Chapter 10 #2
“That’s an unsettling thing to say.”
“Is it?”
“Extremely.”
He glances at me. Then, very deliberately, he picks up the crate again.
“How long seems long to you?” I ask before I can stop myself.
“Penny.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No.”
I wait, but he doesn’t give me anything else. I let him have it. Restraint is a muscle, and mine is finally getting some use. But I make a note of it anyway.
By nine it’s just the two of us and the radio.
The garlic is roasted and shut away in the walk-in.
I did that an hour ago without discussing it, and Julian has not thanked me for it out loud.
Outside, the harbor has gone completely black.
Somewhere down the row, a halyard knocks against a mast every four seconds.
I’m piping a hundred and ten small cheese things when Julian comes up behind me.
“Excuse me.”
He reaches past my shoulder for the mixing bowl on the shelf above my head. His chest doesn’t quite touch my back. I stop piping. Not because this is new. That’s the problem.
I know what his mouth feels like now. I know what his hands feel like at my waist. I know exactly how little distance there is between Julian standing behind me and Julian kissing me.
He takes down the bowl, and I turn around. He’s still there. Close. Very close.
“You could have asked me to move.”
“I could have.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
I set the piping bag down, and his eyes follow the movement before they come back to me. I smile up at him.
“This is usually the part where you kiss me.”
“You’re working,” he says, but he doesn’t move away.
“I was working.”
“There are a hundred and ten—”
“A hundred and four.”
His gaze drops briefly to my mouth. “—unfinished things on that counter.”
“They’ll wait.”
“I am beginning to suspect you are a bad influence on yourself.”
“Probably.”
I put my hands on his chest.
“Are you going to kiss me or keep talking?”
He kisses me. His hand closes around my waist and pulls me against him, and I make a sound I absolutely hope the radio covers. His mouth is cool. His body is not. Or maybe that’s me. I don’t know anymore. I slide my hands up around his neck, and he backs me against the counter. Carefully.
Everything with Julian is careful. Especially this.
The counter catches the backs of my thighs. His hands move down, and then I’m sitting on the counter and he’s standing between my legs. He slides a big hand up my thigh and under my skirt and I go embarrassingly still.
“Julian—”
His eyes drop to the place where his fingers are resting on my hip, just above the lace edge of my underwear. His hand moves again, a slow light stroke along my leg, and his mouth goes to my jaw. I have to hold on to his shoulders.
“You did ask me to kiss you,” he murmurs.
His hand slides under my skirt and between my legs, barely touching me, and my hips go towards him before I have any say in it. His mouth is at my throat now, just below my ear.
“Julian, you said—”
His hand presses more firmly between my legs, and I lose the ability to speak.
The tip of one shockingly cool finger slides into me, and I make an involuntary noise.
I push against his hand, and his mouth opens against the side of my neck.
A low sound comes out of him as his careful control falters.
And then he stops. His forehead rests against mine. His hand is back on my thigh, and my breathing is completely out of control.
Julian’s isn’t.
Well. That isn’t quite accurate either, but I am absolutely not thinking about it right now.
“Why did you stop?”
His eyes open.
“Because there are a hundred and four cheese things behind you.”
I stare at him, and a hint of amusement crosses his face.
“That is not why,” I say.
“No.” His thumb moves once against my leg. “I am trying very hard to behave myself.”
That sentence does more to me than his hand did.
“I noticed.”
“Did you?”
“Oh, yes.”
His eyes close briefly.
I look at his hands. At the one on my thigh and the other braced beside my hip.
At the deliberate care in every single thing those hands touch.
I think about the fraction of a second when he pulled me closer.
About the sound he made against my neck.
About the way something in him slipped and was immediately put back.
And I want to know what happens when he stops stopping himself.
I am thirty-two years old, and I have never in my life wanted to know something so badly.
Julian steps back. I stay on the counter for a moment because my knees and I are no longer affiliated.
“You are extremely inconvenient,” I tell him.
“I am beginning to understand that.”
“Give me the piping bag.” He hands it to me. I look at the tray, then at him. “I’ve lost count.”
“One hundred and four.”
I roll my eyes. “Of course you know.”
“I count most things.”
I point the piping bag at him.
“Stool.”
He inclines his head.
“Yes, chef.”
I nearly pipe cheese onto the floor.
At nine thirty, Julian has his coat over his arm and I’m locking the walk-in.
“Penny.”
Something in his voice makes me turn. He’s standing by the loading door looking unusually stiff.
“What?”
“I have been asked to attend a benefit at the Maritime Museum on Sunday.”
“Okay.”
“I would ordinarily send money and remain at home.”
“That sounds like you.”
“It does.”
He pauses. Julian is not a man who fidgets. He does absolutely nothing now, which, on him, is practically fidgeting.
“May I ask you to accompany me? I—”
I’ve invited this man to dinner. To chowder. To the grange. To coffee. Into my house. Into my kitchen. Into every corner of my life.
This is the first time Julian has invited me anywhere.
“Yes,” I say before he’s even finished.
His face changes. Just a little, but I see it.
“Sunday,” he says.
“Sunday.”
“I’ll collect you at seven.”
“You’ll collect me?”
“Yes.”
“Like a date.”
A pause.
“That was my intention.”
Oh.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Very good.”
Unable to resist, I cross the kitchen and kiss him. Not like on the counter. Just once. Just because I can. When I step back, his eyes stay on mine.
“I would walk you home, but if I walk you home tonight I will not leave.”
“I know,” I say. “Sunday.”
“Sunday.”
He leaves. I lock up my building and stand outside in the cold for considerably longer than locking a door requires.
I’ve spent weeks inviting Julian Volkov into my life. Apparently he’s decided it’s his turn.
He’s never made me wait for an answer.
Tonight, I don’t make him wait either.