Page 81 of The Dating Pact

“Yeah? How’d he do?”

“All right, I guess. I want to get through the next few days with him, and then maybe we can talk about possibly saying something to them?”

“Yeah. I’m fine with whatever you want to do.”

“I don’t…” He licked his lips and took a deep breath, inching his hands higher up my back, as if he needed something to hold on to for whatever he was mentally hyping himself up for. “They’ve been through so much, and I don’t want to hurt them.”

“No, I know. I know. You don’t have to explain?—”

“You’re important to me, Brooke. So damn important. Your friendship means everything to me, and I…” He briefly closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, I thought I could crawl inside for how unguarded they were to me. “I love you.”

His words weren’t a surprise. Merely a statement of fact. Comfortable and settled. Like slipping on my favorite worn-yet-beloved sweatshirt. That was what being loved by Jude was. Coming home after years in the making.

“I love you too.” I slid my hands to the back of his head, and he pressed his forehead to mine, both of us giggling like we were high. But this one was completely different.

This one wouldn’t fade.

We kissed, a breath trapped between our lips, and still, we kept our fingers woven in each other’s hair, refusing to move even a centimeter as the song came to an end.

“I love you,” he said. “And I can’t mess this up—for the kids, for you, but for me too. I can’t lose you. I can’t go through that again.”

“I understand, and you have to know by now that I’m not going anywhere.”

He lifted his head, sweeping his thumbs over my cheeks. “I don’t know if I deserve you in my life, but I’m sure as hell gonna take advantage of you being here.”

I bit back a laugh. “That sounded really sexual.”

“Go ahead and ruin the moment. Get your head out of the gutter.”

I stepped away from him. “If I’m in the gutter, it’s only because I’ve followed you down there.”

He laced his fingers with mine to usher me off the dance floor, slyly patting my butt on the way. “Then let’s get you home so I can really take advantage of you.”

“Mm. I like the sound of that.”

TWENTY-TWO

JUDE

Ifollowed Brooke up to her place, my hands on her hips as she unlocked her door. Once she had it open, I had her back against the wall before her purse hit the floor. Her fingers pulled at my suit jacket, mine sought out her zipper, neither of us very careful.

This wasn’t an experiment or practice.

This was a culmination. Pure and simple.

We no longer had to pretend we were doing this for a reason. We were doing this because we wanted to. Because we loved each other. Because she was the only woman I’d want to do this with.

After we kicked off our shoes, I chased her down the hall to her bedroom, her dress half falling off, my shirt open, pants unbuttoned. She flicked on her light then threw herself at me like some kind of feral animal, and we tumbled to her bed in a tangle of clothes and laughter.

We kissed until we were nothing more than swollen lips and panted breaths, still not even completely undressed. Brooke’s hair was a mess, the sparkly barrette hanging off the side of her head, while I was pretty sure she’d sucked a bruise into my neck. I stood up to toss my shirt on her dresser, followed immediately by my pants as she shimmied her dress the rest of the way off, leaving her in a matching beige set.

My gaze roved over her, my mouth dry. She didn’t know how sexy she was as she finally plucked the clip from her hair to throw on her nightstand, letting all of her silky milk-chocolate hair fall over her shoulders. She was long and supple, her muscles gentled with curves, the dip of her waist flaring out to hips I loved to hold and up to breasts I loved to admire. Of course there were her scars, the barely visible one below her right collarbone and the larger one parallel to the line of her underwear. I loved them both. I would love any and every part of her, but especially the marks left behind because she had survived. She was alive.

“You gonna come over here or what?” she asked, all sugar and spice, one leg extended, the other bent in a come-hither pose.

I crawled up the mattress, kissing my way up her stomach, leaving goose bumps in my wake, then helped to remove her bra—because I was nothing if not a gentleman—and bent to suck her nipple into my mouth.

She moaned, her fingernails digging into my shoulders, and I wrapped my hands around her hips, so she couldn’t squirm away as I gave the same treatment to her other nipple, licking at the sensitive pink peak.

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