Bad Boy (An Indecent Proposal) - J.C. Reed Page 0,8

my eyes.

“My dear,” I adopted a dramatic, old lady’s tone. “Don’t trust with your eyes. Look deep into the heart and you will see who he really is. Boys will be boys, but Chase Wright? He’s a whole other level kind of trouble.” I cleared my throat. “He’s an actor, Jude. Remember? I’m sorry, but I’m not buying that Chase is upset. And trust me when I say, neither am I. You know why? Because I don’t give a crap about this arrogant bastard or the bullshit he’s trying to pull on you.”

Or me.

“I don’t get it, Laurie,” Jude said, baffled. “You were so happy yesterday. You both were. Something changed. I know it did. I could hear it the moment he called me. It sounded like…”

“Like what?” I snapped, annoyed, and tossed the second empty bag of chips aside. My stomach growled, so I grabbed a candy bar from the minibar, then tucked my legs under me to make myself more comfortable.

“Like you finally got rid of your V-card,” Jude said slowly.

Was that triumph in her voice?

Shoot me.

Here I was trying to tell her what a jerk Chase had been, and her first thought was that I had sex with him.

My jaw dropped as I stared at the phone speechless.

“Right?” Her tone conveyed hope. “That’s what happened? Right, Laurie?” I was so stunned I couldn’t reply while Jude continued, “I know first times can suck, because mine sure did, but there’s no reason to hide or punish him. It’s perfectly normal to feel dirty.”

Who said anything about feeling dirty?

Seriously, now she was really making me pissed.

“Punish him? Dirty?” Realizing I was almost shouting, I lowered my voice. “Is that all you were worried about? That I got laid?”

“Isn’t that the reason you left?”

“No!”

“No?” she asked, dumbfounded.

“Hell no! You think I’d run away after getting intimate with some guy?” I took a deep breath. “What the fuck?”

“Yes. Laurie, as a matter of fact, I think that’s exactly what you’d do.”

What? Why would she think that?

“Oh, my god. You just did not say that.” I slapped my hand on my forehead and let out a hysterical laugh. “I can’t believe you’d think I’d run away just because Chase and I had sex. You make me sound like I couldn’t deal with it. With him.”

“So, that’s not the reason?” Jude asked. Her tone quivered with doubt.

She didn’t believe me.

I groaned. “You got it all wrong, as usual. And I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear it.”

“Oh.” She sounded genuinely affected. For a split second, silence ensued.

I relaxed a little. But I should have known better. Jude wasn’t someone who’d ever drop a topic—like ever—which made her a big pain in the ass. It was her unrelenting persistence, her unwillingness to give up, that got her far in life and helped her capture the attention of a TV producer. Sometimes, I wished I were like her, minus the annoying, self-centered part. And sometimes I wished I could strangle her just to make her shut up. But more often than not, I was grateful for her intensity and for taking an interest in my life.

It was her way of showing that she cared about me.

“Well, how was it?” Jude’s voice drew my attention back to her.

“How was what?”

“Your first time?”

“Seriously? You want to talk about it?” I leaned back and rested my head against the wall. Maybe it had been the alcohol. Or us caught in the moment. Whatever it was that made me do it, that night was the only thing I didn’t regret about Chase Wright.

“It was good,” I said quietly. “And before you ask the next question, the second time wasn’t bad either.”

Or the third time that followed shortly after.

“Unfortunately,” I added quickly so she wouldn’t get the wrong idea.

“I gather he wasn’t small or anything?” she asked nonchalantly, as though she didn’t care, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

Jude always cared about the tiny details, or rather the not so tiny ones. She had never made a secret out of the fact that men came with tools she liked to compare and rate.

“What?” I frowned at the empty space. “No, Chase isn’t small. I doubt there’s anything about him that is small—including his ego.”

And ability to lie.

The telltale heat of a blush covered my cheeks as my thoughts trailed back to our one date in his car when I undressed him. That very night I had kneeled in front of him, eager to take him into my mouth and