Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 113584 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 568(@200wpm)___ 454(@250wpm)___ 379(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113584 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 568(@200wpm)___ 454(@250wpm)___ 379(@300wpm)
Jude feeds his arm back through his T-shirt and pulls it down. “She’s trying to get a rise out of you.”
“She’s succeeding!” I cry, turning and going to the kitchen. I need water. The sound of Jude’s boots follows me in, but he remains quiet behind me as I bang my way around his kitchen. After glugging back half the glass, I slam it down while Jude hovers on the threshold, as if scared to enter. “It would be easy not to give her a rise if she wasn’t here.” I throw it out there. “Why haven’t you told her to fuck off?”
He laughs under his breath, looking at the ceiling. For patience? I’m astounded. “It’s not that simple.”
“It’s not that simple?” I parrot on a recoil. “It’s very simple. This is your hotel, Jude. Go tell her to find another health club to work out at.”
“For fuck’s sake,” he breathes, daring to enter.
“Are you just going to carry on saying stupid shit?”
“Amelia.” His tone is low. Pacifying. I don’t appreciate it.
“Don’t Amelia me,” I warn, circling around the island, keeping myself on the other side from him. “She vandalised my car, Jude. She’s making me not want to come here.”
His eyes slightly narrow. I don’t appreciate that either. “I’ll talk to her,” he says, calm, rounding the island towards me.
I instinctively move too, away from him. “I don’t want you to talk to her.”
“How the hell can I fix this if I can’t talk to her?”
“First, you don’t talk to her, you tell her, and you fix it by telling her to fuck off and never come back.” Am I being unreasonable? Bratty? God, I don’t even know. But I do know I shouldn’t have to ask him to do this. I’d love to see him invite my ex into his hotel and cause a daily shitstorm. My head in my hands, I breathe into them, hating this version of myself. I’m a big girl. I can take Katherine’s digs and deflect her claws. But every day? I’m already exhausted by her. And, besides that, I shouldn’t bloody have to.
My wrists are suddenly wrapped in Jude’s palms, and he pulls my hands away, making me face him. “I will fix this,” he says, sincere. “I promise.”
Have I ever been so needy? It’s an odd sense of vulnerability and very significant. I love him enough to care. He means enough for me to feel this way. “Okay,” I murmur, standing before him, heavy and tired.
“I’m going to make everything better.” He strokes his hands up my bare arms, shivers following his touch over my shoulders.
“How?” I whisper, pulling my shoulder blades in to sustain the torture of his breath in my ear.
“First,” he says quietly, licking the sensitive spot below my lobe as he tugs my workout top up over my head, thrusting his hips into me, “I’m going to take off all these sweaty clothes and lay you on the kitchen floor.” My eyes close, my brain empties, leaving room for only Jude. “Then,” he breathes, biting down on my lobe and dragging it through his teeth. My hand flies up and fists his T-shirt.
“Then what?” I ask, my head rolling on my neck as he kisses my throat.
“Then I’m going to pour champagne all over your tits and pussy and lap it all up until you’re begging for penetration.”
“Hmmm.” A hard, distinct bang lands between my legs, making my feet tread on the spot. “Do it.”
“Oh, baby, how you burn for me.” His hand slips past the seam of my leggings and knickers, his fingers stroking through my soaked flesh. “Fuck,” he hisses, as my torso folds and I use his T-shirt to yank his mouth onto mine, kissing all my frustration away.
“You’re irresistible, Jude Harrison,” I garble around his lips, pushing him back against the island.
He turns us, bending me back on the counter, bringing his chest down to mine. “You’re quite irresistible yourself.”
“I am?”
“And coy.” He fists my hair and holds my head as he slams his lips onto mine, grinding his groin into me before reaching for my trainers and pulling them off. They hit the floor with a thud. My leggings are next, peeled down my legs, taking my knickers with them. “Let’s make love, baby,” he says, easing one cup of my sports bra down, his mouth encasing my nipple, sucking it to a bullet. The hard length of him past his jeans rubs into my lower stomach, sending me out of my mind, my hearing becoming distorted, along with my vision.
Ring, ring, ring.
“Ignore it,” I order, as he moves to my other boob, splitting his worshipping tongue across both breasts.
“I had every intention of ignoring it.”
I arch my back as he skates a palm over my hip, and as soon as his mobile rings off, it rings again.