Chapter 51
Julian
I checked my watch for the third time in ten minutes. The sharp tick of the Patek Philippe she gave me was feeding into my annoyance.
I had been waiting for her all day—for my present, for my grand gesture. She hadn’t come Monday or Tuesday, either. The bottle of Sancerre I’d overchilled for her was sweating onto my marble counter.
I had been prepared to forgive her. I’d brought her food. The food from the Lebanese place she’d told me about last week was laid out under silver domes on the table, the scents of warm pita and garlic turning stale. I’d even put on the fucking cashmere sweater she’d bought me.
By 9:30, the Sancerre was room temperature. The silence had teeth.
A familiar, icy dread began to pool in my stomach. It had the same chemical taste as the night I’d watched her taillights vanish a year ago.
No. She wouldn’t. Not again. She came back.
I called. Straight to voicemail. Her cool, recorded voice was a clinical slap. You’ve reached Elara Vance… I texted: Where are you?
Nothing. The blank screen offered no lifeline, no dancing dots. It was like she’d vanished. Again.
By the time the sun went down on the third night, my jaw was tight enough to crack a molar. She better be dead, I thought grimly. Or kidnapped. Or trapped under something heavy. Because if this was another disappearing act, I was going to burn something—maybe the entire East Coast.
I grabbed my coat and headed straight to her condo.
The lights were off. The air was stale. Her scent was gone.
My stomach dropped through the floor. My vision tunneled. All the blood in my body turned into cold, slick panic.
“Fuck,” I whispered, gripping the doorframe. “Not again.”
I stood there breathing like someone had punched me—because they had. She had. A year ago. And apparently today, too.
She was gone. Again.
I braced myself on her cold quartz island, head down, fighting for air. I’d let the walls down. I’d started to believe the fairy tale she was spinning. And she’d ripped the script away. Again.
Then a logical thought cut through the suffocating fear. The car. The GPS. My hands shook as I pulled up the app on my phone. The map loaded—a digital landscape of my own distrust. A single, blinking blue dot.
Not in D.C. I recognized the address immediately. She was parked at our old apartment.
My shoulders eased downward. I opened the app to the security camera, scrolling through the feed.
In the middle of our empty living room was Elara. Like a deranged fairy. Brent Faiyaz was a low thrum in the background. She was in my old Harvard sweatshirt, barefoot. Around her, on the polished concrete, was a disaster zone of junk food: bags of chips, empty soda bottles, a torn plastic wrapper.
She was having a moment with herself.
My anger and fear burned away. I drove like the devil was on my bumper. I used my key. The music still played.
She turned, mid-motion, a chip in her hand. She didn’t jump. She just looked at me. Tired. And unapologetic.
“Why haven’t I heard from you?” My voice came out flat, lethal.
“I’m tired.” She ate the chip.
“I thought you’d left. Again.” The words were ripped from a raw place I hated.
She considered me, brushing salt from her fingers. “I’m not leaving you again. Chasing you is exhausting. And expensive. Do you know how much wooing costs? I bought you a watch that could pay off someone’s mortgage.”
“That was your choice.”
“Well, I’m taking a break,” she announced. “Rest days are important.”
“Rest days?”
“I’m working remotely with the girls’ home in D.C. I’m allowed to have a life outside courting your grumpy ass.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “You can’t just disappear.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t disappear. I just stopped. You were getting weird.”
“I wasn’t getting weird.”
“Oh, please.” She popped another gummy worm. “Pretending to still be mad for attention and presents is weird for an adult.”
“I was not—”
She raised a brow. I shut my mouth. She grinned, triumphant.
Then she dusted her hands dramatically and said, “Why not skip to the good parts?” She pointed between us.
“You’re not even mad anymore—your mother told me.
So how about we just have sex, make up, get married, and stop pretending this is more complicated than it is? ”
My mouth fell open. Closed. Opened again. She tilted her head, smiling sweetly.
“Julian. Baby. I’m here. I’m not leaving.”
I took one step toward her. “You think you can disappear for three days,” I said quietly, “and then tell me we’re getting married?”
“Yes,” she said brightly. “Be a man of action. Find me. The old you would have.”
I stared at her for three seconds—long enough for her smile to flicker, but not long enough for her confidence to crack. Then I grabbed her. Lifted her. Set her on the kitchen counter so suddenly she gasped.
Her eyes widened. “Julian—”
“We are not getting married tonight.” I leaned in, my breath touching hers. “But we are going to finally talk.”
“And,” she whispered, breathless, her hand coming up to wrap around my neck, her nails scraping lightly through my hair, “the sex part?”
My hands slid from her waist to her hips, my fingers digging into her skin. “We’ll do that too.”
Her smile broke out, slow and wicked, and she leaned in, her mouth a hair’s breadth from mine. “Talk first? How, Julian? You’re shaking,” she teased.
Arching her back, her breasts brushed mine, her mouth seeking the pulse point at my neck with a desperation that broke my last thread of restraint.
I let out a low, guttural sound I couldn't suppress as I hooked my arms under her knees and carried her toward the bedroom, her legs wrapping around my waist like a vice.
Every step I took, she clung against me, her hips grinding into mine, her teeth nipping at my shoulder.
I dropped her onto the mattress. Before she could even catch her breath, I was over her, pinning her wrists above her head against the pillows.
“I’m not ever letting you go,” I whispered against her pulse, my voice vibrating. I ran my fingertips across her lips, then lower, my hand coming to rest on her throat. I applied firm, steady pressure to anchor her there.
I could feel heat shoot through her, warming her skin, saw her pupils blowing out until her eyes were nothing but dark voids of need.
She whimpered—a sound of pure surrender that sent a jolt of electricity straight to my gut.
A devilish grin washed away my brooding expression as I realized I finally had her right where I wanted her.
I let go of her neck, leaned in, and slid my tongue into her mouth, my body slamming down to grind into her middle.
She fought to get closer, her nails scoring the skin of my back through the fabric. Just as the tension became unbearable, I pulled away. I left her gasping, her chest heaving, her eyes searching mine with a desperate yearning.
"This isn't a game we're playing anymore," I rasped. "I’m hooked on you, Elara. You’re under my skin like a fever I can’t break. So understand this… there is no ‘again.’ You don’t get to walk away for a year and expect to find me waiting at home when you get bored.
I will hunt you to the ends of the earth if I have to.
You stay right here, where I can see you.
You understand?" I demanded, my voice dropping an octave.
She nodded frantically, her gaze never leaving mine. I stood, finally breaking our physical connection to strip. Elara stayed where I’d pinned her, flushed and panting, her eyes tracking every movement as if she were afraid I’d vanish if she blinked.
I ripped the sweater over my head. My watch followed, hitting the floor with a heavy, expensive thud.
I made quick work of my belt and slacks, kicking them aside until I stood before her completely bare.
The way she looked at me—her gaze dragging over the hard lines of my chest and the heavy, aching length of me—made the air in the room feel flammable.
"Don't look away," I commanded, my voice a low vibration.
I moved back over her. I peeled her shirt over her head in one fluid motion, tossing it aside to reveal the warm, bronze, curves of her thick body, she was trembling.
Goosebumps had broke out over her skin. She was so fucking beautiful it hurt to look at her, but it also hurt not to.
My fingers hooked into the lace of her panties, sliding them down her legs until she was as naked as I was.
Her pussy was glazed over, sticky just leaked from her.
She was a masterpiece, my fucking undoing.
"I'm going to make sure you remember exactly what you're staying for," I promised.
I leaned down and licked a path up the inside of her calf, the back of her knee, and the soft, sensitive skin of her inner thigh.
Elara let out a fractured sob, her fingers tangling in my hair, trying to pull me up to her lips, but I stayed low.
I wanted to taste the salt of her skin, the sweetness of her heat.
I moved my tongue over her hip bone, tracing the stretch marks there, swirling into the dip of her waist before dragging it up the center of her stomach.
I felt every muscle in her body jump. She was arching, her skin buzzing against mine, her breath coming in sharp, jagged hitches as I reached her breasts.
I circled each nipple, tasting the way they pebbled under my touch, before moving to the hollow of her throat.
By the time I worked my way back to her lips, she was a wreck—heaving, wet, and moaning.
"Every inch, Elara," I whispered against her mouth, my hand sliding down to find her center slick and aching for me. "I own every inch of you. If you try to run, I’ll just chase you down and bring you back."
I didn't wait for her to answer with words. I pushed against her, teasing her until she begged with a broken moan, before roughly sliding my dick into her. Her mouth flew open in a silent scream, her body taking all of me as she buckled beneath me.
“Fuck, Elara.”
I grabbed her legs, throwing them over my shoulders, gripping her ass to spread her as I buried myself to the hilt.
She inhaled sharply, her fingers tangling in my hair, pulling me down to claim her mouth again.
I didn't give her the fast, easy friction I knew she wanted; I rolled my hips, slow and agonizingly deep, making sure she felt every inch of the man she thought she could walk away from.
“Look at me, Elara.”
She tried to turn her head, to lose herself in the sensation, but I wasn't having it. I caught her chin, forcing her focus back to me.
“Try to run from me again—and there will be consequences,” I warned, my voice laced with the lingering anger of the last three days. “Look at me while I make love to you.”
She forced her eyes open, her gaze locked onto mine. I held her stare, my thrusts picking up speed, turning her insides to liquid.
“Do you feel that, baby?” I asked. She nodded frantically, her body beginning to shake. “I want you, Elara. All of you. Forever.”
The speed of my thrusts got faster, a sensory overload had us both moaning in a synchronized rhythm. My pulse thundered in my ears as I fucked her , trying to remind her she was mine.
“I need you,” I groaned, the peak rising like a tidal wave. I slowed down, rocking into her, leaning down to take her pebbled nipple into my mouth, swirling my tongue around it until she cried out my name.
“You're all mine,” I whispered against her skin, feeling the tremors rack her frame as she shattered beneath me. I smiled. “Are you mine, Elara?”
She didn't hesitate. She clung to me, her voice a broken, beautiful sob.
“I’m yours. Julian, I’m yours.”
I felt the words vibrate through both of us, and as I finally let go, sinking deeper into her, I knew I was never letting her go.