My fingers reached for his hair. His dreads were coarse and stiff, a direct contrast to his soothing and forgiving mouth.

He moved his lips away and his hands reached for my waistband, yanking the material down my legs.

“Jude you don’t have to—”

“You have an amazing cock.”

Before I could respond, his lips engulfed the tip and the air departed my lungs. For a guy who claimed he hadn’t been with anybody in a long while, he certainly remembered what to do.

I let out a long hum. His tongue found the slit, brushed across it, and my hips arched off the couch. If his tongue felt like that on my cock, then what would it feel like in my mouth?

His lips suctioned my head and I squirmed, prodding inside his mouth so that I hit the back of his throat.

“I think I found just the thing to shut you up,” he murmured as he licked me from root to crown, more than likely tasting the growing desperation in my thrusts.

I let out a muffled laugh. “If I learned how to close my mouth I’d never get anything out of you . . .” A low growl emitted from my throat as he licked and sucked and nuzzled, his tongue circling and dragging lengthwise across my most sensitive vein. The sensation was completely overwhelming, as pinpricks of heat twined along my skin.

I could feel him smile around my girth. “I didn’t take you for a quiet moaner.”

“Quiet or not,” I said gasping, my fingers clutching his head. “You keep doing what you’re doing and I won’t last.”

“Good. I want to make you come,” he said, his lips bathing the slit again. “I want to taste you on my tongue.”

And that sentence in his British accent did fucking amazing things to my groin. I could feel the pyrotechnics building in my balls as they tightened and lifted.

There was a tingle in my spine that had nothing to do with tennis ball therapy, and my legs felt mind-numbingly weightless.

I knew I was about to blow.

“Jude, if you don’t move . . .”

But he sucked me deeper and swallowed me whole. And I fucking came down his throat.

My release went on for minutes or hours and I collapsed against the couch, breathing heavily and completely spent.

He laid his head atop my abdomen, looking smug and gratified. My fingers slipped across his gorgeous lips. “Goddamn, Jude. That mouth is amazing.”

Right then we heard a noise outside the door. It was probably just somebody walking by the bar that had tripped over a trash can. But it was all it took to snap Jude back to reality.

“We need to go,” he said, springing up.

Jude walked to the front of the store and I hastily followed behind buttoning up my jeans. He searched in all directions out the window as I pulled my cap back over my head.

“You think he’s out there somewhere?” I asked. “Is that what this is about?”

“You should leave,” he said quietly, urging me with his eyes.

And then I got it. He was definitely trying to keep me safe, even if he wasn’t directly saying how or why. Obviously this guy was dangerous. Fuck.

“Jude.”

He didn’t answer, merely stepped to the back door.

When I caught up to him, I pulled him against me, my fingers gripping the front his shirt.

“Thank you,” I whispered in his ear and he sucked in a shallow breath.

When I emerged to the lot, Smoke was on his bike near the bar’s back entrance. Though I felt uneasy, I didn’t feel scared, and that in itself was alarming to me. The Disciples might be intimidating but I didn’t feel like they were out to hurt Jude or me. Not unless I hurt them first and I sure as hell wasn’t planning on it.

I have nothing to hide, I reminded myself as I strode to the side street where my bike was parked. I lifted my helmet to my head, just as Smoke came roaring by. When I looked up, he tipped his chin toward me.

Chapter Twenty

“You seem distracted, darling,” Grandma said while pouring some of her peach tea in a tall glass. “Who is he?”

I rushed my hand over my face. Somehow she always knew.

“I haven’t seen you this bad in a long time,” she said, a smile pulling at her lips.

“Yeah?” I said. “How long?”

She thought about it a moment. “I think you know as well as I do what my answer is going to be.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” I said, sipping the sweet concoction. “But this time, it’s way more complicated.”

“Talk to me, darling.” She sat down and pulled out her deck of cards. She always played solitaire at the kitchen table. She said it helped get her thoughts organized.

My grandmother had always been the one person I sought out for heart-to-hearts. She was also the first person I came out to as a teenager. I just knew she’d understand. She always gave good advice and I figured I had nothing to lose.

“There’s this guy who came into town a few months ago.” I took a deep breath. “He works at the Board Room and skates at the park.”

Grandma’s eyebrows lifted. “Jude York?”

“How did you—” I stopped myself. Stupid question. Not only did those ladies get together for their weekly game of cards but they knew all the town’s gossip as well.

“Anyway,” I said and she smiled. “He’s been coming into the shop. I’m inking a large tattoo on his back so it’ll take a few appointments to finish.”

“And you like him more with each visit,” she said.