Chapter 15 #2
I pace to the kitchen like distance will protect me from both him and her.
“Juliette?”
“Yes,” I answer into the phone, trying to sound normal.
“You still there?”
“Yes, I’m here,” I tell him hastily. “Sorry, Blaire is…” I shake my head. “I’d love to eat. With you.”
“Good. I was hoping you’d say that and full disclosure—I’m not putting on a show. It’s pasta. The delivered kind that comes in a box.”
“Sounds fantastic.”
“And.” His chuckle is low and deep. “If you’re feeling generous, maybe you’ll let me eat your cookies.”
Blaire catches a glimpse of my face.
Her eyes widen.
She mouths, “What? What did he say?”
I turn my back on her, cheeks flaming hot. “Did you mean that how I think you meant it?”
“I don’t know, did I?”
“You know exactly how that sounded.” Let me eat your cookies…
“How did it sound?” His tone is light. Innocent. “They’re all I’ve been thinking about. They melted in my mouth.”
I had melted in his mouth.
The heat spreads from my cheeks to my entire body. I shiver, the tingles spreading down my spine, teasing between my legs at the memory of his face there.
“Oh my god,” Blaire whispers frantically. “Is he talking dirty to you?”
I whip around and shake my head. No!
“You liar, you should see your face!” she whispers some more. “You are so red right now.”
I take a swipe at her. “Get out of here!”
“This is my apartment!”
“Juliette?”
“Hmm?”
“Text me when you’re on your way. And don’t bring anything—I have everything you need.”
The line clicks dead.
Phone in my hand, I stand at Blaire’s kitchen counter motionless as she flies into the room. Takes one look at my face and wordlessly hands me her glass of wine.
“Jeez, are you okay?”
I chug the rest of it.
“What did he say?”
“He wants to cook me dinner—and he wants to eat my cookie for dessert.”
Her brows rise.
“He said not to bring anything because he has everything I need.”
Blaire lets out a breath. “Girl.”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“He wants to screw you so bad.”
“It would appear that way.” I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror; at my braid and my sweatshirt and my lace collar. “Maybe schoolteachers are his kink,” I mutter. “I look like a librarian.”
“You’re right.” Blaire squints at me. “That look is literally every man’s fantasy.”
I laugh. “Stop.”
“What? You look cute.”
“I don’t want to look cute!”
She stares at me. “I’m sorry but… you are? What do you want me to say? A new hairstyle isn’t going to change the way you look, babe—you have that ethereal vibe and that’s never going to change.”
I pout, bottom lip jutting out defensively. “Your pep talk is not helpful.”
My best friend regards me, tilting her head. “You don’t need to change anything about yourself. You need to stop acting like he’s the only one who knows what’s happening. He’s the one chasing you—not the other way around.”
That’s true. I am chasing him as much as he’s chasing me.
“He wants to eat me for dessert,” I admit with a sly smile.
“Of course he does.” Blaire rolls her eyes. “Hello, have you seen you?”
“He thinks he’s in control,” I mutter.
Blaire raises a brow. “Do you think he is?”
I press my lips together, fighting a smile. “No.”
“He’s chasing you,” she says out loud what I was only thinking. “He called. He wants to cook and impress you. You’re deciding whether to show up.”
“Yes, yes, I know. I was hoping I could show up in a cute shirt and less…” I pull at the sweatshirt. “Material.”
“Fine. Let’s go change you into something that says ‘I know exactly what I’m doing.’”
“I do know what I’m doing,” I protest as she drags me down the hallway.
“Then stop dressing like you’re about to tutor a freshman.”
“This is comfortable!”
“Here. Take the crewneck off and wear the button-down on its own.” She begins tugging at my hem to pull the top up and over my head.
“Undo some of these.” She then goes to work undoing the end of my braid and unraveling it, running her fingers through it when she’s finished.
“There. You’re a siren. He won’t be able to stop staring. ”
I turn toward the mirror she has hanging near the kitchen entry way and give myself a once over.
Passes inspection.
Blaire leans in beside me, face next to mine. “You look hot.”
I don’t. “I look like I work at a bookstore.”
“A hot bookstore.” She studies my reflection in the mirror. “He’s cooking for you—that’s foreplay. You realize that, right?”
I want to eat your cookie…
In the back of my mind, I already knew this. The man was so loud when he was inside me, groaning and moaning and screwing me as if he has no control over himself. Aaron Bishop was not built for restraint.
Still, I ask, “Is it?”
“You don’t look at all innocent,” Blaire adds, softer now. “You look like you have a secret.”
“What secret?”
“That you know he wants you.”
It has given me some pause that Aaron Bishop is lavishing me with attention.
Courting me. Romancing me. Cooking me dinner.
It’s not as if I haven’t had men do this in the past. But those men were nothing like him—not nearly as intense, or driven, or determined.
Rough and rugged and my opposite in nearly every way.
Sure, he’s had his nose broken a few times. What professional athlete hasn’t?
And yes, he’s probably missing teeth. So what?
There’s something unfair about the way it all works together—the rough hands, the sharp jawline, the scars near his eyebrow, lip, and chin. He’s not polished. He’s not pretty.
He’s devastatingly good-looking.
At least, to me. Which is why he’s the perfect Hall Pass.
Blaire studies my face as I internally fixate on small details, nudging me when I’m quiet for too long.
“Hey,” she says softly. “You should get going.”
Her arm comes around my middle, and she hugs me close. “Go and have fun and don’t overthink it. You are literally living every woman’s dream, banging your Hall Pass.”
I give a nervous laugh. “You’re right. I should get going.”
Blaire turns me toward her, rests her hands on my shoulders, and gives me a little shake. “Let him be obsessed with you for five seconds without overthinking it.”
“I don’t overthink it.”
She rolls her eyes. “We’ve already established that you do, so stop denying it.”
My best friend gives me a gentle push toward her door, taking my keys from the table and putting them in my palm.
“Go. Have fun. Have sex. Let him spoon you.”
I laugh again. “Aaron Bishop is not going to spoon me.”
“The man might like to cuddle.”
He doesn’t.
The first night he went down on me, he left immediately after. The second time, we had sex, and I was the one who left. Not because he’d asked me to, but because I was unsure of how to behave, or what to do with myself. It’s not as if he patted the mattress next to him to invite me to stay.
I’d crept out of his penthouse and gone to my car at five in the morning—wondering if the doorman had seen this a thousand times before—and there was a woman in the lobby, stretching for her morning jog.
“All I have to say is…” Blaire exhales. “You two are idiots.”
I scoff but can hardly disagree.
“Go,” she tells me again. “And this time? If you want to stay, you stay.”