I’m not into food play, but hell, I will be if it warrants that dark glimmer in his eyes. My tongue darts out, and I bite down on the berry, the juice hitting my tongue. I finish it quickly. “Find out,” I whisper in invitation.
He dips his face, kisses me with the barest trace of his lips, then backs off. “Tastes like the start of my dirty fantasies.”
I shudder, anticipation rushing through me from his heated stare . . . at my duck shirt. I’d been wondering when he’d finally notice what I wore. “You like this too?”
“Like it? I fucking love it.” He darts out a hand, fingers the top button, plays with my chest hair right above it. He travels down the buttons, undoing the first one, then presses a hot, possessive kiss to my pecs.
“I thought you might,” I whisper.
“As soon as I saw you at the end of the play, all I could think about was my dressing room fantasy. This.” Jude drops down to his knees, unzips my jeans, and frees my cock from the confines of my boxer briefs. “Do you have any idea how much I love sucking your cock?”
This man. I’m trembling already as I thread my fingers through his hair. “Show me.”
He bends his face to my dick, presses a hot tease of a kiss to the crown. “Ever since I invited you to LA, I’ve been getting off to thoughts of this every night.”
He draws the head of my dick between his lips, watching me watch him.
“Just . . . this?” I rasp out.
With a nod, he swirls his tongue around the head, then stops. “I get so fucking hard sucking you off. I love the way it drives you wild,” he says, then licks a long, tantalizing stripe down the underside.
“You drive me wild, Jude,” I say, my voice shaky as he plays with my dick.
“The way you taste. The way you smell,” he says, letting go to run his nose along the space between my thigh and my pelvis, inhaling me. Then he returns to my dick, flicking his tongue over the head as he cups my balls. “Most of all,” he says, slow and seductive even though he doesn’t have to seduce me. I’m already seduced. “I love what it does to you.”
My legs shake. My pulse surges to the sky. That’s what he does to me. “The second you touch me, I want to explode,” I confess.
“I know.” He swirls his tongue over the head, then he drops his mouth down on my dick, taking me all the way.
“Fuck yes. Like that, just like that.” My head thumps hard against the wall. My hands clamp around his skull.
All his teasing disappears as he sucks with ferocious purpose. I have to watch him. Have to record every filthy image. I stare down at the man on his knees, his gorgeous lips wrapped around my dick, his noises wet and obscene. His hands roam up and down my thighs, and the whole time, his blue eyes pin me with a daring look.
As I grip his head, I’m grunting, growling. Someone could walk by and hear us. Jude clearly doesn’t care, since he unzips his pants, takes out his dick.
The sight of him hard sends hot spikes of lust straight to my balls. “Gimme your palm,” I tell him.
He thrusts up his hand as he lavishes unholy attention on my shaft. I spit in his hand, then he grips his cock, stroking. I can’t stand how good this feels. How turned on I am. How I want things I haven’t wanted in ages.
Someday soon, really soon, I want to ask him to fuck me.
The second I picture him spreading me open, my orgasm taps on my shoulder then knocks on the door of my back. “Gonna come, baby,” I warn, then I slam my fist against my mouth. I have to bite my knuckles so I don’t shout in pleasure.
I come so hard my knees nearly buckle. As he lets go of me, I want to slump against the wall and savor the aftershocks.
But I’ve got a bigger mission.
In a heartbeat, I get down on the floor, push him onto his back, and kneel between his legs, taking over for his hand. I draw him deep, and that’s all my guy needs. One, two, three sucks, and he’s shuddering. “Yes, fucking yes. Take it all.”
I happily, greedily swallow his orgasm, drinking every last drop, humming around his shaft till he laughs, then pushes me off. Then we slump next to each other on the dressing room floor.
I’m exhausted and elated. Especially when he whispers in my ear, “Are you really leaving tomorrow?”
I’m so high on him that all I can think is what a good question that is.
37
Reading Between the Lines
Jude
* * *
I’ve never been one to think I have a gift when it comes to acting. Mainly because it’s a craft, and like all crafts, it takes work, time, and practice.
But there’s one gift I might very well possess—reading between the lines of TJ Ashford-slash-Hardman. I’ve been able to do this since I met him seven years ago outside a discount shop in London.
I knew he was writing a book before he told me.
And I figured out the first night that he kept pieces of himself to, well, himself. I learned to be patient since eventually, he’d share some of those details with me.
Tonight, his damn shirt is so easy to read, and it gives me the balls to take the next step. Something I’m ready to do when a knock on the dressing room door stops me. “Hello, Mister Fox. We’re going to lock up for the night,” the stage manager calls out.
“Great. Thanks,” I say as TJ and I spring to our feet, comically tugging up jeans, tucking in shirts, and smoothing our hair in seconds.
“Just checking to see if you need anything,” she adds.
“Thanks, Maggie. All good. Cheers.”
“Cheers to you,” she says.
As TJ buttons his duck shirt—could there be a better sign, universe?—I mouth this is all your fault.
With a cocky smile, he just shrugs. “Sure is, Mister Fox.”
“Shut it, Mister Hardman. Just shut it,” I say with a laugh.
Five minutes later, he helps me carry vases of flowers from my agents, the show’s producers, and my parents and friends.
Once we’re outside the theater, his brow knits. “Do you want to take these to . . .”
“My Airbnb.” I stayed near the theater for the first few weeks but switched to a cute little cottage on Venice Beach on Friday. “And I want to take you too. For more than tonight,” I say, since why beat around the bush?
There’s that twinkle in his eyes, that grin he tries to mask. Why does he hide his feelings? Or hide them badly, I should say. Doesn’t he know I can eventually see through him?
As we walk, he clears his throat. “A few minutes ago, you asked Do I really have to leave tomorrow?”
“I did.”
The twinkle multiplies as we walk past the fountains, glittering in the dark. “To answer your question, Jude . . . I bought a one-way ticket.”
This is officially the best night ever. “Someone was hopeful,” I say, as he’s proved my point—eventually, he says what’s in his heart.
“I was,” he says, and it’s the admission I wanted last night at the bar, but I suppose it’s an admission I had to earn. Maybe one we both had to earn over the last twenty-four hours.
As we head toward the Lyft I ordered, he tells me he has to return to New York on Thursday for a book signing the day after.