Chapter 19
AMELIA
“What’s your name?”
Jude looked rather startled. “What?”
“Your name,” I pressed. “What is it?”
His brows furrowed. “Why?”
I huffed. “Because I’m bored out of my mind and you didn’t think to have a safe house with things to do. And unlike you, GI Joe, I don’t chop wood and do push-ups for fun.”
Jude crossed his arms. “What do you do for fun? You know—besides count cards at casinos.”
“No, no, no. I’m asking the questions here. You’ve stalked me enough, thank you very much. It’s my turn.”
He blinked, let out a long sigh, and then sat on the couch. “The point of stalking is to do it when the mark isn’t privy to it. What you’re doing is called interrogation.” He gave me a judgmental once-over. “Poorly, I might add.”
I groaned at the ceiling. “Ugh, just tell me your name so I can stop speculating wildly. Jude Smith? Jude Donaldson? Jude Jones? Jude Order?”
“Jude Order?” He grimaced. “That’s what you think my name is?”
I shrugged. “Well, Jude Law is already taken.” He rolled his eyes at the joke as I clasped my hands together. “Just tell me, please.”
Something indescribable flashed across his face—like he was debating how much he trusted me and whether or not he would lie.
“Greear,” he said plainly.
Huh. It fit.
Jude Greear. I could imagine his parents poring over first name options that sounded good with their surname. It had a timeless sort of ring to it. Like at one point, he had been a little boy, then a teenager, then a young man, and what he was now. It fit all of them.
Not like when people choose old-fashioned names for children and then they have toddlers named Bernard and Walter. Or modern names, giving the rest of humanity doctors and CEOs with names like Thunder or Radish.
“I’m not sure if you’re actually telling me the truth, but I like it.”
He actually looked amused. Jude tipped his head in acceptance. “Thank you for your approval of a name that I had no part in choosing.”
“It’s better than my name,” I grumbled. “When I was little, kids would call me Amelia Bedelia. I hated it.”
“I like your name,” Jude said.
I chewed on my lip. “Joel calls me Mia. But . . . I guess you know that.”
For a split second, Jude looked apologetic. Regretful. “Yeah.” He cracked a smile. “But I think Dr. Hawthorne fits you much better.” A blush crept across my cheeks, and the corner of his mouth pulled up. “Even though you don’t make your students call you that.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me . . .”
“I snuck into one of your classes,” he admitted. “I followed you home after. Cased your apartment.” His eyes twinkled. “And then I snuck into another class just because I liked listening to you teach. And I hate math almost as much as I hate running.”
I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped my mouth. “You’re joking.”
Jude raised his hands, chuckling to himself. “I swear I’m not.”
“Is there anything you don’t know about me?” I groaned. “You know my underwear size, you’ve been in my apartment.” I paused in the spot where I had begun to pace and pinned him with a hard stare. “Oh my god! You went in my underwear drawer, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Jude said without a hint of remorse. “Do you know how many people keep their firearms in their underwear drawer? Way too many. People are reckless.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Do I look like I own a gun?”
“Do I?” he countered.
“Yes,” I said.
Jude sank a little deeper into the couch. “Well, there’s your life lesson on not judging people by the way they look.”
He had me there . . .
“There is one thing I couldn’t figure out,” Jude said.
I let out a chuff of victory. “Then I’m not telling you.”
“You don’t date.” It was a statement and a question all in one.
I shrugged. “So? Fewer loose ends for you to tie up.”
“I did a deep dive on everyone in your circle. Jake does actually want to fuck you, by the way. I hacked into his phone. The porn he watches? All the women look like you. He’s really into the stern teacher kink.
” Jude didn’t say it judgmentally. He was simply stating facts the same way he would rattle off the make and model of Jake’s car.
I groaned. “Stop it. We’re just friends.”
“Why?”
I didn’t know why I was so startled by the question. I shrugged. “I’m not into him.”
I watched as Jude ran his tongue from canine to canine. “I’m asking purely so I can sleep at night, knowing I don’t suck at my job. Have you really never dated anyone, or did I miss something?”
I resumed pacing again as I considered how much I was going to tell him. “I’ve never dated.”
“Ever?”
“Ever.”
His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Not even a middle school crush?”
“Nope,” I said, popping the p for emphasis.
“Why?”
I shrugged again. “I dunno. It never interested me.”
“More interested in school?” he guessed.
“You could say that.”
Jude caught me with his hand flat on my stomach as I paced in front of him, and I stilled. “Let me guess. That’s what you tell people so they don’t bother you about it, and since you’re a certified genius—”
“I’m not.”
“—people buy the excuse.” His eyes flicked up to mine. “Am I hot or cold?”
I let out a slow sigh and closed my eyes. “Scorching.”
His tone grew curious, but still gentle. “What’s the real reason?”
For some reason, it felt like I could trust him with this. And God help me, I didn’t know why. “I’ve just . . . never been attracted to anyone. Pretending felt like a waste of time.”
“You’ve . . . never been attracted . . . to anyone?”
“Never.”
“Never?” he said, as if to confirm we were on the same page as to what the word meant. “You’ve never dated anyone.”
I reared back. “Do I need to find you a dictionary or something?”
“I’m just surprised,” he said as his hand slid away from my body. “You’re . . .”
“I’m what?”
“Beautiful.” Jude shook his head as if it still didn’t make sense, no matter how many times I explained what had bothered me for years. “I can’t imagine a man or woman who wouldn’t be attracted to you.”
“I didn’t say I’ve never been asked out,” I clarified. “Indulging it just seems like a waste of everyone’s time. I don’t want to lead anyone on when the romantic feelings I have toward them are the same feelings I have toward a piece of drywall.”
Jude chuckled. “Fair.”
“And I’ve tried!” I blurted out as the minuscule frustration that slowly built over a lifetime of not feeling what everyone else felt came to a head.
“Do you think I want to live with my brother in my thirties? No! He leaves his stuff everywhere. He’s so inconsiderate, I’m always bailing him out, and I hate when he brings his dates home.
My walls are thin.” My braid was falling out, so I yanked it free and dug my hands into my hair.
“I want what everyone else has. I want to have a partner. I want to know what it feels like to kiss someone. I want the movie moment where the guy shows up at her window holding a boom box over his head.”
Jude cocked his head. “You’ve never been kissed?”
I groaned. “Really? That’s what you got out of all that? So sorry you couldn’t find that out when you were stalking me,” I deadpanned.
He licked his lips. “Why not?”
“Why would I? It’s a waste of time if I know I’m not going to feel anything.”
“Who says you won’t?” he pushed.
Now I was pissed. “Why do you care?”
Jude’s eyes met mine. “Because there are very few things in life that we do for the sole purpose of experiencing a connection with another person. It just feels good. You don’t need an inferno to like kissing someone. Just a spark.”
I swallowed as I tried to ignore the wildfire I felt every time he was near.
When we were playing our little game of cat and mouse in the casino.
When we sat on the beach and shared an honest conversation.
When he thought I was hurt this morning and immediately rushed to me. The way his fingers felt as they grazed my throat and checked my pulse with the most tenderness I’d ever felt.
The way he made it seem like I was the only person who existed in his world. The only one that mattered. The only one he would choose.
Jude rested against the back of the couch and parted his knees. One arm was draped across the back. It was obnoxious and undeniably hot.
My attention locked on his mouth. On how soft and smooth his lips looked. On the way his tongue darted out to wet them. The way he stroked his beard with one hand. The thick, corded veins that ran up and down his arms and hands.
“I know what you’re thinking, Dr. Hawthorne,” he said in a tone that rumbled like the diesel engine of the truck.
“No, you don’t,” I scoffed.
“You’re imagining it. What it would feel like.” He lowered the hand that had been stroking his beard, resting it casually on his knee. “You’re running the odds. Trying to calculate if it’s worth it.”
I lifted my chin. “So what if I am?”
“You might be brilliant, but you’re thinking about it all wrong.”
“How so?”
One thick-soled motorcycle boot slid forward, resting parallel with my foot and inviting me into the triangle of space between his legs. “It’s not math.”
“It’s biology,” I said.
“It’s art,” he countered as he reached out and cupped the back of my knee. I floated closer. “It’s a dance. It’s . . . poetry.”
“I think you’re full of shit,” I whispered as electricity ripped through me like a lightning strike.
Now Jude’s eyes were locked on my mouth. “I’ll take that bet, little fox.”
The corner of my mouth lifted as his other hand came off the back of the couch to cradle the back of my thigh. “You’re forgetting the rule.”
Sinking down to straddle him was an out-of-body experience. “What’s that?”
His hand cupped my chin as he slanted his lips over mine. “The house always wins.”
A slow smile grew across my mouth. “I think the odds are in my favor.”
His breath grew ragged, as if he was trying to restrain himself and was nearly out of willpower. “Do you want me to kiss you? To show you what it feels like?”
Yes. Every bone in my body was screaming “Yes!” I had wanted it from the first day I flirted with him to weasel my way into the Four Horsemen.
I nodded.
Jude’s hands settled on my waist. “One kiss.”
“Fine.” My eyes were locked on his lips. “That’s all I need to prove that my hypothesis is correct.”
“Your hypothesis?”
“That kissing is a waste of time.”
His fingers flexed into my hips. “And then . . . we go back to what this is supposed to be.”
“I’ve already planned my next escape attempt,” I teased as his beard tickled my cheeks.
Jude grinned. “Shut up.” And then he kissed me. It was soft at first. Gentle. Tender. Sweet. Everything I didn’t expect Jude Greear to be.
Then, we were ablaze.
I stole the second kiss, desperate as I settled over his hips. It was messy and unpracticed. We both leaned in the same direction, then corrected in the opposite direction at the same moment. It was like a dam had broken, something that had been bottled up but couldn’t be held in a moment longer.
I memorized how good it felt for him to kiss me. The way it felt like so much more than physical contact. The way we breathed together. The way we moved together.
My arms tightened around his neck. No—I wanted to feel his chest. I skated my hands down his pectoral muscles, smoothing my palms over the soft cotton that stretched across his thick chest. His groan set off a deep vibration as I explored his body like a cartographer memorizing the lay of the land.
I wanted my hands in his hair, so I tugged the elastic I had given him out of his bun, slipped it on my wrist, and dug my hands into it.
Jude moaned, sliding his tongue past my lips and caressing it against mine.
Oh. I quite liked that.
I reared back, holding eye contact with him. Jude looked like a deer in headlights.
“Do that again,” I demanded.
He was on me before I could take another breath, kissing me, fucking my mouth with his tongue. Hands wandered up and down my thighs. My hips. My waist and my ribs. He slid one hand up the back of my neck and tangled his fingers in my hair.
I tilted my head, seeking another kiss between breaths. Why did people need to breathe? Breathing seemed so unnecessary when kissing felt so good.
My knee began to burn against the seam of the couch cushion. I shifted to ease the sting. Jude pulled back and closed his eyes as another deep groan rattled his chest like an earthquake.
What was—oh. Oh.
Oh my god. He was hard. And huge.
“That was way more than one kiss,” Jude growled before dipping in for another.
“You like it,” I countered in a whimper.
He didn’t deny it, but the frenzy slowed. I arched into him, my breasts pressing against his chest as he cradled the back of my head and kissed me again and again and again until my world was spinning.
It felt like being drugged all over again. But this time, I didn’t want to wake up. I wanted to stay in this blissful state of euphoria.
Jude pulled back first and rested his forehead on mine. “We should stop.”
“Why?” I asked in a panic. That was the stupidest thing that had ever come out of his mouth. “That’s a terrible idea.”
Jude chuckled, though it was sorrowful. “How was that for a first kiss?”
I closed my eyes as my heart sank and my stomach soured. “I think I finally understand why people do stupid things for love. It’s a rush. That was just a kiss, but it felt like—”
“Winning a jackpot.” Jude cupped my cheek and used his thumb to wipe the evidence of the kiss left behind on my lower lip. “Feels like gambling, doesn’t it?”
I nodded as I tried to bring logic back into the equation. The house always won because the house didn’t have emotions.
If I wanted to win, neither could I. “You know, if you weren’t the villain in this story, I would have fallen for you. It’s such a pity I have to hate you.”
His lips brushed against mine, teasing me with another kiss. “You don’t have to like me to like the way I kiss, little fox. You can hate me. You can hate how good it feels. But you can’t deny how much it makes you wet.”