Page 99 of The Plus One
Indira’s head pressed into the pillow, spine arching and neck muscles taut as a sharp spark of pleasure lit her nerves on fire. She couldn’t take it. Couldn’t survive it. It was too good, she thought she’d die from it.
“Look at me,” Jude commanded, giving her a spank that caused all the air to leave her lungs at the exquisite decadence of it—the sharp bite mixing with the pleasure, pumping her blood to a fever pitch. “Look at me when you come, Indira. I want to see every feeling in those eyes.”
“Harder,” she begged, as Jude started moving his hips again, the sound of their skin slapping together punctuating every thrust.
“Yes,” he gritted out, one hand hooking under her knee, draping her leg over his shoulder, the other moving to her breast, plumping it as he bent his head to bite her nipple.
Indira screamed, thrusting her hands in his hair, pulling at the strands, then dragging her nails down his neck. His back. Marking him.
She wanted him to mark her right back.
Indira felt Jude pulse in her, pressing his face into her neck with a hoarse groan as he held her as close as he could in those final moments.
The silence that followed was beautiful in its softness. The comfort of it.
Jude rolled them to their sides, bodies still connected.
Dragging one hand through the mass of her sweaty hair, he kissed the tip of her nose. Her eyebrow. Her chin.
He kissed her until his breathing was so soft, so gentle and languid, he fell asleep in her arms.
Indira wasn’t surprised at the tears that rolled down her cheeks as she held the man she loved.
She was terrified of what came next. Of losing him. Of Jude not making it back to her.
But the future wasn’t here. It wasn’t now. Jude was with her. His skin was slick against hers, breath warming her cheek, scent enveloping her.
She didn’t want to think about the goodbye. About losing him—not the distance, but the pain that would seep back into his bones. The walls he would reconstruct.
So, she held him tighter, and fell asleep too.
CHAPTER 33
Jude
T-MINUS SEVEN DAYS UNTIL THE NEXT ASSIGNMENT
Jude was doing great.
So,sogreat.
Except for the moments he was doing terribly.
Like, right now, for example.
“When the armed suspects are detained, the med team will move into location,” Dr. Huang, the lead coordinator of GHCO’s emergency response team, said. He pointed to the map of the organization’s campus, a central building marked with a star as he continued to direct the group on the latest active shooter protocols for when GHCO providers were on location.
“We’ll use the dining hall to set up a medical triage. There will be simulated patients with various injuries at the site waiting for treatment. Make sense?”
The various medical team members in the briefing nodded. Jude was a few seconds behind in his response, his neck stiff and brain clouded as he remembered two separate occasions where he’d had to put this training to use. His stomach twisted so tightly he couldn’t suck down a breath.
He was a week out from leaving for his next assignment—thelocation still being determined by higher-ups—and each hour that ticked by squirted a fresh dose of adrenaline over his fried nerves.
Where medicine once was his greatest thrill, his guiding purpose, now he wanted to run in the opposite direction of his calling. Sprint from it until he outpaced all the memories that haunted him.
But he couldn’t do that. The next thirteen months were inevitable, unavoidable. Jude would do well to remember that and suck it up. Numb himself out.
He hoisted his emergency bag over his shoulder, following the line of his coworkers out of the clinic to wait on the lawn near the dining hall.
