Mr. Judge: A Man Who Knows What He Wants

“I thought I might have a family one day,” I say.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.” I grin. “That’s the point. Nothing happened.”

Until I met you, I almost add.

Standing, I head for the hall. “I’ll prepare a guest room.”

“I can do that.”

But I’m already in the hall, and then walking up the stairs. My heart beats in time with the lightning. I was so close then, so close to telling her, so close to wrecking everything.

Her buttons, the look in her eyes, the blushing heat in her cheeks… does it mean she wants me, as badly as I want her?

Another question hits me, fiercer than the last.

How the hell am I going to resist her?

CHAPTER NINE

Piper

“I don’t understand what you want me to do, Mom,” I say, speaking quietly just in case Pearce walks past my bedroom door.

Mom groans down the phone. “You don’t have any of your things.”

“Pearce is letting me wear one of his T-shirts to bed. And anyway, it’s only for one night.”

“You’re wearing his T-shirt?”

I stifle a sigh. “Don’t worry. It’s clean.”

I don’t mention how I wish it wasn’t clean. How I wish he’d worn it in the gym first. Soaking it in his scent, his sweat. When he stood next to me, shirtless, my lower half practically formed a puddle around me. My clit brushed tantalizing against my panties, as I studied his massive form, his abs a hard sheet of rocks with a deep V leading down to his manhood.

“You’re staying at an older man’s house, wearing his T-shirt. This is exactly the sort of thing I wanted to avoid.”

“Mom, jeez… would you prefer if I walked home in this?”

“Can’t he drive you home?”

“I told you, Bones is terrified. He’ll freak even more in the car.”

“Then I’ll come and get you.”

But I can hear the uncertainty in her voice. During the past hour, the rain has only gotten worse. It’s all anybody’s talking about on social media, and there have been several news stories about it already.

“This is the best option,” I tell her. “You know it. I know it. And anyway, I’m not wearing his T-shirt right now.”

“He’s fifty, Piper.”

“Okay…”

“I googled him. He turned fifty earlier this year. You’re twenty.”

“I don’t see your point, Mom.”

“My point is I don’t want you to make the same mistake I did.”

Her voice rises at the end, becoming hysterical.

“Mom, please relax.”

“I don’t see how I can.”

Anger flares in me. “I’m sorry, but you’re freaking out for nothing. And you’re making it all about yourself. I love you, Mom, but don’t forget you dropped a bombshell on me yesterday. Nothing about my dad for years, and then, bam, I learn he’s dead. You won’t even tell me why—”

“I don’t see what this has to do with—”

“Because it’s all on your terms,” I snap. “I haven’t done anything with Pearce. I’m not going to.”

“Will you promise?”

I laugh bitterly. “I don’t need to promise. He’d never be interested in me.”

“So do it. Promise.”

I sigh. “I’m not going to do that.”

“So you want something to happen?”

“Mom, no offense, but this is none of your business.”

“You can’t get close to him. You can’t listen to any of his lies.”

“Lies? What lies?”

She pauses. I imagine her curled up in her armchair, her phone clutched tightly in her hands.

“I have to go,” she says. “Just please… remember, whatever he says, there are two sides to every story. I love you, Piper.”

“Mom? Mom?”

She hangs up.

I try to call her back, but she rejects the call. Then she texts me.

I’m sorry. I love you xxxx

I try to make sense of what she said.

I can’t listen to his lies…

Was she talking about the general lies an older man might tell a younger woman, or was she referencing Pearce specifically? But then, Pearce and my mom don’t know each other, do they?

Do they?

And then there was that comment about there being two sides of every story.

What story?

The questions bounce around in my head. If mom won’t talk to me, I’ll ask Pearce instead. I love and respect my mom more than anything, but this mysterious routine is growing old.

It takes me a while to find Pearce. I search the living room, the kitchen, and finally walk along the hallways of his giant house. There’s a bedroom, a theater, and a gym.

At least, I assume that’s why Pearce is grunting like an unchained animal. His grunts and heaving breaths reach me even over the sound of the rain.

Bones lies at the door, his chin on his forepaws, his eyes closed but then they snap open suddenly.

“Keeping guard, boy?” I murmur, scratching him on the head.

The thunder is clearly tiring him. He tilts toward my touch, but only a little, and then he yawns and lays his chin on his paws again.

I turn to the door, half-open, peeking through the gap.

My body grows hot as he stands so close to me, shirtless, but now it’s an entirely different kind of heat. My core feels like it’s buzzing, pulsing.