I should have felt better, knowing he hadn’t abandoned me like last week’s garbage, but I couldn’t, knowing I’d been one of those that bought into that theory. Jude deserved to have at least one person on his side, and that person should have been me.

“Hey, Luce,” he said, twisting his hands over my other foot. “Okay?”

I closed my eyes because that was my last defense against tears. “Okay.”

“Lucc?” he said, his voice a note high. “Shit, don’t cry. I’m not worth it, not worth even thinking about crying.”

I took in two slow breathes before opening my eyes. “I’m not crying,” I said, trying to convince both of us. “I’m just frustrated. And I get all watery-eyed when I get frustrated.”

He studied me another moment before turning his attention back on my feet. “Why are you frustrated?”

“Pick a topic, any topic, and there’s a pretty good chance I’ll be frustrated about some element of it.”

“That was a nice attempt at being vague, Luce, really it was,” he said, one side of his mouth lifting, “but why are you frustrated, in particular, right now?”

To answer this honestly would require a multi-pronged, day long explanation which would leave me transparent and exposed in every way a girl dreaded most. So I went for the least complicated, most pointed answer I could give him right now. “I’m frustrated with twelve a.m. to twelve p.m. of last Saturday. The whole damn day and everything that could have gone wrong that went wrong,” I began, trying to put a stopper on the verbal explosion. “I’m frustrated because I don’t understand why everything that could go bad did, and I’m frustrated because I don’t understand why you took that car in the first place.”

“I took that car,” he said, being the stopper I needed, “and I would take a hundred more, because even though you say you don’t want the best, I want to give you the best.”

“Why, Jude? Why are you so damned determined that I need to have the best?” I asked, leaning forward.

He lifted a shoulder, his eyes cast down. “Because, Luce. Because you’re the most important person in my life.”

And that was the tipping point. I couldn’t hold the damn tears back. A person he’d known a few weeks, a person who’d turned her back on him when he needed a friend most, a person who had and was still trying to convince herself that he was not the man to fall for. And this person was the most important one to him.

“I don’t deserve that title,” I said, playing with the sleeve of my tunic.

“Why?” he asked, lifting my chin until I was looking at him. “Because you finally accepted what a tumor I am and feel guilty for it?”

My eyes flashed. “No.”

“Then why?” he asked, nothing antagonizing in his voice, just curiosity.

“Because you and I have too much bad history to make a good future.” There it was, the truth without having to burrow into the nitty-gritty. I didn’t have to bring up the fire or the rumors or the stolen car because it was all there between the lines.

“Shit, Luce.” His forehead lined. “Weren’t you the one that just said your past doesn’t have to dictate your future?”

I’d never felt like such a hypocrite. My shoulders sagged from sheer mental and physical exhaustion.

“Or does that go for everything but me?”

Jude’s life had been filled with enough crap, he didn’t need any more from me, but I just couldn’t do this. I knew, with absolute certainty, I’d come out in worse shape than I’d gone in if I let Jude into my life the way he wanted to be.

“Jude,” I said, biting my lip. “I just can’t. I can’t do this.”

His expression darkened. “I know I don’t deserve a second, or third, or whatever the hell this is chance, but you and I have something special, Luce, and you know it. Give me another chance, one more chance, and I’ll walk a line so straight people will think I’ve been possessed.” God I wanted to look away from those eyes, but I just couldn’t. They were impossible to ignore. “One more chance. Not because I deserve it, but because we deserve one.”

If the first alligator tears I’d cried in years were any indication of our future together, that should make my decision easier. “I can’t,” I whispered.

“Why? Because you can’t or you won’t?”

A lie was going to be the only hope I had of convincing him I wasn’t fighting every urge to be with him. “Because I just don’t want to be with you, Jude.” The words flamed my throat.

His face fell for barely a second before it sharpened. “Bullshit,” he said, shaking his head at me. “I’m so used to dealing with liars I know a lie’s coming before a person opens their mouth.”

I was the worst bluffer around and Jude was the best caller around, which meant I wouldn’t get away with anything. Reason number one thousand and one why Jude and I would never work. “I’m not exactly your garden variety thug, thief, or dealer. I don’t lie through my teeth, so you might want to recalibrate your BS detector.”

His eyes stayed trained on me, unblinking. “Fine. Convince me then. Convince me you don’t want me like I want you.”

He was not going to let this go, he was not going to let me go so easily. It was as romantic as it was infuriating. “I’ve said everything—”

“Screw words,” he interrupted. “I don’t believe what you’ve said. Convince me through action.”

That whole breathing thing was getting hard to do again. “Do I want to know what that means?”

Then, without warning, he pulled my calves, sliding me across the floor toward him. Leaning into me, his eyes shifted down. “Kiss me,” he said, his mouth so close to mine we almost were. “Convince me I’m nothing but some random boy you’ve left in the past.”

I had one more no in me, and then I was toast. “Not a good idea,” I said, my voice shaky.

His jaw tensed as his arms wound around me. “Damn it, kiss me, Luce.”

So I did, and the moment my lips touched his, that ache I’d felt all the way to my bones the past week evaporated. Just like that.

Pressing into me, Jude lowered my back to the ground, his mouth never leaving mine. His weight rested over mine, grounding me, keeping me from falling apart. This only made me kiss him harder.

“Shit, Luce,” he breathed, when my hands slid up his shirt, gripping into his back.

And then his hand was under my sweater, lifting it higher, exploring the parts of me I needed him to. Sitting up just enough, I lifted my arms in the air, waiting for him to take it off. He managed to remove it with one hand and in about one second before he pinned me to the floor again.

We were close, one word from me standing between me and him going all the way. He was ready, and I’d been ready since the day I first saw him. I wasn’t thinking about our past when his hand slid underneath my bra, and I wasn’t thinking about our future when his mouth took its place; I wasn’t even thinking about the present—I was living the present.

His mouth moved to my neck while his hands traveled beneath the elastic of my leggings, pulling them lower. I lifted my h*ps to make the job easier.

“Are you sure?” he said, planting a patch of sucking kisses at my hairline.

I’d never been more sure about what he was asking about, but a hint of reality wedged its way into my nirvana and, as I didn’t need a reminder for, reality really sucked sometimes.

“Wait,” I said in between breaths, wanting to strap a piece of duct tape to my mouth immediately after.

His body tensed over mine, his hands stopping right away. But his mouth took a little longer. Finally, moving his face over mine, he smiled a tortured one. “Okay,” he said. “Waiting.” I could hear his silent questions, they were written so expressively on his face. Why? and For how long?

Kudos to Lucy Larson for being able to render a reformed ladies man witless.

“It’s not because I don’t want to, because I do,” I said, my heartbeat still pounding about a monkeyload of beats per minute. “I really do, but I don’t want our first time to be on a wood floor when I’m all stinky and sweaty and wearing shamefully boring underwear.” This is why you never left the house without some jaw-dropping, man-catching undies strategically in place.

Grinning down at me, he kissed my nose. “Some other time,” he said, pulling my leggings back around my waist.

“Any other time,” I emphasized, convinced that stinky sweaty sex with Jude on the floor I’d danced across for fifteen years was better than delayed sex. I was just about to tell him this when he sat up, pulling me with up with him.

“By the way, you failed the convincing me test.” He grabbed my sweater and pulled it over my head.

“Was that before or after I removed my shirt?” I said, putting said shirt back into position.

He gave me a cool look. “Before.”

“Just checking,” I said, pulling the sleeves up over my elbows because making out with Jude Ryder was all kinds of hot, not excluding body temperature. “So was that a first?”

“I’m going to ask for further clarification on that before I tie my own noose answering it,” he said, his pupils still dilated, still excited.

“Was that your first time with a girl in a ballet studio . . .” I began, “and getting denied?” I smiled, taking a gulp of water.

“That was a first,” he said, pulling me into his lap.

“At least I’ve got one of them,” I teased, tying my arms over his.

Lifting his hand to my chin, he tilted it up. He didn’t speak until I met his eyes. “You’ve got all my firsts,” he said. “All the ones that matter.”

I pressed a kiss into his mouth.

“But, Luce, I need you to promise me something,” he said, his face wrinkling. “If I ever mess things up again, whether it’s a misunderstanding, or shit luck, or I just do what I was created to do and screw everything up,” he paused, exhaling, “I want you to promise me you’ll leave. Drop me like a bad habit and don’t look back because god knows, it can’t be me that walks away since I’m incapable of it.”

Reality, if you’re listening, bite me.

“You won’t,” I said, willing or wishing it to be true, probably both.

“I know. But I’d feel better if you promised,” he said, running the back of his hand down my cheek. “That much more motivation to not mess up.”

“Okay,” I said, already regretting the words before I spoke them. “I promise.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Are you going to get in trouble?” I whispered across the seat. Why I was whispering in my own car, I don’t know, but something about the dark, utilitarian building we were stopped in front of dictated hushed voices. “Don’t you guys have some kind of curfew?”

“Don’t you?” Jude teased, leaning across the console and tickling my side.