Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 63716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
“Hey, there you are.” And a hand clapped around my shoulder. Garrett and his wife were finally inside.
It was the last thing I wanted to hear, even though he was my best friend. It meant we were trapped at this fucking circus for another three hours. My fantasy of dragging Willow out the side door and spiriting her back to my place evaporated in a plume of acrid smoke. Distance opened up between us as Garrett, Destiny, and Dana suddenly turned our twosome into a cozy circle. Even Miller was making his way back toward us. Then we were heading to our table, cutting through the crowd and commotion, the happy voices around us climbing over one another.
I managed to engineer the seating so that I was sitting between Dana and Willow. Miller was on her other side. Garrett and Destiny were across the round table. It took a few minutes, but when Dana was leaning forward, talking to Destiny around Garrett, and Miller was turned around in his chair, talking to another director, I managed to catch Willow’s eye.
We didn’t need words. We were both thinking the same thing.
She was coming home with me tonight.
17
WILLOW
We were barely inside the front door before Julian’s hands were on me. Bracketing around my waist, turning me around. He kicked the door shut with his foot and backed me up against the wall of the foyer. He hadn’t left a light on upstairs, so it was dim and shadowed. Only a thin trickle of moonlight allowed me to see the hungry expression on his face.
“You want to do this,” he said, and I couldn’t tell whether it was a question or a statement. It didn’t matter.
“Yes,” I whispered. I wanted it so much I almost couldn’t breathe. I’d waited all this time–my friends losing their virginity one by one until I was the last one left. Until we were at an age when losing your virginity wasn’t a breathless, whispered revelation anymore–it was just expected that it had happened.
Julian’s mouth came down on mine, and I slid my hands up the iron pane of his chest until I crested the hard line of his muscular shoulders. They were tense, one palm braced against the wall beside my head, the other wrapped around my waist, pulling me to him while his other hand simultaneously pushed away. He wanted to do this as much as I did, but he was still conflicted, too.
I parted my lips beneath his, and immediately his tongue breached the divide, finding mine, deepening this kiss. I let myself dissolve into it, losing all sense of time as his mouth took mine. Slowly his resistance melted, and he wrapped his other hand around my waist. It slid up my back until the dress gave way to skin, then stopped at the sensitive nape of my neck.
I had no idea how much time was passing. It could have been minutes or hours or even days. The entire concept of time felt ephemeral and not quite real. It was melting like the space and distance between us. The only thing that felt tangible was his mouth on mine, the span of his hand across my back, the fingers that had moved up to tangle in my hair. So it was a shock when he pulled back slightly and broke the kiss.
I blinked, too disoriented to ask him why.
“We should go upstairs,” Julian murmured. His eyes were shadowed, but I caught a glint of blue in their depths as he pulled back further.
He led me up the steps, his hand firmly wrapped around mine. He must have felt it too, the desperate need not to break contact.
We both paused in the living room, wondering.
“No,” Julian muttered with a shake of his head. “Not this time.”
The words sent a thrill up my spine. Not this time. There would be more times. I felt it in my bones as he led me up the next flight of stairs. The third floor was new territory.
Julian’s room was large and elegantly appointed within an inch of its life. Clearly the work of a designer, but it felt entirely him. The bed was as big as the ocean with dark, silky sheets. The walls were slate gray, the floor cool and dark beneath my bare feet. I caught a glimpse of a trophy shelf and recognized some of the most prestigious awards that Hollywood had to offer.
All of them except an Oscar.
I smiled at the shelf, picturing a teenaged Julian with the same shelf full of sports trophies.
“What are you smiling about?” Julian murmured, turning to face me.
“You,” I whispered honestly.
His slow, disarmingly sweet grin made his white teeth glint in the moonlight. It didn’t have to sneak in here like it had the stairwell, it streamed in with his full invitation, the vertical blinds pushed back against the wall. “You make me smile too,” he said. “Especially when you let me do this.” He found the zipper in the back of my dress and pulled it all the way down to the end of its track, just over my tailbone.