“Almost,” Thomas mumbled as his fingers worked towards the bottom rivet of my corset.

I was about to smart back with something of the witty variety when the dressing room door flew open. I didn’t have one hot second to explain before Jude’s face blanched from elation to murder.

“What the hell?” he hollered, his face flaming red.

“Jude,” I began, turning to him and holding up my hands.

“You’re a dead man,” he spit, lunging across the room towards us.

Dodging in front of him, I thrust both hands into his brick wall of a chest. They were going to sting for a while from that maneuver.

“Jude!” This time I yelled. “Stop!” I ordered, dodging in front of him again when he lunged towards Thomas, who was retreating into a corner of the room.

“Sure, I’ll stop,” Jude replied, his silver eyes flashing onyx. “Once this tool is dancing across the stage in a wheelchair.”

I hadn’t seen his rage monster in months and seeing it again in all its grandeur rendered me speechless. This was the kind of anger people told campfire stories about.

Pivoting around me again, Jude thrust towards Thomas, who was staring wide-eyed, half-confused, half-terrified, at the bull of a man trying to obliterate him. My strength was no match for him, not even a tenth of a match, but I had other powers that could render him into servitude. Sprinting in front of him, I jumped, wrapping my arms and legs around him as tight as they would go.

He stilled instantly, the murder dimming in his eyes. Just barely.

“Jude,” I said calmly, waiting for his eyes to shift to mine. They did. “Stop,” I repeated.

I motioned back at Thomas. “He was helping me get out of my costume. I asked him to. He agreed. I wanted to hurry and get changed so I could be with you,” I emphasized, “and unless you wanted to wait a year and a half for me, you should be thanking Thomas.”

Looking between Thomas and me, the lines of his face dimmed. However, his glare landed on me. “Why didn’t you have me help, Luce?” he asked, his jaw clenching.

“Because you weren’t here,” I said, feeling like I was stating the obvious, but if obvious was what it took to talk Jude down from the ledge, that’s what I’d do.

“I’m here now.”

I formed my hands over his cheeks. “Yes, you are,” I said, waiting as his eyes went another shade lighter. His chest was starting to lift and fall in a regular pattern again. “Thanks for the help, Thomas,” I emphasized, glancing back at where he stood, still staring at Jude like he was about to go all nuclear on him again. “Catch up with you later?”

Thomas side-stepped around us, never taking his eyes off of Jude. “Sure, Lucy,” he said, throwing me a tilted smile. “Catch up with you later.”

I smiled my appreciation. “Good night.”

“Bye, Peter Pan,” Jude called after him. “I’ll ‘catch up with you later’ too.”

Thomas was already out the dressing room door, but there was no doubt he’d heard Jude’s latest bout of name-calling threats.

Sighing, I ran both thumbs down his face. “Jude Ryder. What am I going to do with you?” I asked.

It was, perhaps, the most perplexing question I’d ever asked. Nothing was easy about our relationship. Well, nothing but falling hard for each other. Everything else was like trying to swim against a current. You never quite felt like you were making much headway, but the journey made up for the lack of real estate.

Latching onto my hips, Jude planted me back down on the ground. Spinning me around, his fingers worked the satin ribbon free of the last rivets. His hands just barely skimmed my skin, but “just barely” shot bursts of heat deep into my stomach.

“What am I going to do with you, Luce?” he threw back at me, his voice carefully controlled.

The pieces of the man I loved were fitting back together. The rage monster was retreating back into his cage. “Since you’ve almost got me topless, I’ll let you fill in the blanks to that question,” I implied, arching a brow as I turned to face him.

His eyes weren’t liquid like they usually were when we were sharing or about to share an intimate moment. The corners of his mouth weren’t twitching in anticipation. Jude was a pillar of control looking down on me like I’d just behaved like a child.

“Don’t do that again, Luce,” he said, folding the ribbon in his hands before stuffing it into his pocket.

“What?” I said with a shrug, feigning ignorance. I was starting to feel a little belligerent. I didn’t like being talked down to, most of all by Jude.

“You know what.”

I could feel a glower settling into position on my face. “Since I’ve obviously disappointed you, I wouldn’t want to do it again, so why don’t you spell it out for me?”

I cursed myself. The only thing that would result from fighting fire with fire would be some nasty first-degree burns. Jude and I didn’t need our relationship to get any more complicated, so why was I pounding on complicated’s door?

Sucking in a slow breath, I witnessed the effort it took for him to stay calm. He was making the effort to keep this from blowing up into a screaming match‌—‌why wasn’t I?

“Don’t let another man, tight wearing fairy or not, help you out of your clothes again,” he said, his eyes narrowing just enough to know some scalding emotions were firing through him right now. “If you need help out of so much as a sock, you call me, you got it? That’s my job.”