“Did I win?” I asked, letting him tuck me closer to him.
Glancing down at Adriana, his eyes narrowed.
“You kicked ass, baby,” he said, one corner of his mouth lifting down at me.
The pain started hitting me then, spreading from my head.
“Then I’m all right,” I replied.
Exhaling, Jude shook his head. “Let’s get you out of here, killer,” he said, steering me through the crowd, not caring who or how many people he bulled over.
“You look real pretty!” I shouted down at Adriana as we moved by her. “Slut!” I threw out for good measure.
Wiping her bleeding lip, she sneered up at me. “Even on my worse day, your boyfriend still jerks off to my face when you’re not around.”
This bitch wouldn’t take a hint. Squirming in Jude’s arms, trying to free myself so I could finish what I started, he only held me tighter.
“Ready for round two?” I seethed at her, shoving against Jude’s chest.
“Lucy,” he said, moving through the crowd faster, probably hoping to put more space between Adriana and myself. “Calm down. Take a breath,” he coached, looking into my eyes. One of them felt like it might be swelling shut.
Taking a formidable amount of effort, I did as asked, taking a deep breath and visualizing myself melting into his arms.
“And I thought I was the one with anger issues,” he said, climbing the stairs. “I’m afraid after tonight, you’ve got me beat, Luce.”
The pain was really starting to hit home now, pooling into every nerve ending.
“Anger through osmosis,” I replied, moving my jaw. Yeah, that was going to bruise too.
I regretted the words immediately. His face fell, although he tried to keep his eyes from following.
I couldn’t imagine how to rectify all the wrongs I’d thrown at Jude—I just seemed to keep adding more to the pile—so I folded my hand over his heart and let him carry me into his bedroom.
He walked me over to his bed, propping me in front of a mound of pillows.
“God, Luce,” he said, kneeling beside me and examining my face. I didn’t really want to know and I sure as hell wouldn’t be looking in a mirror for the next couple of weeks. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Running my fingers over my face, I winced at almost every place I touched. “I was thinking about giving that bitch a taste of her own medicine,” I said, “my fist doing the dosing.”
He exhaled, running his hand down the side of my neck.
“Don’t worry,” he said as I pulled my hands away to find blood spotting my fingers. “I’ll fix you.” Rising, he lunged across the room. “I’ll be right back,” he said, disappearing behind the door.
With Jude gone, the pain really started to eat away at me. I’d felt pain, and I wasn’t a huge wuss, but this felt like every nerve had decided to grow a heart that was pounding.
It had felt so good at the time—giving and taking a beating with Adriana—but now I was starting to question why I’d done it. I wasn’t regretting it, just questioning it. I’d never been a violent person—I had a short fuse, sure—but I’d never let my fists work out an issue I had with someone.
Why had I done it this time?
All the questions led to one answer: Jude.
He hadn’t made me go after Adriana, but my love for him and the pain I’d been caused at Adriana’s hand had been the fuel to my fire. I realized then it wasn’t Jude that was the problem. He wasn’t the reason our relationship was nothing short of explosive. It was me. It was the person I became with Jude beside me.
My anger peaked at new levels, exceeding his, but I didn’t have the self-control to douse that anger before it burned someone.
I couldn’t fix us until I fixed me. And he couldn’t fix me for me. It was a task that was all my own.
It was one I wasn’t sure I could face.
Jude was slipping back into the room before I could follow those thoughts down their depressing trail.
“Miss me?” he said, an armful of items tucked to his chest.
“Missed you,” I answered, dropping my head back into the pillows.
“Lucky for you, Luce, you chose to pick a fight around me,” he said, dropping the contents in his arms on the bed. “Someone who’s patched up, attended to, and sewn shut just about any wound man—or woman”—he smirked over at me— “could inflict on one’s body.”
“I had it all planned out,” I said as he doused some cotton pads with alcohol. “Did you really think that was a heat of the moment I-really-should-have-known-better smack down?”
“Oh, no, Luce. That looked like you knew exactly what you were doing.”
Dabbing my cheek with the cotton, he flinched before I did. It stung, but no worse than any other part of my body.
“You’re getting to be a worse liar with each passing day,” I said, wincing when he ran the pad over my eyebrow. Must have earned myself a nice little gash there.
He grinned at my eyebrow. “Truth through osmosis.”
I started to smirk at him, but it hurt my face too much, so I settled for a small glare. He ignored it, continuing to work over my face meticulously.
I shouldn’t have, but I watched him working over me, his eyes narrowed in their focus, the tip of his tongue bit between his teeth, as he attended to every scratch, bruise, and cut. I’d never experienced hands as gentle as his were.
“Do I look like a mummy yet?” I asked a while later, when he leaned back and investigated my face after slipping another bandage into place.
“Nah,” he said, capping the tube of first aid ointment. “You look like the most beautiful badass I’ve ever seen.”
“High praise coming from the king of badass,” I said, smiling through the pain it caused to move my mouth.
Collecting up the empty wrappers and blood stained cotton pads, he dumped them into the garbage can. “Mind telling me what that was all about?”
“I told you,” I said. “Giving Adriana Vix a piece of Adriana Vix.”
“Yeah,” he said, dragging out the word. “But you’ve wanted to stick it to Adriana since the night dumbass Tony mentioned her. Why did you choose to do it tonight?” Shaking a bottle of pain relievers into his palm, he handed me three. I swallowed them down without any fluid.
“Because ‘dumbass Tony’ paid me a little visit earlier today that triggered the need-to-throw-down-Adriana trap.”
Jude studied my hands folded on my lap. “He told you what Payton told him?”
“Yeah.”
“So was it me or Tony who convinced you I was telling the truth?” The wrinkles around his eyes deepened.
“You, Jude,” I answered. “I promised you I’d trust you. I didn’t want to believe it, but I trusted you. Tony was just the one that shined a light on the truth.”
His jaw tightened. “So when you got in your car and drove here, were you coming to see Adriana? Or me?”
I couldn’t lie to him, but I couldn’t verbalize the truth. My lack of response answered his question.
His eyes closed as his head fell into his hands.
“Jude,” I began, “no matter whom I came here to see, I didn’t come here to hurt you.” Sliding down the bed, I wished the pain relievers would kick in faster. “The last thing I want to do is hurt you. And that’s all I seem to be capable of lately.”
The only solution to keep from hurting him anymore was to leave.
“Thanks for the patching up,” I said, scooting off the end of the bed. “You really do know what you’re doing when it comes to fight wounds. Lucky me.” I flashed him a smile over my shoulder as I stood up. I staggered in place as every muscle screamed at me for the prostrated position. Gritting my teeth, I headed towards the door.