Chapter 20
TWENTY
AARON
What the fuck am I doing?
Seriously.
What the fuck am… I. Doing?
Juliette’s bare leg is thrown over mine. My arm is around her waist. She’s talking quietly about something called girl code—how her friend Blaire expects an update or she’ll assume the worst—and I’m nodding like a man who hasn’t built this entire situation on a lie.
Her fingers trace idle lines across my chest absentmindedly.
Trusting.
But see, that’s the problem.
She trusts me.
I know it as well as I know my own damn name.
I look over at her, so close I can see every pore on her skin: face scrubbed clean, lashes bare. No make-up. Damp hair. She looks far younger than she actually is, though to be honest, I have no idea what her age is.
Best not to get too tangled up in details, given the temporary nature of this fucked-up situation.
“You’re quiet,” she murmurs.
“Am I?”
“Mm.” She takes her finger and lightly presses it into the dimple in my cheek. “You get this look when you’re thinking too hard.”
I force a smile. “I’m always thinking.”
“I know, but that’s not what I meant.”
Of course that’s not what she meant.
She’s expecting me to lighten up at some point. She’s expecting me to let my guard down. Shit, she’s probably expecting me to confide in her.
The mood is ripe for it.
Intimate and quiet, except for the sound coming from the TV mounted to my bedroom wall.
“You’re so handsome when you’re deep in thought,” she whispers softly, gutting me further. “I like how your brows go like this.”
She dramatically pulls her brows into a V.
“You like it when I look irritated?” I ask dryly.
“At least you’re not trying to be fake, feeding me lines to get into my pants.”
This time, my smile is real. “The irony is, if I was blowing smoke up your ass, you wouldn’t fall for it, would you?”
The irony is, I am blowing smoke up her ass to get into her pants.
Juliette doesn’t realize she began as an abstract. She wasn’t a living, breathing person in this story—she was a means to an end. Leverage.
Convenient.
The thought sits ugly in my gut as her big blue doe eyes regard me, her delicate fingers brushing the hair off my forehead.
Get close.
Make her fall.
Get even.
This was about Declan—not her.
Was.
Past tense?
Fuck, fuck, fuck…
I bring my hand to her cheek, thumb brushing over her smooth skin. She really is gorgeous—and I’m probably going to miss her when the bomb detonates—long lashes fluttering when I lean forward to kiss her pretty, pouty lips.
She melts into my mouth like it’s the most natural thing in the world—which is the other fucking problem.
She fits.
She fits against me on this bed. She fits under my arm. She fits into my life in a way that has become wildly inconvenient.
My parents and sister would fucking love her, which would be a first in the history of “Aaron brings a girl home.” They’ve never liked a single one of my girlfriends but, to be fair to my family, most of them were like Bailey.
Superficial and calculating.
I run the tip of my finger over Juliette’s delicate jawline. “You’re the sweetest person I’ve ever met.”
And I mean that.
Her eyes meet mine and for a solid three seconds she looks like she’s waiting for me to deliver a punchline like “just kidding.”
“Thanks?” she says cautiously.
I huff a quiet laugh.
I regard her then, taking in her fresh face. There are freckles across the bridge of her nose I hadn’t noticed the first few times we met. Light but long lashes. The cupid’s bow of her upper lip is perfectly shaped and suckable.
She’s petite and delicate.
Soft in ways that make you instinctively want to shield her from people like me.
“You look nothing like your brother.”
Juliette snorts. “That’s because I’m not six-foot-three with an ego the size of an entire continent.” She pauses. “We don’t resemble each other much because we don’t have the same dad.”
“Oh.” Ahh.
“Same mom.” She shrugs her slender shoulders. “Different dad—his left when he was one, and then our mom met our dad and had me nine months later.”
“So, your dad raised Declan too?” I ask, keeping my tone casual.
“He’s the only dad Declan knows.”
“Huh.”
She props herself up on her elbow, watching me. “Why do you sound like you’re trying to connect dots?”
Probably because I’m trying to figure out how he’s turned into such a giant asshole.
“I’m not connecting dots.” I trace idle patterns along her bare shoulder. She’s wearing one of my tank tops and not much else. “I was wondering what your dynamic was.”
“The usual brother-sister thing,” she says. “Declan has always been competitive—no one forced him to play hockey. He likes winning awards. Big personality. Always learning the hard way.”
“He’s still all those things.”
She smiles faintly. “What can I say, he likes to win.”
“That so?”
“Yeah.” She huffs a quiet laugh. “If Dad told us to take out the trash, he’d race me to the curb. Full sprint. Like there was a trophy waiting by the mailbox like an idiot.” She shakes her head. “It used to drive me insane. Now, I’m used to it.”
None of this information surprises me.
“Do his girlfriends mind?”
Juliette mulls this over. “He hasn’t had many.”
“Really?”
She nods. “He’s intense. Hockey comes first—as you very well know. Being the best comes first.” Her fingers twist together in her lap. “I think most girls figure out pretty quickly that they’re second to all that.” She pauses. “Blaire can’t stand him.”
I like this Blaire chick already.
Juliette chuckles to herself. “She says he sucks the oxygen out of every room and that he’s a garbage human.”
“Why would she say a thing like that?” My curiosity is piqued.
“This goes back to high school,” she says. “She had the biggest crush on him. I mean—massive. She even took skating lessons so they’d have something in common.” A sad smile tugs at her mouth at the memory. “Blaire finally got the courage to ask him to the winter dance and he said sure.”
“And?” I am hanging on her every word.
She nibbles her lip. “And he forgot.”
“He forgot?”
What a self-absorbed prick.
She nods again, slower this time. “He double-booked himself with a team dinner—I don’t remember the excuse. But he didn’t show to pick her up.” Her voice softens. “She waited for him at her house for over an hour.”
Jesus.
“And he just what… What did he do then?”
“He texted later,” Juliette says quietly. “Apologized. But of course, the damage had been done and now she hates his guts.”
Hates his guts.
Sounds familiar.
I clear my throat. “That’s brutal.”
Her head bobs. “Yup. Try being in a room with both of them at the same time…”
“And you?” I lightly run my fingers through her silky hair. It’s straighter now that it’s drying. “Were you the golden child with all this golden hair?”
“Hardly,” she says. “I was the quiet one. I didn’t need as much attention. It’s not like I was headed to a D1 school to play a sport.” A tiny shrug. “Everyone kind of knew early on Declan was going to go pro.”
Same.
I hate how easily I can picture it. The praise. The house, orbiting around the golden boy with a stick in his hand. Especially knowing what a bag of shit the dude is and how he treats women.
“Are you two close?” I ask, keeping my tone even.
She studies me for a half-second before replying. “We used to fight a lot when we were kids—he was overly protective. Bossy. But yeah. He’d do anything for me.”
Would he?
“And you?” I press gently. “You’d do anything for him?”
Her answer is immediate. “Of course.”
I file her answer away under: Loyal to a fault. Move my hand from her hair, down her arm, to her waist at the exact time she leans forward to kiss the tip of my nose.
It’s light. Playful.
“We’re family. That’s what family does.”
Juliette lowers her hand between us on the comforter, palm open. And without thinking about it, I take it. Lift it. Turn it over in mine.
It’s warm. Tiny.
I bring it to my mouth.
Kiss the center of her palm.
Her wrist.
Press my lips to her erratically beating pulse.
My mouth remains there, and when I glance into her eyes she’s staring as if I’ve done something far more intimate than anything that happened earlier in the shower.
We don’t speak.
There is no need to.
I slide my hand from her palm to lace our fingers together, kissing her knuckles.
“Aaron, what has gotten into you?” she whispers.
I wish I knew.
I have no fucking idea because I am not supposed to be feeling anything for this woman, let alone tenderness.
Not admiration. All of this is supposed to be a sham, for fuck’s sake.
And why does my throat feel tight?
“I just—” Don’t even know what I was going to say.
I just…
I just what?
Feel like a complete asshole because the most patient, sincere, quietly stunning woman I’ve ever met is fluttering her lashes at me, pink lips parted, skin glowing?
So what if she’s nice? Lots of people are nice.
And kind.
And caring.
That doesn’t mean they crawl under your skin and settle there like a tick. That doesn’t mean they make you question your own motives. That doesn’t mean they make you want to be better than the man you were five minutes ago.
Big fucking deal.
I can’t imagine what the look on her face is going to be when—
“Can I say something cheesy without you getting all weird on me?”
I nod because that’s all I can muster up.
“No guy has ever…” She swallows the confession. “Treated me this way before. You make me feel so safe.”
Safe.
Jesus H Christ. I am going to hell.
My chest constricts so hard I have to look away for half a second. Safe is the last thing I should be to her.
I glance toward the television, pretending to focus on whatever’s flashing across the screen. Because if I keep staring at her while she’s saying things like that, I might have second thoughts about all this.
“Come here, babe.” I know the words are manipulative, but they slip out and sound like the right thing to say.
I pull her into me—tuck one of my arms behind my pillow, the other sliding around her waist until she’s flush against my chest. I press my mouth into her hair, inhale the expensive shampoo.
She sighs against me, palms sliding up my chest. Around my neck, fingers teasing the hair at my nape. “You know what the worst part about dating you is?”
“What?” I murmur.
“Seeing you in secret is the most rebellious thing I’ve done. It makes me feel like such a badass.” She laughs.
My heart thuds.
If only her only danger was a fucking memo at the office; human resources isn’t what’s going to bring this all crashing down.
“That’s the worst part?” I am unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
“Obviously,” she teases, raising her face to look at me, lips kissing the tip of my chin. “We’ll have to calculate the risk at some point to see if we should, you know—keep talking.”
Talking?
We’ve barely done any talking.
I can barely keep my fucking hands off her.
They run up the small of her back and down again, cupping her ass and squeezing the cheeks.
“Calculate the risk,” I repeat thoughtfully.
She wiggles her tits against my chest. “Pros and cons. Probability of getting caught. Likelihood of scandal.” Her smile turns delightfully wicked. “You’re very scandalous.”
If she only knew.
My jaw tightens. “What’s the current verdict?”
She pretends to think about it, eyes sparkling. “High reward. Manageable risk.”
“You sure about that?” Na?ve little Juliette doesn’t understand the risk isn’t professional.
“Pretty sure,” she whispers.
“You’re not scared?” I ask quietly.
“Of you?” She laughs. “Should I be?”
Yes.
Yes, you should be.