Page 46 of Dirty Like Jude
Then he locked eyes with me again. “You playin’ games with me,darlin’?”
He’d asked me that once before. So longago…
“I never play a game that I can’t win,” I toldhim.
“Neither doI.”
“Then I guess that makes us both sorelosers.”
After the waitress returned with our shots, he slipped her a credit card. His dark eyes met mine as we clinked and downed ourshots.
I asked him, “What if you realize, at some point, that you’re losing thegame?”
“Then I change the fuckin’rules.”
Chapter Nine
Roni
After dinner,the night pretty much deteriorated, professionallyspeaking.
It wasn’t that we were drunk. We were, probably, but that wasn’t the cause. It was that Jude was, apparently, bent on tearing my relationship with Taze up at the root and stomping it intodust.
And when I let him take my hand and pull me into the back of that first taxi, I knew I was going to lethim.
We ditched our vehicles and headed from one bar to the next. I stuck to one drink per bar, so I didn’t get totally shit-faced. Though I was definitely partwaythere.
I insisted on paying for drinks in every bar we went into, because he was kinda sorta like my client, this was supposed to be a business meeting, and no way was I letting him get some imagined upper hand by being all chivalrous and generous with hiswallet.
I even opened my owndoors.
Though Jude got pretty surly-looking about both the money I forked over for the drinks and every door I opened—forhim.
I made sure to check a few mirrors along the way, and I didn’tlookshit-faced, which was probably the important thing. I looked a little flushed. My eyes were shining. My wavy hair was a little tussled, wild and sexy around myface.
Honestly, I looked pretty damnDTF.
Unfortunately, so didJude.
By the time we’d walked into the second bar, his hand was on the small of my back, on my bare skin. By the time we sat down in the third, we’d smoked a joint I had in my purse, together, I was feeling incredibly warm and fuzzy and, well,loose… and his hand was on mythigh.
I knew I had a boyfriend. He wasn’t here, and since I wasn’t about to break up with anyone by picking up the phone at midnight and telling him,Hey, guess what? It’s over, I was still going to have a boyfriend when I woke up in themorning.
A boyfriend I didn’tlove.
A boyfriend who didn’t loveme.
And another man’s hand was on mythigh.
Theman.
The man I’d always wanted, would probably always want, no matter how many times he rejected me. Because—dare I acknowledge it to myself?—I’d gone ahead and fallen the fuck in love with him, years ago, and that love had just kinda stuckaround.
Even though hehadn’t.
His hand felt heavy, possessive and presumptuous, on my thigh. Daring. He was daring me, really, wasn’the?
My lace skirt ended just above the knee and he wasn’t touching my skin, but I could feel his heat soaking through the fabric. He knew I was with Taze. I told him Taze made me feel safe. And here he was, his hand on my thigh, offering—no, threatening—to rip that all toshreds.
