He grins. “I would expect it from my fiancé.”
I chuckle, getting two mugs down from the cabinet.
“I think we need to practice more,” Jude says. “That was kind of stiff.”
“Bring it on.”
Jude grabs my wrist, twisting me around as I set the mugs down. He pulls me into him, our chests pressed together, and buries his face into the crook of my neck. As he rubs my back, I’m left speechless. Being in his arms is way better than I ever imagined. I wrap my arms around him in return, melting into him. After probably a full minute of this, I let my hand roam down and take a nice big squeeze of Jude ass. He laughs, but as our eyes meet, his soften.
“Well played.”
“I got a little game left.”
Jude laughs. “You definitely do.”
He doesn't make any attempt to move away or let me go, and all I can do at this point is will my dick to stay calm. Neither of us speak, and I’m not sure what he’s thinking, but I swear I can feel the outline of his dick on my thigh. Is he...hard?
“That was good,” Jude says. “Not stiff.”
Except for what’s between my legs. Maybe his too. “Yeah, no, it was good.”
He nods. “Good,” he repeats. “Feels pretty…” He shrugs. “Good.”
There are a lot of words I could use to replace good. “Yeah.”
After exchanging the simplest of words, seemingly incapable of more, a few more awkward seconds pass before Jude breaks the silence.
“Um, I guess I’ll go get dressed,” Jude murmurs, his words coming out clunky.
“Yeah. Me too.”
“Cool. Meet you back here to hang out?”
I nod. “Yep.”
I fill our mugs, and as he leaves the kitchen with his, he glances back at me with an expression I can’t quite read. I drink a large gulp of coffee like it’s a shot, hoping the hot liquid will clear the lusty cobwebs from my mind. It doesn’t. I rub my forehead. Jude is my friend. That’s it. That’s all it’s ever going to be. Maybe if I say that every day, it’ll start to sink in, and I’ll stop fantasizing about being on my knees for him.
Hours later, I lean into Jude while we watch TV. “I think I deserve a better pet name than babe,” I complain.
Jude grins, eating a bite of popcorn. “You don’t like it?”
“It’s just so pedestrian. Like no effort at all for personalization.”
“Fair. Any ideas?”
I roll my eyes. “No, Jude. The idea is for you to come up with the pet name. Something that’s me.”
He nods, studying my face for a minute. “Oh. I know. Cheesecake.”
I fight off a giggle as I shake my head. “You absolutely cannot call me cheesecake.”
“Cookie?”
“Certainly not.”
“Brownie?”
“No.”
He sets the popcorn bowl on the coffee table. “My little croissant? Biscuit?” He’s laughing now. “Oooh, apple dumpling.”
“Groans audibly.”
“My sexy little cannoli.”
“Stahp.”
Jude leans into me, tickling my stomach as I squirm. “Cupcake? Muffin?”
I’m laughing so hard from the tickling and the ridiculous nicknames I end up snorting, which only eggs Jude on even more.
“Apple pie? Pumpkin roll? Oh. Empanada. That’s it. My little empanada.”
“I will kill you if you call me that.”
Then Jude is on top of me, his weight deliciously pressing me into the sofa. His face is full of affection and happiness. If I could take a picture of him to capture his expression, I would, and I would look at it any time I felt sad.
His tongue teases his bottom lip as his eyes soften and his smile settles into something so sexy my insides actually feel like they’re melting. At this point, I can only hope he doesn’t feel my hardening dick against his thigh.
“If I wanted to pick a name that suits you, I would call you handsome and brave and kind and sweet and smart and funny and comforting.”
“Comforting?”
“Yeah. That’s what you do for me, Bri. You comfort me.”
“I think that’s incredible.”
“Me too.” He brushes my hair from my forehead. “I’ll come up with something good. What will you call me?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Well make it good. We wouldn’t want to be pedestrian.”
“You’re ridiculously sexy, you know that? You’re not even trying, and you’re just…” I shake my head. “Fucking amazing.”
After a few seconds of Jude searching my eyes and me wishing to all fuck he would kiss me, he leans back and pulls me upright, effectively breaking the spell.
“It’s you that brings it out,” Jude says, so quietly I almost don’t hear it. “Because I trust you, I know I can just be myself.”
“Well, yes, and you know there aren’t really any stakes here. We’re not trying to fall in love. It’s all just pretend.”
He nods, biting on his bottom lip. “I wouldn’t say there aren’t any stakes. Does anyone ever try to fall in love, or does it just happen when we stop fighting it?”
“I tried to fall in love with Michael. I convinced myself that’s what I was feeling.”
Jude chuckles. “That’s where you went wrong, my friend. You can’t make yourself fall for someone any more than you can stop it from happening. That’s why I don’t date. Don’t want to fall in love.”
“But why, Jude?”
“Hurts too much when it’s over.”
I grab his hand. I have a question worth asking. “Will you tell me what happened to you?”
He keeps holding my hand, but he squeezes it a little before his fingers relax and intertwine with mine. “It’s not that dramatic. I was just in love with a girl once. I loved her with every ounce of me. I poured myself into her. She always came first in my life.”
“What happened?”
“I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t ambitious enough. I didn’t look good on paper, you know? No Ivy League college, no affluent parents, no pedigree. Her father didn’t think I was suitable for his daughter, and she didn’t fight him. She told me we could never be more than what we were, which was high school kids fucking around, I guess. She’s married to a politician now. She’ll probably be the first lady someday. They have three kids and a dog and a white picket fence.”
“I’m sorry, Jude.”
“It’s cool. I got over that mostly, and then I tried again about five years ago. I met her at a conference, so I thought we’d at least have our work in common.”
“Oh, she was an artist too?”
“Yeah, but she lives in New York. We burned hot and fast and it wasn’t sustainable. Once again, I was all in. I thought we were on the same page about a lot of things, but we weren’t. I thought I could fall for her, you know. Maybe she was it for me. She just thought I was someone to do when she was in Miami. I started noticing her pulling back. Less texts, less visits.” He laughs, but it’s tinged with pain. “I flew up to NYC one weekend to surprise her when she said she didn’t have anything going on, hoping we could rekindle things. I show up at her apartment and she’s got a guy there. I thought he was the side dick, but it turns out I was.”