It was a look I tried to savor, because it never lasted long. I could only hold Jude off for so long before me, him, or both of us gave up trying to prolong the inevitable.
"Damn, Luce," he breathed, stroking my cheek with his hand. "You're so beautiful."
I smiled. Not so much at what he said, but at the way he said it. Jude conveyed his emotions and intentions in words and expressions that did unhealthy things to a girl's heart. "If you're trying to convince me with a little foreplay, I'll let you in on a secret," I said, winding my arms around the back of his neck. "You're going to get lucky no matter what you say or do, so you can save the sweet nothings for a time when you've pissed me off and are trying to get a little makeup sex."
He chuckled, his gray eyes darkening with every passing touch. "I don't seem to remember it requiring sweet nothings to ever get you-"
"Oh, shut up already," I interrupted, smirking up at him.
One corner of his mouth curved higher. "Why don't you make me?" he challenged, his gaze dropping to my lips.
Pressing harder into him, I let my fingers ski down the plane of his stomach, settling on the fly of his jeans. Tugging the button free, I slid my hand inside as my lips covered his mouth, a groan escaping it.
That shut him right up.
TWO
Jude's head reclined in my lap as he crunched into an apple and stared at the ceiling of the dome. He was still naked from the waist up, but his jeans hadn't made it all the way off. Apparently we hadn't been able to justify waiting the three seconds it would have taken to free him of them before we could get down to business.
We weren't big believers in delayed gratification.
I'd wrangled myself back into my sweater and skirt before we'd exchanged one hunger for another and dived into the picnic basket, although my panties and bra still littered the thirty-yard line.
"Tomorrow's the big day," he said around another bite of apple. The air smelled like the tangy sweetness of the fruit in his mouth. Not able to resist, I leaned down to kiss him, wanting to taste the aroma. It was even better combined with the taste of his mouth.
He was oozing that notorious Jude Ryder ego when I leaned back. He knew what he did to me. And he loved it.
I loved it too, although I didn't love how well he knew it.
"Tomorrow I could be a first-round draft pick, Luce," he continued, circling my ankle with his fingers. "We could be millionaires in twenty-four hours."
I had to force myself not to visibly wince. This talk-the draft, the money, the lifestyle-had been an area of contention this past year with the likelihood of Jude's being drafted into pro ball. I wasn't so sure how I felt about it, but Jude was sure enough for both of us.
Trouble was, his confidence wasn't rubbing off on me. If anything, the more confident he became, the less I felt. Money had the potential to change things. It had the potential to change people. I was worried about how all that money might change us. I loved him, and me, and us, just the way we were now.
Jude's being drafted his junior year of college was a one-in-a-million kind of an opportunity, the kind of thing college players would sell their souls to achieve. But it also meant he'd be dropping out of school. He'd made it this far; a part of me wanted to see him finish his degree-astound all those people back home who'd always pegged him as a high school dropout. Playing in the NFL had been a dream of Jude's forever. I couldn't postpone his dream any more than he could mine.
"From dining on peanut-butter sandwiches tonight to twenty-ounce, grade-A prime filet tomorrow night," he continued, his face almost glowing as his eyes drifted off to money-land. "We could get a new place, a new fancy-ass car. We could take a vacation to Hawaii. Fly first-class and shit. Think about it, Luce. Anything we want, we can have. Anytime we want it. No more scrambling around getting grease under our fingernails or waiting tables late at night to pay the electric bill." He paused, a contented smile settling deeper into his face. "We could have it all, baby."
I swallowed. "I thought we already did." My voice sounded sadder than I meant it to.
The skin between Jude's eyebrows puckered. "What do you mean?" he asked, his gaze zeroing in on me.
"I thought we already had it all," I repeated. "I've been on both sides of the money line, and the only thing it changes is your zip code. It can't make you happy if you weren't without it."
"Well, I've been on the losing side of the money game my whole life, and I know for a fact that money can make your life better if you can't even find enough quarters in the couch cushions to do a load of laundry at the local Suds N' Wash." Dropping his apple to the side, he sat up and turned until he was facing me. The candlelight flickered around him, shadowing the crevasses of his muscles, highlighting the peaks of them, and made the sharp lines of his jaw even more defined. A man like Jude shouldn't be classified as beautiful, but in moments like this, he kind of was.