Lux had learned the length and girth her body responded to best, creating that shape for her over and over. She positioned herself over the projected shape of him, rotating her hips in exaggerated circles, his cock dragging against her slick center. Jude rolled her shoulders, swinging her hair back again, her breath catching when his mouth lowered to catch a pebbled nipple between his sharp, white teeth.
“Is this what you want, princess? Let me give you whatever you need.”
His hands had not moved from her hips, but there was now a hand pushing through her hair, another braced at her back, holding her against him as she ground her pelvis against his cock. She cried out when he pressed up into her, the thick girth of his cock stretching her walls, adelicioussqueeze against the sensitive spot within her.
Smoke-like tendrils of shadow curled up her legs until they solidified into the tentacle-like appendages she knew well. She felt the moment when his cock split within her, tentacle-like arms caressing her inner walls as she pistoned up and down the base of his fat shaft. She felt the pressure curling within her, a sucking probe on the inside of her g-spot, one long, thin arm caressing the tilt of her cervix. When she shook apart in his arms, her moan of pleasure broke on a tearless sob. Jude tightened her arms around his shoulders, feeling as though she were standing at the precipice of a great fall. She was not afraidto leap, for there was nothing on solid ground that could ever suffice, but she did not want to make the jump alone.
“Promise me,” she wheezed, her hands scrabbling for purchase against him. “Promise me that whatever happens, we leave together.”
She felt the tentacles receding into him, the flap of wings beating once before vanishing, arms shrinking back into only two. She felt herself sway, looking down to the drop.
“I promise you, Jude. I’m never going to let anyone hurt you ever again.”
Chapter 8
From the moment the pack members arrived, Jude felt eyes on her wherever she turned.
She attempted to hug the walls, keep to the corners, away from the crowds, away from the pack members, wherever she thought Lux might be lurking. He’d assured her he’d stay close, but so far she’d not heard or seen any whisper of him.
Word had gotten out, it seemed. One of that night’s guests had asked about her existence, her welfare, questioning where she was, where she’d been. Vin and his father were forced to parade her around and show her off, pretending she’d been a loving presence at Vin’s side from the beginning, and not hidden away in an abandoned strip club in a seedy neighborhood off the highway.
Pretending that she had no idea what was happening, no inclination that someone had asked about her, that one of the guests knew about her, was the hardest acting job of her life, but she performed it with gusto. She could feel the slide of stares, heard their hushed voices, whispering about her. It made themlook bad, Vin and his father; made them look bad in the eyes of these visitors as well as the pack, and Jude reveled in it.
“He fucking keepsmewaiting,“ the old man seethed at one point. “We got all these people here, all this food, everyone manages to get here on time. But I have to sit and cool my heels because Jack Hemming wants to make an entrance.”
There had been people coming and going all night, but when the door swung open a short while later and the man entered, Jude instinctively knew he was the one they had all been waiting for; knew it without question.
He was tall and broad shouldered, with a thick head of salt-and-pepper hair and shining dark eyes, flanked by a younger-looking version of himself, but she could tellhewas the one they’d been waiting on by the way he walked.
He had an unhurried air and an affable smile, the sort of person who slowed before doors, expecting them to open before him. The younger man at his side seemed a bit more tense, his eyes tight, his carriage suggesting an air of leashed aggression. A son, she guessed, but his father shared none of his tension. The other visitors had the same sort of frenetic energy as Vin and his father, but this man was the exact opposite. Cool and serene and still, unlike everyone else in the room.
This was it, she thought, stomach flipping. Her white knight, not that she especially wanted one.
When the man entered the club, the undercurrent of whispers that had twisted through the air like a tangle of snakes went silent. The affable smile never left his face, his dark eyes crinkling with the force of it, as though he were perpetually amused, and she wondered if he knew they’d all been waiting with bated breath for his arrival. She had a feeling he did and that it was the reason for his mirth, and on that basis alone, Jude decided she liked him already.
Despite his grumbling and bluster, Vin’s father pushed to his feet at the sight of the man, crossing several paces away from his chair and then waiting — making the man come to him, she observed, rolling her eyes. A juvenile pissing match, and nothing more.
“Jack,” he exclaimed, reaching out to shake the man’s hand. Glancing over his shoulder, he gave Vin a sharp look, motioning for him to step forward. “We’re so grateful you made it in. And this must be one of your boys.”
“It is indeed. This is Trapp,” the man called Jack Hemming hummed, his smile beatific as the old man glowered, shaking the younger man’s hand as if it pained him to do so. “A family name, of course.” Jude thought Vin’s Uncle Carmine was about to start snarling, and wondered over the strange reaction from the Conti family.
She found herself a seat at one of the small cocktail tables that had been brought in for the event, close to the wall, behind one of the columns dotting the club floor. She wished, not for the first time, she could simply vanish from sight, from this pack’s memory. It would be so much easier to simply waltz out of this place on her own volition, without worry or stress. She was so lost in her daydream that she jumped when the man appeared before her.
“Is this seat taken?”
His eyes crinkled with his smile again, pulling out the chair opposite her at the small table. His younger clone took the seat facing the room, just at the bigger man’s side.
“You managed to find yourself a nice, quiet corner. Smart girl.”
“Yes,” she croaked, willing her pulse to slow. “Not quiet enough for my tastes, but they didn’t put any tables in the parking lot.”
For a moment, Jack Hemming said nothing, looking around the room slowly, squinting at the site of the small stage and polein the center with a curl of his lip. She felt her hackles rise at the thought that he was judging the women who would normally be dancing in a place like this, forgetting that he was supposed to be her savior, or perhaps just not caring.
“Not a fan of strip clubs, I take it?”
If he heard the edge in her voice, she didn’t quite care. Instead, he flashed her that gleaming smile once more, taking his time before answering.
“You know, people buy places like this and they don’t put any thought into it, they don’t realize what they’re biting off. They just see the pole and they think about the girls and the men who will come and the money it will bring in, and their brains shut off at that point.”
