by Ann Gimpel
He bent so his mouth was close to her ear. “I love you.”
“Not as much as I love you.” Leaning closer, she rose on tiptoe and kissed him once, hot, brief, and brimming with promise.
“I can’t wait until I have you to myself,” he murmured.
“I want to run away with you too, but we’ve waited fifteen years. Let’s enjoy tonight. We’ve made our families very happy.”
“Oh hell, Juliana, you’ve made me the happiest man in the universe.”
Chris and Ariel caught up with them on their way in from outside. Chris dropped a hand onto his shoulder. “Right this way, my boy. We have years of toasts to catch up on.”
“Indeed,” Ariel chimed in. “You can snuggle later. You’re not kids anymore. You have a whole house to cavort in, not just the downstairs hallway.” A rich, rowdy laugh punctuated her words.
Reluctantly, Brice let go of Julie.
She flashed him a grin worthy of Aphrodite. “Hang onto those thoughts.”
He smiled back, bursting with love. “Every single one of them.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Angus had long since taken Sarah upstairs. Susan, Trevor, and Rob had retired to the downstairs suite Lupe had prepared for them. Julie and Brice walked her parents out onto the front porch.
“We want to come along on the daytrip to the San Juan Islands,” Ariel said.
“Should be fun,” Chris seconded.
“I’ll call and let you know as soon as we get it scheduled,” Julie promised. “Night, Mom. Night, Dad.”
“Night, honey.” Ariel hugged her, and then she hugged Brice. “Welcome to the family. Better late than never, I always say.”
“Mom.” Julie elbowed her, disconcerted by her propensity to say things out loud that most people only thought.
“What?” Ariel quirked a brow. “You have a problem with the truth?”
Chris shook Brice’s hand for the millionth time. “Pleasure working with you, son. You might consider signing on. We always need medical personnel.”
“Do you mean enlisting in the Marines?” Brice smiled warmly.
“Not exactly. This is more of a private list we keep. Of civilians willing to help out from time to time. The pay is good.” He released Brice’s hand. “Think about it. You’ll receive a check in the next few days for what you just did.”
“What about me? Do I get paid too?” Julie asked.
Chris snorted laughter. “Nope. Sorry, honey, archaeology isn’t one of the specialties the service is willing to reimburse.” Still laughing, he looped a hand beneath his wife’s arm and guided her down the front steps and to their car.
Brice stood by Julie’s side, and they watched her folks turn the car around and drive away. “It’s a nice night,” he said. “Would you like to go for a walk down by the lake?”
“Sure, but I need a coat.” Nice was relative in the Pacific Northwest and usually meant it wasn’t raining.
“Hang on, I’ll get you one.” He ducked back inside, returning a moment later with an insulated jacket that he draped over her shoulders. It smelled like him, musky and masculine, and she snuggled into its folds.
He held out a hand; she clasped it, weaving her fingers with his. They walked down the brick steps in front of his house and followed a path inlaid with paving stones around the house. He’d been right about it being a lovely evening. Crisp and clear, the sky was alight with thousands of stars.
“Tonight was magical,” she said.
“I thought so too. Which parts did you like best?”
Julie thought about it, and for once words didn’t come easily. “I may make a botch of this, but tonight felt right. Like you and I were exactly where we were supposed to be—after a very long time. Sarah and Angus and your mom and her honey were icing on the cake.”
“I’m still in awe you agreed to be my wife. I’ve felt like I was floating ever since you said yes.”
She tossed her head back and laughed. “The trick will be if you’re still floating a year from now. It’s not going to be easy living with someone like me.”
“Why?” Genuine curiosity underscored his question.
“I’m addicted to being in the field, and when I unearth something, I can hunker over it for hours. When I get like that, I shut the rest of the world out.”
“Only because there wasn’t someone you valued enough to share your treasure with.” He paused long enough to take a breath. “Sheesh. If your colleagues are anything like that Conom bastard, I’d keep a pretty low profile about my finds too.”
“Oh, come on.” She leaned closer, loving having him by her side again.
“Oh, come on, what?”
“Surely, you’re not going to go all gaga over thousand-year-old etchings.”
“Maybe not,” he replied, “but I’m plenty gaga over you. When we were patching Katie up, you did a credible job assisting me. No reason I can’t help in the same way. I have good hands and a deft touch. Couldn’t do surgery without them.”
“Is that an oblique way of telling me you’d take good care of my artifacts?”
“The best.”
“Speaking of best,” she murmured. “You are the best, most wonderful, most amazing person. I’m honored you still want me in your life.”
They’d reached a short pier jetting into Lake Washington, and Brice closed his arms around her from behind as they looked out on flickering lights from boats and neighboring houses. She leaned back against him, enjoying the long, lean lines of his body pressed close to hers.
“A lot of love stories have come full circle,” he said, his tone thoughtful. “Ours isn’t the only one. We were blessed to share two others tonight. I never thought Mom would fall in love again, but I really like Trevor.”
“Me too. He’s solid, and his boy is a gem.”
“My stepbrother.” Brice chuckled. “That’s going to take some getting used to.”
“That’s right.” She turned and threaded arms around him. “You were an only child.”
Brice cradled the side of her face in one hand. “You’re so beautiful.”
Breath caught in her throat. “So are you. I’m happy. So happy it hurts.”
He ran a hand down her back, cupping the curves of her ass and making a decidedly masculine purring sound. “I am too. Did I ever tell you your ass is amazing?”
“Yours is pretty spectacular too.” She gripped it and pulled him closer. A growing erection pressed into her belly, and she felt aroused and shy at the same time. He hadn’t seen her body in years. She wasn’t exactly young anymore.
“Tell me what you want.” His voice rasped with desire. “How you want us to come together for our first time.”
She recognized the way he sounded when he wanted her, and a quiver of heat skittered down her spine. “But it isn’t our first time.”
He nuzzled her neck, warm breath tickling her sensitive skin. “Yes, it is. We’re starting over, you and me. We can go back inside and upstairs to my bedroom. We can drive into Bellevue and check in at a fancy hotel. We can sit in the spa if you’d like or take a dip in my almost-never-used pool. We can drive across the bridge and go to your house. You call it.”
“It’s you I want. Not a glitzy hotel room.”
He nodded. “I feel the same way, but we’re going to talk, Juliana. A lot. About everything. We’re going to make certain we don’t have any more misunderstandings. I want to protect you. Take care of you. Give you everything you want.”
“What if the only thing I ever really wanted was you?” Her throat developed thick places from the emotion sluicing through her, and her chest constricted, suddenly not big enough to hold her heart.
“Really?”
She nodded and blinked back tears that threatened to spill over. “I’ve spent the last fifteen years buried in work so I wouldn’t have to dissect what happened.” She tilted her chin upward. “In grad school, they used to call me the Ice Queen. I hardly ever dated, and when I did, the guys never last
ed past one or two evenings.” She held his gaze, liquid in moonlight trickling from the waxing moon.
“Why not?”
“Because they weren’t you.”
He tightened his hold on her. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” Angling his head, he brought his mouth down atop hers. The kiss was slow and lazy, an all-the-time-in-the-world kiss. Stubble from today grazed her cheek as he licked and sucked and teased her lips. He bit her lower lip and soothed the sting with his tongue.
She laced her fingers into his hair, delighting in the blend of silky strands and rough curls as she explored his lips and mouth with her tongue. He tasted sweet from a cinnamon-y dessert Lupe had made combined with sharp overtones from the aged port he’d always enjoyed. He strung kisses down her cheek to the hollow in her throat, moving her jacket aside for better access as he darted little jabs with his tongue.
The sensation of hot breath and firm lips made her gasp. Her nipples formed peaks where they pressed against his chest, and heat engulfed her nether regions, startling in its intensity. She’d decided sex was overrated and she could live without it, but she’d been dead wrong.
Brice opened channels in her that had been dammed up for years. Channels carrying love and hope and tenderness. Sensitivity and compassion.
She wanted to take her time.
She wanted to rip his clothes off and inhale all the wonderful maleness that was Brice right here on the pier.
He lifted his face from her neck, breath coming fast. “I want you, Julie. Need you.” Without warning, he moved an arm downward and beneath her knees, sweeping her off her feet and into his embrace.
“You don’t need to carry me.” She laughed, not trying very hard to break free.
“Maybe I want to.” He laid a hand over her head, tucking it against his shoulder.
“Where are we going?” Letting go of her need to always be in charge was easier than she’d have thought possible.
“Closest place is the pool house, but the house will be warmer, at least until I get the brazier lit.”
“Close is good.” The nearness of him combined with letting him carve out the next piece of their future was intoxicating.
He turned away from the lake and its gently lapping water and walked slowly toward a structure she hadn’t noticed in the dark. Sitting partway between the house and the lake, it reminded her of a geodesic dome.
He stopped next to a door and let go of her head long enough to punch a series of numbers into a keypad. The door sprang open, and he carried her inside. Muted light illuminated a patio with soft outdoor furniture artfully arranged around a center pit containing a brazier. Beyond stretched a pool with a gurgling hot tub off to one side.
“I hate to let go of you even for an instant, but I need to light that.” He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, and her lips before setting her on her feet and bending to an igniter. The gas-powered fire blazed to life, looking incredible realistic.
“This is lovely,” she said. “Bet you spend a lot of time down here.”
“No. All I do is work, but I’ve always had plans for it. In the summer, the top of the dome rolls back and the sides come up, so it’s like having an outdoor pool.”
She gazed at him, drinking him in. “Yeah, I work all the time too, but you’re going to save me from a spinsterhood where the only thing that keeps me warm at night are my cases of artifacts.”
“Maybe we’ll save each other.” He slid her jacket from her shoulders and placed his hands on her upper arms.
Shivers cascaded down her spine. She wanted him to touch her, stroke her, kiss her. Extending a tentative hand, she pushed his sweater off his shoulders and went to work unbuttoning a cream-colored silk shirt. He groaned at her touch but remained still as she worked the shirt off him and laid it over his sweater.
Breath hitched in her throat at the beauty of his naked chest. Muscles curved around his shoulders and down his arms, but he had the lean build of a runner, rather than the bulked-up look of someone who lived in a gym. A dusting of blond hair circled bronze nipples. Bending close, she licked one, and it hardened instantly beneath her tongue.
“Aw, Jesus, you’re amazing.” He grappled behind her back, hunting for the zipper holding her dress in place.
The fabric loosened and slithered from her shoulders and then to the ground where it puddled around her feet. She stepped out of it and her shoes at the same time and took a deep, shaky breath. Would he still find her attractive?
Brice reached around and undid her lacy black bra, tossing it aside. A harsh intake of breath was followed by him surging forward and filling his hands with her breasts before he angled his head and traded his mouth for his fingers. Sensation shot from her nipples to her crotch, and liquid added to the heat throbbing between her legs.
She reached for the tented-out front of his trousers and wrapped a hand around the cock she remembered so well, it invaded her dreams.
He pushed into her hand, making wonderful male noises. Encouraged, she undid his belt and the button and zipper holding his trousers up. They slid down his legs, leaving silk boxers. Too aroused to bother with dragging them down, she reached inside and drew his cock out.
Hard, proud, thick, wonderful. She fell to her knees and took him into her mouth, working him between her hands, lips, and tongue. They’d spent a lot more time pleasuring one another this way than they had having actual sex. They’d only had intercourse a handful of times before she had her hissy fit and kicked him to the curb.
He thrust into her mouth a few times before placing his hands on either side of her head and pulling free. “I’m too close. And you still have clothes on.”
“Not technically,” she managed through a haze of desire that clouded damn near everything. “Pantyhose aren’t clothes.”
He gripped the form-fitting nylon and worked it down her hips and legs, steadying her while she stepped out of them. Stumbling slightly, he worked himself free of trousers and loafers while she divested him of his shorts.
The vista of him naked almost made her come. The cords of muscle marking his upper body continued along his slender stomach and down powerful legs. The cock she still held firmly in one hand rose from a mat of blond curls.
“I can’t believe how beautiful, how perfect, you are.” His voice came out in a low growl. Fierce and protective. “Don’t know about you, but my legs are shaky.” He held out a hand. She clasped it, and he led her to an ivory-colored divan right next to the brazier.
The room had warmed considerably, but she was plenty hot from a fire burning within. Sitting, he pulled her across his lap and covered her mouth with his. Unlike his last kisses, this one ran wide open. It said clearer than any words she was his woman.
His and his alone.
She kissed him back, clinging to him as if they were the only two people left in the world. Somehow, they ended up lying on their sides with her breasts crushed against her chest and his cock curved into her belly. She reached between them and positioned him between her legs where she could rub against his hardness.
She’d come that way lots of times before as they’d moved incrementally closer to actual sex. The heat and familiarity were like an aphrodisiac as she writhed against his erection. He moved his hands to her ass, pressing hard. The increased stimulation drove her mad, and an orgasm raced through her, cresting hard.
He waited until her breathing quieted, and then rolled them until he was on top. “I remember you coming like that. It always made me hotter than hell. So hot, I’d almost always come along with you.”
“But not tonight?” she teased.
“I’m waiting for the real thing.”
Julie wrapped her legs around his waist, opening herself to the thick head of his cock pressing for entrance. Still higher than a kite, drunk on sex and love, she gripped his hips, encouraging him to fill the empty place inside her.
Brice sank into her slowly, stretching her as he went. Once he was fully encased, he stopped movi
ng and looked down at her, his face flushed with lust and love spilling from his eyes. “I’m not going to last very long.”
She smiled, slow and lazy. “That’s okay, neither am I.” She tightened her vault around him. When he groaned, she did it again.
He withdrew and sank back inside, growing stiffer and bigger. She moved one hand from his hips and sank it between her legs, rubbing her clit. After a startled gasp, he pulled out and drove back inside her. Savage. Fierce. Any pretense of lingering, of making their coupling last, fled.
She shrieked, thrilled by being taken. Delighted by his lack of restraint as he fucked her. This was a place they’d never gotten to when they were young. A place where the veneer of socialization dropped away, leaving sheer animal lust.
Another climax hovered. She felt it spool deep inside her, ready itself, and explode in concentric waves of desire and need. He hesitated at the top of the next stroke. She felt tension in every part of his body and understood the slightest motion would drive him into the no-man’s-land of male ecstasy.
She rocked against him and pulled him into her, both hands on his ass.
With a low, feral cry that exhilarated her, he let go. His cock juddered, painting her with white-hot gouts of semen. He spasmed over and over, and she held on to him as hard as she could, wanting to enhance his pleasure.
Gasping, panting, they ground against each other as the last of their passion faded. He turned her until they lay on their sides, and smoothed hair out of her face. “I love you, Juliana.” A soft smile curved his beautiful mouth into something profane. “I feel like you and I have been linked forever, not just through this lifetime, but like I must have known—and loved—you through many others.”
She cupped the side of his face, enjoying the feel of him. “I love you too, darling. Thanks for never giving up on us.”
“You’re giving me too much credit.”
She shrugged. “Don’t complain. I’ll retract the praise.”
“No, you won’t.” He held her tight. “We should get dressed and go back inside.”
“Why? We’re fine here.”
“Really? You’re good with a couch and not a bed?”
