Jude’s face darkened. “If you don’t go shred that front page right the hell now you will not be my agent by lunchtime.”
He was quiet for a few seconds while Hammon was saying or doing who knew what. I didn’t doubt he was actually shredding the paper now. Given Jude’s annual salary and multiyear contract, Hammon could retire a happy man in five years’ time if he played his cards right and didn’t piss Jude Ryder off.
“Done?” Jude said, crossing his arms.
Damn, he’d really been waiting while Hammon shredded my porn-o-rific photo.
“As soon as I’m off the phone with you, I want you to call the newspaper and I want you to find out the name, address, and phone number of the editor, the owner, the a**hole writer who wrote this thing, and the photographer who’s about to be a dead man.”
Just when I thought he’d worked past the extreme temper, I was reminded how Jude’s anger ran deep. It was like a volcano: dormant most of the time, but when it exploded . . . it really exploded. Jude’s past made anger a part of his present and future; that was the fact. However, he had a choice about whether he let that anger rule his life. Up until now, he’d done a hell of a job keeping it contained. Well, controlled, at least. But now he was really losing his shit in a scary way.
“Why?” Jude said, cracking his neck. “Is that a question you’re sure you want to ask me?”
It took Hammon all of a second to reply.
“Thatta boy,” Jude said. “Time to earn your commission.” Hanging up, he pocketed his phone and glared at the floor.
His anger was unrestrained. He’d lost all control and was running on nothing but impulse. What could I possibly say or do to talk him down? I knew nothing short of a miracle would work at this stage.
So what, in the entire world of words and responses, did I lead with?
Perhaps the worst.
“Gibbons.”
Jude couldn’t have looked more startled than if I’d just stripped out of my clothes and started streaking down the terminal.
“Gibbons,” I repeated, because now that I was heading down this insane track, I might as well keep chugging along. Plus, his eyes had already lightened into a steely gray.
“Luce?” Jude came closer and pressed the back of his hand against my forehead.
He ran his hands over me like I was one notch below a padded room. It would have been irritating if he wasn’t so visibly concerned.
“I’m fine,” I assured him. “Really.”
Pulling me to him, he continued to study me. “Then what are you rambling on about?”
I rolled my eyes. “Gibbons.”
Another flash of worry in his eyes. “Gibbons?” he said slowly.
I nodded.
“Luce, what the hell’s a gibbon?”
So far, as certifiable as it was, my plan to trick Jude’s monster back into its cage was working.
“It’s like a monkey,” I said, wrapping my arms around him. His every muscle was standing on alert. “I used to see them at the zoo when I was a little girl.”
He held up his hand. “You know I love to know every little thing you’re willing to share with me, Luce, but what the hell does a gibbon have to do with your tits being on the front page of the paper?”
I pretended I wasn’t talking to a man one thread away from snapping for good. “If you’d be quiet for one minute so I could get out more than three words at a time, then you’d learn what a gibbon and my tits have in common.” I paused and plastered on a smile for him.
He stayed quiet. Jude had learned a lot in the years we’d been together.
“I remember learning that gibbons are mostly monogamous. They choose one mate and spend the rest of their lives with that mate. They take care of their mate, protect it, clean it, feed it—you name it and these gibbons do it. Both the male and the female. There isn’t a distinction between sex.” Jude’s eyebrows pulled together. “These gibbons live in their own little world. They don’t let anything, or any other gibbons, get in the way of the bond they’ve formed. They live in their bubble from the rest of the world, and don’t let what’s going on outside their bubble come inside it.”
What the hell was I saying? I really was about to have a total and irreversible break.
And then every single wrinkle on Jude’s face flattened. Looking into my eyes, I watched his eyes go from steel to silver gray. When his hand brushed my cheek, I knew my lunacy had appealed to his and had somehow managed to cancel it out. “Luce,” he said, one corner of his mouth turning up, “are you saying we’re gibbons?”
My smile formed. I had my Jude back. “Well, you might be one. You’re the hairy one.”
A few laughs later, his mouth dropped to mine. “Come here, my beautiful, smart, sexy gibbon.”
“And calm,” I added, around his kisses. “I’m a calm gibbon.” I couldn’t get anything else out, because his mouth made words impossible.
As he kissed me, I felt the tension leave him. Each time our tongues touched, every slide of our lips, every touch dimmed his anger.
“At least the new and improved calm Lucy Larson can still kiss the hell out of me,” he said, after pressing a final kiss to my forehead. “Mind telling me how you were able to keep from blowing a gasket?”
I grinned at a man over Jude’s shoulder who’d been hoping to grab a morning paper. Not today, not this stand.
“Yoga and meditation,” I replied, shifting my smile Jude’s way.
His eyes rolled. “Well, whatever’s responsible for your being the calm to my crazy, I’m proud of you, Luce,” he said, before his eyes wandered down my body. His forehead wrinkled. “My being proud of you aside, I don’t understand how you can be so damn cool about all of this, Luce.”
There was a lot of “all of this” going on right now. More than normal. “All what?”
“A nak*d picture of you plastered on the front page,” he said, keeping his voice controlled, even though the sinews of his neck were surfacing. “Your boobs on display for the entire world. I mean, shit, those are my boobs. Not the entire world’s to enjoy.”
The anger had morphed into hurt, and, in Jude’s case, that meant nothing around us was in danger of being destroyed. I let myself exhale. It felt like I’d been holding that breath for ten minutes straight.
Speaking of time . . . if we didn’t wrap this up soon I was going to miss my flight.
“No, baby,” I said, glancing down at them, “these are my boobs. I just give you an all-access pass to them.” He half scowled, half smirked at me as I continued. “And the only reason I’m able to stay cool is because I know there’s going to be no end to this kind of stuff, Jude. You’re in the public eye in a big way now. There’s going to be no shortage of scandals, or photos, or rumors, or whatever else comes with being a hotshot quarterback.” Dropping my hand to his, I weaved my fingers with his. “Even before the NFL, there was no shortage of this kind of shit in our lives.”
I paused and let him work those words out. Our path had never been smooth, and though I often found myself wishing for it, our future probably wouldn’t be, either. I’d figured this out freshman year, chosen to accept it, and gotten on with my life . . . with Jude.
There were worse things than bumps in the road.
Plus, I had a man like Jude, who loved me like there was no tomorrow. Bumps in the road were a small sacrifice to make for that kind of love.
“Okay. Two things,” Jude said, rubbing the back of his neck as he liked to do when he was working things out. “One—I do believe when you agreed to be my wife, that whole ‘what’s mine is yours’ clause applies, so your boobs are, in fact, mine.” I crossed my arms while he continued walking on thin ice. “Just the way my body belongs to you, Luce,” he added with a wink. “And two—are you saying you want to—that you’re okay with—living in our own little gibbon bubble?”
The words gibbon and bubble coming from Jude Ryder’s mouth were all kinds of funny. But he meant what he said. Seriously.
“If I get to live in that bubble with a certain guy I love”—I ran my thumb down the scar on his cheek—“then yeah, I want to live in a bubble.” It was the only option, really. Unless I wanted to be downing some hard-core over-the-counter narcotics before I turned twenty-two, Jude and I would have to figure out a way to separate ourselves from the public eye and the scrutiny that was sure to follow. “How about you? How does bubble living sound from your size twelves?”
“With you, Luce,” he said, grabbing my hand as it left his face. Holding it to his mouth, he kissed my palm softly. That kiss, pressed to that patch of skin on my palm, had a direct line to every nerve ending in my body. “I’ll take any kind of living, so long as I get to do it with you at my side.”
“At your side. On your side. Side by side . . .”
He lifted his hand. “Are you saying you’re with me, Luce, no matter what comes?”
“I’m saying I’ve always been with you, Ryder”—I kissed one corner of his mouth, and then the other—“and I always will be.”
His grin was so wide, his scar disappeared into his cheek. This was my favorite smile of his. Not because it made his scar disappear, but because it eased it for a few moments.
His cocky smile-smirk was a close second favorite.
“You.” He pointed at me before turning his finger on himself. “Me. Bubble.” His finger now circled around us before making a flicking motion. “The world.”
“Sounds perfect,” I replied, my eyes shifting toward the security checkpoint. I was going to miss my flight if I didn’t leave now. When I looked back at him and saw that familiar glimmering of longing and want in those gray eyes of his, my stomach bottomed out.
Okay, thirty seconds.
“Three weeks,” he said, followed by a groan.
I groaned my reply.
Grabbing me close, he dropped his mouth to my ear. “Better make it a good one then.”
I made it the best damn one yet.
TWELVE
That next Monday, I found myself in a predicament.
Not only because the past day and a half since I’d last seen Jude had gone by so agonizingly slowly that it didn’t seem fair, and I still had nineteen days to go, but because I was unprepared for the dress code at my new job.
I had a half hour before eight, and I knew the only thing worse than showing up for the first day under- or overdressed was being late. I shot a quick text off to India, praying she’d have some idea whether my position at Xavier Industries warranted a skirt and a blouse or was more of a pants-and-shirt kind of place.
As I waited for her reply, I hoped it would be more the cotton-and-wrinkle-free kind of workplace.
As I was hooking my bra into place, my phone chimed.
I frowned when I read her reply. ANTON’S AN OLD-SCHOOL, MAD MEN STYLE CHUMP. AS YOUR FRIEND, I HAVE TO ADVISE YOU TO DRESS UP. BUT AS HIS SISTER, I REALLY WANT YOU TO SHOW UP IN CUTOFFS AND SANDALS JUST TO PISS HIM OFF.