But it was getting harder and harder to do.
Beneath his beard, his jaw clenched. “I want to erase that for you, Salem. Gather up every scar you have and paint it something new.”
“Some of the scars cannot be healed, Jud.”
It was an admission from my soul. Where the sorrow railed and reigned.
He blinked, caught in his own storm. “And I want to hold that, too. Don’t deserve it, but I want it.”
“How do you not deserve it?”
And I guessed that’s why I’d followed him here after I’d been so angry with him. So disappointed. The truth I’d seen in the well of his eyes—it was grief that had sent him running.
A hard scoff climbed his thick throat. Disgust rolled out with the sound. “Don’t you see it yet?”
“I see a man who’s in pain and doesn’t let anyone around him know.”
“Only you.”
“Me.” I couldn’t tell if I was claiming it or if it was a question.
Desire lapped.
I could taste it.
Sweet in the air.
I inhaled it into my lungs, felt it rush my veins and fill my belly.
From where I was perched on my knees, my hips involuntarily bucked, begging for him.
I shouldn’t.
But there was a brand-new need burning inside me.
It was only going to hurt.
But my hand was pressing lower on my abdomen, thoughts hitting me so fast, the memory of that kiss, those hands, how good it would feel to just give in.
A growl reverberated the air.
Those black eyes flashed.
Pitch.
Darkened with lust.
His tongue swept across his lips.
“Salem.” It was a warning.
“You asked me when I felt the most beautiful. You wanted me to show you how I feel when you look at me. This, Jud. I feel this. I feel desired. I feel wanted. I feel real.”
No longer mist.
My trembling fingertips barely slipped under the band of my underwear, and the plea rasped from my mouth. “I want you to want me. The way I want you.”
There I went, begging for the pain.
But I couldn’t stop.
Not when he was watching me that way.
“Enchantress. What do you think you’re doin’ to me?”
A soft sound of rebuttal stole from between my lips. “It’s me who’s intoxicated, Jud. Me who doesn’t know what hit her.”
The brush slipped from his fingers and clinked against the floor.
Slowly, Jud edged my direction.
A dark tower.
A ferocious warrior.
A wicked savior.
I wanted him to be.
To stand for me.
For us.
But I could never ask that of him.
He came forward on those bare feet until he was reaching out and tipping my chin up with the crook of his index finger. “Darlin’， I’m no good. Don’t you see?”
Shadows played over his hard, rugged face.
“I do see, Jud. I see a man who is kind and good and gentle and fierce. I see a man who’s haunted. Haunted like me.”
The pad of his thumb traced my lips.
My stomach tightened and my hips bucked again.
He was close enough that I could make out some of the shapes on his torso. They were so much like the images painted on the walls.
Demons and angels. War and life. Grief and destruction. Toiling seas and crumbling mountains.
But there were four bold letters stamped on his left side that I had the urge to touch.
GRIM.
My spirit trembled, as wildly as my fingers when I gave in and reached out to trace the word.
The proclamation.
I closed my eyes as if I were reading it in Braille, and the man shook beneath my touch.
Shame lanced through his being.
“Who I really am, Salem.”
My brow pinched. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve done horrible things.”
Everything shivered.
My heart and my soul and the night.
This was bad. It was clear in the confession of his eyes that it was bad.
The ghosts in his eyes weren’t just pretend.
Though, like a fool, I pressed, lifted my gaze to his hard, harsh beauty. “But it’s in the past?”
Because I couldn’t believe this man was cruel. That he was vile and depraved. Capable of inflicting pain.
“Just because it’s in the past doesn’t mean it’s not who I am. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t live on inside me.”
Jud still held me by the chin, and I took that hand in both of mine and pressed his massive palm to my cheek. Felt the comfort that radiated from his warm skin. The tenderness. The kindness. The care he’d shown. “You’re a good man, Jud.”
A grunt scraped up his throat, and he slowly climbed down onto his knees in front of me, still towering there as he slipped his hand to the side of my neck where my pulse raged and down over the thunder of my heart.
His palm was splayed wide as he moved farther down to run over my breasts.
A needy gasp raked up my throat.
“Nah, darlin’。 I’m not. Because if I was, I wouldn’t be doing this.”
His mouth followed the path.
My chin.
My neck.
The sensitive skin between my breasts.
Shivers raced, and I all out shook.
He inhaled as he went, but it was me who was inundated with his aura.
It filled my lungs.
Filled my veins.
Citrus and cinnamon and spice.
I got drugged on that late fall night.
He kept angling down until he was kissing over my stomach, and my chest was heaving as my fingers tangled in the long pieces of his hair.
“You should really tell me to stop this, darlin’， because I’m about to taste this sweet pussy, and I’m afraid once I do, I’m not ever gonna want to stop.”
Lust burned.
Flames licked across my flesh.
I should be afraid of the fire, but my fingers only fisted tighter.
“A friend wouldn’t make me wait.” The words raked from my mouth on a frantic tease, a bid and a plea.
Because, oh god, I wanted this man’s mouth on me.
He rumbled a laugh.
It vibrated me all the way through.
Tingles scattered.
Jud edged back and met my eye, his massive hands holding me around the waist. “You wanna come, baby?”
My nod was rabid.
“Did you touch yourself that night? When I was texting you?”
My tongue stroked my dried lips. “Yes.”
“This is what I was imagining, darlin’。 Feasting on you. Were you thinking the same?”
“Yes.”
From where he knelt, he picked me up like I didn’t weigh anything and resituated me so that I was sitting.
Surprise jutted from my lungs, and my hands shot behind me to keep me upright.
My knees parted, my core drenched.
Jud ran two fingers over my underwear. “So wet.”
There it was.
The whirlwind.
The push and the pull.
This deep, intense, terrifying man up against the sexy cockiness this boy wore like a brand.
“I need this, Jud.”
I didn’t think I’d ever needed anything the way I needed this right then.
He hooked his fingers in my underwear and slowly dragged them down my legs.
A hiss left his mouth.
“Black-fuckin’-magic.”
His big hands gripped me by the outside of the thighs, eyes devouring before he tugged me closer and dove right in.