“It looks nice on you,” I said, letting the charcoal tie fall back into place.
“Tony had to help me tie it because I didn’t know what the hell I was doing,” he said, popping his neck from side to side like the thing was strangling him.
“Do you have your bag?” I asked, not seeing one in view.
Jude’s face fell. “What bag?”
My face fell right along with his. “The bag you were supposed to pack to spend four whole days with me,” I said, wanting to pout. “That bag.”
“Oh,” Jude said, his arm reaching for something, “you mean this bag?”
Snatching it out of his hands, I tossed it onto the bed. There. Now we were set for the weekend.
“And this is also for you,” he said, removing his other hand from his back. Another rose. A pink one this time. We were making progress; it still wasn’t the red rose of love, passion, and in my book, sex, but it was a step in the right direction from the white rose of purity he’d given to me last.
He chuckled as I continued to study the rose. “It’s just a flower, Luce. Not the answer to all of life’s questions.”
Taking it from him, I rested it on my pillow. “Everything means something. Whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not.”
Walking into my room, he stared at my bed before looking back up at me. He gave me a stupid little smile as he grabbed my coat hanging over the swivel chair.
“I suppose that’s true,” Jude admitted, holding my coat open for me, “if you’re a woman. But for us men, a rose is a rose. And unless we’re in love with a girl or hoping to get our brains screwed out of our ears, we don’t go out of our way to get them.”
Stuffing my arms into my knee length wool coat, Jude slid my hair out from beneath the collar. His fingers just barely grazed my neck and it shot like a bolt through my body. Anticipation made his touch even more flammable.
“So which of those man reasons reduced you to buying a rose for a girl?” Cinching the coat’s belt, I turned to face him.
He had that same smile on his face. He lifted his brows. “Both.”
My stomach flopped and dropped.
“Come on,” he said, grabbing my hand and leading me out of the room. “We’ve got all weekend. Let’s make it to Thanksgiving lunch, brunch, whatever it is, before the clothes start flying.”
Closing the door behind us, I blew out a breath. “If we have to.”
Jude chuckled as we made our way down the hall. “Since your parents kind of flew across the country so they could have dinner with their precious daughter and her son of a bitch boyfriend at some yuppie restaurant, yeah, I’d say we have to.”
“You make a lot of sense for a member of the male species,” I said as we made our way down the stairwell.
Jude gave me a look that said obviously.
My heels clanged down the stairwell, filling the space with the echo.
“How in the hell do you girls walk in those things?” Jude said, studying the shoes with a wince.
“We have special powers that enable us to do so.”
Jude stopped on the stair below me. “Yeah, well, special powers or not”—scooping me into his arms, he heaved me against his chest—”I don’t want you breaking your neck on the stairs.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck. “You’re going to carry me down four more sets of stairs?”
“No,” he replied, his eyes flashing down at me. “I’m going to kiss you down four more sets of stairs.” Lowering his neck, I lifted mine, and when our mouths connected, I wasn’t sure how he was able to keep bouncing down the stairwell without collapsing, but I wouldn’t have been able to. Maybe that’s the real reason he’d decided to carry me.
Stiff arming the exit door open, a New York surprise was waiting for us. Airy flakes of snow swirled from the sky, landing on our faces. Jude looked up, taking his lips with him. The sky was clouded, a grayish blue hue tinting them.
“Looks like a storm’s heading our way,” he said, carrying me the rest of the way to his truck. “Good thing I’m prepared.” Kicking his new snow tires, he opened the door and dropped me inside.
I glanced over at my Mazda, parked in its spot, its windows already covered by a thin layer of snow. Snow tires were a foreign concept to me, and I was unequipped for the winter that was already here, it appeared.
“Don’t worry, Luce,” Jude said, hopping in next to me. “I’ll get you taken care of. I’ll drive your car up to the shop sometime this weekend and get a pair of snow tires put on.”
I didn’t like that solution for a couple of reasons. “You’re not going anywhere this weekend unless you count moving from the head of my bed to the foot of it,” I began, peering over at him as he pulled out of the parking lot. He was smiling. “And I’m more than capable of taking care of my own snow tires. I don’t need you to do everything for me.”
His face twisted. “Why not?”
“Because,” I answered.
“Because why?”
Because for a bunch of reasons, but I didn’t feel like listing them off the entire drive. So instead I scooted next to him and rested my head on his shoulder. “Just because.”
The drive to SoHo lasted all of twenty minutes, but my head tucked into Jude’s neck with his arm hanging over me made the drive go by even faster.
“This the place?” Jude asked, inspecting the restaurant that seemed to be built with windows as we rolled by.
“This is it,” I answered, looking for my parents. They’d flown in earlier this morning and said they’d be getting situated into their hotel before meeting us for lunch. Jude was visibly uncomfortable, continuing to stare at the place like he didn’t belong.
“Hey,” I said, resting my hand on his leg, “you all right with this?”
Of course I wanted him to share Thanksgiving with my family, but not if it meant he was uncomfortable the whole time.
Maneuvering his truck into a tight spot on the street, he glanced over at me. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He grabbed my hand and kissed it before turning off the car. “You’re my family. I go where you go, Luce.”
That warm feeling that seemed ever present when Jude was around melted through me. His words were as skilled as his hands. I knew then the plight of riding the roller coaster was worth being able to call the man beside me mine.
Coming around my side, Jude swung the door open for me and, instead of lending me a hand, he scooped me back up into his arms. Pressing a warm kiss into my forehead, he carried me across the snow white street and didn’t set me down until we were standing in the foyer of the restaurant.
We were both laughing, consumed by each other, so the patrons and restaurant staff staring at us like the circus had just come to town didn’t register with either of us right away. A line of guests waiting for their tables were appraising us with sour faces, and the hostesses standing behind their podium were bouncing from Jude with wide eyes to me with narrowed.
“Sorry,” I said, clearing my throat.
Jude’s hand weaved between my arm, gripping into my waist—his other one repeated on the other side.
“I’m not,” he said loudly, the words echoing through the high ceilinged foyer.
And then he was dipping me low to the ground, his eyes smiling down on me before his lips made slow work of unfreezing mine. As soon as they melted into submission, he leaned back. Smiling down on me, he whispered, “I’m not,” before lifting me back into a vertical alignment.
The room was spinning and now onlookers’ narrowed eyes had been exchanged for small smiles. A few of the men even tipped their martini glasses at the two of us.
“Name under your reservation,” the petite, red-haired hostess said, still looking at me with narrowed eyes. That was fine. I’d be giving her the stink eye if a man like Jude had just dipped her to the floor, not giving a care if the whole world saw how crazy he was for her. Being Jude’s girlfriend was worthy of stink eyes near and far.