“Right.” I took it back and drank some more.
“He doesn’t usually get trashed,” she said, moving closer so I could hear. “He enjoys himself, sure, but he doesn’t take it too far.”
I lifted a shoulder. “Exams are coming, and his best friend’s a dick. Let him go.”
Cory seemed to ponder that for a minute, then took the bottle. “Speaking of Jude.” She made a show of looking around. “No sign of him.”
I was both pleased and immensely disappointed.
For maybe the first time in years, I lost the ability to think of him after Cory and I finished the bottle and went in search of another.
Laughing, we got sidetracked on the way to find Gina and somehow wound up playing pool with a bunch of guys from Ardent Falls University.
Leaning over the table, I racked up the balls. A set of hands landed on my hips, and I squeaked as I was lifted onto the table. “Enough pool,” the blond guy said. “You lose, so now you owe us that dance.”
I didn’t remember making any deals with this curly-haired surfer type, but when the music came on, I climbed to my feet anyway.
“Fern,” Cory said, laughing and grabbing for my ankles. “Get down, you idiot.”
“You should listen to your friend.”
As though the way he’d vanished from my mind, if only for a couple of hours, had summoned him, I looked over to find Jude standing in the arched doorway of the games room.
His jaw was granite, arms crossed over his chest, and those eyes… yeah, he was pissed.
I laughed. “Well, would you look who it is.” I made to reach for the surfer dude, but they were leaving. Even Cory had busied herself with her phone as Jude entered the room.
Stopping below me, he leaned back against the wall.
“What are you doing?” I said, confused as to what just happened.
Maybe I was drunk, or maybe I lacked the information needed to piece this weird as hell puzzle together.
“Waiting,” he said.
I sat down to climb off the table. He was there in an instant, gripping my waist when my foot slipped, and I almost rolled to the ground. “What for? Oh,” I said. “Right, Marnie’s here somewhere.”
As soon as my feet hit the floor, he stepped back and plucked his keys from his pocket with a glance at Cory. She waved him off, gesturing at her phone before leaving the room.
Too late, it dawned that he was apparently not here for Marnie but to take me home.
“Why?” Dumbfounded, I eyed him. In dark jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, he didn’t exactly look as though he was here to party, but I was sure his attire wouldn’t faze anyone.
It most certainly didn’t bother me. He looked good in anything.
“Just follow me.”
It wasn’t until I’d squeezed between partygoers and exited the three-story house that I realized he hadn’t waited for me.
He wouldn’t be seen walking with me.
The sting of that was almost worse than the hurt he’d caused by using one of my fears against me—both private wounds in public places.
Walking down the long drive, I stopped and leaned against a Mercedes near the gates. “I don’t want to go home.”
Jude sighed and turned back, his hands in his pockets. “What do you want then?”
His bland expression broke with silent laughter when I lurched off the car.
“What the fuck?” I stepped back some more as it rocked again, noticing the windows were fogged.
“Come on, Red.” He grabbed my wrist, dragging me after him, but save for whoever was in that car, no one was around to see him touching me. And I highly doubted they even knew we were out here.
“Were they…?”
“What do you think?” He opened the side gate for me, then the door of his waiting Range Rover on the other side. Swallowing, I walked over. Before I climbed in, his hot breath warmed my cheek. “Are you thinking of my lips around your clit?”
I nearly squealed, a shocked laugh erupting. “Well, I am now.”
His head fell back, a burst of laughter flying toward the moon.
How like my fascination to seek me out on such a night. When the moon was so full, the stars didn’t dare shine too bright for they didn’t stand a chance.
I was thankful for the side of the leather seat at my back as I let the sound seep inside my ears and travel to my chest. I’d heard him laugh like that countless times before, but it’d been so long. And to be the one who’d caused the rough melodic sound… “You have a great laugh.”
Sobering, he stared at me, then jerked his head at the car. “In.”
Clipping my seat belt on, I peered around the stark interior, absorbing how clean it was. So clean, as if the car had just left the lot.
Jude started the engine. “You never answered the first question.”
I felt my brows drop as he pulled out onto the road. “What I want?” I wasn’t sure how to answer that without being honest, especially while intoxicated. “I want to stay with you.”
He glanced over at me, too long to be considered safe, then looked back at the road and nodded once.
The quiet became stifling, and the warmth in my limbs began to slowly drip away. My short black dress itched, and the suede ankle boots were too tight around my sore feet.
Knowing it might get a rise out of him, I put the window down and waited.
Jude’s eyes stayed on the road, one hand on the wheel and the other still in his pocket.
Huh.
I reached for the volume dial, the song growing to a level that could reshape a mood.
That did it. His head swung my way, and then he turned it down.
I slumped for all of a moment before he said, “Like this song?” He then turned up the volume by using the button on the steering wheel and “Cute Without the ‘E’” by Taking Back Sunday blared through the speakers.
I didn’t need to answer. My bopping hips and the waving of my arm outside the window did that for me.
Towering trees rolled by, dark enough to make the sky seem bright in comparison. Up the hill we went, rounding the bend to head down the other side to our homes.
The song ended before Jude pulled into his driveway and hit a button I couldn’t see to open the black wrought-iron gates. They appeared more ominous at night as did his giant manor of a house, its arched windows playing peekaboo with the birch and oak trees.
“Your dad’s home,” I said, remembering the glimpse of his Jaguar just the other day.
“Was,” he said, stopping outside the three-car garage and climbing out. “Gone again.”
I immediately felt wretched, saying when he opened my door, “Yet you came to get me.”
“Rhiannon just left,” he said, helping me down.
I was too busy wondering who that was to be surprised by the gentlemanly action.
“Our cook and cleaner and babysitter,” Jude explained. “She stayed back to do some ironing for Dad. She’s paid well.”
“I’ll bet,” I muttered. Wait, if she’d just left… “What time is it?”
I hadn’t brought my phone with me. I had cash in my bra and a key hidden out front of the gates. I’d thought I’d be hitching a ride home with Cory, not the guy who sometimes hated me enough to break my heart.