“I love you,” I whispered. Although I’d said the words in my head a hundred times, this was the first time I’d said them aloud.
His arms tightened around me. “Say it again.”
“I love you.”
“And you’re gonna stay with me, no matter what happens. You’re not going to fall for some college guy and send me a Dear John letter, are you?”
This was the first time I’d ever seen Jude look worried and while I could chalk it up to being drunk, I didn’t think that was the case. “No. I won’t do that. I would never,” I assured him, my arms looping around his neck. “You’re the only guy for me.”
“Am I?” He was watching my face again, like he really needed the reassurance, and I sensed that this wasn’t the time to tease him so I gave him what he asked for. Why lie when it was the truth?
“Yeah, you are.” He lifted me off my feet and I wrapped my legs around his waist, locking my ankles together as he strode to the side of the truck and pushed me against it, my back against the passenger window.
“Even when I’m far away... you’ll still love me?” he asked, kissing the corner of my mouth.
“Even then.”
“Always? Forever?”
“Always and forever.”
“Don’t leave me again. Don’t ever push me away again. If you do, my heart will break. For real, for real. Do you wanna break my heart, Rebel? Are you going to?” Vulnerability bled into his every word.
I shook my head. “No,” I whispered, framing his beautiful face in my hands and searching his eyes for the truth. “Are you going to break mine?”
“Never. Promise. I swear on my life that I’ll always love you. You’re mine and I’m yours and that’s just how it is. Just how it’s always been.” His words were laced with so much sincerity, it made my heart stutter and put a lump in my throat.
Maybe he was so drunk he wouldn’t remember this tomorrow. Maybe our words meant nothing at all. But to me, they meant everything. We sealed them with a kiss that robbed the air from my lungs and made me wonder where he left off and I began. It felt dangerous, loving someone the way I loved him. I knew how cruel life could be. The person you loved could be ripped away from you in the blink of an eye. But I did it anyway.
I fell for Jude, and I was in so deep, there was no going back now.
Chapter Nineteen
Jude
We lost the state championship game. Correction. We didn’t just lose. We got our asses handed to us in front of 40,000 fans. I ended my high school football career by limping off the field with a sprained ankle during the third quarter. Gideon, the little shit, smirked while I sat out the rest of the game on the bench, icing my ankle. As predicted, he’d spent the season warming the bench and half-assing his way through practices.
Thanks to our dad, my brother hated my guts to the point where he reveled in my defeat. The last game of my high school career was not one of my better nights.
I’d gotten sacked four times which had pissed off my dad to the point where he was shouting at the coaches after the game in the parking lot while the players were getting on the team bus. He was so red in the face that his blood pressure must have been through the roof. I was seriously worried he’d have a heart attack.
It took me a few days to put the loss behind me and move on. At the end of the day, there was no point dwelling on what could have been done differently. It was over, we’d played like shit and the better team won. That’s how it goes. You win some, you lose some.
Now, it was Christmas Eve, the football season was behind me and I was in my favorite place on the planet. My girlfriend’s bed.
Pillow-soft lips met mine and she kissed me like she always did. Like I was her oxygen and she couldn’t breathe without me. Her kisses were my drug of choice and I chased the high that only she could give me. Her knees dug into my sides, thighs clenched around my waist as she grinded against my throbbing dick. Two thin layers of cotton were the only barriers preventing me from being buried deep inside her.
She pulled away from the kiss and sat up, straddling me, her palms flattened on my bare chest and threw back her head. Moonlight painted her silver, the column of her neck exposed. My fingers dug into her hips, her chest heaving under one of my old T-shirts she always slept in.
I tugged at the hem of the T-shirt. “Take it off.” When we were together in her room we spoke in whispers, our voices so hushed that we had to be close to hear the words. “Let me see you.”
Reaching down with both hands, she lifted the T-shirt over her head and tossed it on the floor, bared to me now except for her lacy underwear. My hands coasted up her stomach, over silky soft skin, and cupped her breasts, my thumbs brushing and squeezing pebbled nipples. The stars on her ceiling glowed above us and in the silence of her room, all I could hear was our ragged breaths and the whisper-soft moans coming from her lips.
Gripping her waist, I flipped her onto her back and knelt between her legs, pressing her thighs apart.
A sly smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “Do it,” she whispered, and even though her voice was hushed, I heard the challenge in it.
“Do what?” I knew what she wanted. The one thing I hadn’t given her yet. Pulling cotton aside, I stroked her with my fingers, circling and sliding, coating them with the wet heat of her
