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I sank down on the bed as Baron left.What did I want?
That was easy. I wanted Jude. Over me, under me, in my bed, against a wall. I wanted more than sex, though. I wanted her conversation and her smiles and the roll of her eyes when I did something stupid. I wanted movie cuddles and drunk dancing and sexy texts. I wanted the way she called me Galen, while everyone else shortened it to Gale.
So, what was my fucking problem? It was like Ezra had said—they set me up for success and I flunked, anyway. Was it that I wanted her all to myself?
Lying back on the bed, I stared at the ceiling and forced myself to consider the question. It didn’t take long to arrive at an answer. Of course, I fucking wanted her to myself. Some primitive part of me wanted to drag her off to my cave and never let her go.
But if clinging to that fantasy of exclusivity meant I’d never have her, never experience all of Jude? Was it something I required?
Baron and Ezra were closer than friends to me. Baron, in particular, had picked me up and held me together in the years before and after my mother’s death, refusing to allow me to act on my impulse to self-destruct. He knew me, inside and out. Ezra was challenge when I was being stupid, refusal to allow anything other than my best self. I could trust them with the woman I was growing more bewitched by every day. I knew this.
More, I wanted for them to experience the same rise and fall of emotion as I did, even though it was currently making me sick to my stomach. They deserved to feel that sense of completion and wholeness that I was refusing to allow myself.
The sick, panicky feeling in my stomach eased as the realization settled. I could do this. I wanted to do this. She was enough—more than enough—for all of us.
But was this really all it was?
Baron had tap danced around the issue of my mother on multiple occasions. I knew, especially after I’d gone to the hospital, that it was a problem. Something about Jude triggered me where my memories of Mom were concerned in a way no other girl ever had.
And maybe that was it. She made me remember. Brought back the memories of good days, before she’d been injured and lost herself to opiates.Before she chose them, over me. Jude was a woman. She was sweet and sassy and caring… and she was forcing me to care. To let her in, despite the fear that it could all go horribly wrong one day.
I dropped my head into my hands. I was such an idiot. She had already wiggled her way in. She was already there. No amount of pushing her away would correct that.
And I didn’t want to. Not anymore.
I stood from the bed. I needed to find her. I needed to apologize. If necessary, I’d get on my fucking knees for her.
∞∞∞
The laundry room was in the basement of our dorm, a large concrete room with a partition down the center to separate the washers and dryers. It was painted a stark white, the walls littered here and there with colorful graffiti more appropriate to a bathroom. There were five washers and five dryers, and while it was usually a busy place, tonight it was empty save for Jude. A lone washing machine ran in the far back corner of the room.
She looked up as I walked in, and stood from where she had been sitting in one of the blue plastic chairs that sat around a folding table on the dryer side. “What do you want?” She crossed her arms over her chest and stuck her chin out.
I stepped into her space and looked down at her, this fierce girl I had decided to call mine, and prayed she’d be willing to let me. “I’ve been an idiot, Jude.”
She blinked, her eyelids fluttering open and closed over her eyes. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I imagine I do.” I turned and walked back to the open door, smiling a little as I heard Jude splutter behind me. It was time I suited actions to words, and I didn’t want an accidental audience. Closing the door, I inspected it for a lock and found none. There was a rubber stopper, though, and I pushed that into the space between the door and floor to keep the door closed.
I returned to Jude, stooping slightly to place my hands on the curve of flesh separating ass from thigh and lifting her up. Her breath hitched and her legs went around my waist automatically. She clutched at my shoulders as I started moving. “Wh-what are you doing?”
“Apologizing. Clarifying things.” I set her down on a washer toward the back of the room and bent my head to kiss her once, lightly, upon her mouth. “Being more specific.”
My hands went to the hem of her shirt and she gasped as I wrenched it efficiently over her head, tossing it to the washer next to us. I looked down at her, covered in a silky, nude colored bra. I could see her nipples through the half-transparent fabric, eager supplicants standing tall, and bent to place my face between and then against them, first one and then the next. “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice muffled against her skin. “I’m sorry I ever made you believe that you weren’t wanted.” I kissed the swell of her breast, moving leisurely up to her neck. “I want you. I want this. So much.”
“You want me?” She repeated, grasping my cheeks in both hands and holding me away from her. “You want us?” Narrowed eyes held mine, refusing to let me run away again. I was done running, though. “Be clear. Be specific.”
“More than anything,” I answered. I told her a version of what I’d been thinking earlier. “I want you in my bed. In my dorm, or house, or wherever I am. I want you in my life, whether it’s with me, or Baron, or Ezra. I’m not gonna lie, I’m jealous as hell every time they look at you. But I’m working on it. I want us, with whatever crazy that entails.” Her lips were parted, the perfect bow of that mouth pink and plump. I tasted her again, a press of lips to lips, a teasing lick at the seam. “Tell me it’s not too late. I...” My voice cracked and I lowered my forehead to hers. “I think I’ve just been scared. Terrified that I’ll fall in love with you and then you’ll leave… whether it’s for someone else or some other reason.”
“Like your mother?” I frowned in confusion.How did she know?“Baron told me the bare essentials. I’d like to hear the whole story sometime, though.”
I nodded. I didn’t feel the resentment I thought I would at having someone else know my story. I actually wanted her to know it. But first... “We’ll talk about it,” I said. “I promise. But first… I really want to kiss you. That mouth of yours has been making me sweat since you moved in.”
She smiled, a seductive curl of her mouth. “Then kiss me, already.”
I didn’t wait for any further invitation, but dove into her mouth. We were a clash of teeth and tongue and lips, my hands tangling in her hair. I pulled her ponytail, baring her neck to my roving mouth, and nipped and sucked my way down to her collarbone, where I lingered until she shivered. With her head tipped back and her frame racked by a fine trembling, I swept my hands along the stretch of skin from the nape of her neck down the blades of her shoulders until they reached her ribs. She was small enough for my hands to cover the span of her mid-back, my thumbs curling around to the front to trace her ribs and settle at the undersides of her breasts. Covering one with my hand, I dipped to take the other in my mouth, sucking hard at her nipple until she rewarded me with a husky cry.
Her hands tore at my shirt, pulling first from the shoulders before moving to tug at the hem. I released her long enough to pull it over my head and let it fall to the floor. Then her hands were on my shoulders, sweeping their breadth before sliding down over my chest and abdominals. I sucked in my breath as her fingers played across the muscle, finding and lingering on the faint trail of hair just above my waistline.
