by Jamie Pope
“There’s nothing to talk about. I’m going back. I have no other place to go.”
Julian shook his head and walked out and she knew then that he wasn’t going to let this go.
* * *
The next morning Sunny woke up in Julian’s guest room. She had slept deeply and was so comfortable that she didn’t want to get out of bed. She didn’t have to. It was Saturday. She could probably get away with burying her head beneath the pillows and sleeping the day away. But it didn’t matter how long she had slept. Last night had happened. Her place was still a mess. Her most important things had been destroyed; her personal effects rummaged through in the search for drugs or cash.
She opened her eyes and stared at her surroundings. His second bedroom was probably bigger than her entire apartment. It was bright and airy with huge windows overlooking Manhattan. She never thought she’d have set foot in an apartment like this, much less have slept in one.
She forced herself to put her feet on the floor and get out of bed. Julian must have been up already. She could smell the scent of coffee wafting through the bedroom door and when she opened it, she stepped out to see him shirtless and sweaty in his kitchen.
The dull throb between her legs returned. This was getting to be too much. Every time she was near him it happened. She had never been this attracted to anyone.
“Good morning,” she said, trying to keep her voice neutral.
“Good morning.” He came out from behind the counter and took a step toward her. She couldn’t take her eyes off his chest. She knew how it would feel against her, and yet she wanted to experience it again, but this time she wanted to run her lips over it. “How did you sleep last night?”
“Very well. Thank you.”
“I was worried about you.”
“You shouldn’t have been. I’m fine. I promise.”
He shook his head. She knew he didn’t believe her. But it didn’t matter. She had no other choice but to be fine. “I made coffee. After I showered I was going to make eggs, but we can go out for breakfast if you want.”
“We don’t have to go out. I can start cooking breakfast after you get out of the shower.”
“You don’t have to do anything. You’re my guest. You should just relax.”
“I can cook, Jules. I’m not going to have a breakdown if I scramble a few eggs.”
“I like mine over easy,” he said with a grin.
“I can manage that.” She went into his kitchen, walking around the other side of the island so she wouldn’t brush against him. He was all sweaty and she could smell his scent, but it wasn’t a bad smell at all.
He smelled like a man should smell and it was making her want to get even closer to him.
“Do you have a computer and a phone I can use?” she asked him as she opened his refrigerator, so she wouldn’t have to look at him anymore. “My cell phone is dead and I didn’t think to bring my charger with me.”
“In my den. You can use anything that I own.”
“Thank you. I have a few calls to make. I hope someone can come over to do my locks today.”
“Sunny.” He came up behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders. Her heart beat faster. She wanted to push herself closer to him just so she could feel his solid form against her. But she held herself away. “You don’t have to go back just because you think you have no other place to go. You know you can stay here.”
“We both know that I can’t.”
He was quiet for a long moment. “I don’t want you to go back there.”
“I have to go back. I can’t move right now. I can’t afford anything else in the city.”
“You know I can help you with that. I can find you a place. I can pay for it.”
“No.” She turned around to face him. “No! Are you insane? You think I would let you pay my way? I’ve got a degree from an Ivy League school. I don’t need anyone to support me. I can take care of myself.”
“I know, but I wouldn’t be doing this for you. I would be doing it for me. I couldn’t sleep last night because I kept thinking about what could have happened if you were in there when they had broken in. If we hadn’t gone to that party, you would have been.”
She shut her eyes, blocking that thought out. “I can take care of myself.”
She had sworn the last time someone had hurt her that she would never allow herself to feel helpless again. She had learned how to defend herself years ago. “You say that, but I don’t want to hear that they found your body on the news.”
“Shut up!” She pushed him away from her. “Don’t you think I feel violated enough? Don’t you think I feel scared? But I can’t let the fear rule me, or I would never stop being scared.”
He grabbed her waist and pushed her backward until her back hit the refrigerator door. “Push me away.” He grabbed her wrists and pinned them above her head. “Make me move away from you.” He pushed his muscular body all the way against hers. Her nipples went tight. She squirmed against him, which only made things worse. He was so damn strong. All the self-defense moves she had learned had flown right out of her head. But more than that she didn’t want him to move away from her. “Stop me from doing this.” He bent his head, his lips were dangerously close to her but he didn’t close the distance.
The grip on her wrist loosened and his hands came down to touch her body. He slid his hands beneath the T-shirt he gave her to sleep in last night. At first his hands hovered around her hips and then they traveled up to her waist and stomach. His touch made her skin even hotter and her knees nearly buckled.
“Ouch! God damn it.” He pulled away from her and grabbed his arm. “You pinched me.”
“You dared me to move you. I think I did.”
“You did.” He took another step forward and grabbed her again, this time lifting her off her feet. He took her to his couch and lay her there, placing his long hard body on top of hers. “How long could you fight me off? How could you stop me if I really wanted to hurt you?”
He was trying to prove a point, prove how unsafe it was for her to live in her place alone, but what he was doing wasn’t proving his point. She touched the side of his face with the backs of her fingers. “But it’s you, Jules. It’s hard to imagine that you could hurt me when you make me feel so damn good.”
His nostrils flared and anger shot to his eyes and he yanked himself away from her.
“This is not over,” he promised her as he stalked off to his bedroom.
She wasn’t sure if he was talking about this conversation or the heated interaction that had just taken place between them, but she didn’t want it to be over either.
Chapter 9
Julian took Sunny back to her apartment. He helped her clean up and watched her carefully as she held her head up and try to right things. But things weren’t right, no matter how tidy she tried to make them. He saw her last night. He watched her try to pick up the smashed pieces of the cheap barrette that was worthless to anyone else. It was the only tie she had to her past, to her life before foster care, to her mother that abandoned her. At first he didn’t understand why she had been so attached to it. The woman neglected her, probably abused her, but those little pieces of her were more important than anything else. She didn’t seem to care about the stolen laptop or the television that was long gone. She didn’t seem worried about the fact that she could have been hurt if she had been home just an hour earlier. She had cared about saving that connection, having that physical sign of a memory still there.
He realized that she must love her very deeply. He had nothing from his mother. He didn’t even keep a picture of her in his house. There was nothing of hers that he wanted to save. She had left him, just like Sunny’s mother had left her. But the only difference was that Julian could speak to her anytime he wanted. He could go and see her. He could even hear her say that she loved him, which he didn’t believe, but it was still there and it was much more than Sunny had.
She had been so strong throughout this.
He had expected her to break down at one point, to cry, but she didn’t. He could have handled her tears; it would have been preferable than the deep sadness he saw in her eyes. It made him ache. It made him want to hold on to her and not let her out of his sight.
She didn’t want that. She didn’t want his help at all. He felt this wall go up around her. Her smiles didn’t come as easily. She didn’t tease him throughout the day as she normally would. They barely talked, but he didn’t leave her side.
He had gone behind her back once he found out who she had called to install her new locks and paid for stronger ones and an alarm system. He had the technician who installed them tell her that it was all a part of the sale they were running. Sunny had looked at Julian when she heard this, but she didn’t call him on it and he was glad she didn’t argue about it.
He had gone out and bought them pizza, and when he returned to her apartment he had his overnight bag in his hand. He had his laptop in there as well as his iPad. He was expecting her to question him, but she seemed too tired and distracted to pay much attention to what he was carrying.
He wondered if she had thought anymore about that interaction they had this morning. He had almost lost control again. He had almost kissed her and he knew if he would have done that, he wouldn’t have been able to stop. He was a man who prided himself on being in control of his emotions at all times, yet she always made him slip. She had walked out of his bedroom in just his T-shirt, her curvy, bare legs sticking out of the bottom. It was so big on her that it draped off one of her shoulders. He had seen women in nothing at all or the most expensive lingerie, but she was sexier than all of them in that drab olive–colored T-shirt.
They had to work together. He kept reminding himself of that fact. They had to finish what they started, but he could no longer just pretend to be professional because he cared about her too much. He wanted to keep her safe. He wanted her in his sight at all times.
After they had finished dinner he handed her his iPad. “I’ve got all the streaming apps on here. I like to watch something before I go to bed. It helps me unwind. Or we could watch something together on my laptop.”
She frowned at him. “What else is in your bag?”
“Pajamas. My toothbrush. Some clothes for tomorrow.”
“Are you going somewhere after you leave here?”
“I’m not leaving here.” And to prove his point he pulled off his T-shirt and jeans and changed into his sleep pants in front of her.
“I know it’s been a long day, but I don’t remember inviting you to stay over.”
“You didn’t have to invite me to stay over. If you think I’m leaving you here alone tonight after some asshole broke in and destroyed the place, you are out of your damn mind.”
“Julian, I’m fine here. What are the chances he’ll come back? Besides I’ve got better locks now. I’ll be fine.”
“I won’t be fine. I’ll be up all night worrying about you. It will be better for both of us if I stayed here.”
“How long are you planning to stay?”
“Until you agree not to stay here anymore.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“For caring about you? I don’t give a shit.” He got into her bed. It was much smaller than his own. Her entire apartment could fit inside his bedroom, but he wasn’t leaving her. He didn’t care how uncomfortable it was.
Only he wasn’t uncomfortable. Her little place was cozy and, as of right now, he had been with her for over twenty-four hours and at no point had he wanted to be away from her. In the past few weeks he had spent more time with her than he had with the woman he was supposed to marry.
“So you’re just going to get in my bed, like you own the place?”
He nodded. “Does that bother you?”
“Hell yeah, it bothers me.”
“Well, I guess you know how to prevent this from happening.”
“I don’t mind sharing a bed. I had to share one with my foster sister for a year. She was a wild sleeper. I used to wake up with her toes in my nostrils.”
She walked over to her nightstand and pulled out a nightie. He thought she was going to excuse herself to the bathroom, but she didn’t. She stripped off her dress in front of him. She wore plain cotton underwear and a nude-colored bra. He didn’t look away. He couldn’t look away. “How old were you when that happened?”
“Twelve.” She unhooked her bra, revealing her breasts to him for a moment, before she slipped on her nightgown. He put his knee up to hide the monster erection that had formed in his pants. It used to take a lot more than a glimpse of bare breasts to make him hard, but not with her.
“Do you keep in contact with any of your foster siblings?” he asked, trying to keep his attention on the conversation and not how much he wanted her.
“I tried to, but we were all moved around so much that it became too hard.” She went around the apartment, tidying up things, plugging in both their cell phones to charge on the nightstands.
He wondered if this is what it would be like to be married, to be married to her. Would it be this comfortable, this cozy? Would there be this kind of warm anticipation every night? He wanted marriage so that he could share his life with someone. But he had asked a woman he knew wouldn’t give him this feeling.
Sunny climbed into bed beside him.
“You can’t send me away now. If you want to get away from me, you would have to leave.”
“That’s what this is about. You’re hoping to drive me from my apartment.”
“Yes. And do not try to seduce me again. I’m not putting up with it this time.”
“Seduce you? You’ve already seen me naked. My changing in front of you should have no effect.”
“The day I stop responding to a woman’s nude body is the day I’m ready to pass away. Besides, I was talking about that stunt you pulled in the closet.”
“I wanted you to zip my dress! You started that.”
“You have a tattoo and no bra on. How did you think I was going to respond?”
“By zipping up my dress.”
“You should have smacked me when I started touching you.”
“I just wanted to feel good, Julian. With everything that is going on, the opportunity to feel something that made me feel incredible came along and I grabbed it. It was nice to have everything else fade away except you and me and what we were doing.”
She said things like that to him. Things that made him want to give her that feeling every single day.
He could take her away from this. He could change her life. It wouldn’t be hard for him at all and it was on the tip of his tongue to tell her so. But that was ridiculous. He had told himself just the other day that he had needed to stay away from her. She didn’t line up with the goals he had set for himself when he started out at his firm. He had wanted a cultured, independent wife who had her own life that didn’t center around him.
But after meeting Sunny, he wasn’t sure if that life would make him happy in the long run. He no longer knew what would.
“Come closer.” He pulled her to him wrapping his arms around her, liking the way she felt tucked into him. He touched her now wild curls with one hand and stroked down her arm with the other. As his hand traveled up he felt a difference in her skin toward her shoulder. It wasn’t creamy soft there. Her skin was raised, not just a regular scar, but one that seemed more intricate.
He lifted his head and studied the scar. He had seen a hint of the scar before through her clothes, but he had never taken the time to look closely. There were three small circles there. They were burns. They must have been very serious to have scarred like that.
“What happened to you?”
“Nothing.” She shut her eyes and leaned against him.
“Don’t tell me nothing.” He persisted. It bothered him to see that she had been hurt.
“I was burned when I was a child.”
She didn’t say she had gotten burned. I was burned. Someone had done tha
t to her.
“Sunny . . .”
“I was five. It was forever ago. I know it’s early, but I’m exhausted. Can we just go to sleep?”
He needed to know more but what right did he have to ask? Still he felt the need to kiss her there. “Who hurt you? Was it your mother?”
She looked up at him with her huge eyes. There was pain there. He wanted to kill whoever had done that to her. She opened her mouth to speak but his phone rang.
She rolled away from him and he knew her guard had snapped back into place.
“Your phone.”
“Ignore it.”
“I would, but I’ve heard your phone ring before and that ring is different from the normal one. Who is it?”
“My mother.”
“Pick it up.”
“I do not want to speak with her right now.”
“Well, then tell her you can’t talk but pick up the phone when your mother calls you. I sometimes forget how my mother’s voice sounds. Sometimes I think I would give anything to hear it one more time.”
He looked at her for a moment. “You’re good at the guilt.”
“It comes in handy sometimes.”
He answered his phone right before it went to voicemail.
“Hello, Mother.”
“Hello, Julian. I called you at home a couple of times this week. I figured I would try you here.”
“I’m not at home right now. I’m staying with a friend.”
“Oh? Is everything okay with your apartment?”
He glanced at Sunny. “Everything is fine at my apartment. Was there something in particular you wanted?”
“No. I just wanted to talk to you and catch up with you. How are you?”
“I’m fine. Busy. And yourself?”
“Everything is good here. We’re going to Europe at the end of the summer. Your brother is thinking about studying abroad.”
He objected to the term brother. He had met the kid once when he had come to one of his games. They never had a conversation or anything in common. They shared a biological mother because it was clear from that one meeting that she doted on that boy in a way she couldn’t be bothered to do with her other kids. “That’s nice.”