32. Jude #2
He presses his lips to mine, tilting my chin up and presenting my mouth to him so he can ease his tongue past my lips. He kisses me with slow confident strokes, and I sigh happily into it, smiling against his mouth.
“I don’t deserve you,” he murmurs.
“Stop,” I argue, kissing him back with growing tenderness to convey how much I disagree with him.
He presses one final kiss to my tingling lips before easing back and lying against the pillows.
“I shouldn’t have dragged you into all of this.” He pulls a hand down his face and stares at the ceiling.
I lean over him, ignoring his comment, and reach to the nightstand to pluck the little carved oyster shell from it. Slade’s eyes follow me as I place it on his bare chest on top of his tattoo.
“You found it.”
“I did. It’s beautiful.” I run my finger over the smooth wood.
He wraps his hand around mine, directing the tip of my finger to the small, perfectly glossy pearl inside.
“I found it on a dive six months ago. I was saving it.”
“For what?”
“For you.”
“We hadn’t met six months ago.”
His face softens. “Maybe the ocean knew we were going to.”
My stomach flips. That’s one of the most romantic things I’ve ever heard him say.
“No grit, no pearl,” he murmurs. “Made me think of you. What you said about your father’s expectations of you. And the way…” He pauses like the next words taste sour. “Your ex treated you. You’ve chosen what’s right for you. You don’t let other people dictate your choices.”
He smooths his thumb over the ‘J’ inscribed in the wood. “I’m glad you found it, and that you like it.”
“I love it,” I breathe, closing my hand around it and placing it back onto the nightstand.
I try to ignore the swell of memories rushing to the surface. The feelings of disbelief and utter devastation when I found it. When I realized he was gone.
“I saw my sister and father today.”
The confession tumbles from his lips so fast that I look at him in surprise.
“My father’s remarried, and they’re having a baby. My sister was kissing a man she claimed she never liked. And my brother has a daughter now. They’ve all moved on.”
I look into his eyes. They’re swimming with a mix of confusion and hurt.
“They haven’t forgotten about you. Things might have changed, but I promise you, they still think about you, I know it.”
“What if they don’t? What if me coming back is going to ruin everything good they have going?”
“You can’t stay in New York and not tell them you’re here.”
He looks away from me, his jaw tightening.
“Slade?” I press. “That’s not going to work.”
“Yeah, I know.”
I sit up and slide a leg over his hips to straddle him.
He arches a brow. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” I smile, rubbing myself up and down over him. I let out a breathy moan as his piercings glide between my wet pussy lips.
His dick hardens immediately, and he sucks in a breath as my pussy presses against the head of it.
“Enough talking for now. Unless it’s sex talk,” I tease, holding the base of his cock and angling the tip of him where I need to feel him.
I know what he needs. And it’s not for me to push the subject. At least, not yet. He’s come all the way back here after three years. It’s going to take more than a few days for him to get his head around what he needs to do. Plus, I’m terrified about this all going wrong and losing him again.
But I can’t add more pressure by telling him that right now.
What I can do is be here for him.
And make him feel good.
After he saved me from drowning, I needed him. I didn’t know it at the time, but Slade did. And now he needs me. It’s my turn to hold him together. Even if that means by distracting him with so much pleasure that he has no time to think or worry—or consider disappearing without a trace again.
I need him to know he isn’t alone.
“I want you inside me. Do you want that too?”
“Hell yes, Baby. Put me in,” he practically begs.
I sink down onto him, arousal pulsing between my thighs as his pupils blow wide. He groans long and deep, bringing his hands to my hips and holding me still as our skin meets.
He uses his grip on my hips to grind me over his cock, biting his lower lip as he looks at me like I’m the sexiest woman he’s ever seen.
“Jude, fuck….” He frowns, his concentration going to where our bodies meet as I rise and sink back down onto him slowly, keeping a slow, teasing pace.
“Like this?” I murmur, widening my thighs so I can take him deeper.
“Yeah, just like that.”
The tendons in his neck strain as he digs his fingers into my hips, allowing me to keep a steady pace.
I know he’s thinking about flipping me beneath him and fucking me hard and rough, the way he’s so good at.
The way that has me clawing his shoulders and coming so hard I see stars.
I can tell by the way his eyes pinch at the corners, glittering with a touch of controlling darkness that’s itching to be unleashed.
But I want this time to be different.
I ride him slowly, our eyes locked in a moment so charged with emotion that I have to remind myself to breathe.
“Slade,” I murmur, placing a hand over his heart, on top of his tattoo.
He threads his fingers through mine, holding them against his skin, and the deep thud of his heart pulses into our combined hands. Reaching up with his other hand, he dusts the backs of his fingers over my cheek and the rapidly forming bruise from where I fell in the alleyway.
His expression hardens as I wince.
“I’m fine.”
He looks like he wants to argue, wants to force me to let him take care of me.
But this isn’t about me. It’s about him.
I ride him with more determination, keeping my movements slow and deep.
His eyes never leave mine the entire time we move together.
They’re on mine when I come, whispering his name.
And they’re on mine when he comes, blissful release washing over his face like a wave as he spills inside me with a rich, husky groan.
My body’s still in a heavenly state of deep relaxation hours later when we’ve finally exhausted one another and have curled up together in the dark.
“You still awake?” Slade whispers.
Sleep is tugging at the edges of my consciousness. In my head, I reply, but no sound comes out.
He leans close, tightening his arms around me. His lips dust the shell of my ear.
“I came back because of you, Jude. Because I love you.”
He kisses my temple.
“You hear that, New York City? I said I fucking love you.”