Chapter 33
JULES
I turned the music up. Carly Simon filled the house with a confident, carefree energy that made it impossible to stand still. I danced through the kitchen and into the living room, laughing at myself as the song about thunder and rain came on and the sky outside darkened.
For two fairly intelligent people, you would think we might have looked at the weather forecast before choosing to embark on a hike. Cole was on his way to pick me up and figure out a Plan B.
For a few minutes, I let myself feel light and reckless and fully in my body, the kind of mood that made bad decisions feel inevitable and completely worth it.
When he knocked at the door, I opened it all the way, unable to help myself from cracking up at the darkened sky. I opened the screen door.
“Perfect hiking weather, huh?”
As if in response, a crack of thunder taunted us.
By the time he came inside and I closed the door, it had just started to rain.
“It’s actually weird seeing you dressed like that.”
Shorts, T-shirt, sneakers. No glasses. It was as if the buttoned-up Cole I met that first day wasn’t this guy at all. Except that he was one and the same, and I needed to remember that.
“I don’t typically hike in khakis and a button-down.”
The song continued to play. I grabbed his hands.
“Do you dance?”
Before waiting for a response, I twirled him into the living room. Whether or not he liked to dance, I had no idea. But he was doing it anyway and actually had pretty decent rhythm.
When the song finished, he spun me in a pirouette and then brought me into him. It was a kiss unlike any other. Maybe it was the music. The rain, which I could hear from my open windows.
Something made this one feel magical, our lips melting perfectly together. I couldn’t get enough of him.
When we broke apart, I couldn’t decipher the way he looked at me. If it were any other man, I would guess something like affection.
He tucked one side of my hair behind my ear. “So what do you want to do today instead, la mia piccolo monella?”
“Now I’m your little troublemaker, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“Let’s make chocolate chip cookies.”
I loved when he made that face. It was part confusion, part you are out of your mind.
“It’s too early for dinner, we can’t hike, and honestly, I’ve been thinking about chocolate chip cookies since yesterday. And I have all the stuff to make them.”
The fact that I was still in his arms didn’t elude me. We fit so perfectly together.
“You’re not wrong, but I could think of at least one other activity that might occupy us.”
My core clenched, thinking of exactly which activity he meant. And I wanted that too. Before I could respond, he reached behind me, slapped my ass, and then headed off to the kitchen.
“But let’s go ahead and make some cookies first.”
We kept the music on, and I pulled out all of the ingredients. His hands moved fluidly, mixing things as if this wasn’t the first time he’d ever baked cookies.
“Why does this look so natural for you?” I asked, preheating the oven.
“Papa Bennett used to put shortbread cookies in every room of the inn. Mason and I often helped out, baking them. As we got older, he started to pay us. Technically, it was my first real job.”
We worked side by side.
“Do they still do that? With the shortbread cookies?”
Without thinking, I reached out and traced one of the veins in his arm as Cole stirred the dough.
“Why is that so hot?”
He looked down, maybe even shivered at my touch. “Unsure. Maybe our next date should be the gym. I can really get some forearm veins going.”
Our next date.
Fuck it. I was going to ask. “Is this a date?”
“Hand me the chocolate chips. Sure feels like one.”
“And we’re going to have another one?”
He emptied the chips into the bowl. I snagged one and popped it into my mouth.
“Do you want another one?”
I was in the deep end now. “Yeah, I do.”
“Okay then. Stop eating the chocolate chips or there won’t be any in the actual cookies.”
I took another one, on purpose.
“You’re not even tempted?”
“I’m tempted, all right. Just not by the chocolate chips.”
My heart did a little dance. I snagged one more chip before he started stirring and settled up to him. Lifting it to his mouth, I said, “Open up.”
He did, Cole’s lips parting slowly. I put the chip in, almost not surprised when he captured my fingers in his mouth.
One hand now holding mine, he quickly swallowed the chocolate chip but kept me hostage.
Moving my finger in and out, he sucked on it with such delicious pleasure that all thoughts of chocolate chip cookies were forgotten.
“I wonder how you would like it if I did that to you?”
An idea struck.
I pulled my finger from him and then pushed him away from the counter a little. “Stand there. I need some space.”
“You…” He watched as I squeezed between his body and the counter. “Juliette? What are you doing?”
He had probably figured it out by this point. Squatting, not all that comfortably, I looked up at him.
“The question isn’t what I will be doing, but what you will be doing. Your goal is to continue to make cookies. Let’s see how well you can do it with my mouth on your dick.”
I honestly thought he might pass out. The way he looked at me.
“Since we’re not technically in the bedroom, I’ll give this one to you.”
“Why, Cole Ford, how very kind of you. I don’t see your hands moving. How are those cookies coming?”
He was barely able to reach the counter, so I was sure the start didn’t go that easily. I waited until he’d moved the cookie sheet next to the bowl and begun to roll out a ball.
“You’re killing me.”
“I didn’t even do anything yet,” I pointed out. With that, I tugged down his shorts and underwear at the same time. He was hard, ready.
I adjusted myself onto my knees and took him in my mouth. At his first groan, power coursed through me. I imagined him at the wine festival, so proper and buttoned up. And now, as I worked him, Cole’s hands gripping the counter and definitely not rolling cookies, he was the exact opposite.
Increasingly out of control. The sounds he made, his hand suddenly gripping the back of my head and my hair, only encouraged me further.
I wanted him to feel as good as he made me feel last night. Like an absolute treasure.
Now both hands were on my head.
“Juliette, I can’t hang on much longer.”
“Then don’t.”
I said that with my mouth, my hands, my tongue. Bringing him to the brink and then over it, the moment of pleasure one I wouldn’t easily forget. It was guttural.
When he finished, I stood, pulling up his pants. Then, just as he had done the night before, I ran my thumb across my lower lip, the taste of him still very much there.
“Touché.”
I turned to look at the empty cookie sheet. “Not so good there, Mr. Ford.” I picked up the cookie scoop and got to work. Cole didn’t move from behind me, his hands now resting on my hips.
“That was so fucking hot.”
I resisted saying, I know.
“I don’t want to know where you learned to do that.”
I continued to ball and place the cookies on the cookie sheet. The music had stopped, but the sound of rain made up for it.
“And I don’t want to know where you learned to do what you did to me last night.”
He pushed my hair aside and nuzzled my neck, kissing me there and making me drop a ball of dough.
“You’re just trying to get me back. I’m having a hard time concentrating.”
I stayed right there, between the counter and his arms, pretending I didn’t feel the shift.
Pretending moments like this didn’t end.