16. Jude #2
His words are sharp and aimed to cut me off. But he should know by now that where he’s concerned, the bigger asshole he is toward me, the harder I push back.
“Sullivan had a brother. One who died in an accident three years ago. Not that far from here.”
Every muscle in his body coils tight, and his hands curl into fists by his sides. I stand, unable to breathe as I wait for a reaction.
Finally he breaks the silence, barely meeting my eyes.
“Don’t ever fucking talk to me again. You’re a crazy bitch. Find some other guy to fuck.”
He storms off, and I sag forward, the air punched from my lungs.
Then his words sink in.
Crazy?
He has the audacity to call me crazy?
Callum’s words swirl in my head. “You’re acting crazy, Jude. You’re wrong.”
An anger like no other, one that has claws and teeth, like a rabid dog straining at its chain to be unleashed, flies up from my gut.
I’m not crazy. I wasn’t then. And I’m not now. As for the bitch part… he’s about to find out.
“Slade Beaufort!” I scream after him.
He slams to a halt, whirling back to face me. The look in his eyes would be enough to eviscerate most people on the spot. But I’m past giving a shit when it comes to people lying to me.
“That’s your real name, isn’t it? Slade fucking Beaufort?”
He advances on me, closing the distance like a bull charging at a red rag. I don’t just stand my ground, I step toward him, inviting his wrath with a defiant tip of my chin.
“Slade, Slade, Slade,” I taunt.
He slams into me, curling his hand around my throat and pushing me back against something hard. The air’s knocked from my lungs as he brings himself nose to nose with me.
“Don’t ever fucking call me that.”
It takes me awhile to get the words past his strong grip, but I deliver each one as I keep my eyes pinned on his, refusing to let him intimidate me.
“Why? Because I’m right?”
His pupils blow wide, and he sucks a sharp breath in through his nose.
I stare into his eyes, wishing they were his real color right now.
I bet the ice blue would make his anger even more unnerving.
I want to see it, no holds barred. I want to see every emotion spill from the man who tries so hard to keep them hidden.
He knows my reasons for being here, and why I’ve been allowing what’s happened between us to continue.
Now it’s my turn to understand him.
“I’m right,” I coax. “Aren’t I?”
His gaze burns into me as his thumb skates a gentle line up and down the edge of my windpipe with a fiery possession that I feel all the way to my toes.
I lick my lips, waiting to see what he does.
That’s when I feel it pressing into my stomach.
His cock.
As rigid and strong as one of the diamonds the Beaufort family is so famous for.
My pulse thunders beneath the pad of his thumb, which has come to rest against my artery. His grip is still firm, but not in a threatening way… in a protective one.
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Slade Beaufort is dead. Spouting lies like that will get you into trouble,” he hisses.
He presses his nose against mine as he delivers his warning, and I can’t help whimpering.
His grip on my neck loosens, like he’s suddenly conscious he could be hurting me. But it’s not fear that’s making my nipples peak against his chest, or my lips part with shallow breaths.
It’s lust.
Unexplainable, illogical lust, fueled by the incandescent glimmer of fear in the disguised eyes of the man in front of me.
The ghost. The shadow.
The only man I’ve ever suspected I could get dangerously addicted to, despite not knowing who he really is.
I shift my hips a little, another tiny sound slipping from my lips as I swallow against his palm.
He frowns, studying me.
“Are you… are you fucking turned on right now?”
“I…” My chest shudders with a shaky breath as his fingers twitch against my windpipe. “Maybe, I don’t know,” I confess.
Yes. As big as the giant dick poking into my flesh right now is, yes.
His frown deepens, and I remain as still as possible, waiting to see what he does. I’m clearly not the only one who’s affected by us being this close together.
Every cell in my body is tingling in anticipation, hoping he’ll touch me, but at the same time, terrified about what that says about me.
He’s a man who’s supposed to be dead.
Yet here he is, alive and pressing his giant dick into me. Too far away from the group I was with for anyone to hear me call out if I need help.
I could be in danger right now.
Only, every instinct I have tells me I’m safer with him than I ever have been with any other man before—an unsettling realization that I should probably ask my therapist mother about.
“Slade,” I say breathlessly, testing out the name on my tongue.
It suits him. It sounds right.
A choked sound breaks in the back of his throat before he destroys it and pushes his groin into me.
“You don’t know anything. You—”
“Call me a crazy bitch again and you really will be a dead man.”
He brings our foreheads together, his eyes never wavering from mine.
“Tell a fucking soul and—”
“I won’t.” I make the promise before my brain can even register what my mouth is doing.
“I’m not saying you’re right.”
“But you’re not saying I’m wrong either,” I counter.
The tension between us threatens to implode and suck us into a dark abyss. I can’t see, hear, or feel anything but him as he stares into my eyes, penetrating me so deeply that I know I’ll never be able to dig him out even if I wanted to.
“Who are you?” I whisper.
He hesitates. “Don’t ask me for answers I can’t give you, Jude.”
I search his eyes, trying to find the Achilles’ heel that will bring his defenses crashing down. But wherever it is, he’s become so good at hiding it, there’s no trace to be found.
I swallow against his palm, and my pulse thuds beneath his thumb as he strokes it like he’s desperate to feel the life running through me. My head swims with the pent-up emotions of unanswered questions, and my knees weaken.
So when he brings his mouth down over mine, my breath splinters in relief, and I surge up into him with desperation.
He kisses me like the first night, only with more intensity and possession. Like a man who’s lost everything and has nothing left. He kisses with a ferocity that has me gasping for air as I’m pinned in place by him, crowded by his solid, warm body.
“Fuck,” he growls, grabbing my hip and pressing into me, forcing me back against the hard surface behind me.
I let out a breathy plea, common sense deserting me as I’m overtaken by this unexplainable need that steals my senses when I’m with him.
“Please…”