Say It's Forever (Redemption Hills #2)(54)

Both hands held me by the sides of the head as he pulsed at the back of my throat. I swallowed around him as he jerked with the waves of pleasure.

He clutched me tightly when he came. “Salem…gorgeous…darlin’.”

I could tell when he was coming down, the way the words went from grunts to these sweet little mumblings that fell from his mouth.

I slowly edged back, releasing him from my mouth just as he was brushing his fingertips over mine.

A rough jolt of laughter left him, those dark eyes dancing in the night. “Well, then, darlin’.”

That gaze turned adoring.

It panged somewhere in my reckless heart.

I knew better than falling for this man, but I was afraid Mimi might be right—we didn’t always get to decide when it was time. Which was why I was a fool for even allowing myself to be in this position.

Where I felt the world falling away and the steady beat of this man taking its place.

Jud tugged up his pants, though he didn’t take the time to button and zip them before he slipped his arm around my waist and gently laid us on the floor. He was on his back, and he pulled me on top of him, brought us chest to chest.

“Sorry about those knees.” He grinned up at me when he said it, brushing back the hair that fell around my face.

The playful, teasing boy was back in full force.

It pulled a grin from me. “They’re going to be scraped up for sure. It seems you need to get carpet in this place.”

I let my fingertips glide over the images on his chest.

“Does that guarantee me a repeat performance?” Mischief wound in the words.

I smacked him on the shoulder, though I laughed, fighting the smile as I peered into the depths of his eyes.

“It just might,” I admitted.

Every hard edge of him softened, and his gaze sifted over my face, like he was searching for any reservations or regrets. “Didn’t bring you back here for that.”

“Isn’t this the way you treat all your friends?” I tried for a tease, but the question thickened with emotion.

He kept brushing back my hair from my face as I gazed down at him.

The man this stunning creature that I wanted to know.

“Is that what we are, darlin’, friends? And here I thought you were going to stab me if I touched you.”

“I think I would have stabbed you if you didn’t.”

“And I think I would’ve died if I had to keep tiptoeing around you the way we’ve been doing the last few days. Hated it. The distance.”

“I hated it, too.”

The truth was, I’d gotten used to his friendship, or whatever other lie we wanted to label it.

The muscles in his body flexed. Torment rose to the surface.

“I fucked it up, Salem. Know it. I just…your daughter…”

That grief strobed like a beacon of devastation in the dark chasm of his eyes.

My heart skipped with the secrets I kept locked tight, panged against the ones I knew Jud was hiding, too.

Still, like a fool, I whispered, “What? What is it? You can tell me anything.”

Ominous laughter floated from his mouth, and his head shook against the hard floor where he lay. “No, see, that’s the problem, Salem. I opened up once and confessed who I was. It didn’t turn out so great.”

I swore the tattoo imprinted on his side burned against my chest.

Grim.

I swallowed back the disquiet, and I fell into the potency of those eyes. Into the gulf of darkness that waited below the surface.

“My wife—”

I didn’t mean for the gasp to get free, but it did, a shock in the air.

Jud’s mouth trembled and he curled his arm tighter around my back.

“I tried to be a better man, Salem. I fucking tried to leave the life I was raised in behind.”

Dread pounded through my blood.

His.

Mine.

A thunder that roared between us.

He looked up at me, no teasing left in the tone of his voice. “Our father was the president of a violent MC. I was raised in the life, Salem. He taught us to raid. To destroy. To kill.”

His teeth ground with the last.

Shame sparked across his flesh.

The air locked in my throat.

Fear and hurt and the rush of his pain.

It was like I could physically feel the ooze of the blood that stained his hands where they burned into my lower back.

I should get up and go.

Run.

Hide.

Pack our things and never look back.

This was the last place I should be. Wrapped up in him.

But I was already there.

Sinking into his being.

The man quicksand.

His tongue stroked over his lips before he continued, “We left that life behind when Gage was born. Got free because there was no chance Trent would raise him that way. We all wanted a second chance. To be something better. To offer something good instead of all the bad.”

His voice drifted with regret, then those eyes were pinning me through as he threaded the fingers of his right hand into my hair. “Met this girl…”

His mouth tipped down at the side. I wanted to bury myself in his body. Hold his pain.

“Loved the fuck outta her.” A rough chuckle came out with the admission. Shards of gutted sorrow.

“Jud…”