Jude cursed behind me, and a glance over my shoulder revealed he was peeling his clothes off as quickly as clothes could be peeled. I was up to my knees before the water temperature registered. Cold barely described it. Mental note number one million and one: The ocean is more pleasurable from the beach than from the water.
"Ah! Shit! That's cold!" Jude exploded into the water, sprinting toward me. His arms wound around me after another round of curse hollering. Pressing my back to his chest, he spun me to face him.
"I guess I didn't really think this out," I shrieked, laughing. Damn, this water was really too cold to even think about getting hot and heavy in.
Jude slowed and settled me back down, but his arms didn't loosen. They tightened. He pulled me harder to him, his warmth running against my back and down lower. His hips flexed against my backside. I exhaled.
"I take that back," I said as I wound my arms behind his neck. "I totally thought this out."
I felt his smile on my neck before his tongue took its place. Jude's hands traveled up my stomach until they found my breasts.
"Nice tan lines," he breathed into my neck.
"I worked on them all day," I replied, letting my head fall back against him. As his hands and mouth moved over me, I no longer felt the chill of the water. There was nothing but warmth. A heat that ran so deep I felt it in every nerve.
One of his hands moved from my chest and trailed down my stomach. When it paused below my belly button, his finger moved against me. My breath hitched in my lungs.
"And I'm planning on working on you all night."
ELEVEN
I was so sick of saying good-bye at airports. If Jude had asked me to stay with him, I would have happily missed my flight.
I'd blinked and two days and two nights had passed. I knew the next couple of weeks before Jude was scheduled to fly out to New York would pass like each day was a year.
"Luce?" Jude popped his head back inside the truck after he'd grabbed my suitcase out of the bed. "Not that I'd mind, but if we don't hustle, you're going to miss your flight."
I held in my sigh and put on a brave face. Scooting down the seat, I patted the steering wheel. "Lots of good memories in this old rust can," I said. "Don't go and scrap it while I'm gone."
Jude shook his head as he grabbed my hand and slammed the door. "What do you see in this piece of shit?" he said, kicking the back tire as we walked through the garage.
I smiled to myself before answering. "I like things a little rough around the edges. Besides, it's what's inside that counts."
"'It's what's inside that counts,'" he repeated. "Who said that?"
"Some guy I know." I tucked my shoulder under his arm and wrapped my arm behind him.
"He sounds amazing," he said, grinning at me from the side.
I made a face and motioned my hand in a so-so way.
He chuckled, checking both ways before we crossed the road to the terminal. "That's not what you were saying last night," he said.
I pinched his side. "I wasn't saying much, that I recall."
"No, you weren't saying much. There was a shitload of moaning, though."
This earned him a few harder pinches.
"'Jude,'" he cried out, channeling me last night. "'Yes! Yes! Yes! You're amazing!'" I couldn't even pretend to be irritated with him. I was laughing so damn hard tears started to leak out of the corners of my eyes. "'Jude . . . Amazing . . . Ryder! Yes! Yes! Yeeeeesss!'"
He was causing a scene as we approached curbside check-in, but I was too hysterical to mind. My giant fiancé was bouncing, shaking, and shouting, not caring what anyone thought.
"Control yourself," I ordered amid my laughter, swatting his arm. "And if your performance is any indicator of what I act like during sex, I must look like a hippo about to give birth."
Dropping the Lucy Larson Orgasming Show, he laughed with me. "Nah." He laughed one more note before his expression changed. "It's the damn sexiest thing I've ever experienced, Luce."
Thankfully his words were no louder than a whisper, but as we approached the ticket counter, I was sure the heat rushing into my face, paired with Jude's crooked smile, gave away the gist of what he'd just whispered into my ear.
From the sly smile on the employee's face, he caught more than just the gist.
While I waited for my ticket, Jude handed my suitcase off and gave the guy a hefty tip. It was only a month ago when that tip would have paid for a movie-and-dinner date.
The ticket counter employee handed me my ticket, but he had eyes for no one but Jude. I knew that look, but it was weird sharing it with middle-aged males.
"You're Jude Ryder," the employee said, looking, sounding, and acting starstruck. "Aren't you?"