21. Jude
JUDE
My chest feels like a truck has driven over it. I thrash around the surface of the water in vain, like something will miraculously appear for me to hold onto.
The sound of water being hit nearby barely registers as I slip beneath the surface again, then fight back up.
“Uh, uh…” I try to get my breath, but my lungs aren’t working. Nothing is coming in. And everything has been punched out of them judging by the crushing sensation in my chest.
“Jude!”
The sun is so bright, like sparkling diamonds dropping through the water as I’m pulled under the surface once more.
I stare at the sky moving away from me as the sounds from above the surface muffle in my ears until they’re nothing but a distant memory.
Something grips me underneath the armpits, and I’m hauled up.
My head breaks the surface moments later, and I erupt into a burning cough.
“Fuck!” a voice roars.
Deep, labored breaths echo around me as the top of the cliff disappears into the distance. I struggle to drag in a breath as I slide through the water with impressive speed.
Short, shallow breaths slowly punch through the barrier in my lungs, bringing with them more burning coughs, followed by a deep belch that brings the taste of saltwater to my mouth as it spills from my lips and coats my chin.
I manage a deeper breath, my chest finally expanding and allowing much needed oxygen to reach my lungs.
“Jesus.”
The deep voice joins forces with a strong, solid grip around me, and I’m lifted from the water and carried out.
“Don’t do that to me. Don’t fucking do that, Jude.”
Something smooth and warm from the sun presses into my back and I sag against it in relief. Incensed brown eyes search mine as I realize I’ve been laid against a giant sloping patch of smooth rock.
“What the hell are you doing?” he rages, cupping my face and tilting it, inspecting inside my mouth. “You got more water to get out?”
I stare at him.
“You got any more fucking water to get out?” he snaps.
I shake my head, the only sound I’m able to make a cross between a whimper and a cough before I manage to pull in more air.
“Fuck.” His eyes never leave mine as they screw up at the edges. “Don’t ever fucking do that to me.”
I stand, shell-shocked, trying my hardest to get my breath back as he inspects every inch of my body for injury. Satisfied I haven’t been hurt, his eyes return to my face, and he lifts it, engulfing my cheeks inside his big, warm palms again.
“Don’t ever fucking do that to me,” he repeats.
I finally get a satisfying breath to fill my lungs. I hold it for a moment, then let it out slowly. He watches me as I do it again. And again. And again.
I breathe until my head stops spinning and I’m able to properly focus on his face.
“I think it was too high for my first time,” I whisper.
He huffs out a ragged breath, his brow creasing. “You think? Jesus. Don’t ever fucking do something like that again, you hear me?”
I nod as he brings his forehead to mine. His chest is rising and falling in panicked breaths as I blink at him from under my lashes.
“Did I scare you?” I whisper.
“Yes, you fucking scared me,” he snaps. “Jude, you…” He screws his face up, then his lips are pressing to my forehead with a gentleness that’s in direct contrast to the fire in his voice.
“You scared the hell out of me,” he whispers like all of his fight has gone.
He presses the softest of kisses to my skin.
“I’m sorry,” I choke out, shivering as the adrenaline starts to wear off and fear slices through me. I could have been seriously hurt. I was so intent on defying him just to make a stupid point, that I could have really hurt myself.
Or him.
He lowers his head, his lips sliding over my cheek, and I almost collapse with how much I need him.
Soft lips press a succession of breathy, barely-there kisses over my skin like he needs to map my face to convince himself I’m okay.
Then finally, he melds them all into one, bringing his mouth to mine and gifting me with a kiss so full of desperation that I break into a sob.
“You jumped in after me,” I say as he kisses me like he can’t physically tear himself away.
“I dived in,” he murmurs, kissing away another sob.
“Headfirst?” I pull back to search his eyes. “You said that was dangerous, that—”
“It was a dive, Jude. I’m fine.” He kisses me again.
“Oh God,” I mumble, feeling like such a stupid, selfish idiot.
I gaze up into his eyes as he finally lets his lips leave mine for a moment.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
His brow scrunches up like he’s barely holding himself together, and I hate that I’m the reason he looks so shaken.
“Are you hurting anywhere?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“I’m not,” I insist when he looks at me like he doesn’t know whether to believe me or not.
He slides his thumb back and forth over my lower lip with a raspy exhale. “Thank God.”
He leans closer, pressing his solid, water-droplet covered torso against mine. His skin is burning hot, heating me more than the smooth rock at my back.
“Thank God,” he repeats.
He claims my mouth again in a searing kiss, and I whimper into it, sliding my hand down to his swimming trunks, the sudden need for him overshadowing everything else.
His rapidly hardening dick is waiting for me.
He hisses as I ease past the waistband and curl my hand around it.
“I need…” I can’t get my words out as new tears spring into my eyes. I don’t know what I’m asking of him. Just that I need him and only him.
“You need help coming down from the shock. It’s okay, I’ve got you,” he soothes, his voice morphing into the exact amount of gentle mixed with total confidence and control that I need.
“Y-yeah.” My voice shakes before he soothes me with another kiss.
He tugs the ties of my bikini, making it fall to the sand, then presses his groin against me.
I gasp as his dick presses into my stomach. He kisses it away with a commanding hand slipping to cradle my neck.
“Turn around, baby,” he rasps against my lips.
I blink at him. At the soft instruction that’s filled his tone.
He helps me turn so that the smooth warm rock is against my front. The angle of it allows me to stand, supported, while leaning over far enough that all the weight and strain is taken from my aching muscles.
“Good girl.”
He covers my body with his, pinning me between hot skin and warm stone. His kisses start on the back of my neck, trailing beneath my ear, and making me shiver as he tells me how beautiful I am with deep, throaty groans.
My tears dry with the warm sun dancing against my skin as he kneels in the sand at my feet and holds my ass cheeks apart with deft fingers.
“I’ve got you, baby,” he coos. “You can relax.”
The first swipe of his tongue passing over my pussy has my knees almost buckling from the relief of giving up all of my worry and control to him.
He’s never called me baby before, and something about the soft way he says it has me pushing back against his mouth and chasing more of the blissful high his touch is bringing me.
“That’s it,” he coaxes, dipping his tongue inside me and making me whimper with pleasure.
I lie, spread across the rock, as he takes his time eating me out under the haze of the golden sun until I come with a cry against his tongue.
“Good girl.” He massages my ass cheek with one hand, the other rubbing my pussy, spreading my wetness all over it. “Such a good girl,” he rasps, standing and bringing his mouth to my ear, one forearm bracing against the rock beside my head.
I lean into his touch with a needy whimper as he holds the base of his cock and nudges the head at my entrance. “Let me in, baby,” he breathes.
I moan, wiggling my ass so he can push closer.
He slides deep inside me with a slow thrust.
A groan vibrates against my ear and makes my body hum with arousal.
“There. That what you needed, baby? You needed to come on my face, then take my cock? Have it fill you up and make you feel good?”
“Yes,” I moan, closing my eyes and resting my cheek against the smooth stone as he pulls out then slides back inside me.
“Feel better now?” He kisses my neck with a multitude of open-mouthed kisses, each one feeling better than the last.
“Yes,” I moan again.
“Good girl,” he croons. “You needed to be held, didn’t you? You needed to know that I would never let anything bad happen to you. That I’d fucking die before I let you get hurt.”
His words send flutters swirling in my core as he keeps fucking me with delicious slow, deep strokes. I shudder beneath him as I’m overcome with another ball of emotion pushing its way up from my gut.
“Let it out, baby,” he says with more tenderness than I can take.
I break into tears, opening my eyes at the exact same moment he brings his fingers to my chin and turns my face to him.
Piercing blue eyes burn into mine, and I gasp.
“You wanted to see the real me? Here I am.”
I hold his eyes as he continues filling me with slow, deliberate thrusts. I don’t know when he lost the contacts, and I don’t care. I only care that he did. Because his real eyes… they’re breathtakingly beautiful.
I gaze at him as he pumps his hips, driving his cock deep inside me.
“Tell me,” I breathe as my body ripples around his, accepting every inch.
His cock swells, and he forces a hand between my body and the rock, finding my clit with ease.
“Tell you what?”
“You know what,” I whisper, arching against him as his fingers slip and slide from my clit, all over my pussy, feeling the place where I’m stretched around him each time he thrusts.
“Tell you I’m a man who’s fucking wrecked by the idea that I’m supposed to let you go when the time comes?”
My mouth drops open with a deep moan as his piercings play their own magical game inside me, making me clench around him.
He screws his face up and kisses me, his thrusts getting harder and deeper. “That what you want?”
“The truth,” I whimper, my eyes threatening to roll in my head from pleasure as his fingers concentrate on my swollen clit again.
I struggle to maintain focus on his eyes. But I do. I want to witness his honesty. See it burst from him like a flare. Watch as it obliterates the barriers he’s built so high around himself.
“The truth?” he repeats, speeding up until I’m whimpering with each deep thrust.
He fucks into me harder watching every expression I make like he’s mesmerized. The eye contact is more intense than ever, like he’s trying to see inside my soul and entwine it with his own.
“Yes,” I beg.
His pupils blow wide as it all becomes too much, and I come hard, strangling his dick as I clamp down onto it.
“Fuck,” he groans, pumping into me without breaking pace as I fall apart beneath him.
He holds my eyes the entire time as I clench and contract around his thick length, my eyelashes fluttering.
“You want to know the truth?” he rasps, leaning forward and capturing my lower lip between his teeth before he kisses me hard.
“The truth is…” he pants from the effort of fucking me as he speeds up.
“The truth is I’m fucking crazy about a woman who doesn’t know when she should just shut the hell up. ”
I hold his eyes, ready to plead if I have to. Ready to do whatever it takes to get him to be honest with me. “Please tell—”
“I’m Slade Beaufort,” he growls through clenched teeth, his entire body stiffening until he looks in danger of rupturing every vein in his body.
Relief floods me, and I cry out, coming around him again in pulsing waves.
He pulls my lips to his. “You coming again? Good girl.”
All I can do is whimper as he groans.
“Milk me, baby.”
Then he thrusts into me with more force and lets out an animalistic grunt.
“Jesus, fuck, I’m coming so goddamn hard,” he growls.
“S-say it again,” I choke out as I continue orgasming around him in waves.
“You were right, okay? I’m Slade fucking Beaufort.”
I whimper, “Slade…”
“I’m here, baby. I’m fucking here.”
He holds my chin and kisses me through a succession of deep thrusts as he empties all he has inside me, his hand splaying over my pussy, cupping me like I’m his.
“You happy now?” he murmurs, kissing me once more, then nuzzling into my neck as his cock continues twitching and pulsing inside me. “I’m Slade Beaufort.”
“Slade,” I murmur, shivering as he sucks in a breath at the sound of his name, then kisses me again.
“And you know what else?”
“What?”
“I thought my life was over when you disappeared off that fucking cliff. I thought I’d lost you, Jude,” he whispers. “I thought I’d fucking lost you.”