chapter 23
[Jude]
With Angelica’s abrupt exit, I follow her, watching her indecision in the building entryway about rushing into the cold December morning, before she breaks left and thunders down another half-flight of stairs to the garden level.
With only two doors on this floor, the one swinging shut from the force of her entrance is my clue to where she went.
The laundry room has a distinct scent of Tide laundry detergent with a hint of bleach, but the fragrance that draws my attention is the sugar and spice scent from the woman with her back to me.
Her arms are spread wide, and she leans over the washer, hanging her head.
The hunch of her shoulder does something to me.
Like all I want to do is pull her into my arms, wrap them around her, and keep her safe from whatever is hurting her, because something hurts.
The panic in her eyes as she struggled to give a reason why her brother could not use The Oak Room for his wedding spoke volumes.
“Want to tell me what that was all about?” I softly ask, coming up close behind her but not touching her yet.
She shakes her head, holding her position, keeping her back to me.
“Is something wrong with The Oak Room?’ I ask, repeating my question from upstairs, with apprehension. What doesn’t she like about the place?
“No,” she chokes out, sniffling with her response.
I sense my brows lifting in surprise then crashing back over my eyes, troubled by her tears. Like someone has ripped open my chest. Like sawing the fresh cut at the base of a Christmas tree. I hate that she’s crying.
“Angel,” I whisper, no longer able to keep the distance. I step closer and spread my arms as well, covering her hands with mine and bringing my cheek near to her ear.
“Nothing is wrong with The Oak Room?” I clarify.
She shakes her head, which is still lowered. Her shoulders softly rise and fall as she sniffs again.
“But you don’t want your brother to have his wedding in my restaurant?”
I’m clearly missing something, and I brush my cheek against her ear until my lips are right there.
“Tell me,” I whisper. Not like the seductive bastard I was last night, but like the concerned man I am today.
The worried boyfriend, if we were acting.
But this isn’t an act. In the quiet of this basement laundry room, we’re all alone, no audience, no witnesses, and I want to know what’s bothering her. What’s troubling her heart.
Gently, I slip my hand around her throat and tip her head back so she rests it on my shoulder. From the corner of my eye, I watch her close hers.
“It’s not fair,” she whispers.
“What’s not fair, angel?” I keep my voice low, soothing, because I want to calm her.
“Beau always gets what he wants.” She exhales heavily, letting the weight of her body completely rest against mine.
Sadly, I understand. As much as I love my younger sister, I’d grown up thinking she was the spoiled one. She had the love of both our mother and our dad, her father.
“I’m being silly, right?” She shrugs against me. “At thirty-seven, what do I care if my younger brother still gets everything. The girl he wants. A spontaneous wedding. A holiday one at that.” She pauses and licks her lips. “And the venue of my dreams.”
“What?” I whisper, slow and low, and totally stunned. I must have misheard her. Yet despite a certain tightness in my chest and a sudden cotton ball in my throat, I ask, “You want to get married in the Oak Room?”
She closes her eyes again, like she instantly regrets the admission, when I don’t want her regretting anything between us. Not truths or touches or secrets for just us.
Suddenly, I can envision it. Her standing in a white dress near the antique mullioned floor-to-ceiling windows.
A stream of sunlight beams into the room, highlighting that red hair, which is pulled back at the top but loose and wild down her back like she’s a Celtic queen.
Her cheeks are rosy; her lips red, and that freckle is on display. My freckle, brightened by her smile.
And who the fuck is her groom?
I only see red. Not the vibrant, joyful color of the holiday but scorching, angry crimson.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Angelica.
Not since the moment my eyes opened on that stretcher, and she was the first thing I saw.
Those summer-blue eyes. That rope of hair.
And that freckle. She’s infiltrated my waking moments, like this morning when I woke early and just stared at her.
And, my sleeping ones, when a vivid dream of touching her again, filling her with more than my fingers and tongue, woke me.
And I’ll be fucking damned to Santa’s permanent naughty list for my next thoughts, but I cannot get them out of my head.
“When are you planning to get married?” With my hand still on her throat, I stroke my thumb along her neck, feeling for her pulse, finding she’s settled the tears, but her blood begins to pump at the talk of a wedding. Her wedding.
My voice is rough as I struggle to remain calm, but my pulse accelerates the more I envision her waiting on a groom. Some faceless twat who won’t appreciate her. Her ability to sacrifice for others. Her lack of care for herself first. He won’t put her first in his life.
But I will.
The thought hits so hard, I still my thumb.
“Only in my head,” she whispers, and it takes me a second to jump back to the question I’d asked her.
Relief washes through me like a slow trickling river. One released after being frozen for the winter.
With that awakening, also comes snark. “You just tell me what the date is, and The Oak Room is yours.”
She can have that beautiful room with its crystal chandelier and ballroom-like setting on one condition.
“Why?” she chuckles, but the sound is bitter, contrasting her typically cheery voice. “Because we’re friends? Because I saved your life?”
The twinge of sarcasm hammers home my condition. Not because we’re friends. Not because she saved my life. Because I cannot stand the thought of her marrying someone.
Anyone.
Other than me.
I don’t have the slightest idea where the thought comes from. I don’t believe in love or commitment. But I also don’t take the time to unpack this sudden scratch clawing at my chest, at the thought of her with someone else.
I don’t answer her questions, reasoning why I’d give her the room for a wedding.
Instead, I state my demand, “The only condition is that I be your date.”
Angelica pulls her head off my shoulder and spins to face me. I don’t move back, remaining in her space. Her breasts brush my chest as I lean forward, setting my hands back on the washing machine behind her.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she begins. Her saucer-like eyes ping back and forth between mine. “I wouldn’t need a date for my own wedding. My date would be my groom.”
I let her answer linger between us.
Yep, I’ll be her permanent date to weddings. Her brothers or hers . . . I won’t be choosy.
“Jude.” Her brows form a deep V between them while that soft voice crushes all my resolve.
I’m talked out, and I need her not to ask any more questions because I don’t have answers. Not yet. I cannot explain myself, so I do another thing I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.
I kiss her. Take those lips that have made a permanent impression on mine, leaving me hungry for more. I want to feel her tongue against mine, and I slip mine forward to do just that, savoring the sweetness in how they tangle together.
Last night she wouldn’t let me kiss her, but today I cannot help myself.
Sweet relief, like that cold river running faster, fills me again when she gives in and kisses me back. I lean forward, pressing the sudden hard length of my cock against her, dipping my knees the slightest bit to line us up.
She gasps in my mouth, and I grip her hips, lifting her on top of the washing machine to better line us up.
I don’t want her thinking about her brother’s wedding. Or her own. I only want her thinking about me and what I can do for her. What I want to do with her.
“Let me touch you again,” I beg. The plea rings in my ear like church bells on Christmas morning.
“Here?” she chokes against my lips.
“Here,” I murmur, slipping my hand between her thighs and directly against her center, which is warm and damp through her leggings. She wraps her legs around the backs of mine, drawing me closer to her.
Dragging her back off the washer, I spin her to face the machine and press my throbbing dick against the firmness of her ass. I slip my hand around her waist, dipping it inside her leggings while kissing the side of her neck, sucking at where that pulse beats strongest.
That river of relief rushes through me, turning into wild, relentless rapids, jostling me over the rocks of my feelings for this woman and dipping me into new territory. A territory where she is mine for real.
Last night was not pretend.
Right now isn’t pretend either.
When my fingers meet the slickness of her warm heat, we both sigh.
“Have you been thinking about last night?” I murmur into the skin along her neck. “I have.”
She hums.
“Are you wet thinking about it now?” I continue. “Is it the idea of getting married that gets you drenched?”
She doesn’t answer, but her mouth falls open as I slip a finger into her.
“See yourself in a white dress.” I purr against her neck. “But you aren’t innocent, are you, my angel?”
She slowly shakes her head, whether dismissing the vision of her in a dress or her innocence, I can’t tell. I don’t care. I see her in white, looking radiant and loved with a secret inside her.
“You want your future husband to sneak beneath that dress and finger you like this, don’t you?” I slip a second finger into her, feeling the heat of her channel and the sweetness of her essence coat my fingers.
Her hips buck back, and I lean forward, wedging my hardness more firmly against her, pinning her to a washing machine.
Not the most romantic location to touch her, nor the most secluded, as her family is present up half a flight of stairs. But I cannot resist her.
“Jude,” she whimpers as her knees slightly bang on the metal machine, and I rock forward, trapping my hand inside her panties, my fingers deep within her.
She clenches around my fingers. My hand is damp from the mess I’m making of her. And I am here for it. For her soft cries and her body tightening, and her giving me another sweet orgasm.
“You lit up pretty quickly last night,” I remind her, bringing up my own memories of my tongue skating over her folds and slicing into her precious pussy. My mouth waters again at the musky taste of her that mingled with her sugar and spice scent.
“Let me see how colorful you can be again,” I groan at the side of her throat, because she is light in the darkness. The promise of longer days after winter ends. The bright bulbs glistening on evergreens. The face of an angel after a near-death experience.
When she finally releases, we both exhale, while my dick seeps in my suit pants. Angelica grinds back against me while I dig deeper, more firmly inside her, feeling her hug my fingers in her snug heat and coat my hand in her sticky sweetness.
When I eventually pull them free from her, instantly missing her warmth, I bring my fingers to my lips, sucking them into my mouth. She tilts her head to watch me over her shoulder.
“Last night, you mentioned how re-listening to an audiobook or re-watching a movie always allows for another interpretation.”
I draw my fingers deep within my mouth to suck every drop of her from them. “I know what my second impression is of you on my tongue.” I hum as I release one finger but suck the first one another round. “Still delicious.”
Angelica lowers her head toward the washing machine and chuckles. “You’re so bad, Jude.”
“I thought I was complex.”
Straightening, she turns to face me. “Maybe not as complex as I thought.” Her eyes narrow, forehead furrowing as she watches me suck my finger.
“Well, if you were my wife . . .” I pause and shove my hand in my pocket, adjusting my dick, which is cursing me for getting her off again but not finding my own relief. “The only thing I’d want to watch on repeat is your expression when you come.”
I lean closer to her, forcing her to arch her back a little bit over the washing machine.
“For now, though, I’m going to settle for visions of you coming in my head and the taste of you on my tongue, while we make cookies with your family.”
Her eyes widen, brows lifting before she turns her head like it has suddenly occurred to her where we are.
I pinch her chin to bring her attention back to me and kiss her quickly one more time, rushing to invade her mouth with my tongue before pulling back and pressing away from the washer.
Smoothing my hand down my shirt and adjusting my belt buckle, I add, “Oh, and you can get to me about that wedding date. The one in The Oak Room.”
With that, I spin on my hard-soled shoes, leaving her to wonder if the date I mean is actually a number on the calendar, or a physical date, where I’m the man standing across from her.