I halt when I see who’s standing under the glow of the porch light.
Kirk Bunting.
I haven’t laid eyes on him in years, and I have to say that time has been a bitch to my old friend. He’s not aging well. And he looks disgruntled. Irate.
“What the fuck is going on here?” he hisses into my face.
For a moment, I’m frozen with a flash of guilt. But then Iris’s pain comes back to me. Pain caused by the man in front of me. I decide that he can go fuck a bag of rocks for all I care. “I’m renting out a room from Iris.”
Kirk’s dark eyes narrow. “What I witnessed outside between you two looked like a lot more than just a landlord-tenant situation.” He watches me with a calculating gaze, challenging me to argue. Before I have a chance to confirm or deny the accusation, he growls. “Are you fucking my wife?”
His words leave me seeing red. Where the hell does he get off? How dare this man think he has any fucking right to show up here after all this time and make claims on a woman that he deserted?
I step forward and position myself in his face. I tower over him by several inches. “I may not be a legal expert, but here's the way divorce works. You decide to be a dickhead, and you call up a lawyer. He charges you a whole lot of money to draft up some papers. You sign said papers, and you force her to sign them too even though you know it's breaking her heart. A judge signs off on the whole thing. And then, guess what? You don't get to call her your wife anymore."
Kirk’s jaw twitches, and I wonder if he’s about to put his fist in my face. I would like to see him try.
Instead, he tips up his head, eyeing me with disdain. “You're supposed to be my friend,” he spits.
This is rich, coming from the guy who ignored my calls for weeks then downright ghosted me when he realized my NFL career might have been over completely.
“Lost all the hot football groupies and now you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, huh?” He shakes his head. “How are you liking my sloppy seconds, Kingston? Iris always did taste a little…rancid. I can only imagine how awful she tastes now.” He bares his teeth.
I swear to god I’m going to kick his ass right this minute. I bump my chest with his, hard enough that he stumbles a bit. “There is nothing sloppy about that woman, dickhead,” I roar in his face.
His skin pales right before my eyes. I lower my voice because I don’t want Iris to walk in on this fiasco and get upset. Not when we’re having such a good night.
“If you don't back away from this fucking house right now, I will be scraping the porch with your face tonight.”
From the top of the stairs, I hear Iris call down to me. “Jude, is everything all right?”
“Yeah,” I shout back. “Some stranger got lost. They're just asking for directions.” I turn back toward Kirk, leveling him with a look and deadpanning, “Get. Lost.”
“This isn't over, Jude,” he seethes.
I shake my head, like I would at a child who’s a disappointment to their parents. “For your sake, it better be. Don't come back here.”
Standing tall, arms crossed, feet planted wide, I watch as Kirk stalks off the porch and down the street to whatever hole he crawled out of.
Good fucking riddance.
That idiot never deserved Iris anyway. And now, I’m going to make her mine.
I pound my way up the stairs and I’m on a mission. I’m going to climb in that bed that should have been his and I’m going to kiss that woman he was too stupid to love and I’m going to fuck her until I chisel every last memory of that asshole out of her brain.
She’s going to be mine.
When I reach the top of the staircase, I see her. Standing there. At the end of the hallway. Completely naked.
I trip on the top step.
“Iris…” I croak. My voice sounds like there’s a bucket of gravel in my throat.
Moonlight coming in from the picture window creates a starlike glimmer off her womanly silhouette. I swear I can hear her heart pounding across the distance, or maybe that’s mine.
God, her whole body is perfect. Soft and curvy and perfect.
The woman makes her way toward me with tentative steps. Her breasts bounce gently, her hips hypnotize me with their sway. Pins and needles dance up and down my legs and I grip the wall for balance.
Iris places her delicate hands on my chest. I have to remind myself to breathe. “Jude, I…”
“What do you need, baby?” Right now, I’d do anything she asks.
Her stormy eyes lock on mine and it's like falling off a life raft, headfirst into an ocean of blue. “I’ve never had a man look at me the way you do,” she tells me with quiet, raw honesty. “And the way you touch me. The way you kiss me…I haven't felt beautiful in a really long time. You say that I am—”
“You are…” I step closer, our chests touching with her hands trapped in between. Protectiveness surges inside me and I want to hurt everybody who’s ever made this woman doubt herself.
“You say that I am, but I need you to show me.” She licks her lips nervously. “I need you to put your hands on me and show me, Jude.”
My hands fly out and grip her by the waist. My mouth finds hers as I rush her backwards. She tastes sweet and sinful at the same time. Kissing her is a
