Chapter Five #3
“I will not,” Julian challenges. “You care so much about your friend that you gave up a rare weekend to drive an hour and a half both ways to take her daughter to an event that you would rather have swallowed glass than attend, where you tipped the bartender handsomely and helped wheel one of Brandon’s elderly great-aunts to her table before dinner.
You checked in regularly with Sophie to ensure she was comfortable and greeted the people you knew from Brandon’s side first to ease any potential discomfort around your presence.
And then, likely exhausted by the many hours spent taking care of everyone in sight, you sought your solitude. ”
The air between us shifts, and I feel it again: that charge that sparked between us when we first met in Edison Mansion, tension so electric it shifts across my skin like static. My mouth opens to respond, then clamps shut. Julian has, to my astonishment, succeeded in stunning me into silence.
“You weren’t joking about watching me,” I manage after a moment. I don’t know how I feel, now that I know how closely I was being observed that night, how closely he continues to observe me now.
Julian tucks one of my locs behind my ear, his fingers skimming ever so lightly against my cheek.
“Did you think I was?” he says.
This is the seduction I expected, I think, as I watch his eyes darken, his gaze drag jaggedly down my body.
It’s a safer space than whatever it was he was attempting before—gushing about me to his friends, introducing me to his colleagues, treating me like I’m anything more than a conquest. I’m grown, I want to tell him.
You don’t need to pretend to want anything other than fun from me.
But for the next two hours, Julian continues to pretend, and I continue to play along.
He loops my arm through his, sweeps me around the room, talks to me about music and art, and asks me questions about myself that I give simple, half-true answers to.
(“Yes, I’m an only child.” “You’re right, I should try caffeine mints.
” “Yes, I have a dog, his name is Onix. I tell people it’s a reference to a brand of stent we use in the cath lab, but he’s actually named after the Pokémon. Don’t you see the resemblance?”)
As the night goes on, the room fills, the lights dim, and the music transitions from a pleasant hum to booming.
A party. The crowd gets younger, and they slap Julian on the shoulder or pull him into hugs and smirk knowingly at me.
They get rowdier too, drunk off the open bar and the headiness of community and the DJ’s infectious energy.
I’m drunk too, or at least more drunk than I’ve been in a minute, courtesy of the two glasses of red wine I’d sipped while we made the rounds and the blackberry mojito I’d downed, given to me by a cute blond woman who complimented my pantsuit.
My hangover will be immense, but at the moment, I can’t be bothered.
I feel good. Better than I have in a long time.
My blazer is draped over my arm, leaving me in a thin camisole that clings to my skin.
Julian’s respectful hands have gotten daring, and when the song shifts to a slow R & B jam, he pulls me backward into him, wraps his arms around me as we sway.
I clutch his forearms, closing my eyes, feeling the beat reverberate through our bodies.
“Having fun?” he asks. I feel the brush of his stubble at the corner of my jaw, and I close my eyes and hum in the affirmative.
Most days I enjoy my solitude, my quiet apartment, the full breadth of the bed I sleep in alone.
But there are small things that I miss. The heat of a man’s chest against my back.
The feeling of being wanted, desired. Of being wrapped in strong arms and held tight.
Julian pulls me in closer. My ass tucks into the cradle of his hips, his firm thighs. The song changes to reggaeton, and he tilts his hips in an exquisite suggestion.
I hiss, eyes still shut, and accept his invitation. The last time I threw it back on an almost-stranger at a party, I was twenty-three with knees that didn’t click on the way down. But apparently wining is like riding a bike, and it only takes a few beats for me to find a dangerous rhythm.
Julian is clearly not new to this type of dance.
He follows my lead with ease, not just along for the ride but an active participant, our bodies rolling together in perfect harmony.
It’s like we’re in the room at Edison Mansion again, but instead of making music we’re responding to it, transforming it from sound into movement.
Maybe this is why he’s been chasing me so doggedly.
Maybe he realized back then what I’m just realizing now, that we’re compatible in a primal way, possessing the kind of organic, inescapable chemistry that only comes around every blue moon.
Maybe the reason why I keep seeing him in my dreams is because my subconscious knows just how sublime it would feel to take him to bed.
I can’t tell the exact moment when our dancing shifts to something else, just that suddenly Julian’s breath becomes labored, his grip on my hips becoming a downward press.
I swallow a gasp. He’s hard against me, and the full extent of what he’s working with is simultaneously shocking and enticing.
As if he can hear my assessment, he rocks into me, slowly, sensuously, and I drop my head back into his shoulder.
“Jesus,” he mutters, and I find myself pleased by the fact that he’s losing control too, that I am affecting him as much as he is me.
“ ‘Sean’ is just fine,” I tease.
I feel his smirk against the side of my face as his hands begin to trail slowly higher and higher, dragging up my rib cage until they stop just under my breasts.
“Do you want to do something crazy?” he croons into my ear.
I don’t realize that I’m panting until I try to answer. My body burns with warmth and want and wildness. I feel like an iron thrust into coals, a freshly spun pot glowing hot in a kiln. I feel like I’m about to be transformed or destroyed or both.
“Yes,” I manage, and Julian snatches my hand and drags me off the dance floor.