Chapter 4
chapter four
Jude
Today's vocabulary word: initiate
I gave Audrey a head start but I didn't let her out of my sight. I knew better than to make that mistake twice.
She cut a wide arc around the back of the tent and vanished into an academic building like she'd mapped an escape route in advance. Couldn't say it was a bad idea, considering the company.
I had no idea how she covered so much ground so quickly. I knew for a fact that she hated running (made her feel "gangly"), but she moved like a gazelle. Fast. Confident. Fully aware of the threats in this particular animal kingdom.
Those killer heels of hers clicked against the marble floors as she dashed down the hall.
The lizard portion of my brain took some pleasure in this chase—and that was a big fucking problem.
I didn't have time to care about her shoes or those long, long legs or the way her hair shone in the low light while she ran away from me.
Big. Fucking. Problem.
Unfortunately for me, this infuriating woman was only one of several big fucking problems on my list at the moment.
The interior smelled the same as it always did, like wood polish and stale coffee, and I resented my brain for holding on to that data point all this time.
I could count the things I cared to remember about this place on four fingers, and three of them involved the blonde hellcat who made up most of the punctuation marks in my adult life.
She ducked around a corner, that corn silk hair trailing a split second behind her. I heard the sweep of a door and a harsh, bright light spilled into the hall.
I almost laughed when I realized where I was.
If she didn't want to be followed, she shouldn't have led me straight to the most secluded girls' washroom on the entire campus.
It was smaller than most and had a hairpin entrance that gave the occupants ample notice before anyone came in.
An ideal spot for ditching classes when going off-campus wasn't an option.
I strolled inside, calling out, "Fuck gremlin, huh? How long have you been waiting to use that one?"
Audrey heaved out a breath, her hands flat on either side of the sink and her eyes screwed shut. Her chest rose with quick, gulping breaths that had nothing to do with sprinting through the halls.
"I haven't been waiting," she snapped. "I don't have to store up my thoughts like acorns for the winter, you know."
"Never suggested you did." I slipped my hands into my pockets. Safer in there, for everyone. "Listen, we need to talk."
"Oh my god." She dropped her chin to her chest, sucked in a shuddering breath. "Can you please just give me like five minutes to—"
Laughter blasted in from the hall. Audrey's hazel eyes popped open and a choked squeak sounded from her throat. I met her gaze, her cheeks flushed and eyes shining with unshed tears.
Of all the blades to throw at me, her tears were the most deadly. Any amount of resolve I'd walked in here with disintegrated by the second. I pointed at her as I closed the space between us, whispering, "Stop that."
"Right, because I'm the one intruding on your attempt at experiencing a moment in privacy," she whisper-snarled. "Let me make you more comfortable here in the girls' room."
I exhaled through my nose as the voices closed in, on the other side of the door now. "Just remember, I asked you nicely."
Her face twisted into a murderous glare. "You didn't ask—"
I hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her into the far stall, the one nobody ever used because it was the size of a small coffin.
What it lacked in elbow room, it made up for as an unmatched hiding place.
The partition walls extended to the floor and the overhead lighting barely reached this corner, leaving us concealed in the shadows.
Even if we did have to stand with our legs braced on either side of the toilet and we were never more than an inch away from putting an eye out on the coat hook.
It also left us tangled together without so much as a breath between us.
I was painfully aware of every knob of her spine, every gentle curve of her hips, every strand of her hair where it brushed my cheek.
Of her body tucked against mine, no daylight between us, and the muscle memory that came with it.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" she seethed.
I could feel the anger humming through her body, the tension pulling her shoulders tight.
It was wrong, and not at all my objective tonight, but I wanted more of that.
More of anything she'd give me. All of it.
I wanted to suck it off her fingers, wanted it to drip down my chin, wanted to wake up with it wrapped around my throat.
And I fucking hated it. "If you don't settle down, you're going to make this much worse. "
She shot a bony elbow into my side. "You're the one making this worse."
"All right, that's enough." I banded my free arm over her chest as the door creaked open and those voices poured inside. My lips at her ear, I breathed, "Stay still for a damn minute."
She aimed a side-eye glare over her shoulder that leveled me like an axe to the gut and followed it up by shifting her foot just enough to bring her heel down on my toes.
"Fuck," I gasped. Red, bleating pain radiated out from under that heel. My forehead fell to her shoulder. Barely resisted the urge to bite her. Barely. "You've made your point."
"Have I? Because—"
I closed my hand over her mouth. I felt it the second her anger switched from the entry-level shit we'd started with to straight-up, fire-wielding fury.
Again, not my objective, but fuck, it was fun. Almost enough to make me forget why I was here and what I needed from her, and how it would be great to leave with all of my toes. Almost enough to forget everything.
And those heels. Those were new and posed many threats.
"Either you settle the fuck down in here," I said, "or I open this door and give our friends something new to talk about."
I felt her weighing these options, her body rigid against mine. She sagged in resignation but wasn't interested in admitting I was right, and put some more heat into shattering my toes.
"…hasn't been the same since moving to the new firm," one of the voices said. "I can take off a month for vacation in the summer no problem but I'm a lazy bitch if I leave the office before nine every night. Like, there's no logic to it."
"No actual balance," another voice said. "Yeah, it's bullshit. They all say they're family-friendly but when it comes down to it, it's still an hours game."
"At least your dad is your managing partner," First said. "There's gotta be some advantage there."
"You'd think that," Second replied with a wry laugh. "But nope."
"Ugh, that's brutal."
A stall door closed, then another, and the conversation continued while they peed.
A silent laugh puffed against my palm, and I caught the end of a grimace from Audrey.
She probably knew these women, knew their families and their law firms. No one needed to remind me that this world belonged to her, not me.
"Okay, I'm literally going to die if I spend a whole child-free night bitching about practicing law." The water turned on, then off. "Can we please talk about Jude Bellessi's ass now?"
Audrey's forehead crinkled, her brows pitched up. No poker face on this girl.
"Jesus, he's aged like fine wine," First said with a groan. "And he still has all of his hair."
"My paralegal would call it pussy-eating hair," Second added. "It's always messy but in that freshly fucked way you only get from doing time on your knees."
One—or both?—of them let out a hungry groan. "I bet he's a beast. Like, I'd need a ketamine drip, seventy-two straight hours of sleep, and pelvic floor rehab to recover."
I smothered a laugh against her cheek. Audrey fired a glare at me that could've curdled milk.
"Oh my god, yes. The things I'd let that man do to me—" A grunt and then, "The limit does not exist."
Audrey's lips parted against my palm which sent a lot of incorrect messages to my body.
Ones I really needed to shut down before things became…
obvious. She let out an indignant little huff that I was quick to hoard right along with all her other unfiltered reactions.
Later, I'd take them out and examine them until the edges frayed and I could no longer mine them for meaning.
Later, when I wasn't fighting to put an inch of daylight between us just to keep her from knowing how much she still held over me.
"Be good," I breathed. That my lips brushed the shell of her ear and my cheek rested on her spun gold hair was purely coincidental. Unimportant, really. Then she stabbed me with the other heel. I smiled, only because she couldn't see it.
"Side note, but your para sounds like my kind of people," First said.
"She's the best. If it came down to it, I'd sell both of my kidneys to pay her salary." After a beat, Second asked, "Can I be awful for a minute?"
"Please. You know I'm a vault. And part-time awful myself."
There was a sigh and then, "I've never understood what he sees in what's-her-name."
"Right? Like, yes, she's pretty but she has to reach to get anywhere near his league. It's like he's doing community service."
My head snapped up from Audrey's shoulder at the same time she leaned her forehead against the door and let her eyelids drop.
I shifted my hand to cup her jaw. She wasn't going to say anything.
She'd sooner give up her corporeal form and the rest of this mortal life than make her presence known to these women.
"Huge fucking reach," Second agreed. "And I'm sorry but the personality is not there. She's about as interesting as an antacid."
"No wonder she's divorced," First said. "Though I heard she came out of it with a nice settlement."
A cruel laugh followed. "He probably paid her to go away."