Tony, of course, was oblivious to Julia’s joke. Ivy, Marilee, and Daisy loved it!
Someday, they might tell Tony about the significance of Julia’s dog names, but right now, it was more fun to have the secret. And to watch Tony squirm, since Marilee knew that Tony was head over heels in love with Julia. Of course, Julia felt exactly the same about Tony. Why those two couldn’t work things out was a mystery.
“You brought the dogs?” Julia called out.
Marilee looked behind her and noticed that Tiger and OB were playing tug of war with the rope that had knots at both ends, their tails wagging hard. Trixie had meandered over to the laundry basket filled with TJ’s toys, pulling out a stuffed cat. Once the stuffed cat had been carefully laid in the middle of the carpet, Trixie stretched out on top of it, looking around as if she’d just done something magnificent.
“Yeah, they are here. You still have some food from the last time?”
“Are you kidding?” Julia called back, but her voice was muffled now, almost as if she were pulling on clothes. “There’s an entire bag leftover from last time. I’ve got it covered.”
Tony jogged up the steps of the old Victorian, spotting Jordan and Ellie sitting on the top step. “What’s up, guys?” he asked.
The two looked up, surprise on their cute faces and then they both launched themselves into his arms from the top step. “Uncle Tony!” they exclaimed.
Tony spun them around, causing more giggles as he walked up the steps, one child tucked under each of his arms.
Jordan piped up to explain, “Momma’s dropping Trixie and Tiger off with Ms. Julia.”
“Oh yeah?” He looked through the glass doors. Emerson came out with Abigail in his arms, the little lady squirming in a desire to also throw herself at her beloved Uncle Tony. But since Ellie and Jordan weren’t relinquishing control of both of Tony’s arms, Emerson held his daughter firmly in his arms.
“You guys heading south?” Tony asked.
Emerson nodded. “Marilee decided that I needed a vacation. So we’re all heading to Aruba for a week.”
Tony laughed. “Such a hardship. Are you bringing your nanny?”
Emerson shrugged, causing Tony to laugh harder. There would be plenty of alone time for Marilee and Emerson on this trip.
“I guess Julia is upstairs then?” Tony asked.
“Either that, or Marilee is having a conversation with the dogs. I never know,” he replied with a chuckle.
Tony lowered Jordan and Ellie to the ground, both of them running over to the swing set. “I have some questions about a proposal she gave me,” Tony explained. “So I hope she’s home. I’m not sure Opie or TJ will have the answers.”
Emerson chuckled. “Probably not.” He looked over at his two kids. “Jordon! Get down from there!” he ordered.
Tony laughed, neither man wondering how Emerson’s seven year old son had climbed up the angled poles and was now using the top as his dare-devil moment. Jordan regularly climbed anything and everything, with Ellie not far behind. The only reason she wasn’t at the top as well was because she hadn’t quite figured out how to climb as well as Jordan. Yet. So instead, Ellie glared up at her older brother, hands fisted on her hips in fury that her brother would dare to do something more interesting that her.
“I’d better get over there.”
Tony laughed. “Good luck,” he called.
Moving up the stairs, he took them two at a time, excited to see Julia again. The door was ajar so he simply pushed it wider and stepped inside, hearing Marilee’s voice and Julia’s answering call.
“I still say you should write out all of these steamy dreams you’re having about Tony, hand them to him, and demand that he fulfill every single one of them.”
Tony froze. Marilee had her back to Tony at the moment and was talking to the partially open bedroom door.
“Marilee, I’m never telling you about dreams again!” Julia called back out. There was a thumping noise and Tony pictured Julia digging through her closet for a shoe. The woman loved shoes and had more shoes than she could organize, which was saying something. He knew that Daisy came over regularly, eager to organize Julia’s closet.
“Yeah, well, you’d better not hold out on me. Some of those dreams were great! I told them to Emerson and…” she stopped, seeing Tony for the first time.
“You didn’t! Which one?” Julia asked, her voice through the door sounded both horrified and muffled.
Tony waited, his body tensed and anxious. He wanted to hear about the dreams as well.
“Uhh…” Marilee garbled.
“Not the one where we were on the balcony!”
“Um…no…”
“Good. That embarrassed me to even tell you what Tony did to me in that dream!”
“Julia, there’s…”
“But not as much as that dream where we were on the beach. I swear, I felt sand in strange places after that dream.”
She came out of the bedroom, toweling her hair, and still didn’t see him. But he saw her. The thin, pink robe she’d pulled on, rather quickly from the looks of it, clung to her body, which was still wet from her shower. And it wasn’t tied well. The front gaped open, but Julia wasn’t paying attention.
“Umm, Julia…?” Marilee squeaked.
“What?” she asked, flipping her hair back and tossing the towel over to the couch. Julia realized that her robe wasn’t covering a whole lot and readjusted. Of course, Tony was painfully aware that it was covering too much. At least, too much for his taste.
Julia swung around, and froze in shock. Tony! Good grief, Tony was here? When had he arrived?!
Neither one of them noticed Marilee cringing in horror. “Sorry! I tried to warn you!”
Julia and Tony just stared, not paying her any attention.
“Okay, I’m going to get out of here.” Marilee fled, closing the door with the four dogs inside, and two very stunned friends.
Tony stared at Julia. “What do I do to you in your dreams, Julia?” he demanded. He stepped closer and saw the pulse pounding at the base of her throat.
“Um…well, I think that Marilee exaggerated slightly.”
Closer. Closer. “Marilee isn’t known for hyperbole.” Closer still. The tips of his shoes were less than an inch from her toes. She felt vulnerable without clothes. Or maybe she felt that way because Tony knew that she dreamed about him.
“Will you tell me one of the dreams?” he asked, lifting a hand to cup her cheek. “I didn’t know that you were dreaming about me.”
“Um…”
He laughed softly as he looked down into her hazel eyes. “Normally, you are more articulate than this.”
She drew a deep breath and stepped backwards. “We can’t talk about this, Tony,” she insisted, clasping her hands together so that she wouldn’t reach out and grab him, pull him in for the kiss that she wanted so desperately.
“Why not?”
Because she might jump him? “Because we have to work together. It would be awkward.”
“Would it?”
She thought about it, wondering if she cared. Looking at his broad, muscular shoulders, she debated long and hard. But one of the dogs barked and she was jerked out of her spiraling thoughts. “Yes. It would be bad.”
He stepped closer, pulling her into his arms. “I’ve dreamed of you too,” he admitted, his voice a rough growl.
She stilled, he could feel the tension in her muscles. “You have?”
“Yes. A lot!”
“A lot?”
“I wake up aching for you, Julia.”
Her throat was so dry, she could barely breathe. “Tell me what you’ve been dreaming. Maybe we are dreaming about the same things. But working and…the dreams…things could get awkward.”
“If you think so, then it would be awkward.” He paused and thought about it for a moment. The rush of knowing that she felt the same way was making his head spin! He should walk away, absorb this news for a while, and process. It would
probably be better if they talked about this. Unfortunately, what was right and what he wanted, namely, Julia, wasn’t the same. And his brain wasn’t in charge any longer. “But if you want to try it and work on things not being awkward, then I’ll let you in on a little secret.”
His mouth hovered over hers, lingering, and Julia didn’t move, afraid that if she did, she’d lift her head that fraction of an inch to touch his. “What’s that?” she asked, barely following the conversation now.
“I want you. I’ve thought about you in so many ways. In great detail.”
He released her and she leaned back against the frame of her bedroom door. She tried to catch her breath, but it was impossible with Tony standing there in front her, his eyes burning with desire.
“When you want to explore this, then let me know. I’m ready. More than ready. But it has to be your call, Julia. I don’t want to pressure you in any way.” He backed up. “You call the shots. You say when and where.”
A moment later, he was gone and she stood trembling, staring at the closed door, with four dogs beaming up at her, their tails wagging exuberantly as if something momentous was about to happen.
“What have I done?” she whispered, lifting a hand to touch her lips. They hadn’t kissed. So why were her lips tingling as if they had?
Another thought occurred to her. He’d said, “when” and “where”. He hadn’t said, “if”. Julia was pretty sure that was significant.
Chapter 5
Two days later, Tony worried he was going to explode. Every time he looked at Julia, it felt like he was being zapped by an electric current. And after that moment in her apartment, he was more than ready to pull her into his arms and make love to her. But he held off, knowing that she needed to come to him.
Daisy laughed softly, pulling his attention away from Julia.
“What?” he demanded of his friend.
Daisy rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she waved a spatula between him and the woman in the dining room. Both of them were looking at each other, the longing and tension thick and powerful.
“If you two don’t do something about this tension between you,” Daisy pointed out softly, “there’s going to be an explosion.”
Tony looked over at his friend, not sure he heard her correctly. “What do you mean?”
Daisy snorted, looking pointedly over at Julia who was concentrating on something behind the bar now. “You know exactly what I mean, Tony.”
He started to shake his head and she snorted with disgust. “You and Julia! It’s obvious to the rest of us, and has been for a while now. Why are you resisting so hard?”
Tony considered ignoring her comment, but he knew Daisy wouldn’t let it go. “Julia and I…”
“Don’t!” she snapped. “Julia feels it too. If you two would just talk about it, what you both are obviously feeling and have been for a while, then this whole work thing wouldn’t be an issue.”
Tony stared at her for a long moment, mentally debating how to explain the situation to his friend. “It’s because of my past.”
Daisy waited, wondering if he was going to continue. But when he remained silent, she filled in the blanks. “You mean because of the way your father treated your mother?”
Tony sighed, rubbing the scruff of his jawline. He’d forgotten to shave again this morning. It was his own fault. He’d had another dream about Julia last night. A hot, erotic dream where she was doing things to him with her mouth and her hands and her hair and…hell, it was happening again and he wanted to roar with the need to pull her into his arms and make love to her for the next several days. Hell, the next several weeks!
He’d been so ramped up this morning, he’d given up on trying to get back to sleep and gone out for a run, needing to work off the sexual need. But he’d seen Julia out with the four dogs, all of them barking and chasing balls.
With a sigh, he shook his head. “Yeah. I don’t want to be him.”
Daisy rolled her eyes. “Tony, your father smacked your mother around for years. And when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, he refused to take her to the doctor, using the excuse that you guys didn’t have health insurance.” She huffed for a moment, then walked over to his desk, sitting down in his big chair and shuffling his papers all around. “You’re not that man,” she told him, smacking the stapler down in the corner of his desk, then shifting it so that it was more perfectly aligned with the edge of his desk. “First of all, you give your employees outstanding health insurance benefits. No one can use that excuse under your leadership.”
“Yes but…”
“And even more, you’d never hit a woman. Ever!”
He stared at her, wishing that she was right. He’d never hit a woman before, never even wanted to. But could he guarantee that? “How do you know that?”
She snorted and took his pens and pencils out of the pencil jar she’d gotten for him, reorganizing them by size and color. “Because you don’t hit women. You are not a bully. Only weak, insecure bullies hit someone smaller than they are.” Daisy made another inelegant sound. “Good grief, Tony. You know that only pathetically weak people hit anyone for any reason!” She stared at him, willing him to understand her point. “You’re not weak. You’re not insecure. And I say again, you don’t hit women. Period.”
He laughed, soothed slightly by her emphatic loyalty. But the amusement quickly faded away as he glanced at Julia again. “What if I get angry? I’ve never been tested in that way.”
She rolled her eyes. “Tony, you and Julia argue all the time. Although,” she paused and thought about it for a moment, “actually, I think most of your fights are just a substitute for what you both really want.”
“What’s that?”
“Sex,” she snapped at him, sounding as if he should already know the answer to that. “Arguing with Julia is like foreplay for you two! You both love it and don’t you even try to deny it,” she warned when he opened his mouth to do exactly that. She pulled several empty file folders out of his bottom drawer and started labeling them, sliding papers into each file folder. “Besides, you’re in love with her and have been for years now. She’s in love with you and probably has been for longer. So please,” she begged, looking at him over the desk, “do something! This is crazy! I want you to be happy and Julia obviously makes you happy!”
Tony looked at the woman as she continued to obsessively organize his desk. He chuckled, knowing that Daisy couldn’t help herself. She was an organizational freak. But he loved her too. “Daisy, you know you’re adorable, right?”
She snorted again, completely disabusing the image she presented to the world as a Barbie doll. She had the figure and the strawberry blond hair, plus the eyes and high cheekbones. What she didn’t have was any sort of patience for silliness. Her husband Rocco loved to muss her up, just to make her nuts. And she loved to torment him right back. They were good for each other and loved each other madly, even after several years of marriage and two kids.
Tony wondered if he was doing the same with Julia. Were their arguments simply foreplay? He’d never thought of himself as a coward before, but if what Daisy was saying was true, then he really should move forward. The idea taunted him. Tempted him! The possibilities teased as he contemplated the conversations he’d had with Julia combined with the knowledge that she dreamed about him. Apparently quite often. And in detail!
Thinking about that again, his body tensed, as if ready for battle. He could pursue Julia, carefully and respectfully, and see where this might lead.
Damn, the thought of actually loving her, of having Julia in his bed and exploring all of her at his leisure sent his blood pressure spiking. And something else spiked too. Shifting, he pulled on one of his chef’s coats. “The ball is in her court,” he explained, thinking of that moment in her apartment a few days ago. “I told her if she wanted to pursue whatever this is between us, she had to let me know. I’m not going to pressure her.” When Daisy cocked a blond eyebrow at him, he laughed. “I�
�ll think about it.”
Daisy grabbed another stack of papers and started filing them into the right folders. “You do that…and while you’re thinking,” she teased, “could you make me something to bring home for dinner? Rocco’s working late on that project over on Fifth Street, and I…”
“Say no more,” he replied, holding up his hands. “Your kids are not eating macaroni and cheese for dinner tonight!”
Daisy laughed, thinking he was the sweetest man. “But I have the stuff in the blue box,” she called after him, just to poke the bear.
Tony immediately stopped and turned back to face his friend. “I’m coming over to babysit tomorrow night,” he promised. He paused for a moment, watching her eyes light up, then narrow with wariness. “Exactly!”
“You wouldn’t!” she hissed.
“Get rid of the blue box of crap or I’ll rearrange every single drawer in your house!” She gasped. “That’s right, Daisy,” he continued with a menacing grin. “I’ll put crayons in your freezer!”
“Rude!” she gasped back, but was too late. Tony was already walking down the hallway, chuckling now that he knew he’d won the argument.
But yeah, she’d go home and throw out the blue boxes. She only bought them to rile him anyway. Rocco loved to cook too much and he hated anything processed. Her idle threat had backfired.
Chapter 6
The restaurant was completely booked that night. Not just booked, but it was one of those nights when people without reservations were asking if there was any possibility to get a table. Normally, Julia tried to accommodate everyone, but there were just too many requests tonight.
Maintaining an outward smile, she moved through the busy tables, trying to figure out how to fit in three additional tables and two more waiters for the night. But the dining room was already too full. But somehow….!
Seduced (The Lottery Winners Book 8) Page 5
