Chapter 2
Jude
E leanor and I were getting settled into a suite at a nearby hotel—no big feat, considering we had no luggage—when a text came through from Jason Lancaster.
Jason: I’m looking forward to our date tonight.
“Shit,” I muttered. “I forgot about that.”
Eleanor looked up from where she was putting together a delivery order from a superstore. Toothbrushes, toiletries, underwear and other basics…everything we’d need until I figured we could safely go back home and grab our things. “Forgot what?
“That guy Jason asked me out today. We were supposed to go out for Thai food tonight and hang out.”
“Jude!” Squealing, she dropped her phone and lunged across the sofa to grab my shoulders and shake me. She knew how long I’d been waiting for him to man up. “This is amazing!”
In spite of our circumstances, I smiled. “It is, isn’t it? I don’t want to tell him I can’t go now.”
Eleanor frowned. “What do you mean, you can’t go? Of course you’re going.”
“Lens…” Flopping back against the couch, I covered my face with my forearm. “This stuff with Dad…it changes everything.”
I felt her fingers picking at the fabric of the sofa beside my thigh. It was a nervous tic she had, always picking at something. I placed my hand over hers, stilling the movement.
“I don’t see why you can’t go on a date. He may not even find out before you go. It’s tonight, after all,” she muttered.
I was quiet for a minute, processing. She was right. It was early days yet. There was a chance it didn’t blow up. A chance it blew over, instead. That Dad produced everyone’s money, and everyone just went away happy.
Maybe it was the pessimist in me, though. Somehow, that wasn’t what I saw happening at all.
“I think you should trust him,” she continued. “There’s a reason you like him. He’s a good guy. A good person. Even if everything does explode with Dad, I bet he’s decent enough to stay. That’s what good people do.”
Lowering my arm, I regarded her with a troubled gaze. “I wish that’s how it worked.”
She opened her mouth to argue, seemed to think better of it, and closed it again. Standing, she moved back to where she’d dropped her phone and picked it up and resumed her order. “Just think about it,” she said after a few minutes.
I thought about it. And then, after a deep breath, I tapped out a response to Jason.
I’m looking forward to it, too.
The Thai restaurant Jason chose was near Columbia’s campus. I’d eaten there before but it was different tonight, seated across a tiny table from a guy I liked.
Jason was a little on the short side, but cute, with wavy brown hair and blue eyes I’d always thought of as kind.
I’d figured out that his initial shyness had in fact been extreme caution.
Jason had been burned by a past girlfriend and took his time, he said, with new girls.
He wanted to be sure of someone before he spent any time with them.
“But isn’t that how you get sure of someone?” I asked, genuinely curious. “By spending time with them, getting to know them?”
He reached across the table and took my hand, turning it over in his and running his thumb across my palm.
“Yes, of course. But I spend a lot of time trying to know them on social media and watching them in class and with our mutual friends and stuff like that, first. You know…just trying to see if there are any big red flags.”
I nodded, pursing my lips. “Okay, I guess I understand that.” I leaned forward a bit and pushed my plate aside. “Give me an example of a red flag.”
He grinned. “Putting me on the spot.” Tilting his chin up, he pretended to think. “Let me see…if a girl posted on her Insta account all day, every day, for example, that would be a huge red flag. It would indicate she might be really self-absorbed, or into that kind of superficial attention.”
“Agreed.”
“Or maybe someone posts a charity on their Facebook, but then walks by the person on the corner with the cup every morning on their way to get their boutique coffee.”
“Ouch.”
He shrugged. “Not really judging, but it’s revealing.”
“Maybe they don’t carry cash. Or are afraid of being mugged or something.”
“Valid points.” His light grip on my hand tightened a bit, and his gaze intensified. “I like you, Jude Tiernay.”
I wiped the corner of my mouth with my other hand, hiding the smile that wanted to bloom. I wanted to play it cool, but the truth was, I wasn’t a cool person. “I kind of like you, too.”
“I’m not ready for the night to be over. Would you like to come back to my apartment and…watch a movie?”
He was smooth. “I…uh.” I bit my lip. I didn’t want the date to end, either. “I would. As long as you understand that’s all it is. I’m a good girl. I don’t do sex on the first date.”
His eyes gleamed. “I respect that.” He tapped the folder containing the check, which he’d paid earlier, and started to rise. “Let’s get out of here.”
Jason lived in what would be a fairly modest apartment anywhere outside of New York but was prime real estate in the city and therefore worth a pretty penny. I lifted an eyebrow as he led me from the elevator into the vestibule and paused to unlock the door. “Parents?”
He grinned, not at all sheepish. “Of course. Yours, too, right?”
“Guilty. I have a place off campus with a few friends, but I mostly still live at home. I have a younger sister who I—” I broke off, thinking about the way Eleanor was always picking at something—the skin of her wrists, the clothes she wore, the furniture she was sitting on.
“She’s never been diagnosed, but she struggles with anxiety.
I don’t like to leave her for long periods of time. ” I finished simply.
“That’s rough. Want a drink?” He walked over to a small bar cart and gestured to the array of decanters and bottles.
“Ah…sure.” I glanced over the selection. “Whatever is fine.”
While he poured, I wandered over to the window and brushed aside the drape to peer out.
The apartment was on the seventh floor, tucked on a side street.
He still had a good view of the city in its twinkling nighttime glory, though, and I stood, mesmerized by the glittering lights, until he came up behind me and pulled me back against his chest.
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered, accepting the drink he pressed into my hand and bringing it to my mouth for a sip.
“Mm. You’re beautiful.” He nuzzled his lips into the flesh beneath my ear, sending a shiver through me.
“Flattery…”
He tugged the lobe of my ear between his teeth, and I lost the ability to form words.
“…flattery?” I felt the smile on his lips as he turned me in his arms. Meeting my eyes, he ran his hands up my back, beneath my sweater, then down again, and pressed me against the cool pane of the window.
“Will get you everywhere,” I finished.
His smile grew wider, and he dipped his head forward, leaning down to kiss me.
His kiss was a surprise. Jason Lancaster had been hiding, I thought.
Beneath the shy exterior he was bold and carnal, his tongue swooping in to dance with mine in unmistakable mimicry of what he’d like to do with other parts of his body.
His hands were restless, stroking over me and rousing responses that had been dormant for some time. I lifted my arm to curl it around his neck, the drink in my hand sloshing over the rim and onto my hand and his neck with the motion.
He laughed, taking it from me and putting it on a small table beside the window. Then, his gaze never leaving mine, he took my alcohol-glossed fingers and drew them one by one into his mouth.
I think I whimpered.
“You still want to watch a movie?” he asked.
I shook my head.
No. No, I did not want to watch a movie. I wanted him to fuck me.
Still smiling, he drew me down a narrow hall toward what I assumed to be his bedroom, kicking his shoes off as he walked.
I followed suit, my heels landing beside his loafers.
He released my hand long enough to tug his shirt over his head with that sexy one-handed pull from the nape that made my mouth go dry every time I saw it.
I began unzipping my dress.
His hands went to his belt, and together we shed the rest of our clothing beside his bed. It was only then, as he reached for me again, that doubt reared up once more. I placed a hand on his chest and looked up at him.
“This means something, right?”
His expression was serious as he traced a finger around the curve of my jawline and the line of my nose. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…it’s not just sex? The reason I don’t do sex on the first date is because I want to make sure I’m not just a body. That I mean something to the person I’m sharing myself with. That I’m not expendable?—”
“Yes.” He kissed me then, halting the flow of words with a heady mix of tongue and lip. “You mean something to me. I swear it.”
I was not a good girl that night.