Текст книги "Clash"

Автор книги: Nicole Williams

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Danny was watching me. Not saying anything, but something was eating this kid from the inside out.

“What is it, Danny?” I asked, biting on my nails. I’d never, up until this moment, been a nail biter.

“Why were you and Jude fighting?” he asked, looking relieved he’d gotten that off his back.

“Because that’s what we do and we’re good at it,” I answered.

“But you love him?”

I glanced over at his mom, wishing she’d choose this time to usher the kiddos out for a bathroom break or something. “Yeah.”

More relief flooding into his face. “So you’re still going to get married? “

“I don’t know,” I said, working my teeth over the next nail. Manicures were so last season. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” I said, getting why parents were such a fan of this one word answer go-to. “Because sometimes love just isn’t enough.”

His freckled nose curled. “Well, duh,” he said, flapping his hands over the back of the seat. “I just turned six and even I know that.”

A six year old had more life wisdom, it appeared, than I did. The concept was more depressing than it should be.

“You know that, huh, smartie-pants?” I said.

“I know a lot.”

“And as a kindergartener who’s probably dated a total of zero girls,” I said, arching a brow at him, “what exactly do you know about love?”

He did that little unamused face my mom had become a master of back in the day. “Mom told me that love is like a seed. You’ve got to plant it to grow. But that’s not all. You need to water it. The sun needs to shine just enough, but not too much. The roots have to take hold,” he continued, narrowing his eyes in concentration. “And from there, if it pops its head above the surface, there are about a million things that could kill it, so it takes a whole lot of luck too.”

I felt my mouth ready to drop open. I was about to mutter a curse when I caught myself. This kid was wise beyond his years.

“You can’t plant a seed and hope it will grow on its own. It takes a lotta work to make anything grow.” He smiled up at me, clearly pleased with himself.

“Wow,” I replied, stunned. “That’s some seriously smart stuff, Danny.”

“I know,” he said. “Do you have any questions?”

I was smirking at a six year old. Not one of my better moments. “I think I’m good, but I’ll let you know.”

He turned around in his seat and I was halfway through a sigh of relief when he looked over his shoulder.

“You shouldn’t have gotten into a fight with Jude,” he said, his eyebrows drawn together. “You could really mess with his game. He might come back to the second half and be a mess. You might be solely responsible for losing the game if we do.”

“Jude will be fine,” I said, looking down on the quiet field. “He’s used to us fighting. It’s never stopped him before.”

His mouth made a duck face as he considered this. “That’s sad,” he responded, with the entire world of replies at his disposal. That’s the one he chose.

“It is sad,” I repeated as the stands started to explode with rising bodies and voices.

As Syracuse took the field after the half, Jude wasn’t leading them. I almost panicked, sure our fight had unraveled him and he took off, to never be heard from again, but then I caught a glimpse of number seventeen in the middle of the pack.

It wasn’t only me that noticed this either. Narrowed eyes of confusion turned my way, narrowing a hair tighter in accusation. They might as just well brand the word pariah over my forehead because it couldn’t have been any more uncomfortable than I felt now.

Kickoff was just getting under way when someone stopped at the end of my row, turned, and was so obviously staring at me I couldn’t even pretend I hadn’t noticed.

“Yes?” I said in irritation, glancing up at the frat boy grinning down at me. His frat, delta-delta-douche something, was scrolled onto his baseball cap. I couldn’t help rolling my eyes.

“This seat taken?” he asked, eyeing the empty seat Jude had occupied earlier. He’d sat in it for all of five minutes, but I was protective of it.

“Yeah,” I said, dropping my purse onto it, “it is.”

The crowd roared, cheering at whatever stellar play our kicking team had just pulled. Not only was he irritating me, smiling at me in a way that was just way too cheesy, asking to occupy Jude’s seat, he’d just made me miss the kick off.

Strike Four. You’re way the hell out.

“You better find another girl to sit next to.” Danny turned in his seat, giving the stink eye to this guy that was three times as big as him. “This one is Jude Ryder’s future wife.”

“Hold up,” the guy said, chuckling at Danny. “You’re the QB’s girl?”

Jude was just taking the field with his line when I saw him look my way. He was so far off it shouldn’t have been possible, but I swore his eyes flashed black when he saw the guy lurking above me.

“Why don’t you ‘hold up’ yourself and go back to the rest of your clan of future middle managers?” I said, scramming him away with my hand.

Snapping his fingers, the guy pulled out his phone and began thumbing through pages. I wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking for, but I had a pretty good idea.

Watching Jude as he lined up, his head tilted back my way again. Damn it‌—‌he needed to focus on the game and not me. I could handle myself.

Frat boy’s smile went Joker wide. “You are Ryder’s girl,” he said, flashing his phone at me. On the screen was a still of me straddling a crazed faced Adriana, my arm high and my hair a tornado of white-blond whispys.

“I don’t care if this seat is taken,” he said, grabbing my purse and throwing it into my lap. “I need to get a picture with the girl who was on the winning side of the most talked about cat fight in all college history.” Wrapping his arm around me, he hung his phone out in front of us, about to take a picture.

When were asshats like this going to figure out they couldn’t do whatever they wanted with a woman? We weren’t beasts they could control. We were women who could rule the world with our eyes closed, but were smart enough to know to stay out of that whole mess. We were women‌—‌hear us roar.

And I did just that as I snatched his phone out of his hand, shot up in my seat, and hurled it onto the field.

Jude had just called the hike as my own projectile spiraled onto the sidelines. Taking another look back when his eyes should have been nowhere but on the field, I saw him freeze when he saw what was taking place between me and super frat.

Time stood still then as Jude watched me and I watched him. Both of our faces lined with worry for the other. However, Jude’s worry was misplaced. Frat boy had selected a perfectly uncreative curse word to holler at me before marching away‌—‌back to his middle management hopefuls. But me, I had the right to an absolute gut dropping worry because, breaking through Jude’s defensive line, one of the visiting team’s lineman barreled right for the frozen in place quarterback.

I was already screaming his name when the line man drilled into Jude. Even after the initial impact, Jude’s eyes didn’t leave mine, but when his body crashed to the ground, bouncing and skidding a good ten yards, his eyes were long past the point of recognition as they fluttered closed.

“JUDE!” The scream was primal, coming out of some part of me I didn’t know existed. Popping out of my seat, I was running down the stairs before I knew I was running. My eyes were locked on him, decorating the astroturf in ways that a body shouldn’t contort.

I wasn’t thinking anything right then‌—‌I was all instinct. I didn’t doubt that if anyone stood in my path, I would have done anything to get by them. But no one did, and when I reached the concrete barrier separating the field from the stands, I swung my legs over it.

Twisting so my stomach curled the wall, I dropped down to the field. The breath popped out of my lungs from the impact. I’d underestimated the drop, but it didn’t slow me down.

Everyone was so focused on Jude and the trainers sprinting out there towards him, no one paid the crazed girl running across the field any attention. Pushing and shoving by the players forming a circle around him, I skidded to my knees beside him.

“Jude?” I said, trying to catch my breath.

The trio of trainers glanced up at me, eyes wide before narrowing. “You need to get the hell out of here, ma’am,” one of them said as another removed Jude’s helmet.

I sobbed one terrible note when I grabbed his hand and, for the first time ever, it fell limp into mine.

“I’m not leaving,” I replied, biting the side of my cheek.

“If you don’t leave of your own accord, we’ll have to have someone escort you,” the third said, holding a light above Jude’s eyes as he pried them open.

Another sob escaped before I caught it. Those gray eyes of his were flat, dead.

“I’m not leaving,” I said, folding Jude’s hand into both of mine, trying to infuse some warmth and life into it. “And I pity the person who tries to take me away from him.” My eyes flashed into each of the trainers’.

“Fine,” the one putting a brace around Jude’s neck replied. “But you get in our way and I’ll happily use the tranquilizer I keep in my case for emergency cases on you. You understand?”

“Okay,” I said, wanting to run my hands over every part of Jude until they uncovered what was the matter with him. Until they identified what needed to be fixed. It was a powerless feeling, not knowing what needed to be taken care of. How to go about fixing the worst kind of situation.

One of the trainer’s plucked his phone from his pocket. “We’ve got to call this one in, guys,” he said. The others nodded their agreement.

Biting the other side of my cheek, I stared at the spot on Jude’s neck where the faintest movement could be detected. I started holding my breath, waiting in torture for his pulse to lift that patch of skin again.

As long as he had a pulse, he was alive.

A couple more trainers ran onto the field, carrying a stretcher. The players moved away, hanging their heads as they wandered back to the sidelines. Nestling the stretcher beside Jude, the five trainers positioned themselves around him, sliding their hands into place.

I didn’t let go of his hand as they hoisted him onto the stretcher and I didn’t let go of his hand as they made their way off the field.

I wasn’t sure if the stadium had gone silent, or I was just incapable of hearing anything in my shock, but I didn’t hear a sound as we moved Jude off the field.

Only when we were through one of the team tunnels did I hear the blare of an ambulance siren. The paramedics were just swinging the back doors open when we emerged outside. One of the trainers told them what had happened and what injuries they thought he may have sustained. When the words concussion, coma, and paralyzed were voiced, I had to tune it out. I had to pretend reality wasn’t so real right now.

Transferring him into the ambulance, I followed behind the paramedic, taking a seat before I could be kicked out.

“Who are you?” he hollered over at me as the trainers stepped away as the doors slammed shut.

“I’m the only family he’s got,” I whispered, trying not to let the crowd watching us drive away, like we were a hearse on its way to a funeral, cripple me.

Rushing through an emergency room, while a person I loved was shuttled to the front of the line due to his injuries, was an episode I never wanted to replay in my life. Hurrying him into a room, I was ordered to stay outside in the waiting room.

Two security guards had to be called when I told a certain sour faced nurse to go, eh-hmm, herself. They took one look at me, crazed and worried out of my mind, and let me off with a warning.

Pacing the waiting room, I had to fight the urge at least a hundred times to shove past the security guard who’d clearly been instructed to keep an eye on me. My phone rang every minute as all of Jude’s acquaintances and friends wanted to know how he was doing.

I turned it off after ten minutes. What could I tell them? He’d been sequestered to an emergency room while more doctors rushed into his room than onto a golf course on a sunny Saturday morning? To give any of them an answer to how Jude was doing, I’d either have to lie or admit things that I was sure I couldn’t admit.

So I paced. I chewed my nails down to nothing. I ached in every place I didn’t realize could ache. But I wouldn’t let myself think, or contemplate, or consider any one of the many things that would break me if I let them in right now. I was barely hanging on as it was, behaving like nothing better than a caged animal; if I let in any one of the emotions piling up , no vial of tranquilizer could subdue me.

It could have been fifteen minutes, it could have been fifteen hours, but when the serious faced doctor ambled into the waiting room, his eyes shifting my way, it took a lifetime for him to cross the room towards me.

“I understand you’re somehow related to Mr. Ryder,” he said, crossing his arms. He wasn’t covered in blood, so I assured myself that was a good sign.

“Yes,” I said, my voice hoarse. I was related to him in every way a person could be without the bond of blood relation.

“He’s sustained a concussion from the impact,” he began as my insides twisted. “I’ve put him into a medically induced coma to give his brain and body a chance to heal, but we won’t know the full extent of the damage until he wakes.”

I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. “He’s all right?” My voice was barely a whisper.

“He’s alive,” the doctor corrected. “We won’t know if he’s all right until he wakes. Until then, he needs to take it easy and rest.”

A nurse stuck her head around the corner. “Doctor,” she interrupted, “we’ve got a bullet wound to the stomach coming in.”

Giving her a nod over his shoulder, he started backing away. “We’ve moved him up to the fifth floor. You can go see him now if you like.”

“Thank you,” I said as he rushed off because what else could you offer the person who had helped the one you loved?

Following the signs that led to the elevator, I punched the fifth floor button, followed by a trio of punches over the “door close” button. My legs were bouncing, my breath was catching, my fingers were tapping over the elevator handrail. My anxiety was manifesting in a hyper active way so, the instant the doors whooshed open, I flew out, rushing towards the nurses’s station.

“Excuse me?” I asked, my voice sounding as hyper as the rest of my body felt. “Could you tell me which room Jude Ryder was taken to?” I didn’t wait for the middle-aged, smile wrinkled woman to look up from her chart before asking.

When she did, the smile that had earned her those wrinkles worked into position. Maybe the reason she was a fifth floor nurse was because she was five times warmer than the sour faced nurses in the E.R.

“He was just taken into 512,” she said, pointing down the hall on the right. “You can go see him right now. Just make sure he gets lots of quiet and rest, okay, hun?”

“Okay. I will,” I said, wrapping my arms around my stomach. “The doctor said they put him into a coma so his brain could heal. Any idea when he’ll wake up?” There were about a million questions I had now that I hadn’t thought to ask the doctor while he was in front of me.

“Could be next week,” she said, with a shrug. “Could be next hour. The brain is a tricky thing that’s got a mind all its own.” She smiled at her little pun. “The docs like to think they can command it to do their bidding, but in my experience, the brain wins every time.”

Why couldn’t all medical staff be as grounded and honest as this one was? “Sounds very… inconclusive.”

“Hun, whenever you’re talking about the human body or brain, it’s always inconclusive.”

Not exactly what I needed to hear right now, but I’d take the hard truth over a warm fuzzy lie most any day.

“Thanks,” I said, waving as I headed down the hall.

“Let us know if you all need anything,” she called after me.

Room 512 was at the far end of the hall and the closer I got, the farther away the room seemed to get. This whole night had been a screwy version of Alice in Wonderland.

Sliding inside the room, I closed the door silently behind me. Looking at him on the bed, if I imagined it just right, I could pretend he was asleep in his own bed. But then the heart rate monitor beeped and the antiseptic smell of the hospital called me back to reality.

I didn’t have an aversion to hospitals like most people did. To me, they were places your loved ones were taken who at least had a hope of being healed. When John had been shot, the only place for him to be taken was the medical examiner’s.

Jude was here, his heartbeat spiking and beating every second. That meant he was alive and had a fighting chance. There was hope.

Coming around the foot of the bed, I stared down at him. If not for the hospital gown and wires and tubes snaking over his body, he looked like he didn’t belong here. No stitched wounds, no black and blue marks spotting him, no casts supporting broken bones. Everything on the surface was perfect, but whatever was going on inside that brain of his was where the true threat waited.

I knew more about concussions than any one who wasn’t a doctor should. Watching hundreds of games in my lifetime, I’d seen my fair share of boys knocked senseless. John had been lucky enough to escape the seeming rite of passage concussion, but plenty of his teammates growing up hadn’t. Most recovered with little to no long term effects. But some, the names and faces that were at the forefront of my mind now, were forever changed. Those less fortunate souls would never walk onto that football field again, and a couple couldn’t so much as lift a spoon to their mouths, let alone palm a football.

The realization that this was potentially what Jude would face whenever his brain surfaced made my entire body weaken. Shuffling along the side of the bed, I collapsed onto the edge of it, grabbing his hand up in mine.

This is what happened when you didn’t heed the warning upon warning life threw your way or listened to that voice in your head that told you someone was going to get hurt if we didn’t stop fighting nature.

Jude and I had been riding a runaway train and Jude was the one to take the brunt of the impact when that train crashed into the wall. I knew when and if Jude came out of this, we could try to piece together the rabble, but it wouldn’t be long before we hit another wall. And after falling apart once, we’d shatter with the next crash until finally, there was nothing left of what we’d once been. There’d be no Jude. No Lucy. No us. None of the love we’d shared. Just a scattered mess that could never be fixed.

My hand was wringing the hell out of his, so I loosened my grip on him. The last thing he needed was a hand amputation after I’d cut off the circulation while I worried the night away.

I knew I couldn’t go, but I also knew I couldn’t stay. And this, the cruel irony, was the paramount of Jude’s and my time together. I loved him, but I shouldn’t. I trusted him, but it wasn’t natural. I wanted him, but I couldn’t have him.

With us, it wasn’t like we were suffering from a bad case of wanting to have our cake and eat it too‌—‌we were just trying to make the best out of an empty cake plate. You couldn’t create something out of nothing and, while it wasn’t Jude and me that didn’t have something‌—‌we had the kind of something people spent their lives searching for‌—‌life had given us a big nothing in the future department. There was nowhere to go but right here, one of us having a meet and greet with death, if one of us didn’t secede from the other.

I knew it couldn’t be him, he’d warned me countless times before he was incapable of walking away from me. So it had to me. I had to be the one to get up, turn my back on this man, and never stop walking away.

I’d never faced something with more fear.

Damn it. I was squeezing his hand all to hell again.

Clearing my throat, I tried to bring the words to the surface. They wouldn’t come. Something about acknowledging the permanence of them kept them bottled inside.

Goodbye. It would be the hardest thing I’d ever have to say, and the hardest thing I’d have to live. Jude wasn’t just my first love. He was my forever love. But hell if forces of nature hadn’t aligned against me actually being able to spend my life with that person.

Still choking on the word, Jude’s fingers flickered in my hand.

I jumped in my seat. Staring at his hand, I watched it come back to life, weaving through and around mine. Now something else was getting caught in my throat: relief.

His eyes flickered open the next instant, falling on where our hands were woven together. Following his gaze, I couldn’t determine which fingers were his and which were mine. Another piece of evidence for the Alice in Wonderland theory since his were rough, long man fingers and mine were skinny and soft, all girl fingers. Our hands had merged into one, creating its own Jude and Lucy. A Jucy or a Lude. The idea made me grin.

I felt his eyes move up, waiting for me to meet them. When I did, I wanted to set the world on fire and watch it burn for refusing to let me have this man.

His eyes grimaced with confusion as they scanned the room.

“You were hit, Jude. Hard,” I explained, gripping his hand like centrifugal forces were trying to tear us apart. I didn’t ease up because this time, his hand was gripping mine right back. “You blacked out, sustained a concussion, so the doctors put you into a coma so your brain could take its time recovering.” So much for the managed coma. But it shouldn’t have surprised me‌—‌Jude didn’t conform to social standards, a forced upon him coma no expectation.

“The hit I remember,” he said, reaching for his head. “The rest not so much.”

“God, Jude. I’m sorry,” I said, needing to say so much more.

“Sorry for what?” he said, inspecting the IV running into his arm. “That I was dumb enough to look in the opposite direction of a three hundred pound mamma-jamma who wanted to grind me into the astroturf? That was all my bad, Luce.”

“Yeah, but our fight,” I said, scooting closer to him when I should be moving in the opposite direction. “You wouldn’t have been so distracted if we hadn’t just gotten into it.”

“Luce. We fight. I’m used to that. Sure, that fight was the scariest ass one we’ve ever had, but you’re here now. That’s all that matters. No matter how many fights we have, or how much they tip the Richter scale, none of it matters as long as at the end of the day, you’re still with me.”

He shifted in bed, propping up onto his elbows. “And I wasn’t all that distracted from the fight. I was distracted by that D bag I was planning to torture as soon as the game was done.”

Smirking at me, the color began to bleed back into his face. “That was one hell of a phone spiral you launched onto the field. I’m going to start calling you Laser Rocket Arm. If coach saw that, he’s going to dump my sorry ass and drop you into the starting QB spot.”

I smiled at his forearm, tracing patterns over the lines of muscle and vein. “If you keep taking hits like that, you’ll be riding the bench for sure, Ryder.”

He snorted, like he didn’t only believe he was invincible, but he knew it. Lifting his hand to his neck, he searched for something below his gown. His expression dropped. “Where the hell is my necklace?” he said, sitting up in bed and searching the room.

“I don’t think you’ll find it glued to the ceiling,” I said when he investigated the white ceiling tiles.

“Where is it?” he asked, his voice tight.

“Jude,” I said, worried he’d been hit as hard as I’d been worried he had, “calm down. I’m sure it’s around. They probably took it off when you were in the ER and have it tucked into a drawer or something. We’ll find it.”

“Okay,” he said, exhaling, “you’re right. We’ll find it.” Collapsing back onto the bed, he looked exhausted.

“Since when did you start wearing a necklace?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t some huge gold chain with some hubcap sized eagle hanging from it.

“Since I started trying to get my act together,” he said.

“And that happened when?” I teased, narrowing my eyes at him.

He chuckled, that deep, throaty one of his that went right through me, vibrating everything in its journey. As it tapered off, his face twisted.

“What?” I asked, ready to push that red button resting on the table beside the bed.

“I was dreaming,” he said, his eyes going into that far-away place. “I remember it. That’s what woke me up.” One side of his face twisted up higher. “It was the same dream over and over again. I must have had it a thousand times and all I remember is wanting to break past that dream and wake up. But I couldn’t. Something was holding me down. Something was keeping me from waking up.”

That probably had something to do with a team of doctors forcing him into a coma. A coma that had lasted all of an hour.

“What was it about?” I asked, wanting to reach inside him and extract all the poison I could see eating him away.

His dark eyes flickered to mine. “You.”

I swallowed. “Me?” I tried to sound brave, but I’d never sounded so scared. “What was I doing?”

I already knew before he flinched out his answer.

“You were leaving,” he breathed, his arm covering his chest. “You left me. And you never came back, no matter how hard I ran after you or how loud I begged you to stop.” And it could have been the drugs, or the horrible lighting in a hospital room, but for the first time, Jude’s eyes looked like they could have spilled tears. “You left me.”

And now it was my face and my everything else that was twisting as words failed me. It wasn’t my consciousness that reacted next; it was my heart. The heart I’d been depriving for so long and had just busted free.

In one seamless movement, I was straddling his lap, covering his mouth with mine. I kissed him, God, like I’d never kissed him before. I couldn’t kiss him hard enough. I wanted his mouth to make me forget everything. I needed to forget reality for a while and pretend life was going to work out just the way I wanted it to.

His lips were quiet beneath mine for one second as he processed what the hell had just happened, but when they came to, they moved against mine like they were trying to consume me as much as mine were his.

The heart rate monitor starting keeping beat to our frantic mouths retreating and advancing on one another. Leaning back, I ripped the sweatshirt over my head and my tank was off and flying before the sweatshirt hit the floor.

Jude’s hands grabbed my face, pulling me back to him, his tongue forcing its way into my mouth. I trembled, feeling his hands and his mouth and the rest of his body wanting, taking, and having me.

One hand crawled down my back, sparing no time freeing my bra from my back. His breathing for the first time was almost as ragged as mine and that realization put a crack in this dream we were actively participating in. We shouldn’t be doing this right now, for a baker’s dozen of different reasons. And I didn’t want to care about a single one of them right now.

His mouth moving in and over me wasn’t enough to keep reality at bay.

I had to have all of him.

Leaning away for what I hoped was the last time, I worked everything that was still covering me down my legs, around my ankles, and off onto the floor.

Jude’s breathing hitched again as his eyes inspected me. Naked, tortured, and dying in my need for him.

“I’m one lucky bastard,” he breathed, managing a smile as he propped up on his elbows. “And there’s no way I’m letting anything get in the way of this,”‌—‌his hands slid down my hips, curling into the flesh of my backside‌—‌”so help me get this damn hospital dress off.”

I grinned, leaning down and letting my fingers work over the knots on the back of his gown while my mouth worked over the tendons and muscles of his neck. His heavy breath burst my body up and down in time to his heart. I rose with him, I fell with him‌—‌always together.

Pulling the last tie free, I slid the gown up and over his arms, pulling it up through my legs and over his body until it had joined my discarded clothes on the floor.

It was working. I felt nothing but the here and now. I felt nothing but Jude‌—‌his body, his love, and his need.

His hands returned to my backside, lifting it and sliding it back. I could feel him against me, just waiting for my final acceptance. Judging to see if this was really the perfect moment. The place in time where Jude and I would mark this last passage of intimacy.

I was so ready for this moment in time I could feel it throbbing my every nerve to life. “You know, your doctor said you were supposed to stay relaxed and rest,” I said, smiling down on him where his face was as excited as it was tortured. “I wouldn’t say this counts as rest and relaxation.”

His hands slid up my body, skimming up my breasts and molding beneath my jaw. Holding my face in his gentle hands, the lines and muscles of his face smoothed. “Luce. I love you. This is exactly what I need right now. Doctor’s orders be damned.”

My heart was pounding so hard in my chest, my sternum was starting to ache. This was it. The green light. Yet I also knew in this moment that a red light was on the horizon and it was because of that glimpse at cruel realty I lifted myself above him.

“This?” I implied, bracing my hands on his chest. His heart thrust against them.

He nodded, running his thumbs down my jaw. “This.”

And then I lowered myself onto him, letting him consume me every way he could.

He groaned below me as his hands fell back to my hips.

“This?” I breathed, not able to catch it as I moved above him again.

We both winced from the separation.

His fingers curled into my hips, sliding them back down over him. The heart rate monitor was really screaming now, barely able to keep up with Jude.

“Damn this thing,” he breathed, his forehead lining as I moved above him again. Tearing at his chest, he ripped the wires from his chest, chucking them to the floor. He did the same with his IV.

“There,” he said, twisting below me, rocking me over until I was on my back beside him. “Nothing is coming between us,” he said, nuzzling into my neck as he rocked over me. I was vaguely aware the heart rate monitor was now screaming some sort of warning, but when Jude’s hips rocked into mine, his moan getting lost inside me as he kissed me to the beat our hips were creating, there was nothing else but him.