Her lips replaced her fingertips. At first, they followed the same path, but when they reached his ear instead of making a return path toward the collar of his T-shirt, they moved along his jaw. By the time they reached his mouth, he almost didn’t remember he wanted to ask her about her response. She teased his lips with a combination of short and long kisses before finally tracing her tongue across the seam of his lips and encouraging him to open for her.
If Juliette wanted control, he’d give it to her. He found he enjoyed letting her set the tone and pace from time to time. Closing his eyes, he lost himself in the taste of her and hoped he survived the kiss.
With his senses otherwise occupied, he didn’t register that she’d moved until she straddled his lap. His body tightened, and whatever part of his brain still functioning turned itself off. Once the initial surprise of her position dimmed, he ran his hands up her thighs and to her waist. The tops of his fingers brushed against the skin just above the waistband of her jeans before she pulled away, ending their kiss.
Rather than speak, she held his gaze and moved against him. Groaning, Aaron tightened his hold on her waist, because he wouldn’t survive if she kept moving against him like that. In return, Juliette smiled. Evidently, she enjoyed torturing men.
Her hands slipped off his shoulders and in the general direction of his hands. He assumed she intended to pull them away, or at least try, not that he’d let her succeed. Her hands never touched his. Instead, she grabbed the bottom of her T-shirt and pulled it over her head.
And he momentarily stopped breathing. As if it had a mind of its own, his hand covered her breast before dipping his finger underneath the dark blue lace and reclaiming her mouth.
Rather preoccupied, he barely registered she’d unclipped her bra until the material disappeared.
“I think this needs to go,” she whispered against his lips while pinching his T-shirt between her fingers.
If she wanted his T-shirt gone, he’d happily oblige. Grabbing the collar of his shirt, he yanked it over his head. “If we’re giving each other our opinions, I’ve got one,” he said, slowly moving his index finger down her stomach toward her navel. He paused before going any farther, giving her a chance to tell him to stop or move away. She didn’t do either.
“I’m listening.”
Aaron reached down and grabbed the button of her jeans. “These need to go too.”
Without saying anything, she moved off his lap, undid the row of buttons, and slipped the jeans down her hips. “Is there anything else you think needs to go?”
Staring at the ceiling, Aaron understood for the first time why some people referred to it as making love rather than having sex. He didn’t have the most extensive dating history, but he’d had sex. Yet he couldn’t lump his experience tonight with those from his past. It’d been more than the simple act of giving each other pleasure. Although they’d accomplished that. If she’d given him any more pleasure, his heart might have given out.
Then again, since so many other aspects of their relationship differed from his past ones, maybe he should have known sex with Juliette would be different too.
The memory of him telling Robby to get his head examined two years ago popped up. Considering that he had a beautiful woman naked next to him and using his chest as a pillow, Robby didn’t belong in his thoughts. Still, the conversation they’d had after Robby announced he’d asked Madeline, a woman he’d known less than a month, to marry him continued. Robby insisted he loved her and knew she was the one.
Aaron, along with most of their other friends, assumed Robby and Madeline would get divorced within the year. People didn’t fall in love at first sight or in a matter of days. Relationships that involved more than physical attraction took months. Even when time was involved, some never went past being physical. Despite everyone’s doubts, the couple was not only still married, but they had a three-month-old daughter.
Propping herself up on an elbow, Juliette looked at him while the hand that seconds ago had rested on his chest touched his cheek. “I thought you’d fallen asleep.”
Even after weeks of being around her, she occasionally took his breath away. And now was one of those moments. Unable to stop himself, he ran his fingers through her hair before tucking some behind her ear. “Nope. Just thinking.”
Wrong choice of words. In Aaron’s experience, when you uttered those words to a woman, they started asking questions.
On cue, her eyebrows rose a fraction, and she asked, “About?”
I might owe my buddy an apology. Aaron had no plans of dropping to one knee and proposing to Juliette anytime soon. At the same time, he couldn’t ignore that his feelings for her were deeper and more intense than he’d ever felt.
“Meeting your family tomorrow.” He offered up the first excuse that came to mind. And in some ways, it wasn’t a complete lie. He wasn’t thinking about it now, but tomorrow before her cousins arrived, he would be. According to Juliette, Trent and Curt played the role of the protective older brother. He knew the role well. He’d played it often enough.
“Don’t worry too much about them. Addie and Taylor will make sure they behave. And I’ll be there to protect you.” Lowering her head, she kissed him before she returned her hand to the center of his chest. “Would anyone notice if you spent the night here?”
With four eleven-year-old girls in the living room, his sister was upstairs, not sitting on the sofa waiting to make sure he came home. So as long he didn’t walk through the door tomorrow at noon wearing the same clothes he’d left the house in tonight, he should be able to avoid drawing Candace’s attention to the fact he’d spent the night. And Tiegan hadn’t even seen him leave. She’d been too preoccupied with her friends, so for all she knew, he was already upstairs avoiding the madness that had taken over his living room.
“I doubt it.”
She smiled, and an emotion he couldn’t label expanded in his chest.
Yep, he might have been mistaken about the correlation between time and relationships.
“Stay here tonight. We can set an alarm so you can get home before everyone there wakes up.”
He didn’t need to hear her invitation a second time. “I left my phone downstairs.” He kicked back the blankets. He couldn’t set the device if he didn’t have it. “I’ll be right back.”
Thanks to the moonlight coming through the windows and the light spilling into the room from the hallway, they hadn’t bothered to shut the door when they came in the bedroom, so she could follow Aaron’s movements as he stood. Other than run, she didn’t know what type of exercise he did, but he clearly did something besides sit at his desk and stare at a computer screen. At the same time, it was apparent he didn’t spend hours lifting weights every day.
She knew people, like Holly, who found men with bulging muscles and popping veins attractive. Not her. She’d always been drawn to men who, well, who were built like Aaron. He had phenomenal muscle definition, especially in his arms. Some women drooled over a sexy butt, and others went crazy for a chiseled six-pack. While she enjoyed seeing both, her eyes always went first to a man’s arms. And Aaron’s were perfect.
Once he left the room, she flipped on her back and let her mind wander. In March, she’d come to Avon to get away from the media attention and find a quiet place to make some decisions. At the time, if Holly or anyone else had suggested she should move here and open a business, she would’ve said not in this lifetime. Yet, it was exactly where she found herself. And she wouldn’t have it any other way. Everything about her decision felt right. Almost as if karma had sent Daniel and the media drama associated with him into her life, so she’d take a break from the city and reassess her life. Someday perhaps she’d have to send Daniel and his wife a thank-you note. If not for them, she might be in Manhattan right now, getting ready to go to another club or party and spend time with people she didn’t care about.
Thanks to her disastrous relationship, though, she’d soon be doing something she loved aga
in while spending her time with a man she liked. No, that wasn’t quite right. She liked Aaron’s sister and his mom. What she felt for Aaron was so much stronger.
I care about him. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly why, but that sentiment didn’t fit the bill either. Sophomore year of college, she’d been “in love.” Back then, she’d thought she loved Paul. She had her doubts though because when he’d asked her to marry him, she’d told him she wasn’t ready. He’d broken up with her then and there. If she’d truly loved him, the way her brother loved his wife, wouldn’t she have given him a different answer even though she hadn’t felt ready to get married? She had no idea, but she knew her feelings for Aaron differed greatly from what she remembered experiencing with Paul.
Was it possible she loved Aaron? They hadn’t been together long. But in the end, did it matter how long she’d known him?
Aaron entered the room, and Juliette pushed the question to a back burner. You needed to work some things out when you were alone. Whether she loved Aaron already was most certainly one of them.
“I thought you might want one too.” He held out one of the two bottles of water he’d brought back.
Until she spotted the water, she hadn’t been thirsty. “Thanks.”
Getting back into bed, he used the headboard as a backrest and opened his bottle. “You looked deep in thought when I walked in. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I was thinking about you.”
It’s not a lie. Juliette couldn’t tell him she loved him, since she didn’t know for sure. Not to mention, some guys acted weird when they heard the L-word. “Except for Addie, none of my family knows I’m seeing someone. Well, maybe Trent does. I didn’t tell Addie not to tell him.”
So what if it wasn’t what she’d been thinking about when he walked in? She had thought about it early today when she talked to Mom.
He frowned, and she wondered if maybe she should have told him her mind had been on the dance studio instead.
“Huh, I’m not sure how I should interpret that, especially since you don’t seem to care that everyone in town knows we’re together. And I know you’ve talked to at least your mom several times over the past few weeks.”
She had no problem telling him the truth on this one. “To say it pleased my mom when I told her I decided to leave modeling and open a dance studio would be an understatement. She’s been after me for years to do something else. Mom would’ve preferred I either come work at the Helping Hands Foundation or take a position at Sherbrooke Enterprises, but she knows how much I love dance. And starting any type of business is better than standing in front of a camera, in her opinion.”
“Okay, but what does that have to do with us?”
Her mom didn’t know the particulars of Juliette’s past relationships, but she knew they never lasted long. “I didn’t want her to think I’d decided to stay here because of you.”
“You were thinking about opening the studio before we got involved.”
“You and I know that; no one else does.”
A look of understanding crossed his face as he laced his fingers with hers. “I get it.”
“But next time I talk to Mom, I’m going to tell her. And next Friday night, my uncle is hosting a private fundraiser at his house in Weston for my uncle Warren. I’d like you to come with me. We can either stay at my parents’ house, they live two streets over from my uncle, or at a hotel in Boston. Whatever you’re more comfortable with.”
She took it as a bad sign when Aaron didn’t immediately respond. “I can handle a fundraiser,” he answered, eventually squeezing her hand. “But I’m not sure about staying with your parents. I might just get myself a room in the city. I have an early morning meeting at the office next Friday anyway. Maybe I’ll drive down Thursday afternoon and check into a hotel, and then I won’t need to deal with traffic on Friday.”
“I have the closing on Friday, so I can’t drive down with you. But if you want, I’ll stay with you at the hotel after the fundraiser. It might be nice to spend the weekend in Boston and come back on Sunday night.”
Aaron brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm. “Sounds like a plan.”
Chapter 16
When Juliette had packed for her New Hampshire getaway, she’d included jeans and T-shirts, not cocktail dresses. Unfortunately, even though the fundraiser tonight was at her uncle’s home, she couldn’t show up in her favorite jeans. However, she had an entire wardrobe at her parents’ house, since she visited so often, and it contained everything from bathing suits and sweaters to dresses perfect for a political fundraiser. That’s why she’d planned to head to Weston after leaving Caryn’s office. Plans were only good when executed, though.
The moment she had the keys to the dance school in her hand, she couldn’t resist stopping by the building. Even as she’d unlocked the door, she’d promised herself she’d take a quick peek inside and then get on the highway. Once inside, she got carried away. Instead of taking a stroll through each room and locking the place back up, she started envisioning where she should place this piece of furniture she’d ordered or where to hang that picture she’d purchased. An hour after walking in the building, she finally dragged herself out.
Traffic made the two-and-half-hour drive from Avon to Weston into an almost three-and-a-half one instead. When she finally arrived at her parents’ house, she hadn’t lingered over which outfit to wear. She grabbed the first suitable dress her eyes landed on before heading into Boston. When they spoke yesterday, Aaron had offered to swing by and pick her up before the fundraiser. She suggested meeting him at the hotel instead, because if he picked her up here, on Sunday when it was time to leave the city, he’d have to bring her back to her parents’ house to get her car. But if she went to the city now, she could leave her car in the hotel parking garage and then on Sunday when they checked out, both their vehicles would already be in Boston.
Perhaps the same karma that sent her to Avon was at work because she pulled into the parking garage at the Sherbrooke Copley Square, where Aaron had been since last night, less than twenty minutes after leaving her parents’ house—a rare event when it came to traveling to any part of Boston.
“You should’ve called when you got here. I would’ve come down and helped you with your bags,” Aaron said when he answered the door.
She’d thought he couldn’t look any sexier than he did in jeans. She’d been wrong. As Holly would say, the man was panty-melting hot in a suit and tie. Tonight he’d be getting the attention of women of all ages, which meant she’d have to glue herself to his side in case one of her uncle’s guests decided to do more than look.
“I don’t have much.” She draped her dress over the back of a chair and turned toward him so she could give him a proper greeting. She concentrated on that and nothing else for several minutes. But when his fingers went under her shirt and unclipped her bra, she brought their kiss to an end. “If we don’t stop now, I’m never going to want to leave.”
The hands still on her back sneaked around and covered her breasts. “And that’s a bad thing?”
“Yes and no. I don’t care much about the fundraiser, but I want you to meet my family.”
The previous weekend, he’d met Trent and Curt. At first, Aaron had seemed a little uncomfortable, but within no time, the three of them were getting along like old friends. While the guys discussed sports and some video game she’d never heard of, she’d shared her plans for the dance school with Addie, Taylor, and Candace, who had fit in perfectly with the group. Even Tiegan and Reese had hit it off immediately. In fact, they’d been inseparable the entire day.
As much as she enjoyed having Aaron’s hands on her bare skin, she reached under her top and pulled them away, since he didn’t look like he had any intentions of moving them. “We don’t have to stay until the end.” She reclipped her bra as she spoke. “I promise we’ll just hang around long enough for you to meet my family, and then we’ll come back here for the rest of the night.
Once we come back, we don’t have to leave the suite again if you don’t want to. We can get room service and stay in bed for the rest of the weekend.”
“Sounds like an excellent idea to me.” He glanced at his watch before shoving his hands in pockets. “Unless you want to be late, you probably should get changed. It’s already five, and traffic out of the city on Friday nights is ugly.”
Good idea or not, she dropped a kiss on his cheek before grabbing her dress.
“I’ll wait out here. If I come in there with you, we won’t be going anywhere tonight.”
An hour later, they were sitting in traffic on the Mass Turnpike. She’d never minded traffic all that much. After all, living in New York City, it was merely a part of life. But after being in Avon for over a month, where getting stuck behind the school bus was the worst of the traffic, she found it beyond irritating.
“The uncle that’s hosting the fundraiser is your mom’s brother?” Aaron asked.
“Right. My mom has three older brothers. We’re going to Uncle Jonathan’s house. He’s Curt’s father. You’ll also meet my uncle Mark, Trent’s dad, tonight.” She loved all of her uncles, but Uncle Mark had always been her favorite. Although exactly why, she couldn’t say.
She’d considered offering to drive, but when Aaron offered first, she’d happily handed over the keys to her car and climbed in the passenger seat. “You want to take the next exit.”
Aaron switched on the car’s directional light and waited for an opening in the other lane. “What about President Sherbrooke? Will he be there?”
Even after more than three years, she found it strange to hear people refer to her uncle as President Sherbrooke. Maybe it wouldn’t seem so odd in another three, assuming he won a second term in November, which it looked like he would. “No, Uncle Warren won’t be there tonight. But he’ll be at my cousin Allison’s wedding, so you’ll meet him and Aunt Elizabeth then.”
The Billionaire's Kiss (The Sherbrookes of Newport Book 14) Page 18