14. Jude

FOURTEEN

JUDE

I t had been days since I'd last seen Brooke at the farmers market, where we chatted as if everything was fine . As if I hadn't learned she liked an occasional hair-pull or hand around her throat. As if I hadn't stripped her naked and feasted on her like she was my last meal.

This was Brooke .

The woman I'd known for years.

Who had wiped my literal tears. Who'd helped me hold on to my sanity when I thought I'd lose it. Who'd kept me steady on days I felt like I'd be swept away. She had held my hand and walked with me through the highs and lows of the last few years. Didn't talk me off the ledge but sat with me on it.

Brooke.

My friend.

My very good friend.

My best friend.

More than Dylan, Liam, and Nate, I could be completely open and honest with her.

And yet I hadn't told her this secret. That I hadn't been able to stop thinking about her, about what we did .

How I enjoyed—no, more than enjoyed—I loved going down on her. I loved learning what she liked, what she needed to orgasm. I loved being the one to give it to her.

But I tried not to think about what it meant that I wanted more. That I had to force myself to leave because I'd doubted my own restraint, and I physically wouldn't have been able to sit there with the taste of her pussy on my lips and in my beard without wanting to make her come again.

I loved Mira. I would continue to love her. But the anxiety I'd always felt about living my life without her didn't exist when I was with Brooke, and I assumed that was what Youmna meant when she said I needed to find someone.

I needed someone who would understand my past and the journey I still charted. I didn't know if I would ever stop grieving Mira and the life we didn't get to live, but I no longer feared it.

I could map out a new path. At least, that was what my therapist told me. I didn't have to stop loving Mira to love someone else. Like my children. I didn't give up any piece of my heart for Sebastian when Amelia was born. Rather, my heart grew to accommodate both.

I could do that.

I could have love again.

If I wanted.

With my left arm behind my head, I scrolled through the pictures Youmna had texted me. She and George had taken the kids for their annual trip to visit family in Allentown, a week with relatives, time for my kids to play with cousins and practice their Arabic, hear stories of family in Syria, and teach them all the things Mira would have but that I couldn't possibly.

As much as I needed time away from the children sometimes, I missed them when they weren't here, especially when they were gone for so long. I worried about Amelia and if she was being patient and sharing. I fretted about Sebastian and if he was sleeping. Most nights, he ended up in my bed or in his sister's, still afraid to sleep on his own after all these years, and he didn't do well sleeping in places he wasn't used to.

As if she knew, Brooke texted.

Brooke

How you doing? How are the kids?

I'm good. They're having a great time.

Brooke

Great. Nobody is homesick?

If they were, Youmna wouldn't tell me.

Brooke

What about you? You homesick for them?

A little.

Brooke

You need a distraction?

Is this a trick question?

Brooke

No, why?

I thought it was an invitation to something.

Brooke

Connect the dots for me here, buddy.

Like

sex

Brooke

OOOOOOOOOO

Brooke

No.

Brooke

HAHA

Cool.

Make me feel like a pervert.

Brooke

You want a tit pic? Would that make you feel better?

Don't be weird.

Brooke

Me?! You're the one who brought it up.

Brooke

But here. Here's a distraction.

I clicked on the link she sent me to a book with a grayscale cover of a man in face paint or a mask of some sort.

Brooke

I want to hear what you think about it.

I didn't even read the summary, instead hit that yellow purchase button immediately and read it on my phone.

Despite the tiny words, which I had to enlarge to quadruple their size on my phone screen and the burning of my eyes from staying up late, I finished that bad boy motherfucking book in two days.

I can't believe you read books like this.

Brooke

You didn't like it?

I don't know how I feel about it.

Emotionally or mentally.

Physically, I got a tingle.

Brooke

HAHA

Brooke

Yeah?

A little uncomfortable.

Brooke

Come over later.

Brooke

Bring a mask.

Well, shit.

I pulled up to the farm as the sun started to set, and when I didn't spot Brooke in the immediate fields, I headed into the farmhouse. The screen door slammed behind me, and I needed to fix that. Or, I mean, find someone else to fix it. No one in my family was particularly handy, and my father wasn't the type to take me into the garage to show me how to patch a tire or build a birdhouse.

"In here," I heard Brooke call out from her office in the living room, and I walked through the kitchen to find her on her laptop.

I leaned against the doorjamb, sticking my hands in my pockets. "Hey."

She smiled up at me from her place on the couch. The couch where we'd had sex. "How was your day?"

"Good. All your sister's candy came in. You want me to hold on to it or…?"

She picked up her cell phone, typing on it, presumably to ask Sabrina. "She said she'll come pick it up tomorrow."

"Okay." I ran my hand over my beard, catching Brooke's attention. She narrowed her brows. "You got a trim. "

"Yeah." I scratched at the shorter bristles on my jaw. "Figured it was about time."

She shut her computer and stood, still studying me with her probing gaze. "Your hair too."

I'd had a few inches cut off this afternoon. "My mother and Youmna will be happy."

Brooke laughed and combed her fingers through the strands, skimmed her palms over my beard as if she liked it.

"What do you think?"

"You're always handsome, but I can see more of your face now, which is nice." She took the elastic band I'd habitually worn around my wrist and used it to tie her own hair back.

"You don't have enough hair ties of your own?"

"It's like stealing a boyfriend's sweatshirt. Sure you can use your own, but his is always better."

I didn't know why it made me so inordinately happy that my black elastic was wrapped around her ponytail, but I crossed my arms over my chest, as if I could cover up how my heart pounded.

"So, the book," she started with her crooked smile. "You liked it, huh?"

I let my gaze wander over her face and then down to her T-shirt and stained jeans. She must've been working in the dirt today. She always wore jeans when she tended the fields.

"Yeah. I bought book two." I skipped over how I'd texted Dylan and Liam about it. A few months ago, they had both admitted to occasionally reading romances with Evie and Kennedy, and I hadn't thought I'd ever want to do that. Yet here I was. A full-fledged dark romance reader.

"I knew down deep you were a sex fiend," she said, grinning. "Did you bring a mask?"

I pulled a light blue medical mask from my back pocket, holding it up between us, and she threw back her head, cackling in delight .

She smacked my shoulder. "You know that's not what I meant."

"I know." I tossed it on the table in the corner then yanked out the mask I'd found in the big tub of old Halloween costumes. One year, Mira and I had dressed as movie serial killers, her as Patrick Bateman, me as Ghostface.

"This what you wanted?" I showed Brooke the well-known mask from Scream , and she gasped, clasping her hands in front of her.

She nodded silently, teeth sawing into her bottom lip, her cheeks pink. There must have been some primal animal instinct still inside me because I swore I could smell her pheromones change. Feel her anticipation and excitement. Made my own skyrocket.

"I'll give you a head start." I slipped the mask on over my head, but she stayed in place in front of me, gaping wide-eyed. "Better run, honeybee. Might not like it when I catch you."

She backed away, her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths.

I stepped toward her. "Ten."

She shrieked in laughter.

"Nine."

"Oh my god!" She ducked around me as she ran out of the room, her footfalls heavy through the house.

"Eight," I shouted, and the screen door slammed.

Underneath the mask, I grinned. I liked this game.

After counting down, I made my way outside, my palms sweaty and tingling. I didn't run, but my heart raced. I wore jeans and boots, and I clomped along the dirt path to the field, pausing to listen to movement, waiting for her laugh. It would give her away anywhere.

"I'm coming for you, honeybee," I hollered, and I heard it, her giggle from behind the corn stalks.

Careful not to knock any down, I ducked between rows, following the rustling. Once I stepped out of the corn, I started a jog, weaving around lettuce, potatoes, carrots, and parsnips. She was always trying to get me to eat parsnips, but I didn't even know what the hell they were.

Brooke glanced over her shoulder, running between the trellises with vines of tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers, her smile bright in the dying sunshine, her ponytail flying all over the place.

"You think you can hide from me?" I asked as she darted toward the eggplants.

"No, but I can outrun you!" She hit a hard right and dodged my hand when I leaped for her, jumping over the squash. She squealed, narrowly avoiding me, and I pivoted, determined to catch her, my adrenaline pumping relentlessly. Like all my blood.

I didn't think it would be so hot. Not metaphorically, at least. Yet, here I was, my cock already hard, the idea of finally catching her making every step difficult. This was possibly the hottest thing I'd ever done with a woman in my life. Definitely the kinkiest.

Chasing her.

Chasing Brooke.

"Pretty little bee," I droned, slipping more and more into character with every stride, and Brooke stopped, spinning on me, beautifully flushed.

Her smile faded the tiniest bit. "That's actually really scary."

I cocked my head to the side, and the whites of her eyes expanded. Her reaction sent goose bumps up my arms, so down for this cat-and-mouse game.

"I'm going to catch you," I told her low and slow.

"And then what happens?"

For every step I took toward her, she took one back. "I'm going to take that elastic band out so I can wrap your hair around my hand. "

She tripped, bringing us even closer together, almost at arm's length. "And then what?"

"I'll put you on your knees."

She inhaled sharply. She liked that idea.

"I'll stuff my cock into your pretty little mouth."

She licked her lips, and I gritted my teeth to keep from reaching for her and tearing off this mask to kiss her.

"Holy shit," she murmured, stunned.

If I didn't need to follow through with this fantasy, maybe I'd laugh. But she wanted this. Maybe even more than I did.

And fuck, did I want it.

She tried to run away again, but I shot my arm out, fisting the hem of her T-shirt, towing her to me.

"My honeybee," I grated, my skin on fire, blood in my ears, "always so busy. Let's see how you do when you can't go anywhere."

I laced my fingers with hers and pulled her over to the house, shoving her back against it. She didn't fight me, went quite willingly, in fact, staring up at me from where I pushed her to kneel on the ground.

As promised, I tugged the band out of her hair and wrapped the strands around my fist, forcing her head back as I unbuckled my belt and lowered my zipper with my other hand. Her breath was hot and heavy on me as I pushed my underwear down to grasp the base of my shaft, but she didn't budge, waiting for the next move in our game.

Using my grip on her hair, I urged her head forward at the same time I thrust my hips, doing exactly as I said I would, stuffing her pretty little mouth full. She wrapped her hands around the backs of my thighs, and I nodded, unable to verbalize what this did to me, seeing her like this, out of breath and on her knees in the dirt, sucking me off like her life depended on it.

She was sloppy, a bit overzealous, and probably a lot out of practice. But so was I, and the way she accidentally dragged her teeth over the head nearly had me doubling over with a mixture of pleasure and pain. Realizing what she'd done, she popped off me, but I shoved it right back in her mouth. "Don't stop until I tell you."

And she didn't. Not when she laved me with her tongue from root to tip, following with her hand, jacking me with her fist, driving me wild with her wet suction at the tip.

My muscles trembled with tension, trying to lock it down. But my orgasm barreled toward me like a runaway train, every swipe of her tongue sending me closer to careening off the rails. I locked my jaw, tightened my hold in her hair, and dropped my head back to my shoulders, hissing when her fingers wandered past my balls, tight and heavy with the need to come, and prodded at the sensitive ridge.

That was all it took.

I exploded without warning and slapped my hand on the worn siding of the farmhouse, grunting and cursing as I came inside Brooke's mouth. She didn't move, save for her throat, swallowing down every spurt of my orgasm on her tongue.

Exhaling a ragged breath, I ripped off the mask and let go of her hair, swiping my forearm over my forehead. "Shit, I'm so sorry."

Still on the ground, she blinked a few times, tenderly releasing my swiftly deflating cock from between her lips, still stroking it, teasing and light. "It's okay."

"I should've?—"

"Jude. It's okay. I'm okay. I'm happy you came in my mouth." She let go of me, and I helped her up with my fingers curled around her elbows.

"You are?"

Even though she was streaked with dirt and damp with sweat, I didn't think she'd ever looked prettier. "Yeah, I'm happy," she said, smiling impishly. "I loved it. I think you loved it too."

"I did. "

"That's all that matters."

I tucked myself back into my pants and hugged her close to me, laughing into her hair. "I can't believe we did that."

"Me either." Her lips brushed against my ear. "It's kinda weird, isn't it?"

I wrenched back from her. Was this the part where she told me we couldn't be friends anymore?

"Don't look at me like that." She traced her thumb along my forehead, my arrow wrinkle. "It's weird that it's not weird, right?"

I kept waiting for the anguish or grief to hit, and it never did. Maybe because what Brooke and I were doing was so outside of anything else I'd ever experienced, I couldn't compare it. The way I felt about her was unlike anyone else in my life. So, yes, it was weird. Because nothing about it felt weird or wrong. It felt exactly like what I needed.

"We've been through it all together," I said. "Why should this be any different?"

"It shouldn't. It won't." She stepped out of my arms and held her palm in the air for a high five.

I smacked my hand against hers, lacing our fingers together. "Having a Shark Week party next weekend. You should come."

"Shark Week party? Sounds awesome. What should I bring?"

"Yourself. Just bring yourself."

And truly, I could never lose this woman. It had been hard enough to mourn Mira, but if anything ever happened to break up this friendship, I'd lose the last bit of my sanity. Not to mention my heart.