lopsided smile that went straight to her heart. “I know.”
He put his arm around her and the thing she’d been needing all day happened. He kissed her. It started with a soft press of his lips to hers and quickly became something heated and urgent.
“I think you should invite me inside,” he whispered after a few minutes, one arm holding her tight against his side and his other hand cradling the back of her neck. “Otherwise I’m going to show the whole neighborhood how much I love you by making love to you right here on the front steps.”
She slid the hand she had on the inside of his thigh a little higher.
“I’m really tempted to call your bluff right now.”
In a flash he was on his knees on the step in front of h
er, taking off his jacket.
“All right, stop what you’re doing,” she told him with feigned impatience.
He stood and held out his hand to help her up, the wicked gleam she loved so very much dancing in his eyes.
He helped her out of her coat in the foyer, and she helped him out of his. They were grinning at each other like lovestruck fools as they kicked off their shoes and went hand in hand up the stairs, much like they had the night of the key party—side by side, neither of them speaking but far less nervous than they’d been back then.
They undressed slowly, standing on either side of the bed from each other, both of them watching as each part of the other’s body became exposed. He crawled to the middle of the bed and she met him there, pushed him gently so he was on his back and straddled him. He was patient with her when she went exploring in a way she never had before, kissing his neck and his shoulders, stroking every inch of his long arms.
He was grossed out when she kissed his armpit, which made her laugh considering the things he’d once let her do to his asshole, and her tongue in his belly button made him too twitchy. Petra purposely avoided touching his cock as she tested his reaction to her licking the tender line where his thigh met his body and won herself a deep moan.
She tried it on the other side and he took himself in hand. By the time she kissed and licked and nibbled her way down his legs he was breathing hard and stroking himself slowly while he watched, the sight of which was just too much for her to take.
Petra stretched her body over his and he rolled so they were on their sides facing each other, her cradled in one of his arms. She threw her leg over his hip and eagerly took him inside her body. He made love to her slowly, kissing her deeply, the arm wrapped around her holding her close. His other hand moved lightly over her leg, stroked her bottom lovingly, trailed up and down her spine with just his fingertips.
They spent the entire afternoon tumbling and rolling over the expanse of her bed, laughing and moaning and sighing together. And when he brought her to the most intense orgasm of her life what felt like several glorious hours later, it was with her lying pinned beneath his big body, his gaze intense with emotions that poured out and made saying I love you absolutely unnecessary.
LuckoftheDraw Page 8