33
Just Call Me Detective
Jude
As the sun rises, I jolt awake.
His books.
Holy fuck. That’s what he’s doing. He’s playing his heroes. Last night, I had a feeling he was putting on a show for me every now and then. Certain phrases tickled my brain.
Well, two can research, TJ.
I confirmed he’s been giving me lines with a quick scan of his books on my e-reader. As he sleeps next to me, I hunt through his stories. No wonder I had déjà vu. Last night, he played Hudson in Mister Benefits with a touch of Tanner from The Size Principle. I read a few reviews of those titles—they’re considered his coolest, most alpha heroes.
I shake my head, but I’m not annoyed, per se. I’m damn curious why he’d need to do that.
A few minutes later, TJ stretches, yawns, then opens his eyes. I don’t think before I speak. I dive right in. “Have you heard this scene from Mister Benefits?” I clear my throat and read from his novel. “I had a feeling you’d want champagne, so I ordered it for you.”
TJ’s eyes go wide.
I jump ahead to the next spot I bookmarked. “Why did I get you champagne? Because I want to know how it tastes on your lips.”
TJ swallows, then mutters shit under his breath.
“Hold on, stud. I’ve got one more. Ahem. Let me put on some tunes. Then Hudson plays a moody, sexy number.”
He pushes up in bed, holds up a finger. “In my defense, that’s not a unique move during sex. A lot of people play music when it’s business time,” he says.
I roll my eyes. “Fine. That’s true, but what the fuck, TJ?”
He sits, drags a hand down his face, sighing heavily. “My heroes also always brush their teeth first thing in the morning since they hate morning breath as much as I do. So, can I please do that first?”
I laugh. “Funny, but I knew that too. That you hate morning breath.” I flash my pearly whites. “I brushed mine already.”
He gives a sheepish grin. “You remembered.”
Last night, I barely wanted to admit how much I remember. Now that I’ve learned he was secretly trying to impress me, I don’t mind admitting the truth I didn’t speak last night. “I remember a lot of things, TJ.”
He licks his lips. “Me too.”
Then, he swings out of bed, pads to the bathroom. I watch him go, admiring the curves of his strong ass. I do enjoy his devotion to the gym. A few minutes later, he returns to bed, flops down. “So, you busted me, Jude.”
I shift to my side, prop my head in my hand. “You’re not even going to protest? Try to deny it? Dance around it?”
He shrugs. “First off, I’m not a good dancer. Second, what’s the point? You figured it out.”
But I didn’t figure out the reason, and the only way to know is to ask. “Why did you do it?”
TJ stares at the ceiling for a few beats, breathes out hard. Then he looks at me. “Imagine how you’d feel if you made a deal on a bridge to see this guy again. This guy you don’t see for seven years. Don’t talk to or text for seven long years. And then boom. He reaches out, he invites you to see him, he gets you tickets for his play, and you’re like fuck yes. And you see him again after all that time. How do you think you’d act?”
I don’t have to imagine. I did the same thing he did, for all intents and purposes. I acted. “Touché,” I say, even though his fuck yes makes me feel like gold.
The intensity on his face tells me this isn’t easy for him, but he’s doing it anyway, like when he told me about his name. I give him all my focus as he talks.
“Jude, I got off that plane, and it hit me. I was seeing you. And I didn’t know how the hell to act with you. I just figured I’d act like a guy who knew what he was doing.” He scratches his jaw, shakes his head like he’s annoyed. “That sounds dumb now that I say it.”
“No, it doesn’t. Look, I didn’t know how to act with you either,” I confess, since finally, fucking finally, we’re getting somewhere. We’re getting to the truth. That’s where I hoped the bedroom would lead us. Maybe our intimacy paved the way.
“Yeah?” he asks, with hope in his voice.
“I wasn’t sure how it would be to see you,” I say, but that’s only the start of it. “I didn’t know if we’d still vibe, so I . . .” But am I ready to tell him how I felt walking into that bar? Not good enough? No, I don’t think I’ll say that. “So I tried to be cool too.”
With a smile, he shifts closer, runs his fingers through my hair. “Jude Fox,” he says, like he has a secret. “I saw you before you came into the hotel last night.”
I blink. “What do you mean? Where?”
He points to the window of his room, gesturing to the ocean beyond. “Outside the hotel. The lobby bar has a view through the glass wall by the lobby. I swear I saw you practicing lines.”
It’s my turn to groan. I’ve been completely busted now.
TJ moves in a flash, pinning me, his hands on my wrists. “Was I right? Were you putting on your big-time actor charm for me? Like you do when you think people are watching?”
“Do you think pinning me down is some kind of torture? I quite like this position.”
He laughs, rocks his pelvis to mine. “Were you trying to charm me?”
I let out a soft moan as he presses harder. “Is that what I do? Charm you?”
He rolls off me, running a hand down my chest as he goes. “Yes. Do you have any idea how you come across? How captivating you are? When you smile at me, it’s like the world disappears and I’m caught in your spotlight.”
My body likes the sound of that, every inch of my skin warming up. My heart likes it too since it thumps harder. But still, I doubt him. Because I doubt me. “That sounds like a line.”
He holds up his hands in surrender. “Trust me, that doesn’t come from any of my books. It’s just true. I’ve always felt that way around you. You have charisma, Jude. You have so much of it. It’s like an overflow. You’re the sun. You’re the center of the world. You warm anyone who comes near you. And last night, you wanted to do that to me.”
“Maybe I’m not such a good actor. Because I did want that,” I admit, half wishing I wasn’t so easy to read, but half glad he saw through my charade.
He pokes my chest with his finger. “You’re a great actor, and I can’t wait to see Pillow Talk tonight. But I figured out what you were doing because it’s my job to read people. To understand their motivations. To look beneath the surface. And I’m pretty sure you wanted to charm me,” he says, reading me like an open book. Then he spreads his hand across my pecs, stretching his fingers over my skin and gliding down my chest, over my abs. “But don’t you know? You already did.”
My pulse surges, and I go for it. Jumping. “Maybe I wanted to keep charming you last night.”
TJ locks eyes with me. Holds my gaze. Then he asks, in measured words, “Do you? Do you want to keep charming me?”
There he goes again. Speaking in subtext. I know what he’s asking, and I was worried yesterday because I didn’t know if he’d feel the same way, or want with the same passion I do. Now, after a night with him, I know one truth—the years didn’t erase this thing between us. “I do want to,” I say, and it’s as much of an admission as I’ll make.
It’s not a commitment. It’s an acknowledgment of the here and now.
His lips twitch in a grin. A devilishly satisfied one. “Then let’s do London again. This weekend.”
“London in Los Angeles?” I ask with a laugh.
“Let’s be who we were. No bullshit. No trying to impress each other.” He holds my gaze, asking with his eyes for me to be honest too.
“I hope you know, way back when, I was trying to impress you in London,” I admit. “I totally wanted to get in your pants.”
He laughs. “Dude, it drove me crazy every day how much I wanted you. But you know what I mean. Let’s be ourselves. Like how we were when we went thrifting, when we went out for beer, when we went shopping for the shower curtain.”
I fling a hand to my head dramatically. “The awful day I learned you hate rubber ducks,” I say.
He grabs my waist, hauls me close. “Some things change over the years. Maybe I don’t hate them anymore.”
I arch a brow. “Do you have a rubber duck fetish now?”
TJ dips his face near mine, then drops away from my lips, dusting a kiss to my jaw. “I might.” His lips travel along my chin. Then under it. Then along my neck. “I have to tell you something.”
I tense, worry flashing through me. “Okay?”
His soft lips return to my neck, coasting near my ear. “You were also really good in Our Secret Courtship.”
I flinch. “What? You watched the show?”
He pulls back, looking a little sheepish. “I watched every episode. The ones you were in, I watched maybe five times.”
Who’s the sun now? I’m hot everywhere. “You really did?”
He nods. “I kept hoping there’d be a scene with you and that stable guy. But then, I also didn’t want to see a scene with you and the stable guy, if you get my meaning.”
“Oh, I definitely get it. I was terrified to read your first gay romance. Terrified but secretly turned on.”
“So you really read my books?” He sounds shocked, maybe a little awed. Which is odd since I just quoted him back to him.
But then, this fits the TJ I knew. The TJ who had to leave the flat when I read his chapters. He’s never quite believed in himself. “Most of them. Not the most recent one.”
“Good. Don’t read Top-Notch Boyfriend,” he says quickly, like he needs to cut that notion off at the knees.
“I won’t,” I say, since I can’t stand the thought of reading something that chicken peddler inspired. “But I loved Happy Trail. I wish I could play a rancher getting it on with his rival. Holy fuck, those scenes at the lake were scorching.”
“I seriously can’t believe you read that book. Or any. I just . . . can’t.”
“Why are you so surprised? I just recited lines from your books. Did you think I just found them on the Internet this morning to call you out?”
He shrugs, like he can’t quite believe it. “Kind of?”
“You really thought I googled them?”
He holds up a thumb and forefinger.
“You’re ridiculous. You watched my shows. Why wouldn’t I read your books?”
He looks away, and I know he’s weighing his words, deciding what order to put them in. He returns his gaze to me. “I just didn’t let myself think you had. That’s all.”
I lean across the bed, grab his face. “Like I said, the lake scene was totally fucking hot. When Clint gave Nick his first taste of cock, I had to leave the park where I was reading so I didn’t wank off in public. But first, I had to wait for my dick to deflate.”
TJ cracks up. “That’s how I felt when I thought of you and the stable guy.”
“Want me to let you in on a little secret now?”
“Hell yes.”
I lean closer, whisper near his cheek, “I wanted that for my Our Secret Courtship character too. I always imagined Victor was bisexual.”
TJ’s eyes sparkle as he pumps a fist. “I knew it! I could tell he liked dick. But I still liked your secret romance with the countess too. You two liked to get it on. In the drawing room, in the parlor.”
“In the library, in the gardens,” I add, thrilled that he remembers the details of my character’s trysts. But I hope he doesn’t ask what happened to me next after my character was written off. I don’t want to lie about those two years that followed, but I will. I absolutely will.
“Don’t forget on the piano,” TJ adds, kissing my neck.
A dart of pleasure radiates in my chest, spreads through my body. “You saw that scene too? That was like eight seconds long, and at the end of my last season.”
His full lips coast along my neck, on a journey toward my ear. “More than five times, Jude. I watched it over and over. It reminded me of the robot and the scientist.”
I sigh, greedily taking more of his kisses, lapping up his attention. Most of all, the admission that he didn’t forget me over the years. That he didn’t simply say a few weeks ago Oh cool, glad that guy reached out so I can fly across the country for a good fuck. Instead, he followed me as I did him. He didn’t lose track of me. He stayed close and connected in the only way he could.
Like I did for him.
TJ sucks on my earlobe. “But I was pissed when your character disappeared. When that other guy took over.”
You have no idea how pissed I was.
But I don’t want to go there, so I try to stay calm as I say, “All good things come to an end.”
He pulls back, his dark eyes glimmering. “Do they though?”
We aren’t talking about our work anymore. The episode review is over. The book report is through.
“They can come to other ends,” I say in a low and husky voice.
His hand travels down my body, on a fast track for my cock. “Jude, come in my mouth.”
Fuck talking.
“Make me come,” I tell TJ, since he loves orders.
Seconds later, he’s between my legs, his mouth worshipping my dick, his hands squeezing my ass. It doesn’t take long till I’m moaning, groaning, spreading my thighs. Then begging him. “Put your fingers in me.”
He lets go of my dick, reaches for the lube, then returns to me. There’s a click, then a squeeze of the bottle. His lips wrap around my cock again. His tongue flicks along my shaft as his fingers press in.
Sensations whip through me. The dark, dizzying pressure inside. The lush intensity of his mouth. My desire for more gathers like a storm.
More contact. More him. Just . . . more.
My hands wrap around his head as he draws me deep. I gaze down at the sight of him, his beard brushing my thigh, his lips stretched wide, my cock filling his mouth.
All while he fucks my ass with his fingers. Adrenaline pulses everywhere inside me. And still I want more.
“Get in me,” I demand.
TJ slows and lets me fall from his mouth, and when he does, I grab a condom and open it quickly. As he rolls it down his length, I get on my hands and knees.
He palms my ass, squeezes hard. “Yes. Fucking yes. Need to be in you now.”
Seconds later, he lines up, and sinks inside. I catch my breath, gritting my teeth as I adjust.
Soon enough, the hint of pain abates, and it’s only good.
Only lust.
Only the best sex I’ve ever had as I tell him what I want, when I want it, how I want it.
As I order him around while we fuck, I ask for everything I crave, and he gives it. His hand on my cock, his body covering mine, his arm wrapped like a vise around my chest.
When I demand he get me there, he does. Oh yes, he fucking does, with his fist shuttling along my length till we both come hard.
Once again.
Then, we shower, dress, and head out for breakfast. It feels like the start of a perfect day.