“Jude,” I called after him.
“Leave me alone, Lucy!” he hollered back, disappearing down the hall.
He only called me Lucy when he was hurt or pissed. I guessed he was a lot of both. And the whole leaving him alone thing wasn’t happening.
Not when I knew a welcoming set of arms was sharking around the party waters, more than happy to do a little comforting.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The only time I wasted before going after him was the time it took to put my underwear back where they belonged. Winding down the hall, I did a preliminary search of the main floor. Lucky for me, Jude was a tower that stood out in a room most of the time, but so were a lot of his teammates, so weaving my way towards the stairs, I climbed the top few, leaping over a couple doing something very close to what Jude and I had just done behind a closed door. Gazing down at the packed room, I didn’t see him. The knowledge he wasn’t in plain sight made my stomach twist as my imagination ran away with me, wondering who might be comforting him and where they could be locked away.
Lunging up the stairs, I rushed down the hallway, not able to get to his room fast enough. I was behaving irrationally, I knew this, but I wasn’t able to stop it. The crazy had taken root and couldn’t be killed.
I didn’t knock before entering his room, not sure I wanted to see what I’d find inside. I sighed in relief when I found it dark and empty. Just as I was about to leave and search the next place, I noticed a figure crouched on the floor beside his bed.
His elbows were propped onto bent legs, his head hanging between them. He looked broken. What had I done?
I closed the door behind me and crossed the room.
“Jude?”
“Go away, Luce,” he said so softly it was almost a whisper.
He’d never said those words to me once, and I’d heard them twice in less than five minutes.
“No,” I said, coming around the side of the bed he was leaning against.
“Go away,” he repeated, winding his fingers over the back of his neck.
I pried off my shoes and scooted next to him on the floor. “No,” I repeated. “You’re pissed at me and I’m pissed at you. Let’s argue this out.”
“Yeah, I am pissed at you,” he said into the floor. “But I’ve got a good reason to be. Why in the hell are you pissed at me?”
I opened my mouth in answer.
“And your answer better not have Adriana in it.”
I did not like the way her name sounded coming out of him. “Damn right my answer has her name in it.”
Jude shook his head, still refusing to look at me. “So you’re pissed at me because of Adriana,” he said, not hiding his sarcasm. “A girl I haven’t so much as touched or looked at in one intimate way. Super. That’s makes a shit ton of sense, Luce.”
My temper was flaring, I could feel it igniting. “Don’t play dumb,” I said. “Like you’re not aware that she’d let you touch her any intimate way you damn well pleased.”
Jude huffed. “Yeah, well, just for your knowledge, there’s no shortage of women here who would let me do whatever the hell I wanted to them. There’s no shortage of Adrianas in the world, Luce.” He paused, taking a couple of breaths while I tried not to mentally calculate the number of women who’d bed Jude any night of the week. “But you know what makes me say no every time? You know what makes me impervious to every woman and whatever ploy she throws at me?” He didn’t wait for my response.
“You, Luce,” he said, his voice tired. “There may not be a shortage of Adrianas out there, but there’s only one you. And that’s the person I want to give myself to.”
He was saying all the rights things and, in truth, he hadn’t given me one reason to doubt him since we’d cleared up the whole Holly and little Jude situation, but I wasn’t ready to be appeased. Not after the shit load of ammunition Adriana had fired my way all day.
“You let her do your laundry, Jude,” I began, wishing a magical clamp would appear so I could fasten it over my mouth. “She cleans your room. You lead her into a damn room on your arm with hundreds of people watching.” My voice was running away with me, filling the dark room with its insecurity. “She runs her fingers over your clean, pressed underwear. Damn it, Jude!”
I was taking it all out on him. Everything I’d been bottling up today, when it would have been more constructive to find a dance floor and give it a run for its money.
His head twisted my way and whether it was the darkness in the room or the actual color of his eyes, they looked black. “Did you not hear what I just said to you?” he said, his teeth clenched together. “Did you miss when I just professed all I want is you? Even when you’re acting like some crazy ass girlfriend?” Narrowing his eyes at me, he hoisted himself up.