“Done?” Jude said, crossing his arms.

Damn, he’d really been waiting while Hammon shredded my  p**n -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 ass**le 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?”

It took Hammon all of a second to reply.

“Thatta boy,” Jude said. “Time to earn your commission.” Hanging up, he pocketed his phone and glared at the floor.

His anger was unrestrained. He’d lost all control and was running on nothing but impulse. What could I possibly say or do to talk him down? I knew nothing short of a miracle would work at this stage.

So what, in the entire world of words and responses, did I lead with?

Perhaps the worst.

“Gibbons.”

Jude couldn’t have looked more startled than if I’d just stripped out of my clothes and started streaking down the terminal.

“Gibbons,” I repeated, because now that I was heading down this insane track, I might as well keep chugging along. Plus, his eyes had already lightened into a steely gray.

“Luce?” Jude came closer and pressed the back of his hand against my forehead.

He ran his hands over me like I was one notch below a padded room. It would have been irritating if he wasn’t so visibly concerned.

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “Really.”

Pulling me to him, he continued to study me. “Then what are you rambling on about?”

I rolled my eyes. “Gibbons.”

Another flash of worry in his eyes. “Gibbons?” he said slowly.

I nodded.

“Luce, what the hell’s a gibbon?”

So far, as certifiable as it was, my plan to trick Jude’s monster back into its cage was working.

“It’s like a monkey,” I said, wrapping my arms around him. His every muscle was standing on alert. “I used to see them at the zoo when I was a little girl.”

He held up his hand. “You know I love to know every little thing you’re willing to share with me, Luce, but what the hell does a gibbon have to do with your tits being on the front page of the paper?”

I pretended I wasn’t talking to a man one thread away from snapping for good. “If you’d be quiet for one minute so I could get out more than three words at a time, then you’d learn what a gibbon and my tits have in common.” I paused and plastered on a smile for him.

He stayed quiet. Jude had learned a lot in the years we’d been together.

“I remember learning that gibbons are mostly monogamous. They choose one mate and spend the rest of their lives with that mate. They take care of their mate, protect it, clean it, feed it—you name it and these gibbons do it. Both the male and the female. There isn’t a distinction between sex.” Jude’s eyebrows pulled together. “These gibbons live in their own little world. They don’t let anything, or any other gibbons, get in the way of the bond they’ve formed. They live in their bubble from the rest of the world, and don’t let what’s going on outside their bubble come inside it.”

What the hell was I saying? I really was about to have a total and irreversible break.

And then every single wrinkle on Jude’s face flattened. Looking into my eyes, I watched his eyes go from steel to silver gray. When his hand brushed my cheek, I knew my lunacy had appealed to his and had somehow managed to cancel it out. “Luce,” he said, one corner of his mouth turning up, “are you saying we’re gibbons?”

My smile formed. I had my Jude back. “Well, you might be one. You’re the hairy one.”

A few laughs later, his mouth dropped to mine. “Come here, my beautiful, smart, sexy gibbon.”

“And calm,” I added, around his kisses. “I’m a calm gibbon.” I couldn’t get anything else out, because his mouth made words impossible.

As he kissed me, I felt the tension leave him. Each time our tongues touched, every slide of our lips, every touch dimmed his anger.

“At least the new and improved calm Lucy Larson can still kiss the hell out of me,” he said, after pressing a final kiss to my forehead. “Mind telling me how you were able to keep from blowing a gasket?”

I grinned at a man over Jude’s shoulder who’d been hoping to grab a morning paper. Not today, not this stand.

“Yoga and meditation,” I replied, shifting my smile Jude’s way.

His eyes rolled. “Well, whatever’s responsible for your being the calm to my crazy, I’m proud of you, Luce,” he said, before his eyes wandered down my body. His forehead wrinkled. “My being proud of you aside, I don’t understand how you can be so damn cool about all of this, Luce.”

There was a lot of “all of this” going on right now. More than normal. “All what?”