Page 97 of The Plus One
“Then what was?” Jude’s voice cracked as his shoulders sagged in relief, moving closer to her still.
“What happens toyou, Jude? How can you keep doing this? Put yourself back in a situation that hurts you so badly?”
Jude swallowed, scratching his thumb across his forehead. “It’ll be fine, Dira,” he said, voice shaky. “It’s one more year. Then I’ll come home and I’ll…”
“You’ll what? Have an even heavier weight on your shoulders? More pain and trauma?”
“I don’t want to have this conversation,” Jude said, sitting up on the edge of the bed, facing away from her.
Indira watched him, eyes tracing over the stiff muscles of his back, the sharp jabs of his inhales and exhales.
“There’s nothing I can do,” he said, voice flat. Foreign. Indira hated how detached it was. “I made a commitment. I signed the paperwork. And none of this was some altruistic selflessness. I’m coming out ahead, without any debt. I owe GHCO one more year. And then I’m free.”
Will you be, though?Indira wanted to ask. Wanted to scream at him. Was there any real freedom with all the trauma he internalized?
“But I can’t—I fuckingcan’t—sit here and waste the time we have left together thinking about all of that. I want to absorb every second with you.”
He turned around, eyes flashing with hurt and heat and hunger. He reached out, pulling Indira onto his lap, holding her closely. She wrapped her arms around his neck, wishing she could dissolve into him.
“You’re so damn precious to me, Dira,” he whispered, brushing his lips along her skin before pressing a kiss to her pounding pulse at the base of her throat. “I love holding you. I don’t ever want to let you go.”
Indira raked her hands through his hair, tenderness shimmering from the center of her chest out through her fingertips.
“For tonight, at least,” she whispered into the shell of his ear, feeling the shiver run through him, “you don’t have to.”
Indira’s kiss ghosted across his cheek, down his jaw, hovering so close over his mouth she could feel the heat of him on her lips. She held there, drawing out every sweet, sharp moment of wanting. Of longing.
Anticipation swelled deep in her belly, blooming into something wild and beautiful.
Their chests crashed together with their labored breaths, and Indira wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold back, could keep herself from claiming his mouth. Feeling his body.
Finally—finally—Jude closed the distance. The movement was slow, intentional, sipping at her lips and shocking every nerve ending until her heart jumped in her chest.
Then he pressed his teeth into her lip, biting lightly, pulling a gasp, then a moan from her throat as he kissed her like a drowning man finding air.
Indira moved, pushing Jude against the bed, while she straddled over him, kissing him with everything she had. His soft and fractured grunts of satisfaction filled her blood with an effervescent fizz.
“I’ll never get over the feel of kissing you,” Jude said, grabbing the hem of Indira’s T-shirt and ripping it over her head, letting no more than half a second pass between kisses.
She was glad they’d changed out of their wedding attire and intocomfier clothes as soon as they got back; it made the rest of getting undressed much more efficient.
Jude flipped their positions, hovering over Indira, his legs tangling with hers. Indira dragged the arch of her foot over his calf, loving the feel of his rough leg hair against her.
“Look at you,” Jude said, palm splayed over her heart. He dragged his hand down, cupping her breast, rolling his thumb over her nipple, before following the path to her stomach, then her hip. Jude toyed with her, dragging the backs of his fingers up and down her inner thighs. Indira sucked in a breath, trying to press closer into his touch. He looked up at her, eyes pitch black and filled with molten heat. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”
Indira groaned, head falling against the mattress. It felt like a fever was building under her skin, threatening to burn her alive.
“Let me kiss you here?” Jude dipped a finger into her. “Fuck, you’re wet,” he murmured, dragging his other hand against his mouth, then pressing his knuckles against his teeth.
Indira pressed up onto her elbows. “I want to tasteyou,” she said, reaching greedy hands for his hot and hard length. “Can I?”
His hips bucked as she dragged her thumb over the head, then stroked down. Her mouth watered, want coursing through her as she imagined him coming undone.
Color was high on Jude’s cheeks, his eyes wide and breaths sharp as he nodded rapidly.
“No objections here,” he choked out as she stroked him again with the amount of pressure she knew he loved.
“That’s a first,” she said. Their eyes locked. And, like a pair of lovestruck fools, they giggled.
