Blue Notes (11 page)

 Fifteen 

“M
emorable?” Jude pulls away and cups my face in his hands. He has long and elegant fingers, as if he were the pianist. “To every guy you’re with?”

“I’d hope so. But you in particular.”

“Because of who I am?”

I’m made of bubbles. I’m made of TNT. Whatever it is, I burst out laughing. It’s not a long laugh, but it’s strong enough to buckle me in half. Jude lets go, with distance between us again. I peek up through my lashes and see his features weighed by a heavy scowl.

“You’re not used to being laughed at, are you?”

His lips pinch thin. He looks away. “No.”

My brain won’t keep a straight thought. I should be thinking wholly and exclusively about how strong his muscles are. Only one layer of cotton separates his skin from my touch.

“You said it yourself,” I say, “about how easy it is to learn about you. There’s no getting around that you’re famous and rich, or what everybody knows about your parents. You got away with it for one night, because I was stupid enough to think Adelaide was your girlfriend.”

I stop then. His parents. Killed when the cabin of their private jet depressurized. All aboard were already dead when the plane hit the ground somewhere in Iowa. The whole world could learn the gruesome details in three seconds. Every time he’s introduced to anyone, he has to wonder what they know of his past. I wouldn’t handle it very well, being that exposed.

There’s lightning in his eyes. “You do me the favor of telling me why you’re laughing.”

“I don’t do this. Like . . .
ever
. Not with anyone. The back of some guy’s car, just because he made an offer I can’t refuse?” I take a deep breath and tighten my hold on his upper arm. “But after tonight, I just hope . . . that you’ll keep wanting to come find me.”

“What did your Google search come up with about my personal life, Keeley? I’m curious.”

He must be mowed down by celebrities and debutantes and debutantes’ mamas. I keep asking myself,
Why me?
Maybe because he’s had the privilege of making a choice, just like I have.

“I read what I needed to, to fill in gaps,” I say plainly. “I didn’t want to find out the worst.”

“What would that be?” His accent is stronger now. He lays his right hand on my thigh and kneads gently. The gentleness is underlain with his lingering tension.

“That you crook your finger at every girl you meet. Equal opportunity playboy. I put on some rose-colored glasses and followed you out here.” I shake as if a rocket of cold air just skimmed through the car. “You dared me to get onstage last week. Now I’m in your car and you’re Jude Villars, and I want that rush. Because it was a rush, you know. All that applause.”

“No matter what we do,” he whispers, “there won’t be any applause.”

I cover my mouth to stifle a giggle. He doesn’t give me the chance to hide, pulling my hand down and kissing the inside of my wrist. “You never know. I might be the one to applaud.”

“
That
would be memorable.”

He kisses me.

It’s like he’s storming a castle with the gates wide open. I have nothing to defend myself with because his words have stripped me of anything close to resistance. His tongue is hot, softly pebbled, insistent. He dives in as if we’ve been lovers for months, and this is just another liberty I’ve permitted.
You, Jude Villars, can plunder my mouth as often and as demandingly as you want. Signed sincerely, Keeley Chambers.

I cross my arms behind his back and find us pulled flush together. His arms are so strong. Whatever predator I imagine him being, I should’ve been more specific. He’s a sleek panther, all dark hair and lithe muscles. He plunges his tongue into my mouth, taking over, taking
me
over so completely.

“Memorable, sugar,” he says against my throat, then kisses my lips, eyelids, forehead. His hand moves to my breast but stops short of touching where I arch toward him. “You brought it up. Make it happen.”

I hesitate, as if I’m standing at some dessert buffet and have no idea where to start. His shirt is open at the throat. Maybe I could undo a few more buttons. . . .

I do.

“You have no idea how sexy it is to watch your eyes. You think over every move.” He cups my face in his hand once again. “You want to be bold. So do it, sugar.”

“You’re making fun of me again.” I turn my head just enough so that I can gently sink my teeth into the meat of his hand, where his thumb meets his hand—a silent, desperate release for all the things I can’t voice.

He hisses. “See? I’m waiting to see which impulse wins out.” With his free hand he grabs one of mine and pushes it flat against the hard ridges of muscle that make up his thighs. He’s positioned my fingertips within an inch of the bulge I can see deeply shadowed and outlined by his taut slacks. “But I admit to having a preference.”

I bite harder on his palm. I’m so tense, so wound up, so utterly outside myself—until it all comes snapping back to me.

“I—I can’t do this.”

I turn at the waist and reach for the handle of one of the locked doors. He’s faster. And so much stronger. My hands are pinned behind my back, with Jude levered above me, before I can even gasp. But rather than turn all date rape, he brings his hand to his mouth and sucks the skin I bit. “Yes, you
can
do this. I’ve seen how powerful you are when you let go. Here we’re alone, and I want to see that power again. Make me feel it.” He whispers low and dark. “Give me something to wake up smiling about. To wake up hot and wanting. Shock me, Keeley. I dare you.”

 Sixteen 

“M
ove,” I say—talking, doing, not thinking.

Our body heat has made the smell of leather more potent. More primal. Condensation has turned the Mercedes into a bedroom with the curtains closed. Jude raises quizzical eyebrows and does as I demand. It
feels
like a demand. His grin, however, reinforces what we both know: he’s letting me do this. He’s no more taking orders from me than I’m forcing him to do something he doesn’t want to do. This is him waiting for me to be shocking.

This is me hoping that I can manage.

I scoot around so that I’m behind him. My chest to his broad back. He tries to look over his shoulder. I grab his head in my hands and nip a kiss on one earlobe. Maybe I use too much teeth, because he hisses again.

“Sorry,” I whisper, nearly losing my nerve.

“Don’t you dare stop. Whatever the hell this is, I want all of it.”

“Then you deserve this.” I angle his head toward my face, rediscover his earlobe, and suck. I scrape my teeth along that tender skin. His groan rumbles into me, nestling beneath my sternum. That groan wraps around my heart and squeezes, speeding it up, making me breathless.

I roll the palms of my hands around his waist and up, up his fiercely proud chest. He’s cut. Ripples in all the right places. From behind, I finish unbuttoning his shirt. I try going slow at first, but my fingers are made of putty and I’m trying to do things in a rush so he won’t freak out and decide against the whole deal.

He takes my fingers in his. He doesn’t look back at me, just lifts each to his mouth. Kisses each knuckle. Then says, “Deep breath, sugar.”

Together, we inhale. It’s astonishing. I know it’s not sex, and I’ll probably laugh one day when I make the comparison, but when we both take a deep breath at the same time, with my nipples so sensitive when pressed against his strong back, breathing as one, I think of it as making love. It’s the most intimacy I’ve never known. Without prompting, we do it again. One long breath in, one long exhale to get rid of the nerves. Nerves are getting in the way of what I yearn to do. I just want to be
able
. Whether it goes well or he likes it or it gets me buzzing—that doesn’t matter when I need my hands to cooperate.

Sexual stage fright? Great.

Finally I undo his buttons, one by one. Jude only tries to help out when he reaches for the tails tucked into his slacks. I stay his hands. “Leave it,” I say.

He chuckles quietly—more sounds to soak into my marrow. I’ll do more than remember them for the rest of my life. I’ll
feel
them.

When the shirt is open from neck to navel, I crisscross my hands around his chest, his abdomen, his arching ribs. If he has an ounce of fat on him, I’m made of aluminum foil. He has some hair on his chest, but not much. I like the smooth, hot, inviting textures I explore with each new push of fingers over flesh.

I must’ve made a noise—a good noise—because he says, “I know. God, I know.”

I’m not done. I don’t know where “done” is tonight, but I know I haven’t reached
my
finale. It’s that fascination with the back of his neck. Ever since he mentioned kissing him there, I can’t stop thinking about it.

“Bow your head.”

He makes a grunting question mark sound. I run my hands under the tucked-in shirt, touching him everywhere I can reach. When I return to the thick, silky thatch at his crown, I push down as encouragement. He complies with another rough chuckle. I tug at the now loose collar and I’m rewarded with the perfect expanse of smooth skin and shining hair.

I edge up on my knees to gain some advantage of height. I need to be above him, at least a little. He catches me when I nearly wobble off the leather seat. He crosses my arms around his chest, then covers them with his own. I’m secure. Safe to explore. He’s given me that unexpected gift.

At first I hover over his nape, just inhaling, until my mouth waters and I
need
to kiss him there. I need to taste him. With my nose buried in his hair, I kiss and kiss, lick and nip and kiss. I claim each inch as mine. He’ll wear a thousand dress shirts before he retires some distant day. Every time he does, when he secures the top button and wiggles the knot of his tie in place, he’ll be covering the skin I’ve made mine in the backseat of his Mercedes.

After breathless minutes, I melt onto his back. He’s still holding my arms in a hug around his upper body. Only then do I realize that I’ve bracketed his hips with my thighs. My knees press the outside of his. Not only am I flush against him, chest to back, but also pressing groin to ass. My panties are soaked. I have this terrible flash of leaving a wet spot on his slacks and try to pull away.

“Don’t stop,” he rasps.

“Kissing?”

“No.”

He reaches back and grasps my ass. I imagined something like it when we were standing against the outside of the town car, but this is reversed. We aren’t facing each other, which adds an extra blare of unimagined thrill. I don’t know why. Maybe because it’s not conventional. Any frat guy at a party could kiss me to the point where he wanders south and grabs. This, with Jude, with any illusion of my control stripped away, is more deliberate. It’s no accident when he smooths his big hands over the outsides of my thighs, grips my ass, tightens his fingers, kneads.

“You were grinding your hips.” His voice is so low, his accent so thick, that I almost think my fevered imagination conjured the words.

Was I? No, I couldn’t have been.

But it’s true, because as soon as he clenches his hands again, I press against him. I’m aching, constrained by my jeans. I’ll never get relief from this rough need. I was an idiot. Playing with fire. There’s nothing so stupid and ridiculous as a turned-on girl in the backseat of a car with a guy who knows what he’s doing.

I pull free. I scamper away until I’m flat on my butt and backed against the car door. Jude whirls. His hair is a gorgeous, snarled mess.
I did that.
His bare chest is heaving.
I did that.
His pants are taut with proof of how much he was enjoying himself.
I did that.

“Memorable,” he says with a beautiful, arrogant smile. “Definitely memorable.”

“Don’t make fun of me. It was stupid. Forget it.”

He turns on the seat and leans over me as if readying to do push-ups while stretched over my body. In fact, he lowers down, down, using only the strength of his arms. I can see each flex and bunch of his chest muscles, and where the caps of his bared shoulders strain. He kisses my throat, then farther down, as much as my boatneck top will permit. “Your turn.”

“My turn what? I did the . . . well, the shocking thing.”

“Right.” He grins widely, all bright teeth and salacious humor. “So if it was shocking for me . . .”

Using one arm—Jesus, how strong is he?—he flips me onto my stomach and holds me in place around my tummy. I don’t have any buttons to undo. It’s a simple thing for him to sweep my hair away and kiss the back of my neck. He lowers even deeper, so controlled that I’m going to lose my mind, until his chest encompasses my back. Maybe even my whole world. He lowers his groin and nestles his hard-on against my ass. I shudder. I turn my head to find a hunk of muscle: the bicep of the arm he has wrapped around my middle. He thrusts. He kisses. I bite. I cry out against his skin when he thrusts again.

“Like it?” he growls. A deranged part of my mind laughs a little laugh.
I turned this suave businessman into a guy capable of only grunts and single syllables.
“Tell me.”

I lick his bicep where I feel the slightest imprint of my teeth. “Love it.”

I arch back so that we can kiss. The angle is awkward, and there’s so much going on—my whole body sparking and flaming—that it’s not the world’s most graceful kiss. I don’t care. I know Jude doesn’t care. We’re just lips and heat and
more
until I’m dizzy. He tightens his hold on my waist, then settles even more of his lean body weight against my ass and back, as if to reaffirm that he has me.

He
has
me.

He could’ve claimed anything from that moment out to eternity. Anything he wanted from me.

Instead he lets out a long, low, frustrated groan and drops his forehead to rest between my shoulder blades. “I can’t see straight,” he says with a laugh. “Literally. Jesus, Keeley.”

Arms still tight around me, he sits up and pulls me with him until I’m sitting on his lap. I curl into him, trembling, my fingers clinging to the bare skin above his ribs, right around his pecs. As good a place as any to hold.

“Gotcha,” he says against my hair, smoothing it back from my face. “I gotcha. It’s okay. Damn, that was intense.”

“I—” I shake my head.

“I’ll wait. Find what you want to say, sugar. I’ve learned it’s worth waiting for.”

I hide my face against his chest. He’s slicked with a slight salty layer of sweat. I can’t help but take a taste. He’s delicious. He’s perfect. At least I keep myself from saying that.

I take deep breath. “I hope I wasn’t too frustrating. I mean, I know guys would think I’m being a tease.”

“Am I most guys? Seems you’ve implied that I’m not.”

I smile against his neck. “You’re not most guys.”

“Keeley, would you still be a virgin right now if I hadn’t stopped?”

Breathlessness, flirting, nerves, hopes, fears—they all drop away with that question.

“No,” I say softly. “I guess . . .” I try to laugh it off, but that’s hard to do when I’m sitting in his lap and know exactly how turned on he still is. “I guess I got carried away. Maybe I should go.”

He doesn’t budge. I’m not going anywhere unless he wants me to, which is an odd thing to realize. I’m glad I trust him or else I’d be terrified. I’m already scared enough of the impulses he pulls out of me. Little inklings become big, huge needs when Jude starts teasing and goading me. Who am I to deserve so much attention?

Oh, great. Hi, crippled self-esteem.

“Where would you go?” he asks.

“Home. Back to the dorm. Unless . . .” I shiver. “This was some big prank. Why did you get me to do all that, then stop?”

“It was fun, wasn’t it?” He’s all N’awlins slurry cool now, with an artless grin and a flirtatious light in his eyes. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Yeah,” I say, my throat tight. I don’t know what he’s getting at. I’m still so dizzy, and I can’t stop touching him. “But I don’t know if I should be pissed at you, or if you’re gonna unzip your pants and pressure me into finishing what we started. What—Just, what is this?”

“I don’t know.”

“No?”

He kisses the top of my head. “I like that you sound disappointed.”

“Yeah. Maybe a little. Or . . .” I swallow. “Frustrated.”

“I like that even better. Means you aren’t done having your wicked way with me.”

“My wicked—?”

He tickles me around my waist until I just about scream for mercy. We wind up back on the seat, face to face this time, with Jude’s breath hot on my cheek. I shift in his lap, only to realize he’s still turned on. His eyes roll back on a groan. “Wicked,” he says again, his mouth lax on a teasing smile.

“Most guys tend to look like you do
after
getting what they want.”

“Do you know so much, sugar?”

“Not a thing. You gonna teach me?”

I say it flippantly, but his expression sobers. “I’d love to.”

Whoa.

“Since you know so much about guys and sex,” he says, even when I smack him lightly on the arm, “tell me the stereotypes. About what it’ll be like to lose your virginity.”

I tick off a list on my fingers. “The guy does all the pressuring. It’s over too fast. There’s no foreplay. It hurts. It’s embarrassing after.”

He reaches between our bodies and cups the apex of my thighs. “Jesus,” he says roughly. I shake and cry out. He smiles against my mouth and whispers, “Here’s the deal, if you’re up for it.”

I nod. I can’t speak. I lace my hand over his.

“I won’t pressure you. Memorable, yeah? That’s the goal—for both of us. And it sure as hell won’t be over too fast. Every look, every word, every touch will be foreplay. And
if there’s any embarrassment after, it’ll be because we want to start again too soon.” He kisses my mouth—the barest brush. Electricity shoots from my lips to where our hands clasp with a steady rhythm. “Say yes, sugar. Tell me you want to come play. A whole new game.”