Crush (11 page)

I’d never heard a truer statement. I typed in,
STILL AT THE BEACH. AND I’M ALREADY SMILING JUST THINKING ABOUT MAKING YOU SMILE.

I sat up and tossed my sunscreen into my bag when his reply came.
I’LL MEET YOU THERE AND PICK UP DINNER ON THE WAY.
His message ended with a dot, dot, dot, and then my phone chimed with another message.

AND I’M SMILING ABOUT YOU SMILING THINKING ABOUT MAKING ME SMILE.

I laughed, imagining him with the smile on his face, punching the accelerator, and adjusting his pants.
ENOUGH SMILING ALREADY
, I typed.
HURRY UP, BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO MAKE ME MOAN.

Like I was in danger of being caught passing notes in class, I looked from side to side.

When his reply came, I almost jumped.
PLANNING ON IT, LUCE.

I shifted in my seat, feeling warmth trickle into all the right places.

A few whistles sounded in front of me. I looked up as a couple of guys carrying surfboards sauntered by, gawking at a certain spot Jude wouldn’t have been down with.

“Yep,” I called out, giving the surfers a
really?
look, “they’re boobs!”

One of them had the decency to look away. The other one just grinned bigger. That was the Jude of the two. “No, babe,” the smug one called back, “those are nipples.”

I glanced down.
Shit.
Yeah, those were most definitely nipples popping through for all of La Jolla beach to see. Darn Jude and all his sexting straight to high-beam hell.

I didn’t have a snappy reply, but I couldn’t let surfer boy have the last word. Wrapping my arm around my chest, I flipped him off with the other hand.

Tilting his chin in reply, he winked and kept walking.

Men were infuriating creatures. In all walks of life. Even while you were keeping to yourself, resting on the beach.

Needless to say, I spent the next half hour lounging on my stomach.

At least until I caught sight of a familiar form swaggering his way toward me. I hopped up and jogged over to him like I hadn’t seen him in months. He had a paper sack and a sweatshirt tucked under his arm and looked freshly showered. However, the way he was looking at me was the opposite of clean.

“Where’s that stupid smile you were texting me about?” I said as I approached.

“It took a vacation when I saw what you were wearing,” he answered tightly. “Or what you’re
not
wearing.” He ran his eyes down my body, looking like he couldn’t decide if he disapproved or approved.

I knew the way to make up his mind.

Winding my arms around his neck, I lifted up on my toes and planted a kiss on his mouth that started soft but didn’t end up that way.

“Here,” Jude said, cutting our kiss short, “put this on.” He held out his old Syracuse sweatshirt and waited.

“Why?” I asked, playing dumb. On any other occasion, I would have happily slid into Jude’s ginormous ’Cuse sweatshirt, but not when I was being ordered into it.

“Because you made me hard from a hundred yards back in that thing.” He gestured at my swimsuit. “I don’t like the idea of a bunch of other guys getting off looking at my girl.” He shook the sweatshirt at me.

Nope. Not gonna happen.

“Who cares?” I lowered his outstretched arm and grinned up at him. “It’s only your hard-on that gets to go to bed with me.”

Jude snorted and crossed his arms. “Tell that to the jerk-offs who will be jerking off to you between their sheets tonight.”

The overbearing act got old fast. I crossed my arms and held my ground. “I don’t know what’s got your boxers in a bunch. This isn’t even my skimpy bikini.” It wasn’t. When it came to bikinis, this one was relatively tame.

He frowned as he inspected my swimsuit again. “All I’m seeing is a few tiny triangles and a whole lotta string, Luce,” he said, looking tortured all over again. “And you’re trying to tell me this isn’t skimpy?”

I answered with a noncommittal shrug.

“Only one way to settle the skimpy debate . . .” Jude’s eyes swept up and down the boardwalk, narrowing a few times along the way. “I win,” he said at last. “Every single bastard within seeing distance is checking you out, Luce.”

I glanced around the beach. “We’ll have to agree to disagree,” I said. “Because I’m positive it’s not me but you they’re staring at.”

He made a face.

He’d arrived at a different conclusion.

“No, not for that reason,” I said, giving him a gentle shove. “Do you think that maybe, just maybe, they’re looking at you because you happen to be the newest Chargers quarterback?”

“It wouldn’t matter if I was Peyton Manning,” Jude said, pursing his lips. “With you running around in that more-string-than-swimsuit thing”—his hands gestured up and down me again—“no eyes would be turned in my direction.”

I tried to hold it in, but I couldn’t help the laugh that sneaked out. It was kind of cute when he was mildly upset. It wasn’t as cute when he was full-blown pissed.

Jude’s eyes latched onto something behind me. “Hey, jerk-off!” he hollered, narrowing his eyes. “Unless you want to be reading your monthly issue of
Playboy
in braille the rest of your life, you’d better turn your eyes now!”

I rested my hand on his side and ran my thumb in slow circles. Slow,
calming
circles. “Could you get any more territorial?” I teased.

“Ever heard of the Middle East, Luce?” he said, smirking. “Covered head to toe in layers upon layers of material.” He tickled my sides. The worst was over.

“Ever heard of Europe?” I shot back in between fits of laughter. “Topless sunbathing? I thought you’d once said you were a fan of it.”

“Ballbuster,” he mumbled, before holding the sweatshirt back up. “Come on. Put this on?” he asked. He
asked
. He didn’t order, demand, or command. He asked. Well, he almost pleaded.

“Okay,” I said, because I couldn’t say no. I grabbed the sweatshirt from him and slid it on. Warm, cozy, and smelled just like him. I was half considering jacking this tomorrow when I headed back to NYC.

“‘Okay’?” He was looking at me like he was waiting for the punch line.

I slid the hood into position for good measure. “Okay.”

“Just when I think I’ve got you all figured out, Lucy Larson,” he said, winding his arm around my neck and pulling me close, “you go and do something totally unexpected. Like listen to me.”

I slid my hand into the back pocket of his jeans as we headed toward my little slice of beachfront property. “Also in the fine print, below ballbusting,” I said, hip-checking him, “soon-to-be wives are required to keep soon-to-be husbands on pins and needles at all times.”

“Ahh,” he said, “I really need to check out all that fine print.”

“If you don’t get to reading it, I’m sure I’ll manage to give you a real-life demonstration of each and every point somewhere along the way,” I said as we approached my beach towel. “What’s for dinner? And please don’t pull a can of caviar and a bottle of champagne from that bag or else I’m calling for an intervention.”

He held out the paper bag for me. “Because I knew it would . . .” My brows lifted. “. . . absolutely not make you happy or unhappy, because money has no say in your happiness meter”—he popped his brows, obviously pleased with himself—“I picked up a few fish tacos from a street vendor and some cheap beer from a gas station.”

He grinned like the devil and shook the bag. I grabbed it and plopped down on the towel before tearing it open. “Fish tacos from a street vendor and PBR?” I said, not sure whether to go for the beer or the tacos first. My stomach made the decision for me. “That, my love, makes me very, very happy.” I pulled out a wrapped taco and tossed it into his lap once he sat down.

“Of course a dinner that cost me ten bucks would make you happy,” he said, tearing the wrapper back. “Can you be any more infuriating?”

That was the million-dollar question.

Snagging a beer from the bag, I twisted the cap off and handed it to him. “Wow. You really missed the fine print if you don’t know the answer to that, babe.”

He bit off half the taco and rolled his eyes. “Eat your dinner,” he said around a mouthful of food. “I can hear your stomach grumbling from over here.”

Tearing my wrapper back from mine, I tapped his before taking a bite.

Damn. Okay, so Cali could rock the sun, the beach, and the fish tacos.

“Good?” Jude asked as I continued the love affair in my mouth.

I remembered my manners and waited until I’d swallowed my food before answering. “Good is an insult to the greatness that is this fish taco.” I took another bite as Jude grabbed another beer out of the bag. After twisting the cap off, he held it out. “Finish it with a swig of this and life will be redefined as you know it, Luce.”

I didn’t even wait to finish chewing before I took a drink. Holy taste-bud orgasm.

“Yeah, that’s the stuff,” he said, clinking his bottle against mine before taking a drink.

“I. Love. You,” I said, taking another bite. “So. Much. So,
so
much.”

Stuffing the other half of the taco into his mouth, he stared at me in that way I’d grown accustomed to. Like I was everything he wanted and everything he ever would want. I don’t know how his eyes were able to express this, but they did. Finishing his ginormous bite, he molded his hand against my cheek. “I love you. So much. So
damn
much, Luce.”

Leaning into his warm hand, I clinked my bottle against his. “Cheers.”

TEN

T
wo fish tacos, two beers, and two hours later, I was still not ready to leave. Not even close to it.

“You want the last one?” Jude asked, holding out a taco.

“It’s all yours,” I said. Scooting behind him, I skimmed my hands up his shirt. “You want a massage?” It wasn’t so much a question as a formality. In four years, I’d never known Jude to turn down a massage.

“Hell yes,” he said around a mouthful of fish taco.

Applying pressure, I worked my thumbs up the muscles of his spine. He sighed, leaning into my touch. “Does that feel good?”

“Hell yes.” He dropped the taco and hung his head.

I pressed my thumbs into the exposed muscles of his neck. “How about this?” I said, never sure how much pressure he’d want applied. Some days it was barely any, like he just liked the feel of my hands on him. Other days I couldn’t seem to punish the muscles hard enough. “Is that still all right?” I asked, pinching the muscles running from his neck to his shoulders.

He groaned. “Hell yes.”

“Sounds like it’s a ‘hell yes’ kind of night.”

He hung his neck lower, giving me better access. “Hell yes.”

It’d been dark for a while, but we’d watched the sun set earlier and it was a sight I knew I’d never forget. I was starting to understand what the tens of millions of people who lived here saw in the place.

“Could you imagine doing this every night?” I said, working over a nasty knot around his shoulder blade. “Tacos and cheap beer on the beach?”

“Sounds like one hell of a life, Luce,” he replied. “I’d be down with that.”

“I saw a little beachfront house for rent a little way down the beach. We should rent it for a few nights during Christmas break and then we could watch the sun set every night.” Having successfully worked out one knot, I moved to the next one.

“Sold,” he said. “You, me, Christmas, beach, sunset. Where do I sign?”

I leaned over his shoulder as I continued to knead his back. “Right here.”

His lips brushed over mine.

“I can’t tell if these are all knots,” I said, shifting behind him again, “or if they’re insanely hard muscles, but you’ve definitely got something that needs working out.”

He chuckled as I got back to work on a knot that was as big as my fist.

“What?”

“Luce,” he said, grabbing one of my hands and winding it around his waist. “I’ve always got something that needs working out.” My hand brushed down his jeans until he settled it over something that felt as hard as the muscles I was trying to relieve.

“A girl’s job is never done,” I said, gripping him.

He turned his head, his mouth searching for mine, but I had other plans. Popping up, I pulled the hoodie over my head.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, his eyes going dark as they skimmed my body.

Reaching for the string at the center of my back, I gave it a tug. “I’m going to work something out right here on the beach.”

“Here?” His voice went an octave higher. “No. No, you’re not.” His words might have been against it, but his eyes weren’t. “Besides, beach sex is highly overrated.”

I leveled him with my stare.

“From what I’ve heard,” he added, giving me a tilted smile, “sand gets in all sorts of places it shouldn’t.”

Grabbing the tie around my neck, I tugged on it. “I’m not planning on having sex in the sand,” I said, letting my top fall to the sand. Jude swallowed. “I’m more of a water girl.”

Without another word, I started for the thundering waves.

“There’s sharks and shit out there, Luce,” he called after me.

I smiled as I continued on my merry way. How far would he let me get before he couldn’t stay away? Skimming my fingers into my swimsuit bottoms, I slid them down my body.

Once they were littering the beach, I turned toward him.

He swallowed again and stood up. His Cons were already off.

“Then you’d better come save me,” I called back. “From the sharks and shit.” Giving a wave and a shake, I turned and bounded toward the water.

Jude cursed behind me, and a glance over my shoulder revealed he was peeling his clothes off as quickly as clothes could be peeled. I was up to my knees before the water temperature registered. Cold barely described it. Mental note number one million and one: The ocean is more pleasurable from the beach than from the water.

“Ah! Shit! That’s cold!” Jude exploded into the water, sprinting toward me. His arms wound around me after another round of curse hollering. Pressing my back to his chest, he spun me to face him.

“I guess I didn’t really think this out,” I shrieked, laughing. Damn, this water was really too cold to even think about getting hot and heavy in.

Jude slowed and settled me back down, but his arms didn’t loosen. They tightened. He pulled me harder to him, his warmth running against my back and down lower. His hips flexed against my backside. I exhaled.

“I take that back,” I said as I wound my arms behind his neck. “I totally thought this out.”

I felt his smile on my neck before his tongue took its place. Jude’s hands traveled up my stomach until they found my breasts.

“Nice tan lines,” he breathed into my neck.

“I worked on them all day,” I replied, letting my head fall back against him. As his hands and mouth moved over me, I no longer felt the chill of the water. There was nothing but warmth. A heat that ran so deep I felt it in every nerve.

One of his hands moved from my chest and trailed down my stomach. When it paused below my belly button, his finger moved against me. My breath hitched in my lungs.

“And I’m planning on working on you all night.”