Chapter Twenty-Two Homework Set
Chapter twenty-two
Homework Set
Jude was floating.
Weightless. Warm.
Content.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt that. Maybe never.
Tucked beneath Warren’s arm, Jude fit beside him as if made to.
One of Warren’s locs had come loose and tickled Jude’s shoulder with every gradual rise and fall of breath, making Jude smile.
His warmth was everywhere. Solid to Jude’s side, his chest at his back, his breath ghosting his ear. Stable. Protective. Sure.
Safe.
The safest Jude had ever felt. And the purest too, even with the slick reminder of what they’d just done still clinging between them. Because that hadn’t been sex for survival. Sex for bargaining. That had been something else entirely. Something close to a miracle.
And yet.
Questions still itched at him. He had heaps of them. Always did. Curiosity had been in his blood since he was a kid, digging at the sandpit in the park because he was sure he’d find dinosaur bones if he kept looking. His mum used to laugh, tell him his intrigue would be the making of him one day.
Then she’d died.
And left him to her brother, who hated questions. Hated him even more. And from there it was years of walking a road paved by other people’s cruelty.
Until Worthbridge. Tonight.
And the steady weight of Detective Sergeant Warren Beckford’s arm over his chest, anchoring him to a place Jude never thought he’d find—peace.
“You’re incredible,” Warren whispered into his ear, tightening his arms around him. “Really fucking incredible.”
Jude huffed a small smile. Compliments usually came barbed, sharpened into tools of control. Sweetness had never been free. Yet with Warren… it felt unvarnished. Real. And Jude let himself believe it, let himself soak in the warmth after years in the cold.
He pressed a soft kiss to Warren’s forearm. “As are you.”
Warren gave a low chuckle. “Only because you taught me.”
“No.” Jude shook his head gently. “I got the best out of you.”
“Spoken like a true teacher,” Warren teased.
Jude angled his head, catching Warren’s gaze in the half-light. “You really haven’t been with a man?”
“Not like that, no.”
“Then like how?”
Warren exhaled, shifting up and pulling Jude with him, keeping him tucked close. He brushed his locs back. “Couple of fumbles at uni. Rugby lads. Locker room nonsense. Bit of experimenting. Y’know… lad stuff.”
Jude arched an eyebrow. “You do realise ‘lad stuff’ is what closet bisexuals call it when they don’t want to admit what they are?”
“Yeah.” Warren met his gaze without flinching. “I think I understand that now.”
Jude’s smile was faint, but it held something gentler than humour.
He understood. Not everyone came to terms with themselves easily.
Some wrote off their first encounters as drunken experiments.
Some buried it so deep it curdled into shame.
And some lashed out violently rather than admit what they wanted.
But Warren wasn’t like that. Of course he wasn’t.
Jude knew how these things went. Sometimes it took the right person to show how love and desire could be as fluid as breath.
“That all?” Jude pushed, eyes searching his.
Warren dipped down and kissed him. “See? Told you you’re good at spotting what I’m holding back.”
“Call it practice.”
Warren sighed, tugged the band from his locs, letting them spill loose over his shoulders. The shift made him look different. Unguarded. Softer. And Jude felt it in his gut.
“I was on an op.” Warren held him close, as if he needed Jude there to tell the story.
“One of those setups where you’ve got to prove yourself.
Normally, you talk your way around it. That’s what the training’s for.
Keep the mask on, never cross the hard lines.
But this time… there wasn’t a way around it. ”
He stared past Jude for a moment. “The boss I was working under—he liked his men. Had a stream in and out of his place, most of them paid. One night he put it on me. Said I could join him. That it’d prove where my loyalty sat.
” Warren gave a bitter laugh. “And I knew if I gave in, I’d get his trust and I’d close the case inside a week. So I did.”
He rubbed a hand over his face. “I got through it half-cut. Didn’t love it.
Didn’t hate it, either. My body responded.
As it would. And when it was done, I told myself it was just the job.
Boxed it up. But the truth?” He looked back at Jude, eyes wide, stripped bare.
“Some of the things I saw… the things those men did… stuck in my head. Sometimes it was all I thought about. Did I want group sex again? No. Did I think I’d ever fall for a man?
Absolutely not. That wasn’t supposed to be me. ”
He trailed off, shaking his head, as if the words were too much. Then he looked back at Jude. “Then you happened. And I realised it wasn’t just my body responding. It was me. All of me. Wanting you.”
The words sank into Jude, rippling inside him until there was nowhere left in him untouched.
He stared, breath caught. Men had wanted him before.
His body, what it could give, what they could take.
But none had said this. None had spoken as if it was him they wanted. Not the act. Not the release. Him.
His chest ached. Sharp, hot, unrelenting.
He’d known, the second he let Warren across the threshold of his house, that he’d end up here.
Letting him inside more than his bed. Inside his heart.
He’d done it before, though, hadn’t he? With Bailey.
The PE teacher. And he’d been right: Bailey had been too good to be true.
But Warren? What he’d said was right, too.
Warren Beckford was better.
“What about you?” Warren whispered into his temple. “You said it’s been a while. How long’s a while?”
Jude chewed on his bottom lip. “How long ago did Callum go down?”
Warren stilled behind him. “Eight years.”
“Then… about that.”
The air thickened. “Reid was the last man in your bed?”
Jude swallowed. Hated how it sounded laid bare.
“Yeah.” He shut his eyes, shook his head, loathing the way reality dulled the glow of the moment.
“It took years to recover from him. Years before I even thought about trying again. When I moved here, I wanted something… good. Someone decent. But finding that? It’s hard.
And believe me, the good ones aren’t on Grindr.”
Warren’s arms cinched tighter around him.
“Nor in bars. Or clubs. Took me a long time to trust myself to even look. Then I met Freddie. The copper from the training day? He seemed solid. Reliable. Who doesn’t trust a copper, right?
” He glanced up, catching Warren’s eyes, watching for the irony to land.
Warren gave a crooked, shameful smile. Jude turned back, holding Warren’s arm around him.
“So I bit the bullet. Asked him out. Couple of dates, nothing more. And yeah, he wanted to go straight to bed, but that wasn’t me anymore.
I couldn’t shed that layer as fast as he expected.
And by the time I was ready, his childhood sweetheart came back and honestly?
I was relieved.” Jude twisted, propping his chin on Warren’s chest, the heavy muscle solid beneath him. “Now you.”
Warren’s gaze held his, then he slid his hands up, cupped the back of Jude’s neck, and pulled him up into a kiss stealing the rest of his breath. He rolled Jude easily on top of him, chest to chest, skin to skin.
“Then I feel more privileged than I did before.” His voice rumbled deep. “And I don’t take your trust lightly.”
Jude melted into another kiss. Nothing desperate this time. Just warmth, mouths fitting together as if designed to. Warren slid his hands down Jude’s back, big palms smoothing over skin as if he were learning him by touch alone.
When they finally pulled apart, Jude stayed draped over him, pressed his cheek to the solid plane of Warren’s chest and the steady drum of his heartbeat grounded him, lulled him, as Warren traced idle circles across his spine. Every pass of his hand was a quiet promise.
Safe. Safe. Safe.
“Thank you.” Warren brushed his lips over Jude’s curls. “I know what it means… you letting me in tonight.”
“No.” Jude closed his eyes, letting the truth of it sink deep. “Thank you. I don’t think I’ve ever felt… this.”
Warren kissed the crown of his head, then simply held him. No pressure. No demands. Just his solid chest, and his arms wrapped around him, fingers stroking lines down his spine to the curve of his arse and anchoring him in a world that, for once, didn’t feel cruel.
They stayed like that until silence blurred into drowsiness.
Jude drifted, half-awake, half-dreaming, wrapped in the scent of Warren’s skin, lulled by the rasp of his breath against his ear.
And for the first time in years, he fell asleep not alone.
Not afraid. But content. Curling over the chiselled body of a man who was tough, yes, unshakably strong…
But impossibly tender.
* * * *
A sharp knock shattered Warren out of sleep, ripping him from the warmth of Jude lounging over him, and the best rest he’d had in years.
Instinct slammed into him before his brain even caught up, and he slid Jude off him to his side, clambered out of bed and yanked his boxers on. Jude blinked, patting the nightstand for his glasses.
“Stay here.” Warren cracked the bedroom door.
Jude slipped his glasses on and there was no mistaking the fear behind those lenses. “I’ve got protection. You said I did.”
“You do.” Warren scanned the dark landing. “But I told them to call me if anyone came to your door. They didn’t.”
Jude swallowed audibly. “What does that mean?”
“Means I go first.”