21. Jules
— ? —
Jules
I don’t let him go.
The kiss breaks, and I grab his shirt again before he can pull back. His hands are on my face, my neck, my waist. I drop one crutch and it clatters on the floor of the front hall, and I don’t care.
“You’re mine,” I tell him.
His eyes are dark and hungry. “Yes.”
“Say it again.”
“I’m yours, Jules.”
“Nobody gets to put their hands on what’s mine. Nobody gets to threaten what’s mine. Nobody gets to touch you or use you or manipulate you anymore. You belong to me. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I belong to you.”
A fierce heat opens up in my chest. I’ve spent three years watching other women look at him.
I’ve spent three years watching Avery hang off his arm and insert herself into our marriage and make me feel like the intruder in my own relationship.
I’ve spent three years biting my tongue and swallowing my jealousy and telling myself I was being unreasonable.
I’m done being reasonable.
He hooks an arm under my knees and lifts me, crutch and all. He carries me down the hall to the guest room and sets me on the edge of the bed with my boot sticking out in front of me. My other crutch ends up on the floor.
I grab his tie and yank him down.
The kiss is messy and desperate. I’m pulling at his jacket and his shirt, and he’s trying to help, but I keep getting in the way, because I can’t stop touching him long enough to let him undress.
“Jules.” His voice is strained. “Slow down.”
“No.”
“Your leg.”
“My leg is fine. Get your clothes off.”
He laughs, an actual laugh that I’ve surprised out of him, and the sound of it gets to me in a way I don’t want to examine right now.
“I’m serious,” I say. “Take them off or I’ll rip them.”
“You can’t rip this shirt.”
“Try me.”
His hands cover mine and hold them still against his chest.
“Jules.” His voice is softer now. “Let me.”
I look up at him. His eyes are dark and serious and fixed on my face.
“Please,” he says.
I let go.
He undresses himself, methodical and controlled. The jacket comes off first, and then the tie, and then the shirt, his shoes, his belt and his pants. He folds nothing, he just drops each piece on the floor, and by the time he’s down to his boxers I’m practically vibrating with impatience.
“Now me,” I say.
He kneels in front of me and he’s careful with the boot. He pulls off my cardigan and my shirt, unclasps my bra and slides it down my arms. His hands are warm and steady on my skin.
“Lie back,” he says.
“No.”
He pauses. “Jules.”
“I said no.” I grab his shoulders and push, and he lets himself be pushed, falling back onto the bed. “My turn.”
I manage to get my leggings and underwear off with minimal awkwardness, which is a minor miracle given the boot. Then I climb over him and straddle his hips, with my booted leg stretched out to the side and my weight on my good knee.
He looks up at me.
“You sure about this?” he asks.
“I’m sure.”
“Your leg.”
“Is fine. Stop asking about my leg.”
His hands settle on my hips, warm and steady, ready to catch me if I fall.
I don’t intend to fall.
I look down at him under me first, because I want to.
His chest is broad and solid and rising fast with every breath.
The muscles across his shoulders stand out because he’s holding himself so still, and there’s a muscle ticking in his jaw.
His cock is thick and hard against my thigh, hot, with the head already wet.
This man who runs everything and answers to no one is lying flat on his back because I told him to, and the sight of it makes my pussy clench.
“Quiet,” I say, before he can ask about my leg again. “I’m in charge tonight.”
His jaw tightens, but he nods.
I reach down and wrap my hand around his cock. I stroke him slowly, from the base up to the head, and watch his stomach tighten. His eyes stay on my face the whole time. I do it again, slower, and let my thumb drag over the slick head.
“Jules.” His voice is rough. “Please.”
“Please what?”
“Touch me. Ride me. Anything. Just please.”
I like the way he sounds when he begs.
I shift forward, guide him to my entrance, and sink down onto him slowly. He stretches me open, thick and hot, until my breath catches, and I take him all the way and stay there for a second, feeling every inch of him inside me.
His eyes close, and his fingers dig into my hips. “Fuck.”
“Look at me.”
He opens his eyes.
“You’re mine,” I say again, and I start to move.
I set the rhythm. I keep it slow on purpose, rising up and sinking back down, and every time I lower myself I grind forward so the base of his cock presses against my clit. He’s breathing hard through his nose. His hands stay on my hips, but he doesn’t pull me down and he doesn’t thrust up.
“Faster,” he says.
“No.”
“Jules.”
“I said no.”
He groans. His hips jerk under me, trying to speed things up, and I press my palms flat to his chest and hold him there.
“You don’t move until I tell you to,” I say. “You don’t come until I tell you to. You lie there and take what I give you. Understand?”
His throat works. “Yes.”
“Good.”
I ride him slow and deep, taking exactly what I want, and I tell him what I need him to hear.
“This cock is mine. Nobody else ever gets to see you like this. I’ve wanted to fuck you this way for seven weeks, and I hated you too much to let myself have it.”
He answers without hesitating, and his voice is wrecked. “I’m yours. I’ve been yours the whole time. Use me however you want.”
I lean down and kiss him, deep and dirty, with my tongue in his mouth, swallowing the sounds he’s making. When I pull back, his eyes are glazed.
I ride him faster after that, with my thighs working. Every downward stroke drags him along the front wall inside me, and I can feel myself getting wetter around him. His jaw is clenched so tight I can see the muscle jumping, and his hands on my hips are shaking with the effort of staying still.
“Touch me,” I say.
His hand moves between us immediately, and his thumb finds my clit and presses there, keeping time with my hips. The pressure builds fast.
“Harry.”
“I’m right here.”
“I’m close.”
“I want to watch you. Go on.”
I don’t look away from his face when it hits me. My pussy clamps down around his cock and I come hard and long, with my whole body shaking, and I keep moving through it, riding out every pulse while I stare at him. His hands tighten on my hips and hold on.
When I come back to myself, he’s still inside me, still hard, still waiting for permission.
“Your turn,” I say.
“Thank fuck.”
He rolls us in one smooth motion, and he doesn’t forget my leg even now.
He settles my boot out to the side on a pillow before he moves, and then he’s over me, braced on his forearms, fucking me hard and fast, exactly the way I need.
Every thrust is deep and rough, and the sound of skin on skin fills the room.
“Yes,” I gasp. “Yes, like that.”
“You feel so fucking good.” His voice is wrecked. “Every time. Every fucking time.”
“Come inside me.”
“Jules.”
“Now.”
He pushes all the way in and stays there, and I feel him throb and pulse inside me as he comes, with his whole body shuddering. His forehead drops to mine, and he keeps thrusting through it, short and deep, until he’s given me everything, and I hold onto his shoulders and stay with him through it.
He collapses next to me, careful to avoid my leg. We lie there side by side, breathing hard and staring at the ceiling.
“Jesus Christ,” he says eventually.
I laugh. I can’t help it. The sound bubbles up out of me, and then he’s laughing too, and we’re both lying there in the guest room bed laughing until my stomach hurts.
“Stay,” I say when the laughter fades.
He turns his head to look at me. “What?”
“Tonight. Stay with me. In here.”
There’s a pause, and then his arm slides around my waist and pulls me closer.
“Okay,” he says.
***
I wake up to sunlight streaming through the curtains and a warm body pressed against my back.
He stayed.
For a moment I just lie there and let myself feel it, his arm heavy across my waist and his breath warm on my neck and the solid weight of him behind me.
He stayed the whole night, under the covers this time, because I asked him to.
I turn in his arms, careful of my leg. He’s already awake, watching me.
“Morning,” he says.
“Morning.”
We look at each other.
“We need to talk,” I say.
“Yeah.” He shifts and props himself up on one elbow. “We do.”
I take a breath. “Last night was…”
“Incredible.”
“Not what I was going to say.”
“It’s what I was going to say.”
I fight a smile and lose. “Okay. Yes. It was incredible. But we can’t just keep doing this.”
He waits for me to go on.
“I only seem to trust you when you’re actively fighting her in front of me,” I say finally. “Did you notice that?”
He’s quiet for a moment. “Yes.”
“I don’t know what I’ll feel on an ordinary day. When there’s no crisis, and she’s not there to push against.” I meet his eyes. “That scares me.”
“It scares me too.”
“So what do we do?”
He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “We figure it out.”
“That’s your plan? The man who plans everything?”
“The man whose plans keep blowing up in his face.” His hand lingers on my cheek.
“I can’t predict what’s coming. What I can tell you is that yesterday, when I stood on that porch and watched twenty years drive out of my gate, the only thing I felt was relief, because she was finally gone and you were still here. ”
I’ve got no comeback for that.
“I’m not going to be your casual thing, Jules,” he says quietly. “The next time you have me, you keep me. I can’t do this halfway. I can’t get let in for a night and wake up on the outside again. I won’t make it through another one of those.”
“That’s not…”
“It’s what keeps happening. And it’s wrecking both of us.”
He’s right, and I hate that he’s right.
“So what is this?” I say. “You’re giving me an ultimatum?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I’m asking for the same thing you’ve been asking for. All of it, or nothing.”
Neither of us looks away.
“I need time,” I say.
“Okay.”
“I’m not saying yes and I’m not saying no. I’m saying I need time to figure out what I want without a crisis forcing my hand.”
“Then take it.”
He doesn’t push and he doesn’t press. He just looks at me with those steady green eyes and waits.
I don’t know what I want, and that’s the truth. I don’t know if I can trust this, or trust him, or trust that the man I saw yesterday is the man I’ll see on all the ordinary days to come.
***
Over breakfast, I tell him I’m not going to the police, because I don’t want to spend the next year of my life in rooms with Avery, or looking over my shoulder for her. I want her gone.
He listens and nods.
“Give me an hour,” he says.
He makes two phone calls.
The first is short. It’s about getting a restraining order filed, so she can never come near either of us again. He doesn’t explain it and I don’t ask.
The second call is longer. He’s in the study with the door open, and I hear pieces of it from the kitchen, about business relationships and about consequences.
When he comes back, his face is unreadable.
“Anyone who hires her,” he says, “will never do business with me again.”
I look at him. “In this whole city.”
“It’s done.”
I should feel bad. There’s a part of me that still believes in fairness and second chances, and that part should feel bad about what we’re doing to her.
I don’t.
“Okay,” I say.
He nods and pours himself another cup of coffee, and he doesn’t say anything else.
That night, he sleeps on the couch in his study.
I don’t ask him to stay, and he doesn’t offer. It’s the right call, and I know it is. We need space and time, and we need to stop falling into bed every time the tension gets too thick.
It still feels lonely.
I’m reading on the guest room bed when my phone buzzes.
It’s a text from Soren: Forgot to say this morning. Boot comes off Friday. Last appointment. You’re officially graduating.
I read it twice. Friday is three days from now.
Harry appears in my open doorway. He’s in sweatpants and a t-shirt with his hair rumpled, clearly on his way to the study.
“Everything okay?” he asks. “I heard your phone.”
I look up at him.
“The boot comes off Friday,” I say.
He goes very still.
“You told me you’d leave the day you could walk,” he says quietly.