Page 80 of Ruthless Protector

Jude used the key he’d grabbed from his jeans on the floor to unlock the cuffs and uncoiled my tank top from around my wrists gently, using his fingers to rub away the pins and needles. The care and attention he was giving me made my heart swell in my chest, made it ache for more of this, more of Jude.

He kissed both wrists, then lay back, curling me into his side, still moving his hands over my arms and holding me in a way that made me feel precious. This man, God, he was busting down my walls day by day, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

“Did you always know you wanted to be a cop?”

“I knew I wanted to help people,” he said.

That didn’t surprise me, not one bit. “Must have been hard, leaving the force?”

“It was time,” he said cryptically. “What about you?” he asked. “What did you want to be when you grew up?”

I snuggled closer. “I wanted to cut hair, have my own salon. I used to chop all the hair off my dolls.” I chuckled. “Rebecca’s dolls, too. I got my license when I left high school, got a good job.” I shrugged. “Things change, though, life gets in the way.”

“Yeah,” he said, squeezing me closer.

“I envy you,” I surprised myself by saying against his chest.

His hand that had moved to my back stilled. “Why is that, beautiful?”

Jude’s skin was warm and smelled amazing, and I nuzzled against him, my body relaxed in a way I couldn’t ever remember being. It was scary, but I knew whatever happened between us, I needed him to know how incredible I thought he was. “You’re fearless, unshakeable. You take charge and you don’t hold back. You have this way…” I shook my head against him. “You make everyone around you feel at ease, safe.”

His chest rose with his indrawn breath, and his hand started moving slowly over my skin again. “Does everyone include you?”

“Yes,” I whispered, still not sure I wanted him to hear the truth, but needing him to at the same time. I took a steadying breath and pushed on. “I can’t ever remember feeling like…like that before.”

“I’m glad, baby, you have no idea how much.” He started playing with my hair. “But I’m not as fearless as you think. I’m not perfect. I’ve let people that I love down, and in ways that, shit… I’m not perfect,” he repeated.

His voice had gone hoarse, a raw whisper that lifted the hair at the back of my neck. I curled into him more, so I was half on top of him, and lifted my head, looking into his eyes. “What happened?”

No, I had no right to ask, but I wanted to know what caused the pain I heard in his voice, that shone from his eyes.

He brushed my hair back from my face. “You really want to know?”

“I do,” I said, taking his hand and kissing his palm. This was probably a terrible idea, and could only make things more complicated between us, but they were already complicated, and maybe, just maybe, I could help ease some of that pain I saw in him. People say talking helps, and I wanted to listen. A small thing, but right now, that’s all I had to offer. It wasn’t much, after all he’d done for Tilly and I, but if it helped, I wanted to do that for him.

“My sister, Kate, was in an abusive relationship. She hid it from me for a lot of years, made excuses why she couldn’t see me when she had bruises to hide, stuff like that.”

Jesus. “I’m so sorry, Jude.”

His fingers were still in my hair, but he wasn’t looking at me, he was looking inward, at memories that hurt. I could tell by the strain on his face.

“She was in that hell for seven years. They had son together, Louis, and she finally made the choice to get out when Wayne turned his fists on their son. She came to me, and I moved her out, to a new place while I looked for something more permanent. I was still on the force then, doing a lot of hours. We’d slapped a restraining order on Wayne.” Jude’s jaw tightened. “I thought she was safe, that it was over.”

I remembered the K & L tattooed in his arm. Dread filled me. “What happened?”

“He found them, lit the apartment on fire, then killed himself. They died in their beds. I wasn’t there to protect them. I wasn’t there, and because of that, I lost them both.”

I felt ill, sick to my stomach and unable to bear the agony I saw in his eyes. I moved so I was straddling him and leaned forward, hands going to either side of his face. “I’m so sorry,” I said, tears welling in my eyes. “But that’s not why you lost them.” I held his haunted gaze. “You lost them because a sick and twisted person was determined to take them away. It wasn’t your fault. It just wasn’t.”

His hands tightened on my waist and he drew in a sharp breath through his nose. “Thank you, for saying that.”

“You don’t believe me.” It wasn’t a question, because I could see it on his face.

His hands moved on my waist, sliding down over my hips and back. “I was her big brother, it was my job to make sure she was safe, that they were both safe.”

“Jude…”

“I’m okay, beautiful.”