Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
LIV
“I don’t want to,” I huff, pulling the blanket over my head.
Now that I know I’m a full-blown cuddler, I’m not so quick to get out of bed. I’m also not one to sit still, but Julius has a quiet calm that settles the restlessness inside of me. Although people shouldn’t be fooled by how peaceful he appears. Julius is quiet and sweet until he’s not.
“If you think I’m going to make you, then you’ve done bumped your head.”
I flop the blanket back down, and it takes my hair with it. Julius is standing on the side of the bed, and he leans over to brush it away. The man is so dang attentive. He’s staring down at me with a sweet smile, the one that only belongs to me.
“You made me bump it on the headboard,” I laugh, and his expression turns serious.
“I did no such thing.” Julius’s giant hand starts to feel my skull, making me laugh harder.
“It’s a joke.”
“Oh, you’ve got jokes?” He yanks the comforter off me. “I’ll make you laugh.”
He starts to tickle me, and I scream with laughter. “This isn’t fair!” I try to wiggle free, but he’s three times my size. “You should have to tie one hand behind your back,” I manage to get out. “Maybe both.”
“I need my hands for this.” He stops tickling and starts caressing instead, and I let out a happy moan.
“True,” I admit. “Why do you have so many clothes on?” I run my hands under his shirt, needing to feel his skin.
“Had a delivery.” I don’t get a chance to ask what kind of delivery before he has his mouth between my legs.
After that, the only thing I can do is moan, then I’m screaming Julius’s name. He makes me cum with his mouth before he takes his cock out and thrusts it inside me. I’m still reeling from one orgasm when he sends me into another.
“I’ll never get enough of you,” I vow as he pushes in deep one last time and I feel him cum inside me.
“Good.”
We’re both panting as he slowly pulls out and then holds my thighs open. His eyes stare between my legs until his cum starts to leak out. That’s when he uses his finger to push it back in.
“Julius,” I gasp.
His brow furrows. “As hot as it is to watch my cum leak from your pussy, it needs to stay inside.”
“Oh my gosh.” He really is trying to get me pregnant. I guess it wasn’t all dirty talk in the heat of the moment. “You aren’t helpful with getting me out of this bed.”
“Never will be.”
“Well, if I don’t get up, my sister will send a search party.”
I watch as Julius fixes his clothes, and once he’s dressed, I hold out my hand. He pulls me from the bed and then lifts me up for a kiss before I get ready. I still have to go into the shop. My sister and I have worked so hard on it, and I can’t turn my back on that because I went and fell in love.
“Ready?” Julius asks when I exit the bedroom. He hands me a breakfast sandwich. “Here you go.”
“Bacon and sausage. You really do love me,” I tease, taking a giant bite out of it.
“Keeping my woman fed.” He gives my ass a small smack, and I grab the rest of my stuff.
My sister was nice enough to drop off a bag for me, and I didn’t even have to ask. She left it on the doorstep.
“What’s happening?” I ask when we step out onto the porch and I see a bunch of wood and other items sitting off to the side. This must have been the delivery Julius mentioned. After we get in the truck, he answers me.
“I’m going to build a work area.”
“Like a shed?”
“It will be nicer than a standard shed.” Julius pulls onto the main road to head toward town. "I'll have it match the main house, but it will be an open floor plan. I'm going to have a small kitchen and a bathroom in it."
"Will it be your man cave?" I half joke. "Not that you need one. You have a whole house."
"We have a whole house." He reaches out and grabs my hand. "You do know you're moving in."
"No one asked me." I shrug, trying to keep a straight face.
"You didn't figure that part out when I said I loved you and told you we’re getting married?"
"Don't forget putting all that baby batter inside me." I watch as an adorable pink hits his cheeks.
“It better still be there.” He shoots me a pointed look. Now it’s my turn to turn pink.
“You want to take a look?” I lift my skirt playfully.
“Liv,” he groans in that way that makes me achy.
I decide to be good and smooth it back down so he can focus on the road.
“So a man cave?” I ask again. “Not sure I love that you have a place to hide from me.”
“It’s not a man cave, and I’d never hide from you.” Julius parks in front of our store and turns to me. “It’s for us. You bought that dresser and small table to redo when we went thrifting. I thought it would be best if I made you a studio. Then you don't always have to go into the shop,” he says. “I googled about lighting. I guess people use different ones for when they record themselves. I thought we could make an area for that too.”
"Julius." I unclick my seatbelt and crawl into his lap. This is becoming a habit. "You're so good to me."
"I want you to feel like it's home."
"You're my home." I press my mouth to his.
"I don't want you giving up on your art, that’s all."
"I won't." I press another hard kiss on my man before I get out. He walks me to the door and says hello to Lane before he leaves for work.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile so big.” My sister gives me a hug. “You’re glowing.”
“You think I’m pregnant!” That’s all I can interpret from what she just said.
“It wasn’t what I was thinking when I said that, but I suppose you could be.” Lane laughs.
I’ve told her some of what went down, but I kept out the extra-dirty stuff. Although that didn’t stop Lane from blushing more than Julius.
"How was your walk home with Sawyer the other night?"
"I have work to do." Lane spins around to head to the back. “I’ve got to get my audition piece done.”
"Hey!" I call after her. "Fine, I'll let it go for now." She's lucky I have work I need to catch up on today too. Lane held the place down for a few days, but she struggles with technology.
I click on an email addressed to me asking about one of my pieces I posted. This day keeps getting better and better. I clean up our inbox and organize a few things before I make a TikTok to post. Thankfully, the day passes quickly, and I even sell the piece I received an email about. It’s local, so I’m going to drop it off real quick.
I let my sister know before I double-check the address because it's one that’s not familiar to me. I get in the truck and plug it into my phone before I head in that direction. It’s right outside of town.
When I pull down the drive, I see an old farmhouse that doesn’t look occupied. There are a couple of windows missing, the stairs up the porch are busted, and the place could use a power wash and fresh paint.
I pause, about to drive off, when I see Troy step out from inside. I put my truck into park and hop out. “Did you buy this place?”
Maybe he’s planning on fixing it up. I still owe Troy an ass-chewing, but I need to keep in mind he’s related to my Julius and will soon be my in-law.
"No, I didn't buy this dump." He talks some shit for someone who still lives at home with his mom. Troy jumps off the porch to avoid the broken stairs, and as he moves closer, I see he’s pissed off. It makes me wonder why he didn’t say it was him in the email.
"If you wanted to talk about your lies, you could have said that. You didn't have to trick me into meeting you." I glance around. We’re surrounded by trees but not far from the road. "This is creepy. You could have come to my store if you wanted to talk in private. I won’t tell everyone that you're a giant liar face."
I could have called him a giant lying fuckface, but I'm keeping it sweet. I might have to share holidays with him.
"It's you that's going to want the privacy." Troy smirks, holding up his phone. He swipes, letting me see picture after picture of me. There are a couple from my makeout session with Julius in the truck. One from the night at Dixon’s when I went home with him and the other from this morning outside my store. There are more of me half-dressed sitting on Julius's porch having coffee with him.
"Why are you showing me these?" It's super creepy, which matches the vibe of this place.
"Oh, there is more."
He hits play on a video, and again I’m on the porch, but this time I’m in Julius’s lap, and the only thing I have on is one of his shirts. You can see his hands moving between us before he picks me up and carries me inside. You get to see a lot of leg, but the shirt covers my ass.
“Okay, so you’re a creepy stalker?”
“I’m not the stalker! Julius is. He’s a fucking psycho that watches you all the time. He doesn’t belong here. Julius thinks he is so damn perfect.” Troy flails his arms around as he rants. I think he might be talking about himself.
As long as Julius is only stalking me, which I'm sure he is, I'm okay with it. Honestly, I’d be disappointed if he didn’t stalk me.
“What are we doing here, Troy?” I really want to get to the point.
“He gets everything, but not this time.” He points his phone at me. “You’ll break up with Julius, or I’ll post this. Everyone online will know what an easy whore you are.”
I stare at him. “You got something else on that phone?” I ask. I’ll need way more than that because I have no shame in anything I’ve done.
“What do you mean?” He jerks the phone back, holding it to his chest.
“It’s only that—” I stop speaking when I hear a vehicle speeding down the driveway, flinging gravel in its wake. I turn to see Julius’s truck heading right toward us.
“Oh shit.” All the blood drains from Troy’s face.
“You motherfucker.” Julius's voice booms so loudly a flock of birds takes off from the nearby trees.
Troy goes to run, but I stick my foot out, tripping him. He doesn’t get a chance to try and get up before Julius plucks him from the ground and cold-cocks him right back down. Troy drops his phone in the process, and I grab it.
"How did you know I was here? Is he trying to blackmail you too?" I ask as Julius once again picks Troy off the ground. Before he hits him again, he stops to answer my question.
"I tracked you, and I know this is Troy's hangout spot." He shakes Troy like he’s nothing more than a ragdoll. See, my Julius is nice and sweet until he’s not.
"Told you," Troy mutters. "Stalker."
"You stalked me?" I ask Julius, and he nods. "That's so sweet." I could melt right on the spot.
"He’s trying to blackmail you?" Julius looks at the phone in my hand.
"He took pictures of us together."
I turn the screen around to show him, and rage takes over. He slams his fist into Troy's face and then leaves him in a heap on the ground. Julius is about to go for him again, but I lay my hand on his shoulder.
"He's not worth it, and we can't cuddle if you're in the slammer."
"I can make him disappear. No one will know."
"I'm sorry," Troy chokes out, but I don’t think he’s sorry at all.
"Hush," I hiss down at him. "He's stupid, and hopefully this will teach him a lesson." I tug on Julius's shirt so he comes closer to me and I've got all his attention. "You're supposed to kiss me when we first see each other. That’s a rule."
"I was kind of busy." He gives me a lopsided smile, which I lean up to kiss.
"Troy." I sigh when I see he’s still lying on the ground. "This is your chance to run, dummy."
"Shit." He scurries to his feet before taking off toward the tree line.
"He tried to blackmail you with those?" Julius nods toward the phone I'm still holding. I know he wants to chase Troy, but I’m holding on to him as tightly as I can.
"Yeah, he said he was going to post them online and call me a whore if I didn't break up with you." I laugh, but Julius doesn't join me.
"I'll kill him."
"Forget him." I climb up Julius' body, and his hands go to my ass to keep me in place. "He's a dumbass because I'd post these myself. I don’t mind letting the whole town know you're mine. It would be better if he posted it. Then I can pretend to be all shy and embarrassed when really I'm eating it up. It would be very demure and very mindful of me."
Julius throws back his head and laughs. The sound is sexy as hell. "I love you so damn much, Liv." All the anger leaves his face, a warm smile appearing.
"I love you too, my giant stalker."
"Only for you."
As it should be.