by Zoe York
“I honestly wouldn’t care if we stumbled out of here smelling like rose petals, Jules.” He squeezed a dollop into his hand and warmed it between his palms before slicking the gel over her shoulders and down her back.
He did his job, washing all the planes of her body before tugging her close, his hands sliding up her belly to cup her breasts as her bottom settled right where he wanted it.
“This is why I love how tall you are,” he whispered, rocking them together. “We fit together perfectly.”
She turned her head slowly and even as he closed his eyes against the steamy spray of the shower, he found her mouth no problem.
Kissing Julie was already second nature to him.
And he was more than ready to take it to the next level.
— —
Maybe it was the steam, or the man, or the real life realization of her fantasies from the last two weeks, but Julie felt like she was having an out of body experience as they toweled each other off and moved as one to her bed.
They'd done this once before and been interrupted. This time there would be no phone call.
This time, every inch of taut, tanned skin was hers to play with for hours.
He crawled onto the bed, following her as she scrambled backwards. Like a panther, sleek and dark and powerful, but she was pretty eager prey.
He ducked his head halfway up her body and groaned as he ghosted his lips around her belly button. Her legs trembled against his forearms, bracketed on either side of her thighs.
She’d imagined this view—him on top of her, all solid muscle and lightly dusted hair in the right places. She couldn’t stop staring at his corded forearms. Was this how he felt about her boobs or hips or legs? Like they were body part candy?
Reaching out, she stroked her fingertips along the barely damp skin, enjoying the way his muscles bunched beneath her touch. He always reacted, like he was surprised at the contact.
“Come here,” she breathed, and it was a damn hard ask, too, because he’d been about to nudge her legs open, and she wanted that so, so much.
But she wanted even more to tell him something important.
His lips quirked, like he couldn’t quite believe she’d just stopped him from going down on her.
“Just for a minute,” she said, shifting restlessly. “Then I want you to continue with whatever awesome plan you have.”
“To make you scream?”
“Yeah. That plan. A-plus.”
That earned her a grin and he pushed up again. Just the sight of him like that, big and bare and all hers, looming above her and still she felt totally safe….it stole her breath away.
She reached up and twined her arms around his neck. Between them, his erection bobbed against her belly and she tried her best not to be distracted by the heavy weight of him. The anticipation would make it all the sweeter.
“Right up until I met you, like, the very second I met you, I thought I wanted to swear off men for a while. And then you grinned at me, and somehow I knew I’d just been looking at the wrong men for far too long. I didn’t want to let this opportunity to get to know a different man, a better man, pass me by.” She swallowed hard, the full weight of that honest confession suddenly heavy in her throat. Without meaning to, she’d just given him a lot of power over her heart. Because if this was just something casual for him, it would probably kill her a little.
“When I asked you before,” he said softly, fitting his body tight to hers. He kissed her, hard and fast, then rested his forehead against hers. “I was hoping that might be the case. I wasn’t sure. But I gotta say, I’m pretty relieved right now. It’s going to make telling you that this is something special for me a lot less emotionally risky.”
He grinned as she protested, then kissed her again. This time, she was the one taking everything he gave her and more. “You’re a jerk to let me swing like that for a second,” she whispered breathlessly between kisses. “I wasn’t sure if it was saying too much.”
“Awwww, Jules. When I fall head over heels in love with you, I’m sure I’ll be terrified.”
“You think?”
“I know.” It was just teasing. Something two people who liked each other a lot could be comfortable in saying right before they had sex.
But when he reached for a condom and sheathed himself, and she welcomed him inside her for the first time, it didn’t feel like sex. It didn’t feel light or teasing or fun.
As she silently cried out from the unbearable wonder of being filled to the brim, and he dropped his head to her shoulder and took a ragged, broken inhale, it felt absolutely real. Intense and perfect and hot and wet and all those good things, but also very real.
It should have been terrifying, the way her entire soul shifted when he surged into her. As she wrapped her legs around his waist and hugged him right into the very core of her being.
Her heat was his home. His strength gave her faith. And as they moved together, figuring out each other’s body and the way they liked to be loved, she felt something new and astonishing grow from inside.
Hope. It was bright and sharp, and probably a total hallucinogenic side effect of being fucked sideways by a Navy SEAL, but she’d take it.
Because in this moment, she wasn’t the Julie who always got it wrong.
She was Jules, who deserved all of this and more.
CHAPTER NINE
Jason couldn’t move.
If he did, the sleeping beauty sprawled on top of him might wake up, and given that he’d robbed her of most of her sleep the night before, that seemed cruel.
He grinned to himself.
After their first, emotional round of sex, things had gotten playful. They’d played ten rounds of This or That, which was a thinly veiled attempt to figure out what the other liked in bed.
With Julie, the answer for him was everything. Her going down on him—awesome. Him going down on her—even more so. Fingers and mouths and endless stretches of sensitive skin…it had all been seriously fantastic.
And the weekend had just begun.
She shifted to the side, her soft skin rubbing against his hand as she went, and his dick perked up. Selfish jerk. He grinned and tried to think of something to make it go down, but she’d already stiffened in awareness.
“You’re awake,” she mumbled.
“Habit.”
A yawn rolled through her as she lifted her head and gave him an adorably bleary look of surprise. “Even on your days off?”
“It’s just easier that way, maybe. Or maybe I’m a natural morning person. I’ve been up at the crack of dawn every day for twelve years now.”
She yawned again and snuggled closer, but her hand circled his erection and promised not every part of her was still sleepy.
“You don’t need to—”
She cut him off. “You live six hours away and we both have demanding jobs. Who knows when I’m going to get non-stop access to you again? I want to. Every second of the day, I promise.”
He rolled toward her and lifted her leg on top of his, so they were facing each other and she was open for him to return the gentle, rousing strokes. She was already wet and it didn’t take much to have her rocking against his questing hand.
With each firm stroke, she tugged him closer to release. His balls drew tight and that primal need to rut took over, banishing embarrassment about noises and breathing. She stared at him, unblinking, her lips parted and dusky pink as he slid one, then two fingers inside her.
“Just like this?” he asked and she nodded, eyes wide. “Come for me, then.”
“You, too.”
“I’m right there.” And he was, he could feel it inside him, tight and desperate. “Your hand, Jules. Oh, shit, your hand. Yes….”
She came a second before him, her ending body writhing against his, and when that first jolt of bliss shot through him, he had a split second thought of oh shit, the mess before his mind went blank and twitching, perfect pleasure took over.
Sometimes, a simple hand job was
exactly what a guy needed to start the day right.
Julie kissed his shoulder as she rolled him onto his back. His belly was sticky, but she disappeared for second and the next thing he felt was a warm washcloth cleaning him up.
“You’re very, very good to me,” he muttered, his throat thick.
“I’m going to feed you chocolate chip cookies for breakfast, too.” She laughed as she climbed off the bed and moved away from him. “Come on!”
So she might not be a natural morning person, but when she was up, she was up.
He blinked his eyes open and stared up at the slanted ceiling for a minute. Okay. Time to keep his hands to himself for a few hours.
Like, at least one. Maybe two, tops.
He pulled on his jeans and headed downstairs, where he found her in the kitchen, in his t-shirt and a pair of navy blue panties covered in snowflakes.
She was making coffee and whistling tunelessly.
Fucking adorable.
“What can I do?”
She pointed over her shoulder. “Milk and cream in the fridge, grab whichever you prefer. And the cookies are in the tub on the counter there.”
He grabbed both cartons from the fridge, in case she wanted milk—he’d make do with either as needed, or drink his coffee black, but cream was nice. Setting them on the counter next to her, he paused long enough to kiss the back of her neck before he went back for the cookies.
They ate standing up, side by side against the counter. Quiet companionship, and it was damn nice.
When was the last time he’d gotten ready for the day like this, with a woman who intrigued him so much? Who he wanted to spend time with, doing anything and everything?
Like she was reading his mind, Julie turned and looked at him. “What do you want to do today?”
“Your city, babe. You tell me.”
“We could go to the farmer’s market.”
He nodded. “We could.”
“Do you want to?”
“Do you want to?”
She laughed. “Are we going to play this game all morning?”
“Only until you tire of it and tell me what you really want to do.”
She narrowed her eyes and ripped off another small chunk of cookie. She had the most delicate way of eating. He’d noticed it the night before with the burger, and thought that was about the extra-messy food and being careful. But with a cookie?
This was something special about her. A quirk.
He liked that he’d noticed. He wanted to discover more, and not just this weekend.
“I actually need to go dress shopping.” She wrinkled her nose. “Is that an awful way to spend time?”
“You want me to sit outside a change room and watch your bare legs hop in and out of various tiny dresses? That’s like my number three fantasy. Although, you know, in my fantasy you eventually need help with a zipper, and then it devolves from there into a X-rated sexfest. But yeah, I’m good with dress shopping.”
She laughed. “I’ll keep the zipper danger in mind.”
“I can be good. I’m practically a boy scout.”
“Were you?”
“A boy scout?” He grinned. “Nah. My family wasn’t…we didn’t do organized activities like that.”
A frown tried to tug her eyebrows together and she fought it back. She was good at that, the polite, public face. But they were alone and if she wanted to know more about him, that was her right. He’d been inside her body, she could get inside his head. It was only fair.
“We didn’t have extra money for stuff like that. We didn’t feel poor, really, but in hindsight my parents struggled to make ends meet. But they always figured it out, and I had no clue until I was grown up. Good childhood, really, just…basic.”
She set her coffee down and turned to give him her full attention. “Are you close with your family?”
“My younger brother…yeah. My parents not so much. I mean, I love them, and like to visit them once or twice a year if I can. But they moved to a retirement community in Florida when my brother joined the army, and now we don’t have a lot holding us together anymore. No family home, that kind of thing.”
“That’s too bad,” she said softly.
He shrugged. “They did right by us, got us through high school and into the military. And those years were hard on them. My mom cleaned houses and my dad worked in a tool and die shop. Now that they’re retired, they’re finally living their own lives.”
“Hmmm.” It was a simple noise, non-judgemental, but he could tell she wanted to say more. He wanted her to, as well.
“You don’t think they should?”
She lifted one shoulder. “Not my place to say. And no, of course they should live as much as they can, of course.”
“But?”
“It’s kind of sad that in hindsight, all that young family stuff was hard, I guess.”
“That’s reality.”
— —
Julie had never had a strong opinion about raising children before. In theory, she wanted kids, of course. With the mythical rich husband she’d been hunting for the last few years, too. And when she’d finally convinced herself that was a stupid, futile fantasy life that was holding her back from being happy in the here and now…in walked Jason.
So she couldn’t really explain why she was reacting so strongly to his story, but she wanted to wrap his entire family in her arms and love them.
She wanted to love him, for the tough little guy he’d once had to be, and the seriously tough man he’d grown into.
“I get it,” she said softly. “I didn’t have a warm and fuzzy childhood, either.”
Now it was Jason’s turn to scowl, and it dawned on her that they both wanted more for the other than they thought they had a right to want for themselves.
That was pretty screwed up thinking, and she said as much. “I know, it’s weird that we’re both just kind of okay with that, isn’t it?”
His frown deepened. “It’s not like you can change the past, but I look at you and think, who wouldn’t want to…” He trailed off, and the silence between them grew heavy.
“Little you deserved a lot more, too,” she whispered. “Not stuff, I mean. Not Boy Scout lessons or whatever. Just…more…”
“Love.” The word was gruff and foreign-sounding.
“Yeah.”
“Do you…” He huffed a laugh and shook his head, looking away. “Wow, this is deep and way too much for early Saturday morning.”
She laughed with him and slid her arm around his waist. It was too soon, but she hoped that if they progressed in their relationship, he’d find the courage to ask her whatever he was going to ask her. Something told her that her answer might surprise them both.
CHAPTER TEN
Shopping with Jason was way more fun that she’d thought it would be. He had really good taste, for one thing, and the whole changing room thing turned out to be totally hot, knowing he was on the other side of the door and she was stripping down to just her underthings to try on each dress.
“What’s this for,” he’d asked her as she modelled the first dress.
“A wedding. A fellow flight attendant. It’s like all of my friends are dropping like flies. So I’ve already worn my favourite dresses a few times, and the same group of people go to these weddings, right?”
“This is when it’s good to be a guy. Dress uniform or suit. Easy.”
“Hold that thought, I’ll try on the next one.”
And so it went, through six more dresses. Easy conversation, gentle teasing, and a few helpful zips that sent shivers racing through her body.
When she was done, she came out of the change room holding her top two choices—a black minidress with cap sleeves and a daring drop in the back, and a deep blue strapless dress that just grazed the tops of her knees. “Which one?”
He took his time considering them, his gaze flitting back and forth a few times before he pointed to the blue. “That one. Your shoulders look amazing i
n it, and as much as I love your legs, I don’t want you sharing that much of them with the world.”
Her mouth dropped open and she made a strangled sound. “You Neanderthal!”
He shrugged, the look on his face pleased and completely unapologetic. “You asked. Plus that one will stand out. How many other black dresses do you have?”
Too many. He was right. “I’ll need shoes.”
His eyes twinkled. “That’s fantasy number seven.”
— —
Jason rubbed his hand over his jaw as Julie took a detour into a candle store to get a present for a girlfriend. He hadn’t shaved today—he never did on his days off, or if he was in the field. It was a decent perk about being a SEAL, not having to follow the military dress regs as closely as others did.
The whole saving the world and being bad-ass helped, too.
But today, it seemed his sole purpose was to carry shopping bags and offer fashion advice, and to his great surprise, he was having a lot of fun.
He hadn’t lied to Julie—the changing room fantasy was real. But in his head, shopping would take an hour, tops.
They’d been at it for nearly three. His stomach was about to riot, but other than that, he was pretty content.
Her tall, curvy form caught his attention as she made her way back to him, and he pulled her close for a gentle kiss as soon as she was within grabbing range.
“What was that for?” she whispered as she gently rubbed some lipstick off his lips.
“Sometimes I just want to kiss you, babe.”
Her lips turned up at the corners. “Okay.”
Yeah. Okay. His chest was all warm and fuzzy. Shit. He was in the best kind of trouble.
And so the rest of the weekend went, with lots of kissing and cuddling and discovering shared passions: Thai food, board games, travelogue audiobooks and the dangerously addictive trap of watching funny animal videos on YouTube.
When he left late Sunday afternoon for the long drive back to San Diego, it was harder than he thought. They’d kissed goodbye at least a dozen times, and the last time had been sweet and slow, interspersed with promises on both sides that they’d do it again soon.