Chapter 46
Julian’s apartment is dark. He doesn’t bother turning the lights on as they walk in, just leads Clarke upstairs to a guest bedroom. He kisses her at the door, slow and achingly sweet, and disappears into his own room down the hall.
Clarke is tired and wrung out and in dire need of a shower.
She heads for the bathroom and stands under the water so long that she loses track of time.
She wraps up in a towel when she’s done and looks at her torn dress, which she’d draped over the sink.
This was not well planned. She should’ve stopped at her hotel for an outfit change, probably, but there’s a small pile of folded clothes at the foot of the bed when she emerges from the bathroom.
An old T-shirt of Julian’s, worn and soft; a pair of his boxers; a sweater.
She gets dressed and sits on the edge of the bed, dropping her cuff on the charging pad built into the nightstand.
Messages directly to and posts mentioning Clarke are rolling in at a speed she can’t even pretend to keep up with.
When news of her moving to Enclave gets released on Monday, she’s going to have to mute her accounts entirely.
She should sleep. Sleeping would be the smart thing to do.
She has a quick visit with her family tomorrow morning, then a full day in transit to Luna to grab some things from her house (Shit, she’s going to need to sell her house, isn’t she?
Enclave’s Terran. She adds it to her ever-growing list of things to do) before shuttling to Earth and meeting up with the Enclave team for the first time. Sleeping should take priority.
She stands and walks to the door.
She hesitates with her fingers on the edge of the panel.
Just because Julian said all those things about being in love with her and wanting her in his life, just because he whispered Come home with me?
in her ear before they were split up by their medics, just because they hooked up in his prep room last weekend—that doesn’t mean he intends for them to go any further.
Maybe he’s in his head about how they’re going to make this work, too. Maybe he has doubts.
Only one way to find out.
She taps the panel. The door slides open.
She steps into the empty hallway, disappointment trickling through her. She’d thought he might be out here, too. She’d thought the door would open, and he’d be standing there with his hand raised to knock, and—
A door down the hall opens. Julian steps out.
He looks at her. She looks at him.
He’s wearing an outfit similar to hers. His hair is a mess. His face shows surprise, then joy-hope-pleased all at once, then goes carefully neutral.
“Hey,” he says. “Did you, ah, need something?”
“I’m in love with you,” she says. “Have been, will be.”
“Thank fuck for that,” he says, and strides over to kiss her.
She knows what it is to kiss Julian now, but she doesn’t think she’s ever going to get used to it.
She hopes she never does. She goes from tired-but-jittery to heart-pounding arousal in the second it takes for him to sweep into her mouth with his tongue, all thoughts of doubt vanishing as he pulls her against him.
His hands tighten on her waist, drift over her hips, skate up her back into her hair and down to the curve of her ass.
Heat trails and persists everywhere he touches, embers he left glowing last time springing to life again.
Clarke lets her hands do plenty of roaming, too. Up his chest, across his shoulders, down his arms, feeling the flex of muscle and the restraint he’s exhibiting to keep himself in check. To not overwhelm her.
That won’t do.
She breaks the kiss. “Don’t hold back on my account.”
He puts his mouth on her neck the instant her lips are out of his reach. He nips at the skin under her ear, soothing over it with his tongue when she yelps. “I need to. I should. I can be intense.”
A laugh escapes her. “You? Intense? Never.”
He growls and cups her ass again, pulling until there’s no mistaking the press of his dick against her stomach. “I mean it. If this is going to be our first time, I don’t want to scare you off.”
“The fact that you think you could is—”
“Maddie.”
Clarke plants her elbows against the wall (when did he back her into the wall?) and shoves at his abdomen. He goes easily, looking both turned on by the playfully rough treatment and relieved that she’s taking him seriously.
It would be easy to lose herself in him, in this moment, in finally fully giving in to what they’ve been fighting against for years. But she and Julian—
You might be thinking you and Julian can make it, Delphine said. You won’t.
She swallows. They have to get on the same page about this. There’s too much on the line not to. “Are you going to resent me when I start beating you?”
He huffs a laugh. “You want to talk about this now?”
“Don’t we need to?” She looks up at him, searching for answers on his face.
“I don’t want to wind up like Delphine and Oliver.
Enclave might not be competition for Chronicle this season, but we will be soon.
You and me—we dealt with it fine in Juniors, but that was a whole different world. This is Formula Zero.”
Julian settles himself against the opposite wall, too close and too far at the same time. “Well, it’ll help that I’m not a bitter shithead like Oliver.”
She rolls her eyes. “Be serious.”
“I am! Oliver and Delphine were doomed from the beginning, because Oliver can’t handle having a partner who outshines him.”
“And you can?”
“There are a lot of words to describe how I feel when you win, Clarke. Happy for you, impressed by and respect for your skill. Turned on.” His lips curve upward at the corners, then flatten out again. “Any frustration is aimed at myself, and only myself, for not performing as well as I want to.”
“What if it comes down to the championship?” Clarke points down the hall, toward the living room.
His words are helping calm her, helping her believe that they can do this, but the uncertainty is still clouding her head.
“You’ve got an empty space on your shelves for the interplanetary individual winner’s trophy.
If I beat you for that, or you beat me, do you really think it won’t turn us sour? ”
“I think we’ll get to choose if we let it ruin us, and I’ll fight for it not to.
” He grins fully now, nothing but ease and assuredness in the lines of his body.
“And the great thing about the championship, Clarke? It happens every year. We can line our trophies up next to each other, until I need to add more shelves to hold them all.”
She can’t hold in the smile that rises to her face in return, and the cloud in her head clears away at the vision he’s outlining. “That’s the dream? Long careers, half a dozen championships each, domestic bliss when we’re not driving each other insane with competition?”
“The dream was being your kept man, you out there winning while I laze around the house mostly undressed, but I can accept this alternative,” Julian says, a callback to the time they flirted about his ridiculous photo shoot concept.
He leans away from the wall, inching back into her space.
“So long as we’re getting back to the undressing part? Soon?”
Clarke taps a finger on her cheek, pretending to think about it. “I’m not sure. Are you going to give me multiple orgasms again?”
Something hungry comes over his face. Something intent. “Every night we’re together for the rest of our lives, if you’ll let me.”
“Then get over here,” Clarke says, and pulls her T-shirt and sweater over her head in one fell swoop.
Julian’s on her before the fabric hits the ground.
He crouches, grabs, and lifts Clarke into the air, and it’s all she can do to wrap her legs around his waist so they don’t go toppling to the floor.
The position puts her chest right in his face, and he mouths at one of her breasts as he walks them into his bedroom.
Clarke gasps when he scrapes his teeth across her nipple, wetness and heat bursting between her legs.
He gets a knee onto his bed and sets her down gently. She lets go of him so he can shuck his own shirt, crawling backward up the mattress while watching the dim lights cast dancing shadows across his body.
He joins her, stretching his body out along hers, lining them up, just two thin layers of fabric between them.
Skin-to-skin is hot, so hot, and there’s so much to touch, and there’s probably a way to be graceful and alluring about this but he kisses her like it’s his mission to turn her brain off while ghosting a hand up her ribs to roll her nipple between skilled fingers, and Clarke’s bones turn to liquid.
“The sounds you make,” he says, voice rough, grinding against her hip.
He releases her nipple to press on her chin instead, hinging her mouth open so her next noise is loud and raw and uninhibited.
Clarke’d blush about it, embarrassed by how obviously this is affecting her, but all her blood’s already busy chasing contact.
“The things those sounds make me want to do to you.”
“You said you had a list.” Clarke dips her chin, catching his thumb between her lips, setting her teeth around it lightly. “Of places and ways.”
“It’s getting longer by the minute,” he says, watching his thumb in her mouth, then backpedals when he sees the grin start to spread across her face. “No. Clarke, no, that was not a dick joke!”
She releases his thumb. “Totally was. Not a particularly creative one, but—”
“I can be creative,” he says, running his now-wet thumb down the column of her neck. “I can be very creative. Would you like an example?”
“Maybe later.” Clarke loops her arms around his neck for a deep kiss, curling a leg around his hip, craving more more more of his skin and his heat. “At the moment, I just want you in me. As soon as possible. Please.”
He laughs against her lips. “Please. I like the way that sounds, coming from you.”