by Alyssa Cole
Epilogue
Six Months Later
“Excuse me, Salomeh Jones? I’m Carol Delefort with the Brooklyn Bugle.”
Salomeh turned to find a small, solidly built young woman clutching a notepad and looking up at her anxiously. A sprinkling of snow swirled around them, flakes settling in the woman’s naturally styled afro and catching glints of the fading late afternoon sun.
Salomeh smiled and held out a hand to the obviously inexperienced young woman, hoping to put her at ease.
“Carol, nice to meet you. Sorry I’m running late,” she said before turning to unlock the gated door of the repurposed brownstone they stood in front of. “As you can see, the center still isn’t open yet. We’re hoping to get the first group of girls settled in before Christmas, and there are still miles to go.”
“No problem. I’m just glad you agreed to meet with me,” the woman said, hugging her heavy black coat. “It’s wonderful work you’re doing here.”
“It’s necessary work,” Salomeh said. “Why don’t you put your things down, and I’ll show you around.”
She led Carol through the different areas—the bright yellow room for art therapy, the quiet, Zen-inspired room where girls would meet for group sessions, the cheerful dorm rooms where live-in residents would sleep, and the quarters for the overnight staff. After unprecedented fast-tracking and aid from chagrined city leaders, Phoenix House, the home for girls who had fallen prey to the sex trade, was nearly ready to open its doors.
Salomeh gave Carol a basic rundown of the life of girls forced into sex work and how the staff of Phoenix House hoped to change the odds for those who had escaped.
“Aren’t you worried you might become a target for the people who these girls are rescued from?” Carol asked.
Salomeh sighed. Of course the story would have to play up the salacious angles. News cannot thrive on feel-good stories alone, she thought with residual bitterness.
“There’s always a risk, but I’m lucky enough to have access to top-notch security advisers. We’re doing everything in our power to keep the girls and the staff safe. But it really is getting late…”
“Of course. Thank you for your time, Miss Jones,” Carol said. “I’m hoping we can make this story into a series, tracking the growth of Phoenix House and the girls.”
“Only if you agree to come and talk to the girls about journalism careers,” Salomeh said, impressed with Carol’s chutzpah. It would do the girls good to have a positive role model.
The woman’s face brightened, a huge smile making her look even younger than she was. “I’d be honored,” she said.
Salomeh escorted her out and then dropped into a comfortable chair in her favorite room, the reading parlor. She had been moving nonstop since being released from the hospital, planning, organizing, raising funds, and bulldozing through red tape. In other words, she had been in her element.
Her work was fulfilling in ways she had never thought possible, but still…she missed Julian.
He came to New York when he could, which had been fairly regularly but now happened less and less as his assignments grew more demanding. She had last seen him a month ago, a quick and intense rendezvous when he had come through the city following a lead. Just thinking of that night, of the single-minded passion in his gaze, still made her core clench with need.
But he was busy doing the work that needed to be done, stopping the people who took advantage of the girls who would be her wards.
That knowledge didn’t make being away from him any easier, especially since she knew firsthand what these men were capable of.
She hadn’t heard from him for days now. It wasn’t the first time, but she wished with every fiber of her being it would be the last.
A vibration in her jeans pocket made her jump, and she pulled out her cell phone, hoping it was either of the two people she worried about the most.
“Hey, it’s me.” The carefully measured tones of a teenage girl about to ask for something.
“Yelena,” Salomeh said, relaxing back into her seat. “Whatever it is: no.”
She heard an unamused sigh.
“I was going to ask if I could go to the movies with Tiara and Jessica tonight after band practice,” she said. “If that’s okay with you.”
Salomeh fought the instinct to tell the girl no, to ask her to come home where she could keep her safe. It had been rough going for the kid—for both of them. But the last couple of months had been good. Less acting out, fewer night terrors, no deep depressions.
She had to encourage Yelena to keep moving forward, to be part of the world. To be a normal teenager, whatever that meant.
Anything could happen to you out there, she thought, but instead she said, “Have fun, but be home by eleven.”
A pause. Salomeh thought Yelena would try to push her luck, but the teen thought better of it.
“Thanks. Are you at home? Is everything okay?” Yelena asked. Unsurprisingly, Salomeh wasn’t the only one who worried.
“I’m heading that way now. I just have to grab some files from the office.”
“Of course. Get some rest, woman!” Yelena admonished before hanging up.
Salomeh walked to the office in the front room of the building, turned on the light, and nearly screamed at what she saw.
Julian was perched on the edge of her desk, running a hand through his shaggy hair, eyebrows raised sheepishly. He was dressed in his usual simple style of jeans and a T-shirt, but he was so handsome he took her breath away.
“Julian, what the hell are you doing in here?” she asked, holding a hand to her chest as her racing heartbeat slowed down. As her adrenaline faded away, she felt tears pressing at her eyes. It had been a long week, and she didn’t know that she had ever been more grateful to see anyone in her life.
“Um, applying for a job?” he said.
She mock glared at him.
“Are you applying for the position of idiot male who breaks into a center for traumatized girls? Because we’re not currently hiring for that.”
He stood and walked toward her, a crooked grin putting his dimples on display. Instant desire melted away any lingering annoyance she felt toward him.
He was here, finally, and he was approaching fast.
“In my mind, you were going to walk in and say, Oh Julian! I’m so happy to see you! and then I would say, all James Bond-like, Looks like you need a security consultant, doesn’t it? And then we were going to kiss.”
He closed the space between them and pulled her into his arms. “As soon as I got in here, I realized what a dumb idea it was, but then you walked in and I had to try to play it cool.”
Salomeh leaned into the solid warmth of him, grinning up at him.
“Yes, it was dumb, but at least one thing in that scenario made sense,” she said as she stood on tip-toe to kiss him. His lips were soft and warm, and he tasted of hot chocolate. She braced her hands on his chest, happy he was close enough to touch again. His heartbeat thrummed against her palms, filling her with happiness as if it were transmitting sweet nothings in Morse code.
Julian slid his hands around her waist and then up her back, his warmth radiating through the fabric of her silk blouse as he reacquainted himself with her form. “I mean it, you know,” he said between kisses. “Security consultant. I think it could work.”
Her heart surged at the implication.
“You’re staying?” she asked softly. “What about work?”
His arms tightened around her, and he lifted, spinning so he was seated in her office chair and she was in his lap. She moved her legs so she sat astride him, his muscled thighs hard beneath her.
“I told you, I’m in need of a job,” he said. “I’ve been spending the last few months following leads Rylinda gave us and shutting down operations across the country. But my heart’s not in it anymore. It’s here, with you.”
Salomeh tried to be logical. “But you love your work,” she said. “I don’t want you to give up everyt
hing—”
He shushed her with a quick peck to the lips.
“I’m not giving up anything, zemer,” he said. “In fact, I think I’m getting something even better in return.”
Salomeh’s head swam. This was exactly what she wanted, but suddenly things seemed much more complicated. “There’s not just me. You’d have to accept that I have a kid now. And if you want one of your own, I can’t—”
He kissed the words away from her lips, but she shook her head.
“This stuff is important,” she said, although his reaction warmed her. “I’ll be working all the time too.”
“I’ve already thought of all of those things,” Julian said, his eyes glinting with mirth. “I had a lot of lonely nights away from you, and I couldn’t think of anything else.”
Salomeh’s heart began to beat more quickly. The thought that they could really be together, for good, seemed too much to hope for.
“I know it will be work and that it might not be easy, but if I wanted easy, I’d find someone else.”
Even the hypothetical thought of Julian with another woman made Salomeh want to kick him.
“But there isn’t anyone else for me,” he said as if reading her mind. “That’s why the next question is important: will you have me?”
Salomeh thought back over everything she knew of Julian, from that first shadowed glimpse of him on the rooftop, to the way he made her laugh, to the way he had lied to her but eventually became the person she trusted most in the world.
“I was thinking this would be more of a snap decision,” Julian joked, but she could detect his underlying worry and decided to put him out of his misery.
“Yes,” she said, feeling the grin on her face widen of its own accord. She rolled her hips forward, pressing herself against the length of him that had pulsed distractingly between her legs for most of their conversation. “In fact, I think I’ll have you right now.”
Their mouths met, and Salomeh could feel the relief in his kiss. They moved their lips over each other without hesitancy, without fear of what lay ahead. His hands roamed her body, stroking down from her neck to cup her ass. Salomeh grabbed hold of him as he stood, but he didn’t go far, moving only far enough to gently deposit her onto her desk with her legs dangling off.
Julian dragged the stiff denim jeans and the silk underwear down her legs, his fingertips trailing along her bare skin, leaving a tingling wake of sensation from her thighs to her ankles.
After throwing the wad of fabrics over his shoulder, his big hands slid back up her thighs, his thumb coming to a stop at her slit, rubbing her sensitive nub. His gaze locked on hers, watching her every little reaction as he bought her closer and closer to the edge. Salomeh gyrated her hips, moving her clit counterclockwise against Julian’s skillful fingers to maximize her pleasure. She had spent many nights during his absence touching herself as she thought of him, but nothing was better than the reality of his presence. His calloused palms rough against the soft skin of her inner thighs. His thick fingers parting her folds as he stroked her. The reverence in his eyes as he watched her come undone because of him. All of it combined to form a heady, erotic elixir that had Salomeh clutching at Julian’s shoulders and grinding against his hand. Streaks of pleasure raced from her pussy, traveling express but still making all local stops in her body: her belly, her breasts, her fingers and toes.
The pleasure came upon her quickly and without remorse. She arched against her desk, and Julian’s mouth came down on hers, swallowing her cries as they faded away. His tongue tangled with hers as he kissed her, seemingly unable to pull his mouth away from hers, as if he were drawing life from their joining.
She reached between them, unbuckling his pants and fisting his thick length. She knew that she loved the feel of him, but the sensory memory of his cock never quite captured the perfect weight and girth of him. He groaned as she pumped him in her hand, and she released her hold, allowing his shaft to nestle between her folds as she rocked her hips forward. She was wet and ready for him, but she teased him and herself with the delicious friction of her pussy against his cock before finally guiding him inside her.
They both exhaled sharply as he filled her with one hard thrust. She lay back on the desk and wrapped her legs around his waist, locking him into position as they rocked against each other. He braced his hands on either side of her head, resting his weight on the desk as he swiveled his hips. He gazed down at her from beneath his shaggy locks as he thrust his hard cock into her. She clamped around him, using her feet to leverage him closer. She would never get tired of the way he made love to her or the way her body responded to his as if they had been designed for this express purpose.
“Salomeh,” he exhaled, his voice rough as he dipped his knees and pumped up into her harder. The motion was rough—she could hear the scrape of her desk being pushed across the floor with the force of Julian’s motions—but after a month of missing him, it was exactly what she needed from him. His uncontrolled thrusting hit spots high up inside her, unexplored territory that made her legs shake and her hips buck as she tried to match his passionate onslaught.
She gripped his forearms as her body tensed for another orgasm, the sweet pressure within her seeming to expand exponentially. “Julian,” she cried out as the ecstasy finally crested within her. “Të dua, Julian!”
Julian stilled briefly, his entire body taught with the strength of his impending climax. Then he broke too, one last powerful thrust making her cry out in pleasurable surprise. His warmth filled her as he came in small shuddering jerks and collapsed on top of her.
“Someone’s been studying Albanian,” he said as he struggled to catch his breath.
Salomeh smiled as she ran her hands over his back, stretching contentedly beneath him to accommodate his weight. “Maybe,” she said. She hadn’t realized the words would come out in Albanian. She had looked the phrase up one day when she was missing him especially badly but had thought she’d be too embarrassed to ever use it. She was glad to see that it could have such an effect on him.
“I love you too, Miss Jones.” He brushed a kiss over her forehead but didn’t move from his position on top of her.
“We should get up, Julian,” she prodded. “I don’t think it would be very professional for me to have a permanent butt print on my desk.”
He swiveled his hips. “I think we’d have to do this a few more times for the print to be permanent.”
She swatted at him, but they didn’t move. They lay in a sweaty but contented heap, basking in each other’s presence. Eventually, they got up and gathered their clothing from around the office.
“Do you want to go get dinner?” Julian asked. “My treat.”
As they walked hand in hand down toward a fancy Indian restaurant that had just opened nearby, Julian laughed aloud.
“What now?” she said, giggling even though she had no idea what was funny. Julian had that effect on her.
“I think this is going to be our first real dinner date,” Julian said.
“I guess we have done things a bit out of order,” Salomeh said.
“Yeah, I probably should have done this before having my way with you in your office,” he said, squeezing her hand for what seemed like a bit too long, moving his fingers awkwardly over hers.
Something warm and circular slid over her ring finger.
She lifted her left hand, her fingers still gripped in his, and stared at the shining gold band on her finger. The tastefully set emerald glinted in the holiday lights lining the street—the same color as Julian’s eyes in the glow of fireworks.
She looked at him, expecting a self-deprecating joke about the ring’s dubious origins, but his face was sober and expectant, his eyes glossy with emotion.
“Yes,” she said as tears slipped down her cheeks. She wiped them away with her free hand.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
He slipped his arm around her waist and held her close as they walked through the chill win
ter night, embarking on what would hopefully be the first of many unexceptional nights together.
Loose Id Titles by Alyssa Cole
Eagle’s Heart
Alyssa Cole
Alyssa Cole is a Brooklyn-based science editor, pop culture nerd, and romance junkie. In addition to writing, she hosts a Romance Book Club at the Jefferson Market Library in NYC. When she’s not busy traveling, learning French, and, of course, writing, she can be found curled up in bed with her favorite books, Skyping with her fiancé, and watching cat videos on the Internet. Contact her on twitter @alyssacolelit or visit her online at http://www.alyssacole.com.
