Pausing just long enough to step out of my heels, I slid my thumbs under the waist of my skirt and lowered it down my hips, slowing just enough to gather the material of my panties with it. I let both skirt and underwear gather at my ankles.
Jude’s eyes drifted lower, his chest rising and falling noticeably, even from where I stood thirty yards away from him. When his eyes did shift back to mine, they were dark with one thing.
Absolute need.
His body sprang to action as he burst onto the field after me, running at the same pace he did when he was playing a game. I turned and laughed with every step as I ran away from him.
It was a futile effort, running from Jude—both right now, and in life in general.
Jude always caught up with me. Sometimes he gave me a head start, but he never let me get too far.
This time, I barely made it ten yards before I felt his strong arms cinch around me. A shout of surprise punctuated my laughter as he pulled me hard against him. Not only had he managed to cover thirty yards in the time it had taken me to sprint less than a third of that, he’d removed his shirt in the process. The heat coming off his chest warmed my back, and the movement of his muscles against me as he breathed in and out warmed everything else.
“Going somewhere?” he said, nudging at my neck until I gave him better access to it.
“Anywhere,” I answered, letting my head fall back against him when his mouth smoothed down the arch of my neck. “As long as you’re with me.”
I felt his smile against my skin. His hands slid lower, pausing when they reached my hips. “How would you feel about ‘anywhere’ being on that blanket over there?”
Everything south of my navel tightened. “I’d say even if I wasn’t so sure, you’d keep trying to persuade me,” I said, gliding my hands down his forearms, pausing to weave my fingers through his where they still rested over my hips.
He pressed harder against my back. “You’d be right,” he said, skimming our hands up my stomach as he steered us toward the blanket. Our hands didn’t stop until they slid beneath one of my breasts, molding around it.
Nipping at the skin of my neck, he picked up his pace until we were weaving through the glowing candles. At the edge of the blanket, Jude spun me around. His mouth parted, as he sucked in streams of air in quick bursts. This was his tortured look. When he couldn’t have me fast enough.
It was a look I tried to savor, because it never lasted long. I could only hold Jude off for so long before me, him, or both of us gave up trying to prolong the inevitable.
“Damn, Luce,” he breathed, stroking my cheek with his hand. “You’re so beautiful.”
I smiled. Not so much at what he said, but at the way he said it. Jude conveyed his emotions and intentions in words and expressions that did unhealthy things to a girl’s heart. “If you’re trying to convince me with a little foreplay, I’ll let you in on a secret,” I said, winding my arms around the back of his neck. “You’re going to get lucky no matter what you say or do, so you can save the sweet nothings for a time when you’ve pissed me off and are trying to get a little makeup sex.”
He chuckled, his gray eyes darkening with every passing touch. “I don’t seem to remember it requiring sweet nothings to ever get you—”
“Oh, shut up already,” I interrupted, smirking up at him.
One corner of his mouth curved higher. “Why don’t you make me?” he challenged, his gaze dropping to my lips.
Pressing harder into him, I let my fingers ski down the plane of his stomach, settling on the fly of his jeans. Tugging the button free, I slid my hand inside as my lips covered his mouth, a groan escaping it.
That shut him right up.
TWO
Jude’s head reclined in my lap as he crunched into an apple and stared at the ceiling of the dome. He was still naked from the waist up, but his jeans hadn’t made it all the way off. Apparently we hadn’t been able to justify waiting the three seconds it would have taken to free him of them before we could get down to business.
We weren’t big believers in delayed gratification.
I’d wrangled myself back into my sweater and skirt before we’d exchanged one hunger for another and dived into the picnic basket, although my panties and bra still littered the thirty-yard line.
“Tomorrow’s the big day,” he said around another bite of apple. The air smelled like the tangy sweetness of the fruit in his mouth. Not able to resist, I leaned down to kiss him, wanting to taste the aroma. It was even better combined with the taste of his mouth.
He was oozing that notorious Jude Ryder ego when I leaned back. He knew what he did to me. And he loved it.
I loved it too, although I didn’t love how well he knew it.
“Tomorrow I could be a first-round draft pick, Luce,” he continued, circling my ankle with his fingers. “We could be millionaires in twenty-four hours.”
I had to force myself not to visibly wince. This talk—the draft, the money, the lifestyle—had been an area of contention this past year with the likelihood of Jude’s being drafted into pro ball. I wasn’t so sure how I felt about it, but Jude was sure enough for both of us.
Trouble was, his confidence wasn’t rubbing off on me. If anything, the more confident he became, the less I felt. Money had the potential to change things. It had the potential to change people. I was worried about how all that money might change us. I loved him, and me, and us, just the way we were now.
Jude’s being drafted his junior year of college was a one-in-a-million kind of an opportunity, the kind of thing college players would sell their souls to achieve. But it also meant he’d be dropping out of school. He’d made it this far; a part of me wanted to see him finish his degree—astound all those people back home who’d always pegged him as a high school dropout. Playing in the NFL had been a dream of Jude’s forever. I couldn’t postpone his dream any more than he could mine.
“From dining on peanut-butter sandwiches tonight to twenty-ounce, grade-A prime filet tomorrow night,” he continued, his face almost glowing as his eyes drifted off to money-land. “We could get a new place, a new fancy-ass car. We could take a vacation to Hawaii. Fly first-class and shit. Think about it, Luce. Anything we want, we can have. Anytime we want it. No more scrambling around getting grease under our fingernails or waiting tables late at night to pay the electric bill.” He paused, a contented smile settling deeper into his face. “We could have it all, baby.”
I swallowed. “I thought we already did.” My voice sounded sadder than I meant it to.
The skin between Jude’s eyebrows puckered. “What do you mean?” he asked, his gaze zeroing in on me.
“I thought we already had it all,” I repeated. “I’ve been on both sides of the money line, and the only thing it changes is your zip code. It can’t make you happy if you weren’t without it.”
“Well, I’ve been on the losing side of the money game my whole life, and I know for a fact that money can make your life better if you can’t even find enough quarters in the couch cushions to do a load of laundry at the local Suds N’ Wash.” Dropping his apple to the side, he sat up and turned until he was facing me. The candlelight flickered around him, shadowing the crevasses of his muscles, highlighting the peaks of them, and made the sharp lines of his jaw even more defined. A man like Jude shouldn’t be classified as beautiful, but in moments like this, he kind of was.
Jude Ryder. My beautiful fiancé.
He was waiting for me to respond.
“Okay, so money can make your life better if you’re destitute,” I said, prying my eyes from where they traced the grooves of his ab muscles. “But we’re not destitute, Jude. We’re college students with a roof over our heads, gasoline in our tanks, ramen noodles in our cupboards, and shirts on our backs. I couldn’t imagine being any happier than I am right now, and if it was possible, money would certainly be the last thing on that list that could make me more so.” I grabbed the plastic wineglass Jude had filled from a cheap bottle of sparkling wine and took a sip. It was delicious. I was as happy with a five-dollar bottle of sparkling wine from the drugstore as I would have been with the finest bottle of champagne money could buy.