12. Jude

TWELVE

JUDE

I did not expect to be talking about sex on a Thursday afternoon at a coffee shop. But Melissa was exactly as forward in person as she was on the app. It wasn't like I was a prude. Rather, I didn't know how to talk to a virtual stranger about whether I minded being tied up.

I tipped my head to the side and scratched at my beard. "I've, uh, never really thought about it."

The corner of Melissa's glossy lips rose, along with her eyebrow like a cartoon villain with a devious idea. "You should think about it. You might love it."

I cleared my throat with a sip of my coffee, inconspicuously checking the time on my watch. We'd been here for half an hour. A new record for me being on a date, but I didn't know how much longer I could stand it.

The date or the woman.

So, as usual, I used my kids as an excuse. "Listen, Melissa, this has been great, but I gotta head out to pick up the kids."

I didn't. Sebastian was at one of his friend's houses, and they'd be going to baseball practice together later, while Amelia was at Gen and Dylan's house, spending the day with Scarlett .

Melissa pouted briefly, probably thinking it was cute or flirtatious.

It wasn't.

"Okay." She stood when I did. "It was so nice meeting you in person."

"Yeah." I accepted her hug with one arm.

"We should do it again."

I failed to come up with an excuse, so I merely grabbed my keys and headed out with a wave. "Mm-hmm. See ya later."

I hopped in my car and blew out a breath, accompanied by a full-body shake off.

And I immediately texted Brooke.

Holy shit.

Brooke

What? Your date?

Brooke

Holy shit good?

Holy shit bad.

We talked about sex the whole time.

Brooke

It could've been worse.

How?

Brooke

You could've been talking about murder and burying bodies the whole time.

We've talked about murder and burying bodies before.

Brooke

True.

Brooke

What was so bad about the sex talk?

That's all we talked about. She basically sat down and was like "what's your favorite position?"

Brooke

Quite an opener.

You're telling me.

Brooke

What did you say?

I mostly let her rip. Smiled and nodded a lot.

She told me she's recently started getting into shibari.

I didn't know what that was so I asked.

It's when you get tied up.

She likes to do the tying.

Brooke

Ok.

OK????

What do you mean ok?

I don't even know if she gets along with her family or if she had pets growing up but I know that she likes to tie people up.

Brooke

I'm not sure what you want me to say here.

Brooke

But isn't it better to know that up front? So you aren't surprised later?

I guess.

She also talked about masks.

Brooke

Masks?

Yeah. She has fantasies about people wearing masks.

I didn't have the balls to ask her what kinds of masks. Was afraid to open that Pandora's box.

It took a minute for her to respond.

Brooke

Want to smoke tonight?

Yup.

Hours later, I stood next to Dylan at the chain link fence while Sebastian's baseball practice finished up.

"One more lap!" Dylan shouted with his hands cupped around his mouth then removed his hat to swipe his hand through his hair before placing it back on his head. "What's up with you? You seem all jittery."

"I had a date this afternoon."

He flicked his eyes toward me, his only reaction.

"It was…awkward."

He nodded, not requiring any more explanation.

"Thanks for taking Lulu today."

"Yeah. No problem." He glanced over his shoulder at his fiancée, who sat with Scarlett and Amelia in the stands. "Gen had a girls' day with them. They loved it." Then he clapped a few times, calling his team's attention. "Nice work! Collect all your equipment, and I'll see you at the game on Thursday!"

The boys scattered, but I kept my gaze on Sebastian as he laughed with his friend. Baseball was doing wonders for his confidence, but I didn't like how it pulled him away from me.

As if Dylan knew the path my thoughts had gone down, he elbowed me. "Seb's doing great. His motivation's improved, his skill, his attitude… He's a good dude."

I nodded. "It's hard, you know? It's been only me and the kids for so long. It's hard to have them leave the nest."

"Are they leaving the nest, or are you?"

For a grumpy son of bitch, he could be quite perceptive.

"Look at you being all philosophical," I said as Sebastian reached us.

"I have my moments." Dylan held out his fist to my son for a bump. "Nice work today."

"Thanks."

I ruffled Seb's hair. "You have fun today?"

"Yep."

"I'm gonna drop you two off at Nana and Pop's to sleep over."

"Again?" he whined. "We were there the other day."

Dylan deliberately turned away as I explained, "Yeah, but I'm going out for a bit, and Nana said she's got everything for fancy grilled cheese."

Fancy grilled cheese because it had lots of different cheeses in it, and the kids loved to pull it apart with all the ooey-gooey strings.

Sebastian didn't care. He rolled his eyes, grumbling something about me going out a lot, and I chose to ignore him. Once he stomped off, Dylan pivoted back around to me, brows drawn together in question. I shrugged. "Gotta pick my battles, right?" He nodded and walked with me over to the stands, where Amelia threw herself at me. "Daddy!"

Gen greeted me with a smile, holding up a small pink backpack so Scarlett could gather up all her toys and put them inside. "Thanks for taking Amelia today."

"It was fun. Whenever you need to, drop her off. "

I tickled Amelia's side. "Say g'bye. We gotta go."

She hugged Gen, Dylan, and Scarlett each, thanking her aunt and uncle. Even though we weren't related by blood, all of our children called each of us aunt and uncle. At this point, I believed the more family my kids had, the better.

I ushered Amelia away, and Sebastian caught up to us with his bag, ignoring me as we all settled in my car.

Amelia chatted the whole ride, bouncing one of her unicorns along the window and her car seat, annoying her brother, until he finally yelled at her to knock it off, which led to an argument I chose to ignore. I rolled down my window, letting the warm summer air drown out their fighting.

Arriving at my parents' house, I dropped them off with a few words to my mother. She told me to take my time with my "errands," though her over-the-top wink let me know she guessed I wasn't heading to Target.

"Have fun," she practically sang, following me to the door, pushing me to go.

Little did she know, I'd already been on my mildly terrifying date.

Fifteen minutes later, I pulled up to Brooke's farm as Gunner was on his way out. He'd been Brooke's right-hand man for a while. An ex-convict who'd applied for a part-time position after he'd been released from serving time on felony drug trafficking charges when Brooke had first opened Fraserbrooke Farm. She'd once told me how she felt compelled to hire him because she couldn't believe a white woman like herself could buy and use marijuana without repercussions, while a brown kid whose home circumstances forced him to be the moneymaker at seventeen years old would be thrown into jail for years, perpetuating the cycle. Hiring Gunner was her small way of trying to right the world.

"Hey, man." Gunner greeted me with a dap. "Haven't seen you in a while. "

"Been busy."

He aimed his thumb over his shoulder, toward the farmhouse. "That why she's been in a bad mood lately?"

I blinked. "She's in a bad mood?"

"Spittin' fire all afternoon," he said with a shake of his head. "See what you can do about that, huh?"

"I doubt I can."

Gunner sucked air through his teeth. "Yeah. Right." He wiped his forehead with his T-shirt sleeve then offered me a head nod. "Later, Gray."

I headed to the farmhouse, contemplating Brooke's supposed bad mood. She hadn't seemed like anything was wrong during our text exchange.

Unless…

I stepped through the door, mentally chiding myself for the ridiculous notion that she'd been in a bad mood because of our text exchange. Like she was jealous or something.

But that was dumb.

There was no way she was jealous. We were doing this whole dating thing together. If she was in a bad mood, it certainly wasn't because of me and my date.

Inside, Brooke stood at the kitchen counter, compiling a sandwich, layering turkey, lettuce, and tomato, her lips pursed as if chewing on the inside of them. She did that when she was annoyed.

"Hi," I said, and she jumped, whirling on me with a crimped brow before her features softened when she realized it was me.

"Hey."

So, okay, maybe she was in a bad mood.

"Gunner said you were, uh…"

She eyed me. Fire in her brown eyes.

I changed tack. "Hard day?"

She slapped a piece of bread on the top of her sandwich and lifted it to her mouth, biting into it. "Not particularly. Just hangry."

I accepted her answer and helped myself to making my own sandwich then put everything back in the fridge. After nabbing a root beer, I followed her outside to take a seat around the closed fire pit.

Once we both finished eating our dinner, I broached the subject again. "Wanna talk about it?"

"Talk about what?"

"The reason you have pinchy mouth."

"Pinchy mouth?" she repeated, obviously trying not to do the pinchy mouth.

"You say I get a wrinkle between my eyebrows." I tapped her lips. "Well, you get pinchy mouth."

She swatted at my hand, jerking her head back, but I curled my hand around her neck so she couldn't get away. She froze, eyes wide, pinchy mouth gone.

In its place were soft and welcoming lips, pink and parted. The taste of them was still seared in my memory, and I forced myself to let go of her, giving both of us space.

"What's got your panties in a twist?"

She grimaced. "Don't say the word panties."

"Why not?"

"It's in the same category as randy and horny."

I leaned my elbow on my chair. "This list is getting to be quite long. What other words are on it?"

"Moist."

"What's wrong with moist? How else am I supposed to describe my brownies?"

She tugged the elastic out of her hair, shaking out the long tresses. "It's fine in the baking sense, but not in the sex sense."

"Okay, no moist panties. Got it."

She met my gaze, her usual good mood back in place, her smile perfectly crooked, eyes crinkling in the corners. "Be right back. "

She made her way to the house, and by the time I'd polished off my root beer, she returned with a small joint, already lit. She passed it to me and sat back down. "So, Melissa…"

"Scares the shit out of me," I conceded, holding the smoke in my lungs.

She inspected me for a few seconds, but I didn't know what she was looking for, if anything at all. She eventually rolled her head along the back of her chair and accepted the joint when I passed it to her. "What exactly do you want out of this? You're going on dates to find someone to have sex with, right?" Her tone bordered on waspish, and again, I ignored the voice in the back of my head hinting that it was because of me . "This girl is basically throwing herself at you, but you're not into it?"

I swallowed thickly. "I don't know. I guess I'm not into her."

We each had one more puff before she stubbed it out, and I didn't think I was high enough to answer her when she asked, "Are you afraid of having sex with her or all the kinky stuff she brought up?"

I rubbed at my beard. I hadn't been afraid of sex with Brooke, so I couldn't place the niggling feeling whenever I tried to imagine doing it with Melissa or anyone else. I didn't want to analyze it at the moment, so I said, "The kinks, I guess."

She waited for me to go on, folding her hand across her stomach, over her tank top that clung to her body. I let my attention coast down to her legs, tanned and nearly naked with the minuscule cotton shorts she wore. I didn't have a problem picturing myself touching her there, kissing her, making myself at home between her thighs.

I wasn't scared of that at all.

"Do you want to try it?" she asked, hauling my focus back up to her face, and it took me a moment to wrap my mind around our conversation.

"Try what? The shibari? The masks?"

"Yeah. All of it."

"I don't know. Might be uncomfortable with someone I don't know," I said, speaking the thought I hadn't realized I'd buried under all my hesitation. "Have you ever tried that stuff?"

"Have I tried shibari? No. But I've been handcuffed before."

I extended my legs out in front of me, pinpricks of sensation running along them. I kept my eyes on Brooke's, not letting them linger anywhere else but her gaze. So I didn't picture her wrists handcuffed to a bed with another guy over her. Instead, I tortured myself by asking, "What about masks?"

That had her tipping her head to the side, her finger idly tracing shapes on the arm of her Adirondack chair. Her tongue slipped out, wetting her lips, leading to a suggestive smile.

"What?" I asked, sitting forward.

"I read romance books."

"Oh. Okay." This was a new tidbit of information, and I didn't know how it had never come up in conversation before.

"So, no, I've never tried, but it's in some of my books."

"What's that mean?"

"I read dark romance, and sometimes some of the guys will wear a mask and…" She trailed off, her eyes focusing on a point over my shoulder. "It might be fun to be chased by a bad guy…and be caught…and…" Her cheeks blazed red, and she cleared her throat before she met my gaze again. "You know?"

I shook my head, images bombarding my brain. "No, I don't know. "

But yeah, I could picture it. Brooke running. Adrenaline pumping. Me catching her. Wrapping my arms around her waist. Lifting her off the ground. My lips on her neck. My cock hard against her back as she begged me.

I willed my blood to stop rushing, for my dick to get the message to settle down.

But Brooke clearly didn't need to send her body the same messages because she kept right on going. "It's kinda hot, thinking about it being rough."

It was the marijuana. That was it. The reason I asked, "Rough? Like how?"

She crossed her legs, and my eyes went right to the point between them, where her gray cotton shorts were trapped. "I guess a little hair-pulling. Maybe a little choking."

"Choking?" I snapped my eyes up to where she placed her hand at her throat.

"Yeah, but not hard, only a little pressure. And some dirty talk."

"Dirty talk?" I croaked. "Like what?"

She laughed. "God, Jude, don't you know anything?"

"No." I rubbed my hands over my face. "I had sex with exactly one person before you, and wild for us was me bending her over the kitchen counter."

Neither one of us touched that part about before you , and she shrugged. "Oh. Well, that can be hot too."

Except now I was imagining bending Brooke over a kitchen counter. I shook my head, but the picture didn't go anywhere. "So, what else? What else do I need to know?"

"You need a manual?" she asked, amusement in her voice.

I held her gaze. "Yeah. That would be good."

And then we were kissing.