Say It's Forever (Redemption Hills #2)(82)

“Hope they fit.”

I shifted back to look at him. I couldn’t keep the edge of my mouth from tipping up in a slow smile, returning to the day that had changed everything. “I thought I told you if I fucked you there would be no shame to it?”

Jud grinned, though it was soft, his handsome, rugged face kissed by the morning light, hair lit up in the glow where errant pieces were sticking up all over his head.

“No shame at all, darlin’, but I figured what happened last night is between you and me.”

My heart panged, and my chest squeezed.

Crap.

I was in so much trouble.

I had crossed a line that I was terrified to have crossed.

Trust no one.

But I wasn’t sure I could cling to that any longer with him.

With this man who had me crawling back up to him until I was pressing my lips to his wicked, sexy mouth. “Thank you.”

A big palm found the side of my face. Obsidian eyes flared as he edged back to meet with the truth in my gaze. “The pleasure is all mine, darlin’.”

My teeth clamped down on my bottom lip. What I really wanted to do was curl back into this bed with him.

Let him ravage me all over again.

The way he’d done time and again last night, neither of us sure if it would be the only chance we would have. And those moments? Those hours? They’d belonged to us.

I didn’t want them to end.

My chest squeezed with dread, the reality that in a blink, in a second, I might have to leave him behind.

Run, the way I always did.

Because as much as he promised to stand for me, if it came to it, there was no way I’d drag him into the line of fire.

“I really need to get home.”

He nodded. “I know. Why don’t you go get dressed, and I’ll get you there?”

“Thank you,” I said again.

I wasn’t shy, definitely not after last night, but I felt a blush flushing my body as I slipped off his bed and took the sheet with me. Jud sat there, watching me gather the things he’d had Logan get for me and then shuffle across his floor to the bathroom.

He had this look on his face.

This tenderness that threatened to break up the barriers I had placed inside me.

I dipped my head and ducked into the bathroom before I could let him go any deeper, but I guessed I was the fool who thought that was going to cut the connection.

I could feel it pulse from the other side of the door. A thread that had woven through my heart. A whisper I was sure that no matter where in this world I ran to, it would call to me.

I splashed water on my face, brushed my teeth with the toothbrush that was in the pile, then twisted my hair into a ponytail holder since they’d thought of that, too, before I slipped into the dress and sandals.

The dress landed just above my knees, simple with flowers and cap sleeves, and it fit me perfectly—just like the man.

Before I let myself wane into melancholy, this feeling that one day I was going to lose him, the worry that I couldn’t stay hunting me down like the thief that it was, I headed into the bedroom.

Jud had already dressed, and he was lacing up his boots. Still bent over, he cut a glance at me. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

He rose to that hulking, glorious height, his shoulders so wide where he was lit up like a silhouette in the grayed streams of light.

A smirk ticked up at the corner of his mouth.

“What?” I asked as I edged deeper into the room.

“It fits.”

I touched the skirt. “It does.”

“I like it.”

“I like it, too.”

It felt as if there was a secret woven in the simple words.

I like you, too, so much, and it scares me more than you can understand.

I was so tired of the hurt. Of the loss and the fear and the veins of joy that always got stripped away.

My spirit shook.

Struck with the realization.

I wanted that vein that I’d found with him to widen and withstand.

Fear clutched my stomach in a grip, rising against the hope that kept bubbling up. It made me feel like I was being tugged in every direction. Questions and worries and these building dreams at odds.

At war.

Before I got lost in them, I grabbed my little purse I’d had from last night, slipped it over my shoulder, and walked toward the door.

Jud cut me off at the pass.

He spun me around and pressed me to the wall. He kissed me hard. Those big hands framed my face while he did. His lips were soft and sweet and enticing.

Emotion rioted.

Want. Fear. Hope.

What was I doing?

Setting myself up for it to hurt worse when this came to an end, that was what.

Pulling back, he canted me a knowing smile. “Don’t freak out on me, darlin’. I see those pretty little feet itching to run.”

“They run from the pain.” The words hitched when I let the admission bleed free.

He brushed the pad of his thumb over the apple of my cheek, his head tipping to the side, his words rough and laden with the promise. “I won’t ever hurt you. No one else is going to, either.”

Trust.

I wanted to give it to him.

All of it.

Ask him to keep me. Stand by me. Fight with me.

My teeth ground hard when I realized the selfishness of that.