Page 81 of Infamous

I groan, roll over - and pain detonates behind my eyes. My skull feels like it’s been split open, sledgehammered into submission. I try to move, but my body won’t obey. I’m pinned.

That’s when I realize - he’s holding me.

Jude Mercer’s arm, heavy and warm, is draped across my waist like a steel bar. My back is pressed to his chest, the weight of him a living cage. His breath brushes the back of my neck - slow, steady, sinful.

I blink at the dim light filtering through the blinds, trying to piece together the night before. The room smells like us - sweat, skin, sex. So much sex.

God.

He’s still here.

I reach for my phone on the nightstand, and Jude grumbles low in his throat, a sound that vibrates against my spine. His arm tightens reflexively, pulling me closer, tucking me back into his chest like I belong there.

A shiver runs through me.

I sigh when I see the time on the glowing screen. It’s too early. My head throbs in rhythm with my pulse. The phone keeps ringing, the sound slicing through the quiet, and I glance at the caller ID.

The senator.

Of course.

My stomach twists. I silence the call without answering. I don’t even have the energy to deal with that particular brand of poison this morning.

When I try to slip out of bed, Jude doesn’t loosen his hold. He just murmurs something unintelligible and buries his face against my hair, the rough stubble of his jaw grazing my neck. His breath is warm against my skin.

And that’s when it really hits me.

Hespent the night.

Jude Mercer - this man who came into my life like a collision, who feels both familiar and impossible - slept in my bed.

After we had sex.

Again.

And again.

And again.

I swallow hard. The memories come in flashes - his body over mine, the weight of him, the way he made me forget how to breathe. There was nothing gentle about him last night. He took me like a man possessed, a man starved for something only I could give. And I gave it willingly, over and over, until my body forgot its name.

I thought he’d leave after, because that’s what most men do.

But he didn’t leave. He stayed. And now here he is, wrapped firmly around me, looking like he has no intention of going anywhere.

For a moment, I’m convinced he’s still asleep - his breaths slow, deep, vibrating subtly across the mattress and into my skin.

My gaze drifts over him, greedy and unhurried, drinking him in like I didn’t spend the whole night tangled around that body.

He’s massive. Not bulky - cut. Defined in all the ways that make a woman second-guess her life choices. Shadows spill over him, carving out the hard lines of muscle across his chest, the ridges of his stomach, the deep grooves where his hips dip down beneath the sheet. And God… the tattoos. They’re everywhere - ink wrapping his shoulders, banded around his biceps, crawling up his ribs, disappearing over his back like a dark language I can’t translate. I can’t make out the designs in the low light, just the impression of them: black, bold, a story etched directly into skin.

I squint, narrowing my eyes, trying to trace a line of ink across his collarbone. It vanishes into the shadows and reappears lower, curling around the swell of his pec. I shift to follow it, and -

His eyelids flicker. Flutter once. Twice. Then they open, and he catches me staring.

Heat floods my cheeks instantly, stupidly. I feel like I’ve been spying on something sacred, something private, like he’s just busted me for staring too long at something I shouldn’t want as much as I do.

He watches me with a quiet, unreadable mask, like he’s trying to figure out what exactly I was searching for on his skin.