Say It's Forever, page 8
Jud: How about a pic of that gorgeous face to save with your number?
Disbelief slid into my grin. This guy was something.
Me: I don’t think that’s a good idea.
Jud: I think it’s a great idea. I’ll even return the favor.
Could feel the mischief woven in the words. Temptation and a trap.
Shit. This man was trying to do me in. I hesitated, my tongue stroking my suddenly dried lips. In an instant, I was parched. I glanced around the darkened room like I was doing something criminal, then I tapped out the message and pushed send before I could think better of it.
Me: Fine. But if you send a dick pic, I will stab you.
My eyes nearly bugged out of my head when I saw his response.
Jud: Don’t worry, darlin’. You see my cock for the first time? It’s going to be face-to-face.
Desire blistered through my body. Flames lapping at my flesh as I thought of what that might be like. I swore, I was burning up.
I blamed it on going without for so long.
Blamed it on my fear of being seen.
On my fear of being touched.
And right then? In the sanctuary of the words of this man?
It was the only thing I wanted.
To be touched.
To be seen.
To feel real.
I was wearing a light-blue satin pajama set. The bottoms were shorts and the top was a short-sleeved button up. I opened my phone camera and saw my face in the reflection. My eyes were dilated, and my cheeks were flushed.
All bad news.
Still, like a fool, I leaned back against the arm of the couch, let my hair fall around my shoulders, unbuttoned the first button of my sleep shirt, and lifted the camera high.
I snapped a shot that captured my face, my shoulders, the skin of my chest, the barest brush of cleavage showing through.
In the shadows, it appeared…sexy.
Or maybe it was just the way Jud Lawson made me feel.
Real since the moment my spirit had gone dim.
With trembling hands, I pressed send before I thought better of it. Before I let myself contemplate the dangerous game I was playing.
Jud: Fuckin’ gorgeous. Thought I had to be dreaming when I saw you in the rain.
Another message came in right behind the last.
Jud: Tell me one thing, darlin’. Did you feel it? Did you feel it last night?
He didn’t even have to clarify what it was. Not when it’d been so vibrant and bold. The crash of energy. The crackle of attraction.
The shaking in my hands intensified, and I knew I should lie, tell him goodbye, that I couldn’t keep up with whatever we were doing.
It was only going to hurt in the end.
But what did I do? I typed out the confession on a needy breath.
Me: Yes.
A second later, a picture popped through.
And that needy breath was punching from my lungs. Jud was there as promised, lying back in this massive bed fit for a king.
Black hair long on top and cropped at the sides, a thick black beard, those eyes piercing me in the night. Every rugged edge of his face was on display, those plush lips curved into a smirk.
He’d sent the same angle as I’d sent him.
Just enough of his chest showed to make lust fist in my stomach. It overflowed like the rush of hot lava where it tingled my thighs and pulsed my center.
My teeth clenched, my eyes devouring every inch. There wasn’t enough light to make out the obscured tattoos that covered him whole, though I could tell the images were as mysterious as the man. Certainly drawn by the same artist who’d painted the pictures on his walls.
A dichotomy of demonic and angelic.
A war of dark and light.
A clash of evil and hope.
A fresh rush of desire streaked through my veins when another text buzzed through.
Jud: What I wouldn’t do to that tight little body…
And that was it, all I could take. I was on my feet and tiptoeing to that little bathroom. I shut the door and locked it behind me. Gasping, I leaned against the wood.
Darius was right.
I didn’t have enough privacy.
Not when I was feeling things I hadn’t felt in four long years.
Well, probably in ever.
It was something the trauma had turned sour, ugly and vile, that now boiled like bliss in my blood.
I set the phone on the counter and pressed my hands on either side of it, dropped my head as I tried to get a cleansing breath.
But I might as well have been breathing him in with the way I was assaulted with the memory of the man.
His aura filled my senses.
Citrus and cinnamon and spice.
I raised my gaze and saw my reflection through the shadows in the mirror. The room dark except for the nightlight plugged into the wall to the side of the sink.
My pupils were wide, my skin flushed, my tongue dried.
I wavered, teetered, torn between refusing the visions and giving into the fantasy.
To this feeling that lapped and burned and begged.
I spread my hand over my trembling belly, no longer recognizing myself.
Jud had ignited something long gone.
Flames and sparks and fire.
I should run from them. Fear them.
I slipped lower, whimpering when my hand slid beneath my underwear, where I found myself wet and throbbing. My fingertips brushed over my clit.
That fire spread.
I bit my lip to suppress a moan, and I squeezed my eyes closed and welcomed the visions of the man.
His scent.
His eyes.
That body.
That mouth.
I pretended it was him kneeling in front of me when I pressed my fingers into my pussy. Pretended it was his tongue that stroked. His mouth that whispered and sent my entire body quaking in ecstasy.
I gasped as I came, shocked, stunned, the ground slipping out from under me.
My eyes flew open when my phone buzzed on the counter and another message blipped through.
Jud: You touching yourself, Sweet Enchantress? Because you can be sure that I am.
SEVEN
SALEM
THIRTEEN YEARS OLD
“Oh my god, Salem, he is the hottest ever.” Talia whispered the scandal as she hugged the heart-shaped pink pillow to her chest. Salem and her best friend sat facing each other with their legs crisscrossed on Salem’s bed, their voices hushed, the hour late.
Scandalous, was right.
Furtively, Salem’s gaze darted toward her closed door as if he might be right there with his ear pressed to her door, listening to their conversation.
Salem’s heart thudded at the idea, and her stomach tangled in a knot. She couldn’t tell if it was in a good or bad way.
“Shh.” Salem leaned forward with the secret. “Someone’s gonna hear you. They’re right in the next room.”
About twenty minutes ago, Darius had stumbled in after a party with his friend Carlo.
Talia grinned and widened her eyes. “Um, hello. That’s the goal.”
Salem poked Talia’s knee, her words held low as they squeezed from between her lips. “He is way too old for you…and he’s my brother’s best friend.”
“Even better. Older men are more experienced.”
Salem’s nose curled. “Gross. And he’s…”
She didn’t know how to frame the words. The unsettled feeling that swept through her each time Carlo was around.
“A Greek God? An Italian Adonis? Do you need me to go on?”
Salem rolled her eyes. “That was sufficient, thank you.”
Giggling, Talia scooted off the edge of the bed and shimmied over to the dressing table mirror, checking herself out as she swept a tube of shimmery gloss over her lips. She smacked them before she looked at Salem from over her shoulder. “And who cares how old he is. I mean, I look way older, don’t I?”
Through the dim twinkle lights strung along the edges of Salem’s ceiling, she nodded. They both did.
But Salem knew better. For years, Darius had chased her off, warning her to stay away from him and his friends.
She knew better than letting her thoughts traipse that direction.
Not that she wanted them to go there, anyway.
Right?
Deep laughter echoed through the walls.
Her stomach did that tilting thing again.
Talia held a squeal and beelined back to her, jumping onto her bed and landing on her knees. “Did you hear that? Even his laugh is hot.” Her eyes nearly rolled back in her head before she flopped dramatically onto her back. “Too bad he’s already in love with you.”
Salem’s chest tightened, and she rushed to say, “Stop being stupid.”
Talia pushed on Salem’s arm with her toe. “Only when you stop being blind.”
Talia had passed out in the middle of a sentence ten minutes before, just like she did almost every time she spent the night.
Mimi always joked that her best friend had an on and off switch. Come six a.m., she’d pop right back up at full speed.
Salem had slinked out without waking her to use the bathroom, brushed her teeth, then twisted her hair into the braid she wore to sleep.
Flicking off the bathroom light, Salem slipped out the door and back into the darkened hall, her bare feet quieted as she tiptoed for her door.
She stilled with the presence that fell over her from behind.
Close. Close. Closer.
The hairs at her nape shivered and lifted, and she gulped, gathering herself to turn around.
Carlo stood right behind her.
Talia was right. He was hot. Tall and thin but strong. Mostly a man. He’d stopped going to school two months ago, which she’d heard Mimi lecturing Darius about just yesterday.
Carlo was a bad influence.
Trouble, she’d said.
And Mimi didn’t want Darius hanging around him as much as he used to. Obviously, Darius wasn’t quick to listen, but it was hard to blame him when Carlo had been his best friend since they’d moved in with Mimi all those years ago.
Carlo’s short black hair was wavy, and even in the middle of the night, it appeared styled. His clothes and car expensive and flashy. His eyes as sharp as his jaw.
With a wry smile, he leaned against the wall. “What are you doing out here, sneaking around in the middle of the night?”
Salem’s heart thundered like crazy, but she managed to send him a scowl. “I could ask the same about you.”
He laughed a low, rolling sound that vibrated on the dense air. “Ah, bambola, it’s my job to sneak around. And yours is to be sweet.”
He grinned when he said it, a joke she didn’t understand.
Salem suddenly felt trapped, though she let her voice fill with defiance as she lifted her chin. “This is my house. I’m no concern of yours.”
He reached out and ran his fingertips along her jaw. “That is where you are wrong.”
Trembles rocked through her. She was pretty sure they weren’t the good kind.
“Carlo.”
Salem jolted when she heard the voice, and she stumbled back far enough that she could see Mimi at the head of the hall.
“I think your momma is probably wondering where you are. You should go home.” Mimi’s voice was harder than she’d ever heard it.
Carlo roughed a chuckle, so casual, like he didn’t care at all about the cut of bitterness in her words. He just angled forward, whispered, “One day, pupa…one day,” before he turned and eased down the hall, dipping his head in a faked pleasantry at her mimi as he passed.
The door opened and rattled shut behind him.
Mimi’s face was red. “Stay away from him, Salem. As far away as you can.”
Frantic, Salem nodded. “Okay, Mimi. I will. I promise.”
EIGHT
JUD
It was early Monday morning when I was down in the lobby searching for some paperwork that probably didn’t exist.
The place was a fuckin’ disaster, stacks of forms and receipts and shit piled for days.
Okay.
Months.
It was no secret I’d let this shit get out of hand.
Suffice it to say I wasn’t paying much mind when the black pickup truck rolled into the lot. It was early, yeah. Just after seven. But I figured Darius was getting a jump on his day.
Except it pulled into a spot on the opposite side of the lot from where he normally parked, the truck facing away, and it was a hot second before the driver’s door finally opened.
A very hot second.
Because it wasn’t Darius climbing out.
It was Salem.
That girl straight devastation.
A gift wrapped in a black, seductive bow.
I froze, watching her through the bank of dark-tinted windows that fronted the lobby.
That ebony hair was curled into these fat waves that danced all over her shoulders, and there was no missing the way nerves scattered around her as she hesitated for a beat. She glanced around like she was hoping this little visit was covert, girl inhaling deep before she seemed to get it together and started walking across the parking lot toward the building.
“Fuck me.”
Today she was wearing these fitted black dress pants that hit her just above the ankles, the waist high with a silky, baby blue blouse tucked into it. Sky-high heels and red lipstick and fuck…my dick stirred, guts tangling at the sight.
This girl was a motherfuckin’ knockout.
A fantasy.
A dream.
Everything that I knew better than to want but was thirsting for, anyway.
Wanting her went directly against every commitment I’d made for myself.
Went against the grain of what I was striving for.
Against everything Darius had asked of me.
But I couldn’t seem to find it in myself to give a shit about either of those things.
Definitely problematic.
Figured she was there to argue about her car, which kind of sucked, but she was just going to have to accept I wanted to do the favor.
Didn’t mean she owed me.
It just meant I was offering something easy. Something that wasn’t going to hurt me a bit but clearly would give her a leg up.
Searching, she lifted her face to the building. Her lips puckered in confusion as she changed directions. She started toward the row of bays that ran the opposite side that were currently all locked up tight.
When she disappeared from view of the lobby windows, I pushed out from behind the counter and moved for the main door. Pushing it open, I stepped out into the warmth of the breaking day.
I looked to the right in the direction she’d gone, and the girl was strutting in those heels down the row of garage doors.
“You lost?” I leaned an arm against the wall, grinning that way as she whirled around on a sharp gasp, her face curdled in surprise before she blew out in relief.
Thunderbolt eyes narrowed.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to sneak up on someone like that?” Her voice was doing that low, seductive thing, and need was grappling around for a place to take root in my belly.
Growling for a fill.
Rough laughter scraped free. “Sneak up on you? I’m fifty feet away. Would hardly call that sneaking up. I saw you out here rambling around and figured I’d come put you out of your misery.”
“I was looking for your door.” She waved a flustered hand at the massive building.
I quirked a brow. “To my loft?”
Reluctantly, she nodded, like standing there she was rethinking her purpose. “Yeah.”
I angled my head. “Around to the side of the building. There’s a separate exterior entrance. For next time.”
I let the smirk take hold, as clear as the suggestion.
She huffed with a slight tug at the edges of her delicious mouth, and she started my way. “Right. Okay.”
She moved closer.
Each step sent a shockwave of that electricity vibrating the ground.
Zinging my flesh and stoking my senses.
“Listen, I know it’s early, and I figured you’d still be upstairs which was why I was looking for another door, and I’m sorry I showed up here without an appointment so long before opening, but I needed to use Darius’ truck before he needs it for work and I—”
She clipped off the avalanche of words that had started rolling from her mouth, her lips thinning as if she’d just realized she’d been rambling faster than one of those old-school auctioneers.
Could feel the amusement twitching through my expression, and she stumbled to a stop ten feet away.
She blew out a sigh, then turned her phone to me with a hint of desperation tinting her voice. “Is this you?”
I pushed from the wall, squinting as I took a step forward to see what was on her screen.
An ad.
An ad that I’d been running but had been ignoring the calls for interviews for over the last four weeks because I just didn’t have time to see it through. Not exactly the most prudent of business decisions, but it was what it was.
“Yeah?” I answered it like a question.
Her head bounced at the confirmation, and she was looking out to the forest that hugged the lot before she was returning that gorgeous face to me. “Let me help…temporarily…until I pay off the car.”
Could feel the frown curling my brow. “Told you not to worry about it.”
“And I told you I would find a way to pay you back.”
Tension stretched between us.
Taut and tight.
“Please, Jud. I can’t just accept a handout from you.”
Air wheezed from my nose.
This girl definitely didn’t want to accept help.
Truth was, her car was so old, it was hardly worth fixing.
