Chapter 13
Jude
I zipped my pants, fingers still unsteady from the pleasant tremors running through my body.
The storage closet smelled of industrial cleaner and sex, a combination that should’ve been disgusting but instead felt like victory. Or something close to it.
Ash leaned against the shelves behind me, breathing hard. I could feel his eyes on my back as I buckled my belt.
He’d pushed me against these shelves maybe twenty minutes ago, right after our shift ended. I’d been heading to my locker when he grabbed my wrist and dragged me in here. No words. Just the look in his eyes that said he needed it now.
And I’d let him. Fuck, I’d more than let him. I’d fought back, wrestled for control in the way I knew we both liked, then given it up somewhere between his mouth on my neck and his hands tangling in my hair.
Then he’d spun me around, bent me over and shoved my face into the table.
One of his hands had gripped my hip while the other hooked under my knee, hauling my leg up until my knee scraped across the tabletop.
All my weight balanced on my left leg leaving me stretched wide and vulnerable in a way that made my pulse hammer.
“Don’t move,” he’d said.
Like I fucking could.
I’d never gripped a table so hard in my life. Every thrust rattled the fucking shelves. Bottles of cleaner bounced. A mop fell over somewhere to my left. His fingers dug into my hips hard enough to bruise while I bit down on my own forearm to keep quiet.
It had been perfect. The angle had forced my forehead against the cold metal and I’d had to take everything he gave without looking at him, without seeing whatever expression twisted his features while he fucked me.
It was better that way because something been different tonight.
I pulled my jacket on, trying to pin down what felt wrong. Or maybe not wrong. Just... off.
The roughness had been there. The dominance, the power play, the struggle for who got to be in control. All our usual dynamics. But underneath it, something softer had crept in. Something that made my skin crawl now that I had space to think about it.
He’d been gentler. Not by much, and not enough that if anyone caught us they’d think we were lovers. Hell, if anyone saw us, they’d probably think Ash was assaulting me, given how rough we were with each other.
But I had noticed.
I noticed everything about Ash these days, which was its own kind of problem.
It had been there in the way he’d gripped my hips, firm and tight, but not to the point of bruising.
His hand had gone to the back of my neck like always, but the pressure had been more guiding than forceful.
And before that, when I’d turned the tables before giving in, when I’d got him pinned against the wall with my hand around his throat, he’d looked at me like he was seeing something I absolutely did not want to show him.
It was that goddamn hair thing. That stupid, thoughtless gesture outside the staff room.
I’d touched him like he was mine. Like he mattered to me. Like this was more than angry fucking in random locations because we had control issues and couldn’t keep our hands off each other.
It had been such a stupid thing for me to do, and now it had bled into this. Into what we did.
“You all right?” Ash was buttoning his shirt, watching me with that concerned expression I hated. I was still shaky, my left leg like jelly, and he’d fucked me so hard that I felt stretched out and sloppy.
“Fine.” I straightened my jacket, checked my pockets for my keys and phone. Everything accounted for. “We should go before someone actually finds us.”
“Jude.”
There was something in the way he said my name that made me want to bolt.
“What?”
“Can we just...” He ran a hand through his hair. The same hair I’d smoothed down earlier like an idiot. “Can we talk for a second?”
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“About what?”
He stepped forward, pinning me with the intensity of his gaze. “Don’t play that game again. You know what I mean.”
Yeah, I knew. What was this between us? What were we doing?
There was no crowd to disappear into now. No coworkers to use as a buffer. Just me, Ash, and this conversation I’d been dodging for weeks.
I should’ve dressed faster and run while his pants were still around his ankles.
That position had left me too fucked out to bolt immediately after. My legs still felt like water. He’d probably planned it that way, made sure I couldn’t just zip up and disappear into the night like I usually did.
Smart bastard.
“Ash. Let’s not—”
“Jude.”
I swallowed what I was going to say and redirected. I had to keep this under control. I couldn’t risk morphing this situation into something it wasn’t or couldn’t be.
“We just fucked, Ash. It was good. Now we go home.” I moved toward the door. “Pretty standard procedure.”
He grabbed my arm. Not hard but enough to stop me. “Wait.”
I looked down at his hand, then back at his face. “Let go.”
“Not yet.”
“Ash.”
“You feel this too.” Ash’s grip tightened slightly, and the certainty in his voice made my mouth go dry. “I know you do.”
My pulse kicked up. This was exactly what I’d been afraid of.
That he’d notice that something had changed, both in me and in the dynamic between us.
I’d touched his fucking hair because I wanted to; because I wanted to inject meaning into us so I could balance the chaos in my head.
Because I wanted to stay, and I wanted him to ask me questions and smile at me across a room.
But that was the wrong choice. It always was.
“You’re imagining things, Ash.”
“Bullshit.” He stepped closer. “Earlier. Outside. You touched me like—”
“Like what?” I jerked my arm free. “Like I was fixing your fucked-up hair? Because that’s all it was.”
“It wasn’t.”
“You’re reading into nothing.” Why couldn’t he understand I needed this to be the case? I needed him to drop the subject and be happy with just hate-fucking me over every available surface.
But then he’d never really hated me, and we both knew that too.
“Then why are you freaking out about it, Jude?”
“I’m not freaking out.” I opened the door, letting fluorescent light from the hallway spill in. “I’m leaving. There’s a difference.”
He pushed the door shut before I could get through.
His palm was flat against the metal, his arm extended past my shoulder.
Not quite caging me in but close enough.
Every part of me wanted to melt, but I forced myself to stand to full height, clenched my jaw so tight that it hurt, and then I glared at him.
“Move your fucking hand, Ash.” I wasn’t playing around. He needed to step back.
The asshole didn’t even flinch. “What are we doing, Jude? What is this thing between us?”
“Sex.” I met his eyes. “That’s what it is. That’s all it is.”
“That’s all?” He didn’t buy it. “We’ve been fucking for weeks now, and when you chase me through this goddamn park like a lunatic, I feel it. I feel your—” he breathed in deep, re-centering himself. “This isn’t just sex. Not anymore.”
“Yes, it is!” My voice came out harder than I had intended, but I had to make him understand. “Stop trying to make this into something it’s not. We hate fuck. There’s nothing else to it. Quit trying to make it romantic.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then why are you trying to force that between us?”
He wanted a relationship. That was what this was about. He wanted dates and calling each other ‘baby’ and all that co-dependent bullshit people convinced themselves they needed. He wanted love.
And I couldn’t give him that.
I wouldn’t survive when it all fell apart.
He opened his mouth then closed it. His jaw worked like he was chewing on words he couldn’t quite spit out.
“I don’t know, Jude. I only know I want something more than just fucking in secret.”
“You want to fuck in front of everyone?” Why was I such a cunt?
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
“There is no more.” I pushed at his arm. He didn’t move and he was too rock-solid for me to dislodge him. “This is what we do, Ash. We fight on stage, we fuck after, and then we go our separate ways. That’s the deal.”
“I never agreed to a deal.”
“You didn’t have to. It’s implied.”
Ash scoffed and rolled his eyes. “By who? By you? There’s two of us in this, Jude.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Ash.”
The response was instant. Ash growled, his body jerking as he pushed his hand against the door harder.
It shook against my back. “Don’t you take that tone with me.
” It shouldn’t have been hot, but fuck it was.
He’s face was in mine, his breath warm and heavy on my skin and I’d never felt smaller in my life.
“How about your jealous bullshit, huh?” he demanded. “That’s not exactly casual, is it?”
My heart hammered against my ribs. He was saying everything I’d been trying not to think about. Making it real by speaking it out loud and it was going to curse us. Break us apart and shatter everything we’d built. “You’re overthinking this.”
“You’re under-thinking it!”
“Ash. Just—”
He stepped closer, further closing me in, both hands now bracketing my head.
I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t stay here with him so close while looking at me like that.
And then Ash leaned in.
His mouth ghosted over mine, tentative and questioning, lips parted just enough that I could feel the heat of his breath ghost across my skin. One of his hands slid from the door to cup my jaw, thumb brushing the hollow beneath my cheekbone.
Gentle. Too fucking gentle.
Like I was something fragile he needed to handle with care instead of the disaster I actually was. This wasn’t how we did this. We didn’t kiss like this. We bit and bruised and fought for dominance until one of us gave in. This wasn’t us.
Every part of me wanted to sink into it. To give him what he was asking for. To let this be more than just bodies colliding in the dark.
But that was the trap. That was how people got hurt.