Chapter 16
Julian was nearly speechless. He’d listened to everything Petula had said, and at points in her saga, he’d had a hard time not getting up and punching a wall.
How in the world had she been able to overcome all that she’d endured? Julian knew it had a lot to do with the love and support she’d had from Statler, and Julian was now anxious to work with the man and his crew to take either Bradly Jr. or Jefferson down.
He was primed.
Bring it on.
Petula snuggled close to his body and tugged sharply on his sleeve to get his attention again.
“Yes?” He blinked and got out of his own head.
“I need to tell you a little more. But this part is…just for you.” She struggled. “Statler doesn’t know about any of what I’m going to impart, or if he does, he’s been very good at keeping that to himself.”
“Okay,” Julian agreed, not sure his roiling stomach could take any more.
Still, being here with Petula actually lying against his chest was going a long way toward mitigating his discomfort.
“Before you do, though, I want to ask if it’s okay that I share the salient points of what you’ve already told me, with my brothers.
As we mentioned, we should enlist their help, in the way that Statler is right now mobilizing his crew.
The way I’m feeling is, the more eyes on you and this situation, the better.
There needs to be someone tailing you at all times when you are away from home, and spreading that duty out amongst a lot of bodies, will be much easier. ”
Petula gave a huge sigh. “I know. I hate all of it, but you’re right.” She snuggled deeper. “The answer is yes. I’ll need people with eyes on me, so whoever is potentially stalking me won’t have a chance of doing…whatever they’re thinking of doing.”
She shivered against him, and Julian tightened his hold.
“This feels…nice,” she said, increasing her nestling.
“It sure does,” he agreed, daring to stoke her arm.
Julian wished he could kiss Petula right now. Taste her lips. He was pretty sure, at least for him, it would make all the bad go away. But he was hesitant. He didn’t know, after all the things she’d suffered at the hands of the bad men in her life, how she’d feel about any moves he might make.
He was going to take it all very slowly, navigating through what could be an absolute mine field. But he wasn’t giving up. Julian already felt…connected to Petula, and he wasn’t letting any potential ordinance ahead, blow up their…relationship.
Yeah. Petula had liked that word, and so did Julian. Which meant he’d already been given a semi-green light by her to use it.
It was almost time to declare his intentions with honesty and total transparency, letting her know how hard and fast he was falling.
But first…
“You wanted to tell me something else?”
“I did.”
He felt her whole body stiffen.
“Hey.” Julian squeezed her tighter. “You don’t have to say anything more if it makes you uncomfortable,” he assured her.
“No. This needs to be out of my head,” she told him with a bite to her voice. “And if what you mentioned about a…”
“Relationship?” Julian filled in, unable to keep a small smile from crossing his lips.
“Yeah. That,” she confirmed. “If what you said is going to become possible, I need to get this off my chest.”
“Okay. Go,” he told her. “Nothing you can say will discourage me.”
She didn’t hesitate this time.
“I don’t like sex,” she spit out rapidly, almost as if it were one word.
Wow. That’s not what Julian had expected her to say.
He figured she’d have more shit to spill about the Bothwins.
This? This was something that had been completely off his radar.
Especially since she’d told him there’d been no…
intercourse from her abusive, adoptive family. He’d assumed she was still a virgin
“I mean, I’ve only…done it twice.”
Julian wasn’t judging. He was actually amazed. After everything that had happened, she’d dared to have sex.
Julian looked down at her, and saw that Petula’s scalp, at the part in her hair, had turned crimson. Clearly, she was embarrassed.
He was about to reassure her that there was no need for mortification; that if she hadn’t liked sex, it could very well have been her partner or partners who were at fault, but she continued before he could speak.
“I know you’ve probably had dozens of girlfriends, had sex a million times, and are an expert at this, so whatever happens, I’m glad you’ll know, if we…do it, that my lack of libido has nothing to do with your…prowess.”
Julian wanted to snort at her assumptions. He needed to correct her misconceptions and set the record straight.
“I’m not an expert, Petula. By any means,” he told her.
She snorted, which meant at least she was keeping her sense of humor over this latest.
“No. Really,” he informed her. “You might not believe this, but ask any one of my brothers and you’ll find out what I’m saying is true.”
Her hand fiddled nervously with the material of his shirt.
“I was a total weenie, right up until my senior year of high school. Where all my brothers were tall, handsome, and built from a young age, I had braces, pimples, and didn’t top five foot two until I was seventeen.
I was constantly bullied, and my brothers were always coming to my rescue.
I not only had no girlfriends in high school, I never even had a single date. ”
Petula pulled away from his chest at that, and regarded him carefully as if searching for a lie.
“I swear to God,” he pledged, not flinching.
“Wow. Talk about something I wasn’t expecting,” she marveled, then her eyes widened. “Does that mean you’re…?”
Clearly, she couldn’t finish her question, so Julian put her out of her misery with a chuckle.
“No. I’m not a virgin. Far from it.” He hated to sound like a man-whore, but his past was his past, and honesty was something to which they’d been sticking.
He had to let her know that his awkward phase had eventually come to an end.
“Once I finished my growth spurt and graduated from high school, I went right into the Air Force, and my whole life changed. It didn’t take long to, uh, find ladies who liked the uniform. So when I was on leave, I tended to…sample what was made available.”
Petula actually grinned and patted his pecs. “Good. One of us needs to know what the hell they’re doing when we get down to it.”
Julian nearly swallowed his tongue.
“I… Get down to it?” he squeaked. “As in, you’re sure we’re going to…?”
Now it was his turn to grow beet red and end a sentence, tongue-tied.
“Well,” her lashes lowered, her blush continuing. “I kind of hope that’s where we’re headed, because unlike the other two guys I, um, tried things with, I actually feel things for you that never happened before. Things in my body,” she clarified.
Julian felt like he was on a rollercoaster. One minute he’d been ready to take down Petula’s enemies with his bare hands, and the next, his heart was threatening to beat out of his chest, and his cock was fast rising at the picture she was painting.
Her body had been responding to him, she said. Halle-fucking-luiah.
“Petula,” he said gravely, shifting his hips before she got a load of his stirring lap-monster and ran away screaming. “I…” He cleared his throat. “I might be having a bit of a reaction to those words right now, so if that’s going to scare you, you might need to back away and keep your distance.”
Instead of taking his advice, her eyes lit with an interested twinkle. She looked down at the front of his pants, parted her lips and did not shy away.
Shit. Julian wanted to smack his head. We have lift off.
“Mmm,” she responded impishly to his growing bulge. “That looks pretty impressive,” she told him, then wrinkled her nose. “It’s a lot bigger than what I’ve dealt with before, but I’m sure we can make things work.”
Julian didn’t like the way she said “dealt with”. That’s not how one should feel about sex. He needed to fix those misconceptions right the hell now.
“Petula,” he began, reaching for and taking her hands in his once again.
“Sex is supposed to be fun. And fulfilling. I think it’s important that you tell me why you haven’t liked it before.
If it’s because of your past, I fully understand, and we can work to make you more comfortable with…
everything, before things go any further with us. ”
She shook her head. “I’ve had lots of therapy, Julian. Statler insisted, and we actually found someone who really helped. I’ve understood for a long time that nothing that happened at the Bothwin’s was my fault, and that all men aren’t animals.”
He nodded, knowing she had more to say.
“Here’s how things proceeded for me.” She took a cleansing breath.
“After a year or so of therapy, when I was feeling more confident about life in general, I started attending a community college. That’s where I met Matt.
He was everything the Bothwin’s weren’t.
He was sweet, shy, and he had lots of friends who were very good people.
That’s why I gave up my virginity to him.
” Her smile grew. “What wasn’t ideal, though, was that he was a virgin, too, so he had no clue what he was doing.
But the fumbling ended up making me feel more confident.
I didn’t throw up. I didn’t run away screaming.
I wasn’t broken. I was just a rookie. Matt and I parted as friends. ”
“And the second time?” Julian asked. Not because he wanted to pry, but because he felt like he needed to know what he was up against.
“Ah. The second time.” She nodded. “I picked a bad-boy for my next attempt,” she told him, but she was still smiling.
Julian guessed the guy couldn’t have been a true reprobate.
“Gleason was good looking, he had swagger, and he talked a really good game, which I thought was what I needed. Someone with experience who might be able to show me what all the hype was about.”
She let out a giggle, maybe the first Julian had heard from her, and it was cute as hell.
“Boy oh boy, could that guy kiss.”
Julian felt a growl grow in his chest, but he forcibly tamped it down. Petula didn’t need him to go all alpha when she was so openly sharing with him.
“So at least I learned that from him,” Petula stated.
She was staring at Julian’s lips and her tongue poked out.
Julian’s growl turned into a groan. “Cut it out, Petula,” he grimaced. “If you don’t want this conversation to end abruptly because our mouths are busy doing other things, you’d better stop looking at me like that,” he warned.
She laughed, and the minx doubled down, actually licking her bottom lip provocatively “Geeze. You’re too easy.”
“With you?” Julian posited. “Yes.”
He wasn’t ashamed to admit it.
Petula instead of rolling with it, however, suddenly sobered.
“Well, you might not like what I have to say next.”
He steeled himself.
“Yes, we can both agree that kissing is good. But everything else? Not so much. Bad-boy might have been the one to have fallen down on the job, but more likely it was me.” She shrugged, easily shouldering the blame for what Julian could only assume was a self-absorbed prick.
She continued. “But to me, it seemed like he had no one but himself in mind once we got horizontal. He paid very little attention to anything besides seeking his own pleasure, which I came to understand is pretty standard after speaking to a few of my college friends, after the fact.
“Anyway, I was left with a ‘meh’ attitude toward the whole thing, and wasn’t looking for a repeat with Gleason, or anyone else after that. So, it’s been twelve years, and I haven’t had the urge to explore those things again. Until I saw your handsome mug,” she qualified.
Fuck.
If preening were a human thing, Julian was guilty of it almost immediately. Petula not only liked him, but her libido had awoken without him lifting a single finger.
Still, Julian didn’t want to get ahead of himself. There were a few questions that still needed to be answered before he figured out how to move forward.
“You haven’t had sex in a dozen years,” he reiterated. “I get that. But you enjoyed kissing, once. Have you done any more of that?” Julian asked.
He wanted to know how carefully he needed to take things with Petula.
“No,” she answered breathlessly, staring at his mouth again. “But I haven’t forgotten how. And I was pretty good at it, if I do say so myself.”
Julian knew he had to step up. She looked so…anticipatory. Which meant it was now, or never.
“Would you…mind if we find out?” he managed, his voice sounding choked.
“Eee,” she cried. “I thought you’d never ask.”
She leaned forward, grabbed his shirtfront in both hands, and captured his lips with hers.
Oh, Lord.
Soft. Warm. Drowning…
Julian wanted nothing more than to enfold Petula in an embrace that would last forever, but he kept his hands to himself, knowing that no matter what she said, he still needed to take it slowly. She was no barracks bunny.
When she slipped him her tongue, it took all Julian had to hold onto his shit.
He’d kissed many women. Some of whom were mediocre. Some of whom were experts. And some who didn’t even register in his memories.
No kiss, however, in the history of kisses, was as good as the one he was receiving from Petula right now.