Chapter 18
Juliette
Gordon fell asleep earlier than usual on Monday. I really loved it when he took pain medication.
The day was finally over and done with. There was nothing left for me to cook or clean or observe as I made my way up the stairs and into my bedroom, treating myself to a warm bath I didn’t ever want to get out of.
I didn’t even know how much time had passed when I finally climbed out of the claw foot tub, a fluffy white towel wrapped around me tight as I moved into the bedroom.
It was my fault for not expecting it. For not expecting him. But I still gasped when I saw Bridger standing in my bedroom.
Several emotions hit me at the same time: the two standouts being pure thankfulness that Bridger was okay and alive, and then there was the anger I felt because where the hell had he been?
Holding the towel close to me, I narrowed my eyes at him. His own were stuck on my towel covered body, his eyes moving up and down as his head tilted slowly. There was a flash of darkness there on his face, but that wasn’t about to stop me from saying what needed to be said.
“Where the hell have you been?” I snapped.
One eyebrow raised, his eyes stayed on my body for a few seconds longer before they flickered up to meet mine. “Huh?” he murmured.
“Don’t huh me. Where were you?” I shouldn’t have been asking, because I shouldn’t have cared, because I was a married woman with a husband who was sleeping downstairs, and I was supposed to hate Bridger. And I did. I still did.
He blinked. “Why are you so pissed off?”
“How did you get in here?”
“Why?”
“Gordon is downstairs!”
“So? He’s sleeping. He passed out, actually.”
My head shook. “He passed out?”
“He choked on some hard candy or something. I don’t know.”
“He is not that old,” I hissed. “Where have you been? Do you know how long it’s been since I last saw you?”
A glint of amusement flickered in his eyes. “Princess, were you tracking the days or something?”
“No,” I lied. “It’s just that you told me you’d be showing up the other night. Or did you forget?”
A slow smirk grew on his face. “Did you miss me?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.”
“I know when you’re lying to me.”
“You haven’t seen me in five years.”
“I was busy. And dare I say, Juliette,” he said, taking a long, slow step forward, “it sounds like you missed me.”
“I thought you were dead, okay?” I pressed a hand to my chest. “I thought you broke into the wrong person’s home and got shot or something. I was watching the news every night to make sure you hadn’t been killed.”
Head tilted, Bridger pouted. “Aw,” he cooed, “you were worried. Poor princess.”
My eyes rolled. “Where have you been?”
“Me and the guys had a really big job,” he explained, voice low and lazy. “It got a little crazy. Every now and then a job takes longer than a night, and sometimes I gotta head out to a different city or a different state.”
“Is that what happened?” I asked.
“I was in Pennsylvania. But that’s done now, so you don’t have to worry.”
My lips smacked together. “I never said I was worried.”
“You sure as hell sound like you are,” he said before letting out a deep sigh. “I know I said I’d come and see you. And I know I said I’d check out your painting.”
“I suppose that was a lie,” I said bitterly.
He cleared his throat. “No. I saw it.”
“When?” I frowned.
“When you were in the shower, apparently…” His eyes found my towel covered body once more. “Nice towel.”
“Bridger,” I said, doing my best to put on a cautious tone, but for the briefest of seconds, it was like we were right where we used to be.
It was like old times—Bridger sneaking into my bedroom late at night, my parents utterly clueless as to what we were doing, him with those dark eyes.
The same darkened ones that seemed locked to my body.
“Yeah?” he said.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Your painting’s real good. I used to love watching you paint. Watching you… get lost and all that,” he said, voice rough and gravelly. “You always looked so damn pretty doing it.”
My teeth found my bottom lip, chewing for a quick second. Why did he have to say that? Those memories of us hung heavy in my mind. My heart too.
Skin all hot, I suddenly remembered what I was wearing.
How little I was wearing. I stood there in nothing but a towel as Bridger took a step closer to me.
It wasn’t fair that he still looked so good.
Just a T-shirt, some torn jeans, his dark hair a long and tussled mess.
He brought in that woodsy scent again. Deep, masculine, with that alluring trace of cigarette smoke.
My eyes bounced down to his forearms. Skin covered in ink.
Skulls, snakes, flames. I had always been drawn to his tattoos.
Maybe because art called to me in every which way.
Or maybe because Bridger was everything I wasn’t meant to want.
He was the guy my parents told me to stay away from.
Bad boys were bad news. And the one standing in front of me knew I had never been able to resist him.
The wise thing to do would be to bolt downstairs and call the cops, but Bridger was so, so good at making me do things I wasn’t supposed to be doing.
“You never answered my question from the other night,” he said.
I frowned a little. “What question?”
“Does he make you feel as good as I used to?”
My breath caught in my throat for a too long moment. And then I said it, because I was so damn tired of holding things back, of walking around on eggshells, of doing what everyone else wanted me to. “You already know the answer to that,” I said.
“Say it.”
“No, he doesn’t make me feel as good as you used to.” I gave him what he wanted. We both knew it was the truth, anyway.
He hummed, stepping closer. Closer. Closer. Boots heavy on the carpet, not even trying to mask the noise, because Bridger wasn’t the kind of man who felt fear. He was the kind of man who instilled fear in others. I was the kind of woman who liked that he did that.
He moved some more. One more step. And then he was towering right over me, those ocean blue eyes so deep, so dark. One of his big hands landed on the small of my back, pulling me flush against him, my breasts to his chest and the towel in between us threatening to hit the carpet any second now.
“Bridger,” I whispered, feeling myself shudder as his hand lowered more and more, right to the edge of the towel before he shifted down some more, his hand ghosting along the back of my thighs. “Bridger.”
“Yeah, princess?” he murmured, eyes stuck on my body. Covered up, but barely.
“I was worried,” I admitted. “You said you’d show up…”
“I know,” he said, voice all serious. “I’m sorry.”
“You were gone.”
Those big hands of his moved up further and I gasped when he finally made actual, proper contact with me.
No grazing, no caressing, just his hands on the back of my thighs.
I grabbed his arms, finally meeting his gaze and wishing with everything in me that I hadn’t done that.
Dark eyes met mine. Dark, brooding, swimming with that insatiable lust that always seemed to be in them when we were together all those years ago.
That look was back, and it felt like going back home.
“Gordon’s downstairs,” I let out. “He’s… We can’t…”
“Can’t what?”
“You know what.”
“We can’t fuck?” he asked.
“Bridger,” I whined, fingers tightening against his arms.
That dark look in his eyes was reeling me in, trapping me, keeping me oh so close to him. He pressed up against me and I mewled, the sound echoing in the room, all loud and pathetic and far too present.
I could feel everything. His length hardening up against me, his thick arms under my fingers.
The scent of his cologne kept hitting me, kept wrapping around my body, forcing me in closer to him like I needed more.
He leaned in, inching in more and more, his breath on my neck and his lips by my ears.
“Do you miss my cock?” he rasped. He still had that filthy mouth. The same one that still made my knees buckle.
My lips couldn’t hold the whimper back as I nodded again.
His head dipped, lips hovering right next to mine, his tongue out ever so slightly as he licked at his lips. “Get on the bed for me,” he instructed, voice low.
“Bridger, we can’t.”
“Because you don’t want to?”
“No,” I said. I was ready for him to take me, to feel him again, for him to make me all his. But there was a man downstairs and I had his last name, and until a little while ago, I had his ring on my finger. “Not because I don’t want to.”
“Have you been thinking about me fucking you, princess?”
“Bridger,” I whispered, eyes slowly shutting. “I… I never stopped.”
“That’s sweet of you, baby, and I bet you fucking want it, but I’m not fucking you. Not tonight.”
Not tonight. The way he said it almost sounded like he was planning on doing that to me another time.
“Then what…?” I asked.
“I wanna look at you. All of you. It’s been a long fucking time since I last saw you all bare for me. Do you wanna show me what I’ve been missing out on? What you’ve been sharing with someone else even though it’s all fucking mine?” he asked with gritted teeth.
I fidgeted a little. “Bridger…”
“Take the towel off.”
I couldn’t say no to him. I couldn’t. Not after being without him for so long, not with that craving I couldn’t stave off growing every second I stood next to him.
Walking backwards, I kept moving until I felt the bed behind me, my trembling hands grazing along the fluffy edge of the towel that was wrapped around me.
With shaky fingers, I untucked one side of the towel, pulling it apart before I did the same with the other section, and then I let it hit the floor.
His blue eyes stayed locked on to mine for what felt like an hour. And then they moved down. Lower and lower. He didn’t stop until he got to my breasts, to my hard nipples, but then those eyes traveled down that little bit further. To that spot between my thighs.