by Nina Lane
“I didn’t know you had an elf fetish,” she murmured, wincing a little as he pushed deeper inside her.
“Only thing I have is a Julia fetish. Ah, fuck, you feel so damned good…”
He thrust upward, jolting her body as he sank balls-deep into her. Julia closed her eyes and pulled in a breath. Sweat glistened on her throat.
“God, I feel you all the way up here.” She pressed a hand to her belly and swiveled her hips, rubbing her clit against him.
Tempted as he was to fondle the little button of her arousal, he wanted to see her come by stimulating herself. He grasped her hips.
“Move,” he ordered gruffly.
She obeyed, lifting her hips and bringing them down again in an increasingly fast rhythm. Her ass hit his thighs, her body bouncing as inarticulate moans and whimpers emerged from her throat.
Lust submerged them both. Heat crackled in the air. The world disappeared, leaving only the drive for release and the fucking gorgeous sight of Julia riding him, her blonde hair tousled and her elf skirt flouncing up and down with every stroke of her body around his.
When he couldn’t take it any longer, he clenched his hands on her hips to stop her. “Turn around.”
Her breath caught, her eyes sparking with excitement. She got on to her hands and knees, He moved behind her, his gaze roaming hungrily over the rounded curves of her ass. He flipped the skirt over her back and plunged into her from behind. Julia cried out, her body jerking forward as she fisted the bedcovers.
“Oh my God, Warren…”
He thrust deeper, her ass hitting his stomach with the wet, smacking sound of sex. She pushed back to meet his increasingly hard penetration, her moans adding to the pressure coiling through his entire body. She came with a cry, her pussy tightening around his shaft so intensely his own control snapped like a thread. He thrust inside her with a groan, pleasure exploding through every nerve.
“Oh, fuck.” Julia collapsed on the bed, her chest heaving. “I think I need to keep this costume.”
Warren eased off her, and she snuggled against his side in a sweet, warm bundle of Christmas smells and colors. He’d need to buy her a dozen more costumes. He wanted to see her dressed as a sexy pirate, a fairy, a witch… well, hell. He’d never ventured into costumed roleplay in the bedroom. That was about to change.
Julia lifted her head to press a warm, wet kiss against his mouth before clambering off the bed and going into the bathroom.
He hauled himself to his feet and went to clean up in the guest bathroom before going to the kitchen. He’d left his phone on the foyer table, and it buzzed with messages and reminders about the climb—the itinerary, the packing list, the flight schedule.
“Hungry?” Julia came out of the bedroom in her silk robe, her skin still flushed. “I can make waff… er, something.”
Warren shook his head. She gave him a quizzical look, pausing as she started to pass him to the kitchen. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He set his phone down and dragged a hand through his hair. “There’s just something I need to tell you. It’s not bad,” he added hastily when her eyes clouded. “It’s a trip I’ve been planning for a long time. I just received word that it’s actually a go.”
“What kind of trip?”
“You remember we had that conversation about Amelie?” Warren asked.
“I know you didn’t just bring up another woman right now.”
He smiled faintly. “I told you she’s just a friend. She works for a Swiss company that specializes in Alpine climbs. She’s helping me organize a mountaineering expedition.”
Julia blinked. “A mountaineering expedition?”
“You remember my friend Theo? He died about a year ago.”
“Yes.” Wariness darkened her expression. “He’d been planning a big road trip.”
“His finale, as he called it.” Old sorrow twisted through him. “One of his dreams had been to climb the Matterhorn, but he never made it. After he died, I couldn’t stop thinking about him, about how he lost the chance to fulfill his last goal. So I decided I needed to complete the climb in his honor. I asked a few of our mutual friends, and we’ve been training for most of the year. That’s part of the reason I’ve been going to Switzerland so often. I’ve been doing some smaller scale climbs, learning ice and glacier techniques, extra training.”
Julia shook her head, disbelief diluting the blue of her eyes. “And you were planning to tell me this… when?”
“When we got the green-light, which we did this morning.”
“What?” She stalked past him into the kitchen. “You should have told me weeks ago.”
“We didn’t know if we were going to go.” He paused in the doorway and leaned his shoulder against the jamb. “The Swiss weather service had issued some warnings. Heavy snowfall and mild temperatures. We had to wait until we knew the conditions would allow us to climb. Often you don’t know until a few days before.”
“I can’t believe it.” Julia pressed her hands to her temples. “I mean, I knew you were stepping up your hikes and bouldering, but you’re planning to climb the Matterhorn? One of the most difficult routes in the world?”
“That’s why we’ve been training,” Warren said. “A few preliminary climbs to acclimatize ourselves, then a final hike to the summit of the Matterhorn.”
“When is this supposed to take place?”
“After Christmas.”
Shock flashed in her eyes. “Warren, Christmas is on Sunday. Do the boys and Hailey know about this?”
“Adam has been helping me train. I was going to tell the others, but then with the pushback over retiring, I decided to wait. And given the weather situation, I didn’t see the point of worrying everyone needlessly.”
“Right. Might as well give us a reason to worry.” Julia muttered something under her breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Is Adam going with you?”
“He wanted to. I won’t let him. This is all for Theo. I don’t want to put Adam at risk.”
“But you’ll put yourself at risk? That’s okay with you?”
“Julia.” He steeled himself against her distress. Part of the reason he hadn’t wanted to tell her, of all people, was that he knew she’d be upset and he couldn’t let that stop him. “I have to do this.”
“A safari or even a rock climb aren’t enough for you?” she asked. “Why a mountain? Because it’s there?”
“No.” He closed the distance between them in a few strides. “Because I’m here. And because I’ve spent years doing the right thing, doing what was expected of me. I’d do it all over again a thousand times because I couldn’t have asked for a better life, but if Theo’s death reminded me of anything it’s that time is short. It feels like yesterday that Luke was an infant, that Evan was having his first surgery, that Adam wanted to be an astronaut, that the twins were playing tricks on their teachers, that Hailey won first prize in the science fair. It feels like yesterday that a twenty-one-year-old girl kissed me and then disappeared.”
A hot flush colored her cheeks. She looked away from him.
“Julia.” He put his hands on either side of her head, turning her back to face him, hating the dark gleam in her eyes. “Do you want to know why I love climbing? Because it’s so damned hard. It takes everything I have—every ounce of concentration, strength, endurance. It hurts. It can be terrifying. It’s dangerous. I think I’ll never make it. Then I do. I’m at the top. The view is sweeping out from all sides, the air is so clean and clear I can taste it, and suddenly I’m not hurting anymore. Everything is so good. I did what I set out to do. I feel like I could climb every mountain in the world.”
Her lips tightened. “And when you’re up there drinking in the view and feeling invincible, do you think about the people at the bottom of the mountain who are worrying about you and hoping you come back alive? Oh, wait a second. No, you don’t, do you? Because otherwise you’d have told us you were training to climb the fucking Matterhorn.”
She tore herself away from him and stalked to the other side of the kitchen. Warren took a breath, hating the sight of her bent head, her hair falling forward to conceal her profile, the trembles rippling through her.
“I hate it every time Adam goes off on one of his adventure tours,” she confessed, wrapping her arms around her midriff. “But I don’t tell him that because he’s thirty-one years old and I don’t want him to stop doing what he loves because of me. I don’t want that for you either. But Jesus Christ, Warren… really? People die every year trying to reach the summit of a mountain. Young people. And you want to do it so you can feel like a damned superhero? No. If you’re having a mid-life crisis, go buy a fucking Ferrari, but don’t go running off to climb a mountain just to prove you’re all-powerful. Because I have news for you. You don’t have to prove it. You just are.”
His throat tightened. “I love you.”
She didn’t say it back. She turned away and shook her head.
He approached her from behind and wrapped his arms around her. Her body was tense, her spine stiff. He closed his arms harder around her, pressed his face to her sweet-smelling hair. A long sigh shuddered through her.
“Damn you, Warren Stone.”
“I love you. I have to do this.”
Julia gave a hoarse laugh. Her body relaxed back against his, her hand curling around his forearm.
“I know,” she murmured. “Oddly enough, your determination to finish what you start is one of the things I… admire most about you.”
Warren tightened his hold on her even more. “Say it.”
Julia turned in his arms, her eyes clouded. “I wish I could.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Because of Becca.” She swallowed and averted her gaze. “I know it’s stupid, but I feel like those words belong to her. How many times in your life did she say them to you? How many times did you hear them?”
“Countless. And is every one of those times part of my heart? Yes.” He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face to look at him. “But those words don’t belong to any one person. Every time someone says them to someone else, it’s private. Personal. Exclusive. It’s as if no one has ever said them before in the history of time. Because love is different for everyone.”
She gave him a smile tinged with sadness and eased out of his arms.
“One day,” she murmured.
One day. They both knew that day might never come. It might be too late.
“Warren! Oh my god, Warren!”
Julia’s scream flooded him with panic. He leapt up from the desk chair in Julia’s bedroom and ran out so fast he banged his leg against the corner of a table. Ignoring the twinge, he raced to the kitchen, his heart hammering.
“Julia! What happened? Where… are you?”
He skidded to a halt, his voice fading. She was sitting at the kitchen counter in one of his wrinkled shirts, her legs bare, her hair a mess and a huge, triumphant smile on her face.
“Look.” She held up a Rubik’s Cube.
He took a breath and grasped the doorjamb. “Uh… what?”
“I solved it!” She twirled the cube around to show him each side covered with the same color—white, yellow, orange, green, red, and blue. “I solved the Rubik’s Cube. By myself. I didn’t even look up any solution techniques or anything. I just did it!”
She jumped off the stool and hurried around to throw herself into his arms. He caught her, his panic replaced with pleasure over her happiness—though he realized this was an accomplishment, he still didn’t get what the big deal was.
“Congratulations,” he said, taking advantage of her closeness to kiss her. “Even though your scream just took two years off my life.”
“Sorry.” She wiggled away from him and opened her handbag, which was resting on the counter. “I’ve just been working on it so hard. I really had no idea it was so complicated.”
She took out her crumpled Before Fifty list and unfolded it. “Now I get to check it off my list, which means I have…”
She paused and counted. “Thirty-two items left. But the vodka gummy bears will be ready tomorrow, so that means thirty-one.”
She shot him a smile and made a checkmark on the list. She put the list back in her purse. Warren grinned.
Julia lifted an eyebrow. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. You’re amazing. C’mere.”
She approached him again, a flush rising to her cheeks. He slid his hands around her waist and pulled her to him for another kiss.
“I’m just doing some of the stuff in my spare time,” Julia said hastily, resting her hands on his chest. “I mean, I’m not taking the list seriously or anything.”
“Of course not.”
“It’s just a stupid list,” she continued. “I mean, I was nineteen. What nineteen-year-old girl thinks vodka gummy bears are a rational goal in… well, okay, maybe I get that. But I’m just doing it because I want to finish what I started. Not because I’m enjoying it or anything.”
“I know.” He tugged a lock of her hair. “You might need a partner for some of the stuff. Salsa dancing. Having sex in the rain.”
Her eyebrow rose. “You read my list.”
“Read it? Hell, I memorized it. I think we should redo some of them too, like the skinny dipping.”
“Hmm. I can get behind that. Or in it, as the case may be.” She wound her arms around his neck as their lips met in another kiss.
Heat simmered in his chest. He slid his hands down to cup her ass and backed her toward the counter. As soon as she was seated, he pushed himself between her legs and ran his hands up her smooth thighs. She murmured her pleasure and wiggled closer. He eased his tongue into her mouth and moved his hand up higher… higher…
Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman” burst from Julia’s phone. With a groan, she pulled away from him, her breath puffing against his lips.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “But that’s a two o’clock phone appointment I have to take. And it is a workday.”
“We’re playing hooky, remember?” He stroked his hand up between her legs and found what he’d suspected—she wasn’t wearing panties.
Julia squirmed at his touch and reached for her phone. “This call was on my schedule. I promise, it won’t take long. It’s Vincent Peckerhead from Evermore calling to tell me I’m older than Cleopatra.”
Warren frowned, his hackles rising. She winked and kissed his chin before accepting the call.
“Vincent? Julia Bennett.”
She pushed Warren away and jumped off the counter, the phone to her ear. He contented himself with looking at her—such a woman with her long-legged stride, her perfect-sized breasts jiggling under his white shirt, her smooth hair swishing back and forth. But before he’d loved everything physical about her, he’d loved her outright grit, the strength that ran like steel through her spine. And after he’d loved her grit, he’d loved the soft side of her that he—and only he—had ever seen, the woman who curled against his side, who turned to him when she cried, who let him help her fight her pain.
He had no idea what force in the universe had brought her to him and kept her there, but he was forever grateful for it.
Julia set her phone down, a sudden stillness descending over her.
“Everything okay?” Warren asked.
She turned to face him, surprise and a touch of disbelief registering in her eyes. “That was Vincent Peck.”
“You told me.” He frowned. “Did he insult you again? I’ll deal with him myself if he did.”
“No.” She waved her hand dismissively. “I emailed him my new portfolio of clothing designs for older women. Turns out he and his team are so impressed that they want to fly me out to New York for a meeting.”
Warren’s response to that news was mixed. Much as he wanted her success, he didn’t like the way Peck had treated her. “What did you tell him?”
“Well, I said yes.” She spread her hands out, a sudden laugh breaking from her. “He
was an asshole, but Evermore owns the biggest luxury department store chain in the country. And they own Kingsley Bishop on Fifth Avenue, which is an iconic store. If Kingsley Bishop sold my clothing line… every designer and stylist in New York would know about it. It would launch my brand into a whole other stratosphere.”
“Then you’re doing the right thing.”
“It’s just a preliminary meeting, but maybe it’s a step in the right direction. Funny how I thought I was done not too long ago, and now I might have another shot.”
“When are you going?”
“He wants to know if I can come right after Christmas. He has some marketing ideas he wants to discuss for the new year.”
“But the line is yours, not his.”
“If he wants to partner with me, I’m willing to listen to what he has to say.” Julia picked up her phone and studied the screen. “I haven’t come up with a name yet. I used Appear because that line was geared toward younger women just starting out, but I can’t flip the name the way I flipped the demographic. Disappear?” She shook her head with a grimace. “Unfortunately, adjectives about decline are not the vision I want to convey. Neither are synonyms for older women. Spinster. Old Maid. Crone. Witch.”
She put her phone down with a huff of annoyance. “Why is society so shitty to older women? We should be worshipped.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” He would have been more than happy to worship Julia Bennett in multiple ways. “What about a regal term like countess?”
“I like regal, as long as it doesn’t sound too upscale. These clothes should appeal to women who want to feel confident and sexy, even when they’re going to the grocery store or taking care of their grandchildren. Those are the women who have been ruling the world, even if the world has yet to acknowledge it. The queen bees. I…”
She stopped, looking up at him in astonishment. “Queen Bee.”
He nodded. “That’s perfect.”
Julia laughed, the sound warming him to his bones. “I love it. I need to add that to my portfolio. I’ll be right back.”
She hurried out of the kitchen. Warren took a sip of coffee and looked out at the backyard, the manicured grass and rows of hedges. A low ringing started in his ears the second before dizziness struck him.
