Page 55 of Steadfast
Denny’s mouth fell open, and he wore the startled expression of someone who had just been slapped.
“Goodnight,” I said through clenched teeth. Then I turned and ran out of there. My shoes clicked on the tiles as I pushed the church’s pretty wooden door open.
Moving quickly, I headed down the sidewalk toward Jude’s street. The cold air on my face was a relief, and it helped to cool my anger. I knew Denny was a good guyusually. And he had always been a loyal friend.And he’s jealous, my conscience put in. But the real reason that I would be able to put this awful moment aside was that Denny didn’t know Jude. He’d never seen the way that Jude took care of me. He’d calmed me down a million times when I was stressed out over school or mad at my father for belittling me.
Jude had shored me up in so many ways. The least I could do was show a little faith.
And what’s more, he’d always toldmethat I could beat the odds. When I wanted to make music my career, he’d never said, “Do you know the rate of failure for singers is over fifty percent?”
Lifewas risky. All of it. And I wasn’t about to give up on Jude just because some medical researcher didn’t like the odds of kicking his habit.
My feet took me closer to him.
The streets of Colebury were silent at night. Decorative candle-style lights lit the windows of many of the old wooden houses I passed. That was a thing in Vermont. We left them up all winter, too, not just at Christmas. These days there were solar-powered light-sensitive models—you didn’t even have to remember to turn them on. I’d bought a set at the grocery store last year so that the police chief’s house would look as though somebody cared enough to turn on the holiday lights.
When I turned onto Jude’s street, the houses got smaller and the porches saggier. But there were candles in many of the windows.
Not his, though.
I climbed the stairs as quietly as I could. After a light tap on the door, I tried the knob. It released in my hand. “Jude?”
The only sound came from the shower.
Ten seconds later I’d tossed my coat and all my clothes onto his desk chair. Stark naked, I went into the bathroom. Without a word of warning, I pulled the curtain open.
Jude gave a startled grunt, but then quickly got over his surprise. Big hands pulled me under the spray. Then I was pancaked against a hard, wet man while his hands cupped my ass. “Baby,” he rumbled.
I raised myself up on tiptoes to press my mouth over his, and received a happy growl for my efforts. Then there was nothing but wet lips and wet tongues. Steam and skin sliding against skin. The world was a small place where it rained warm water and kisses.
The very hard cock pressing against my belly begged to be touched. I dropped a hand down to stroke him. Jude moaned. “Want you so bad.”
“What are you waiting for?” I gasped.
“Hold on to me,” he ordered.
When I reached up to grasp his shoulders, Jude lifted me. Pressing my upper back against the shower wall, he lined himself up and slid inside. And once again I was full of Jude. Tipping my head back against the tiles, I sighed. For a moment nothing more happened, and that was fine with me. In music, the silence in between the songs can be as affecting as the most powerful crescendo. This moment was just the same. I opened my eyes to find Jude watching me.
Then his hips pulsed—the opening bass line of our song. I throbbed against him—adding to our melody. He rocked. I rolled my hips. We were complete right then. There were no naysayers. There was no past, and there certainly was no future.
Listening to the rhythm of Jude’s increasingly ragged breaths, I gave myself over to this moment. Our song rose to a fevered pitch, and I listened hard to every note while it lasted.
* * *
Afterward, we were two damp and sated people lying on the bed together. His hand wandered mindlessly up and down my back.
“Jude?”
“Mmm?”
“Why did you give my brother a ride that night?”
I expected him to protest at the question, but he didn’t. “I don’t remember. Guess he needed a ride, that’s all.”
“Really? You two weren’t friends.”
“Nope.”
“Then why did he ask you?”
