Crush

  He groaned. “Hell yes.”

  “Sounds like it’s a ‘hell yes’ kind of night.”

  He hung his neck lower, giving me better access. “Hell yes.”

  It’d been dark for a while, but we’d watched the sun set earlier and it was a sight I knew I’d never forget. I was starting to understand what the tens of millions of people who lived here saw in the place.

  “Could you imagine doing this every night?” I said, working over a nasty knot around his shoulder blade. “Tacos and cheap beer on the beach?”

  “Sounds like one hell of a life, Luce,” he replied. “I’d be down with that.”

  “I saw a little beachfront house for rent a little way down the beach. We should rent it for a few nights during Christmas break and then we could watch the sun set every night.” Having successfully worked out one knot, I moved to the next one.

  “Sold,” he said. “You, me, Christmas, beach, sunset. Where do I sign?”

  I leaned over his shoulder as I continued to knead his back. “Right here.”

  His lips brushed over mine.

  “I can’t tell if these are all knots,” I said, shifting behind him again, “or if they’re insanely hard muscles, but you’ve definitely got something that needs working out.”

  He chuckled as I got back to work on a knot that was as big as my fist.

  “What?”

  “Luce,” he said, grabbing one of my hands and winding it around his waist. “I’ve always got something that needs working out.” My hand brushed down his jeans until he settled it over something that felt as hard as the muscles I was trying to relieve.

  “A girl’s job is never done,” I said, gripping him.

  He turned his head, his mouth searching for mine, but I had other plans. Popping up, I pulled the hoodie over my head.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, his eyes going dark as they skimmed my body.

  Reaching for the string at the center of my back, I gave it a tug. “I’m going to work something out right here on the beach.”

  “Here?” His voice went an octave higher. “No. No, you’re not.” His words might have been against it, but his eyes weren’t. “Besides, beach sex is highly overrated.”

  I leveled him with my stare.

  “From what I’ve heard,” he added, giving me a tilted smile, “sand gets in all sorts of places it shouldn’t.”

  Grabbing the tie around my neck, I tugged on it. “I’m not planning on having sex in the sand,” I said, letting my top fall to the sand. Jude swallowed. “I’m more of a water girl.”

  Without another word, I started for the thundering waves.

  “There’s sharks and shit out there, Luce,” he called after me.

  I smiled as I continued on my merry way. How far would he let me get before he couldn’t stay away? Skimming my fingers into my swimsuit bottoms, I slid them down my body.

  Once they were littering the beach, I turned toward him.

  He swallowed again and stood up. His Cons were already off.

  “Then you’d better come save me,” I called back. “From the sharks and shit.” Giving a wave and a shake, I turned and bounded toward the water.

  Jude cursed behind me, and a glance over my shoulder revealed he was peeling his clothes off as quickly as clothes could be peeled. I was up to my knees before the water temperature registered. Cold barely described it. Mental note number one million and one: The ocean is more pleasurable from the beach than from the water.

  “Ah! Shit! That’s cold!” Jude exploded into the water, sprinting toward me. His arms wound around me after another round of curse hollering. Pressing my back to his chest, he spun me to face him.

  “I guess I didn’t really think this out,” I shrieked, laughing. Damn, this water was really too cold to even think about getting hot and heavy in.

  Jude slowed and settled me back down, but his arms didn’t loosen. They tightened. He pulled me harder to him, his warmth running against my back and down lower. His hips flexed against my backside. I exhaled.

  “I take that back,” I said as I wound my arms behind his neck. “I totally thought this out.”

  I felt his smile on my neck before his tongue took its place. Jude’s hands traveled up my stomach until they found my breasts.

  “Nice tan lines,” he breathed into my neck.

  “I worked on them all day,” I replied, letting my head fall back against him. As his hands and mouth moved over me, I no longer felt the chill of the water. There was nothing but warmth. A heat that ran so deep I felt it in every nerve.

  One of his hands moved from my chest and trailed down my stomach. When it paused below my belly button, his finger moved against me. My breath hitched in my lungs.

  “And I’m planning on working on you all night.”

  ELEVEN

  I was so sick of saying good-bye at airports. If Jude had asked me to stay with him, I would have happily missed my flight.

  I’d blinked and two days and two nights had passed. I knew the next couple of weeks before Jude was scheduled to fly out to New York would pass like each day was a year.

  “Luce?” Jude popped his head back inside the truck after he’d grabbed my suitcase out of the bed. “Not that I’d mind, but if we don’t hustle, you’re going to miss your flight.”

  I held in my sigh and put on a brave face. Scooting down the seat, I patted the steering wheel. “Lots of good memories in this old rust can,” I said. “Don’t go and scrap it while I’m gone.”

  Jude shook his head as he grabbed my hand and slammed the door. “What do you see in this piece of shit?” he said, kicking the back tire as we walked through the garage.

  I smiled to myself before answering. “I like things a little rough around the edges. Besides, it’s what’s inside that counts.”

  “‘It’s what’s inside that counts,’” he repeated. “Who said that?”

  “Some guy I know.” I tucked my shoulder under his arm and wrapped my arm behind him.

  “He sounds amazing,” he said, grinning at me from the side.

  I made a face and motioned my hand in a so-so way.

  He chuckled, checking both ways before we crossed the road to the terminal. “That’s not what you were saying last night,” he said.

  I pinched his side. “I wasn’t saying much, that I recall.”

  “No, you weren’t saying much. There was a shitload of moaning, though.”

  This earned him a few harder pinches.

  “‘Jude,’” he cried out, channeling me last night. “‘Yes! Yes! Yes! You’re amazing!’” I couldn’t even pretend to be irritated with him. I was laughing so damn hard tears started to leak out of the corners of my eyes. “‘Jude . . . Amazing . . . Ryder! Yes! Yes! Yeeeeesss!’”

  He was causing a scene as we approached curbside check-in, but I was too hysterical to mind. My giant fiancé was bouncing, shaking, and shouting, not caring what anyone thought.

  “Control yourself,” I ordered amid my laughter, swatting his arm. “And if your performance is any indicator of what I act like during sex, I must look like a hippo about to give birth.”

  Dropping the Lucy Larson Orgasming Show, he laughed with me. “Nah.” He laughed one more note before his expression changed. “It’s the damn sexiest thing I’ve ever experienced, Luce.”

  Thankfully his words were no louder than a whisper, but as we approached the ticket counter, I was sure the heat rushing into my face, paired with Jude’s crooked smile, gave away the gist of what he’d just whispered into my ear.

  From the sly smile on the employee’s face, he caught more than just the gist.

  While I waited for my ticket, Jude handed my suitcase off and gave the guy a hefty tip. It was only a month ago when that tip would have paid for a movie-and-dinner date.

  The ticket counter employee handed me my ticket, but he had eyes for no one but Jude. I knew that look, but it was weird sharing it with middle-aged males.

  “You’
re Jude Ryder,” the employee said, looking, sounding, and acting starstruck. “Aren’t you?”

  Shoving his hands in his pockets, Jude winked over at me. “Jude Amazing Ryder,” he managed with a straight face. I couldn’t perform the same feat.

  Coming up behind me, Jude wrapped his arms around me. “What’s so funny?” he teased.

  Thrusting a pen and a newspaper at us, the poor guy looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel. It was so odd the way people treated Jude now, like they idolized him. “Could I have your autograph?” His voice was shaky.

  “You bet,” Jude answered, uncapping the pen as the employee unfolded the front page of the local newspaper. On it was a huge photograph of a man and a woman at night. In the ocean. Bare-ass naked.

  “Shit,” I murmured, twisting in Jude’s arms, hoping he hadn’t seen it yet.

  Nothing good would come of Jude seeing this.

  His eyes were locked on the picture, like he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. The confusion shifted toward red-faced anger in the time it took me to plant my hands on either side of his face.

  “Jude,” I said, trying to sound calm. Trying to be calm for him, when I felt anything but. Calm was impossible when a full-frontal naked shot of me was plastered on who knew how many thousands of papers. “It’s all right. Calm down,” I continued, trying to get his eyes to focus on mine. But they would not look away from the picture below the headline, “Ryder Has Game Both On and Off the Field.” The photographer must have snapped the picture right when he’d joined me in the water and spun me around. Other than his face and arms, that was all of Jude the stupid pap had caught. But with me, they’d had to make use of the photo-blur tool in a couple of places.

  Jude snatched the paper from the man’s hand and glowered at him. “What the hell is this?” Rolling it up, Jude stuffed the paper into the back of his pants and waited.

  Once the employee realized Jude wasn’t going to move until he got an answer, he shrugged. “A newspaper.” He had the decency to look ashamed.

  “That’s not a newspaper,” Jude said, seething. The muscles of his jaw rolled beneath my hands. “That’s a naked picture of my fiancée.”

  Dammit. His face had just gone from red to purple. Soon we’d be past the point where anything I could do would talk him down.

  “You got any more of those back there?” Rushing behind the counter, Jude inspected the area. I followed him.

  “Jude,” I said, “stop.”

  “No, no,” the employee said, raising his hands. I could tell he hadn’t meant any disrespect when he’d asked Jude to sign a naked photo of him and me, but I also knew the man would never, ever try something like this again.

  “Who else has one of these?” Jude demanded after he was satisfied no more newspapers were stuffed behind the counter.

  The man looked from Jude to me with his brows knitted together, his expression reading, Seriously? “Whoever subscribes to or picked up a Sunday paper today?” he suggested, slinking away from Jude.

  Smart move.

  Just then, Jude’s gaze drifted inside the terminal, where a man in a suit was depositing quarters into a . . .

  Shit.

  Jude turned and sprinted away before I could offer an apologetic smile to the ticketing employee.

  “Jude!” I shouted as I entered the terminal. In addition to good-byes, I was also sick of making scenes.

  He didn’t glance back—he didn’t even slow down—he just kept barreling at the man who was just lifting the vending machine door to grab his morning paper. Before he’d had a chance to unfold it, Jude was on him.

  Shit, shit.

  I was running now, too, but was still a hundred feet away.

  Snatching the paper out of the man’s hands, Jude towered over him, glowering like he was the one responsible for my teeth, tits, and toes winding up on the front page.

  “Jude!” I yelled louder this time, trying to get his attention.

  It worked. His glare shifted toward me for the shortest moment, but it was enough. Jude’s shoulders were lowering and the rage on his face had dimmed as I got to him.

  Panting from my two-hundred-meter dash, I laced my hands around his forearm. “Deep breath in,” I instructed. “Deep breath out. Think.” I took my own breath, watching his chest rise and fall. “Think.”

  When I was certain Jude wasn’t going to hammer the guy into the ground, I loosened my grip on his arm. “Sorry about that,” I said, addressing the man, who was gawking at Jude like he was a tiger who had escaped the zoo. However, he didn’t look scared, just intrigued. This guy had no survival instincts whatsoever.

  “Might I suggest tempering that anger of yours with some yoga and meditation, young man,” the guy said, in an incredibly unflustered voice. Like he hadn’t just been charged by two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle and fury.

  Quirking a brow, he inspected Jude one more moment before turning and heading on his merry, no-survival-instinct way.

  “Dammit, Jude,” I hissed, snatching the paper out of his hands. “Could you act any more unbalanced?”

  He didn’t need to answer me. We both already knew the answer to that.

  Watching the man in the suit meander away, Jude inhaled. “Can you believe this?”

  “What? Yoga and meditation?” I said, hoping to lighten the mood. “Sounds like it might work wonders for that temper of yours.”

  When Jude turned to me, his eyes narrowing even more, I realized lightening the mood wasn’t on the agenda for the day. “Not the yoga shit,” he said, flashing the stolen newspaper in front of my face. “This shit.”

  I winced when I looked at the picture again. That photographer could not have been in a better position. If my hair was two shades lighter and my boobs three sizes bigger, I could have been a Playmate.

  “Oh,” I said, hoping my parents never saw this spread. I mean . . . photo. “That shit. Yeah, that sucks.”

  “‘That sucks’?” Jude couldn’t have looked more flabbergasted by my blasé attitude. Truth be told, of course I was pissed as pissed could be, but what could I do? It was out there, on lord only knew how many thousands of doorsteps and briefcases. My losing my cool wouldn’t help Jude hold whatever he had left of his. I needed to control myself for him, because it was apparent he couldn’t do it for himself.

  “‘That sucks’?” he repeated, slapping the photo with his hand. “You’re naked for the whole goddamned world to see, Luce. My fiancée is going to be the fantasy of every jerk-off in the county tonight. And you have nothing more to say than ‘That sucks’?”

  I counted to five before answering, because the reply that wanted to roll right off my tongue wasn’t going to help calm him down. It would have done the opposite. Calm, calm, calm, I reminded myself before replying.

  “Is there another word you’d like me to use to describe it?” I asked, working to keep my voice flat. “Is there a certain way you’d like me to be acting right now?” Good job, Lucy. Keep the temper in its cage. “So if ‘that sucks’ doesn’t work for you, how would you describe it?”

  “This is fucking war,” he said, his eyes onyx.

  Shit. He was a rare shade of pissed.

  Pulling his phone from his pocket, he punched in a number at the same time he charged toward the newspaper vending machine. He could have been about to beat the crap out of it, just as much as he could have been about to light it on fire. When Jude was in the rage zone, I never knew what he might do. The only thing I knew was that the end result was never a good one.

  However, what he did next wasn’t even on my top-ten list. Jamming a few quarters into the machine, he dropped the door and, instead of tearing the machine to pieces, he grabbed the entire stack of newspapers in his arms.

  Okay, he was in the rage zone that leaned more toward crazy than angry.

  That was just as bad, if not worse.

  “Jude,” I hissed, glaring at a few people who’d stopped to watch the show, “what in the hell are you doing?”


  “I’m taking every goddamn newspaper in this machine,” he answered, depositing his armload into the closest garbage can, “and then I’m going to go find every other newspaper machine in the airport and do the same. And then I’m going to every damn newspaper machine in the city and destroy every last one of these motherfuckers until the only copy left is the one I own.”

  My mouth was open. It had dropped at some point during his little speech, but I wasn’t sure when.

  “Hammon,” Jude seethed into the phone. I felt sorry for whoever was on the other end. “You checked out the morning paper—”

  Jude’s face darkened. “If you don’t go shred that front page right the hell now you will not be my agent by lunchtime.”

  He was quiet for a few seconds while Hammon was saying or doing who knew what. I didn’t doubt he was actually shredding the paper now. Given Jude’s annual salary and multiyear contract, Hammon could retire a happy man in five years’ time if he played his cards right and didn’t piss Jude Ryder off.

  “Done?” Jude said, crossing his arms.

  Damn, he’d really been waiting while Hammon shredded my porn-o-rific photo.

  “As soon as I’m off the phone with you, I want you to call the newspaper and I want you to find out the name, address, and phone number of the editor, the owner, the asshole writer who wrote this thing, and the photographer who’s about to be a dead man.”

  Just when I thought he’d worked past the extreme temper, I was reminded how Jude’s anger ran deep. It was like a volcano: dormant most of the time, but when it exploded . . . it really exploded. Jude’s past made anger a part of his present and future; that was the fact. However, he had a choice about whether he let that anger rule his life. Up until now, he’d done a hell of a job keeping it contained. Well, controlled, at least. But now he was really losing his shit in a scary way.

  “Why?” Jude said, cracking his neck. “Is that a question you’re sure you want to ask me?”