23. Jude
JUDE
“I don’t think your phone’s ever been this quiet since we arrived,” Mel comments, watching me with a smile as I hum to myself, tossing things into my bag.
Toothbrush. Hairbrush. Clean panties.
I throw the panties back out, grinning. “Won’t be needing those.”
The two of us have spent the day in the hotel spa together getting pampered and buffed to within an inch of our lives. I’m feeling all glowy, and my skin is as smooth as silk. Tomorrow’s our last day and we’re having a big retreat dinner with the other guests at sunset on the beach.
But tonight… tonight, I’m spending the night at Slade’s place.
“You’re a ho.” Mel giggles.
“Tonight, I will be if I have any choice in what we get up to.”
“That man can’t keep his eyes off you. It’s so obvious he’s got a permanent boner for you. I feel like I’ve been watching you two eye-bang one another for weeks. I’ve got front row seats in the splash zone.”
She laughs louder as my grin melts into a dopey one.
“You were right when you told me I needed this trip. I feel like a completely different person. Lighter. Funnier. Someone who isn’t being lied to and screwed over behind their back.”
“Nope.” She flicks her eyebrows up. “Now you’re just getting dicked daily by Woody Big-Pierced-Cock.”
I sigh dreamily. “He’s… he’s great.”
I ignore the pang in my gut at the thought of getting on a plane in less than forty-eight hours and leaving this all behind. This place has become my sanctuary, piecing me back together when I feared I might have been lost forever.
And so much of that has been because of the grumpy, complicated man that I’ve grown close to.
He’s opened up more to me in recent days.
Now, I know he hates peanuts with a passion but loves dogs more than any other animal.
He never makes two carvings the same, and he signs all his pieces with a tiny carved E, even though I’ve yet to find out what the E stands for.
And that his family has told the world he’s dead. And if I ever ask about them, he shuts the conversation down and his eyes glaze over with what I can only describe as a heart-wrenching sadness that makes me want to bawl for him.
For whatever reason that he won’t share with me, they’re all living their lives in New York, while he’s here.
Alone.
“Did you tell Callum you were getting railed by your hot vacation romance? Is that why he hasn’t been calling?” Mel pipes up.
I screw up my nose at hearing his name. “No. I blocked his number.”
“When?” Mel sits upright on the bed.
“Yesterday. I wanted to enjoy our last couple of days here without him ruining it. I should have done it ages ago.”
“Hallelujah!” she sings, bringing her hands together. “He’s going to be beating himself when he sees you again and realizes what a jerk he’s been to have lost you.”
“He’s probably still screwing Kelly,” I mutter, the old twist of hurt in my gut no more than a teeny niggle of discomfort now when I picture the two of them together.
“They’re welcome to one another.” Mel snorts in disgust.
She continues watching me as I throw a couple more overnight items into my bag and zip it shut.
“You can spend tomorrow night with him too, you know?”
I whip my eyes to hers. “What? No. Tomorrow is our last night. I want us to spend it together after the group dinner. We came together and you’ve been here for me through everything. I want to spend it with you.”
“Okay.” She smiles happily. “But if you need that time to say goodbye to lover-boy, then I understand.”
“Thanks.”
She really is the best friend a girl could wish for.
But this is a vacation fling. And I need to ignore the fizzing electricity in my veins every time I lock eyes with him.
And how I break into a grin when I hear his voice.
And how my heart beats impossibly fast and I struggle for breath when he cups my face and kisses the hell out of me.
And how in a few short weeks, the idea of walking away from him has become…
I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry.
Oh God, this is going to sting like hell.
“How about this one?” I brandish the lump of driftwood in the air proudly.
Slade walks over, his lips pursed as he takes it from me and studies it. “Yeah, good find.”
I beam as he wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me close, planting a kiss into the hair by my temple.
Letting out a sigh, I intertwine my fingers with his as we walk barefoot along the shore, letting the salty water lap at our feet. It’s almost sunset and the sky has erupted into a kaleidoscope of reds, oranges, and pinks.
“You don’t get sunsets like this in New York,” I say, leaning into his side.
“You don’t get a lot of things you can have here in New York.” He exhales slowly like he’s tired.
I twist my head up. “Are you going to show me your place now? I’ve only waited like a millennium for it.”
A muscle in his cheek twitches, his eyes glittering as he looks at me. “So demanding, aren’t you, New York City?”
“Stop avoiding the question, Cowboy.”
“Fine. Come on, it’s this way.”
We walk along the shore, and I keep sneaking glances at his profile. His sharp jaw, covered in a layer of rough stubble, his longer, scruffy hair that somehow works on him. And his eyes. God, his eyes. I’m so happy he’s already taken his contacts out now that we’re alone together.
My stomach does a happy little flip as his gaze slides to the side and captures mine.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I muse, aware that I’m probably staring at him with heart eyes.
“Jude…?”
My chest warms at the way my name rolls off his tongue with such familiar ease.
“Slade,” I purr back.
His gaze sharpens, his pupils blowing wide and stealing my breath.
Every time I say his name, he reacts differently.
Sometimes, he closes off. Others, he looks broken.
And then there are times like this. When he looks at me with a dark, smoldering heat that I feel all the way to my toes and to my pulsing clit.
I’m going to get it good tonight. And I can’t wait.
I go up on my toes and press a kiss to his mouth, sighing against him as he stops walking to kiss me, cupping one cheek in his palm. The driftwood rests against the base of my spine, held inside his other hand.
“Nandi left money for you again this morning,” I say, suddenly remembering I haven’t told him. The bills are still folded neatly in the inside pocket of my bag for him.
“Thought she might have,” he says, fondly.
“Why do you leave it every day knowing she’s just going to give it back?”
“Because it makes her feel good, giving it back to me.”
I study his schooled expression. I might not know his biggest secrets, but they’ve helped me get to know him well enough to recognize when he isn’t telling me the entire story.
“Then what do you do with it?”
He clears his throat, as if contemplating how to put whatever he’s about to say into words. “I might have a bank account set up in a fake company name.”
“What?” I scoff.
“It’s purely for the money Nandi insists on giving me back,” he grumbles like he’s tried everything he can to get her to keep it and all his attempts have failed.
“You’re saving it for her?”
He tips his head. “Not exactly.”
“Then what?”
“Every few months, she gets an official looking letter telling her she’s won a prize from some competition or other. She’s always entering them and loses track. Then she gets sent a check from this company that handles all the winning payouts.”
“You did all that so you could get her to keep your tips?”
“They’re her tips. I only do the beds. She struggles lifting the mattresses.”
“Oh God. Please tell me something awful. You’re starting to make me believe there are actually good men out there.” I smile.
“I’m not a good man, Jude.”
The serious tone makes me frown.
“I don’t believe you.”
He looks away, his jaw hardening.
“How do you even get a fake bank account set up?” I ask, switching the conversation back to get him talking again.
“Declan knows people.”
“What kind of people?”
“Better that you don’t ask.”
“Fine. But tell me this. Does he know the truth about who you are?”
“He knows enough. And what he doesn’t know, he doesn’t ask. It’s how we’ve remained friends.”
“I see.” I wrap my arms around myself, feeling cold suddenly.
“Jude.” Slade places two fingers under my chin and lifts my eyes to his. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you everything you want to know. I don’t even know all the answers myself.”
I nod, trying to ignore the lump that comes to my throat whenever his past comes up. I hate the way he looks so lost because of it. I wish there was a way I could help him.
And I wish he would give me the answers he does know. It would be a start.
“Sometimes we grow the most when we’re uncomfortable,” I say.
His eyes soften and I lose myself in the piercing blue of them, my hearing muffling like I’m underwater as they steal my focus.
“You’re not like other women, are you?”
I roll my eyes, breaking the spell he has me under.
“Don’t tell me that. That’s just shitting on other women.
Those are people’s friends, sisters, cousins, you know?
They’re all special in their unique ways.
Telling a woman she isn’t like the others is like saying there’s something wrong with every other woman in the world. I’ve always hated that phrase.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It isn’t?”
“No. I said you’re on a mission, aren’t you?”
“A mission?”
“To understand things that might not have a simple explanation.”
“I want to understand you,” I say. “To know more about the man who’s helped me in ways I so badly needed.”
“If it wasn’t me, it’d have been some other guy. You just needed reminding how beautiful and desirable you are, Jude. That’s all. Your ex made you forget.”
My heart sinks as he takes my hand, leading me along. Maybe it really has been just sex to him.
He squeezes my hand.
My stomach flutters at the way he’s looking at me with his signature intensity that makes everything else around us cease to exist.
I smile back and his eyes soften before he pulls me to him for a deep kiss.
No, I’m not imagining it. It’s more than sex for him too. I know it is.