He grabbed the back of her neck and bent her forward.“To make it hurt.To make you feel alive.”He slammed into her, hard enough that she had to catch herself on the tree, her fingers digging into the bark.She moaned, so he did it again.“I love the sound you make when my cock is buried deep inside you.It’s helpless and needy for something only I can give you.”He slammed into her again, reaching around to stroke her clit, alternating the little circles with a pinch that made her entire body go tight.“Your tight little pussy makes me wild.Youmake me wild.”He thrust deep, timing it with another light pinch of her clit, and she went wild around him.“That’s right, sunshine.Come for me.”
“Jude.”
He lost it, releasing her clit to grab her hips and fuck her until his balls drew up almost painfully and he came long and hard.And still he moved behind her, unable to stop.“Fuck, I could take you again right now.”
Sloan moaned, clenching around him.“You make me as wild as I make you.”
“Good.”He forced himself to withdraw from her, to do up his jeans, and hand her his shirt, even though a dark part of him wanted nothing more than to keep her naked and wanting until they were too exhausted to move.
Sloan pulled his shirt on, wincing a little.“You may have been right about the change of positions.”He scooped her up, ignoring her squeal of surprise.Sloan smacked his chest.“What are you doing?”
“I’m wearing shoes.You aren’t.I’m making sure the bottoms of your feet don’t take any more damage.”And hell if he didn’t want to just hold her for a few minutes.
That was new, too.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sloan woke to the sunlight on her face.She opened her eyes and squinted at Jude sitting in a chair across the room, a screwdriver in his hand as he worked on something she couldn’t see.She sat up and rubbed at her eyes.“Do you ever sleep?”
“Not often.I never have.”He looked tired, though; the lines around his mouth and eyes deeper than they had been when she’d met him.
“What are you doing?”
“Repairing my roofing coil gun.Some of the shingles on the roof were blown off since I was here last, so I’ll need to get up there and replace them sometime today.”
Was there no end to what this man was capable of?He was deadly, could survive off the grid for who knew how long, and he was handy, too.
She resisted the urge to tell him to come to bed.If he did, the last thing they’d be doing was sleeping, and right now talking was more important.So Sloan tucked the sheet more tightly around her and propped her chin on her knees.“We need some sort of plan when it comes to the future.I don’t expect you to marry me.”He sent her a sharp look, which she pointedly ignored.“But there are things to consider.If you plan on being part of the baby’s life, then there needs to be some sort of schedule worked out.I need a job—”
“I can more than provide for anything you need.”
She ignored that, too.“All the same, I will be getting a job.”As he was so fond of telling her, Jude was no white knight.He might be willing to take care of her, but she wanted more than that for herself.Even if she didn’t, their relationship—such as it was—was already too unbalanced in some ways.She needed her independence, and if he didn’t respect that, this was going to end before it had a chance to begin.
For a moment, he looked like he might argue, but then he gave a short nod.“You want to work out the semantics.”
“Exactly.”
Jude paced a lap around the room and then stopped at the foot of the bed.“Tell me something.I get that you value your ability to hold your own, and that’s a respectable thing.”
She tensed.“I’m sensing a ‘but’ coming.”
“But because of who we are, our kid will be in danger from the moment he or she is born.Fuck, sunshine, the baby is in dangernowand it’s barely the size of a lima bean.So you might as well give up on any dream involving white picket fences and the kind of lifestyle that involves deep roots.That shit doesn’t exist for people like us.”
“Why not?”She hated the look on his face when she asked the question, the look that said she should really be smarter than to challenge his assumption.She lifted her chin.“The world is a big place.Yes, I know it’s smaller than it used to be, but there’s no reason we couldn’t go somewhere where no one has heard of either the O’Malleys or the MacNamaras.It would require cutting all ties, but it’s still possible.”She pressed her lips together against the need to ask him why he couldn’t just leave it all behind.It wasn’t that simple.Sheknewit wasn’t that simple.
Except it was for her.
Sloan sighed and climbed off the bed.She dug through her suitcase and came up with a pair of yoga pants and a tank top.“My point is thatIhave a plan, fledgling that it is.You’re the one who appears to still be clinging to the past.Which is fine.I understand that some things are impossible to leave behind.But a future with me and a future where you’re still hunting down Colm Sheridan are, unfortunately, mutually exclusive.”
If he killed Colm, Callie would hunt him to the ends of the earth, just like he’d been doing to her family.She loved her father—apparently whatever issues Ronan had with the man, she hadn’t inherited them.Even with a baby on the way, Callie would be fierce in her need for vengeance.Jude would be fanning a flame that was almost out.
“You’re offering me an ultimatum.”
He would see it that way.She waited until she was dressed to continue.“No, I’m telling you the truth.You say that you’ll do whatever it takes to keep our child safe.In what world would creating another powerful enemy go hand in hand with his or her safety?”He still didn’t understand, whether willfully or genuinely.She took a breath.“You’re out.Whether you’re responsible for Ronan Sheridan’s death or not, whether Sorcha thinks you’re a danger or not, you’reout.As far as anyone is concerned, he drank too much and wrapped his car around a telephone pole, and no one is going to believe what that old woman says now that they know what her plans were.No one is hunting for an enemy to kill.If you hurt Colm, they will be.What did your family do to make Colm so mad all those years ago?”
“It’s not important.”
“Isn’t it?”She wanted to shake him until he saw things her way, but that would only make him dig in his heels deeper.She couldn’t force him, no matter how much she wanted to.
