33. Drew
THIRTY-THREE
DREW
I might live over a hundred years and I’ll never forget the feeling of Jules in my arms. The way she sighs into our kiss, the way her hands tangle in my hair, the curve of her waist fitting so perfectly beneath my hands, the way she tastes like chocolates from our dessert.
She’s a decadent dessert and I plan on indulging until my dying breath.
Two months ago, the idea of kissing Jules would have made me think I was going crazy.
Now, I’ll go crazy if I don’t kiss her. Crazy woman, thinking I rejected her.
There might have been things about her which annoyed me, but I never denied that Juliet Love just might be the most beautiful woman in the world.
And I get to be the luckiest man because she picked me.
She pulls back from our kiss, staring up at me with wide eyes. “I still can’t believe I’m kissing you.”
“Do you want me to stop?” I ask.
“I never said that.” She rolls her eyes, smiling slightly. Her lips glisten from our kiss. “So, what happens now?”
Now, I’d like to take her to my room, lay her out on my bed and explore every inch of her body. I doubt that’s what she means or wants.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“We’re not two people who kiss, Andrew,” she says. “We fight, and we call a temporary truce because we have to live together.”
“We are exactly those people, and it wasn’t a temporary truce,” I say.
Jules lowers her hands, pulling back slightly. “You never agreed to be friends. I assume you want to remain in the truce zone.”
I wonder if telling her I want to bite into her will make her run away from me.
“I didn’t want to be just your friend and I needed time to come to terms with the fact that I might have to be. If that’s all I could be, I wanted to be a good friend.”
Her shoulders lower as she relaxes against me. Her body fits perfectly against mine, like it’s a place she’s always belonged. I’m afraid to admit, even to myself, that I might never want her to leave. Jules lowers her head to my chest and sighs deeply.
“What are we going to say?”
“To Lavinia?” I ask.
She nods. I rest my chin on top of her head, holding her close to me. Just the mere fact that she’s letting me this close to her says that some time in the last two months, she’s started to trust me.
“We’ll figure it out,” I say.
“This can get extremely ugly,” Jules says, tilting her head back to look at me. Her brows dip into a frown. “I don’t want either of our relationship with her to be affected and I’m worried that it will be.”
I kiss her forehead, smoothing out the worry lines.
“Don’t worry about Lavinia. I’ll take care of her,” I say.
Jules rolls her eyes. “How are you going to take care of her? She’s my best friend, I should be the one to tell her if something is happening between us.”
“Baby, there’s definitely something happening between us,” I say with a laugh.
She blushes slightly at my use of the term of endearment. “I’m your baby now?”
“You’re definitely my baby.”
She hums in thought, her lips forming a pout. “I don’t remember agreeing to that.”
“I remember you letting me kiss you, twice, so that makes you my baby.”
“I see.” There’s a spark in her eyes that I love seeing.
Jules has the most expressive eyes. When she doesn’t want to say anything, her eyes always do the talking for her.
For most of our lives, her eyes shot daggers at me, looking at me like I’d stolen her cat.
Right now, they look at me like I might be her favorite person in the world.
Then the spark dulls and she chews on her lip. “I should talk to Lavinia. Let me call her.”
She pushes away from me and starts to walk back into the living room, probably to get her purse. I grab her arm to stop her.
“This might be something we have to talk about in person,” I say.
I don’t want to give Lavinia the whole night to stew over the news. I want her showing up here even less.
“Okay, you’re right.” Jules nods.
“That might be the first time you’ve ever said that.” I grin at her.
She grins back. “This might be the first time it’s actually worth saying.”
I see how it is.
Jules turns on her heels, walking towards the stairs. “I’m going to bed.”
Bailey runs after her, the two of them climbing the stairs together.
“Is that an invitation?” I call after her.
“You wish!”
I laugh and check all the doors before heading upstairs. Jules’s door is slightly ajar, light spilling out into the dark hallway. I stare at it for a moment. Did she leave it open for Bailey or for me? Probably for Bailey. Surely, if she wanted me in her room, she’d have said something.
A part of me wants to push open the door and ask her if she’s absolutely sure I’m not invited to her bed. I don’t want to do anything other than sleep. I sleep so much better next to her, it surprised me the first time we shared a bed in New York.
The other part of me doesn’t want me to scare her off by asking.
A shadow falls across the floor and the door is opened all the way. Jules stands in the opening, wearing loose green pajama pants and a pink tee.
“Are you going to stand there or are you coming to bed?”
Relieved, I step forward and stop, looking down at my clothes. “Let me get ready for bed and I’ll be right there.”
Nodding, she disappears back into the room and I head into mine, already unbuttoning my shirt. I change into my night clothes and brush my teeth in record speed. I don’t want her to change her mind while I’m gone.
Her door is open when I step out into the hallway and I cross the distance eagerly. Jules is in bed, her hair pushed back with a headband, sheet mask on, her ereader propped up on her raised knees. Bailey is lying on her bed by the window because obviously she needed a bed for Jules’s room.
Jules looks at me as I walk in.
“I just realized the best part of almost dating someone you’ve known for years is that you don’t have to be sexy.”
“This isn’t sexy?” I ask, walking around the bed and getting in.
“This is sexy if you’ve been married for ten years,” Jules says. “Or so I assume. I’ve never been married and I don’t know what happens in people’s marriages. I should do some research on it.”
“Right now?” I ask. I settle against the pillows, turning slightly to watch her.
“Not right now, obviously. Right now, I have questions.” She sets her ereader aside and turns to face me, her face hidden behind the sheet mask.
“I assume you will,” I say.
“Since we’re doing this,” she waves a hand between us, “I think it’s only appropriate that I know before it’s too late.”
“Go on.”
Pulling the blanket slightly higher up her chest, she takes a deep breath to brace herself, and opens her mouth.
“Wait, can I just say something?” I ask.
She pauses, and nods hesitantly.
“I assume whatever you’re going to ask is serious,” I say. “While I love the sexiness of the sheet mask, it’s hard to take you seriously with it on.”
I expect her to be offended or kick me out of bed, in typical Jules fashion. Instead, she laughs.
“Hang on.” Getting out of bed, she rushes to the bathroom and comes back a minute later with glowing skin. She turns off the overhead light, leaving the bedside light on as she gets in bed, turning on her side to face me.
“Now, what were you going to ask?” I reach out, twisting my pinkie finger through hers.
“What’s with the hooks on your bed?”
I stare into her curious eyes. “We’re talking about that now?” I ask.
She nods against the pillow. “What if you want something that I can’t give you? What if our kinks don’t align?”
I smile. “What are your kinks?”
“None,” she admits easily.
I can’t hold back my laugh.
“It’s not something I’ve ever explored.” She frowns, twisting under the covers. “Anyway, go ahead.”
“The hooks are for ropes,” I say.
“For you or for someone else?” She asks.
“For someone else,” I reply.
For you, I don’t say. It’s not a deal breaker for me, but it might be for her. Maybe just knowing they exist, that I’ve used them, is enough for her to end this. It’s happened in the past, and while I’ve been disappointed then, I can guarantee this time it’s going to hurt the hardest.
Jules hums in thought. “So you like to tie people up while having sex.”
“I like to tie women who like it. It’s not a party trick that I bring out with everyone.”
She looks at me owlishly, questions brimming in her eyes. “What if someone doesn’t want that?”
I shrug. “Then they don’t want it. It’s a fun addition if both of us are into it. Sex is about two people who trust each other and are equally aware of what they and the other person wants.”
Jules looks away in thought. I start to think that’s the only question she’s going to ask tonight until she looks up. “So the women you've dated in the past also have kinks?”
“Some of them,” I hedge. For a brief second, I wonder if she’s going to ask which ones. She met all of them when I brought them to family dinner if things were getting serious. It’s not something I have the right to share.
“You’ve indulged in their kinks?”
“Sometimes,” I say. “Bondage is the mildest form of kink there is, in my opinion, and I like the control it gives me over my partner’s pleasure. But some of them wanted to explore things that I wasn’t comfortable with so we never did.”
Jules shifts again, chewing on her lip, her finger pulling against mine. Reaching out my other hand, I graze her cheek with the back of my fingers. “What are you thinking?”
“There are a lot of things I have to tell you, but I don’t want to do it tonight,” she says.
I nod. “That’s fine. We’re not in any rush.”
I want to have all the time in the world with her. To explore this soft, gentle side of her as much as I enjoy the tenacious one. I want to lie in this bed with her for hours. I want to come home with the security of knowing she’ll be here.
“You’re absolutely sure it’s not a deal breaker if we don’t do that?” Jules asks. There’s a vulnerability in her question, a fear that I can’t decipher. She watches me like she expects me to convince her to give it a try, just for me.
“We’re never going to do anything you’re not comfortable with, Jules. Nothing is more important than your safety.”
I realize the question must have weighed heavy on her mind with the way she exhales, as if releasing years worth of fear.
“Okay. Good.” Smiling at me softly, she puts her hand in mine. Our joined hands rest in the space between our pillows.
“Any other questions?” I ask.
“Not tonight.” She shakes her head.
“Can I ask you something then?”
Jules nods. “Anything.”
“You said you never wanted to date an athlete. That’s not a problem for you now?”
She looks down and I wait patiently for her answer. I want her with a desperation I’ve never known before, which is the only reason my traitorous mind whispers that I can leave the NHL if she wants.
“It’s not a problem with you,” she says confidently, looking up at me. “I’ve known you my whole life and that makes it easy to trust you.”
I want to ask her what’s the reason she wouldn’t trust an athlete, given that her best friend is one. The shadows dancing in her eyes tell me I wouldn’t like the answer, so I stay quiet for now.
“Thank you for trusting me. I know it’s not easy for you.”
She smiles softly. “You make it easy.”
Turning over, she switches off the lamp. The room falls into darkness. It’s a moonless night and there’s no light coming through the window either.
Jules’s feet brush against mine under the covers and we fall asleep just like that.