by Amelia Wilde
That’s another possibility.
Then a worse possibility dawns on me, as I sit down on the bed, then stand back up. He could withdraw his payment, and then I’d be back where I started with Darla.
A place like Overbrook isn’t going to provide my father with extras like a private aide if they’re not even getting paid for his basic care. They’re not. I fought to get him a bed there because they’re truly excellent with cases like his, but there’s nothing they can do about being short-staffed. If I want him to be close to me—at least as close as Forest Hills—then it’s simply going to cost more than a facility upstate. And I want him close to me.
My throat goes tight at the thought of moving him again. On top of all this, it was the only place he agreed to live. I’ll keep my chin up, Julie Girl, but I’m not going to that decrepit place upstate. Terror had filled his eyes, and I saw there the memory of his own father, fighting every day to get out of the place where my parents had admitted him near Lansing. They couldn’t afford anything else and save for a retirement that turned out to be short-lived.
I can’t do that to him.
I’m so lost in that thought that I don’t hear the first alert from my phone, a gentle beep.
It’s only when it comes a second time that it registers in my mind, and I leap up from the edge of the bed and lunge for the phone.
I’ll be there in ten minutes.
It’s the longest ten minutes of my entire life.
I run to the closet, yanking out a tank top and a pair of shorts, and then skid into the bathroom so quickly that I stub my toe on the doorframe, spending a minute clutching it and muttering shit, shit, shit, under my breath. I wash my face, then decide I can’t do this without at least a little makeup on, and reapply some. I stop at the lipstick. We’re not going back out tonight.
I thought it might come in the form of a phone call, or a text conversation, but my heart is all the way out to my fingertips, my pulse beating its way through my veins. Weston Grant is coming here.
My studio is spotless, as usual—in an apartment this small, it makes me crazy to have shit lying around—so I have practically nothing to occupy my mind.
Several eternities later, the intercom buzzes.
I miss the button the first time, but on the second try, static crackles over the line. “Hello?”
“It’s me.” His voice turns me on even through the intercom.
“Come up.” I press the door button.
And then I wait.
It’s a third-floor walk-up, but now time hurtles forward. It only seems like a few seconds before there’s a gentle knock at the door. My hand is already on the knob when it comes, but I wait a few heartbeats before I open it. I’m totally cool. Totally calm.
Weston stands in the hallway, feet firmly planted on the industrial carpet, no jacket, arms crossed over his chest. The grin he gives me is half caution, half amusement.
“So,” he says, like it’s the most natural thing in the world for a man like him to be standing in a place like this. “You wanted to talk to me?”
22
Weston
I don’t know how the hell she does it, but even in a tank top and a pair of lounge shorts, Juliet looks like she’s ready to walk a runway at New York Fashion Week.
“I’m not crazy.” She’s still standing in the doorway, with her hand on the door. “I know it probably seems that way.”
“Can I come in?”
A pink blush rises to her cheeks. “Of course.” She steps back into an apartment smaller than my master bedroom, and her eyes dart over the furnishings as I enter, ending up in the middle of the tiniest kitchen the world has ever seen. Juliet’s father’s space at Overbrook is bigger than this. “I wasn’t expecting you to…you know, come over.”
“I assumed you wanted to talk in person.”
“Most people would have called.”
I grin at her again, and she moves behind me to shut the door, flipping the lock. “I’m not most people.”
“Don’t I know it?”
She comes back past me into the apartment and moves toward the living area. Half of it is taken over by an immaculately made full-sized bed, throw pillows arranged just so, and the other half features a loveseat and a small flat-screen TV. At the foot of her bed is a desk that I’ve seen in at least a hundred TV shows, neatly stacked with books. There are more books on a low shelf underneath the desk.
Juliet takes a deep breath. “I wanted to talk because….” Her eyes lock on mine, and a familiar thrum goes through my body. “I’m not used to men like you.”
“I get that distinct impression, Juliet James.”
“I don’t know what to do with you.”
“It seems like you do know.” There’s nowhere else to stand but a couple of feet in front of her, but the discussion is seeming more intimate by the second. “I get that you want to be independent, but it’s all right to accept a gift or two in one’s lifetime.”
She squares her shoulders. “I don’t want to be independent. I am independent. And I do things this way because it’s the only way.”
There’s a fire in her eyes that warns me not to argue, so I don’t, even though I know it’s not the only way. “All right.”
“But there’s something about you….” Juliet’s voice drops, and I realize I’m looking at her with no filter, no walls up. Her shoulders are tense, and her back is ramrod straight, but the vulnerability in her eyes takes my breath away. “There’s something about you, Weston, that makes me want to break all of my rules. But it would be a mistake.”
“Would it?” I step closer. Her hair is down, freed from its flawless arrangement for our date at the Skyline, and I run my fingers through it. Juliet leans her head into my hand, closing her eyes. “Why would it be such a mistake?”
She opens her eyes and looks up at me, her gaze a deep pool of uncertainty. “Because you can never depend on anyone else. Don’t you know that already?”
“I don’t know that I do.” I keep my voice low. I don’t want to startle her, force her to raise her defenses. “I haven’t had to depend on other people in a long, long time.”
Her mouth quirks in a smile. “I guess you wouldn’t need to.” Then her expression turns deadly serious. “But I don’t need to, either. That’s why I want to pay you back for what you did for my father. It’s the only right thing to do. I can’t take money from—from a man like you.”
I shrug. “I think there’s more than one right answer. There always is.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that you can be attracted to me, Juliet James.” She sucks in a breath, and I sweep my fingers through her hair a second time. “You can want me as much as I want you.” I bring my other hand up to her waist, and she doesn’t flinch away, doesn’t stiffen. I pull her in closer, bending so that I can whisper directly into her ear. “And I want you. I want you because you’re so strong, so infuriatingly strong, that nothing in the world can convince you to do anything that’s not already what you want.” I stroke two fingers down the side of her neck, curling them underneath the strap of her tank top. “But I think—and you can tell me that I’m wrong, you can tell me that all night if you want to—but I think that you want me, too. I think you wouldn’t mind a little bit of a break from holding your head up so high. And I’m the one who can give that to you.”
I slide my hand back up her neck, my fingers curving around her chin, under the delicate hollow underneath her jaw, and Juliet tips her head back, for once letting me have control. Her breathing is fast and light, and she’s got a pink in her cheeks that makes her look like an angel in the dim lamplight of her apartment.
“I could be making a terrible mistake.” The words are barely above a whisper, so light they take a few extra moments to register.
I press my lips against the side of her neck, then again a fraction of an inch lower, and then lower still. “You could be making an excellent decision.”
“That�
��s why I’m so torn.” She lifts her hands, wrapping them around my wrists, holding on without exerting the slightest pressure.
“Let me help,” I murmur into her ear, her body pressed against the entire length of me. I want so badly to lift her onto the bed, to have my way with her right now, but we’re on a high wire and one false move will have us both plummeting back to earth. Even as my cock pulses painfully in my pants, I hold back, hold back…. “Be mine. Two weeks. And at the end of that two weeks, no matter what happens between us, your debts will be paid. You’ll be free from the things that keep you up at night. No strings attached.”
Juliet gasps, leaning into my grip, and that’s when I see behind the carefully constructed wall she’s built around herself. That’s when I see what a pipe dream it is for her to imagine a life like that, standing here in her too-small apartment. She’s like a woman in the desert who has been denying herself a drink from a cool, refreshing spring for months and years, and now that I’m here, right in front of her, ready for the taking, she’s hesitating. This could all be a mirage.
I feel the same way about her.
The tension thickens in the air, her skin hot under mine, and my heart beats slowly, powerfully, a thud deep in my chest. One. Two. Three.
“Yes.”
I pull back a little bit, because I’m not entirely sure that I heard Juliet James agree to be mine.
For two entire weeks.
“What was that, angel?”
“Yes.” She takes in another breath, her breasts pressing against my ribs. “I’ll give in. I’ll be yours.”
23
Juliet
This is all wrong—Weston Grant standing in my tiny, embarrassing studio apartment, his hands on my body, his low voice snaking its tendrils into my ear…and the way my body melts under his touch, the way I let him do it, the way I want even more.
It goes against everything I believe in to make this deal—this arrangement—with him. I’m supposed to be doing this myself. I’m a responsible adult woman, and I’m determined that the world sees me that way. I don’t want anyone, not for one second, to think that I can’t wring what I want out of life with my bare hands.
But the words he whispers into my ear are too tantalizing to turn down again. My resolve melts under the hot touch of his breath. I’m raw with the expectation of what I was going to talk to him about—how there’s no possible way I can live under such an agreement, but also no possible way that I can live without seeing him. I wanted to tell him that I know this doesn’t make any sense, but in some way or another, I have to see where it leads.
Yes escapes my mouth before I can stop the word, and I can’t snatch it back from mid-air and shove it back into my mouth, close my lips tightly, and never let it loose again.
I don’t want to.
“You won’t regret it.” His voice is nearly a growl, and then his lips are hard on mine, possessive and greedy in a way they’ve never been before. One moment, we’re on opposite sides of this battle, and the next I’ve surrendered.
And surrender has never tasted so sweet.
Everything else flies out of my head when he plows his tongue between my lips, his hands on either side of my face, tasting me so deeply that it feels like I’ll never surface.
I do surface, because he’s lifting me in his arms, moving us backward, and laying me on top of my own comforter. His hands work quickly, deftly, at my clothes, stripping the tank top over my head, unhooking my bra faster than I’ve ever done it myself, and wrapping me in one arm while his other hand explores my breasts, rolling one nipple between his fingers until I moan out loud, and then switching to the other.
“You are gorgeous.” Now he does growl in my ear, and every nerve in my body lights up at the pure, undisguised need so evident in his voice. His hand leaves my breasts and starts to slide down my stomach, but he laughs, low and sexy, when his hand is stopped by my shorts. “Lay back.”
I do it immediately, without question, my mind emptied of everything but his voice, his touch, and then he’s standing at the foot of the bed, tugging down my shorts, and then my panties, and then I’m completely exposed in front of him. I don’t have a single urge to cover myself. Instead, I stretch my arms above my head and watch his green eyes travel over every inch of me.
He presses my knees upward, spreading me, his face the picture of lust, and he leans down and kisses the inside of my knee.
I bring my legs together a few inches. His eyes are dancing when he meets my gaze. “What do you think you’re doing, Juliet James?”
“Demanding some fairness. I’m not wearing anything, and you—”
He reaches for the buttons of his shirt and tears them apart with so much force I’m surprised the buttons don’t pop off, and then he whips his t-shirt over his head.
My jaw drops.
He has the most gorgeous body I’ve ever seen on a man, and I went to college, so there was no shortage of shirtless men to look at there. Weston is sculpted to absolute perfection, every muscle carved, but he’s not bulked up beyond all human recognition. I’m in the presence of a masterpiece, a Greek god.
Then he strips off his pants and boxers, dropping them to the floor.
I gasp out loud.
I can’t help it.
Perfection doesn’t do him justice.
Not only is he huge, but he’s standing at attention already. The grin he gives me is a thousand times more wicked than any expression I’ve seen on his face.
I was wet before. Now I’m gushing.
He kneels on the edge of the bed, moving me backward, his arms hooked under my knees. “Fair enough?” He grins up at me one more time, and I am nothing but molten lava and expectation.
“Fair.” I can hardly get the word out.
Weston bends down between my legs, and then I’ve died and gone to heaven. Nothing else on the planet matters when he licks my waiting, pulsing slit, his tongue rough and powerful along its slick length, and I throw my arms over my face on pure instinct, as a low moan finds its way out of me. He licks again, and the muscles in my legs tense as I press against his arms and go absolutely nowhere. He holds me open as he licks and swirls his tongue over every one of my folds. It’s like he’s licking raw nerves—it feels that good, so good it borders on painful—and I lose it completely, my hips rising away from the comforter.
He doesn’t let up. Weston is relentless, driving his tongue inside of me, diving into my channel, and then taking it away again, sucking my clit into his mouth and teasing it with his tongue.
I’m burning up. I’m about to combust. And I need him to take me over the edge before my heart bounds out of my chest.
I take my arms away from my face, but I can’t force my eyes open—there’s so much electricity between my legs that I can’t add the input from one more of my senses without losing my mind. “Weston—”
“What is it, angel?” He stops dragging his tongue over my pussy for long enough to breathe the question.
“Please. Please make me come. I can’t wait any longer.”
His green eyes glow up at me, and the smile that sneaks across his face is filled with satisfaction. “No.”
“What?”
“You will wait, angel. You’ll wait until I tell you to come.”
“Oh, God, no…I can’t wait….” It’s almost a whimper, and in any other place, at any other time, I would have been mortified by my words. Not now. All I feel is the coiled need within me, the release that I almost can’t contain, and I need him, I need him to let me do this.
You belong to him now.
He bends his head between my legs again, and I put my hand to my lips.
But I still can’t stifle my cries.
24
Weston
I expect an argument. I fully expect Juliet to rear up from the bed, eyes flashing, and end the entire thing.
I underestimated her completely.
Instead, she gives herself over to me again, lying back on the bed, her hip
s rising toward me, and lets me go back to the kind of exquisite torture that I was fantasizing about in my own shower.
She tastes so sweet, her juices are so delicious, that it’s going to be hard for me to stop. But my cock is so hard it aches, and sooner or later, I need to take her, to make her mine.
But first I have to give her what she asked for.
I increase the pressure on her hot center, even as she tries to cover her mouth, moans escaping from around her fingers, and I drag two of my fingertips down the inside of her thigh, then press them inside her opening. With her clit in my mouth, my tongue pulsing around it, I fuck her with my fingers. Her moans get deeper, louder. She’s right on the edge.
I twist my hand, pulling my mouth away from her, and press my thumb against her clit at the same moment that I curl my fingers inside of her, reaching the hidden spot. “Come, angel,” I tell her, my voice firm and demanding, and it drives her right over the precipice into a shattering orgasm that has her crying out, her pussy clenching around my fingers and her hips dancing to a wild, out-of-control beat.
When she turns the corner, the shaking beginning to subside, I reach my limit.
I can’t wait anymore.
I wipe my arm across my mouth and move upward, balancing myself above her, and take her mouth again, covering hers with mine. She’s still moaning, little noises catching in my own mouth, and even though she’s flushed from the last orgasm, she spreads her legs underneath me, her hands scrambling to touch my skin. She runs her fingertips down the ridges of my abs.
“Do you like it?” I growl into her ear. She can’t answer, except for a quick intake of breath. “Do you like being mine, angel?”
“Yes.” A quick whisper, a flutter to her voice.
“Turn over.”
She twists underneath me, and I rise up on my knees, taking her hips in my hands and pulling her into the position I pictured earlier. My cock twitches. It’s even better in person. It’s a thousand times better in person. Juliet pushes up on her hands, arching her head back when I reach around underneath her, rolling her nipples between my fingertips.