Crash

by Nicole Williams

“Have you made any decisions?”

  “Not yet,” he said, like it was no big deal. Like having a full blown scholarship to whatever school you chose wasn’t a big deal. If that wasn’t, it was hard to imagine what Jude considered a big deal.

  “Jude,” I said, planting my hand on his stomach. “Why didn’t you tell me about Sawyer? Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t the dad?’ It was one of the many questions I couldn’t even begin to answer.

  “Would you have believed me?” he asked, his voice strained.

  I knew the answer, but I didn’t want to give it air.

  “And I also knew that if you assumed I was Jude’s dad, and that I’d lied to you about that, it would be enough for you to be done with me for good. It was the only way I knew to keep you safe from me.”

  I lifted my hand from his stomach. “So you planned this? The whole time we were together, you were scheming some way to screw up royally so I’d leave you alone?”

  “No, Luce,” he said, grabbing my hand back. “So I’d leave you alone.”

  “That morning when I confronted you about Holly and the baby, you didn’t deny it.”

  “But did I confirm it?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “By not denying, you did.”

  Sliding his beanie lower, he closed his eyes. “That’s because I knew that was the only way I could save you from me. I didn’t plan it out that way, but when you confronted me about Holly that morning, I knew that if I was going to be a man and let you go, that was my only chance. And lucky for me, I had the balls to do it that day.”

  “What? Lie to me?” I asked with an edge.

  Jude shook his head. “Walk away from you.”

  This whole thing between Jude and me had been one, carefully managed miscommunication orchestrated by him. I was hurt, and I was pissed, and I even understood why, but most of all, I was done with it.

  “You about done walking yet?” I asked, grabbing a pillow and tossing it at his face.

  He tossed the pillow back. “Undecided on that one.”

  If I didn’t know why he was undecided, that answer might have stung. “Why are you here now then?”

  “Because I want to be,” he said, confessing it like a sin.

  “And you didn’t want to be here before?” I scooted closer, wishing that for two damn minutes, we could be on the same page.

  “I did,” he said, staring at the ceiling. “I’m just tired of fighting it right now.”

  There it was, the breakthrough I was waiting for. The red light had changed. “Do me a favor and don’t fight it again.”

  Sitting up, he looked at me. His stare was crippling. “I will, Luce. I’m going to keep fighting it because you don’t deserve some dead end guy with my past ruining your life.”

  Throwing my arms up, I exhaled. Humility was a good thing, but being a martyr was as bad as believing you were god’s gift. I was done with the routine. “If you’d shut up about all the reasons I shouldn’t want you, maybe you’d hear that I don’t care,” I said. Well, I shouted. “I know the worst parts of you and I know the best parts of you.” I paused to get a breath. “And I want you.”

  Something flickered in his eyes before he looked away. His jaw tightened as he eyed the door and, just as I was contemplating barricading it closed with my body, he pulled me to him, his mouth finding mine.

  He kissed me like he was trying to consume me, like he was making up for a half a year’s worth of missed moments, and like he was done fighting what I knew was a useless fight.

  Cradling my face in his hands, he kissed me harder, so hard I couldn’t breathe, but if kissing like this required breathlessness, I was giving up oxygen for good. The moment consumed me, encapsulating me in nothing but the here and now. The past, the lies, the pain, nothing could break through the world we were creating right now. I didn’t want it to.

  Tugging his shirt free, I pulled it over his back and tossed it on the floor. It was the first time he’d ever let me take his shirt off, but my hands against his skin weren’t enough. I wanted the rest of him against the rest of me.

  Right before I was about to, Jude slipped his hands beneath my nightgown, tugging it up over my stomach, my breasts, and then my head. His eyes roamed over me, inspecting my body like he was committing every line and dip and curve to memory. I knew it should have been uncomfortable, sitting naked and exposed in front of a man who’d seen his share of women and could have his pick of any of them, but there was no way to feel insecure with the way he was looking at me.

  He smiled at me when his eyes made the final journey to mine. His eyes muted silver, his breaths short, his body ready. I knew I’d never want anyone else like I wanted him.

  “Jude,” I said, “I—”

  The last two words got lost as his mouth crushed into mine, his hands digging into my hips right before flipping me back onto the bed. The warmth of his skin warmed mine, creating a sheen of sweat between us. His mouth moved to my neck, his hands to my breasts, and I felt close to falling over the edge of the world. But I still wanted more, I needed more.

  I was so ready for him I could feel it all the way down to my toes.

  Sliding my hands between us, I grabbed his pants, tugging on the button of his jeans. It snapped free and I slid my hand inside. He moaned, his forehead leaning into mine as his body moved against mine. Sliding my hand out, I rocked my hips up toward him. Another sound escaped him, “Damn it,” he moaned right before his mouth fell over mine again. His tongue parted my lips, touching the tip of mine, as his fingers slipped beneath my panties. He slid them off in one seamless move, his tongue never leaving my mouth.

  I was in another world. A world that was foreign and a world I wanted to make my home. It was passionate and there was heat. The kind that went so deep you absorbed it. The kind that went so deep it became a part of you.

  I was so close to losing everything that was balling up inside me, I knew I couldn’t hold on much longer with the way he was touching me. With the way he was consuming me.

  Now, totally naked, I wrapped my legs around him, arching my hips against his, rocking up and down. His breathing stopped as every muscle in his body tensed to the surface.

  “Not like this,” he breathed, punching the pillow behind me.

  Everything inside me screamed. “Not like what?” I said between ragged breaths, leaving my legs around him. I wasn’t giving up when we were this close.

  He closed his eyes. “Not right after you were almost raped by Sawyer Diamond,” he said, leaning back.

  His skin no longer pressed against mine, a cold crept up me almost immediately. “Jude, I’m fine,” I said, leaning up on my elbows, not ready to let the moment go.

  Shifting his legs off the bed, he hunched down. “But I’m not.”

  “Why?”

  He washed his hands over his face. “Because this is all kinds of wrong right now.”

  That one hurt. “It didn’t feel wrong to me,” I said, trying not to think about the fact that I was probably the only woman the legendary Jude Ryder wouldn’t go all the way with.

  Retrieving my gown from the floor, he held it out for me, keeping his eyes down. “That’s the thing. It didn’t feel wrong to me either,” he said as I snatched the gown from his hand. I wanted to chuck it across the room to prove a point, but pulled it on instead. “That’s how I know it was.”

  “Could we save the mind benders for the morning?” I said, sticking my arms through the gown. “I’m running a little low on comprehension right now.”

  “I’m doing a shit job of explaining myself,” he said, tugging on his hat, quiet for a minute. “My notion of right and wrong is so messed up, Luce, that my wrong is everyone else’s right. And my right is everyone’s wrong.”

  I wanted to wrap my arms around him and comfort whatever turmoil he was experiencing, but I still felt a bit too shunned for that. “So you’re saying because what we were just doing felt right to you, it must be the wrong thing?” This was every definition of confu
sing.

  He nodded, looking over at me. “I need a right and wrong recalibration, Luce, and until I’m able to get my shit figured out, I need to be careful with you.”

  I flopped back down on the bed, covering my head with a pillow. “Careful was not what I had in mind for tonight,” I whined, my voice muffled.

  “I know,” he said, rubbing my leg. “But it’s the right thing to do.”

  Lifting the pillow, I lifted a brow. “Jude’s right or everyone else’s?” I asked with an innocent smile.

  My snark had no effect on him. “I’m not sure,” he said, “and I need to be before we finish . . .” he glanced at the bed meaningfully, “doing what we were doing.”

  “Well,” I said, sitting up and scooting close. “Hurry and figure your shit out, Ryder.” I pressed my lips to his, pulling back as everything inside me started to boil.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he smiled, running his thumb down my cheek. “I just want it to feel right, okay? I want it to be perfect.”

  That would be nice if we lived in a perfect world. “If you’re waiting for everything to feel right and perfect, I’ll save you the suspense and tell you that’s never going to happen,” I said, weaving my fingers through his. “But if you can look at me and say you want to be with me and I can look at you and know I want to be with you, then carpe diem, baby. Because that’s as perfect as it will ever get.”

  He nodded, giving my fingers a squeeze. “You’re so damn smart, Luce,” he said, kissing my forehead as he stood. “I’ll see you in the morning,”

  Now this was just getting absurd.

  “Yes,” I said, grabbing his hand, “you will.” I patted the space beside me, throwing the covers down.

  Jude studied the bed as if it were an equation.

  I guessed what equation he was trying to work out in his mind. “Right or wrong?”

  One side of his face lifted. “I’m not sure,” he confessed.

  “Well, I am,” I said, tugging his hand.

  He stalled one more second, but whether he just gave in to me or decided on his own, he crawled into bed beside me and wound his arms around me so tight I couldn’t breathe quite right.

  I hadn’t experienced such peaceful sleep since that day, almost five years back to the day.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  It was early. Like the sun’s just thinking about rising early. On a Sunday morning, I usually slept another three hours, but this one I didn’t want to. I doubted I could have anyways.

  I woke up with the same pit in my stomach I had each of the past four years on this day, that feeling that I wasn’t sure if I was going to throw up or pass out. The feeling of that day happening all over again, and then Jude’s arm wound around me a bit tighter in his sleep, and today everything seemed easier to handle.

  He’d stayed. All night. He hadn’t let me go once.

  He moaned something indecipherable in his sleep, tucking his face into my neck.

  His beanie was still on. Topless and asleep, the man still kept that old hat in place. That couldn’t be good for a head; it needed to breathe every few years. Not sure why it felt like I was doing something I shouldn’t, I slid the hat back from his forehead and pulled it off.

  His hair was so short and so light it almost looked like he was bald. And then I noticed the puckering and scarring of skin from the crown of his head to the neck that was familiar. Scars I’d been a couple inches of hair away from having. Burn scars. I ran my fingers over them, wishing I could erase them from his skin and the event that made them from his mind.

  Trailing my fingers down his neck, I looked down at his back and, in the almost morning light, the maze of scars that scattered all the way down his back glared back at me. White scars protruded down his back, some small, most large, like he’d been torn open in a hundred different ways and closed back up by someone who didn’t know how to use a needle and thread. I doubted cadavers came out with fewer scars.

  I felt sick, sicker than I’d felt waking up to this day, as my fingers drew a line over each raised scar, not able or wanting to imagine what had happened to the man sleeping beside me.

  Suddenly, he jolted awake. His eyes were peaceful for the shortest second before he noticed the look on my face and what I held in my hand. Grabbing one of my wrists, he shoved it away before bolting out of bed, snatching his grey knit hat at the same time.

  “What are you doing?” he cried, adjusting the hat back over his head. He was angry and he was hurt.

  “What happened?” I whispered, sitting up in bed.

  He lunged across the room, grabbing his long-sleeved gray thermal and tugging it over his head, not answering.

  “They did the same thing to you,” I guessed, wishing these conclusions weren’t so easy to draw. “Those boys burnt you too.”

  Jude wrapped his hands behind his head, his jaw clenching. “Not the same ones, but a few just like them,” he said, his voice tight.

  “When I first moved to the boys’ home,” he said, forcing each word. “About five years ago.”

  “Why?” I leaned forward, trying to grab his hand.

  He swung it away. “It was a welcome present.”

  “Oh my god,” I breathed, wondering if the devastation in Jude’s past ever ran out. “And the scars?”

  Jude’s eyes settled on me. They were black. “You don’t want to know.”

  He was right, but also wrong. “Yes, I do,” I whispered.

  “I don’t want to tell you,” he replied, his chest rising and falling.

  “Okay,” I swallowed, accepting Jude had just as many internal scars as he wore on his skin. “I’m sorry, Jude.”

  “I don’t want your pity,” he said, “and I don’t want to rehash my whole childhood while you do that girl psychoanalysis bullshit. I’m a cancer, Luce. I told you that from the very beginning. You don’t need to know the nasty details to accept that.”

  “Yes, you do,” I said, going against every instinct screaming at me to go embrace him. “You need the details so you know how to cure it. Let me help you,” I said, reaching for him again.

  “Dammit, Luce,” he said, pacing around the room. “I’m not one of your pet projects. I’m not some dog you can rescue from being euthanized. I don’t need to be saved and I sure as hell don’t want to be saved.” Pausing, he finally looked at me. “So stop trying so damn hard.”

  I knew this was the point I should back off, but I couldn’t.

  “No,” I said firmly.

  He glared at me. “I don’t want to be saved.”

  I bit my tongue to keep any signs of tears away. “Yes, you do.”

  His eyes flamed. “No,” his voice shook, “I don’t.” Backing away from me, he hit the edge of my dresser, knocking over a storage box I’d pulled down from the attic yesterday.

  It crashed to the floor, its contents spreading across the carpet. I was out of bed and collecting the items before he turned around.

  Jude’s head fell back to glare at the ceiling before crouching down to help me. His eyes latched onto something in my hand, his face falling. Snatching the photo from my fingers, he rose, looking at the photo like it wasn’t real.

  “How do you know this guy?”

  A deep breath. “He was my brother.”

  “Your brother was John Larson?” he said, not blinking.

  Now I was crying. This morning had just become too much for the woman of steel to keep the tears at bay. I looked up at the picture between Jude’s fingers. My brother’s senior year football photo. Only seven months before he’d been murdered. Five years ago today.

  “Yes,” I said, wiping my face.

  The photo dropped from Jude’s hand, his face blanching. “And your dad’s first name is Wyatt?”

  I nodded, grabbing the photo that had fallen to the floor.

  Jude spun around, throwing his fist into the wall. It shattered through the drywall, as a cloud of white dust erupted. “How could you keep something like this from me?” he shouted, turnin
g on me, his whole body trembling.

  I was so confused, so upset, I didn’t know which one I felt more. “I told you my brother died,” I said, settling John’s picture in my lap. “Sorry if I didn’t provide the gory details.”

  Pacing over to the window, Jude stared out it, his shoulders rising and falling with his breath. “Details would have been nice in this situation,” he said, his voice about to break.

  “What the hell are you talking about, Jude?” I whispered. Everything was falling apart, unraveling around me, and I didn’t know what had pulled the thread.

  “My full name is Jude Ryder Jamieson,” he said, turning to look at me.

  That name hit me like a train. The impact was so sudden, so powerful, I couldn’t speak.

  “My dad,” he said, gripping the window sill, “went to jail for shooting and killing a young man.”

  I shook my head, whipping my hair back and forth. “Stop,” I said, choking on the word. Everything was spinning out of control and I wanted off this ride.

  “My dad’s name is Henry Jamieson.” He paused, looking through the window like he was either going to escape out it or drive his fist through it. “My father murdered your brother.”

  The picture I held slid from my hands, flipping face down on the carpet. I felt like sobbing, my body needed the release of sobbing, but I was too numb to move. I kept repeating to myself that this wasn’t real, it wasn’t possible. I had not fallen in love with the man whose father had killed my brother. God wasn’t that cruel.

  “Your dad,” I began, not sure if I could get it out, “ruined my family.”

  Jude pounded the window sill. “And your dad is the one to blame for setting in motion the whole damn string of events!” he shouted, turning around. “After working for one of your dad’s companies for ten years, my dad got randomly selected for a drug test, failed it, and big Mr. Wyatt Larson got the final call. He fired him.”

  “Jude, he had coke and meth in him. He almost killed a man on the job site,” I said, remembering every word that was spoken, every image portrayed during the trial. My parents were too gone in their loss to reason that letting their thirteen-year-old daughter sit in on her brother’s murder trial wasn’t the best thing to allow, but I wouldn’t stay home. Hiding beneath a blanket when my brother’s murderer was being tried felt wrong. I had been there for him, even in death.