by Audra North
Naomi gave him a skeptical look, but she uncrossed her arms and sighed. “If you say so. But even if you’re right, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re already acting differently because of her. You say you can’t afford anything serious right now, but I still say it’s more serious than you’re willing to admit.”
She pushed away from the bookshelves and walked toward his office door, turning at the threshold. “I told you last week to be open to possibility, but it sounds to me like you’ve already decided how things should be.” She sighed when she saw him scowl. “I think you’re a great academic and a wonderful friend. So please know that I am saying this because I care about you and want you to be happy. But if this blows up in your face, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
…
“So, was Operation Hotness successful?”
Julie couldn’t keep from grinning at Frannie’s question. “It was—” She stopped short, not sure how to describe what had happened last night, because “successful” didn’t even begin to cover it. Mind-blowing, yes. Hot, definitely. But there had been more to it than just sex. Getting to know some of Adam’s history had only made Julie appreciate him more.
Frannie whistled. “Good enough that you don’t even have the words, eh?”
Julie laughed. “You know me too well.”
“Are you going to see him again?”
“Of course I’m going to see him again!” Julie tried not to sound too indignant, given that she practically jumped into bed with him after he’d told her he only wanted one night. But something had changed during those hours, and she hadn’t wanted to push it by asking him why.
There was a moment of silence on the other end, and then Frannie asked, calmly, “Are you getting serious with him?”
Julie sighed. No. Except she wanted to. Except he’d said he didn’t want anything serious. But then, he hadn’t stuck to his “one night” plan.
God this was complicated. “I think I could.” She realized even as she said the words that she hoped he felt the same way.
“If you guys get married, may I call him Professor Hotness?”
“You’re getting a little ahead of yourself, Frannie. But, yes, you may.”
“What about when I come up there in a couple of weeks?”
“You’re coming to visit?” Julie squealed into the phone. “You’d better be staying with me.”
Frannie laughed. “Of course I’m staying with you, Miss Rockefeller. Your place is nicer than any four-star hotel. I’m flying in the Thursday after next for an all-day training on Friday, then I fly back on Sunday morning.”
Julie hesitated for a moment, trying to fight the disappointment that she wouldn’t be able to see Adam after their class the night that Frannie arrived, but her friend immediately followed up with, “And don’t stay away from Professor Hotness on my account. In fact, I insist that you go home with him again. I arrive really late, so I’ll just use the spare key you gave me.”
“You’re talking like it’s a sure thing, Frannie.”
“Well, didn’t you just say you wanted it to be?”
Yes. But it takes two to tango. Julie laughed at her own pun. “I guess I did. I don’t know. I want it to be more than just sex, though. And I think it might be.”
“I should have known you’d be just as intense about this whole thing with Professor Hotness as you are about the rest of your life. I guess when you resolved to live and round out your personal life, you didn’t want it to be the only thing you’ve ever put a half-assed effort into.”
“I’m not sure whether that was a compliment or an insult.”
“Since you’re letting me stay in your fabulous apartment for the weekend, it was definitely a compliment.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You love me.”
“True.” Julie nodded to herself. “And I’ll see you in two weeks.”
Chapter Nine
He never thought he’d enjoy just walking. Adam stepped Julie backward in time to the music, moving in the circle of dancers. She had a small smile on her face, and every once in a while, her hand would caress his shoulder as if to remind him of her touch.
Like he needed reminding. He’d thought of her too much this week already, but the thoughts hadn’t distracted him like before. They were almost like rewards—a way to lose himself a little at the end of a particularly grueling class, or after rewriting entire sections of his book to reflect new studies in the field. Thinking of Julie was surprisingly…fun.
Even more amazing was, once he stopped fighting thoughts of her, his work got easier, too. He’d been looking forward to tonight’s lesson so much that he hadn’t even minded leaving behind a stack of papers to grade before tomorrow afternoon. Of course, that meant he had to reserve the late-night hours tonight for that. But maybe he could convince Julie to go back to his place for an hour or—
The thought made him cringe. There was no nice way to ask a girl to come home with you for an hour of sex before you rolled out of bed and started grading papers.
It’s just…he wanted to be with her.
Fuck, he was turning sappy. He didn’t need to be with her. He needed to get his act together and do some work.
“Very nice, Adam.” Ivana appeared next to his shoulder, walking in time with him and Julie. “You’ve really found your style in this class. And you’ve certainly relaxed a great deal since the first lesson. You look like a natural now.”
With that, she walked away, leaving him reeling and Julie grinning. A natural? Him?
“I knew you could move.” Julie leaned in and murmured the words. She was teasing him, but there was a promise behind it.
Too bad he couldn’t see it fulfilled tonight.
“Listen…” He had to pause to guide them around a couple who had stopped and were arguing over who had caused the guy to step on his girlfriend’s foot. “I’m kind of in a crunch period right now. I have to leave and get back home right after class tonight.”
Her fingers curled tight around his for a moment, but quickly released. Damn it. She’d been expecting to be with him. He felt like an asshole. Still, it’s not like he’d been leading her on. He’d told her he would come to the class tonight, and he had. Surely she didn’t expect a relationship, did she? She was a young, beautiful, pleasure-seeking woman who would want to do things like dance lessons on a regular basis. He…was not.
“No problem.” Her tone was casual, but her shoulders were tight. He could feel it as they moved through the dance.
Which was a surprise. He’d never been particularly good at anything that required relaxed grace, easy fluidity. But he could actually sense Julie’s mood just by holding her in a dance form.
“Um…maybe…” She drew his attention back to her, and he was surprised to see her worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. What was she nervous about? “Would you—that is, um, are you doing anything on Saturday evening?”
Ah.
He did have plans to work. But the things he needed to get done weren’t as important as his grading tonight. He shook his head. “No. I’m not. What did you have in mind?” He’d had such a productive week, after all. Surely he could spare one evening. Once this dance course ended, he would be nose to the grindstone again, anyway.
Besides, after last week, when she hadn’t protested at his warning that their involvement was only for one night, he figured she was exactly what he’d thought—carefree and out to have a good time. No strings attached.
“Maybe dinner? Seven o’clock? I could meet you at your place and we could eat somewhere close by.”
He nodded. “Yeah, okay. Sounds good. Sounds…fun.”
She smiled, and on they walked.
…
“Can I ask you something?”
Adam set down his fork and nodded at Julie. “Go for it.”
They were sitting at a small place near his apartment, having a leisurely dinner. They’d been talking about Adam’s sisters—two of them had young c
hildren whom he’d met only once—and the entire time, Julie couldn’t stop wondering something.
“Why are you so against having a good time? I mean, I know you said that right now you’re under pressure to finish your book, and I get that you had too much work when you were in school, but wasn’t there ever a time when you just…you know, kicked back?”
He blew out a breath, then picked up his wineglass and took a sip. She wondered what he was thinking about, whether she’d offended him, because it took him a long time to answer.
And when he did, it was with a casual dismissal. “Even if I could afford the time, I’m not like you. Fun doesn’t come easily to me.”
He’d said something like that before. Didn’t he realize?
“It doesn’t come easily to me, either. I mean, I am happy. But only because I make an effort to be. It’s not as easy as it looks. It takes work, and it takes away from work, and sometimes I’d rather just sit around in my pajamas and eat ice cream than dress up and go out to something like a tango class.”
He leaned forward, clearly puzzled. “Then why do you do it?”
Should she tell him? Should she share her unhappy high school experience and the reason why she made her promise to always live life to the fullest? It felt a little intense. Intimate. Not something she would tell just a fling.
And yet she wanted to tell him. She took a deep breath. “I had a hard time in high school. A bad experience with some other girls who weren’t very nice to me and—well, it went on for a year before I even worked up the courage to tell my mom about it.”
He reached his hand across the table and took hers. The contact made her relax a little, and she smiled at him. “I transferred to another school for my senior year and had a much better experience. I worked really hard, got a lot of my confidence back. But I realized that I hadn’t done a great job of putting myself out there and being social. I was too afraid still. That’s when I swore to start making an effort to have fun. To smile and to laugh and to dance—not just bury myself in my work. It never stops requiring an effort, but it’s important. I don’t want to lose that kind of joy again.”
His fingers stroked hers. “I’m sorry, Julie. I didn’t realize…”
“How could you have?” But did he realize what she was saying about him? How the risk in his life wasn’t having fun, but rather missing out on so much because he was giving in to his fear of not being able to provide for his family?
She cocked her head to one side and looked at him, wondering whether she should say what was on her mind now. But just then, the waitress stopped by and dropped off their bill, interrupting the moment.
As though through some unspoken agreement, they exchanged only a few words while he paid and they walked out, heading the few blocks to his apartment building. Adam hit the call button for the elevator, then leaned over to kiss her, hot and sweet at the same time.
He softened the kiss and whispered against her lips, “I should have asked whether you were planning to come up.”
She nodded, her nose bumping his. “I’d love to.”
The elevator arrived and they took it up to his floor, then headed down the hall to his place. He spoke to her over his shoulder as he unlocked the door. “You said earlier that you weren’t sure whether you’d work at Carter long-term, but we got off topic after that. I never asked you why that was.”
Usually, she felt somewhat awkward, talking about her work to anyone who wasn’t in finance, since most found it pretty boring. She rarely had a chance to share what she was working on unless she was talking to Frannie or her sister-in-law Meredith. It made her heart skip a beat to realize that he would not only understand, but possibly even think that what she had to say was interesting.
“I like working there. I was promoted to senior analyst recently, and they want me to start managing a few more analysts next year. But I’ve had an offer recently from a hedge fund to move over and manage that.”
“Wow, are you going to take it?” He pushed his door open and gestured for her to step inside.
“I’m not sure,” she began, feeling suddenly very self-conscious. Even though she was usually confident in her work, sharing her ambitions with Adam made her nervous. She wanted him to think well of her. In every way. “I’ve learned a lot at Carter. Enough to, um, develop my own model for emerging markets.”
She cringed, bracing herself for his laughter at her amateurish meddling around.
But he didn’t laugh. In fact, he looked pretty impressed. And—interested. He stepped in to kiss her, a slow, sensuous pull of lips. “You have no idea how turned on I am right now. Tell me more about your model.”
She had to struggle to focus. It was hard to think about anything right now except the wet heat gathering between her legs. The way he nibbled at her jaw, scraping his teeth lightly over her earlobe—
“Tell me,” he repeated, pushing his hand beneath the light sweater she wore and gently palming her breasts over her bra. She arched into his hand, desperate for skin-on-skin contact, but he didn’t give her what she wanted. Just continued to stroke and squeeze her. Waiting.
“M-most of the work so far focuses on adapting existing, proven models to scale up or down so that they fit these middle markets. But—oh my God.”
She panted as he pushed his hands under her bra and lightly pinched her nipples, rolling them between his strong fingers. She looped her arms around his neck and arched back, pushing her hips into him. Wow, he wasn’t kidding. He was very, very turned on.
“What else?”
“Most also don’t take into account—fuck, Adam. Is this necessary?”
He had pushed her clothes out of the way and was now sucking on one breast, and she brought one hand to his hair to tug gently in encouragement. But as soon as she stopped talking, his mouth moved off of her, making her whimper with need. She looked down at the pale, damp skin, topped with the soft pink circle of her areola, and his mouth only an inch away. A soft moan pushed out of her.
He laughed, low and seductive. “No, it’s not necessary. But humor me.” And then, as she watched, he ran his tongue in a tight circle around her nipple.
She nearly exploded. Yes. That was so good. She brought her hand downward and took hold of his belt loops, pulling him forward against her until she could open his pants and slide her hand into his boxers to stroke his thick, hard flesh. He groaned and thrust into the circle of her fingers.
“Micro-microfinancing activity is often significant enough to a developing economy that it needs to be given equal, if not more, weight than traditional financing avenues.” She purred the words at him, and he broke, taking her mouth hard, almost brutally, as they worked at each other’s clothes. Within seconds, they were completely naked.
She’d never be able to read The Economist again without getting turned on.
He walked her to the nearby couch, giving her one last hard kiss before turning her around and bending her over the back of it, leaning over her body and stroking his tongue from her neck to the base of her spine. She shuddered and moaned and writhed against him.
Before she could register what he was doing, he knelt down, dipped his head between her legs, and licked between her folds.
“Oh!” She jerked upward, but his hand was on her back, holding her against the couch as he ran his tongue over her, teasing at her clit with his mouth, until she was practically begging for him to fill her, to make her come. No other man had ever made her feel so needy, so fast.
“Adam. Oh. I want you.” She was panting, frantic, scratching at the cushions of his couch. And when he didn’t respond, just continued to suck and nibble her swollen, hot flesh, she rose, pushing at his head. “Adam!”
The man actually had the nerve to grin up at her. But when she dropped to her knees on the floor next to him and pressed her mouth to his in a heavy, open kiss, he dropped the grin and pulled her flush against him, rubbing his hard cock against her lower belly until the abrasion of his wiry hair against her sensiti
ve skin became too much for her to bear.
“Now, Adam. I need you now,” she insisted, and this time he complied, pulling her up and leading her to the bedroom, sitting her on the bed before grabbing a condom and rolling it on in record time. But instead of lying back and letting him thrust into her, she pulled him down to lean against the headboard.
“Like this.” The commanding tone in her voice surprised her, but she found herself unwilling to have it any other way. She straddled his hips, positioned him, and took him halfway in one hard stroke.
He let out a groan, digging his fingers into her hips as she lowered herself again, this time sliding down his entire length. “God, Julie. You feel so good.”
She brought her hands up to the headboard behind him, steadying herself as she moved her body up and down again, slowly, loving the feel of him trembling beneath her. His eyelids were lowered, his mouth slightly parted, and it floored her to realize just how much she enjoyed giving this man pleasure, not because he seemed to have had so little in his life, but because she wanted to. She wanted to do it for herself as much as for him. For Adam.
She increased her pace, pushing her hips forward against him each time, and he opened those gorgeous, glinting blue eyes to look into hers before pulling her forward for a kiss, just as he bucked up into her. On a gasp, she began to move even faster on him, his body pushing up into hers each time, hitting her in just the right spot, until she was so close that she was grabbing at his hair, his back, trying to take hold of her climax and drive it home.
He grunted, bracing his weight on his hands and driving deep, once, twice, and she felt it then, racing up her fingertips and down her legs. She moaned and curled into him as her passage pulsed around his cock, milking his own release from his body in long, trembling shudders.
…
A little while later, they were lying on Adam’s bed, Julie’s back nestled against his chest. She gave a little hum of satisfaction before saying lazily, “I didn’t realize financial models were one of your erogenous zones.”
He gave a weak laugh and sifted his fingers through her hair. “I didn’t, either.” With his other hand, he stroked down her side and laced his fingers through hers. “But that was way better than porn.”
