Chapter Seven #3
“And I don’t need you to tell me what is or isn’t good for me. That I get to decide for myself,” Julian continues. “What you do need to do…is be honest with me and yourself.”
I sit back in my seat, both ruffled and a little impressed by his forthrightness.
“Fighting words,” I say.
“Are they? Admit it, Sean. You want to be special to me. That’s why you’re having dinner with me right now.
It’s why you came out to talk to me this morning at your clinic instead of sending me away and blocking my number.
It’s why you ran away from me after the gallery, after Margaret walked in on us.
Because you find most everyone just a bit boring, but me?
I, at the very least, intrigue you.” He leans in closer, his voice deepening, and for a split second, his eyes seem to flash.
“Or am I wrong? Is it something simpler than that?”
I suck in a breath. Our conversation thus far has been cerebral, a friendly fencing match between two people who are too smart and too smug about it for their own good, but he’s shifted to seduction and I am completely unprepared.
An image flashes to mind: Julian hovering over me, shadows playing in the dips of his clavicle and the divot of his heaving chest, the hot, hard curve of him pulsing under my hand—
“What are you saying,” I manage, but my voice cracks and it comes out less cool and more breathless, and I see the triumph flash across Julian’s face, like he knows exactly what he’s caused me to remember.
“What do you think?” he croons. “It’s fine, you know. I’ll be a bit disappointed, I admit. But I’m not that pure a man. If you’re just having dinner with me because you’re hoping for something to happen after, I won’t complain.”
My ears are hot and my tongue is tied, and by the look on his face, he knows he’s won.
“You’re so…” I search for the word, stunned by his audacity. “Arrogant.”
“But I’m not wrong.” His voice drops almost to a whisper. “Don’t think I forgot how ready you were for me at the gallery. You act so very prim and proper, but if we hadn’t been interrupted, you would have let me fuck you right there on that table—”
I practically leap across the table to clap a hand over his mouth just as footsteps still in front of us.
“Shall I come back?” Devram says, holding the dessert menus to his chest like a shield against our indecency.
“No, it’s fine—ah!”
I snatch my hand back and drop back into my seat.
Because Julian has just sucked it.
My face is hot as Devram goes over our dessert options, and I turn my hand over on my lap, staring at the pulp of palm that has just been in Julian’s mouth. My mind replays the moment over and over again, scrabbling to recall the exact look in his eyes when he did it, if there had been teeth—
“Anything for you, ma’am?” Devram asks, thrusting me right back into reality.
“Yes, Sean, anything for you?” Julian asks, not even bothering to hide his amusement.
“No thank you,” I say, wearing my most genial smile. “Just the check.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re making out in Julian’s car.
I don’t know exactly how it happens. The last thing I remember is putting on my coat and preparing to call an Uber, formulating plans about calling Winona to give her a recap, and stepping out into the cool September evening.
What follows afterward is a blur—I vaguely recall Julian convincing me to let him drop me off, walking one block to his car, and piling inside.
I don’t remember if we drive to my apartment first or just go at it right there in the street.
I have no clue who makes the first move.
I don’t even remember how we end up in the back seat.
What I do know is that touching Julian feels like an original sin.
That we snap together like magnets, my arms around his neck, his wound tight around my waist, the space between us molecules thick.
His desire feels avaricious, his mouth molding, molten, to mine, hands exploring my every square inch.
He trails them up my back, finds my bra, unlatches it, and I hike his sweater up to expose his chest, wanting to feel the heat of his skin against mine.
Distantly, I wonder what the car looks like from the outside, if the soft glow of streetlights is enough to illuminate us for all to see, if the contrast between the heat of our bodies and the chill of the outside autumn air is enough to layer our windows with suggestive condensation.
But I don’t care enough to look. I’m much too preoccupied by the feeling of those full lips trailing down my neck, those broad hands cupping my breasts under my shirt.
I’ve devolved, I think, regressed to some more primitive life form that wants to fuck first and ask questions later.
Julian seems determined to get me there.
The bulge in his pants hits me just right, sending alarming bolts of pleasure through the seat of my thin leggings as we kiss.
His hands drop to cup my ass, guiding my frantic motions, arching his hips the way I’m sure he would if he were inside me.
I’m climbing higher, higher, our movements becoming so urgent that I’m certain we’re shaking the car, and am I really about to come from rutting on this man like a repressed teenager—
Yes, yes I am.
“Oh god,” a voice cries out, mine. Layered under it, Julian’s low, satisfied groan.
Seconds pass. Our breaths gust between us.
What the ever-loving fuck.
There’s post-nut clarity, and then there’s post-nut enlightenment, and I am tragically experiencing the latter.
My mind reels with updated information like a phone turned on after a flight: yes, Julian did in fact drive me home.
No, he did not make the first move; that was me, leaning over the center console after spending the entire fifteen-minute ride staring at his mouth.
As for how we got to the back seat—well, clumsily, and yes, I will feel that in the morning.
“Hey,” Julian says, looking up at me through half-lidded eyes. He pulls me to him by the nape of my neck, kisses me slow, and the combination of shame and panic churning in my stomach abates somewhat. “You’re freaking out. Don’t.”
I bow my head against his and squeeze my eyes shut.
“How can I not freak out?” I manage. Then, because I’m clearly still woozy, I confess, “I can’t think straight around you.”
“Sean, I am about to have an exceedingly uncomfortable drive home because I couldn’t keep my hands off you,” Julian deadpans. “Believe me, you’re not alone.”
Logically, I know his words should be comforting, but they aren’t. Because what I’m trying to tell him is that I’ve been floating in and out of consciousness, and this time I haven’t drunk a lick of alcohol to explain it.
What if he drugged you?
The question spears me, and I consider all the possibilities: the glasses of water already laid out on the table before my arrival, the brief seconds when I’d turned away to smile up at Devram during which Julian could have theoretically reached across the table and sprinkled something onto my food.
Even as I’m thinking it, I know it must be ludicrous.
What drug clears out of your system immediately post-orgasm?
“I…” I start. Julian’s sweater is still riding high, and I swallow at the sight of his shadowed, toned torso. Then, gingerly, I clamber off him. “Good night.”
Before I can open the door to let myself out, an arm loops around and encircles me. I land gracelessly, half on his thigh, half on the seat, and Julian turns my face to his by my chin.
“When do I see you next?” he says.
It’s dark out, but his eyes seem to have found a source of light. They glint and glisten as he waits for my response.
My pulse hastens. It’s not lust I feel under his scrutiny now, but trepidation. Like I’ve just heard my name whispered in an empty room.
“I don’t know,” I say softly.
“It doesn’t have to get physical next time,” Julian whispers back. “We have another exhibition to catch, remember? We can behave.”
For the first time in a long time, I don’t know exactly what I’m feeling.
I can’t isolate why I’m hesitant to respond with anything other than a resounding yes.
It doesn’t make sense, this disquiet, the way I both want to drag Julian close and run away screaming.
I squeeze my eyes shut, interrogating myself.
Is it fear that I might choose wrong again?
That his insistence that he wants me to be special to him is just a ploy to draw me in, and that I will allow myself to be pursued only to be discarded or mistreated once he’s caught me in his grasp?
Or is it my own anxiety about the realities of modern dating, the fact that while my pool of eligible bachelors is the size of a puddle, my hot, wealthy, charismatic counterpart’s is composed of every person with a pulse and an attraction to men?
I imagine the next several months “dating” Julian, my enjoyment of our connection tempered by the awareness that at any given moment, a hot new bombshell could burst into his life: someone younger than me, easier to love, and willing to idolize and prioritize him in ways I never can.
My jaw clenches at the thought. As confused as I am right now, I am now certain of one thing: if we decide to do this, I do not intend to share.
“You have to be with just me,” I say abruptly. “I mean it. I’m too grown for will-they-won’t-they. If you’re taking me out, if we’re doing this,” I point at him, then me, “then I do not consent to being on a roster.”
Julian’s chuckle rumbles through me, and I shiver at the feel of it.
“Who else could compare,” he says. Then he seals the deal with another kiss, and it takes me another thirty minutes to make it upstairs.