30. Jude
JUDE
Callum kicks against the dirty stone wall, his feet dangling, where he’s pinned in place by his throat by a huge guy dressed all in black.
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t snap your neck right here,” Callum’s attacker spits, leaning so close they’re nose-to-nose.
Blood rushes in my ears. The guy’s face is in shadows so I can’t see it.
But I’d know that voice anywhere.
“Slade?” I choke.
The dark hulk turns, and the breath leaves my lungs.
“Oh my God!” I reach out to steady myself against the wall.
That jaw.
That mouth.
Those eyes. They’re brown tonight, but I’d know them anywhere.
We stare at one another, then his gaze slides to my cheek.
“Did he do that?” he growls.
The sound sends a shiver up my spine, and Callum whimpers in his grasp. My eyes dart to his petrified face.
“You touched her,” Slade snarls, turning his wrath on Callum. “You touched my girl.”
I fight against the burst of energy at the way he says, ‘my girl’.
This is a man who left without saying goodbye.
Who yelled at me to leave. A man I thought I’d never see again.
One I’ve cried over and should be mad at for leaving me with so many unanswered questions.
But the way my stomach flutters and my core throbs, it’s as if my body doesn’t care what my head’s trying to tell me.
Callum tries to speak, but only a gargle comes out.
“He can’t breathe,” I say.
Slade keeps his eyes pinned on Callum, but I know he heard me. His eyes narrow as he pins Callum with a deadly gaze.
“I should kill you right here for laying a finger on her.”
“I fell. It was an accident,” I say.
He doesn’t ease up… if anything, he pins Callum against the wall harder, until the gargling fades.
“You telling me you wanted to kiss this asshole?” Slade’s jaw tightens, and he whips his eyes to me.
“No! Of course not.”
“So he forced you?” He turns back to Callum, pressing harder.
“Stop!” I run over and pull his arm from Callum’s neck, ignoring the bolt of electricity that races up my arm at our contact.
Callum collapses to the ground, wheezing and clutching his windpipe.
“Stop!” I say again, more forcefully as Slade looks as if he’s about to haul him back up by his neck and finish the job.
“Look away, Jude,” he says calmly.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “This isn’t you, Slade,” I beg. “This isn’t you. Look at me.”
It takes everything in him to take his murderous gaze from Callum and bring his eyes to mine. They soften the second we connect, and I let out a stuttered breath.
“This isn’t you,” I whisper, noting the troubled lines marring his forehead.
I step closer, hovering, unable to reach out and touch him, in case he isn’t real and I’m imagining him.
Callum staggers to his feet, rubbing at his throat. “You dating a murderer now, Jude?” he chokes through a dry cough.
Slade’s eyes darken and he turns to Callum, his fist rearing back. I grab it with both hands and throw myself in front of him before he can deliver a blow that would knock Callum out, if not worse.
Slade’s eyes widen in panic, and he drops his fist immediately.
“Jesus, Jude! I could have hit you!”
“Get out of here,” I yell at Callum over my shoulder. “And if you tell anyone about this, next time, I’ll let him kill you.”
Callum scrambles clumsily along the wall as he rushes to leave the alleyway.
I stare at the man in front of me, dressed in black sweatpants and a black hoodie like he’s trying to blend into the night and not be seen.
A shadow.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
His eyes pinch, but he says nothing.
“You came back for your family?” I ask. “To see them again?”
All I can hear is my heartbeat in my ears as I wait for him to say something.
To finally let me in. It’s been weeks since I’ve seen him.
And my head is spinning. But more than anything is the deafening voice in my head telling me to get the truth from him so I can finally understand.
I need to know why he pushed me away. Why he left without saying goodbye.
“Give me something,” I plead, shoving his chest with a sudden pop of anger. “Say someth—”
“I came for you.”
“W-what?”
He stares at me as my arms fall limp.
“I came for you, Jude. Because I couldn’t stand not being with you.”
I clamp a hand to my mouth as everything around him swims out of focus. The only thing that remains steady—the one thing I can anchor myself to—are his eyes, trained on mine with desperate longing.
As though he’s scared of what I’ll say.
“But you left. You screamed at me to go, and then you disappeared without saying goodbye.”
“I’m sorry for the way it happened, but I… I can’t do goodbyes,” he whispers, his face contorting with unconcealed grief.
“You fucking left me!”
“And I’m so fucking sorry.” He steps closer, stopping inches from me, but still not touching me, as if he no longer thinks he has the right to.
Does he?
“Where did you go?” I blink at him, emotion making my voice drop to a thick whisper.
“Morocco.”
“Morocco?”
He grimaces. “There aren’t any Beaufort Diamonds stores there. I figured it was a good place to start.”
“But now you’re here.”
I allow myself to take him in properly. Admire the solid muscles in his broad shoulders and the sharp cut of his jaw beneath the few days’ worth of stubble. Admire his dark, thick brows, framing his mesmerizing eyes. And admire his dark hair that’s grown a little longer since I last saw him.
He looks rougher around the edges, like these weeks have drained him. But he also looks… determined.
“Now I’m here,” he repeats, his eyes never leaving mine.
“How did you know where to find me tonight?” I wrap my arms around myself, trying to ignore the chill in the air.
Slade unzips his hoodie, pulling it off to reveal a black T-shirt that hugs his straining biceps in a way that’s so sexy it should be illegal. He wraps it around my shoulders, but still doesn’t touch me.
“I followed your ex.”
I suck in a sharp breath. “You followed Callum?”
He glances to the side, cursing under his breath. “I’ve been following him for a few days… thinking…”
“Thinking…?”
“About killing him.”
I stare at him for a few seconds before scoffing. “Your family is here, in New York, and you wasted days, following my ex around? Why?”
“Because he deserved it. He hurt you, and I wanted to kill him because of it.”
I shake my head. As much as I want to cling onto his words so I can replay them later and dissect them, I can’t allow him to stand here and lie to me and to himself.
“You wouldn’t have.”
He narrows his eyes. “You sound so sure of that.”
I step toe to toe with him, ignoring the bolt of electricity that crackles through my blood at being close to him again after weeks of nothing.
“I know you. Even though you think I don’t. You wouldn’t have done it.”
“I killed my mother, Jude. My own mother.” His eyes penetrate mine with an intensity I feel in my bones. But I swallow down the fleeting niggle of doubt that’s trying to rear up.
“Are you telling me I don’t know you? That everything that happened between us in South Africa was what? An act by you?”
“What? No.”
“Was it all a lie, then? Is that what you’re saying? Because if I don’t know the kind of man you are—really are—then it must have been, right? So, you’re telling me you lied to me just like Callum did? Let me share a bed with a man who I didn’t really know?”
He screws his face up. “No, I’d never lie to you, I—”
“So who is the real you? This devil you keep saying you are? Or the man you’ve actually been behaving like? The man I can’t stand being without?”
His eyes widen. “You… missed me?”
“Don’t say it like you’re surprised. Isn’t that what you just said? That you couldn’t stand being apart from me? So, how can you miss me, but I’m not allowed to miss you back?”
The urge to shove him in the chest again is overwhelming.
But I’m scared to touch him, knowing that electricity will burst to life again, and then where will I be?
At his mercy once again. Not allowed to know the truth.
Getting nowhere. He could disappear again, and I’d be back to square one trying to get over him.
He scrubs a hand around his mouth, his eyes still pinned on mine.
“Because you’re you… and I’m… I’m no good for you.”
“Then why are you here? Why are you watching my ex, thinking of ways you won’t kill him? Why have you come back here after almost three years? Risking being seen? Why the fuck, Slade?” I yell.
“Because staying away wasn’t an option anymore, okay? You made it fucking impossible!”
“And how exactly did I do that?” I snap. After everything he’s put me through by disappearing, I need to hear this. And it better be damn well good.
He leans closer and the heat of his body reaches out to mine, ensnaring me.
“You want to know? You want to know how you made me unable to think of anything else? That the second I left you were on my mind? And you’ve been on it every moment since?
I didn’t just miss you, Jude. Every part of my existence became about you.
I’d lie awake thinking about you. The feel of your skin.
The sound of your laugh. The taste of you.
I was fine before you came along. But then you made it impossible to be just fine anymore.
You’ve made me reckless, selfish… so fucking greedy.
Because I want you. I don’t want cheating assholes like your ex to touch you.
I don’t want any other man to touch you.
I want all of you for myself. You’re mine. ”
“You think I’m yours?”
“You are fucking mine!” he yells.
He towers over me, and the possession firing through his eyes has arousal pooling between my thighs. I didn’t know what he was going to say, but I didn’t expect that.
“You’ve been mine since that first night. When you kissed me like nothing else mattered. Like I didn’t disgust you. Like I didn’t scare you.”
“You’ve never scared me.”
“You should be scared. What I’ve done, I—”
“Tell me.”
He shakes his head.
I search his eyes, praying so hard he’ll finally let me in.
He looks away and my stomach sinks.
I turn, walking away.