Page 63 of Wicked Temptations
I’d never felt more alive.
“Again.” I beckoned him forward.
Jude’s lip curled. He came at me.
We traded blows. Blocks. Counters. The scaffolding loomed to my right. I used it, swinging around the support beam to put metal between us. Jude vaulted over a prop crate. His boots hit the platform above my head.
I followed him up.
The scaffolding was narrow. Built for one person at a time during the normal routine. We made it work anyway, moving in that brutal dance we’d perfected. Up here, the smoke was thinner. The lights hit differently. I could see every detail of Jude’s face. The set of his jaw. The fire in his eyes.
God, he’s beautiful like this.
The thought hit me sideways. It was the wrong time and the wrong place, but, fuck; it was hard to shove it down and focus.
We reached the top platform. It wasn’t high, just ten feet off the ground, so we could be seen over the heads of the spectators to draw bigger crowds. Jude grabbed me. I grabbed back, and we grappled at the edge, dangerously close to the barrier. His hand fisted in my hair, yanking my head back. My fingers dug into his shoulder, sliding towards his white-painted throat. I wanted to feel it under my palm; feel his heartbeat racing like my own.
“Yield,” he growled.
“Fuck you.”
I broke his grip. Shoved him toward the ladder. He caught himself. Spun. We squared off one more time on the narrow platform, both of us breathing hard, both bleeding whatever this was from every pore.
The exit music cued again, louder this time. Our absolute last chance to end this before management came looking.
Jude’s eyes met mine. Then he moved backwards so fast towards the ladder that my racing heart skipped a beat. For a moment I thought he’d tripped—that he might fall—and I was already reaching for him to offer support.
His boots hit the top rung, and he descended fast and graceful as always. I followed, keen to forget that momentary flash of fear, and when I hit the ground, he took off toward the back exit.
Jude was runningaway fromme.
The action ignited a deep-set, primitive need that ripped through my whole body. He was running, so Ihadto chase himdown. I had to catch him and grab him and hold him fucking still for once in his life.
Ihadto claim him and make him mine.
I ran after him, through smoke and screaming guests. The zone boundaries blurred, and I didn’t care. He veered left into Riley’s section, and I matched him, cutting him off near a haunted dollhouse set piece. His boots screeched against the concrete as he slid to a stop before throwing himself in the opposite direction.
We burst through her set, scattering a family. Riley shouted something, her voice lost in the music, but I still didn’t care. All I could focus on was Jude.
Jude glanced back, saw me gaining, and then pivoted hard, aiming for the connector tunnel that led backstage and looped back towards our zone. I needed to cut him off before he got there. If he got backstage, then the game was up. The lights would be on, and the thrill of the chase—of this primal hunt—would be over. I had to get him into that dark space between our worlds. That place between the show that built us up and the reality that killed everything we were. I had to drag him back there and make him—
Jude’s boot caught something. A crack. A seam. A wire. I didn’t see what.
I just saw him fall.
Jude went down sideways. His ankle twisted unnaturally beneath him, and he hit the ground with a cry that ripped through every layer of anger I’d built.
I stopped chasing him and instead started running towards him.
In my head and heart, there was a difference.
Fuck.
Chapter 15
Jude
Agony.
