10. Jude
JUDE
Declan waves from across the main camp area as he walks past. I smile back and unroll my yoga mat. Mel and I decided to come and set up early ahead of the morning sun salutations Emmy’s going to lead us through.
He’s smooth. He’s not acting any different since I left his place last night, after making my excuses about Mel being worried if she wakes up and finds me gone.
I didn’t think he’d be so intense and tender.
He stayed inside me, kissing me for ages after he came.
I don’t think he’d have argued if I’d wanted to stay and sleep beside him.
But it was just a post-break-up-pick-me-up fuck. Nothing more.
However, it is one I might happily repeat given the chance.
“You’re glowing this morning,” Mel says, studying me.
“Am I?”
Her eyes flick to Declan as he talks with Woody.
“Did you…? Please tell me you did.” She rounds her gaze back onto me like a laser.
I bite my lip, trying not to grin like an idiot. “I might have.”
Mel lets out a squeak. “You have to tell me everything!”
I glance around, but everyone’s busy having their own conversations as they set up for the yoga session.
“It was…” I can no longer hold back my grin, and Mel matches it with her own as she waits. “It was so hot. And he has a pierced dick. I’ve never even seen one before, let alone… you know.” I raise my brows.
Mel rolls her eyes. “You had me so excited there for a minute.”
“What do you mean?”
She flops onto her yoga mat and shakes her head at me. “I know you’re apprehensive about it. I think you should go for it anyway. But if you’re finding it weird me talking about it, then I’ll drop it.”
“What?” I screw my face up. “What are you talking about?”
“Declan,” she whispers. “One of the British girls pulled his trunks down for a laugh yesterday. I got an eyeful. The man has a beautiful dick. But it’s not pierced. I’m loving the imagination though.” She winks at me.
“I’m not making it up. I did go to his place last night.” I lower my voice. “I had sex with him. And came. Twice.”
Mel’s brows shoot up her forehead before they pull back down into a frown. “Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“And he had jewelry?”
“At least four bars down there. Maybe more.”
She bolts up to a sitting position and clamps a hand over her mouth, her eyes glittering.
I pull her hand away. “What?”
“You definitely got fucked, Jude. But it wasn’t by Declan.”
“Come on.” I snort. “You’re kidding about his dick, right?”
Mel shakes her head, her eyes widening in delight like this is hilarious.
I push her hand back over her mouth to hide her grin.
“It’s not funny!” I hiss.
She drops her hand. “It kind of is. You got dicked by a stranger in the dark.”
She looks at my expression and turns her delighted grin into something resembling a reassuring smile.
“It’s fine. It’ll be one of Declan’s friends that he trusts if he was sleeping at his place. And you got what you needed. It’s fun that you don’t know who it was, don’t you think? Like a hot, sexy mystery.”
My stomach rolls and sourness that tastes nothing like ‘fun’ creeps over my tongue. There’s only one friend of Declan’s I’ve seen at the retreat since we arrived.
I glance at Declan, who’s still deep in conversation.
But his companion isn’t looking at him as he talks.
He’s looking at me. And scowling.
Oh, fuck.
“Leave it,” I whisper to Mel.
“He’s been glaring at you all day. What’s his problem?”
I flick my eyes to Woody from where Mel and I are lying on two sun loungers, nursing after-dinner cocktails and watching the sun set. He’s sorting out life jackets the group wore when we went paddleboarding this afternoon.
I’ve felt his eyes on me all day. Even when I haven’t been able to see him, I swear he’s been there somewhere… watching.
His eyes catch mine for a brief second and his signature scowl deepens before he looks away and grabs another jacket. Heat flares over the back of my neck and I swallow.
Please God, don’t let it be him.
“If he didn’t look like that, he’d be super creepy,” Mel quips, sipping her drink.
I sneak another glance at him. At his wavy jet-black hair he wears long enough that it curls above his collar. At his broad, muscular shoulders and biceps that make the cotton of his light gray T-shirt look like it’s about to split.
At the way he fills out the crotch of his shorts.
I narrow my eyes like I’ll be able to spot the telltale signs of piercing outlines, but he turns away, gifting me with the sight of his firm round ass instead.
“Just because someone’s good-looking doesn’t mean they can’t be creepy,” I tell Mel.
“True. But if they’re hot, my mind always goes to the gutter first, instead of the million and one ways they could try to murder me. I like to think positively.”
I snort out a laugh. Blazing eyes snap up to mine across the sand, making it wither on my tongue. He’s not looking at me like a guy who just had amazing sex with me. He’s looking at me like he wishes I’d disappear.
Screw this. I need to know before I go crazy.
“I’m heading to the bathroom,” I tell Mel as Woody walks down a path that leads away from the beach.
“Okay.” She smiles, leaning back on her lounger with a sigh and admiring the golden hues on the horizon.
I’ve no idea where he’s going, but he’s carrying a piece of driftwood as he takes large, determined strides.
By the time I’m close enough for him to hear me call out, we’ve reached an old, dilapidated bungalow that’s missing part of its roof.
“Was it you?” I call, stopping in the middle of the path.
He inclines his head over his shoulder, his eyes narrowing as he spots me.
“Was what me?”
That voice. So deep and gravelly.
My stomach flutters, and I curse internally. This is Mr. Rude and Abrasive. It can’t be him. Even if his voice is provoking a weird reaction in my body, like it remembers him.
That mouth. That dick. The way he kissed me like nothing else existed except the two of us in that moment.
He arches a condescending brow as I stand with my mouth open like an idiot. Opening the door to the bungalow, he walks inside, so I stomp after him before he can shut me out.
“Last night?” I snap. “If it was you, then you know what I’m talking about. And if you don’t, then… thank God, frankly.”
He stays silent, placing the large piece of driftwood on top of a workbench. I give the interior of the bungalow a quick survey. It’s been set up as a workshop. There are saws and chisels, and what looks like a sander hanging from thick nails that have been hammered into the walls.
“What is this place?” I frown, picking up a wooden carving of an open oyster. The detail on it is incredible. It even has a small pearl inside carved out of the wood.
“Nowhere you need to concern yourself with.”
His fingers brush mine as he takes the oyster carving back. I stare at his hand. His fingers are long and thick but carry a level of care and gentleness as he sets it down in the exact spot I took it from.
Are those the fingers I fucked last night?
I drag my eyes up to his face, preparing myself for another glare, but he’s not even looking at me. He’s already turned his back on me, dismissing me like I shouldn’t be here.
“Last night. Was it you?” I press, desperate to ease the growing dread that’s balling in my gut.
He says nothing, so I reach for his shoulder to turn him around. The second my hand makes contact, the sensation of hot, solid muscle spills through the fabric, bringing with it an assault of familiarity.
If I were to look beneath that cotton, would my nail marks be indented in his skin?
I pull my hand back sharply like I’ve burned it.
I think I’m going to be sick.
He turns, pinning me with a cold gaze that lacks answers. “You should leave.”
“What is your problem?”
I screw my nose up. No way did I have sex with a guy like this and not realize it. He’s abrasive and defensive. There’s no way a man like him could be the kind of guy who cradles your face and kisses you after he comes. The kind of guy who—
“You came looking for a fuck, and you got one.”
I take a shocked step back and my stomach plummets to my feet.
Please, no.
He looks at me from beneath dark, lowered brows as he grabs a piece of sandpaper and runs it up and down the piece of driftwood with skilled ease.
“Seems to me you’re the one who has a problem with that. But you can’t change your actions,” he mutters, giving all his attention to the wood.
“Oh my God,” I splutter. “We kissed.”
I don’t know why the kisses suddenly seem more monumental than the sex. But the way he kissed me after he came was tender and intimate and… I swallow down the bile racing up my windpipe.
He glances up, his eyes dropping to my lips for a fraction of a second, before returning to the wood.
“I know. I was there,” he says gruffly.
“I can’t believe this.” I press my fingertips to my forehead, then drag them down my face. “If it wasn’t for the… the piercings, then I wouldn’t have even known,” I hiss.
He narrows his eyes at the wood and a muscle in his cheek clenches. “Yeah, women tend to remember that about me.”
“Ugh.” I grimace at the idea of him and all the women he fucks like a porn star. Does he trick all of them into having sex with him, too?
The idea of being another notch in Declan’s bedpost didn’t create this roll of disgust in my stomach.
Not like realizing I’ve become one in a long line of Woody’s fucks.
Because with Declan, I knew that’s what I was signing up for.
But with this hulk of personality that’s giving off colder vibes than the Arctic, I didn’t.
I was blindsided.
Screaming at him would make me feel so much better now, but I’m struggling to calm the thundering in my chest as he calmly sands the wood, ignoring me, like what happened between us isn’t a giant fucking deal.
I suck in a sharp breath. “You’re—”
“An unsocialized pig?” he says, his tone laced with boredom. “Yeah, you told me.”
I scoff. “God, why are you so rude?”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
He stops what he’s doing and rests both palms on the top of the workbench. His biceps flex, and he sighs like he doesn’t have time for this conversation.
“No, New York City,” he drawls out the nickname with disdain. “Me being rude would be telling you that fucking a guy in the dark when you don’t know for sure who he is, is a stupid as hell thing to do.”
“If I seem to remember correctly, you didn’t exactly stop me, Cowboy.” I sneer.
“You told me not to talk,” he snaps.
The fire in his eyes steals my breath as he turns his glacial glare at me, and his lips thin into a grim line.
“Wait…” I narrow my eyes, studying him. “You knew I thought you were Declan, right?”
The silence stretches between us as he holds my eyes, the intense burn in his increasing to a level that could incite a nuclear meltdown.
My gut twists when he finally speaks.
“Yeah, I got that message this morning when he said he forgot to tell me if anyone knocks three times, I should give them his apologies for not being there.”
He picks the sandpaper back up, his shoulders rippling with tension as he starts working on the wood again.
“You thought I knew it was you staying in his room?”
“Doesn’t matter what I thought. It’s done. You can’t change the past.”
I stare at him as he goes back to ignoring me. Embarrassment prickles over my skin like a billion tiny needles. It’s obvious it meant nothing to him. And I wasn’t looking for anything other than sex. But I wouldn’t be so cold and dismissive toward a person after doing everything we did together.
“Seriously? That’s all you have to say?”
“What else is there? Like I said, you came looking for a fuck and you got one. Now you can go back to your life in New York and pretend it never happened and I don’t exist. Doesn’t bother me,” he mutters.
“I’m here for another twelve days!” I screech.
“You know what you need to do then, don’t you?” he says casually, still not giving me his full attention.
It’s infuriating and humiliating that he won’t even grace me with the manners to stop what he’s doing and look at me when he’s speaking to me.
“Enlighten me. Tell me how this trip couldn’t possibly get any worse. Impart your wisdom on me as to how I’m supposed to ignore the monumental fuck up that was last night,” I spit out each word, directing all of my anger at my own stupidity toward him.
Maybe he didn’t know I thought he was Declan. But surely it was damn obvious that I wouldn’t have chosen to have sex with a man I’ve barely spoken to, except to fight with.
And what the hell was all the stroking and those final lingering kisses about?
I stare at his giant muscular frame that I so happily allowed myself to get folded in half beneath last night.
He had his cock inside me.
So deep inside me.
My cheeks blaze with embarrassed heat as I try to maintain a modicum of control and not show how appalled I am that I let him do that to me.
Him, of all people.
He flicks his gaze in my direction, gifting me with a fraction of his attention for a few seconds.
But as the emotionless words leave his mouth, I wish he’d stayed looking the other way. Because the urge to claw out his eyes is so strong I might actually be in danger of visiting a South African jail like he’s already threatened me with.
His lips curl into a sneer.
“Get yourself a fucking torch for your next nighttime walk.”