by Red Garnier
“Now try kissing me a little lower.”
He spread his shirt open, fully open, and Molly’s windpipe clamped shut. Her knees wobbled in place. Jules could be a sculpture, he was so defined and so lean. At such a short distance, he looked even more ripped, like a top athlete. Molly could see every square indentation of his washboard abs, every sharp rise and fall of muscle.
A tremor rushed through her, and when she didn’t move, he slipped his hands onto the back of her head and gently urged her toward him. His fingers were long and felt gentle on her scalp, and as she set her palms on his rib cage and bent her head to his collarbone, she felt his fingertips work on her butterfly clasp and undo her hair.
A hot little shiver rushed from the top of her scalp to the tips of her toes as her hair tumbled to her shoulders. Trembling, she lowered her head and set a dry kiss on the V of his neck. Gingerly at first, holding her breath, trying to suppress another tremor building inside her body. Julian stood utterly still, and she wondered if he held his breath, too. Then she heard him softly say, “Go lower.”
Her eyes drifted shut and she set down another kiss, pressing her lips lightly against the tautly stretched skin above his six-pack. She felt the muscles contract under her fingerprints, and her tummy clenched in response. Why did she feel so shaky? Why was her mind spinning inside her cranium? She felt like a teenager stealing a first kiss, like a bad girl misbehaving, which she’d never been before. Of course it was all due to the excitement of making Garrett jealous. She had to remind herself all these emotions were due to the fact that her and Julian’s plan was so good, it was going to work.
“Lower, baby,” he murmured in a thick, raspy voice.
She was so trusting of Julian that she almost automatically obeyed, following his instructions without hesitation, while in the back of her mind she started to wonder how he would get Garrett to see that Molly had kissed his washboard abs, too. Daydreaming of Garrett’s jealous face while a strange liquid fire simmered through her veins, she let her lips wander lower, Julian’s skin hot and silky under her lips…her heart thundering in her ears as she heard him once again rasp, “Lower.” Feeling like she was dreaming, she went lower, her eyes feeling heavy as a strange tremor tingled along her nerve endings, until she heard him unzip his pants.
Startled, she lifted her head in confusion. He was laughing down at her, his eyes sparkling in the shadows, those sensual lips curled at the corners as he zipped back up.
“You’re so innocent, Molls. I was wondering when you’d catch on,” he said.
She smacked his elbow and straightened, already feeling a rush of color climb up her cheekbones. “You jerk!”
She tried pushing him aside but he seized her wrists and yanked her back to him, his laughter lingering in his voice. “No, no, no, not yet, baby. We need to work on you now.”
He rumpled her hair with those long-fingered hands and Molly felt herself clam up, her throat closing with an unnameable emotion. She felt…unsteady. Vulnerable and open to him. Even those feathery touches on her scalp felt special. Electric. Rushing from the roots of her hair to her brain, charging her with inexplicable adrenaline.
As he worked on her hair, the mist of his breath fanned, warm and minty, across her forehead, and she had to use all her effort to fight the impossible flames flicking through her body. His smell was killing her. Dizzying her.
What was happening to her?
This was Julian, not Garrett. Julian.
She sucked in an unsteady breath, and his hands went still on the crown of her head. Their eyes locked in the dark as his hands slid down to her nape as he slowly ducked toward her. Closer. Closer.
She was frozen in place, her voice a breathless whisper. “Julian…what are you doing…?”
“Shh. I just want some of your lipstick on my mouth. Just a little.” His breathing changed as he secured her cheeks between his big hands, and she became aware of the bite of something incredibly large and rigid against her stomach.
“Julian…” she said, turning her head to the side. Their noses brushed accidentally, but rather than pull back, Julian dipped his head even farther and scraped his mouth purposely across hers.
The contact singed.
Her mouth parted on a gasp.
Julian pulled back, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. Then he lowered his head and repeated the motion, scraping his mouth across hers. Her legs went rubbery, her core melting like lava.
A little quiver rippled through her, followed by a surge of desire so sharp and powerful, her world tilted on its axis. Not even Garrett’s kiss had done this to her. Nothing on this earth had ever done this to her. She shouldn’t feel such blazing need swimming through her veins, shouldn’t want to feel more, feel everything.
But she did, goodness, she did.
His nearness intoxicated her, the brush of his sensual lips fascinated her beyond measure, and she felt weak with wanting, had never wanted anything so much as she wanted to be kissed by him. Right now, in this tiny lightless room, this very instant. Kissed thoroughly and deeply by this sex god everyone wanted but no one could ever have. Least of all Molly.
But Julian did not kiss her. Only teased her with the possibility of it. The delicious scent of his body enveloped and dizzied her. It was incredible; this feeling of flying. He was so familiar and at the same time totally new. As if discovering your body could do something you never expected it to. This was how it felt to awaken to Julian John. And that was the only word she could think of. Awaken.
To Julian John.
He just had to kiss her.
Please kiss me.
Her breathing escalated and her lips parted as he scraped his mouth across hers for the third time. She heard a sound come out of herself and almost collapsed in a puddle on the floor when he released her.
“There. I’m probably wearing more lipstick than you are now. Come on, Mo-Mo. Let’s get out of here.”
He went to open the office door, and light from the corridor spilled in, silhouetting his magnificent form. Their eyes met across the gloom while he waited for her to get her bearings. But her knees felt like soup.
Her legs like noodles.
She blinked but couldn’t focus.
She couldn’t even breathe.
She didn’t know what was wrong with her, but her mind was screaming for him to come back, for him to kiss her, for her to kiss him, for her to do anything to be kissed by Julian John. And suddenly when he swung around to leave, she blurted out, “JJ, wait!”
Her heart stopped when he froze, and for a wild instant, all that was audible in the dark room was both their uneven breathing. Their eyes met again—and something electrifying pulsed between them.
He closed the door so slowly her heart almost disintegrated, and then she heard a click as it hit the doorjamb. Darkness swallowed them again, darkness and something wild and untamable. An unbearable intensity charged the air as he took a step forward.
Molly was not thinking right, felt drunk with sensations. With expectation. Anticipation.
“What did you just say?” Julian asked. His voice was very, very soft. Dangerously soft.
Molly held her breath, her lungs near bursting. “I said JJ.”
His eyes shimmered like lanterns in the night, and her heart rattled in her chest and the blood roared in her ears as he took that last step closer.
With slow, deliberate precision, he placed his hands on either side of her head against the back wall and caged her between his arms as he leaned forward. A gravelly sound stole into his voice as he slid his fingers through her loose hair and encircled the back of her head. “Say it to my face, Molly. Say it one more time to my face. I dare you.”
Longing burst open inside her. Hunger. Want. Everything.
She knew this was crazy and wrong and yet she couldn’t help h
erself, couldn’t stop. Her body was trembling, head-to-toe, trembling. He had been playing a game with her and perhaps she wanted to play back, but this was more than a game.
Maybe?
Was it?
She didn’t know anything anymore, except that maybe she should apologize for calling him by his most loathed nickname and just leave.
Maybe she didn’t really want to be kissed by Julian John, because she wanted Garrett. Or maybe she’d truly lost her head tonight, because as she met his gaze in the shadows, she heard herself speak between panting breaths.
“I said JJ, JJ.”
* * *
The silence was deafening.
Julian’s eyes widened, for he was sure that he hadn’t heard right the first time. But this second time, he just couldn’t believe it.
Molly had called him JJ, and he was going to have to make her pay for that. Stat.
In a whiplash move, he yanked her up against him and hoarsely demanded, in a voice as jagged as torn paper, “Do you remember what I told you I would do if you ever, ever called me JJ again?”
Smiling a smile that was all mischief, Molly tilted her back, her breasts rising and falling fast. She nodded slowly, provocatively—tauntingly.
The little she-cat wanted this!
Almost drugged with the thought of exacting his punishment, Julian caressed his hands up her slender arms, savoring the feel of her smooth skin against his calloused palms. “Well, then, I’m going to have to kiss you now,” he purred, the words acting like foreplay as he leaned closer. He could almost taste the gloss on her lips already.
“O-okay, Jules,” she said, almost a squeak as she gripped the rolled-up sleeves at his elbows as though hanging on to him for dear life.
Swamped with every single emotion in the world and close to exploding with wanting her, he cupped her face between his large hands and lowered his head, his heart going a powerful baboom baboom baboom. “‘Okay, Jules’? Is that all you have to say? All right, then, you asked for it, Moo…now you’re getting it good…”
He started easy, her face framed in his grasp as he lightly set his lips on hers, but with that whisper touch alone, lightning streaked across his veins and seared their mouths like fire. Suddenly, that single, wholly erotic fusion of their bodies lit his entire being on fire. He grabbed her closer, and she slid her hands up his bulging arms, their mouths parting hungrily in unison.
Groaning as her plush lips opened for him, he plowed his tongue into her mouth in a thirsty search for hers. Her soft moan tumbled down his throat as she shyly licked him back.
She tasted like peaches. And he loved peaches.
Deepening their kiss, he trailed his open palms down to the small of her back and conformed her curvy body to his. Her breasts softly pressed against his diaphragm, and it drove him crazy when she rubbed the tips of her nipples up against the wall of his chest.
Her nails bit into his shoulders while her mouth eagerly explored his, and when her hips began rocking against his, too, his senses swam with both pain and euphoria. The pain came from his pulsing length pressing against his pants zipper, aching to grind against those luscious hips she taunted him with.
His fingertips dug into her waist as he crushed her tighter to him, and plunged deeper into her mouth, stealing dozens of incredibly sweet and wet tastes of her. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. She tasted pure. And he desperately wanted to make love to her.
Undone by her wildness, he grappled with her hands and lifted them above her head, pinning her against the back wall. This surprised her, and she gasped. He caught the sound and kissed her harder. Wetter. Longer.
His body exploded in chaos as she responded in kind, pulling her arms free and rubbing her hands up his biceps, through his hair, making soft purring sounds against his mouth.
She felt incredible. Incredible.
He had never wanted anything or anyone more in his life. Molly. His tiny, sweet little gypsy. He wanted to hear her come undone for him, to lose control like she made him lose his.
But did she really want this? Did she have any idea how serious he was about this, about her?
“Molly,” he murmured tenderly, then he dived down her neck and twirled a wet path to her delicate collarbone.
“Don’t stop yet,” she mewed in a little helpless plea, her fingertips sliding back into his hair. “Please let me pretend for a little bit.”
His insides twisted with foreboding. “Don’t you dare—” he came back up and shoved his tongue into her mouth, taking all of her taste, taking all that she could give “—pretend that I’m my brother.”
But that tormenting thought now held him back like an iron chain, and he had to rest his forehead against hers with a groan, his breaths jerking in and out as he fought to get a grip. Suddenly, the reminder that Molly was making out with him to make his brother jealous gnawed a hole the size of Texas into his gut.
But her slim arms still clung to him. Her face was still tilted up to his in offering. And he could hardly think straight while she looked up at him as if she adored him.
“You look thoroughly kissed, Molly,” he rasped. He cradled her beautiful face with his big hands, drinking up the dewy desire that softened her features.
She licked her lips, her pupils dilating as her gaze darted from his eyes to his mouth, up and down, up and down. He could barely speak, his voice roughened with painful, dizzying arousal.
“Should we just go out there so my brother gets to see what I’ve been doing to you? He’ll probably think I’ve had my hands all over you this evening.”
She made a little choking sound and dropped her face. “Jules, stop. Please don’t tease.”
Julian’s thighs trembled as he fought for control, fought to keep from doing more, doing everything to her. With her. “I’d just like to know if this kiss was just for Garrett—or because you want me, Molly?”
She kept her head bent, intoxicating him with the smell of raspberry shampoo that wafted to his nostrils. “Everybody wants you, Julian. Everybody. I just can’t believe this. What did we do? This was so insane, so stupid!”
“Shh.” He pinned her against him when she squirmed, his hands firmly curled around her shoulders as he kissed the top of her head and tried to ease her. “If you can’t do this sort of stupid thing with your best friend, then I don’t know who the hell you can do it with.”
She shook her head but nonetheless buried her nose in the crook of his neck. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. All this is your fault! For being such an expert seducer—please don’t let go yet. I just want you to hold me. Jules, you smell so good….”
One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve…
Not enough. He could count to a million and it was not. Enough. Not enough of her. Not enough time. To hold her. Be with her. Drown in her.
A groan of pent-up desire rumbled up from deep within his throat as his fingers clenched around her waist. “I wasn’t seducing you, Molly—but you shouldn’t have tempted me to kiss you.” Unable to stop himself, he recklessly slid his hands upward to engulf her breasts as he heatedly nibbled on her earlobe. “Now I want to kiss you until you’re weak and pliant in my arms. Until you tell me what it is that you really want, because I don’t think you even know what you’re asking for—”
“So! Are you two finished in here—or do we have to call the fire department?”
* * *
The baritone voice that cut through Julian’s delicious, seductive words yanked Molly to full wakefulness. She jerked in Julian’s arms as if she’d just been dumped into the frigid waters off Alaska and straightened to see Garrett—the man she wanted to marry—standing just outside the open door. Landon stood next to him, and while Landon’s expression verged on amusement, Garrett did not look pleased.
And now he’ll think I’m a who
re.
The sudden thought popped into her mind and she almost wanted to groan in self-pity.
Her cheeks glowed hot as Julian pushed her behind him in a stance that reeked of protectiveness, and she was grateful for that. Taking advantage, she hid against his back and frantically struggled to rearrange her dress and hair.
“We’ll be done as soon as you two dopes leave us alone.”
How Julian could sound so calm and collected, she didn’t know, because panic had gripped Molly by the throat and she could hardly even breathe now.
She’d wanted Garrett to imagine she and Julian had shared a little romp this evening. But she had never, ever expected to be caught while doing it.
What had she been thinking? She had clearly been undone by the strange, tantalizing complexity of Julian’s male scent, the desperate desires his mouth evoked, his kisses always somehow bringing the heartbreaking reminder of her night with Garrett at the masquerade. Every time she kissed Julian, her chest began to ache, and not in a good way.
“We apologize, but Mother sent us,” she heard Landon explain to Jules almost apologetically. “Not a task I was looking forward to.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t summon the whole party to come stop us,” Julian grumbled, and with one of his powerful arms, he slammed the door back shut.
Cursing low in his throat once they were alone, he extended an arm to keep the door closed and glanced past his shoulder.
“You okay?”
“Yes,” she said as she arranged herself frantically, wanting the small room to develop an appetite and suddenly swallow her whole. She couldn’t believe Julian had touched her breasts just now.
“The point was to look disheveled, Molls. And you do.”
He sounded calm, almost too calm. When he reached into his pants pocket and handed over her butterfly clasp, Molly reached for it and clipped her hair back as best she could, her hands still trembling when she finished.
She sighed dejectedly.
What Julian had said made sense, of course. But she felt incredibly guilty and maybe still a little aroused. The things he had been saying to her before they were interrupted? The things he had been saying while he was cupping her breasts?