“Yes,” she admitted. “It does.”
Elliot leaned over the side of the island and pressed his lips to hers. Hers were soft and full, and they moved easily against his. He wondered if he’d ever get tired of kissing her.
“Okay,” he said to her truthful response. Who was he to tell her if she should or shouldn’t buy too many clothes? It wasn’t any of his business. “Are you ready to eat?” Without waiting for her answer, he put the sauté pan with the veggies in the middle of the island and drained the pasta. He plopped that next to the veggies and handed her a plate. “Eat whatever you’re comfortable with, Shorty. I won’t be offended.”
Elliot heaped pasta and plenty of veggies on his plate and walked into the open living room, sitting on the couch. “I’m not much on formality,” he called. “When you’re ready, come on over here and sit with me.”
He watched as she debated the food he’d put out, ultimately taking a little of each and some grapes from her purse. She sat next to him on the couch, copying his position and propping her feet on the coffee table. Her high heels looked comical next to his bare feet.
“So, tell me about all those tattoos,” Elliot asked.
“Not much to tell.” Julia shrugged as she ate a grape.
“C’mon,” he scoffed. “You don’t seem like the bad-girl tattoo type.”
“Is that the only kind of person that gets tattoos?” she asked. “Kind of an old-fashioned notion. Must be showing your age.”
He shrugged one shoulder amiably and took another bite. “I’m not trying to offend you. I just didn’t expect you to have a bunch of tattoos.”
“Should I expect you to have a bunch of tattoos?” she asked.
“You’ve seen me naked so you know I don’t have any. Does that bother you?”
“That’s not the point.” She rolled her eyes. “Should I assume because you’re a big, manly man that you do have tattoos while, I, the meek woman would have none?”
He let out a loud laugh. “Shorty, not too long ago you devoured my naked body with your eyes. This morning you let me touch you until you came apart in my arms. I’m pretty sure I’d never use the word meek to describe you.”
“I’m just making a point. I don’t like being pigeonholed as one type of person or the other.”
“Point taken,” he said. “Now tell me about them. What do they mean? Where did you get them?”
“I know an artist in Maryland. I built his website years ago. The tattoos were his payment.”
“And?” he prodded.
He’d seen her eat the entire bunch of grapes, but she hadn’t touched any of the dinner he’d made. She put her plate on her lap and looked over at him.
“They represent who I am. Who I was. Where I’ve been. They’re my life up to now. Or seven years ago, as it were. I got them when I was eighteen.”
“So, the Peter Pan scene?” he asked as he shifted sideways toward her, his empty plate left on the coffee table.
“Where I wanted to be back then.”
“Neverland,” he confirmed. “Home of the Lost Boys.”
“Something like that,” she agreed. “Second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning.”
“And the stuff on top. The haunted house and the portrait?”
“My grandparent’s house, where I grew up. And me, when I was a kid.”
“Why does it say Rest in Peace?”
She looked at him so intensely he knew he’d overstepped her boundaries.
“Because she died,” she answered quietly before grabbing both of their plates and heading to the sink in the kitchen, leaving him sitting there watching her walk away. “You don’t have to look so freaked out,” she told him from the sink, her back to him. “It’s an ode to the death of my childhood. Where my first life ended and my second life began.”
Elliot got off the couch and leaned his back against the counter while she shut off the water and wiped her hands with his dishtowel.
“Is the second life better than the first?”
“The second life was awful. The worst time in my life,” she told him. “I don’t like to talk about it.”
“So, why isn’t there an ode to your second life?”
“There is,” she said, her lips turning down as her eyes turned sad and wouldn’t meet his. “Is this what we’re doing all night? Giving me the third degree? Because if it is, I’m ready to go home.”
He’d pushed too hard. If he pushed any harder, he’d lose her altogether.
“Sorry, Shorty. I just find you so interesting, I want to know everything there is to know.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her. “I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair.
She let him hug her for much longer than he thought she would, but eventually she pulled away. She shocked him even more by pulling his head down to kiss him briefly.
“What are the chances you want to talk about your childhood?” she asked him.
“Slim to none.”
“And Slim just left town?” Julia finished.
Elliot laughed. “Something like that.”
7
Elliot had brought her home that night and had kept her company for a short while, but hadn’t spent the night. He’d put his arm around her on the couch, nuzzled her neck with his nose, and kissed her good-night, but he’d left at the end of the evening.
That night, for the first time in her new home, she was finally able to spread her things out in her new office and get to work.
She was in the middle of a turning point in her life. So many things were happening all at once. Not just the sale of H-Surf, which was an enormous undertaking all in itself, but the charity Conquer, she created, was growing faster than she could have ever imagined. She’d also picked up the new construction prototype to build, was trying to rework a trip to Dubai that wasn’t going to fit into her schedule anymore, and wanted to take a quick but needed trip to London to see her father, and bag out on a meeting Kelsey had set up for her in San Francisco to oversee a project she had no interest in. Kelsey was busy getting her condo and her office set up there so Julia swore she wasn’t going to bother her. The problem was that she couldn’t stop working on the prototype construction software.
After speaking with Stephanie Young, a creative former juvenile delinquent hacker turned programming guru, Julia’s mind was running wild with ideas for this software. She’d been working non-stop since Elliot had left her, even knowing that they were working in the house around her. She was so wrapped up in the build, jotting down notes and writing code, that she barely had time to look up. There were so many details she needed to iron out: how it would work and who would want to use it. Would it be by subscription or would the buyer want to make it universal to their site?
She’d emailed her finance guy to have him draw up a few different business models to present to any potential buyers when the time came, and to present to the Williams brothers as options for how they wanted to proceed. He’d emailed her back and she was blown away by the numbers he’d projected. If she could get Williams Construction that much money for the software, she would be pleased. They’d been very forthcoming with their ideas, from the contracting side of things to the consumer side. They’d talked about building codes and having options to search for the most environmentally friendly materials available. All day, she alternated between contacting her team of professionals about potentially selling the software and actually building the software. That was saying nothing about the organization of the sale of H-Surf which was looming over her shoulder, too overwhelming to even begin to comprehend.
She felt like she was on the brink of something so incredibly amazing.
“Eat, Shorty.”
She heard the voice like it was coming through fog. Somewhere out there, beyond where all her ideas were swirling, someone was calling her name. She switched computers, moving from the small one she’d been working on to a larger one that she had her email on. Easily enough, she sen
t pages of source code and algorithms to Stephanie to see what she thought and then moved back to the small computer. Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she typed code after code, knowing that this would make a difference to someone somewhere.
“Julia.”
She kept on. She didn’t need anything right now. She didn’t need anyone. She was safe where she was, working behind her desk doing what she knew how to do. She didn’t want to stop, because when she stopped working, life happened, and that’s where she knew she was adrift. Work she knew. Computers and programming she knew. People and relationships? She was an epic failure and she wasn’t ready to come out of hiding yet.
Elliot picked up his phone and dialed Kelsey’s cell.
“Elliot? Is everything okay?”
“She’s still there and won’t answer me. I put food down, she won’t touch it. I call her name, she won’t answer me.” Frustration had his jaw clenched as he waited for her answer.
Julia had been working when he’d gotten to work in the morning and he’d noticed that she was in the clothes she’d been in the night before. She hadn’t looked up when he’d said hello, but he’d assumed she didn’t hear him. That was, until she did the same thing to Tucker, Kelsey, and Cole. She’d worked relentlessly through the morning, hunched over her desk, big black headphones wrapped over her ears.
At lunch, he’d sat in a chair in front of her desk, waiting for her to look up. It had been a blow to his ego that she hadn’t noticed him at all, though Kelsey had assured him that it was just the way Julia worked. She threw herself into things, Kelsey said.
By six o’clock, she’d been working longer than he had with no food, no drink, and no bathroom break.
“Hang on,” she told him. “Let me email her.”
A minute later, Julia swung herself from one computer to the other again and then back.
“You should be all set. She’ll be fine, Elliot. She’s just working.” Kelsey was quiet for a few seconds. “If you hang around tonight, keep an eye on her. She tends to sleepwalk when she’s overtired.”
A second later Julia looked up at him. Her face was withdrawn and pale and she looked exhausted. She blinked at him, like an owl, for a few seconds.
“Hi,” she mouthed. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Hi.” This time it was more of a rasp.
Elliot pushed a bottle of water toward her and watched as she drank the whole thing.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded and rubbed her eyes. “Yeah, sorry,” she told him. “I got caught up doing some work,” she looked around. “What time is it?”
“Six,” Elliot told her.
“No wonder I’m starving.” She unfolded her legs from what looked like an uncomfortable cross-legged position, stood up, and stretched her arms overhead. Her sweater lifted, giving him an eyeful of her smooth, milky-white stomach. “Let’s get something to eat,” she said as she came around the desk and held her hand out to him, ignoring the food he’d put out for her.
Wary, Elliot put his hand in hers and followed her to the kitchen.
“Have anything for me in there?” he asked as she rooted around the refrigerator.
“How’s chicken parm?” she asked, pulling out a foil container.
“Sounds great.” He took the container from her and looked around her cupboards until he came up with her plates. “Where’d this come from?”
“Kelsey must have brought it.”
“She won’t mind if I eat it?” Elliot asking, his finger stopping in midair as he was about to press the button on the microwave.
“No,” Julia told him as she took out her things to make a salad. For the first time, he saw her take out a block of cheese.
“Want to check out the upstairs after we eat?” he asked while he waited by the microwave.
“Is it done?”
He laughed. “Not even close.”
She nodded, considering, as she added things into a huge salad bowl. “Then, no, I don’t want to see it. I’m having a hard time not having my bedroom, and I don’t like where my clothes got moved to.”
“Not liking the little bedroom in the back?” he asked as he took his plate out of the microwave and sat at the kitchen island.
“No,” she muttered. “I went in there last night and couldn’t stand it. I felt like my bed was touching every wall.”
“We decided we’d get all the demo done and then make the spare room the priority for now,” he continued when Julia looked up sharply. “We figure the closet and master bathroom will take the longest, so if we finish the spare room, at least the demo will be done up there, but you can be somewhere where there’s a little more space.”
He said nothing when she cut some of the cheese from the block, tossed it into the salad, and threw the rest away.
“Did you get any sleep last night?” Elliot asked as they ate companionably.
“I worked,” she told him with a shrug. “I got myself on a roll and couldn’t stop.”
“That was some roll,” he muttered.
“I know, I got so much done. You should see the projected numbers on this software, Elliot.” She looked up at him and the excited pride on her face was enough to stop any comments about her overworking herself.
“The software you’re selling?” he asked.
Her brow crinkled. “The contractor’s software. The one we’ve been talking about.”
“You’re doing that now?” he said surprised. “Why wouldn’t you wait until you’re done with the H-Surf sale?”
“I’ve got some really great leads on pitching the prototype. I hate to lose my momentum.” She shook her head and went back to her salad. “I know I should wait,” she agreed. “I just can’t help myself. I feel like, I don’t know how to explain it, like I have to do this right now. Like, I’m going to miss something if I wait.”
“Like, what if someone beats you to it?” he asked, trying to understand.
She nodded a little. “That. But, what if someone beats me to it and doesn’t do it right? What if all these ideas get stuck in my head forever?”
He got what she meant on the most basic level. Sure, having someone beat her to the idea or the money would suck, he understood competition.
“Well, your big deal is only a couple days away, right? London tomorrow, sale later in the week.” He tried to sound encouraging, even though they hadn’t talked much about it at all. “Are you nervous?”
“Yes,” she admitted flatly, not looking up at him.
“What are you nervous about?”
“You’re grilling me again,” she pointed out, her cheeks turning pink at the accusation.
“So, grill me back,” he invited with a shrug. “Ask away.”
“Tell me about your life before you were adopted.”
A fist grabbed his throat and squeezed and he narrowed his eyes at her. “No.”
She shrugged uncaring and took her plate to the sink.
“I don’t need to ask you any questions. I already know everything about you,” she said, her back stiff as she looked out the window into the backyard.
“What does that mean?”
“What’s your plan tonight?” she asked. “That’s a question I don’t know the answer to.”
“Are you changing the subject?” he growled, annoyed.
“Yes.”
“Did you get any sleep last night?” Elliot asked without answering.
“No.”
“Then how about our usual?”
“I need a bath,” she said.
He was quiet for a second, considering. “Me too.”
His voice was low and husky, and as annoying as her non-answers were, sparring with her got him hard. He’d gone from picturing her on the couch watching TV in her yoga pants to underneath him in just her tiny panties. Now he’d moved straight to her naked in the bath.
“I have a big bathtub,” she told him quietly, confirming that she was thinking the same thing he was.
He knew just
how big her bathroom was. It was one of the rooms she wasn’t touching in her remodel because it was big and beautiful with an antique claw-foot tub.
“Is that an invitation?”
She finally turned around to face him, her fingers fidgeting at her side. “Yes.”
Elliot walked to her, put his hands on the sides of her face, and kissed her long and hard until her hands were gripping his. He finished with a kiss on her nose. “I’ll let you scrub my back.”
She went into the back bedroom while he veered off into the downstairs bathroom. Between the kitchen and the bedroom, it was big enough for a large antique claw-foot tub and a marble vanity. He turned the water on and rooted through some of Julia’s lotions and potions on the countertop. She had makeup and lotions and perfumes, brushes and sponges and tweezers and a million other gizmos, but not one drop of bubble bath. He rummaged under the sink and hit the jackpot. There were tons of bottles of bubble bath and lotions down there.
Elliot smiled when he found the orange-scented one that she must favor and poured some in the tub and watched the bubbles form. He stripped himself down to his skin and lowered himself down when it was about half full, facing the door so he’d see her when she came in. The smell and intense warmth of the water had him sighing and closing his eyes before he knew it.
“You’ll drown like that,” Julia said.
He opened one eye and then the other as he looked his fill while she leaned, unashamed, in the doorway. She was in nothing but a bra that pushed her breasts up and offered a really nice view of cleavage, with a matching set of panties, her tattoos colorful against the white of the wall. The bathwater was about the height of his chest now, telling him that he had clearly dozed off for a moment.
“You’re beautiful,” he told her. She’d put her hair up into a big messy bun on top of her head, her green eyes bright in the light bathroom. Her light skin and delicate pink bra set made her seem like the epitome of sweet innocence, which he knew wasn’t the case.
She was passionate and curious, wild when she let go. She was everything he’d ever found sexy in his life in a package he’d never expected.
Elliot: The Williams Brothers Page 11