Fifteen
The Canceled Killer’s third victim was the CEO of the cosmetics brand Belle, which ran an ad campaign featuring their anti-cruelty, all-organic stance.
It later came to light that she not only ordered animal testing, but she also ignored reports that her cosmetics were contaminated with dangerous heavy metals, including lead.
The Canceled Killer force-fed Belle’s CEO a tube of her own mascara, and she choked on it.
—Crime Hive podcast
Jude leaned in then and pressed his lips against mine.
And it was exactly what I needed: an oasis in the middle of the Sahara desert, the warm flicker of a fire on a cold winter’s night.
It was cold and hot all at once, as I slid my hands up his chest, the thin fabric of his undershirt not hiding the ridges of his pecs beneath.
He shuddered beneath my touch and deepened the kiss, his tongue finding mine.
My entire body felt like it was on fire, but at the same time, I needed to get closer to Jude.
I wanted every bit of my skin against his, as he deepened the kiss.
He was hungry for it, just like I was, because soon, we were devouring each other.
Hands roving each other’s bodies as if it was something we’d always wanted, as if we’d awakened a long sleeping beast, a monster that was so hungry. So very hungry.
My hands were in the waistband of his pajama bottoms, moving to his amazingly sculpted butt.
Good Lord, the man did not skimp on leg day.
Jude’s body was all hard muscle, strong, sinewy, and amazing.
I wanted to touch it all. The fact that I shouldn’t, that I wasn’t supposed to, just made it all the more delicious.
“We’re not supposed to be doing this,” I told him.
“Oh, I know,” he said, laying kisses down my neck.
“You’re a delicate flower,” I said.
“I’m not that delicate,” he said as his mouth found my nipple. I gasped.
“That’s good,” I groaned.
“I know,” he said, with the confidence of a man who understood exactly how to please a woman because he was, as it turned out, very good with his hands. I tried not to think of Kenzie. His touch was deliberate and certain, as he traced the outline of my hip with his hand.
Jude’s phone on the bedside table pinged with an incoming message.
“Should you check that?”
“No,” Jude said.
“Could be Oscar,” I said.
“Then we definitely shouldn’t check it,” Jude said as he found my mouth again.
Perhaps I had always wanted him, or perhaps I just wanted what I couldn’t have, but the fact was I couldn’t get out of my leggings fast enough.
And then I helped Jude out of his flannel bottoms, and then it was us, pressed together in the most delicious of ways, beneath his white quilt comforter, and for the first time in my whole life, I felt like I’d made it home, and I wanted to be there.
Afterward, we both lay panting, me with my head on Jude’s bare chest, all the bones in my body liquefied. My mind? Blown.
“Wow,” I said against Jude’s chest.
“Wow,” Jude agreed.
“How long have you wanted to do that?” I asked him.
“How long have you?” Jude countered.
We both knew the answer: a long freakin’ time.
“We can’t tell Oscar,” I said.
“Obviously,” Jude answered.
I looked up at him and he glanced down at me. He pulled me up then, cuddling me to him with one arm.
“One day we will, though,” Jude promised.
“One day?” I echoed. I pulled my head from his chest. “Don’t go catching feelings for me, Percy Julian.”
“Too late,” Jude said. “I’m already falling for you.”
I sat up in bed, panicked.
“Take that back,” I demanded, fearing that everything Oscar had told me was true. Jude was a delicate flower. Jude didn’t do casual.
“Can’t,” Jude said, seeming fairly unperturbed.
“You have to,” I said.
“You don’t have to freak out,” Jude said in his reasonable, logical tone, the one that always cut through the emotional storm of my brain.
“I don’t?”
“Nope. You don’t.” And Jude reached out and pulled me closer to him, snuggling me up close. “There’s nothing to freak out about.”
He said it with such confidence, I almost believed him. Plus, his body seemed to be tailor-made for mine.
“But what about your living, breathing person? What about her?” I watched the ceiling fan above us draw slow loops.
“Don’t worry about her,” Jude said.
“But I have to. Who is she?” I snuggled into his armpit. “But I think I’m still going to freak out. Oscar is going to murder me.”
“He will not,” Jude assured me. “And don’t freak out. If you have to freak out, freak out in the morning,” he said and yawned, as if he hadn’t just dropped the bombshell of my life. He cuddled me closer.
“I’m freaking out,” I said, outlining the ridge of his bare pec with my finger.
“Sleep now. Freak out in the morning,” Jude suggested again.
“I don’t think I can sleep.”
“Try closing your eyes first. That helps.”
I yawned. I was damn tired.
“I’m not going to sleep,” I said, determined.
“Not if you don’t try,” Jude teased.
“And anyway, I’ll definitely be freaking out in the morning. I’ll probably just sneak out in the middle of the night. I don’t do well with commitment.”
“I’m not asking for commitment,” Jude said as he tugged me closer and kissed the top of my head. “And don’t sneak out. I was going to make an omelet in the morning.”
“I love omelets,” I said, feeling that wasn’t fair. My eyelids grew heavy. Jude’s body heat was warm and soothing, like milk before bed. “But I still could freak out.”
“Sleep now. Freak out tomorrow,” he said.
And then the second I closed my eyes, I was fast asleep.
I woke with a start to an empty bed. Jude’s bed.
His robe was on a hook on the back of his door.
Weak early dawn light filtered in from the window.
The open door of his closet revealed half-zip sweaters organized by color and his designer sneakers locked away in clear stacks of plastic boxes.
The man was neater than Oscar, and that was saying something.
I was absolutely naked, and as much as I’d promised Jude a freak-out this morning, I actually didn’t feel much like freaking out.
I’d had a top-three orgasm the night before, if not best, and I could smell a delicious breakfast wafting up from the kitchen. Jude was down there cooking me breakfast. And I actually didn’t want to sneak out the back door. Odd.
I lay sprawled on his bed, wondering what it would be like to wake up here, morning after morning, sunlight spilling in through his wooden blinds, the sound of him whistling a tune off-key as he clanged pots and pans downstairs.
Me and Dr. Cheese? Could it even work? Did I want it to work? And why was I even thinking about anything working, when I never thought that far ahead?
My phone pinged. A message from Russo.
Headed back today. See you tonight. Dinner?
Russo. I felt a pang of guilt. I’d forgotten about him.
I’d fallen into bed with Jude and completely forgotten about Russo for the entire night.
What did that say about me? That I was a woman with needs, dammit, and that Oscar should know better than to make something forbidden, because the more you deny me something, the more I want it.
Plus, Russo was the one who left me to my own devices.
Reluctantly, I pulled myself from bed, ran a comb through my hair, and dressed in the clothes Olivia had helpfully put in my overnight bag.
This time, she’d blessed me with an I’M KENOUGH pink Barbie hoodie, as well as some stretchy leggings and matching pink furry socks.
I brushed my teeth, because I’m not a monster, and then I headed down to see what smelled so damn good.
I saw Jude in his 1950s white-and-red kitchen, wearing a red apron over his gray half-zip and jeans, looking more delicious than the omelet in his pan.
“Hey, El,” Jude said in a way that warmed me from the inside out. He looked at my shirt and raised his eyebrows. “Are we going to talk about the sweatshirt?”
“Talk to Olivia. It’s hers.”
Jude chuckled, and I did, too.
“Why are you dressed like you’re going to a banker’s meeting?”
Jude glanced at me. “Because I have to be in the office in two hours. Technically for a banker’s meeting. The lab needs funding.”
“Cheese lab falling on hard times in Wisconsin? I’m shocked.”
Jude shrugged. “The angry dairy farms lobbied to get our state funding cut, so now we’re working on other options.”
“Those jerks.”
Jude nodded. “Denver omelet okay? Ham, peppers, onions, cheese?”
“Better than okay,” I said. “As long as there’s no mushrooms.”
“I don’t even keep mushrooms in the house. A sign of solidarity against the evil fungi.”
I snorted a laugh at that.
So this was what it was like when you slept with someone who wasn’t a hookup on Spark.
Easy banter. No weirdness. Not trying to flee at the first sign of conversation.
He opened his arm for a side hug, and shocker, I wanted to hug him instead of beating a path out the front door. I cuddled up to his side and squeezed.
“Why isn’t this awkward?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Do you want it to be awkward?” Jude flipped a perfect omelet in his elegant pan one-handed and then slid the beauty onto a white plate. “That’s for you.”
The omelet smelled delicious, but he looked good enough to eat himself, and something about the way his sweater hugged his shoulders made me want to rip it off him and trace the contour of his shoulder blades again.
“Yum—also, since when do you cook?”
“Since forever,” Jude said. “You should try some of my sourdough.” Just then a slice of sourdough popped up from the red vintage toaster on the counter. “It’s homemade.”
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Are you sure you’re not a serial killer? There has to be something wrong with you.”
“I drive like a grandma—you said it yourself. My fatal flaw.” Jude flashed me a smile.
I grabbed the slice of bread from the toaster and dropped it on my plate.
“Go on, sit and eat. Coffee is on the table.”
I groaned in appreciation as I saw my steaming mug.
“If I hadn’t already slept with you, I would for this,” I said.