Chapter 8

I graspedhis wrist before he could bring his thumb down on his mum's contact name. My heart hammered, thumping against my ribs until it nearly became difficult to breathe. When he glanced up at me in surprise, I shook my head with a sad smile.

"What?" His eyebrows dipped in irritation, and I took a short moment to appreciate the crease of his forehead. Despite the years that had vanished between us, he was still as handsome as the day I'd left him. Aye, he looked older, but if anything, he'd grown into his square jaw and the deep grooves of his eye sockets.

"Don't do that." I stroked my thumb over the pulse point on his wrist, the warmth of his skin searing mine. I missed this.

He frowned and dropped his phone onto the floor beside him. "Why not? She's the reason you left me, and I deserve answers."

He had a point. Of course he did. If I were him, I would be mad, too, which was why I'd kept it from him for so long. I snuggled into him farther and sighed. There weren't too many men who could make me feel safe, wrapped in arms bigger than my own, but he managed to do that perfectly. "She's your mum, Judah. I've already lost mine, I don't want you to lose yours, too."

"If she was my mom, she would've wanted to see me happy." His hold tightened on me and he pressed a kiss to my forehead. I inhaled the smell of his sweat from our fucking and smiled. I could die right now and be completely happy. "This was a power play. She was looking out for her own image and future, not mine. I should've guessed it was her. Fuck. Was I really that stupid?"

"Judah—"

He grabbed my shoulders and pushed me away so he could stare directly at me. I had no choice but to let him, even though it felt like he was digging into the deepest recesses of my soul, where he'd find the pain I'd buried. "No. Don't make excuses for her. She blackmailed you. She offered you something she knew you couldn't refuse. I shouldn't be surprised. She's always been manipulative like that."

"I'd never bloody make excuses for her. She doesn't deserve that from me, but this isn't about her, is it?" I palmed his right cheek, stroking my thumb across his smooth skin. Part of me wished I hadn't said a thing, but I was also glad it was out in the open. He knew the truth. I'd half expected him to still be mad at me, because I'd chosen my mum over our relationship, but he seemed more furious at his mother. "This is about you. I do care about you, and I'd never forgive myself if you had a fallin' out with your mum. We only get one, and I lost mine. I don't want the same thing to happen to you."

He shook his head, clearly not agreeing with anything I'd said.

"Aren't you still mad at me?"

My question made him still. He blinked his brown eyes at me and swallowed, his Adam's apple jumping in his throat. My gaze darted down to his neck, saliva gathering in my mouth for a taste of him, even though we'd just fucked. It'd been twenty years since we'd touched before yesterday, and I'd craved this the entire time. Craved him.

"Why would I be?" he finally asked, warmth settling into his eyes.

"Because I still chose the money over us." I touched my forehead to his, and he exhaled, his breath tickling over my lips.

"No, you chose your mom, and that's understandable. I wish.... Fuck! You should've told me earlier, Tav. The moment she offered you the money to break up with me, you should have told me." He shook his head. "I could've.... I would've done something."

I laughed quietly. "Fuck off. We were eighteen, and you were about to go to college. You didn't have money either, Jude." It felt natural to slip back into his nickname now that some of the anger in him had been tamed. "There was nothing you could do."

"You should've told me," he repeated, this time quietly.

I smiled sadly. "About Mum? Aye, I should've. I thought.... I thought I'd get more time with her. But I don't regret not telling you about the money or contract." He stiffened, and I hurried to keep speaking. "I love you, Jude, and I never stopped. I hated having to break your heart. I wanted us to be together forever. But Mum.... She needed this peace, knowing she wasn't leaving me with hospital bills. She deserved a serene death." I winced. Painkillers that the doctors had given her helped with that.

"She would never have let you take money from my parents if she knew what the cost of it was...." He raised his eyebrows, a question in his eyes.

I chuckled. "No, she never knew where it came from. I told her that an anonymous donor came forward to help patients with cancer." I rubbed his cheek absentmindedly, closing my eyes to remember her face before she grew sicker. Her laughter, her smile, and her kindness. Then, there was her sadness when I'd admitted to her that Judah and I were no longer together. "I told her that you broke up with me."

He startled, jerking back out of my touch, and I let him go.

"It was the only way she'd drop it. If I told her I walked away from you, she'd ask a lot of questions, and I wouldn't've been able to lie through her interrogation." My shoulders slumped at the hurt expression that swept over his face. "You know what she was like."

He scoffed and shot to his feet, stepping away from me, and I watched him. "She died thinking I broke your heart."

I rubbed a palm over my chest and stopped, the stickiness of Judah's cum and piss reminding me of what we'd done. I stared down at my shirt to see some of the mess had soaked through the front. It wasn't much, but there were a few wet spots.

"Come on, get up. It's getting late. Let's go back to my house."

I carefully stood and stretched out my sore muscles. After how he'd bent me, it was no surprise that my body ached. I lifted homemade weights, so it was the kind of burn I was used to, though. "I can't. Ellis will be back from school, and I need to be home for him."

A flash of anger lit up his eyes and he crossed his arms. "What is with him? Who is he, Tav?"

Jealousy was a funny thing. Before, Judah had never felt threatened by other men. There were guys around our age who had asked me out, and some had asked Judah, too, but he'd never had a reason to worry. He'd laughed it off. This was new, and I had a love-hate relationship with how hot it was to see him possessive of me.

I chuckled. "Stop getting your knickers in a knot. I told you, he's just staying with me until he finishes high school."

"It doesn't answer the question, does it?" He ate up the distance between us and grabbed my hand, holding it in front of our faces to show the bracelet on my wrist. "This is mine. I gave it to you, which means you are mine."

I grinned, amused. "Aye, sir."

He shoved me backward, and I hit the edge of his desk, my arse plopping down on it. Something sharp bit into my left cheek and it felt like a pen, but I ignored it as he towered over me, storminess clouding his expression. My cock perked up even though I'd only just come. Fuck. Since when did I find angry and possessive hot?

He nudged my chest with his hand, and I fell to my back across the desk, my shirt riding up my belly. He hooked his fingers under the hem, pushing it up until the material was bunched under my chin before he bent forward and licked across my right nipple.

I gasped, arching off the desk, and he shoved me back down by my hips before his mouth latched on to my nub. He sucked on it hard, teething the nipple and flicking his tongue across it, eliciting spikes of pleasure that went straight south to my cock. The kisses and marks he bit onto my pecs were punishing and possessive, and one glance down at him nearly had me coming undone. His eyes had darkened and he was watching me, eating up my reactions as only a starving bloke would.

"This is mine. You are mine," he snarled out before he went to work on the other nipple.

I shuddered through his attention, not quite sure if I needed him to keep sucking on my tits or work his way south to my boner. Everything he did to me felt like it was directly connected to my cock, though, and it throbbed where it was once again trapped in my jeans.

The mewl that escaped me would've been embarrassing during any other time, but I didn't really give a shite what noises I made right now. I would bloody sing if he asked me to because I needed him like I needed air.

His tongue danced across my chest, and I watched as he licked up the mess he'd left behind. If it'd been anyone else, I might have made jokes about it, but the way he stared at me while he did it had my whole body on fire. My skin buzzed and the blood in my veins sizzled with the kind of desire that I'd never experienced. This older version of Judah was a hundred times better than the teen, and I wasn't sure if I could let him go a second time.

"Mm, the mixed taste of me and you." He winked.

"Jude—"

A sharp knock on the door had me jerking to sit up and shove down my shirt. Judah straightened, smoothing his hand down his suit as though he didn't appear as if he'd freshly fucked me. His hair was in a state, strands sticking up everywhere, and his mouth was kiss swollen.

I assumed I didn't look much better.

"Who is it?" he demanded more than asked.

"Judah, is that you?" The familiar voice of Mrs. Heizler filtered through the door, and I tensed, sliding to the floor behind the desk in case she decided to charge inside. The last thing I wanted was to see her. She'd been there when I'd signed the contract, a witness who'd agreed wholeheartedly that I wasn't good enough for Judah. I hadn't known her name that awful day, but I'd stared at my copy of the contract enough times to have it burned into my brain. If she caught sight of me, she'd get word back to Elizabeth immediately.

Judah sent me a confused frown as he answered her. "Yeah, it's me."

"I thought you were going home. Can I come in?"

I shook my head fast, eyes wide.

He cleared his throat. "I'm busy right now, Colleen. I'm going home soon. Is everything okay?"

There was a pause. "No, no. I was only wondering who was in there. I'll leave you be."

I sighed in relief, but it didn't last long when he spun on me, arms crossed and jaw tight.

"Well? What was that?" He didn't wait for an answer before powering on, his mind quick to connect the dots. "Does she have something to do with my mother and the contract you signed?"

I winced, then shrugged. "She, uh." I laughed at the absurdity. Just a few days ago I was driving a shite truck around the city, and now I was hiding behind Judah Dailey's bloody desk like the coward he accused me of being. "She was a witness. She agreed that this was the best path for you, for me to be out of your life."

His back went ramrod straight and the withering flames in his eyes roared to life again. "And you don't want me to call my mother over this? Do you hear yourself?" He grabbed my hand and yanked me back up to my feet, his chest against mine and his lips so close that I could nearly taste him. "They drove us apart, Tav. You're the love of my life, and they took you from me."

Love of my life. The words rebounded through my mind, but I didn't have time to process them because he was steamrolling ahead.

He stepped back and shook his head. "You're coming home with me tonight. I'm not wasting another minute without you. They're not taking any more time away from me."

"I can't, Jude. Ellis needs me."

A twitch began in his jaw and he crossed his arms over his massive chest. "Fine, I'll stay over at your place."

My place, as if we weren't talking about a shitty trailer. Shame curled low in my stomach. Instead of voicing how I felt, I did what I was good at, threw a joke at him. I grinned. "I don't know if the three of us can fit on the bed. It'd be a real Ten in the Bed situation, if you know what I mean?" I chuckled and began singing the nursery rhyme. "I definitely think Ellis would be the little one between the three of us."

The teasing didn't have the desired effect I was hoping for. There wasn't any laughter from Judah. Instead, the anger in his gaze intensified. He stalked back toward me until he had me crowded against the desk again.

"You sleep in the same bed as him?" he growled out, slamming his hands on either side of my waist.

"Have you seen the size of my trailer?" I tilted my head and my grin widened. "It's only fit for one person, and I'm too damned big to sleep on the couch."

He made a sound of disbelief. "I'll ask you again, are you fucking him?"

I rolled my eyes. Jealousy was a turn on for only so long, but when it came to Ellis, I wasn't going to accept it. He needed protecting, and I wasn't going to let him down. "No, Jude, I am not. I told you that he's staying with me until he finishes high school. Fuck. He lived across the river with his parents. When they found out he was gay, they were going to send him off to a conversion camp. I am protecting him from his crazy mum and dad, all right? The kid needs a place to stay until he can stand on his own two feet, and I'm offering him that. There used to be a pull-out bed, but it broke."

Some of the tightness in his shoulders seeped away and he relaxed, the muscles in his face loosening. "Oh."

"He's like my little brother right now, and I want him to have a good life." I pushed at his chest to give myself more space, and he went without an issue. "But all I've got is a trailer, which isn't the best place to live, but it's a roof over his head and away from parents who think he's sinning because of who he loves."

Everything about his posture softened, and for the first time in a long while, his mouth curled in a gentle smile, a reminder of the kind he used to give me when we were first together. His gray-streaked hair glinted under the light, and I couldn't resist cupping his cheek again and leaning up for a kiss, which he happily obliged in giving me.

"Ellis needs me," I whispered. "And I like being needed."

His Adam's apple jumped in his throat, and he slid his hands into mine, dragging me into a standing position again. "Let's go get him and he can spend the night, too. He'll have his own room and free rein of the house. The fridge is full and there's a pool and the living room has a big TV."

"Jude...."

"We can take him to school in the morning before work." He flicked his tongue out to lick my top lip, and I grabbed his face and dragged him into a hard kiss, sucking on the tongue that tempted me. He groaned into my mouth, and I thought I might have made some sounds, too. I missed this so much that it all seemed like one big fucking dream. I didn't want it to end if it was.

I forced myself away from his mouth to mutter, "This is a bad idea. If your mum finds out?—"

"Fuck her." He seized my shoulders and squeezed them. "I will make her show me that contract and rip it up. I'll tell her that she can stick it up her ass. No more, Tav. I'm not living another day without you. You're fucking mine, you've always been mine."

"We've changed," I tried, but he laughed.

"Of course we have. It's been twenty years, but we're still the same people underneath." One of his hands slid down my chest and stopped on my pec, squeezing at the muscle before flicking his thumb over it. The nub of my nipple hardened, and I couldn't work out where Judah's obsession with my tits came from, but I wasn't going to complain. The attention was nice, and it felt fucking amazing to have his hands on me, wherever they were. "Come home with me. We'll go to the trailer park and pick your kid up first."

So many things with this plan could go wrong. Saying no was the best option, but that wasn't a choice when it came to him. I'd broken his heart enough for one lifetime.

Before I could answer, his phone went off, the ringing tune echoing through the otherwise quiet office. He grunted in irritation and picked up the phone from where he'd left it on the floor. The moment his gaze caught the screen, he sighed.

"Fuck." He tapped the Accept button and placed the phone to his ear. "Yeah, Chaz?"

I couldn't make out what the other person was saying, but the faint buzz of someone talking reached me. I leaned against the desk, waiting.

"Yeah, I haven't forgotten about next Friday. Is it going to be at Brett's penthouse?" A beat with him humming. "Yeah, I said I'll be there." His gaze rose to me and he smiled. "But you know how I said I wasn't bringing a plus one? I actually might." He laughed at whatever the other guy said. "Yeah, it's a dude. Yeah, okay. We'll talk later. Bye, man."

I raised my eyebrows when he ended the call. "Where am I going with you?"

He chuckled, and it was refreshing to hear the sound leave him. "Once a month, me and my old college buddies get together for a drink. Usually, it's this swanky little get together, and it's always at one of our homes." He placed the phone on the desk beside me and leaned his hip on the wood, hand in the pocket of his pants. I assumed he was going for cool and laid-back. "What do you say? Can I show you off?"

"Show me off?" I repeated, eyes widening. "Jude, we haven't seen each other since we were teenagers. We only ran into each other again two days ago, and there's so much baggage here—" I waved between us. "—that we would have to pay a hefty fucking overweight charge at the airport. I don't think we're at the point of me meeting your college bros, including one who has a penthouse." I held up a finger to him. "And that's not even including your mum when she finds out. She's going to blow a gasket over this."

His hand returned to my chest, roaming from my pec to my neck, and his fingers tightened. I swallowed around the pressure and closed my eyes, a sweet pleasure sliding its way through me and curling at the base of my spine. He didn't choke me, but the touch was possessive and strong, a reminder of how much bigger he was than me.

He leaned in closer, his breath dancing across my cheek as he shifted to press his lips against my ear. "You've always been mine. I was stupid. I let you go before, but not this time. Fuck my mother. If she does anything, I'll ruin her."

A shiver crept down the knobs of my spine and I trembled, my cock jerking. What the hell was wrong with me? What was wrong with us?

"I've spent too much time hating you for leaving me. No more, Tav. This time, I'm going to take you out and flaunt you in front of her when they get back from vacation. I'm going to parade pictures of you all over my social media. Everyone's going to know we're together and there's nothing they can do about it."

This seemed really unhealthy, yet my cock throbbed even harder and a small gasp left me as the pressure on my neck tightened.

"I'm used to getting what I want. And if I want to keep you, no one's going to stop me. Is that all right with you?" He licked a stripe around the shell of my ear.

Despite asking me, it wasn't really a question. I moaned in response anyway. "Yes. Fuck yes."

The rumble that came from his chest had me clutching at him and kissing him. He groaned, and I sucked on his tongue until he was humping against me.

"Let's go get your kid and go to my place," he murmured against my mouth.

All I could do was whimper in response.