I slid off the edge of the bed until I was kneeling with Jude on the floor. “Sometimes that’s part of fucking up,” I said. “The fact that sometimes people can’t or won’t forgive us. But that doesn’t mean you can’t forgive yourself.”
We were nose to nose, my hands curved tightly around the back of his neck, his palms planted on my hips. The carpet which seemed so plush beneath my feet, now bit into my knees, already raw from our games earlier. He scooped his hands up the sides of my body until he was cradling the backs of my shoulders. “I don’t want to let you go—but Marly, you need to get away from me. Lately, I destroy everything I touch and I can’t do that to you. I love you too much to see that happen.”
“Why don’t you let me worry about what’s bad or good for me?” I said, taking his lips—cutting him off from those bitter words; those dark thoughts. I swallowed them, drinking them down and forcing them to disappear. He was scaring me with the warning—because that’s what people did when they faced a new mountain. A new scary, beautiful mountain to climb—and I wasn’t going to let him back away from the thrill. Not this time. If he needed me to be strong enough for the both of us, then I would be.
I deepened the kiss, sliding my tongue along his and those ugly words of his morphed into moans of pleasure. My breasts, already flattened by the corset pressed into his body and I became all too aware of the fact that I wasn’t wearing panties anymore.
Jude groaned a satisfied sound and his touch, feather soft, skimmed the insides of my thighs as he found a path up to my bare sex. His gasp resonated down to my toes and he broke the kiss as he growled, “No panties?” He dove his greedy, lustful fingers inside of me, not bothering to wait for an answer.
It took every ounce of fortitude I had to pull away. To take his hand and remove it from the sweet bundled knot inside of me. “Delayed gratification, remember?” I said, smirking. I stood, smoothing my leather skirt and moved to where I had dropped the lipstick.
I bent slowly, methodically over to pick it up. With a peek over my shoulder, I made sure Jude had a good view ofeverything. He was exactly where I had left him seconds earlier, biting his lip, hair rumpled and strewn, crisp shirt wrinkled and untucked. Fuck, was he sexy.
“Marlena, no,” he said, his voice still gruff. “You don’t have to wear the red.”
“I know I don’t. But now that I know the whole story, I want to.”
He pushed to his feet in a graceful movement that if I’d blinked, I would have missed. “You’re just saying that.”
“Jude,” I snapped. “I don’tjust sayanything. You told me the whole truth. You showed me I have nothing to fear in a silly lip color. You told me that the name Sunlit Poppy reminded you of me. And it feels like we’re taking something thatwasLayla’s… and making itours.” I leaned into the mirror, lining my mouth just slightly over my natural lip line and Jude’s eyes followed the movement. When I was finished, I turned to face him, blowing Jude an air kiss. “Well? What do you think? Does Sunlit Poppy suit me?”
He crossed to me, his steps strong and purposeful as he closed what little space was left between us. His panther-swift movement both thrilled and scared me, my heart fluttering at all his masculine beauty. He quite literally robbed me of my breath as his massive arm curved around the small of my back and pulled me into him. With his other hand, he tore the wig off my head and tossed it to the ground. “You’re gorgeous. Red lips, glossy lips, no lipstick—you’re stunning. Wear whatever the fuck you want.” I feathered my fingers over his breastbone, brushing across the hard wall of his chest.
He tugged me even harder against him until my body was flush with his in a searing closeness, enveloping me; owning me. He rocked his hard length against me, his rhythm pulsing with slow, intentional thrusts until each grinding movement was synced with our heaving breaths.
It was hypnotic and intense and I descended into his mesmerizing movements. His rigid cock pressed against my pelvis, occasionally brushing my clit, hard and ready. And those eyes. His green eyes were so shrewd—so scorchingly beautiful, that they could have branded me. They were intoxicating and I sunk deeper into the trance, submerged in his gaze.
Sex with Jude was always an adventure. Each time had been exciting and new. But this? This intense, intimate rocking was different and it left me aching for more of him—his lips, his cock, his eyes. If I had any self-control, I would have ended it there and walked away, ensuring that he was the one wanting for once. But I couldn’t. My blood roared, searing hot through my veins, my heart hammering against the stupid, tight corset.
My head fell back as his hands dipped below my skirt once more. “Don’t you dare look away,” Jude growled. I snapped my gaze back to his, my eyelids heavy and hooded as his fingers circled my clit in soft, measured strokes. Barely touching. Barely bearable.
Just as I was about to pull away, to end this oddly intoxicating dance we had going, Jude launched forward, brutally taking my mouth in a bruising kiss. I gasped, opening for him, driving my tongue against his. It ended just as abruptly as it started and his teeth bit down on my bottom lip, catching it as he pulled away. Pain pinched at my swollen lip, and I stood there panting, gasping for breath. His hands tugged free from beneath my skirt. An aching space opened between us, and I whimpered with the lost connection, losing my balance with shaking knees.
“Isay when gratification is delayed,” Jude said, the tiniest smile splayed across his lips and he brought his fingers to his mouth, sucking my juices off of them.
There he was. My Jude was back. “Yes, Sir,” I whispered. Catching my reflection in the mirror, I sucked in a biting breath. Was that really me? My cheeks were flushed, my eyes bright and dilated, my hair was a tangled mess, and my lips—they were swollen and smeared with red. I oozed lust and arousal, like an animal in heat. I would quite literally drop to all fours and howl at the moon if Jude asked me to.
