“Luce,” Jude managed to murmur around my unyielding mouth.

“Shut up, Ryder,” I answered, biting his bottom lip.

Giving up to the overbearing force that was me, his hands slid down my waist, settling on my backside. “Shutting up,” he breathed, returning the whole unyielding, overbearing favor.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“My god, woman.” His breath was so labored it didn’t really sound like him anymore. “Mercy.”

“I don’t believe in mercy,” I replied, trailing my lips down his neck.

“Okay, I’m not going to screw you in the front seat of a car, and if you keep doing that,” he said, trying to arch away from my lips. It was a failed attempt. “I’m going to be fresh out of willpower, so time for a change of scenery.”

The door flew open, bringing a gust of cool air and din of cliche high school dance music with it. I groaned.

He chuckled as he maneuvered me off his lap and outside the steamy car. “And I thought we men were horny bastards.”

Adjusting my sweater, I ran my fingers through my hair. “So did I,” I implied.

“Your corsage,” he said, the whole half hour make out session filed to the back of his mind just like that. I was still breathing like a dog in heat.

Retrieving the plastic box from the back seat, he stepped out of the car. “Since your dress is black, I had the lady put some black and silver ribbon between the roses,” he said, sliding the corsage on my wrist like it was one of the proudest moments of his life. “Do you like it?”

“Now that,” I said, smiling down at it. He must have spent a fortune. Red roses streamed halfway up my forearm. “Is a corsage. Very nice, Mr. Ryder.”

He beamed. “Why thank you, Miss Larson.” Holding his elbow out, he looked at the gymnasium. “Shall we?”

I sighed. “Since you leave me no choice.”

Covering my hand with his, he kissed the top of my head. “Not that I care or am complaining, but what was that back there?” I could hear the silly grin in his voice.

“Since when do guys need an explanation for getting to second base with a girl?”

“Since that girl was you,” he said, his gaze holding me like I was something he’d lose if he looked away. I’d never been looked at that way. My whole life I’d waited for it, and here it was now, at age seventeen, in the high school parking lot of my new school, with a boy named Jude Ryder.

This, right here, was some powerful stuff.

Shoving the gym door open, he ushered me in. Some hip hop song that was created and played only to give guys an excuse to hump a girl like a damn dog was blasting and the entire gym looked like it had been hosed down in Pepto-Bismal. The entire rainbow of pink was present: fuchsia in the balloons, tulip in the crepe paper, pastel in the cardboard heart cutouts, magenta in the spiral streamers twirling down from the ceiling.

This pink drenched terrain was a clip stolen from my worst nightmare.

“Oh. My.—”

“Pink,” Jude inserted, grimacing as he took in the gym.

Across the room, draped over some guy like a piece of Velcro, Taylor waved her arms at me. I almost shuddered again as I took in her florescent pink, heavily sequined, cocktail length dress. Someone call the Groupies from the 80’s Club because this bitch just ripped off one of their dresses. My floor-length gown with a corseted bodice was tame in comparison to every other dress out there.

“Okay, hurry and dance with me before I make a run for it,” I said, pulling on his jacket.

“Gladly,” he replied, handing our tickets off.

Walking me onto the dance floor, he looked down at his feet and then up at me. “Okay, here’s another little tidbit about me since you say I’m not the forthcoming sort.”

I raised my brows and waited.

“I’m not much of a dancer,” he said, scratching the back of his neck.

“Like you can’t dance or you won’t dance?” I was familiar with both types.

“More like I’ve never danced.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Seriously.”

It was the first time I’d seen him unsure. “Lucky for you you brought a girl who danced before she walked then.”

He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. “Lucky me.”

“Okay, I’m going to make this simple,” I said, sliding my hands over his shoulders. “Just follow my lead and you’ll be just fine.” Then, like the dance pro I was, I popped up on my tip toes until I was at lip level.

“Maybe I’ve got this dancing thing down after all,” he said, cinching me tighter against him.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” I whispered, pressing my lips into his and, just like that, we were the only people on the dance floor. The only people in the universe. Jude was the sickness I didn’t want to be cured of. He was the intoxicant I never wanted to be clear of.

His hands cradled my face and he kissed me harder. I wanted to bottle that kiss and take a hit of it every hour of every day.

“Luce?” he said, running his thumb down my cheek.

“Yeah?” I said, burying my head under his chin.

“Your stilettos are piercing the hell out of my feet.”

Looking down, I saw that my feet were, in fact, covering his. Stepping back, I put my stilettos back on solid ground. “Whoops.”

He just laughed. “Some dancer you are.”

“Sorry I don’t have much experience trying to teach someone how to dance at the same time he’s kissing the wits out of me.”

“Kissing the wits out of you, huh?” he said, tucking my hair behind my ear.

“Like you’re not absolutely gloating in that feat.”

The bump and grind song ended and another started. Jude and I shuddered at the same time. “This music blows,” he said, grabbing my hand. “And you look like you need some punch.”

“I don’t know about punch, but I need something,” I said, bouncing my eyebrows.

“You,” he pulled me closer, speaking into my ear, “are making it exceedingly difficult to be on my best behavior.”

Looking forward, I tried to pretend his every touch wasn’t unraveling me. “Not my problem.”

Winding his arm around me, he pulled me close. “It’s about to be.”

“Jude Ryder,” words that were more slurred than spoken said from behind us. “If it wasn’t so freakin’ hot right here, I would have thought hell had frozen over. Jude I-don’t-do-commitments-phone-calls-or-breakfast Ryder at a high school dance.”

Turning around, Jude kept me close to him. “Allie,” he said, sounding like he’d just issued the anti-greeting.

“Oh, and by the way, it wasn’t that great for me. And since I know you’ve been worrying nonstop about it,” she said, propping a hand on her hip, “I found a ride home.”

She so classically fit the mold for what guys seek out for a one night stand, I almost felt bad for her. Almost ended when she curled her fingers around the lapel of Jude’s jacket. My proverbial claws came out.

“What do you want, Allie?” He was losing patience and I was all too familiar with how quickly the tracks ran out once he started down that road.

“Now there’s a loaded question if I’ve ever heard one,” she said, flipping her red and blond streaked hair over her shoulder.

“Okay, I’ve been on this roller coaster of crazy before and I’m getting off right now,” he said, steering me away.

“Come on, I’m teasing,” she laughed, grabbing his arm. “I just wanted to meet your new friend.” She smiled at me all innocent like, but I knew her game and I wasn’t going to be her pawn to play.

“This is Luce,” he said, tipping my chin up with his finger and pressing the sweetest kiss I’d even been given onto my lips.

“She’d have to be if you’re with her.”

That sweet kiss was all but eviscerated by one nasty comment.

Jude’s eyes flamed as he turned on her. “If you weren’t a woman, sorry excuse of one as you are, I would teach you some respect, Allie.” His voice was wavering with anger, he was so close to spilling over.

“Jude, stop,” I ordered, stepping in front of him and pushing him back. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying, she’s drunk.”

“Watch who you’re calling drunk, bitch,” Allie sneered.

I wanted to turn around and slap her makeup-y little face so bad my hand was tingling, but for once in my lifetime, I wasn’t the hotheaded one. I was trying to hold him back as he lunged forward again.

“No, she’s not drunk,” Jude said, pacing in place. “For once. How’s that whole sobriety thing working for you, Al?”

She huffed. “Like you care. It didn’t matter to you if I was drunk or high or sober. Just so long as I was horizontal and accommodating.”

Now this girl was getting to me. It had been bad enough for her to insinuate I was a loose girl, but now knowing she’d been intimate with Jude in a way I hadn’t yet made me want to hit something hard. The closest thing, save for Jude, was her boney, sneering little face.

Taking a breath, I looked away from her and up at Jude. “Come on, let’s just get out of here. She isn’t worth it.”

“And you won’t be either come morning, sugar.”

I shook my head at him, but he didn’t take my not so subtle warning. Twisting around, he gave Allie a cockeyed grin. “There are two types of girls in the world, Al,” he said, speaking so loudly this half of the gym could hear him. “The kind you screw and the kind you marry. That’s just the way the world was made, so don’t take it out on Luce that you’re one kind and she’s the other.” Allie’s face was flushing the color of her short, street walker dress, and not the embarrassed kind of red, the livid, I-would-kill-you-right-now-if-it-wasn’t-illegal kind of red. “Run along now and find yourself some other guy to screw so you can haunt him at every turn instead of me.”

“Jude,” I whispered, looking up at him. That slanted grin was still on his face, but his eyes were black. I hadn’t known he was capable of delivering such cruel words, and if Allie hadn’t spewed the mouthful of crap she had, I might have felt bad for her. “Come on,” I said, pulling him away from one pissed off ex-lover and a few dozen onlookers. “Let’s go somewhere quiet.”

I didn’t let go of his wrist until we were out the gym door and halfway down a dark hallway, not trusting that he wouldn’t head back to go another fifty rounds with Allie. When we were far enough down the hall we could hear ourselves talk over the music, I stopped. I couldn’t get my first word out before he did.

“Luce, I know I said some things back there I probably shouldn’t have, and I didn’t treat a woman the way a man should, but I can’t and I won’t tolerate someone, male or female, talking about my girl like that.” He stared down at me, his eyes asking for forgiveness as much as they weren’t.