CHAPTER SEVEN

Cady

 

 

 

SATURDAY MORNING AFTER THE boys left with Gregory, I was faced with a thoroughly empty, completely silent house. The pool beckoned out back, but I always felt guilty just chilling out. There was laundry to wash, errands to run, emails to check . . . and the never-ending list went on.

In fact, the only time in recent months I’d fully relaxed—in an entirely different way—were those evenings spent with Jude in Room 27.

Dane, Luke, and Aiden had been interesting about Jude last night when I’d finally shooed Jude off my porch, after they’d come to grips with having a former, incredibly talented wide receiver, apparently one of their collective sports heroes, as a manny.

“Did he curse in front of you?” I’d asked.

“Mom, seriously. He did the whole language thing just like you. It was annoying.” Aiden handed me the five dollars he owed me for the arcade games at the restaurant. “But he’s pretty cool.”

“A bunch of chicks were checking him out at football though,” Luke had added.

I had noticed that myself. The moms panting all over him. And much to my chagrin, I hadn’t been able to ignore a spike of jealousy, which was only relieved when Jude aimed a huge grin my way.

“Bet he gets laid on the regular.” Luke threw himself onto the sofa next to me.

“Luke James Dalton. I swear to—”

“But no swearing, Mom.” He’d slipped his five bucks into my hand, an impish grin in place.

“Jude’s just a normal dude, Mom.” Dane had reluctantly counted five dollars worth of quarters into my palm, not willing to pay back his arcade debt in actual bills.

“And you’re a savant.” Aiden dodged forward and smacked Dane on the back of his head.

“You’re just jealous about the size of my brains, fapper.”

The conversation had quickly devolved after that.

The regular dude was a sports celebrity who’d been keeping just as many secrets as I had, apparently. I couldn’t deny the thrill of being openly pursued by him even though he now knew I was a divorcee with three children. But there was no future for us—he was too young and completely unsuitable.

My once-a-week, no-strings-attached assignation was over.

Then he’d had to go and kiss me. The hot, indecent vibe between us exploded in an instant. I wanted his body. I wanted his cock. I wanted him to make me come, because he always reduced me to a wet quivering begging mess. Jude exuded an undeniably masculine sexual control, and I ached for him to fuck me after just . . . one . . . kiss.

The kiss last night that had again ignited nonstop arousal to the point I’d thought about getting myself off like he’d suggested just to get some relief. Some release.

I hadn’t fingered myself. But Jude didn’t know I owned a vibrator, and I’d been known to use it. Too bad I’d been spoiled by his exquisitely raw rough need that called to mine.

Hence the morning after, the only thing I could think of to keep my mind off what I wouldn’t be getting anymore was a good old-fashioned cleaning spree.

Yeah. My life was oh-so-glamorous.

Pulling pink rubber gloves up to my elbows, I girded myself to conquer the boys’ bathroom, which usually consisted of a rank mess of dirty clothes, urine stains from where they missed, and a sink encrusted with globs of toothpaste. I pinched my nose, prepared to duck and cover, and rounded the doorway.

To be confronted with what could only be described as a sparkling, glistening, 100% boy-germ free bathroom.

My mouth dropped open.

My eyes popped open.

I unplugged my nose.

Then the doorbell rang. Early. Again.

Yanking off the rubber gloves, I pulled my hair into a ponytail, wiping wisps off my face.

“Still don’t want any religion!” I shouted, hopping down the stairs.

I slung the door open.

And there stood Jude.

Again.

Looking just as tasty as always in athletic shorts and a muscle shirt, his stubble even heavier this morning. His dark hair clung in waves to his forehead and at the back of his neck, and his indecent grin was firmly in place.

I felt like a messy hausfrau, in a pair of scruffy old flip-flops, a tank top, and cut offs. “It’s Saturday.”

“Uh huh.”

“The boys are with their dad.”

“I know.”

“It’s not Thursday either.”

“Will there ever be another Thursday?”

“I’m cleaning toilets.”

“Sexy.” He tucked his sunglasses into the neck of his shirt. “Want some help?”

“Wait a second. Did you clean their disgusting bathroom yesterday?” Which made me wonder what else he might’ve gotten up to—or into—while having free rein of my house.

My bedroom. My closet. My dressers. My vibrator.

“Nah.” When he raised his arm to brace it against the doorframe, his tawny bicep bulged in the most delicious way. “I made the boys do it.”

“How?”

“Told them you work like crazy, and it was time for them to man the hell up.”

I squinted at him.

He redoubled his sexy grin. “So, want some help cleaning or do you wanna come with me?”

“Why would I go anywhere with you?”

“Because I’m offerin’ to take you to lunch on this fine September day.”

“Don’t you have a bunch of babes waiting in the wings to tag along with you, Rally Raleigh?”

I recognized the smug look on his face when he said, “So you did more than Google me.”

“Joelle did. My paralegal.”

“I Googled you too.”

Hah. He’d probably fapped over me too.

“I’m not on TMZ,” I countered. “Or Deadspin. Or anywhere on Twitter.”

“Lucky for you.” Dropping his hand from the doorframe, he gathered my palm in his bigger rougher one. “Look, Cady. I’m not a playboy—”

I jerked my hand back in disbelief.

“Not anymore anyway. It’s just you. It’s all you. And I wanna do something nice. Just for you.”

“You’re so damn aggravating.”

“Not what you say every Thursday.”

I fluttered my hands in annoyance.

“So you’ll come with?”

I gave in, because I liked him. I liked the flirting. I liked his determination.

I liked his damn body.

And I didn’t really want to spend a lonely Saturday contemplating the most boring to-do list on earth, not when there was a much better option to be had.

“Ground rules still apply.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The gorgeous man smirked so hard, I was tempted to kiss it right off his face.

****

After a short ride through the crosstown and over the bridges in Jude’s rumbling beast of a truck, he pulled up in front of a house on one of Charleston’s many saltwater creeks. The property sat far away from any others in a quiet, private area of James Island, and the shell driveway crunched under the tires.

The surroundings—overgrown magnolias and giant rosemary bushes and Spanish moss—opened to a house on stilts with a tall front staircase.

“This is yours?” I asked when he hurried around to help me out of the truck.

“Yeah.” His dark blue eyes sparkled like the creek meandering on the other side of the house. “Got a roommate though. Someone I want you to meet.”

Roommate?

Damn. Having read up on his past escapades, knowing him it was a playmate. The man probably had a woman stowed in every pocket.

Although why he’d want me to meet his bed bunny . . . unless it was to blow me off . . .

Jude ushered me up the two-tiered wooden stairs, into an airy screened-off porch, then into a masculinely appointed house. All sand colors and leather sofas and one gigantic fireplace. Everything neat and tidy and in its place.

“Hey, Skunk!” Jude called out.

I heard the click clack clatter on polished floorboards before a dog careened through the living room and straight into Jude’s legs.

“That’s the roommate?”

Skunk raised up on dancing hind legs, setting massive paws on Jude’s chest and panting in his face.

Jude laughed from deep inside. “One of ’em.”

“I thought we were having lunch.” But I smiled, unable to do anything but reach out to caress the dog’s silky ears.

“We’ll get to that in a minute.”

“Skunk though?”

“Look at him.” Jude pushed the black and white canine down. “Got him as a rescue. Half Mastiff and half Husky. Damn pitiful thing.”

The beast whined until Jude kneeled down, kissing and scratching him, and I was jealous of a vermin-colored furry mutt.

“That you, Jude?” A gruff male voice called from another part of the first level.

“Someone I want you to meet,” Jude said to me while he tapped the dog on his backside, making him sit. “Besides Skunk.”

An older man with a shock of silver and black hair entered the room with an awkward gait. He had the brightest blue eyes.

He had Jude’s eyes.

“Dad, this is Cady.”

The rugged man—Jude’s father—shuffled up to us.

“Cady, my dad, Rawls.”

He clasped my hand in a tremulous grip. “Sorry. It’s that damn Parkinson’s thing. I ain’t so smooth with the ladies anymore.”

“That’s quite all right. Neither is Jude.”

Rawls guffawed, and I saw the younger man he must’ve been, very much like Jude.

Jude snorted.

And the fact he’d brought me to his home to meet his ailing dad made him all too real again.

I spun toward Jude. “Why aren’t you taking care of him instead of my family?”

“I am. I do. But—”

“Jude ain’t s’posed to waste his life on me. Anyway, he sucks as a nurse.” Rawls let Skunk nip at his shaking fingers, getting them all slobbery. “So you’re the girl—”

“The woman,” Jude interjected

“What did you tell him?” I hissed.

“All about your three sons.” Rawls took up a beautifully polished wooden cane, his head jerking toward the scenically sparkling creek outside. “But if there’s more, I damn sure wanna hear ’bout it. Shall we? ’Cause I hear we’re havin’ a picnic.”

Minutes later, we gathered down on a dock that pointed out like a silvery wooden arrow into the glistening waters. Jude and I had taken the stairs, Rawls an elevator from inside. And Skunk had beaten us all to the pristine and peaceful picnic spot where Jude laid out a blanket after settling his dad into a weathered chair that rocked on sliders when he set it in motion.

Then I watched as Jude sat cross-legged, inviting me beside him, and began unpacking a picnic basket while the glorious sun basked us in warmth. A pure white crane picked its way across the marsh while a flock of hook-beaked ibis pecked here and there. Reeds in rust red and pale green swayed with the tidal waterway.

Fiddler crabs scurried across the mud flats before burrowing back into their holes.

And Jude had packed sandwiches, fruit, a lemon tart.

He handed out the food—not before he cut his dad’s into easy-to-eat squares.

Damn man even had my favorite wine chilled and ready as well as a wineglass.

He poured.

I leaned back on my elbows, letting the sun hit my face. I breathed in the briny scent. I listened to the silence only broken by the sounds of nature.

When I looked up, Jude watched me.

Rawls watched Jude.

My face heating, I quickly picked up a sandwich.

Even the food was heavenly. “You did not make this.”

Rawls snorted. “Hell no. Jude can catch a football like his fingers’re made of Velcro. Top Chef he ain’t.”

“Thanks for that, Dad.”

“That’s what I’m here for.” Rawls never missed a beat, illness or not.

He drank a beer from a lidded plastic cup complete with a straw.

After taking a long draught, he grinned with the same dimples as Jude. “When I gets to spillin’, ever’one needs to take cover. I’m not so good at dominoes anymore either.”

“You suck at Jenga too,” Jude added.

“Jude!” I scolded.

“See how my own son abuses me?” Rawls chuckled. “Just joshing you. He knows better’n to mollycoddle a pain in the ass like me.”

They clinked their beer bottle/beer cup together at that.

It was impossible not to be enchanted by the setting, the company . . . by Jude.

Later when he unrolled the shrimping net, I knew I was in trouble.

“I haven’t drunk enough for this.” I waved my empty glass at him.

“You just need dexterity.” He hauled me to my feet and lowered his voice to a tummy-tingling rumble. “And I know you’ve got that from the way you’ve handled my cock.”

I stomped on his foot with my heel, which wasn’t nearly as effective in flip-flops as it was in stilettoes.

He went first, easily sending the net out over the sparkly water in an open umbrella shape. He drew the web back to deposit nothing but a few tiny silver fish onto the dock he quickly pitched back into the creek.

Then he rolled up the net and passed it to me. My first attempt splashed in a crumpled mess that didn’t even make it all the way off the dock.

As Jude started to gather the wet webbing, I yanked it from his grasp. “I know how to toss!”

“Yeah, you do.” He winked.

“Unbearable.” I griped.

Coming up behind me, he ranged his arms around me. With me snugged tight against the bulwark of his brawny chest, my ass nestled against his groin, he gently dipped and swung our upper bodies until we released the net to cast it in a fan over the salty creek.

“That’s the way.” His deep voice thundered at my ear, one forearm around my waist.

“Jude . . .” I was helplessly caught in his web.

“Y’all ain’t g’on catch enough for bait at this rate.” Rocking in his chair behind us, Rawls heckled. “You keep this up, Skunk could out-shrimp you.”

Skunk the mutt frolicked through the shallows. When he heard his name, his head popped up, muzzle wet and muddy, long tongue rolled out.

Jude and I didn’t haul in anything that day. Not shrimp, anyway. But he’d managed to enmesh me even more than before when it’d just been the two of us and no last names and a weekly rendezvous in a hotel room.

When I made my goodbyes to Rawls later, I could’ve sworn he had an extra twinkle in his blue, blue eyes. “You oughtta bring those boys of yours out here sometime. Let ’em run off some of that rambunctiousness.”

“I’d like that. Thanks for your hospitality.”

“Nonsense, sugar.” His fingers palsied where he clasped me lightly around my shoulders. “You’re welcome any time, and I reckon Jude wouldn’t mind me sayin’ so.”

After Jude sprayed the pluff mud off Skunk, after he’d settled his dad inside the house, he boosted me back into his truck.

As soon as we were underway, I reached over, placing my hand on his leg. “What about your mom?”

“She died a few years ago. Sudden heart attack.” His eyes glinted wetly. “Not too long after my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.”

I thought about my own parents, healthy and hale and not too far away on Seabrook Island.

Stifling the quick sting of tears, I squeezed Jude’s leg. “I’m sorry.”

He cleared his throat, and his hand fell across mine. “Part of the reason I came home was so I could be with my dad.”

 “This wasn’t fair, you know.” I teased a little bit. “Bringing me to meet him, because he’s pretty irresistible.”

“More irresistible than me?” He looked shocked.

“Hard to believe, isn’t it.”

“Never said I was gonna play fair with you, darlin’.” He laced his fingers through mine. “Look. I get it. You needed one thing, one escape from your life. Something separate. And so did I. I wanted to show you something private about me, because I know how much you hate me knowing stuff about you. So we’re even now.”

His insight felt somehow . . . intimate. His understanding made me forget momentarily about the yawning gap in our ages. Having met his dad, having witnessed the care he took for him, I couldn’t deny Jude was a man. But then, I knew that already from the way he treated me.

How could I not want him?

He lifted my hand to his lips, kissing each knuckle. “I want more with you. Always have. Always will.”

I had no answer to those quietly spoken words, and he didn’t ask for one, not during the entire drive to my house.

I hoped he didn’t ask to come inside, because I didn’t think I was strong enough to keep him at bay, not when I knew he was the only man to so sexually consume me.

Once again, he parked the Land Cruiser, hopped out, loped to my side to open my door and help me out.

“You’re not coming in. The boys aren’t home, and there’s no way I’m letting you inside.” I started rambling.

One of his sleek black brows rose, and his lips flirted with a grin. “I didn’t ask to.”

“Okay. Good. Because I don’t know what you expect after—”

“Don’t expect anything.”

I dropped back against the side of the truck. “I should say thank you for today.”

“Like a proper southern woman.” His grin went full-blown.

“Oh you.” I huffed, trying to duck past him.

He brought up both arms, caging me against the vehicle.

My heart started rabbiting in my chest, and my gaze flew to his lips. Lips that were always warm, always felt so good. I kept my hands firmly rooted against the truck just in case I lost all my wits and dragged him straight against me.

As it was, Jude stood close enough I felt his body heat. Close enough I smelled his aftershave or whatever he wore combined with the briny scent of the creek. Clean, fresh, male.

He didn’t so much as touch me, except with his words that came out in a husky tone. “Hey, I thought of a great method of payment.”

“I’ll just bet you have.” I curled my fingers against my palms.

“A kiss a day.”

“That’s sexual harassment.” But my nipples immediately tightened, and a low thrum curled between my thighs.

“Really? Between you and me?” He angled his head, lowering his ruddy mouth just enough to brush my earlobe and shoot fireworks throughout my strung-out body.

“You didn’t work today.” I gasped, remembering how he’d first seduced me with words alone.

Fingers skimming from my shoulder to my hand he unlocked from its tight ball, he spun us around so I faced the house with him behind me.

“Raincheck then.” His parting words left shivers spilling down my spine.

****

I’d give Jude a raincheck all right. Just not the kind he was after.

He turned up Monday morning, right on time. Smelling delicious. Looking wicked. No man had a right being so attractive. I reacted to the very sight of him. To the sound of his voice. I was reminded every time he spoke about the low naughty words he spun over me like a dare, a challenge, to let myself go on him.

He showed up at my house every morning, was there every evening, and he proved himself surprisingly organized and capable at all things, which aggravated me even more. He did the grocery shopping. He folded laundry—I imagined he enjoyed sifting through my underthings. He broke up fights between Dane and Aiden, took them to all their afterschool activities, and hid all the combustibles from Luke while encouraging his budding football aspirations.

I no longer had to be worried the house would be burned to the ground, or that Aiden would brain Dane, or that Dane would continue to be isolated from friends his own age because he was a self-affirmed and unrepentant brainiac. Somehow, Jude discovered two girls and one boy who were just as nerdy as Dane—Porter-Gaud kids—and began a routine of having them over for what was thereafter dubbed hashtag geeksquad, according to Luke.

I almost wanted Jude to fail. Petty as that was.

And all through that first full week Thursday, Thursday, Thursday lingered on my mind. In the past, just the idea of our weekly assignation could turn me on, turn me into a quivering mess. The low level hum of arousal was a thousand times worse, having Jude in my life every day and knowing I’d set him off-limits.

The sexual tension was off the charts.

Oh, he was respectful around the boys, and he hadn’t cashed in on his creative kiss payment . . . yet. And Lord knew the man was creative. I missed his kisses, his firm mouth, the sound of his uncontained groans.

I missed touching his chest and running my hands up his strong arms to his incredible shoulders.

I missed the fullness of his cock inside my body.

He didn’t insist on his kiss payment method, but he never missed a chance to stare at me with such hot lust I never once forgot he’d seen all of me, had all of me. On one or two occasions, he merely brushed against me and said darlin’ and almost turned me into a puddle on the floor.

He didn’t text out of turn. He didn’t send dick pics. He didn’t make me feel anything but wanted.

And I wondered how much longer I could keep him at arm’s length.

Meanwhile, Joelle ever so helpfully kept a running tally of my rapidly devolving mood day by day, sending me emojis she thought captured my disposition. Like the pile of turd when I was cranky.

I was tempted to renege on her raise.

My nerves were shot, and I just wanted to get fucked. By Jude.

That first Thursday morning, I found myself dressing with careful attention to detail as I had every other Thursday since I’d met him. The lingerie—a precious little pink ensemble Jude had never seen to go under my raspberry-colored dress. The lace top hosiery. The perfume dabbed behind my knees and right across my belly and the tops of my thighs.

When he walked inside to collect the boys for the school run, he stopped short, did a doubletake, then scanned me from head to toe and back again. His irises melted from bright blue to hungry black, and it felt like he could see right through my dress to everything I’d done—would’ve done—to prepare myself for him.

I left with quick kisses to my sons, not a single word exchanged with Jude as he continued to ravish me visually.

By the time I returned home Thursday evening—a lot earlier than usual—my tummy fluttered, my face felt heated, and if Jude so much as touched me I’d come unglued.

The house was unusually quiet, and I dropped all my things on the table in the hallway.

A long low whistle sounded behind me, and it could only be Jude.

I swallowed hard, my back arching instinctively as if he’d caressed the center of my spine.

Spinning slowly, I steeled myself against all the sexual promise he so easily exuded. Standing there, he was framed in the archway to the living room. Jeans clung to his thickly muscled thighs, and rolled up shirtsleeves bared the sinewy tendons of his forearms.

He didn’t move a single inch, yet I felt his roaring need just as surely as if he’d pinned me to the wall with his larger, harder body.

“It’s Thursday,” he said.

Combustible heat coursed all over my body in an instant. “Is it?”

His low chuckle made my toes curl. “Don’t pretend you forgot.”

I swallowed again, every single part of my body clamoring for him.

“The boys are next door, swimming at the neighbors with strict instructions to be home by six thirty for dinner.”

“Good.” I dragged my gaze from him. “Then you can show yourself out. I’m going to have a bath.”

“Or I could join you.” He crossed over to me so swiftly, I had no chance to escape.

Maybe I didn’t want to.

“Jude . . .” Cornered, I kept my hands flat on the wall at my back.

“It’s Thursday. Do you know that’s been the only day I cared about for two months because of you?”

“We can’t anymore.” I shook my head.

“Bullshit. Being around you every day. I just want you more.” His lips lightly nipped the pulse point at the hollow of my neck. “Feel how fucking hard you make me, Cady.”

Taking my hand, he placed it on the thick erect flesh, the hard hot roll barely withheld by his jeans.

I moaned before I could stop myself, curling my fingers around the rigid shaft.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? Being here all the time. Torturing me all the time,” I accused, but I didn’t pull my hand away.

My fingertips danced lower down the inseam of his pants, all the way to the swollen-hard head of his cock.

With my wrist locked in his hand, he barged right up against me. “You know why I’m not enjoying being around you like this, Cady? Because I can’t fuck you or kiss you or get you down on your knees so I can watch you pant for my cock and my cum.” He nipped at my chin then tongued around one earlobe, giving me the soft with the sting always.

“I can’t rip off your panties and spread your legs so I can lap that sweet wet cunt of yours like I’ve done countless times.” Jude’s growly voice sent shivers down my spine. “I can’t get you out of my head. My dick’s about to burst every time I’m around you, but I’m not gonna jerk off because next time I come it’ll be with you, and the load I’m gonna give you will make you plead for more.”

Ripping free of his grasp before I crumbled completely, I rushed upstairs. Inside my bathroom, I hit the taps on the bath and swilled in a generous helping of bubbles.

I didn’t lock the door.

Looking in the mirror, I pulled pins from my hair, letting them fall to the vanity with little pings of sound.

I knew I was tempting danger and everything I’d sworn off.

My dress swished in a circle of fabric at my feet.

The doorknob turned.

Jude.

He entered. He shut the door. He grabbed my reflected gaze with his before his eyes dropped to my shoulders, to my breasts cupped in the pink silk, to my panties.

He took a step toward me.

Strong. Sexual. Everything.

In the bathroom filled with steam.

“Time to pay up, Cady.”