Page 76 of Julian

Finally, I’m fully inside her, deep and throbbing.

“Oh,” she says again, soft, wrecked. “Oh.”

I drop my forehead to hers.

“I know,” I tell her. “I know.”

I start to move.

Slow. Deep. Long strokes, learning her rhythm, watching her face for everything she gives me—and she gives me everything. There is nothing held back. When I shift the angle and find the spot that makes her cry out, she does, as her nails press into my shoulders and she says There, there, please, don’t stop, and I don’t.

I don’t stop.

I fuck her slowly until she’s begging, and then I fuck her less slowly, and then I’m gripping her hip. She’s lifting up to meet me and her teeth find my shoulder, the small, bright sting of it nearly finishes me right there.

“Look at me,” I tell her, breathless. “Look at me when you come.”

She does, right square in my eyes, exactly how I like it.

I lean into her a few strokes later, my face buried in her neck, her hands in my hair, my whole body going taut and then loose against her in a way I haven’t felt in—

I can’t even remember.

I’ve been with women before. More than I can count, if I’m being honest.

But this—my fucking God, this is something else. This is a nakedness I haven’t been near in a long time. She gave me everything and didn’t keep any of it back, and now I am ruined in the very best way. I know it, and I don’t mind one bit.

When it slows, her head settles just beneath my chin. Her breath is still uneven against my skin. Her heart races where her ribs press to mine.

Neither of us speaks. I slowly brush my fingers along her arm, and she utters a contented sigh, then burrows closer. She’s rumpled and flushed and entirely undone. And God, is she fucking sexy. I have never wanted to keep anyone the way I want to keep her right now.

As I lie there, holding her in a place I’ve kept separate for so long—private and untouched—I realize maybe it’s time to let someone back in my life.

Maybe.

Chapter 20

Harper

The snow in Manhattan looks fake when it’s fresh like this. It’s not yet the gray slush it turns into after taxis and delivery trucks and a million impatient boots grind it into the pavement. Instead, it’s the rare kind for NYC that sits bright white, soft and untouched over everything, muffling the city enough.

I stand at the corner of Prince and Greene Streets after climbing out of the cab, my scarf tucked tight beneath my chin as flakes drift lazily past the glow of the streetlights. SoHo at Christmas always exudes a cinematic vibe. The storefronts are lit gold and white, people move slower and with more caution because of the snow, and somewhere down the block a saxophone player butchers a rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” with tremendous confidence.

And somehow, despite the blustering cold biting at my cheeks, I’m still warm from the Bahamas… mainly from who I was with in the Bahamas.

The trip is still surreal to me, like I watched it happen to someone else instead of an event I lived through. Every time I close my eyes, I see turquoise water and white sand and Julian standing barefoot on the dock in linen pants looking incredibly handsome against the sunset.

And then my brain, because it apparently hates me, immediately follows that memory with another one… him above me in bed, saying my name against my skin, our bodies, hot and pulsing—

I nearly walk into a woman carrying shopping bags.

“Sorry,” I mutter quickly.

She gives me a distracted nod and keeps moving.

I exhale hard into the cold air and push through the doors of the lounge before my thoughts get any more dangerous.

Warmth hits me instantly, along with low music and the ever-present current of conversation that fills NYC bars and lounges. The place is dim in that downtown way, candles flickering on marble tables, velvet chairs, everyone dressed like they own three apartments and a creative agency even though half of these people are trust funders and the other half will run out of money after six months in Manhattan.