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The question threw him off completely and his stiffening body must have alerted Jude because he propped up on his elbow and rested his head in his palm so he could look down at Snow. “Hey, look at me.” He laid his palm back on Snow’s belly and rubbed along the muscles there. “You’re such a damn flight risk. I’m not talking about losing the condoms for fucking. A relationship would have to be a lot further along than this for that sort of thing. But I want your cock in my mouth pretty damn badly and I’m not a fan of the taste of latex.” He smiled. “Being in the medical profession made me fussier than I used to be.”
“The odds of contracting HIV orally are pretty low but you have to know that. What do you usually do in your hookups?”
“Don’t usually do hookups, General.” His hand came back down on Snow’s belly.
That shocked him. “Ever?”
“Oh, I have and yeah, I’ve used condoms even orally for those, but most of my sex has happened in relationships. I have a couple of friends with benefits—one in particular I call if I get needy enough. But it’s been awhile.”
For some reason, jealousy flared in Snow at the thought of Jude having one guy he went to for sex. He immediately wondered if he got off manhandling that man, too. If he turned all that sexy dominant personality on him. When he realized he was wishing he might be the only one getting manhandled, he quashed those thoughts down fast. Just what the fuck was he doing here?
“Hey!” Jude lightly took his chin in hand and turned his face so that he was forced to look directly at Jude. “Just breathe. It’s like every muscle in your body just screamed run.”
Snow closed his eyes and slid down in the bed so that his head was on a pillow rather than being pressed against the headboard. Or back of the couch. He was too tired to figure it out and he needed to get a grip. Jude had him scattered, balancing on the edge of a knife of too many things that couldn’t be, wouldn’t ever be.
Jude’s hand returned to his stomach in a slow caress that was like magic when it came to relaxing him. His breathing evened out and Snow could feel the warmth seeping deeper into his muscles, lulling him. He would just close his eyes for a second, lay there and enjoy the warmth before he had to leave.Chapter 10Snow crept out of Jude’s place like a sleaze around dawn. It wasn’t his proudest moment, but he’d awakened and found himself running his gaze over the stunning lines of Jude’s sleeping body and as he reached out to touch, he’d panicked.
He’d dressed, shivering, in the stairwell to keep from waking him, then walked slowly out into the gray morning. The sun rose and fought the clouds, a backdrop of orange that seeped in thin streams behind city buildings. The air was so cold from the rain that breathing felt like sucking razor-sharp icicles into his lungs. Remnants of the night’s storm shimmered in puddles everywhere.
The entire drive home, guilt weighed him down like a heavy tarp and it pissed him off. It was an emotion he’d never had time for and to feel it pressing on him now left him feeling off-kilter and angry. He’d left Jude, big body sprawled out, unaware he wasn’t going to wake to give the blow job he’d promised. The one Snow wanted to experience. The man was beautiful, a work of art that had been bathed in the early morning light coming through the one window he had in that tiny apartment. Snow had given a part of himself to him and even though they’d fallen asleep before anything else could happen, what he’d felt in that first connection was something he hadn’t experienced before.
Jamming his fist against his thigh, he glanced at the passing trees, blurry from the continued rain. Everything looked dull and depressing in this weather, but that was just Cincinnati in winter. He needed to focus and stop thinking about Jude. There was an auction coming to Cincinnati and they needed more information if they were going to not only catch fucking Gratton but stop the auction as well. Getting involved clearly meant crossing Jagger’s path, but that seemed inevitable with Gratton back in town. They weren’t going to sit back and do nothing. Not with Mel dead and Ian back in Gratton’s sights. His heart clenched. He couldn’t afford to think about Mel. Giving in to the grief would have to come later when he knew Ian was safe.
The smart thing would be to call the cops in on this. An auction was not something to fuck with, but there wasn’t much to go on and Snow wasn’t willing to let the cops screw this up. Rowe’s hacker and possibly even some of Lucas’s money could get them a little closer, a little more information, and then the cops could come in. Keep them out of it. Well, at least the worst of it. He didn’t want to have to step back into that life, and he definitely didn’t want Jude to ever see that shit again.
