As Molly stared at the ring he was holding between his two fingers, a horrific sensation crawled up her stomach like a tarantula.
She blinked several times, and her jaw fell open. “Wh-what are you doing with that?”
Garrett used to wear it all day, every day. The platinum was scratched and dented with age, for it had been in the family for generations, boasting at its center a rare blue diamond that was supposed to be worth millions.
“It’s my ring. Mine. I won it from him. Over a month ago. He bet me that it was worth more than my autographed Mark McGwire seventieth-home-run baseball when he was really freaking drunk. He was off by several hundred thousand and lost the bet.” Julian smiled at her, a sharp, angry smile that cut through her skin like the clean, expert slice of a dagger. “I just wear the ring to piss him off sometimes when I know I’ll be seeing him.”
All the color drained from her face, as though all the blood in her body was going straight to her heart, which was racing in her breast like a mad thing. If her ears were hearing correctly and her dazed brain processing correctly, it seemed that he was basically admitting to owning that ring on the night of the masquerade. The night that a stranger had kissed her ever-loving heart out.
Oh. My. God.
The conclusion she’d come up with terrified her. Julian...had been the one wearing that ring? Julian had whispered...those sexy words in his raspy voice while his big, long-fingered hands had touched her so provocatively...?
Julian. Her hero. Her protector. Her best friend. Her young crush. Her lifetime love.
It had been Julian who’d kissed her and made her have an orgasm while he’d fondled her? How he must have laughed! Laughed at her naïveté, at her stupidity, at her...
“I can’t believe,” he breathed softly, his eyes glowing like golden moons, “that you wouldn’t know that I was the one who kissed you that night.”
Grief and unexpected humiliation cut through her like a thousand knives. Julian had known all this time.
Her chest constricted so tightly she thought she would break apart, but she still stubbornly shook her head from side to side. “I don’t understand.”
His kisses. Oh, dear, his kisses. Three total. Each one so different. One, passionate and drunk. The next, cocky and trying to show off in front of Kate. And the last one, in a dark room, where it was just him and her, supposedly playing a game....
Please no, I can’t be that stupid.
“I don’t understand,” she repeated, more frantic now.
In three steps, he closed the distance between them, and when his fingers curled around her arm, Molly could feel the leashed power in his hold, see how he visibly fought for control. “I think I do. You thought I was Garrett that night—when I kissed you hard enough to make your mouth swell under mine. You let me put my hands between your legs, touch your breasts, maul you like a—”
“Stop it, Julian. Stop it!”
She leaped away and backed off, hardly able to look into those fiercely jealous green eyes, which were only reminding her that he—he who was her everything—had done all that. Every bit of what he’d said, and more.
Julian had kissed her, had turned her life upside down with his touch. He’d made her shatter in his arms, and then he’d acted as if it had meant nothing. Nothing.
He was her best friend, and yet he’d kept her in the dark all this time. He’d been intimate with her, had made her feel as if he wanted her, cherished her, but instead he’d been happily helping her seduce his own brother!
“How dare you!” she exploded at that. “How dare you do that to me and then say nothing!”
His eyes flashed, and he threw his arms up in the air. “What did you want me to say? That it was a mistake? That I got carried away by your pretty blue eyes and the way you looked in that scrap of a dress?” he shot back. “You told me not to mention it, and since I was drunk and clearly screwed up, I thought it was a damned good idea. You pretended nothing happened the next day, and I went with it. At least it gave me time to get it right.”
“Get what right, you idiot? You just shot our friendship to hell!” She pushed him aside and stormed away to her bedroom, adding as she went, “Now excuse me if I go pack, you...you jerk! How could you even agree to help me seduce Garrett after you touched me like you did, you... Oh! I can’t even think of a word for you!”
She slammed the door with a bang.
Her lungs burning for air, she fell back weakly against the door and stared at the bed with blurry eyes. She glanced at the walk-in closet, tempted to leave this very second. She would leave. Of course she would. But she needed him to drive her, or Kate to come get her, and she’d die before she made that request of either of them right now.
A desolate sensation weighed heavy on her chest as she thought of the mural waiting upstairs, a safe haven for her to get lost in a sea of color. She had never left a work unfinished and she was not going to start now because of that...that douche!
She would finish it tonight, or at least try to, and then she’d leave tomorrow.
She still couldn’t believe it. He had known...all along, all this time. The bastard had already kissed her, fondled her, known how easy it was to make her explode.
What mockery.
That beautiful masquerade kiss now mocked her. Her best friendship in the world—her entire life—mocked her.
One after another, memories flashed before her eyes, and there wasn’t a single happy memory that she could remember not featuring Julian. She saw him smiling down at her like a lone wolf, tweaking her nose, rumpling her hair, driving her back home. She saw him snarling at her and teasing her and tickling her, and calling her Mo-Po, Mopey, Moo, Molls, Mo-Mo, Moo-Moo....
Nausea rose up her throat, and she shakily sat down on the edge of the bed, held a pillow to her chest and drew in deep breaths. But she didn’t seem capable of filling her lungs. She’d just never felt so empty. So stupid. So used. Nothing in her life had ever hurt this much, not even when Jules had left her all those times.
But he won’t make me cry anymore, she thought angrily, remembering Kate’s recent words.
Teeth gritted, she curled up into a rigid little ball with the pillow firmly grasped to her core, and something very deep inside her clenched tight as the images of that night bombarded her once more.
His mouth, firm and urgent, the roughened sound he made as he kissed the tops of her breasts, as if he’d just entered heaven and they had been made just for him.
The way he’d groaned and bent his head to her ear, biting the lobe hungrily, desperately, and then how he’d soothingly murmured to her, “Shh...shh...”
Her eyes stung with unshed tears. How could she not have known?
She’d been so sure it was him at first, that wolfish smile so familiar to her, but then the way he’d fiercely kissed her had been so completely unlike her cocky best friend. Why did it have to be him? The man couldn’t keep his hands to himself and just had to have a piece of her, too?
She’d promised herself when she was a thirteen-year-old girl that she would not shed any more tears for Julian John. He meant too much to her, was too special to her, made her feel like a princess being rescued by a hero. She’d promised herself she would get rid of the infatuation she had with him, her silly crush, because everyone told her he would hurt her and they couldn’t all be wrong.
But it was no use because now the truth stared her in the face, and yes, yes, yes, it mocked her, too.
The man she’d felt she’d die if she didn’t kiss again...
The man she knew in her gut was her soul mate...
That man was the only man in the world who could really, truly break her heart into such tiny particles she would never be able to piece herself back together.
And now even their friendship, the one golden and steady thing in her life, was gone.
* * *
Julian wanted to punch something.
He paced his room for hours, restless, his emotions gone berserk. Jealousy coursed through his veins like some sort of acrid poison as he remembered Molly’s moans, the way she’d responded to him the night of their first kiss, like her body was a harp only his fingers knew how to pluck and tune and play...
And all while she’d thought he was Garrett.
His brother.
The guy who’d been holding her when she was in tears today.
The guy who’d owned every one of her desires for weeks.
The guy whom he very much wanted to kill right now.
He replayed the scenes over and over in his mind, recalling the hurt in Molly’s eyes when he’d set her little head straight this evening. When he’d told her that he was the man who had kissed her that night, touched her so intimately and made her go off like a hot, beautiful firework in his arms. Goddammit, she’d almost seemed disappointed he hadn’t been Garrett!
He gritted his teeth at the thought, deeply regretting not confronting her about it the day after the masquerade. All this time she’d been hunting for his brother thinking of Julian’s kiss. To hell with whether she wanted to talk about it or not! If he’d done things right, he might have been holding her in his arms all this time—and not under false pretenses—and kept her from noticing Garrett. All these sleepless nights. Nights she’d wanted to have a friendly sleepover with him—yeah, right. As if he could stand being in the same bed with her without turning into some ravenous, sex-starved maniac.
Did she not see he’d been crazy about her for twenty years?
He had thought he could screw Molly out of his head, but clearly that had not worked. Okay, so he’d kissed her when he was drunk and hadn’t talked to her afterward. Not suave. She’d expected better of him? Yeah, well, that made two of them. He wasn’t too pleased to find out that she’d thought all along that it was his brother who’d kissed her.
Now they both felt like fools.
Groaning in despair, he plopped down on the bed, full of rage and agony and disgust. He couldn’t stand the impotence he felt. Restless, he changed into his pajama pants and yanked back his bedcovers, but all he did was toss and turn restlessly on the bed.
So maybe he should’ve talked to her about that evening. Except he’d thought it best to forget about one drunken night’s kiss and continue with his plans until he could do things the right way.
Well, he sure as hell was mucking it up right now, wasn’t he?
No way was he going to stand for it. Suave Julian, they used to call him. How he was so cool, aloof. Yeah, right. Clearly not where Molly was concerned. His Achilles’ heel. But also his greatest strength. If he had become someone and done something with himself, it was all because of that incredible redhead in his life and his desperation to show his family that he was worthy of her.
Shoving the covers aside, he stalked across his bedroom and out to the hall, where moonlight streamed through the living room windows and across his apartment.
He found the door to her bedroom ajar. He rapped his knuckles on the wood, waited a second, then pushed the door open wider.
Her bed sat empty. It hadn’t been slept in.
Scowling, he stalked the entire apartment, every square foot, and found it empty.
Heart pounding seriously hard now, hard enough to crack one of his ribs, he jammed the elevator buttons and rode up to the penthouse, his mind racing with a thousand thoughts per minute, shouting out its conclusion: she left, she left, she left, you idiot!
But when the elevator doors opened, he saw her.
She lay on the marble floor of his new offices, dressed in nothing but a giant button-down shirt, her hair a pool of red fanning behind her as she slept with her hands tucked under her left cheek. He drank up her image as he approached her, drinking up her image, the perfect image of this woman he’d loved since they’d first met.
She should not be sleeping on the floor. God, never on the floor.
She deserved a bed, pillows, satin sheets and a man to love her with all the passion that she unfailingly conveyed in each of her artworks.
His eyes glued to her moonlit face, he knelt at her side—she was just so damned beautiful his eyes hurt. A streak of green paint crossed her forearm to her elbow, and he ached to trace it with his fingers, then with his lips. He noticed the empty paint tubes scattered around her sleeping form and glanced up at the colorful wall before him. His heart wrenched with regret when he realized she’d been trying to finish the mural.
So she could leave.
Leave him for good.
Now, when JJG Enterprises was almost ready for his final walk-through and just days away from opening to its employees. Now, when he had grown accustomed to her being here as he met with contractors, architects, painting her heart away on a wall that had been empty before she’d made it come to life with little playful flicks of her dainty hands.
She wanted to leave now, when Julian was days away from fulfilling one of his dreams and ready to focus on the next one—the possibility of sharing the rest of his life with her.
Throat dense with emotion, he stroked the curve of her cheek with the back of one fingertip.
She sighed contentedly at that, relaxed in her sleep. Shoving aside his hesitation, he reached out, gently scooped her up and carried her back to the elevator. She was as light as a feather and as warm as a little chicken, and his chest swelled when she sought out his heat and snuggled closer. But when the audible chime signaled their arrival on his apartment floor, Molly grew heavy in his arms, and he saw her spiky titian lashes flutter open.
Their eyes clashed. Her gaze was dewy, sleepy, and Julian’s muscles tensed as he waited for her to speak up, praying her first words weren’t “Put me down!”
He tightened his grip as he waited for the inevitable, but instead of kicking or screaming and demanding he release her, Molly hugged him even tighter and buried her face into his neck, where she quietly started sobbing.
The words tumbled out of his throat in an anxious rush. “Molly. Molly, I’m sorry. Don’t cry. I’m sorry for what I said.”
“No, Jules, I’m s-sorry, too. I—I overreacted, I—I’m s-so stupid. I should’ve known you anywhere. I should’ve known it was you.”
Julian might have been considered a daredevil among his sports friends, but seeing Molly cry just now tore up his insides.
He didn’t think about what he was doing, only followed his instincts and carried her to his bedroom. He sat on the edge of his bed and clutched her quaking body to the exact place where his heart spasmed like an open wound inside his chest.
“I’m sorry, Molly. I should’ve brought it up and at least apologized,” he said, smoothing his hands down her shivering back.
Her chest heaved as she sighed and stayed buried against his throat. “No, no, it was me. How could I not have known...not have realized?” She sniffled and glanced up, her eyes wide and blue and glazed with emotion. “At first I thought it was you, but then I felt his ring pressing against my arm. Why were you wearing it? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Baby, I thought you knew it was me that night. I thought you responded because it was me. I was going to leave you alone, Molly, but you called me back onto the terrace and I couldn’t stop myself.”
He had a similar sensation now as he marveled at the incredible feel of her in his arms, warm and shivering and vulnerable, like she’d been that night, ravenous for his mouth and his touches. He wanted to protect her, possess her, claim her, love her, make her never ever think again of anyone but him.
Cradling her face, he wiped her tears with the pads of his thumbs. “Why would you think it was Garrett, Molly? Don’t you see the way I look at you? The way I want you? Everyone around us has noticed but you. Do you believe I’d help another man, any man, get even a little piece of you, when I’ve been waiting all my life to claim you as mine?”
She looked into his face, and her eyes widened at his words, as though she’d only just realized that he wanted her. Her hands trembled as she cupped the back of his head, and then she kissed him. Softly. Whispering against his lips, “I love you. I’d die if I lost you, Jules. I’d rather lose my arms and never paint again than lose you.”
Her lips pressed lightly against his, the words, the touch sending a shock of awareness bolting through his system. He stiffened under her, his heart kicking full speed, pumping hard and loud as a jolt of arousal coursed through his bloodstream.
When she drew back, her eyes shone like beacons, and the blatant desire he saw in those blue, blue eyes could’ve toppled him to his knees.
He was having trouble getting a word out, his arms shaking as he palmed her face between his open hands. “Do you want me?” he finally rasped.
His lips tingled from her sweet kiss, and now his mouth burned with the hunger to plunder her lips. Ripe with innocence, wet and pink and waiting to unleash all her passion on him. He needed to make her his. Only his. He couldn’t bear another night, another second, another moment of his life without this.
He splayed his fingers across her scalp and gazed into her eyes in the shadows, so intoxicated with her nearness, he could only murmur in a thick whisper, “Do you want me, Molly? Do you want to be with me?” He slid his fingers down her back to palm the round curves of her buttocks, gently pulling her closer.
She nodded, struggling for air.
He gripped her hair within his fists and pinned her in place as he swept down. “I need to kiss you, touch you, make love to you.” He fitted his lips perfectly to hers. His tongue plowed, swift and fast, into the warmth of her open mouth, and the pleasure of connection was so intense, a riptide of sensations racked his entire body.
She felt familiar and at the same time exotic and intoxicating to him. She was marshmallows in fire, lollipops under the covers, the best memories of his youth...she was museums, Monaco, fine wine....
She was Molly.
His lovely, effervescent Molly.
And he’d loved her almost as long as he’d been alive.
His arms snaked out to guide her legs around his hips, and suddenly she was straddling him, almost weightless, but burning hot and moving in restless excitement against him, her hands gliding up the bare muscles of his torso, her mouth ravenous on his. “Jules,” she murmured. “Jules, I’m sorry for what I said.”
“Shh, I’m sorry, too. Let’s just forgive each other. You’re mine, Molly, and I can’t wait to be inside you.” He twirled his tongue around hers, her body eagerly rocking over his hardness. Agonizing pleasure ripped through him as her weight bounced seductively over his straining erection.
Things went from slow to urgent in a heartbeat.
He anxiously unbuttoned her shirt, and when she started doing it herself, his hands slid up to caress her face. Panting fast and hard, he stroked her reddened bottom lip with alternating thumbs, her lovely jaw cradled within his cupped palms. He’d never seen so much desire in a woman’s eyes. So much emotion. Her lips were so luscious, plump and damp and so unbelievably swollen from his kiss.
Desire pumped, hot and heady, through his bloodstream as he laid her down on the bed and pushed off his drawstring pants, licking her calves, her knees, touching her, looking at her—he couldn’t get enough, do it quick enough, couldn’t see her naked fast enough.
He wanted to part her slim, white thighs and taste her honey. He wanted to make her gasp and moan and thrash against him as he introduced her to the greatest pleasures in the world. He was cooking inside of his body and he hadn’t even started to do everything he wanted to. He had never thought he could want a woman like this.
He wanted to revere her. Adore her.
Molly was just as desperate, her fingers somehow cramping on the last buttons of her shirt. “I can’t get this thing off. Please get it off, get it off, Jules!”
He cursed under his breath and lunged forward. He was being ripped in two from so much desire, so much rapture. He could barely speak from the euphoria, his fingers working as fast as they could through the tremors already shaking him.
“Is this mine? Is this an old shirt of mine?”
She nodded, and he swiftly grabbed it in both fists and tore it open, buttons flying everywhere. His blood roared like a monster in his ears when he parted the material, revealing flawless creamy skin he wanted to devour until tomorrow.
“Is this what you want, Molly?” He ducked to put his mouth on a beaded nipple that thrust up in the air. He laved it thoroughly as he rolled her to her side and sprawled his body right next to her as his hands engulfed the round curves of her buttocks and he drew her tighter against him, enabling him to feast on her breast like a man possessed.
She arched up against him as he twirled his tongue around the protruding tip, her whispers tickling his hair, “Yes, oh, please!”
He groaned, because he could never deny her. Never. He wanted her to be certain she wanted him and only him, as a man and as a lover, but she felt so right, was hot and lusty in his arms, in his bed, where he’d spent many sleepless nights as he imagined her lying in her own bed just next door.
No. He couldn’t stop if he’d wanted to. For the first time in his life, he would be truly making love with someone.
Heart pounding at what was about to happen, something irrevocable, monumental, something he’d thought about his whole life, Julian turned her onto her back, his hands roaming down her curvy body, squeezing her lovely thighs as he kissed her long and languorously. “I want you. I need you. You feel so perfect. It’s like coming home.”
Her red hair splayed over his white down pillows. Her chest rose and fell heavily with each breath, her eyes so trusting he could drown in them. “I’m still a virgin, Jules.” She reached out to stroke his dampened lips with one fingertip.
He placed a kiss on the tip of that fingertip. “Sweet, sweet baby, you have no idea what knowing that does to me.” He was so honored, so turned on that he would be her first, her only. His hands shook as he eased the shirt off her shoulders and helped her pull it off her arms. “I’ll be extra careful, but you have to tell me if I ever go too fa— Oh, Molly, look at you.”
His eyes blurred at the sight of her completely naked. Her slim legs, her tiny hips, the little thatch of red curls at the apex of her thighs, and the two perfect globes of her breasts staring back at him, large and round, with those perky pink nipples that begged to be laved and licked and loved until morning.
She drew his hand up to one large globe, her eyes holding his with such innocent seduction he could’ve wept. His body trembled with anticipation, excitement.
“Do you want me to kiss you here again?” he gruffly said, and cupped both her breasts in his big hands, gently squeezing. She shivered in pleasure when he began teasing the pink areolae with his thumbs.
He bent his head and took one firm bud between his lips. He flicked it with his tongue first, then drew it deeply into his mouth as his hand trailed down her stomach. She gasped under him. Her hips rolled enticingly as his fingers teased through her moistness.
“You’re so damp,” he rasped, watching her expression melt as he eased one finger gently inside her. “And so damned tight you’re going to make me come before I even get started.”
Her honey pooled in his hand as her entry snugly enclosed his penetrating finger. Restless and mewing softly, she arched up on the bed and pressed her breast to his mouth. He suckled her with a growl of pleasure and plunged a second finger inside her.
Her soft moan tumbled into the air, and her hips rocked against his hand in silent plea. He drew back, panting, and met her blue gaze, an ocean of arousal, her lashes heavy, her mouth red, her nipples red...
Undone, he slid down her body and buried his head between her legs, giving her a hungry kiss that penetrated her to her sweet, warm depths. She cried out and pulled helplessly on his hair. “Stop, oh, please stop or you’ll make me...”
He lifted his head. Urgency thrummed through his body like a living, breathing thing. He was panting, drowning in ecstasy, in his need to make it special and memorable for her while at the same time trying to withhold his body’s natural reactions to tonight. To being with her after wanting her for so long.
“I’ll make you what?” he prodded softly, coming up and brushing his nose against hers. “Do you already want to come?”
She nodded, her breath fast and hot against his face.
He wanted to take those breaths and suck them into his body, to take this woman and mark her with his touch, every inch of her, for eternity. Catching her bottom lip between his and gently suckling, he caressed her between the legs again. “But that’s a good thing...”
She plunged her hands into his hair and set a kiss on his lips, the tip of his nose, his square jaw. “Not alone—Jules, please. When it happens, I want to feel you inside me. I’ve always wondered what it... I’ve been dying to feel this...”
Her fingers delved between their bodies, and he almost yelped at the incredible feel, the amazing feel, of her hand curling around his hard length as if she owned him. “I want you,” she breathed, her eyes wide in surprise at what she touched. “I...I want this...” She stroked his full length exploratively, and a barrage of pleasure raced through his system. He bit back an oath as his body instantly tensed for release.
He grabbed her wrists and playfully pinned her arms up over her head, then he dived to give her a hot, ravenous kiss on the lips. “If you do that again we won’t get to the part of me actually entering you.”
She writhed underneath him, her breasts beckoning another kiss. “Please, please.”
He was unraveled by her desire, enchanted by her openness to him, his undeniable connection to her. His hands shook with male-hormone overload as he reached out to the nightstand.
He briskly rolled on a condom as fast as he could. Realizing she’d been watching in fascination, he pushed her back down with his weight and reached for both her creamy ankles. He couldn’t wait to be inside her. Feel her heat.
Make her mine, mine, mine.
“Do you want me inside you...?” he urged as he hooked her legs around his hips, his pulse fluttering like crazy.
“Please, yes. Oh...” She gasped as he penetrated her, firm and slow, pushing in inch by inch, her tender body fighting him. The effort it took to hold back made his every muscle quiver in restraint.
“Ahh, I’m sorry, this is going to hurt you...”
She’d gone motionless beneath him, those trusting, wide eyes clawing at his heart as she clasped his shoulders in a death grip. “Don’t tense against me, don’t fight me,” he cooed, easing back to let her breathe, then carefully guiding himself back in, caressing her nipple tips to incite her relaxation as he gently rocked his hips. “Give yourself to me, Molly. Be mine.”
He thumbed the little pearl above the entry of her sex, and he felt her give him another inch, and another, until he was almost buried to the hilt. Suddenly, with fierce determination, Molly thrust her pelvis up against him and they both cried out in surprise—he barked in pleasure, and she moaned in sudden pain, and they both went utterly still, completely joined, his length pulsing inside her, her body snugly wrapped around him.
He took her breathless little mouth and kissed her fiercely as the compact heat of her body adjusted to his length. Struggling to hold back, his heart thundering in his chest, he threw his head back in ecstasy and finally started to withdraw, enjoying every sliding inch. “So good. You feel so. Good.” He bent down and kissed her, a hot, wild kiss. “Please stay still, baby, I don’t want to hurt you.”
He went back in, and she moaned in pleasure, her fingers clenching his buttocks, urging him on. “It’s okay now. It’s okay. Don’t hold back, Julian.”
“Oh, Molly...you have no idea what you’ve been doing to me....” He rocked his hips gently against hers, the motion slow but deep and incredibly erotic. Excruciating pleasure shot through his system as he continued his rhythmic thrusting, waiting to feel her shudder, waiting for her to come apart in his arms.
Suddenly, their eyes locked, and Molly released an out-of-control moan, her nails biting into his skin as she arched up in pleasure.
She watched him watch her.
She felt like crying, dying, flying.
She thought she’d break when he first entered her, and now the pleasure had overridden anything else.
Julian’s eyes were an inferno of passion, eating her up alive. His hands slid like satin on her skin, over her hips, her rib cage, caressing her breasts. Then he ducked his head once more and his velvet tongue branded every inch of her body until every cell and atom felt alive and fevered.
A sheen of perspiration clung to his forehead, and she ached to lick it up and get drunk on him. High on him. She thrashed under his eyes when their gazes met, glorying in the ravaged way he looked at her, the tender words that tumbled off his lips as he took her, words like adore and want you and killing me.
Inside her being, she overflowed with love for him. Him. She wanted all of him, all of Julian John Gage, as she watched his muscles flexing hard with each move of his powerful body against hers.
And when his rhythm turned erratic, her eyes drifted shut and the passion overtook her. She clutched his bulging shoulders with a soft cry of pure, unrefined bliss, hearing him let loose a growl of his own, and they snapped and twisted together, clutching each other, tense and shaking, and then...seconds later...slumping, relaxed and entwined, they felt as if they were one, at last.
* * *
They couldn’t get enough of each other.
After less than two hours of sleep, Molly awakened to find Julian’s tousled blond head trailing suspiciously down her tummy and heading south, his fingertips sensuously playing between her splayed thighs. Drawing out her wetness, he made her mew in her throat and toss her head back helplessly against the pillow.
When he buried his face in the damp, warm place where his fingers had been, she gripped the sheets at her sides as each hot flick of his knowing tongue set a rampage of sensations loose in her body. She arched and twisted. “Jules, please...” she gasped in the dark. He pushed her to a climax with his tongue, and then he wrapped her legs around his hips and rode her until she was crying out to him in ecstasy.
Less than an hour later, she stirred in bed and searched for his warmth, having somehow been separated from him during sleep. She hooked one leg around his narrow hips and draped her arm around his waist, and as she wiggled to get comfortable, she became aware of the large, prominent erection biting into her hip bone. She stilled, but Julian had already awakened. He groaned and dropped his head in search of her lips in the shadows, and she gave her mouth up to his. Lying on their sides on the bed, he entered her slowly, whispering sweet little nothings in her ears that drove her to a climax that left her gasping for breath and blushing over all the things he said.
They showered together and laughed over “bun-buns” and “JJ,” then returned to bed. Then, at 5:00 a.m., while a tiny stream of light filtered through the closed drapes, Molly once again woke up to find herself entangled in Julian’s muscled limbs and his Egyptian cotton bedsheets. She couldn’t seem go back to sleep. She throbbed all over in such a delicious way. Adrenaline and excitement continued coursing through her system, and she couldn’t stop touching him. Kissing him. Smelling his skin, which smelled clean and of his sandalwood soap.
“Jules,” she whispered, going breathless at the excitement of waking up with him. “Are you asleep?”
“Not anymore.” With an arm draped over his eyes as he lay sprawled on the bed, Julian’s chest rose and fell with each breath, his voice groggy and sexy.
Molly sat up and edged closer, waiting for him to stir to action. “I’m still naked,” she said, dropping her voice to a seductive purr.
Dropping his arm and cracking his eyes open, Julian stroked his thumb down the length of her arm, his expression deadly serious. “I know what you’re begging for, Molls.”
Before she could even blink, he’d rolled her over with a lionlike “rawr” that made her squeal and laugh her heart out as he gave her the tickle torture of her life. “Oh, I hate it when you do this, stop it, stop!” she squealed in between hysterical laughs, but he didn’t pause for a whole half a minute—because it wasn’t called torture for nothing. They ended up breathless and grinning from ear to ear when it was finally over.
He turned somber as he gazed down at her flushed features, then he reached out to cup her naked breast and manipulate it as though it were his property to play with. When her nipple responded eagerly, his smile turned wolfish, and a devilish glint appeared in his gaze.
“You sure you can take me?” he said, and bent his head to give her a leisurely good-morning kiss, his seductive lips stirring her senses. “I don’t want you hurting all day.”
She was still breathless from his torture. “Well, I do.”
He laughed. “What an insatiable little devil my little Molls is turning out to be.” He smiled that wolf’s smile again, his eyes spelling mischief, then he ducked his blond head and playfully nipped the beaded points of her nipples, and the stimulus was almost too much to bear.
“Thank you for the gift you’ve given me,” he whispered against her flesh, switching from one nipple to the other. “My entire life I worried someone else would take what I wanted.”
That husky, unexpected confession turned her on like flicking on a light switch, and together with the nibbles he was giving her? It was a winning combo. Her muscles stiffened as the blissful sensations rippled through her. She clung to his shoulders, squirming as red-hot desire took her over and his warm, wet tongue tortured her beyond measure.
“Oh, Jules,” she sighed. “Don’t do that unless you...you know.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said, coming up to her ear, murmuring, “I got you, baby, you know I do.”
Molly turned her head, opened her mouth and kissed him, lazily at first, then vigorously. “No. Now it’s my turn to torture you,” she said sheepishly.
She pushed him under her and he obediently lay on his back as she greedily took in his magnificent body with her eyes. From head to toe, Julian was a masterpiece she wanted to memorize.
Eyes narrowed, he crossed his hands behind his head and let her touch him, like a pasha being pampered and tended to. She bit her bottom lip while her breasts throbbed for his touch and the place between her legs pricked with wanting. Her hands stroked his abs and pectorals and round, hard biceps, and then trailed downward to cup his mesmerizing hardness....
He sucked in a harsh breath through his teeth. Molly’s eyes blurred as she seized his hard length—so big she could not grip him with only one hand. He was so aroused and powerful that she could feel him pulsing underneath her palms and fingers. She wanted to lick him there, lick him everywhere, like a lollipop. “I want to kiss you here, Jules.” She patted him gently, her insides clenching with pure, unadulterated lust.
His nostrils flared, his eyes almost black. “Then stop teasing and kiss me.”
Molly watched his face as she bent her head, and she would never forget the flaming, pulse-pounding lust in his eyes, as if he could eat her up and not want anything else for the rest of his life. “Like this?” she asked tentatively as she dipped her puckered lips and placed a kiss right on the tip.
His hips bucked wildly, his biceps bulging as he fought to keep his arms back.
“Do you like it, Jules, or—?”
“Baby, I’ve dreamed of this,” he murmured in a coarse, thick voice, his torso rising and falling with each soughing breath. “Morning, noon and night, I’ve dreamed of this....”
Molly bent her head and watched him, melting in heat at the harsh look of ecstasy on his face. His eyes burned into the top of her head as she snaked out her tongue to lick him in a slow circle around the tip, savoring his taste and the incredible feel of his hardness sliding into her mouth. She opened wider and took the first couple of inches inside of her. His hands rounded over the back of her head and his fingertips delved gently into her hair as he eased her head back so their gazes locked. Her eyes felt heavy with arousal, and his gaze was thick-lashed and stormy.
“Did you think of me, too, baby?” he said in a guttural whisper, and Molly released him, then climbed on top of him and straddled his hips, bending to press her lips hungrily to his.
“So much I’ve never even looked at another man, Jules,” she whispered into his mouth.
She felt the powerful tremor that rushed through his body at her words. Then he took charge and twirled his tongue around hers while his hands slid down her back to grip her buttocks. He squeezed the plump flesh, moving her so their hips aligned and his rigid erection pressed right into the part where she was soaked.
“I’ve thought of this every day for so damned long. I won’t even begin to tell you how many times during the night.”
“I want you in me, Jules.” She rocked her hips enticingly against his length. She was wonderfully sore and yet needed to feel him again, only to be sure this was real. This was happening. She was his, and he was hers.
Hard and strong, he easily rolled her over and loomed above her now, and the sight of him poised at her entry drove her to the edge. His golden skin glowed with a thin sheen of perspiration, and his shoulders and arms bulged with straining muscles, corded with pumping veins. She couldn’t believe that this wonderful creature would want her like he did. Would look at her in the way he was looking down at her now. That her hero and friend and favorite person in the world could also be her lover.
Clutching him closer, she whispered, “I want you, but slowly so it won’t hurt.”
“I’ll be careful with you. Come here, Moo.” He gathered her closer, holding her firmly against him as he slowly eased inside her.
“Yes!” she cried out, squeezing her eyes shut against the onslaught of sensation—a deluge of love and passion and everything she’d always wanted. Right here in her arms, after years of being so close to it.
A sound tore from his straining body as he began a hard, thorough pace, his lips dragging wildly over her face, her lips, her cheeks, her temple as his hips rammed against hers and she held on to him for dear life. He drove her to the precipice and made her gasp out his name, and then he followed her with one last thrust, her body clutching his in a long, tight orgasm.
For an hour afterward they lay entangled in bed and remembered their little adventures as teenagers. As Molly drifted off to sleep, she felt so content, so genuinely happy, she thought at last her life was as it should be.
Nothing would come between her and her soul mate any longer.