“Thanks.”
“No worries.”
Jude hovered in the doorway, but again disappeared after a brief, awkward silence, and a minute later, the front door banged.
As had become typical in recent days, the sudden noise startled me. It was as if being with Jude dropped me into a bubble that I only emerged from when he was gone. Alone in his house—in his bed—perspective returned to me with every second that ticked by. I was in Thorston with nothing to my name but yesterday’s clothes and toothbrush buried in the glove box of my car. I reeked of sex, and likely last night’s Chinese, and I had a lunch meeting in Canary Wharf at midday.
If I had any hope of making it without looking like a tramp, I needed to leave, but I couldn’t seem to get out of Jude’s bed. It was small, and lumpy, and the sheets had been creased long before I’d thrown him down on them, but I felt at home.
I felt like myself, whoever that was.
Conflict raged in my well-rested brain. I picked up my phone, poised to send an email cancelling the meeting. To clear my schedule for the rest of the day. But what the fuck for? Jude had his own life, his own responsibilities, and none of them involved babysitting me.
I dropped my phone, and forced myself up and into Jude’s puny electric shower. His shower gel smelled like him, and did nothing to calm my raging boner. I pictured what I would do to him the next time I got him naked, and my blood sang, but as I closed my eyes and gripped my cock, the fantasy blooming in my imagination was a reality I’d never considered.
Jude stood behind me in the bath, hot spray cascading between us. He slid his hands down my back until he came to the swell of my cheeks, and his fingers grazed my crease.
I shivered and dropped my head, every nerve crying out for him to touch me where I needed it most. “Please.”
“Please what, Isha? What do you want?”
I pushed back against him, widening my stance. “Fuck me, Jude. I need you to fuck me.”
My eyes flew open, dick throbbing so hard it hurt. Did I really want that? The fire coursing through me said yes, but even as my eyes fell closed again, and I pictured myself bent over in the bath, Jude fucking me from behind, it didn’t seem real. I’d never wanted that. I didn’t want it now. My impromptu slumber party had sent me bananas. It was the only explanation.
Right?
At this point, I had no clue. I finished up in the shower, zipped my jeans up around my swollen cock, and ventured downstairs. Jude’s cupboards contained a selection of tinned soup, packet noodles, and baked beans. There was bread, and in the fridge I found milk, eggs, and butter.
I considered the selection and pondered how long Jude had planned on making it stretch. It had been a long time since money had been an issue for me, but I could clearly recall my mother feeding a family of six with not much more in her larder. The woman had been batshit crazy, and some days not much of a mother at all, but she’d been a hell of a cook, a skill I’d failed to inherit.
Beans on toast it is.I claimed a tin of beans and a handful of bread. Jude’s oven was bizarre, so I stuck to the microwave, and he found me buttering toast when he returned a little while later.
His gaze went straight to my crotch, and the hard-on still straining my jeans. “Miss me?”
“Yes.”
I turned back to the toast. Jude came up behind me. I braced myself for him to press up against me, but he didn’t. He gripped my shoulders and spun me around, caging me against the counter. Wearing the same frown as when he’d left, he stared, a riot I couldn’t decipher dancing in his dark gaze. Frustration rippled through me. “What?”
“Isha.”
“What—”
Soft lips cut me off, brushing over mine in a featherlight kiss, as I gasped in surprise. Reeling, I sucked in a breath, but before I could speak, Jude kissed me again, harder this time, crushing me, absorbing me, and drawing a sound from deep within me that I didn’t recognise.
He kissed me with his entire body. He stood on my feet, knees knocking, his belt buckle digging wonderfully into my cock, and his chest pushed up against mine so tightly I couldn’t tell which thundering pulse belonged to me.
Clutching the counter, I swayed, head swimming in a river of bliss. I’d never wanted a man to kiss me, never wanted a man to fuck me, but in that moment, I wanted everything from Jude that he was prepared to give, and for the first time, believed I’d feel the same way long after he stopped kissing me.
I didn’t want him to stop kissing me.
Ever.
I slid my hands over his hips and beneath his ratty T-shirt. I’d had as much of his smooth skin as I’d wanted all night long, but somehow, the sensation of my palms gliding up his back seemed brand new. I drank him in, lust swelling to a desire for him far more potent. I didn’t just want to fuck him, or even him to fuck me. It was more than that, always had been, but where my head had been muddled before, it was clear now. I needed this in my life. I needed him. Jude. Fuck, I was falling for him.
Fallen.
Had landed in a puddle at his feet.
