37. Slade
SLADE
Jude presses a fresh ice pack to my knuckles.
“I’m fine.”
“Ssh. Let me, it makes me feel like I’m doing something,” she grumbles, cradling my hand in her lap as she tends to it.
I look at her, at her flushed cheeks and wild hair as she gnaws on her lower lip in concern.
She got in the way of me punching Callum in the alleyway that night, not considering her own safety.
And now she just squared up to my brother like a little hellcat, spitting and clawing because she didn’t like the way he was speaking to me.
But he was right. Every word he said was right. I am selfish. I let my anger that day endanger my mother’s life. And as a result, she died.
The only thing I couldn’t stomach hearing was the way he spoke to Jude, insinuating she was nothing more than some pussy I used to fight off my boredom.
When in reality, she’s my everything.
“I can’t believe he said those things to you. Is that what he’s been like since last night?” Jude asks, her attention fixed on my bloody knuckles.
“No. That’s the first time he’s spoken to me. He’s been avoiding me.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers.
We walked out of there one hour ago. They all tried to get me to stay. Talked to me. Pleaded with me. But no one physically stopped us. My father looked stricken, but Halliday rested her hand on his arm and said something to him that had his shoulders dropping as he watched us leave.
We took a rear exit to avoid the press who were camped outside the building, and we jumped in a cab. Jude forgot her bag in the rush. Denver told her to pack one under my family’s orders.
They wanted her there with us all where they could control press access.
Maybe they were worried she’d talk, and our family’s secrets would be out there for the world to see.
“At least Sullivan is being honest. Everyone else is too quiet, too… They’re not fucking saying anything, Jude.
No one’s mentioned my mother or said her name.
Not once. And my father’s acting like it’s a miracle that I’m back.
He even used that word. They’ve got Frank preparing to spin some bullshit story to the press about me having amnesia all this time. ”
“I don’t understand. Why would they force you to disappear like that, then pretend it never happened?”
“I don’t know. It’s as if they’re denying the past three years ever happened. I’m here in…”
I look down at my designer shirt and Brioni suit pants and grimace. I’ve gone back three years to the guy I was then. But I’ll never be him again.
“They won’t talk about it… it’s like they want me to live a lie. That’s what I’ve been doing the past three years, pretending I’m someone else. I can’t… I can’t do that anymore.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” Jude agrees, placing the first aid kit onto the coffee table, but keeping my hand in her lap, stroking it.
I scrub my other hand around my jaw, my head pounding.
“I want the truth. I want them to tell me why they let me get away with it if they believed it.”
“Believed it?”
“If they think I killed her,” I say.
Jude’s hands shoot to her mouth, and she blinks at me, her eyes glassy.
“What’s wrong?”
She lowers her hands and they’re shaking. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you say they think you killed her. Not that you did.”
A strange sensation pulls low in my gut.
She’s right.
“It’s okay to forgive yourself. And it’s okay to have been wrong about it all,” she says, studying my face.
I shake my head, struggling to make sense of the tangled mess inside it.
“You’ve made me think about it, that day… I… You have so much trust in me. Telling me I’m a good man, and—”
“You are a good man. Every part of me knows that. It wasn’t your fault.”
My chest clogs up, preventing me from taking a deep enough breath. “I’ve spent years… God, Jude,” I choke, hanging my head.
Soft hands slide around my cheeks, and she lifts my face.
“I wish I could change those years you suffered. But I can’t. I’m so sorry.”
Tears shine in her eyes as she searches mine. I reach up and hold one of her hands against my cheek, turning so I can kiss her palm.
“You’ve done more for me than you’ll ever know. Seeing you in my old apartment… That place was home once, but it didn’t feel like it. All my family was there, but it felt wrong. It didn’t feel like my home anymore.”
“I know,” she says softly.
“Not until Denver arrived and I saw you.” I kiss her palm again, looking her straight in the eye. “I love you, Jude.”
A wobbly smile curves her lips. “I know. You told me when I was sleeping.”
“You heard that?”
Her smile strengthens and she nods. “I’ve been replaying it in my head ever since you said it.”
The heaviness in my chest eases for the first time in days, and I chuckle softly.
“Slade?”
“Yes, New York City?”
Her eyes glitter. “I love you too.”
We stare at one another, just drinking each other in, then I pull her lips to mine and kiss her softly.
“What do you want to do?” she asks against my mouth as I take my time brushing my lips against hers, soaking in the warmth of her.
“Not think for a while. Enjoy this peace while it lasts.”
“Me too.” Jude strokes my cheek and kisses me again.
We’ve been gone an hour. It won’t be long until they come for us. They know where Jude lives. And the press is like a rabid hyena trying to get updates on my family’s situation.
They’ll want to handle it.
Beauforts stick together.
I’m just not sure if that includes me anymore.
I sink my good hand into Jude’s hair, fisting it as a bolt of desire crashes through me.
She gasps against my mouth, the sound making my dick harden rapidly in my pants.
If we don’t have much time, I want to spend what we do have making her cry out my name as loud as I possibly can, while there’s no one around to hear us.
She’s seen the darkest parts of me, and she still fell in fucking love with me.
“I need you,” I rasp against her lips. “Jesus fucking Christ, I’ve never needed you so damn much.”
She whimpers against me, and I kiss her harder, my control hanging on by a thread.
“You’ve got me,” she breathes, her breasts pushing against my chest as she presses herself to me like she wants to climb inside me and exist there forever.
A sudden rush of jealousy and rage hits me as I remember what her shit of an ex did to her.
If he hadn’t treated her the way he did, then we would never have met, and she wouldn’t be mine now.
But the thought of him having her once, and almost having her for the rest of her life coils around my neck like a python, making blood rush in my ears, and my heart pound with fury.
“Do you still have your wedding dress?”
Jude moves back, her lips flushed and puffy. I groan and rub a thumb over her lower one, picturing my cock disappearing between them.
She frowns. “Yeah. Why?”
I lick my lips. “Go put it on, Baby.”
“Such a good girl,” I croon, stroking Jude’s hair as I thrust my dick back into her mouth.
She’s on her knees for me, looking like a goddamn angel in clouds of white.
Her throat clenches around the head of my dick as I push in until her nose touches my skin. The gagging motion is fucking beautiful, squeezing the head of me in a way that has me groaning and fighting the urge to come.
I pull back, looking into her glittering eyes as she breathes through her nose, not wanting to let my dick leave her mouth for one second. She swirls her tongue over the piercing that runs through my slit to the underside of my crown.
“Fuck, Baby. You suck my cock so well,” I hiss, as a bolt of heat races up my length, making it swell. “And you look so pretty when you do it,” I muse, admiring the white silk fabric cupping around her tits and pushing them up.
She smiles around my dick, sucking it back down, taking her time to pass her lips over each of the three horizontal piercings set through my shaft.
I never planned on getting my dick pierced so many times.
I did the first one on a whim, because a friend dared me to four years ago.
I still recall the first time I jerked off, playing with that metal bar.
I came so fucking hard I thought my balls might explode.
After that I got the three spaced along my shaft, thinking they’d make it even more mind-blowing.
But all they did was shred a condom the first time I had sex afterward. That was over three years ago.
But now, looking down at Jude hum around each one as she sucks happily on my cock, I’m glad I got them done. I know she screams my name loudest when they’re working multiple spots inside her at once.
“You’ll make me come,” I warn as she speeds up, tugging on my balls as she deepthroats me again. “Fuck, Baby.” I fist her hair, pulling her off my dick and breathing heavily as I battle the impending threat of my orgasm.
She gazes at me, licking her lips. “You taste good, I can’t help it.”
Dropping my head back, I exhale toward the ceiling. “Fuck.”
My cock’s painfully hard and pre-cum is leaking down the sides of it. I’m almost fucking shaking as I hold off ramming it back down her throat and unloading my balls into her like my body is screaming at me to do.
But I didn’t just want to watch her suck my cock in a dress she was supposed to be marrying another guy in.
I wanted to fucking ruin her in it. Mark her as mine. Not his.
Pulling Jude to her feet, I jerk my chin at her bed behind her.
“Lie down, Baby. Legs apart. Pussy on display for me.”
She drops to the bed, her eyelids hooded with lust as she reclines back and inches the layers of silk up over her thighs until they’re bunched around her hips.
Then she drops her legs wide.
Fuck me. She’s wearing a tiny lace pair of white panties that barely cover her.
I walk over, squeezing my dick, my eyes glued to the wet line down the center of the fabric. She’s soaked and I haven’t even touched her yet.
Climbing onto the bed, I kneel between her spread thighs, completely naked as she stares up at me, waiting.