~Carter~
Cars were parked every which way on the field and Jude could be in any one of them. I was ready to start looking inside every single one when I saw them. That guy had Jude up against an SUV. The guy was pressed up against him much the same way Jude had pushed me up against the wall. But this was different. I hadn't exactly put up a fight, but Jude was struggling.
The whole time Jude was trying to fight him off, the guy's hand was reaching down the back of Jude's jeans. As I got closer, I saw that the guy had his forearm over Jude's windpipe, keeping him quiet while the guy unbuttoned his jeans.
I started running before I knew it. I didn't stop until I slammed into that guy and crushed him into the ground under me. My fist connected with his face, his ribcage, anywhere I could hit him. I was fueled by pure rage, but he managed one good kick and got me off him.
Cursing, he climbed into the SUV and drove away. I got to my feet as his tires plowed the field. He was out of here, and Jude was now on the ground, rubbing at his throat. He looked dazed and I went over to crouch next to him.
"You Ok?"
"Why the hell are you here?" he had the nerve to say.
I was worried, but now I was back to being pissed off. I stood up and pulled him up to his feet. "If you can't handle your booze, then don't drink," I lectured him though I knew this wasn't just about booze.
"I'm not helpless," he claimed.
"No, just stupid."
His eyes flashed angrily then he gave me an insinuating grin. "You came to my rescue, didn't you?"
"Don't count on it happening again. If I don't happen to be passing by next time, you won't be so lucky," I growled at him.
Jude knew it was a lie right off. "Don't bullshit me. You were looking for me," he said then his expression mellowed and he smiled sadly. "Or maybe you have a knack for being at the right place at the right time. That's like your dad." Jude slurred his words a little and I shook my head, not understanding him. "It's just like him. He had no reason to save me either. I was nothing to him. But he went all out, got rid of him."
I didn't know what he was talking about. Maybe it was just drunk talk. I didn't have time for that. I wanted to get out of here. "Let's go. We're done here."
"I'm not," Jude said and tried to head back toward the factory.
"No, you don't," I said and pulled him back to face me. "How do you think you ended up here? It's not like he kidnapped you."
"Fuck you! I never asked for your help," he said and tried to shove me away, fighting me. He was drunk and uncoordinated, saying dumb shit about walking the rest of the way home. In his struggle, he only managed to throw himself off balanced. I grabbed him before he fell on his ass.
It was the wrong move, putting me too close to Jude.
"You're a fucking idiot," I told him and tried to pull away. Jude didn't let me. He grabbed the front of my t-shirt and tugged me forward. He seemed plenty strong all of a sudden as he glared at me at close range.
I don't know what came over me. I grabbed him by the back of the neck and smashed my mouth against his. If I was hurting him or if I had startled him, he didn't show it. Jude kissed me back like he would devour me.
Now all I wanted was to sink to the ground with him. I had seen the buttons on his fly still halfway undone, just enough room for my hand to slip inside. Fuck. Why were these thoughts coming into my head?
An agonized moan full of need escaped my throat. Startled by the sound of naked lust that tore from me, I drew back. This wasn't happening.
Jude's eyes were hooded, a half smile on his parted lips as he said, "That was nice."
That's the last thing that kiss was. The kiss was too hard, edged with anger and with unspoken jealousy I had no right to feel. It was filthy and shameless and not Jude's fault this time.
At least Jude seemed calmer now even if I wasn't. It was almost like Jude was content because he got what he wanted.
This time when I pulled him to come with me so we could get out of there, he didn't resist. He stumbled along next to me sometimes swaying, sometimes humming like there was still a party going on in his head—music, dancing and all.
As for me, I was already trying to forget this night. I should have gotten drunk, but I considered myself on guard duty. Damn. I just wanted to kick every single thought out of my head. But as long as nothing else happened, I could put this night behind me. I just had to make sure Jude didn't get the better of me again.
From the field with the parked cars, I followed the road people must have taken to get here in their cars. The dark silent road stretched ahead of us, and I felt like we would never make it back to my car. When Jude's pace slowed, I tugged at him to keep up. But I wasn't really in a hurry now that Jude wasn't being crazy.
Cars passed now and then blinding us with their headlights. People were still heading to that party while we were heading away.
A car was coming up behind us. I heard it, but I didn't see the headlights. I turned my head just in time to watch a car with the headlights off accelerate and swerve. I grabbed Jude and lunged away from the road. The car kicked up dirt then sped away, and we ended up rolling into a ditch.
Panting and cursing I got on my knees. It wasn't the SUV, just some fucking drunk trying to be funny, chasing us into a ditch.
I looked down at Jude and called his name. The way he was just lying there, I was worried that he might have gotten hurt. When I touched him, he slapped my hand away.
"You were all over me before, now you can't stand me touching you?" I said bitterly, but mainly I was relieved that he wasn't unconscious and that he had the energy to be a bitch to me.
We had landed next to a copse of trees. As Jude stood up, he stumbled to one of them and leaned his back against the tree trunk.
"You Ok?"
He didn't answer me. He asked a question of his own. "Are we going the right way?"
I pointed out the water tower and he nodded. "You ready to get moving."
"You can go if you're in so much hurry," he said, pouting.
"And leave you here? A second ago you didn't even know in which direction we were supposed to go," I told him.
"I know what I'm doing," he claimed even though this whole fucking night was proof that he didn't.
"You went off with that guy. That was fucking dumb," I snapped at him.
"You sure like lecturing me and judging me," he said and gave me a challenging glare.
"Act right and I won't."
"Sometimes a guy needs to get laid," he said.
"Is that what that was? It looked more like revenge than trying to get laid," I told him.
"Making you mad is the only way to get to you, isn't it?" Jude said, changing his tune. Alone with him in the deep shade of the cluster of trees where moonlight couldn't find us, I could hardly see his face. His eyes shone though, troubled and sad.
"You're being a fucking idiot," I said but he kept talking over me.
"I wanted you to hate me. So I can hate you back. So I can go back to feeling numb." He seemed more sober now, but he still wasn't making much sense. His features swallowed by darkness didn't give me much clue.
"If that was your plan, I would say it backfired spectacularly since I had to save your ass."
With no warning, Jude pulled me down. Catching me off guard, he had me off balance and on top of him in the next second. I breathed hard, chest to chest with him, looking into his slightly unfocused blue eyes.
"Thanks for saving me," he whispered.
He was so close. At this range, he was impossible to resist. Then he hooked his legs around mine and locked his arms around me. His hands moved down my back and to my ass.
My head dropped to the crook of his neck, and I let my teeth graze his skin. I told myself, "Don't kiss him," but my mouth moved on its own. Partly open, it slid along his jaw, tasted his stubble, found his parted lips.
That kiss wasn't skin deep. It reached too far inside me, pierced dark, secret places and drove the point home hard that I couldn't resist him. Denial shattered under the pressure of Jude's mouth on mine. As he moaned into my kiss, Jude felt so alive and intimately close. It was like holding a beating heart in my hand.
The bushes scattered along the road weren't thick enough to give us cover, but I didn't care that we might be seen. I don't know where my pride went. Around Jude, it just seemed to vanish.
His urgent, grasping touch was everything. His hands clawed at me, holding me down on top of him until my body was pressed into him perfectly, hard cock to hard cock. The feeling blasted through me and I moaned.
On the deserted roadside, grinding into Jude as we kissed, I only came to my senses when a car sped by. Its headlights blinded me as they swept over us. Music blared from its open car windows then faded into the distance as my own breathing grew louder.
I looked down at Jude. At some point I had stopped kissing him. Now I couldn't believe what I had been doing. I wished I was drunk, but I wasn't. I had no excuse.
I stood up but Jude didn't move. He was pale, his lips parted, his chest rising and falling. His t-shirt was pulled up and creased where I had grabbed a handful of it to hold him still. His blue eyes were silvery in the moonlight as he looked up at the star filled sky. I reached down for his hand to pull him up.
"Just leave me here," he said, not taking my hand. His voice was croaky and low.
"Fuck you, Jude. Get up," I told him in a hoarse voice and hauled him to his feet.
Once he was up, it wasn't hard to get him moving again. I was the one who wanted to stop, crawl into a ditch and curl up into a ball. I had to keep going. I was Jude's ride after all.
After what happened, I made sure to keep us well off the road so some drunk wouldn't mow us down in the dark. The water tower was still a beacon to me. A few old farmhouses glowed in the distance. Every light we saw was distant and dim. It felt like the two of us were alone in the middle of nowhere.
Stars filled the night, and a light wind stirred our hair and clothes. Jude was so thin, he looked like he might fly away. I had the urge to grab hold, anchor him, but every impulse I had to reach for him ended in stillness, and I let it die inside me.
No cars passed on the road for a while. We turned off to walk along the railroad tracks toward the warehouse district. From there, I retraced our way back with no help from Jude until we were back in front of the pharmacy where my car was parked.
We got in. Before I even turned the ignition, Jude's hand was on my knee. I jumped and pushed his hand off as I put the car in gear and drove out of the parking lot.
At the first red light, his hand was stubbornly back on my knee. It felt warm and I didn't have the willpower to shake him off again. Fuck it. It's not like I haven't let him do whatever he wanted all along.
My show of resistance was pointless all this time. But Jude was the worst drug. It was suicide if I stopped fighting. I couldn't wait to drop him off.
When we arrived in front of my father's house, I wasn't surprised to hear him say, "Come in with me."
"Go sleep it off, Jude," I told him.
He sighed then got out. I watched him go inside, wincing as he stumbled over a step or two. He got in Ok, and I drove away shaken by aftershocks of everything that went on tonight. On the drive to the motel, my skin was buzzing from his touch, my bones trembling.
Thoughts of him left no room for anything else, but a single thought did sometimes fight its way through the roar of arousal. With my blood pumping too hard, heart beating too loud, I still heard one urgent plea—"Run. Keep driving."
I didn't. I was too tired. And I couldn't run while Jude was still assaulting all my senses—his breath hot, his mouth wet and moaning. He still had a hold on me and I could only get as far as the parking lot of the motel and then up the stairs to my room.
I don't know how I got myself there in one piece. Back in my motel room, it only got worse. Slamming the door shut, I let myself drop against it and just sucked in ragged, heaving breaths for a while.
My mind was humming, full of Jude—provocative, sinuous and hot to the touch. It was like I brought him back here with me.
I could still feel him, his body pulsing against me, too alive and ready. He branded me with a feeling of arousal so close to pain. Fuck. I had to cool off. A shower.
Pulling myself away from the door, my only support, I took a few unsteady steps toward the bathroom then stopped. Getting naked was a bad move. If I stripped for the shower, I would take Jude in there with me, naked too.
On edge, I prowled the small space of my motel room like a trapped animal. I needed to get him out of my head. Jerk off quick, get in bed and sleep it off.
I got the first two done, coming over my hand in record time. But the last part of my simple plan wasn't happening. Shoes on, feet sticking out over the edge of the bed, I lay awake.
My eyes roamed the dark ceiling. People chattered sometimes right outside my door, doors slammed. The noises didn't keep me awake. Trapped in the sweltering heat of this whole night, I couldn't sleep. I felt like nothing would ever cool me off.
I didn't plan to come back here, and now I was trapped in this God forsaken town, hounded by Jude, tormented by memories. With my body acting against my will, wanting what it shouldn't, I couldn't take it any more.
My mind shifted back to Jude every time I let my guard down to try to fall asleep. I turned in bed and remembered I still had my shoes on. I toed them off and heard them thud loudly.
My sleepless night ended at dawn when a heavy, dead sleep took me, a welcome escape. My sleep was black and dreamless then I saw blue eyes and I knew Jude waited for me even here. He seemed to be looking into me. His eyes were so piercing like he could jump inside me and rummage around in my head and my heart for scraps of things that had no business being there, memories, urges and thoughts about him. How did he do that?
Waking up too hot and tangled in the sheets on the motel bed, I felt like I hadn't slept at all. So much for making a clearheaded decision. My head was as fuzzy as it was last night.
It should have been simple. I had no reason for coming to Lindsberg and all the reasons in the world to get the fuck out of here. What more did I want to happen before I decided? How many close calls with Jude did I want to have? If that wasn't enough of a warning, I was too stupid to live.
Still I hated the thought of running from Jude. It was one more way I was giving him power over me. But it was better than the alternative. Every encounter had the same score. I couldn't afford to keep losing my head around him.
Even as Jude's blue eyes sank into me and blamed me, I knew there was only one thing I could do. And once I left this place, I wouldn't have to endure those blue eyes ever again.