Blue Notes (22 page)

 Twenty-Nine 

W
e don’t go to the hotel adjacent to the restaurant. I’m glad, even though he didn’t bring it up and I didn’t say anything one way or the other. Is he so good at reading what I need? That’s the best of daunting and wonderful, both.

Besides, I really want to see where he lives. I want to sink beneath his weight, onto a bed and into thick blankets that smell of him. A hotel for my first time sounded bold and even exciting when he brought it up before, although I’d been wary of him hiding things. Maybe we both need this to be . . . intimate. As private as possible.

That’s not an issue when he pulls the Mercedes into a crescent driveway that fronts a Victorian era mansion. I force my mouth closed. The façade is draped in ivy, and two great willows sway on either side of a massive wraparound porch. Twin columns stretch up from the top step to a second-story veranda that looks like it borders only one room. One
big
room. French doors lead out to it. I assume it must be his room. The view over a quarter mile of sweeping grounds would be magnificent. It seems like we drove forever to get here, but the grand old house is probably only ten minutes outside of New Orleans proper. Getting here is like driving back in time. Arriving is like lighting dynamite.

No more waiting. No more holding his free hand as he drove casually, confidently away from the city.

Lots of things are coming together now, although I can’t honestly say,
No more time to back out
. Something deep and trusting tells me I could change my mind and, in an instant, Jude would take it like a gentleman. Tonight, I’m willing to believe he’ll give me whatever I want. That’s heady. It’s probably unhealthy.

I’m thinking too much.

He takes the keys from the ignition and meets me on my side of the car. He’s still wearing that astonishing suit. I can hardly stand it. That the collar is scrunched up and his slight curls are tangled at his hairline makes my insides giddy and hot. We’ve done a lot, compared to what I’ve ever dared.

We’ve done hardly anything at all.

“I can’t keep up,” I whisper, knowing I said it in the practice room and I’ll probably think it another thousand times.

He bends his knees a little, so that he’s standing at my height. “We’re here with no regrets.”

Not a question. And I have no doubts when I reply. “You’re right. No regrets.”

“Do you trust me with this? I need to know, Keeley.”

“Why is it so important to you?”

“Because when you say you can’t keep up, I don’t know how to behave. Slow down? Press on and think you’re just psyching yourself out?” He presses against me, enfolds me, breathes against the hollow beneath my jaw. “If you try to catalog everything and make sense of it all as it’s happening—I know you’ll try—you won’t be able to relax. If you can’t relax . . .” He shrugs slightly. “It’s just better if you can. That means trusting me.”

“But . . .” I swallow when burying my face against his chest. I find a bare place revealed by the open buttons and nuzzle. “How will you know what I want or like or . . . anything?”

“I enjoy making women happy. You probably don’t want to hear that right now, because it means there’ve been women before you, but it’s true. I already know the sound of your breathing when you’re getting turned on. I know how you forget to touch me when I’m touching you. That tells me you’re engrossed in what I’m doing.”

“I don’t mean to, you know,
neglect
you.”

He pulls back. The lone wrought-iron lamp that hangs from the second story, down toward the front door, spreads warm golden light from one side of his face to another. He’s light and shadow this time, except I can see every delicate lash and the purely masculine confidence of his smile. “Believe me, sugar, I won’t let you. Come on.”

He leads me up the steps and into the foyer. The mansion’s subtle fragrance reminds me of him—mint, sandalwood, cinnamon, lemon oil. There’s a deeper musk too, as if the swamps out back refuse to be polite and hide away. This is a wild place, briefly tamed. I glance at Jude’s angular profile. He’s the same way.

I expect he’ll take me up to the room with the veranda and the astonishing view, but we veer softly to the left of the massive front staircase. It looks like something out of a movie set. It’s not. He
lives
here. Like seeing the suit, I’m hit again with the differences between us. I live in half a shoe box with Janey.

But it must get lonely here.

The room we enter—there’s no mistaking it’s Jude’s. The bed is an heirloom four-poster with a hunter green comforter. A pair of leather recliners take up space against the right wall, with a wrought iron and glass table between them. A low dresser of dark oak stands opposite, with a flat screen hanging just above it. Wood paneling adds to the richness of texture and scent, and keeps the room dark and intimate even when he turns on his nightstand light. This is a space for a man to rest.

The nightstand is that same wrought iron and glass, covered to toppling with business magazines and notebooks with creased pages and red ink scrawls. He lifts the whole bundle and flops it onto one of the recliners. He stops moving, his neck angled toward the bed.

I don’t know what to do. He said to trust him, so I do. I wait. I wait, even though it’s one of the strongest tests of willpower I’ve ever managed. I want to jump on him and follow him straight down onto the bed.

“Undress,” he says quietly.

I must’ve made a noise—God, I can’t tell anymore—because he lifts his eyes. Our gazes meet. He’s not haunted. I wouldn’t go that far. He’s in a deep place. Only then, idiot me, do I realize the truth. What I’m seeing is pure lust.

It’s happened to me before, but this is the first time I’ve felt it so suddenly, so purely: I go wet. Totally. The hotness in my belly turns liquid and slides down, down. I’m stunned, really. I didn’t know it could happen that quickly, especially with just a look. He could shove me against the wall and take me, right now, and I’d be ready.

I’m so
not
ready, in my head, but my body is saying,
Bring it on
.

“If I repeat myself, sugar, I won’t give you a choice about how to do it. I’ll strip you how I want.” He looks me up and down, devouring me as surely as if he used his mouth. “Undress.”

Part of me is terrified.
Tell me I shouldn’t be!
This is Jude, with his intensity on steroids. Maybe he’s thought about throwing me back on the bed too, and this is his way of keeping it . . . calm?

Completely not the right word.

Gentle. He’s trying to be gentle. My first time. He’s trying to honor his promises.

My hands are shaking as I pull the camisole up over my head. I grab my ponytail holder in the same move and shake my hair loose.

I reach to undo my jeans, but he cuts his jaw to the side. “No. Your bra.”

I’ll have regrets if I let this stay totally one-sided. So I ask why.

“There’s something so damn sexy about a topless woman still wearing jeans.”

I reach behind my back and grab the hook-and-eye closure. “You’re a guy,” I say, smiling some. “You’re going to have to explain that one.”

“Bra and panties.” His gravelly words are softened by his accent. It’s getting thicker with everyone sentence. “Might as well be a bikini. That’s not so special. But half dressed? Clothes coming off? That’s intimate.”

I think I get his meaning and decide to brave it out. I drop the bra to the floor. It
is
intimate. I’m bared from the waist up, for him alone—his relentless eyes. I arch my back, feeling languorous and sexy.

My tiny surge of confidence grows when I take off my jeans, then my panties. He stares at me like I’m a goddess. I could be one, for him.

He undresses without fanfare, but I take in every move as if he’s a man in slow motion. Tie slips free. Buttons unfasten. Zipper slides low. I’m burning up with each newly exposed inch of smooth, golden skin. The nightstand light accentuates his masculine curves and planes. High, strong muscles gleam. The shadows between them are deeper.

He slides his hand into his briefs and slips the waistband over his erection. The briefs slip to the floor.

I can’t breathe. Speak. Swallow.

But I can stare.

He’s . . . big. I’m liquid, eager, but the last scraps of fear won’t fly away.

“Come here.”

I obey without hesitation, when I would’ve sworn movement was beyond me. He’s a vortex, or a planet with its own powerful orbit. He’s gravity and the tide. There’s no denying any force of nature that powerful. Jude is one of them.

He stops me with hands on my hips. I flinch, then laugh—a bubble of release. He smiles indulgently. I love that grin. It’s nearly the smirk I first saw on his thin, perfectly shaped lips, but there’s no malice behind it. Just a shared moment. I can feel it. He’s sharing this amazement with me.

Surely, confidently, he pulls me nearer by slow degrees until his erection presses flat against my stomach. Oh my God, it’s so hot. And hard. It juts between our bodies in a way that almost makes me panic. My heart freaks out and starts some crazy rhythm that
isn’t
rhythm. He loops an arm around my low back, holding me there, forcing me to feel his pulse where it radiates from our exquisite contact.

He tips my chin up to meet his eyes. “Now you have proof. How much I want you. Are you still nervous?”

“Yes.”

“And you still trust me—here at least?”

“Yes.”

He places his hand flat between my breasts and presses, urging me to bow back against his supporting arm. He finds one nipple with his mouth. I gasp as wet heat circles and flicks. I never knew I could be so sensitive. Every nerve is made of electricity—especially there, where he sucks deeper. My other nipple is just as sensitive, as are the slight swells under each breast and the hollows above both collarbones. He plays my upper body like an instrument made for his firm lips.

I’m moving now. Shaking. Trying to get closer. He tightens his hold on my lower back, then slips down to cup my ass. His hand is almost big enough to span both cheeks in one firm grip.

“I could slide into you,” he rasps against my throat. “Any other time, any other moment, like this—and I will. Do you believe I could hold on to you? That we wouldn’t even need a bed?”

“Yes.” I’m surprised at my calm, no matter the fireworks his words set off in my imagination. “But tonight I want the bed.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He turns me in his arms and lowers me down. Just like I’d pictured, I’m surrounded by the scent of his linens, even as he hovers over me. “You’re going to drive me crazy.”

“That’s a good thing.”

“A very good thing.” He tosses me a crooked grin. “Now open your knees.”

I’m beyond shock, and beyond being shocked. Or so I think. The light in his eyes is as electric as I feel. His face is surrounded by ruffled hair, with each strand gilded by lamplight. I give in completely. My body goes limp on a sweet exhale of pure relief. I let my knees part so that Jude Villars can have his way with me.

 Thirty 

H
ow can anything feel this amazing? How do I still have brains enough to notice tiny details? His nails are blunt, and the left side of his mouth quirks higher when he smiles at me. Maybe because I’m so overheated and sensitive that each detail blazes across my senses with hyperclarity. I’m being tattooed. There’s no place he’ll leave untouched, and that touch will be permanent.

This particular smile is new to me. He grins up from where he’s kneeling between my legs, with his lips hovering over my inner thigh. He licks. He kisses. I’m immobilized by the slightest touches of wet to trembling, hot to steaming. My gasps make him smile even wider.
Yes
. Just like he said. He’s learning me. I’m a gasping, writhing road map, and the man does love to explore.

When Jude nuzzles up to meet the center of my need with his firm, determined lips, I sit half up off the bed. “Wait” is what I say. And I know how the world works. When a woman says no, a guy stops. I didn’t think any different of Jude. But I catch myself. I find myself on my elbows, watching where his face is so . . . very . . . close.

He angles a look toward my face, then raises his eyebrows. “Let me,” he says. “Promises, remember?”

“And I’m going to love it.”

“Hell yes, sugar.”

“Okay.”

“Has anyone else touched you here?” He traces his forefinger down, down, down. . . .

“Jude. God, please. Do you want me to talk or just melt?”

“Talk a little?” His smile is changing again. Dares and wickedness. I recognize the dares from the night he got me onstage. He’s speaking a whole new language—almost literally. “You didn’t answer.”

“No one’s touched me there.”

He drags his head up and grins. His hair lays across his brow, as if an artist drew outside the lines. I slide trembling hands back along his temples. I love touching his hair and I love seeing his face. Double win.

“How about a cock?” He wiggles his eyebrows. “And yeah, I said that on purpose.”

My face is on fire. Pure flame. “What about one?”

“Have you ever touched a naked one? Aroused, like I am?”

“When you pressed our bodies together.”

“But not with your hands?”

I shake my head.

“Here,” he says, even more gently now. He moves up my body until he’s lying nearly parallel. “Like this.”

Covering my hand with his own, he starts with the easy stuff. The familiar stuff. Our fingers are twined as he guides me to touch his face. We’re locked eye to eye as we flutter across his temples, brows, nose, smiling lips, and cut-granite chin. His throat is tight and corded, although he keeps his guiding hand light on mine. It’s like he can read just when he’s taken me as far as I can stand, then brings me back to a place where I still have relatively firm footing.

I take a deep breath. “More,” I say against his cheek. “I’m ready.”

Still guiding, he strokes our hands down his body. I feel the shifting strength of his biceps. The hair along his forearms tickles my palm. I let myself laugh because this is heady and scary and just . . .
us
.

His breathing picks up, outpacing even mine, when we reach his defined pecs and abs. Below his navel, his rougher body hair tapers. What has yet to happen is still a drumbeat, but the journey—this exploration together—is just as exciting.

“I like foreplay,” I say just before I kiss him. I don’t remember if I’ve kissed him like this, some mix of needy and sweet. We’re still lip to lip when he takes my hand down those last few inches. He closes my fingers around his shaft. Of course he knew what would happen—he made it happen, after all—but he hisses in a sharp breath anyway.
My
grin feels wicked now. “In fact, I like foreplay
a lot
.”

He rolls me onto my back, and for a brief, panicky moment, I think,
This is it.
Instead, he just kisses the hell out of me. It’s like he’s taking out all his pent-up, gentlemanly restraint out on my mouth. I haven’t let go of his thick erection. In fact, I’m caressing him, learning him, still marveling that this was really happening.

“Okay, enough,” he says roughly. He grabs my hands and pushes them flat against the bed. “There. That’s safer.”

“For you.”

“Yeah.” He grins. “Because you’re in trouble now.”

He takes hold of my thighs. His hands are so strong, but I’m not going anywhere. He opens me, then dips his head. My spinning craziness becomes a whirlwind as he licks and nuzzles my . . . Maybe one day I’ll be able to think the same daring way he talks. Right now I just
feel
. I grab the sheets, but they’re not Jude. I grab the muscles of his back, but he’s slippery with sweat. Finally I grab his hair and pull.

He releases one of my legs and slows the rhythm of his mouth. Two fingers. That’s it. In the whole scheme of the planet, how important are two fingers? Jude’s are stunningly, blindingly important as he traces me and glides inside.

I cry out. There’s a sharp bite of pain, but then there’s Jude’s mouth to soothe and tease. I don’t know what he’s going to do next. The lack of control threatens to rob me of how good it feels. I force my mind back to the present. To Jude. To the gentle, almost lulling way he’s stroking with those two insanely talented fingers. His tongue is more insistent. He’s seeking out every gasp. It’s like he’s after me, chasing down my pleasure as his prize.

I shake, call his name, thrust my hips. He presses his fingers deeper as I clench around him. I’m sweating and I probably look like a wild animal, but that doesn’t freak me out when I can’t describe the hot-cold electricity coursing through my body. I don’t have to be anything else for him. His self-satisfied smile is as beautifully smug as any a guy’s ever worn. I’m crying or panting or something, until—

I freak the fuck out.

I don’t know what happens. I really don’t. It’s confusing and scary all at once when I sit up and take his face between my hands. I kiss him. Hard. I reach for any part of him I can get at. He’s so solid. Everywhere. Arms and pecs, shoulders and abs. Even his firm backside.

“Keeley, shit.” He tries to peel me off him. “I can’t go slow if you—”

I find his cock. Two hands. Fingers all the way around. He cusses until I can’t understand what’s a growl and what’s a word.

“That was the pain, wasn’t it?” I ask, just before biting his earlobe. “You did it with your fingers.”

“Yeah.”

“Then it won’t hurt now?”

“It will if you keep this up. Sugar, good Christ,
stop
.”

I let go of him completely, because, oh, his voice. When he
means it
. I don’t remember hearing that before. My bones seize and my whole body becomes his marionette. I flop back on the bed. “Stopped.”

“You wanted this to last. You— You’re acting like you know what you’re doing.”

My hair rasps against the pillow when I shake my head. “I can’t help myself.”

I take a deep breath. I won’t be able to live with myself if it’s all because of what Jude makes me feel. I’ve wanted to be memorable to him. Now I can be memorable
with
him.

That means I want to be an active participant.

He matches my moves as I climb to my knees. We’re facing each other on the bed, stomach to stomach again, with his stern face looking down at mine with an expression near to pain. “I’m trying to keep my promises, Keeley. Help me out here. You’re making it so I can’t think.”

“You remember what you said?” I scrape my fingers down his chest, every line and graceful arc and stubborn ridge. “We knew it was going to happen. We just didn’t know how.”

“I remember.”

“You’ve kept your promises, Jude. Slow. Foreplay. I came and it barely hurt. Now . . . this is us doing it how we want. No more rules.”

I’d thought his eyes were filled with lust before. I’d thought his body tense and ready—so ready. I was wrong.
No more rules
blows his mind. I swear I see sparks shoot across his irises. He bares his teeth and settles back on his haunches. His cock is like a spear aiming up from between his thighs. He grabs a condom off the nightstand and rolls it on.

“Right there,” he says past gritted teeth. He nods to his lap. “You belong right there.”

God, God, God . . .

I’m frozen and racing at a thousand miles an hour. His hands on my hips break my paralyzed spell. He lifts. I lift. With my arms around his neck and his around my low back, I sink down his stiff length.

I throw my head back on a dizzy, giddy cry. He bows his forehead low, between my breasts, groaning, already thrusting up. I catch his rhythm and hold on. Who knew it would wind up this way? Here’s where I have to trust him again. No more rules.
Sure.
But he’s still Jude, and his pride is a fierce thing. I remember Yamatam’s, knowing he’d be watching me all night, waiting to see if I’d seek him out. He’s a man used to winning. To finish this without me? I can’t imagine it, even as he drives harder and holds me so tight—down, on, around him. I find the place where his neck meets his shoulder and nibble tense flesh.

“You’re . . . Jesus, so beautiful. Pink skin all flushed. Your lips plump from our kisses. I’ve wanted to kiss your lips from the beginning.” He groaned. “I wish the light was brighter. I want to see your eyes. Such brilliant green. And your body—Keeley, sugar, you’re so fucking perfect. Perfect for me.”

“Tonight,” I whisper in his ear, “I believe you.”

His grin is tight, almost pained, but it’s still teasing enough to flip my heart. “Good.”

“Show me the rest now. Please, Jude.”

He bends me back against the bed. I catch my heels together at his low back. There’s nothing gentle left between us, except maybe the distant knowledge that yes, we both want the other to come. I want him to. I want him—

He changes the angle of our bodies and hits . . .
something
deep inside me. I rocket into pieces. Fingernails become claws up his back. I see black and red and fireworks. There’s a moment when sleep and ecstasy seem to blend. Dreams on top of reality. Utter relaxation—totally lost in him—layered over a pleasure so great that I’m dizzy.

Jude buries his face beside mine on the pillow and drives deep. He’s saying my name and I wish that it had always been my real name, so that when he says it with such reverence and passion, he won’t be chanting a lie.

He knows how to make himself feel good now that he’s blown me to bits. His hips are—just,
damn
, where does all that strength come from? He’s amazing and beautiful and sweating, growling, grinding, and I come again without even thinking about it. Pleasure sneaks up on me and crashes down, almost as heavy as Jude when he stiffens, then collapses across my body.

We’re panting and he’s wiping my cheeks. “Tell me these are good tears.”

I start to laugh like a maniac let out of the asylum too soon. I wrap my arms and legs around him so tight.

Never let me go.

“Good tears,” I choke out, rather than say what my heart is shouting. “So good. Words all gone-gone good.”

“Christ, sugar.”

He eases off of me, ditches the condom, and folds me against his hot skin. We’d be steaming if the air was any cooler. As it is, we add ten degrees to the room’s thick mood. I can’t remember it being this heavy and perfumed when we walked in. It’s all us. The smell of sex and satisfaction.

“Getting up on your knees like that,” he says against the top of my head. “Was that trying to be memorable again?”

“It crossed my mind.” I stretch so hard that I can almost reach his toes with mine. “But I didn’t do it on purpose. It’s just . . . how I needed to do it.”

He rolls me onto my back and lounges beside me, with his head propped on his hand. “Passion. Pure passion. I should’ve known. And there’s your answer again.”

“What answer?”

“To the question of
Why you?
” His breath is a gorgeous shudder, while his smile is as slinky as when we started. “Why I wanted you. Why I still do.”

I lift my head, just enough to brush my lips against his. “Tell me?”

“I thought I had you all figured out, that first night. Not even close.” He wipes away one last tear, then touches it to his tongue. His eyes roll closed as if he’s just tasted the most exquisite dessert. It’s beautiful to watch. “I wonder if I ever will.”