To prove it, I lowered my face until our mouths were just a hair apart. Our lips hadn't touched and already electricity was bouncing between us. When my lips did cover his, that electricity became something else entirely. Our lips played together, smoothing and sucking, until my breath started hitching in my lungs. Jude's hand held my face carefully, but there was an undercurrent of strength in that touch.
I ended our kiss by running my tongue along the seam of his lips before pressing a featherlight kiss to the corner of his mouth.
"That's who I want to kiss, and how I want him to kiss me, until the day I can't kiss anymore," I said, staring into his eyes. The darkness in them was gone. "So don't feel like you need to kick Anton into next week to defend my honor. I can defend my own honor. Just stay here. With me," I said, patting the couch. "Kissing me would be an added bonus."
He sat beside me and grabbed my hand. "You know it might kill me not to give that little jerk-off a piece of my boot, right?"
I nodded. In fact, I was surprised he was still here, relatively calm, and talking in his normal Jude voice again. That kiss must have worked a miracle, because the Jude I'd known would have already tracked the guy down and broken his nose.
"But I want you happy. Nothing's more important to me than that," he said, sighing. "So I'll resist every instinct and not hang him over the edge of the Empire State Building." Another sigh, this one longer. "Happy now?"
"You have no idea," I said, running my fingers through my hair. It was a mess, tear- and snot-coated, topped off by hours of twisting it into a pillow.
"I've got a quick solution to that," Jude said, patting my leg as he stood up. "I'll hunt down one of those ponytail-holder thingies you leave all over the place."
"Bathroom's a good starting point," I called after him. I smiled. Jude had gone from hard-core Hulk to my ponytail-holder-thingy hunter in under a minute. Plus, he was here. I didn't care why or what events had led up to his chartering a plane and flying across the country. Because he was here.
"Impressive," Holly muttered to me from the kitchen, sipping a cup of tea. "I thought I was going to be sweeping up glass for weeks from that special shade of pissed he turned."
Before I had a chance to reply, I heard a drawer slam before Jude came stomping out of the bathroom. "Goddammit, Hol," he said, clutching something in his fist. "Did you go and get yourself knocked up again?"
Holly's face did the confusion thing before she noticed what was in Jude's hand. Then her face fell.
"What the fuck?" he said, holding up the pregnancy test in front of her. The pregnancy test I'd stuffed in the top drawer where I kept my toothpaste, ChapStick, and ponytail-holder thingies. Shit.
"Jude," I said, but he didn't hear me.
"How the hell are you going to take care of two kids on your own, Hol?" he said, sounding truly upset.
"Jude," I said again, this time louder.
Holly was glancing between me and Jude, not saying a thing. She couldn't lie, but she didn't want to rat me out.
"Say something," Jude said, waving the test.
"Jude!" There. I'd gotten as loud as he had.
"What?" he shouted, spinning around. His face softened just a bit when he realized he'd snapped at me.
"The test isn't Holly's," I said, unconsciously draping my hands over my stomach. "It's mine."
It didn't register right away. It took a minute. But as Jude's face changed from red to white, I knew my words were settling in.
"It's mine," I repeated, looking at the test.
"Wait . . ." He shook his head, glancing at the test, then back to me. "What?"
I prayed he wasn't going into shock, because I'd never seen this pale, clammy look on his face, and it sure as hell looked like shock to me. "The pregnancy test is mine." He actually went a degree whiter at the word pregnancy.
"Don't play games with me, Luce," he said, frozen in place.
"I'm not," I said, my voice quiet. "I'm pregnant."
He wavered but caught himself. Oh, God. He spread his hands over his face, leaving them there. "When did you find out?"
He'd accepted that I was, indeed, pregnant. We were making progress, although this was hardly the response I was looking for. I knew he wouldn't be jumping for joy, but I'd hoped for a hug and a We'll get through this together reassurance.
"Two weeks ago."
His hands fell from his face. "Why didn't you tell me?"