“Almost,” Thomas mumbled as his fingers worked towards the bottom rivet of my corset.

I was about to smart back with something of the witty variety when the dressing room door flew open. I didn’t have one hot second to explain before Jude’s face blanched from elation to murder.

“What the hell?” he hollered, his face flaming red.

“Jude,” I began, turning to him and holding up my hands.

“You’re a dead man,” he spit, lunging across the room towards us.

Dodging in front of him, I thrust both hands into his brick wall of a chest. They were going to sting for a while from that maneuver.

“Jude!” This time I yelled. “Stop!” I ordered, dodging in front of him again when he lunged towards Thomas, who was retreating into a corner of the room.

“Sure, I’ll stop,” Jude replied, his silver eyes flashing onyx. “Once this tool is dancing across the stage in a wheelchair.”

I hadn’t seen his rage monster in months and seeing it again in all its grandeur rendered me speechless. This was the kind of anger people told campfire stories about.

Pivoting around me again, Jude thrust towards Thomas, who was staring wide-eyed, half-confused, half-terrified, at the bull of a man trying to obliterate him. My strength was no match for him, not even a tenth of a match, but I had other powers that could render him into servitude. Sprinting in front of him, I jumped, wrapping my arms and legs around him as tight as they would go.

He stilled instantly, the murder dimming in his eyes. Just barely.

“Jude,” I said calmly, waiting for his eyes to shift to mine. They did. “Stop,” I repeated.

I motioned back at Thomas. “He was helping me get out of my costume. I asked him to. He agreed. I wanted to hurry and get changed so I could be with you,” I emphasized, “and unless you wanted to wait a year and a half for me, you should be thanking Thomas.”

Looking between Thomas and me, the lines of his face dimmed. However, his glare landed on me. “Why didn’t you have me help, Luce?” he asked, his jaw clenching.

“Because you weren’t here,” I said, feeling like I was stating the obvious, but if obvious was what it took to talk Jude down from the ledge, that’s what I’d do.

“I’m here now.”

I formed my hands over his cheeks. “Yes, you are,” I said, waiting as his eyes went another shade lighter. His chest was starting to lift and fall in a regular pattern again. “Thanks for the help, Thomas,” I emphasized, glancing back at where he stood, still staring at Jude like he was about to go all nuclear on him again. “Catch up with you later?”

Thomas side-stepped around us, never taking his eyes off of Jude. “Sure, Lucy,” he said, throwing me a tilted smile. “Catch up with you later.”

I smiled my appreciation. “Good night.”

“Bye, Peter Pan,” Jude called after him. “I’ll ‘catch up with you later’ too.”

Thomas was already out the dressing room door, but there was no doubt he’d heard Jude’s latest bout of name-calling threats.

Sighing, I ran both thumbs down his face. “Jude Ryder. What am I going to do with you?” I asked.

It was, perhaps, the most perplexing question I’d ever asked. Nothing was easy about our relationship. Well, nothing but falling hard for each other. Everything else was like trying to swim against a current. You never quite felt like you were making much headway, but the journey made up for the lack of real estate.

Latching onto my hips, Jude planted me back down on the ground. Spinning me around, his fingers worked the satin ribbon free of the last rivets. His hands just barely skimmed my skin, but “just barely” shot bursts of heat deep into my stomach.

“What am I going to do with you, Luce?” he threw back at me, his voice carefully controlled.

The pieces of the man I loved were fitting back together. The rage monster was retreating back into his cage. “Since you’ve almost got me topless, I’ll let you fill in the blanks to that question,” I implied, arching a brow as I turned to face him.

His eyes weren’t liquid like they usually were when we were sharing or about to share an intimate moment. The corners of his mouth weren’t twitching in anticipation. Jude was a pillar of control looking down on me like I’d just behaved like a child.

“Don’t do that again, Luce,” he said, folding the ribbon in his hands before stuffing it into his pocket.

“What?” I said with a shrug, feigning ignorance. I was starting to feel a little belligerent. I didn’t like being talked down to, most of all by Jude.

“You know what.”

I could feel a glower settling into position on my face. “Since I’ve obviously disappointed you, I wouldn’t want to do it again, so why don’t you spell it out for me?”

I cursed myself. The only thing that would result from fighting fire with fire would be some nasty first-degree burns. Jude and I didn’t need our relationship to get any more complicated, so why was I pounding on complicated’s door?

Sucking in a slow breath, I witnessed the effort it took for him to stay calm. He was making the effort to keep this from blowing up into a screaming match‌—‌why wasn’t I?

“Don’t let another man, tight wearing fairy or not, help you out of your clothes again,” he said, his eyes narrowing just enough to know some scalding emotions were firing through him right now. “If you need help out of so much as a sock, you call me, you got it? That’s my job.”

Super. The possessive, over-bearing police were back in town. It seemed as of late, they wanted to take up permanent residence. He could deny it all he wanted, but over-bearing implied he didn’t trust me, and call me a fool, but trust wasn’t only pivotal to a relationship, it was essential.

“Got it, Luce?” he said when I stayed quiet.

God, I loved him. Too much for my sanity’s own good, but I would not be commanded. “No, Jude. I don’t ‘got it,’” I said, a stage away from smoke billowing out of my nose. “So why don’t you go wait outside and let that sink in while I finished getting undressed?

“Alone,” I added before he could open his mouth to object. Because if he did, I wouldn’t be able to say no.

He paused, looking at me with indecision written on his face. Finally, he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll be right outside.”

“Is that so you can scare off any other guys who might help me with my costume, or just because you’re waiting patiently and respectfully for your girlfriend?” I said, turning and heading back over to my bag.

Jude’s sigh was as long as it was tortured. “Both,” he said just above a whisper before he closed the door behind him.

As soon as he was gone, I felt it. Guilt. Remorse. Followed up by a potent dose of regret.

I knew what I was getting into when Jude and I got back together at the start of the year. I went in willingly with both eyes open; I’d gladly gone in. Jude had been through more shit than any one person should and along with that came certain characteristics that could be classified as less than savory.

But you took the bad with the good. And when it came to Jude Ryder Jamieson, there was a surplus of good that always managed to not necessarily wipe the bad clean, but to make it a fair trade. If I was pointing fingers at who was damaged, I might as well turn that finger around, because I was no innocent, flawless flower.

That was part of the beauty of us being together. It was also part of the problem.

I had as many triggers that ticked at my temper and as many ghosts from my past as Jude did. When his anger flamed, mine responded in kind, and vice versa. The last two minutes case in point.

Then, as it always did, the anger I’d felt towards Jude shifted towards me. If I’d taken a time out to take a step inside Jude’s size twelve Converse, what would I have said or done if I’d walked on in some girl assisting him out of his clothes.