Page 19 of The Surrender (Arlington Hall #2)

Ambient light from the blue glass shades over the bar makes the Library Bar glow beautifully, as if it could be bathed in moonlight. Jude has a quiet word in Clinton’s ear, and he nods, tossing his cocktail shaker in the air and catching it expertly.

“Give me a moment,” Jude says, putting me on a stool.

There’s an older couple in the two chairs by the fireplace, and Jude approaches, crouching, talking quietly for a few moments.

The couple get up, smiling, taking their drinks and leaving.

Then he wanders over to a younger couple at the end of the bar, and after a few moments, they get up and leave too.

My eyes follow as they pass me, and I smile mildly, uncertain, when they smile at me.

Next, Jude goes to a couple of women sitting by the bookcases. They listen, smile too, collect their drinks, and leave. Only the man on his own in the corner remains, but after a few seconds of Jude talking to him, he nods, snaps his laptop shut, and exits the Library Bar too.

And we’re alone.

“What are you doing?” I ask when Jude comes back to me.

“Buying us some privacy.”

“We could get that in your apartment.” And, frankly, we’d get a bed too. I was certain that was where he’d take me.

“Here.” He pushes a highball towards me. “Your drink.”

“Hey Jude,” I muse, admiring the masterpiece created in a glass by Clinton.

As Jude scissors the stem of another glass and pulls it towards him, he perches on the stool next to me. “I get the Amelia.” He lifts the glass and holds it up, prompting me to clink it with mine.

“Are you going to tell me why you’ve kicked everyone out of your bar?

” Just then, music joins us, and I nearly lose my breath when I register the track.

I find Jude’s eyes. His parents’ favourite song.

The song he’s named after. “Jude,” I breathe, watching as he reaches for my glass and helps it to my lips.

“Drink,” he tells me, settling back with his own cocktail and listening.

“Mum used to play this to me when I was a kid. When I was sad about anything.” He laughs a little.

“She told me it was about love fixing everything. About being positive in shitty situations. I honestly believed Paul McCartney wrote it for me and that Mum was talking about her love for me, because it really did fix everything.”

Oh my heart, I can’t take it.

“McCartney actually wrote it for John Lennon’s son,” he goes on.

“He did?”

“But his name was Julian. I don’t know how Julian turned into Jude. Three syllables versus one, I guess.”

I chuckle. “ Hey Julian doesn’t have the same ring to it, huh?”

He smirks, reaching for my hand and stroking gently over the dressing. “I’ve not listened to it since her funeral.”

My lip wobbles, my throat tightening.

“I’ve really never felt strong enough.” He looks up at me, and my head runs amok with thoughts and visions of pills. He’s never felt strong enough. God, I can’t even begin to comprehend his grief. “I feel strong enough now,” he adds quietly.

I’m going to cry. “I’m glad.”

“Me too.” He stands and takes my glass, setting it on the bar, and helps me off the stool. Going to the doors, he closes them as Clinton slips through the staff door behind the bar, leaving us.

“What’s happening?”

He takes my good hand and pulls me gently into his chest by the fireplace.

We’re dancing? He drapes my arms over his neck and holds my waist, starting to sway us.

“We’re happening,” he says quietly, kissing me gently.

And he doesn’t stop. And I can’t help but think it’s a ploy on his part to keep himself busy, to not let his emotions get the better of him.

And yet however he chooses to deal with it, it’s still a perfectly beautiful moment. “I love you,” he says, eventually breaking our kiss and sinking his face into my neck. “I really fucking love you, Amelia.”

Peace envelops me. And a deep sense that this is completely right.

I cling on to him and let him circle us slowly, our bodies pressed together, every curve of mine melding with his, feeling as perfect as this moment. My fingers weave through the strands of hair on his nape, my eyes closed, just needing to hear and feel.

And we remain that way, both of us quiet, for the entire track until we’re turning in silence. I don’t instigate the separation of our bodies, happy to remain in this beautiful bubble of peace together.

I open my eyes when I feel his lips on my neck, staring out the window onto the drive of Arlington Hall. Whatever he needs to take from me, he can take. “Thank you,” he eventually whispers.

I shake my head mildly and pull away, my eyes scanning his for a few quiet seconds, before I apply pressure to the back of his head and push our lips together, speaking with my kiss rather than with words.

He hums, lifting me from my feet, deepening our kiss as he walks us to the door.

When he sets me down, I’m more than dazed. My body alive. My heart alive.

“Come,” he says, his voice gruff with desire as he takes my hand and opens the door.

Purpose and intent radiate from his entire being as he leads me up to his apartment, anticipation hammering between my legs, every piece of me pulsing for him.

As soon as the door closes behind us, he’s on me, kissing me hard, his tongue inexorable.

I shove his jacket off his shoulders, and he wrestles out of it, freeing his arms before finding the zip on the back of my dress and pulling it down fast. I wriggle my arms out, keeping my lips attached to his, and Jude lifts me, letting me kick my way out of my dress and heels.

By the time we make it to the bed in a tangle of limbs and flying clothes, we’re naked, and we fall down together, arms and legs everywhere, our mouths wild, our impatience thick.

He rolls me onto my back, covers my body with his, and slides into me on a suppressed groan, his eyes clenched shut.

My world explodes into a million shards of ecstasy. I toss my head back on a cry, feeling his mouth sucking at my neck, his hips swinging into action, desperation getting the better of him.

Bliss.

Every pump takes me higher, makes me louder, my body accepting every hard, long inch of him, drawing him back in each time he retreats.

There’s nothing like this feeling. When we’re connected so deeply, when our bodies answer each other.

Know each other. He hooks an arm under my knee and lifts it, opening me up to him some more, rocking, his mouth drifting onto my chest, my breasts, and back to my mouth.

A few swirls of his tongue, a few pants each time he drives in, and then he pulls back, watching me as he thrusts on.

Watching me climb to my high. “I love you,” he says, moving so fluidly.

I hold the side of his face, unable to talk through my pleasure, nodding my acceptance instead.

“You’re pulling me in deep, baby.” He turns his mouth onto my hand and kisses my dressing, clenching his eyes closed. I can feel every throb of his cock, the blood pumping, his chest matching it. Sweat beads are forming on his brow. Tingles creep up my body from my toes.

“Jude,” I whisper in warning.

He drops my leg and falls to his forearms, his head hanging, driving on faster.

I cry out, coiling my legs around his waist, tensing, preparing. My vision fogs, stars jump into my sight, and our bodies start to slip as our sweat mixes on our skin. I’m holding on for dear life, knowing my climax is going to hit hard.

And when I see the veins in his neck bulge and he gasps, lifting his head to look up at me, the intensity of his eyes has me shattering underneath him on a throaty cry.

“Oh, Jesus, Amelia,” he whispers, watching me come undone.

My head thrashes as I deal with the intensity and the pure, exquisite fullness of him inside, banging my pleasure out of me.

“Fuck,” he yells. “Fuck, you look incredible coming so fucking hard.” He thrusts one last time, holding himself deeply so I can feel the second he climaxes, before crumpling on top of me, breathless, to join me in the aftermath.

Aftershocks have me jolting constantly, the sensitivity almost too much to bear. I can’t hold on to him any longer, my limbs listless. My heart feels like it could burst, both with exhaustion and love.

“Okay?” he pants, splattered all over me, hot and wet, still pulsing and twitching. That was intense. It’s always intense, but that just felt different.

“I don’t know yet,” I admit as I stare up at the ceiling, arms and legs splayed, my mouth open, needing as much air as I can get, my lungs burning.

“Me either,” he replies, a red-hot weight on top of me, but I don’t have the energy to ask him to move or push him off. Biting at my neck with little force, Jude exhales heavily and loudly, and I close my eyes, immediately falling into a deep slumber trapped beneath him.

Burning.

Still full to the brim with Jude.

Exhausted.

Madly, deeply in love.