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“Not hungry,” I snarl. “Congrats on the baby, though.”

There. I wasn’t a total asshole.

I just need a second. Alone. With my hand. And then I’ll be fine.

Or…I’ll just want a helluva lot more.

Tate

He was turned on.

Holy shit, he was turned on.

Dinner goes by in a blur, but all I can think about is being face to face with Jude’s erection. I’m not sure anyone else saw, which is good. I, however, can’t stop thinking about it. All I did was touch his leg.

But the simple touch excited him and he bailed.

I mean, I would bail too if I got hard at a dinner with my family.

I’m such an idiot. Touching him on our walk to Nathan’s house felt easy and comfortable. I guess when I leaned over and put my hand on his thigh, I wasn’t really thinking about how that would make him feel. Or physically react.

My heart aches at the thought of no one ever touching him intimately. Based on what I’ve learned so far about Jude, he stays hidden behind his self-made walls, always protecting his broken heart.

I shouldn’t have touched his leg like that.

I stifle a heavy sigh as Gemma and Jamie clear the table. Nathan retired to his office once Callum and Hugo left, taking their people with them. Dempsey abandons texting on his phone to shoot me a questioning look.

“Not in a hurry to get back to Freak Mansion?”

I smirk and give him a small shrug. “Guess not.”

“Come on. We can shoot the shit outside.”

After I tell Gemma and Jamie bye, I follow Dempsey outside to the front porch. He tosses a blanket at me and gestures for me to sit in one of the wicker chairs. I wrap up in the blanket, thankful for his thoughtfulness, and sit. He dons a black leather jacket that doesn’t appear to be very warm, yet he doesn’t shiver or otherwise indicate he’s cold. Once we’re settled, he pulls a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and lights up.

A puff of exhaled smoke billows out in front of him and he fidgets with the cigarette between his fingers. It’s clear he’s on edge too. Even though we spoke earlier at length about his place in this family and how he feels about it, I still feel like we barely scratched the surface with him.

“What was up with Jude?” he asks, canting his head in my direction, eyes pinning me in place.

I flick my gaze to Jude’s moonlit house and sigh. “I think he had enough peopling for the day.”

And needed to hide his massive erection.

It was totally massive. I’m still reeling from the anaconda that was about to escape its cage.

“That’s his usual MO,” Dempsey says with an amused huff. “It was something else.”

“Like what?”

He smirks. “Likeyou.”

Heat floods my cheeks and I wring my hands together under the blanket. “W-What do you meanme?”

Did he see all that transpired at the dinner table?

Oh my God.

“He’s just so…I don’t know. Obsessed with you.” He shrugs his shoulders before taking another drag. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he wants to fuck you.”