Chapter 13
As Jude laughed into the phone, saying, “Now, Uma, you know I’m not like that,” he clicked on yet another outfit, adding it to his online order of clothes for May. She might not admit it right off, but she’d love his choices.
Everything from comfortable jeans and colorful tees to flirty sundresses and career clothes that would better suit her lush figure would all arrive tomorrow, thanks to special overnight shipping.
To go with the clothes, he’d order strappy sandals, cute flip-flops, and a pair of sneakers. Purses, belts, and a lightweight jacket rounded out the selections. His favorite outfit, a tiered pink cami and cropped jeans, would make her look luscious. Once he got her in the clothes, he’d take her out to dinner and show her off.
“Yeah, I’m here,” he said to Uma. “I’m hanging on your every word.” He laughed with her, and at that moment, a shadow moved past the open doorway—a shadow that somehow resembled May’s shorter, rounder figure.
Deciding to investigate, Jude left his chair to stride across the carpeted library. He reached the hall just in time to see May tiptoeing toward the bedroom across from his.
Over an hour ago, he’d left her with Denny and Tim, watching old SBC tapes and DVDs. For a while, he’d lingered with them, impressed with her knowledge of grappling and ground skills. Almost as soon as the announcer noticed a fighter’s intent, May saw it. She recognized the setup for an arm bar or an ankle pick, a reversal or a rear naked choke. She called the takedowns before they happened and celebrated a win seconds before it could be announced. She knew the difference between Aikido martial arts and Capoeira martial arts, between Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling. She favored Muay Thai boxing and scoffed at Karate.
She was, in so many ways, an amazing woman. Rather than watch the fights, Jude watched her watching the fights.
Covering the phone so he wouldn’t interrupt Uma’s story, he said, “May.”
She stiffened, then turned to face him with a frown. “What?” she whispered.
“Come here.” Uma finished her dialogue, and Jude replied to her while holding his hand out to May.
Reluctantly, May came to him, and he put his arm around her, drawing her into his side and into his library.
To Uma, he said, “I’ll have to let you know about the party.” He returned to his chair, tugged May into his lap, and added, “I’ve got my hands full here right now.” To prove his point, he filled his hand with her rump.
May punched him in the shoulder, almost mak ing him laugh. The way she perched on his thigh, all prim and proper, had very improper ideas going through his head. In one more minute, he’d be hard, and he hadn’t even kissed her yet.
“No, Uma, I swear. I haven’t accepted the role. I’m not sure I will. I’m in no hurry to get back into acting.” He grinned. “Of course I’d tell you. Yeah, you, too, hon. Bye.” He laid the phone on the desk.
Arms crossed, back straight, May stared away from him.
He caught her chin on the edge of his fist and drew her face toward his. “Why were you sneaking around my hallway?”
With the stoniest glare he’d ever gotten from her, May said, “I wasn’t sneaking.”
“You were on your tiptoes,” he pointed out.
“I didn’t want to disturb your conversation with Uma.”
Jealousy dripped from her tone. He smiled at how she said Uma’s name, with such a sneer. “She’s a friend, May. When others in Hollywood relished my trial, she stood behind me.”
“She did?”
“She’s a really terrific lady.”
Her mouth flattened, and she said nothing.
“Did you see her in Kill Bill?”
Again, she looked away. “Yes.”
“Did you like it?”
She checked out a fingernail. “Yes.”
“Much?”
“A lot, okay? I saw it twice.”
Laughing, Jude hugged her until she squealed, and then he kissed her—and didn’t want to stop kissing her.
She went soft and warm on him, relaxing back in his arms when he trailed kisses from her mouth to her jaw and her ear. “I’ve finished my phone calls,” he said against her throat, loving the scent of her, how she felt on his lap. “Want to go play around?”
“I don’t know—” Her breath hitched as he cupped her breast. “Okay, maybe.”
He resented the barrier of her bra, but he still found her nipple with his thumb, and she still trembled from the touch. “Do you know what I want to do to you, May?”
Full of heightened anticipation, she shook her head. “What?”
“You like when I suck on you here?” He tugged at her nipple and she moaned. Moving his hand down her waist, and then between her thighs, he cupped her mound. She made a small sound of excitement and opened her knees. Searching with his fingertips, he stroked over her, following the seam of the soft shorts, and then—“Ah. Right here.”
“Jude.” She breathed his name.
“You’ll like when I have my mouth on you here,” he promised her. “Sucking on you. Licking you.”
“Oh God.”
Footsteps pounded up the stairs. “Jude!”
“Jesus.” Jude pulled May upright. He barely had time to slide the chair under his desk to hide his boner before Denny appeared in the doorway.
He took one look at the two of them and said, “Shit, I’m sorry. But Ashley called.”
“Oh no.” May tried to scramble off his lap.
Jude held onto her; he needed her for cover. “What is it?”
Looking from one to the other, Denny pulled at his ear, looked behind himself to make sure Tim hadn’t followed, and finally, cleared his throat. “She’s working at some fancy restaurant—the child works too much and that’s all there is to it—and she overheard a conversation that she thinks…Well, she thinks she might be serving none other than Elton Pascal.”
Jude’s brain couldn’t assimilate such a thing. “Here? In Ohio?”
“She described the guy and yeah, it sounds like him.”
“What did she hear?”
Denny put his hands on his hips. “Hell, I don’t know. Does it matter? She said it sounded fishy, so I believed her. He’d already ordered his dinner, so I figured we didn’t have much time to waste on questions.” He glanced at May again, at her position on Jude’s lap, and the way his arms were around her. He cleared his throat. “I think maybe I’ll just run down there and check it out—”
“The hell you will.” Elton Pascal. In Ohio. Jude shook his head. If it proved to be true, it could only mean one thing.
Already in battle mode, primed, hard, more than ready, he lifted May to her feet. “I’m going.”
May clutched at him. “Are you both nuts?”
He paid her no mind. “Where’s the restaurant?”
Denny shrugged. “She said May knew, that she could give us directions there.”
They both looked to May.
She puckered up in indignation. “Oh no, I’m not telling you a thing.” She crossed her arms tight around herself. “Forget it.”
Not in the mood for games, Jude towered over her. “Give me the name of the restaurant, May.”
“No. This is insane. You can’t just go charging down there—”
She yelped in surprise when he caught her upper arm and started out the door with her, hustling her along to his room. They had a few things to clear up, and it’d be better done in private.
“Unhand me right now!”
His jaw locked. “Patience, honey.”
Calling after him, Denny said, “I’ll pull the Porsche around to the front.”
“Thanks.”
May said, “You have a Porsche? I thought you drove a Mercedes Benz.”
“I have both. Six cars, actually. The Porsche is black, so better for tonight.”
“Six?”
Unwilling to be sidetracked, especially by a discussion on his indulgence with cars, Jude hauled May into his room. He turned and pinned her against the closed door. Her eyes were wide, her glasses a little crooked, her lips trembling. A few days ago, he’d have taken that look for fright, but not anymore. He had the awful feeling that nothing much scared May, most definitely not him.
“No time for games, May.”
In a mere whisper, she said, “This isn’t a game.”
“No time for your mothering or your lack of trust, either.”
“It is not about trust.”
“The hell it isn’t.”
Looking very put out, she muttered, “Your reputation for a cool head is grossly exaggerated.”
Of all the—
His nose almost touched hers, making her eyes go impossibly wide. “If Elton is here, then it’s to cause me grief. You told me you wanted me to have a chance to deal with it. Well, now’s my chance.”
“Not like this.”
“Exactly like this.” He cupped her face. “Hell, he’s probably hoping I’ll call out the cops and make a big scene. Then he can trot out his alibis and whatever trumped-up excuse he has for being here, and he’ll make me look like a fool. It’s what he does.”
He had to kiss her, but he kept it quick and shallow, letting the surge of emotion strengthen his hostility toward Pascal. He’d see the bastard face to face. And he’d make himself very clear.
“Then he’s probably hoping you’ll show up.”
“Possibly. But he won’t expect me to confront him alone. So far, I’ve ignored him, and that makes him nuts. He wants me to react. He’s continually prodded and insulted me, trying to make it happen. By involving you, he’s gone too far. He’ll finally get what he wants, but on my terms, not his.”
“Your terms?”
“I’ll see him mano a mano. The chickenshit bastard won’t expect that. He’s not big on confrontations, not when he can usually skulk around, ordering the dirty work for someone else to do. But when I push him into a corner, he’ll be too proud to turn me down. He won’t want his hirelings to see him as a coward. The conversation will be ours alone—and it’ll be a conversation he won’t forget. Tunneling his fingers in close to her skull, he added, “That is, if you’ll give me the fucking directions.”
Her soft expression pinched into disapproving lines and she shoved him away. “Do not use that language with me.” Needlessly, she straightened her glasses. “I can show you.”
“ Show me?” He must have heard that wrong.
Her chin lifted. “I’m going, too.”
“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary.” Jude threw up his hands. Just the thought of her getting anywhere near Elton sucked the breath from his lungs and sent rage roaring through him. He vibrated with menace, with an explosive need to shield and protect.
He tried to hold himself back but couldn’t. Shoving his face down close to hers, he ground out, “You’re staying here.”
“Don’t yell at me.”
Her calm only amplified his turbulence. “Then don’t talk stupid!”
“So now I’m stupid?” Her eyes narrowed while she waited for his response.
God, he hated those double-bladed swords women flung out with great regularity. They both knew that no matter what he said, she’d give him hell. But screw it.
Jude planted his feet. “If you think for one second I’ll take you along, then damn right.”
“Apparently, I’m smarter than you, because at least I know you need someone there for backup.”
“You?” he asked, so incredulous he nearly choked.
“Yes, me. I’ll stay out of sight but have my cell phone ready. I could call the cops if need be. Or I could lay on the horn if things go wrong. Or—”
“You,” he said, pointing a shaking finger at her, but words failed him. He could see the stubbornness, the worry in her dark eyes, and he didn’t know how to convince her, didn’t know what else he could say. Time slipped away. Elton wouldn’t spend all night dining. The bastard had revenge on his mind, not food.
Hands on top of his head, Jude gave May his back. Sickened by the turn of events, by the possibility of a lost opportunity, he went cold. “I guess you were right, after all.”
Uncertainty ebbed into her militant tone. “About?”
“Us being all wrong for each other.” The icy cold spread, lending him a false composure. He laughed and dropped his hands. “I thought I could get you to trust me, that you’d be a little different, but…” He shook his head and, with a huff of disgust, started out past her.
She grabbed his arm. “Jude, wait. I told you this wasn’t about trust.”
He looked first at her hand on his arm, far too small to encircle his biceps, a delicate contrast to his iron strength.
Yet she wanted to lead him around by his nose.
He looked next into her eyes, eyes so dark and compelling they could eat a man alive. “I’m not your brother. I don’t need you guarding me and coddling me. I don’t need you giving me orders and telling me how to run my life.”
Shocked, she dropped her hand and took a step back. “I didn’t.”
“You want to run the show, honey? Fine. Go find yourself some wimp who gets off on that shit.” His jaw flexed in frustration. “I don’t.” And he walked out.
He got halfway down the hall when her running footsteps sounded behind him. “Jude?”
Refusing to look at her, he said, “Call the cops, May. Send them on a wild goose chase. Me, I’m going to go take a swim.”
“But…if that’s Elton…”
“There’s nothing I can do about it, is there? Not with you making all the decisions.” Hand on the top railing to the stairs, he waited.
Jude thought he could hear the rhythmic thumping of her heart, feel her indecision flutter ing against him. That he wanted to turn and pull her close and hug and console her only pissed him off more.
He had every right to be annoyed with her. His grievances were legit. So why did he feel like such a bastard?
Light as a breath, May’s hand touched his shoulder. “It’ll take you twenty minutes at least to get there.”
The tension ebbed out of him. One small battle, but an important one if he had any chance of keeping her safe. Unwilling to look at her, to risk being trapped by the caring and hurt in her gaze, he nodded. “Tell me quick.”
“There are some side streets. You’ll need to write them down.” Dejected, she went back to his room. Jude followed, watching as she sat on the edge of the bed, her hands together, her head lowered.
Aware of the minutes slipping away, he didn’t dare take the time to pacify her. He scrounged in the nightstand drawer for a pad and pen and handed them to her. “Write it out for me.”
While she did that, he changed into black jeans and a black pullover. When she handed him the paper, he’d already finished dressing.
Hesitating only a second, he touched her cheek and smoothed his thumb over her mouth. “I’ll be back as quick as I can.”
She turned her head away.
The silent treatment? Did that mean he’d have to sleep alone that night? Like hell. He’d fix things with her after he got back. “Try not to worry too much.”
“I’ll worry if I want to.”
Shaking his head, Jude said, “Suit yourself.” He went out of the room and down the stairs at a trot. Denny stood at the open front door. “Took you long enough.”
“There’s a woman in the house.”
“Oh yeah.” Denny frowned in comprehension, and then nodded his head toward a monitor. “Someone’s out there.”
What now? Striding to the monitor to take a look for himself, Jude said, “So there is.”
“Who?”
Jude had expected May to continue sulking in his room. He should have known better than to second-guess anything about her.
Barreling down the stairs, hastened by her continued fretting, she said again, “Who’s out there?”
“Recognize him?” Denny asked Jude.
“The photographer. Ed Burton. I had a small run-in with him at May’s gallery.”
Against his back Jude felt the rounded curves of May’s body as she struggled to see the monitor past him. Already on edge, his awareness at an acute level, he absorbed every nuance of her touch.
Hands braced on his shoulders, she breathed near his ear. “What is he doing here?”
Hoping for a reconciliation, Jude reached back and curled his fingers over her hip. She froze before easing herself away.
He pretended not to notice, just as he pretended not to be disappointed. “He hangs around, hoping for the ideal photo. It’s not a biggie. In fact…” He ran through a few scenarios in his mind and smiled. “He might actually come in handy today.”
The sun hadn’t yet set, but it hung low in the sky, sending rays of crimson along the horizon and emphasizing the shadows of early evening. Outside, at the end of the entry walkway, his black Porsche purred.
Stepping out the door and onto the porch, he said, “Keep an eye on her, Denny.”
“You betcha.”
May ran out after him. “Jude?”
She sounded angry again, so he kept his back to her.
“Please…be very careful.”
Not mad. He didn’t want to admit the relief he felt. He gave one nod, strode to the car, and without a backward glance, shifted into gear and headed for Ed Burton. He had a deal to offer, one that the photographer surely wouldn’t turn down.
Bolstered by new hope and anticipation, Tim ducked behind the interior wall. No one had seen him or heard him; they didn’t know he’d listened in. They’d all been too anxious about someone named Elton Pascal being in town.
Was he the man who’d ordered him to be beaten, the one who wanted Jude dead? They all seemed to think so, May especially. And Jude, the idiot, wanted to play the hero and run off to meet the man alone. Tim couldn’t fathom that kind of stupidity. But then, he didn’t have Jude’s skills.
After watching so many fights where Jude had knocked out, immobilized, or otherwise forced a tap out to defeat all his opponents, Tim couldn’t help but be intrigued. What an ego boost it’d be, taking a man down with one blow. Pow. Just like that. A jab to the chin and it was over.
Or to control a muscle-bound hulk until he became as helpless as a child, twisting a limb to the breaking point, forcing another man to surrender. It made Tim’s blood rush just to imagine being that strong, that in control.
Jude continued to take great pleasure in insulting him, but Denny claimed he had the tools. All he needed was the training. Denny had hinted that he wouldn’t mind teaching him. If he ever got as good as Jude, he wouldn’t let anyone boss him around. Not his dad, not some bullyboy with an attitude. Definitely not his know-it-all, self-righteous sister.
He wouldn’t need May at his back, constantly running his life, treating him like a weak child.
Wouldn’t that knock the wind out of her? Tim grinned imagining it. She’d have to respect him. He could show her…
But what was he thinking? He couldn’t fight worth a damn, and right now, he wasn’t even sure he’d live out the rest of the week.
Unless he could turn this whole situation to his advantage. Mentally rubbing his hands together, Tim thought out his plan.
If Pascal hated Jude enough to want him dead, maybe, just maybe, his position in Jude’s house would be worth something. He could spy, as he’d done tonight. He could supply Pascal with useful information on Jude, ways to hurt him, maybe financially or socially, that wouldn’t involve the awful risk of being murdered.
Some men were worth more alive than they were dead. Tim prayed that might be the case for him. He shouldn’t have to suffer just because of Jude.
Next time the man called, maybe he’d be alone. And then he’d put the proposition to him. It was worth a try. And it was no more than Jude deserved.