Crush

  Dedication

  For Eric, the man who I have loved, do love, and always will love. You believed in me from the start, even when I wasn’t so sure. Here’s to April 21, 2001, bruised shins, and going out on a limb . . . so glad you did.

  Contents

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Nicole Williams

  Back Ad

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  ONE

  Up, down. Round and around. Rinse and repeat. That was our pattern. That was our world.

  With a guy like Jude Ryder at my side, the lows in life were lower and the highs were higher. This was our reality, our story . . . our love story. We fought; we made up. We messed up; we apologized. We lived; we learned. Jude and I had made a lot of mistakes in the history of our relationship, but one thing we always seemed to get right? Our all-consuming love for each other.

  This was my life.

  And you know what?

  Life was pretty damn good.

  Even despite the fact that I had no clue where I was.

  “What are you up to?” I whispered back to Jude, continuing to let him lead me into the black hole.

  “Something you’ll love,” he replied, squeezing my shoulders as he steered me along. My heels began to echo around me.

  So we were in a tunnel, but what tunnel was totally beyond me, because Jude had made me close my eyes the moment I’d answered the door this evening. Other than driving around in his ancient rumble-wagon of a truck for the better part of a Friday date night, I’d lost my bearings in every way a girl could ever lose them.

  Given the fact that Jude Ryder was my fiancé, my bearings had been a tad off-kilter for the past few years, but they were especially off the grid tonight.

  Did this tunnel have an end? The longer we continued down it, the louder my footsteps echoed around us.

  “Is whatever you’re up to illegal?” I asked, not sure I really wanted to know.

  “Is that a trick question?” he said, sounding amused.

  “Is that a trick answer?”

  He didn’t respond immediately. Instead, I felt his mouth warm the skin at the base of my neck. One full breath out, and one full breath in, slow and deep and suffocating, before his lips grazed the heated patch of skin.

  I tried not to react like his touch was hardwired to drive every bit of me crazy, but even after years together, Jude could still unravel me with one touch. My skin was pricking to life with tiny goose bumps that trailed down to my lower back when his mouth pulled away.

  “There will most certainly be high points tonight that could be classified as illegal in every one of the Bible Belt states,” he said, his voice low with desire. Not quite as rough as it got when he needed me right then and there; it was still restrained enough that I knew he wasn’t going to throw me up against the nearest wall and start fisting up my skirt before we got a step farther. “Does that answer your question?”

  “No,” I said, trying to sound controlled. Trying to sound like he hadn’t made my stomach clench with desire from one kiss. “It doesn’t answer my question. So let’s try this again . . .” I cleared my throat, reminding myself I was trying to sound unaffected. “In whatever never-ending hallway you’re leading me down, toward whatever location you’re aiming to wind up at, could either one of these trespasses be considered illegal if we were to be tried in court?”

  He didn’t make a noise, but I knew he was trying to contain a chuckle. One of those low, rumbling ones that vibrated through my body when he was pressed up against me. “Since you put it that way . . .” he started, stopping me suddenly. His hands left my shoulders and tapped my eyelids. “Yes. It could be. However,” he said, “they’d have to catch us first. Open your eyes, babe.”

  I blinked my eyes a few times to make sure what I was seeing was real.

  After another half dozen blinks, I could be reasonably certain that what my eyes were taking in was, in fact, real.

  We were inside the Carrier Dome, just at the mouth of one of the tunnels. However, this was the dome like I’d never seen it in the past three years of attending almost every home game. At the center of the field, right at the fifty, a blanket was spread out, and what looked like a picnic basket rested in one corner. A smattering of white candles in clear jars were dotted around the blanket. It was still, silent, and peaceful.

  Not the first three words you’d usually use to describe a college football arena.

  And this wasn’t the place a girl expected her fiancé would take her on a big surprise date he’d wanted her to get dressed up for.

  I grinned.

  Not what I’d expected, but exactly what I wanted.

  “What do you think? This worth ‘illegal’?” he asked, winding his arms around my waist and tucking his chin over my shoulder.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the candlelit scene in front of me. A picnic on the fifty-yard line.

  I knew it might not have ranked in the top-ten desired dates for most girls, but it hit the number-one spot for this girl.

  “It’s only illegal if we get caught,” I answered, turning my head so he could see my smile, before breaking free of his arms and jogging over to the blanket.

  This was the first time I’d been down on the field since Jude and I got engaged our freshman year of college, but it really did seem like it had been only a handful of days ago. I’d discovered another one of life’s clichés by being with Jude: The happier you are in life, the faster it passes you by. Life was one sick bastard if happy people were repaid with a life that seemed short. Short life or long life, it didn’t matter—I wasn’t giving up Jude either way.

  At the twenty-five-yard line, I spun around, continuing to jog backward. Jude was still at the mouth of the tunnel, watching me with a grin, appearing as enamored by me as he had on the day he’d confessed his love. That look, more than any of the others, got to me in all the ways a guy’s look was supposed to “get” to his girl.

  I perused the stands one more time to make sure we were alone. It felt so damn open in here, which was unnerving, but how many times could a girl say she’d been with the number-one-ranked college quarterback in the nation right on the fifty-yard line?

  Yeah, this was a once-in-a-lifetime deal, and I wasn’t going to let it pass me by.

  Inhaling a slow breath, I reached for the hem of my sweater and started sliding it up my stomach.

  Jude’s expression changed instantly. His forehead lined deeper and one corner of his mouth twitched.

  Raising a brow, I lifted the rest of my sweater, tugging it over my head and dropping it onto the Astroturf. My adrenaline was pumping. The anticipation of having Jude with me set it off, and the thrill of being here was firing it to new heights.

  Winding my arms behind my back, I unclasped my bra. It snapped free, sliding down my arms to join the sweater at my feet.

  Jude wasn’t looking at my face any longer.

  Wetting his lips, he started toward me.

  I started my backward journey again, flicking him a coy smile. I was going to have fun with him, draw this out. Get even with him for what he so often did to me.

  He stopped as soon as I started moving away, staring at me like he knew exactly what game I was playing and he both lov
ed and hated being a pawn in it.

  Pausing just long enough to step out of my heels, I slid my thumbs under the waist of my skirt and lowered it down my hips, slowing just enough to gather the material of my panties with it. I let both skirt and underwear gather at my ankles.

  Jude’s eyes drifted lower, his chest rising and falling noticeably, even from where I stood thirty yards away from him. When his eyes did shift back to mine, they were dark with one thing.

  Absolute need.

  His body sprang to action as he burst onto the field after me, running at the same pace he did when he was playing a game. I turned and laughed with every step as I ran away from him.

  It was a futile effort, running from Jude—both right now, and in life in general.

  Jude always caught up with me. Sometimes he gave me a head start, but he never let me get too far.

  This time, I barely made it ten yards before I felt his strong arms cinch around me. A shout of surprise punctuated my laughter as he pulled me hard against him. Not only had he managed to cover thirty yards in the time it had taken me to sprint less than a third of that, he’d removed his shirt in the process. The heat coming off his chest warmed my back, and the movement of his muscles against me as he breathed in and out warmed everything else.

  “Going somewhere?” he said, nudging at my neck until I gave him better access to it.

  “Anywhere,” I answered, letting my head fall back against him when his mouth smoothed down the arch of my neck. “As long as you’re with me.”

  I felt his smile against my skin. His hands slid lower, pausing when they reached my hips. “How would you feel about ‘anywhere’ being on that blanket over there?”

  Everything south of my navel tightened. “I’d say even if I wasn’t so sure, you’d keep trying to persuade me,” I said, gliding my hands down his forearms, pausing to weave my fingers through his where they still rested over my hips.

  He pressed harder against my back. “You’d be right,” he said, skimming our hands up my stomach as he steered us toward the blanket. Our hands didn’t stop until they slid beneath one of my breasts, molding around it.

  Nipping at the skin of my neck, he picked up his pace until we were weaving through the glowing candles. At the edge of the blanket, Jude spun me around. His mouth parted, as he sucked in streams of air in quick bursts. This was his tortured look. When he couldn’t have me fast enough.

  It was a look I tried to savor, because it never lasted long. I could only hold Jude off for so long before me, him, or both of us gave up trying to prolong the inevitable.

  “Damn, Luce,” he breathed, stroking my cheek with his hand. “You’re so beautiful.”

  I smiled. Not so much at what he said, but at the way he said it. Jude conveyed his emotions and intentions in words and expressions that did unhealthy things to a girl’s heart. “If you’re trying to convince me with a little foreplay, I’ll let you in on a secret,” I said, winding my arms around the back of his neck. “You’re going to get lucky no matter what you say or do, so you can save the sweet nothings for a time when you’ve pissed me off and are trying to get a little makeup sex.”

  He chuckled, his gray eyes darkening with every passing touch. “I don’t seem to remember it requiring sweet nothings to ever get you—”

  “Oh, shut up already,” I interrupted, smirking up at him.

  One corner of his mouth curved higher. “Why don’t you make me?” he challenged, his gaze dropping to my lips.

  Pressing harder into him, I let my fingers ski down the plane of his stomach, settling on the fly of his jeans. Tugging the button free, I slid my hand inside as my lips covered his mouth, a groan escaping it.

  That shut him right up.

  TWO

  Jude’s head reclined in my lap as he crunched into an apple and stared at the ceiling of the dome. He was still naked from the waist up, but his jeans hadn’t made it all the way off. Apparently we hadn’t been able to justify waiting the three seconds it would have taken to free him of them before we could get down to business.

  We weren’t big believers in delayed gratification.

  I’d wrangled myself back into my sweater and skirt before we’d exchanged one hunger for another and dived into the picnic basket, although my panties and bra still littered the thirty-yard line.

  “Tomorrow’s the big day,” he said around another bite of apple. The air smelled like the tangy sweetness of the fruit in his mouth. Not able to resist, I leaned down to kiss him, wanting to taste the aroma. It was even better combined with the taste of his mouth.

  He was oozing that notorious Jude Ryder ego when I leaned back. He knew what he did to me. And he loved it.

  I loved it too, although I didn’t love how well he knew it.

  “Tomorrow I could be a first-round draft pick, Luce,” he continued, circling my ankle with his fingers. “We could be millionaires in twenty-four hours.”

  I had to force myself not to visibly wince. This talk—the draft, the money, the lifestyle—had been an area of contention this past year with the likelihood of Jude’s being drafted into pro ball. I wasn’t so sure how I felt about it, but Jude was sure enough for both of us.

  Trouble was, his confidence wasn’t rubbing off on me. If anything, the more confident he became, the less I felt. Money had the potential to change things. It had the potential to change people. I was worried about how all that money might change us. I loved him, and me, and us, just the way we were now.

  Jude’s being drafted his junior year of college was a one-in-a-million kind of an opportunity, the kind of thing college players would sell their souls to achieve. But it also meant he’d be dropping out of school. He’d made it this far; a part of me wanted to see him finish his degree—astound all those people back home who’d always pegged him as a high school dropout. Playing in the NFL had been a dream of Jude’s forever. I couldn’t postpone his dream any more than he could mine.

  “From dining on peanut-butter sandwiches tonight to twenty-ounce, grade-A prime filet tomorrow night,” he continued, his face almost glowing as his eyes drifted off to money-land. “We could get a new place, a new fancy-ass car. We could take a vacation to Hawaii. Fly first-class and shit. Think about it, Luce. Anything we want, we can have. Anytime we want it. No more scrambling around getting grease under our fingernails or waiting tables late at night to pay the electric bill.” He paused, a contented smile settling deeper into his face. “We could have it all, baby.”

  I swallowed. “I thought we already did.” My voice sounded sadder than I meant it to.

  The skin between Jude’s eyebrows puckered. “What do you mean?” he asked, his gaze zeroing in on me.

  “I thought we already had it all,” I repeated. “I’ve been on both sides of the money line, and the only thing it changes is your zip code. It can’t make you happy if you weren’t without it.”

  “Well, I’ve been on the losing side of the money game my whole life, and I know for a fact that money can make your life better if you can’t even find enough quarters in the couch cushions to do a load of laundry at the local Suds N’ Wash.” Dropping his apple to the side, he sat up and turned until he was facing me. The candlelight flickered around him, shadowing the crevasses of his muscles, highlighting the peaks of them, and made the sharp lines of his jaw even more defined. A man like Jude shouldn’t be classified as beautiful, but in moments like this, he kind of was.

  Jude Ryder. My beautiful fiancé.

  He was waiting for me to respond.

  “Okay, so money can make your life better if you’re destitute,” I said, prying my eyes from where they traced the grooves of his ab muscles. “But we’re not destitute, Jude. We’re college students with a roof over our heads, gasoline in our tanks, ramen noodles in our cupboards, and shirts on our backs. I couldn’t imagine being any happier than I am right now, and if it was possible, money would certainly be the last thing on that list that could make me more so.” I grabbed the plastic wineglass Ju
de had filled from a cheap bottle of sparkling wine and took a sip. It was delicious. I was as happy with a five-dollar bottle of sparkling wine from the drugstore as I would have been with the finest bottle of champagne money could buy.

  “No, we’re not destitute, but we’re not thriving in the money department either, Luce,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling it into his lap. “And you’re right that money couldn’t make me happier than I am right now.” He smiled so big it made the scar on his cheek pucker. “But it does mean I can finally be rid of my piece-of-shit truck and get a jacked-up, three-hundred-and-fifty-horsepower jet-black monster truck.”

  I rolled my eyes and shoved at him.

  “And we can trade in that little go-kart of yours for a zippy convertible,” he continued.

  “I like my Mazda,” I muttered, plucking a grape free from the vine and popping it into my mouth.

  “And we can afford a house with a room for each day of the year, with so many maids and butlers you wouldn’t have to lift a finger again. Unless it was to call for a fresh-squeezed orange juice.” He was really on a roll, the words spilling out of his mouth as his eyes sparkled with the visions. My own eyes were narrowing as my stomach twisted.

  “Money changes people, Jude,” I whispered, staring into my cup.

  We were silent as we let that settle between us.

  “That’s what you’re worried about?” he said, his voice soft. “That the money will change you?”

  I shook my head, focusing on the bubbles that crept up the sides of the cup. “No,” I said, before looking into his eyes. “That it will change you.”

  His eyes narrowed for the shortest second before they widened with understanding. Winding an arm around my neck, he pulled me to him. “Come here,” he whispered outside my ear, wrapping his other arm around my back. “The only thing that could change me is you, Luce,” he said. “You, not anything else. Mountains of money included.” I heard the grin in his voice. “No matter what happens tomorrow or how many millions they throw at me, I’m the same guy I am right now.” He rubbed my back, pressing slow circles into my spine. “I’ll just be picking you up in a truck you won’t be embarrassed to be seen in.”