Page 88 of Play With Me

JUDE: I have to see you, Nora. Please.

I don’t answer. I don’t know what to say. I go into my darkened room, tossing my shoes in the closet. My intention is to head to the shower. But instead, I walk to the door connecting our suites. I stand there, my arms braced on the doorframe.

I can’t knock. I won’t. But it’s like I’m pulled to him. Some magnet in my center is drawn toward him, needing to meet its match.

I lean my forehead against the door.

And then there’s a knock.

My stomach jumps.

It was a slow thump, vibrating through my body. The side of his fist hitting the door. A desperate, metered-out plea.

“Nora.” Jude’s voice is muffled. “Please.”

My hand shakes, but it acts separately from my brain. Or rather, my brain has powered itself down to only one single word:Jude.

I open my door.

Jude’s standing there, his shirt unbuttoned at the top, his hair coming loose from its tie, his eyes burning into me like fire.

He reaches a hand out, but instead of something gentle and soft like taking mine, he grasps the fabric of my dress at my waist and pulls me toward him, crushing my lips with his.

The kiss is hard, deep, and so intense my whole body electrifies—across my skin and inward too, in a sharp jag to the very core of me. Jude’s lips are soft against mine, his tongue urgent and needy. My dress is still fisted in his hand, and he pulls me backward, not breaking our connection until he’s slid me sideways, against the wall.

“Nora,” he rasps as he leans in and nestles himself into my neck. “Nora, Nora, Nora.” His lips graze my skin, his free hand pressed against the wall over my head. “You’re running through my veins, Nora.”

He wedges his knee between my legs, urging them apart. Finally, he lets go of my dress, sliding his hands down my sides, grasping my hips like he did before, only this time, his touch isn’t gentle and tentative. It’s raw and demanding. Needy and hard and soft at the same time.

“Is this okay?” he asks as he slides me onto his thigh. “Us? This?”

I whimper as heat zings up my legs, centralizing where my body meets his, in my very center. “I don’t know, Jude,” I gasp as my body moves on its own, rocking against his rock-hard quad. He’s so hard, all of him; the long lean body of an athlete still. I tip my face up. “I can’t answer that for you.”

Jude’s grip tightens on me, his fingers pressed against the flesh of my ass. He lowers his forehead onto mine. “That’s not what I was asking, Nor. I mean, is this okay for you, us doing this?”

Heat curls between my legs, but a warmth spreads deep in my chest, too. “Yes,” is all I can manage, my voice breathless. “Yes, I want it. But what about you? Your priest status?”

Jude grins, running a thumb along my temple. “I’m a bad priest.” Then he dips his head down and kisses me again, his tongue against mine, his hands sliding up my ribs.

“Wait,” I breathe, breaking the kiss. “You didn’t say it was okay with you; those still aren’t the words—”

“Nora.” Jude’s hands slide up to my face, cupping it in his hands. “I want to fuck you. Is that clear enough?”

My insides clench against the onslaught of fiery heat, and I nod. “Yes.”

Jude picks me up then, lifting me easily, and I wrap my legs around his waist. “I want to fuck you too,” I manage as he carries me over toward the bed.

“Nora Albright, was that a curse word?”

I laugh, and it loosens the nerves I didn’t realize were keeping everything coiled up tight.

Jude pauses as he reaches the bed. “You just tell me if you want to stop, Nora. Anytime, okay?”

I’m wrapped around his body, my forearms on his shoulders, my face an inch from his. And my need is so intense I can’t breathe. “I don’t want to stop,” I manage.

“Good,” Jude growls. “Because this is going to be fucking glorious.”

Then he tosses me onto the bed.

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