What mockery.
That beautiful masquerade kiss now mocked her. Her best friendship in the world—her entire life—mocked her.
One after another, memories flashed before her eyes, and there wasn’t a single happy memory that she could remember not featuring Julian. She saw him smiling down at her like a lone wolf, tweaking her nose, rumpling her hair, driving her back home. She saw him snarling at her and teasing her and tickling her, and calling her Mo-Po, Mopey, Moo, Molls, Mo-Mo, Moo-Moo….
Nausea rose up her throat, and she shakily sat down on the edge of the bed, held a pillow to her chest and drew in deep breaths. But she didn’t seem capable of filling her lungs. She’d just never felt so empty. So stupid. So used. Nothing in her life had ever hurt this much, not even when Jules had left her all those times.
But he won’t make me cry anymore, she thought angrily, remembering Kate’s recent words.
Teeth gritted, she curled up into a rigid little ball with the pillow firmly grasped to her core, and something very deep inside her clenched tight as the images of that night bombarded her once more.
His mouth, firm and urgent, the roughened sound he made as he kissed the tops of her breasts, as if he’d just entered heaven and they had been made just for him.
The way he’d groaned and bent his head to her ear, biting the lobe hungrily, desperately, and then how he’d soothingly murmured to her, “Shh…shh…”
Her eyes stung with unshed tears. How could she not have known?
She’d been so sure it was him at first, that wolfish smile so familiar to her, but then the way he’d fiercely kissed her had been so completely unlike her cocky best friend. Why did it have to be him? The man couldn’t keep his hands to himself and just had to have a piece of her, too?
She’d promised herself when she was a thirteen-year-old girl that she would not shed any more tears for Julian John. He meant too much to her, was too special to her, made her feel like a princess being rescued by a hero. She’d promised herself she would get rid of the infatuation she had with him, her silly crush, because everyone told her he would hurt her and they couldn’t all be wrong.
But it was no use because now the truth stared her in the face, and yes, yes, yes, it mocked her, too.
The man she’d felt she’d die if she didn’t kiss again…
The man she knew in her gut was her soul mate…
That man was the only man in the world who could really, truly break her heart into such tiny particles she would never be able to piece herself back together.
And now even their friendship, the one golden and steady thing in her life, was gone.
* * *
Julian wanted to punch something.
He paced his room for hours, restless, his emotions gone berserk. Jealousy coursed through his veins like some sort of acrid poison as he remembered Molly’s moans, the way she’d responded to him the night of their first kiss, like her body was a harp only his fingers knew how to pluck and tune and play…
And all while she’d thought he was Garrett.
His brother.
The guy who’d been holding her when she was in tears today.
The guy who’d owned every one of her desires for weeks.
The guy whom he very much wanted to kill right now.
He replayed the scenes over and over in his mind, recalling the hurt in Molly’s eyes when he’d set her little head straight this evening. When he’d told her that he was the man who had kissed her that night, touched her so intimately and made her go off like a hot, beautiful firework in his arms. Goddammit, she’d almost seemed disappointed he hadn’t been Garrett!
He gritted his teeth at the thought, deeply regretting not confronting her about it the day after the masquerade. All this time she’d been hunting for his brother thinking of Julian’s kiss. To hell with whether she wanted to talk about it or not! If he’d done things right, he might have been holding her in his arms all this time—and not under false pretenses—and kept her from noticing Garrett. All these sleepless nights. Nights she’d wanted to have a friendly sleepover with him—yeah, right. As if he could stand being in the same bed with her without turning into some ravenous, sex-starved maniac.
Did she not see he’d been crazy about her for twenty years?
He had thought he could screw Molly out of his head, but clearly that had not worked. Okay, so he’d kissed her when he was drunk and hadn’t talked to her afterward. Not suave. She’d expected better of him? Yeah, well, that made two of them. He wasn’t too pleased to find out that she’d thought all along that it was his brother who’d kissed her.
Now they both felt like fools.
Groaning in despair, he plopped down on the bed, full of rage and agony and disgust. He couldn’t stand the impotence he felt. Restless, he changed into his pajama pants and yanked back his bedcovers, but all he did was toss and turn restlessly on the bed.
So maybe he should’ve talked to her about that evening. Except he’d thought it best to forget about one drunken night’s kiss and continue with his plans until he could do things the right way.
Well, he sure as hell was mucking it up right now, wasn’t he?
No way was he going to stand for it. Suave Julian, they used to call him. How he was so cool, aloof. Yeah, right. Clearly not where Molly was concerned. His Achilles’ heel. But also his greatest strength. If he had become someone and done something with himself, it was all because of that incredible redhead in his life and his desperation to show his family that he was worthy of her.
Shoving the covers aside, he stalked across his bedroom and out to the hall, where moonlight streamed through the living room windows and across his apartment.
He found the door to her bedroom ajar. He rapped his knuckles on the wood, waited a second, then pushed the door open wider.
Her bed sat empty. It hadn’t been slept in.
Scowling, he stalked the entire apartment, every square foot, and found it empty.
Heart pounding seriously hard now, hard enough to crack one of his ribs, he jammed the elevator buttons and rode up to the penthouse, his mind racing with a thousand thoughts per minute, shouting out its conclusion: she left, she left, she left, you idiot!
But when the elevator doors opened, he saw her.
She lay on the marble floor of his new offices, dressed in nothing but a giant button-down shirt, her hair a pool of red fanning behind her as she slept with her hands tucked under her left cheek. He drank up her image as he approached her, drinking up her image, the perfect image of this woman he’d loved since they’d first met.
She should not be sleeping on the floor. God, never on the floor.
She deserved a bed, pillows, satin sheets and a man to love her with all the passion that she unfailingly conveyed in each of her artworks.
His eyes glued to her moonlit face, he knelt at her side—she was just so damned beautiful his eyes hurt. A streak of green paint crossed her forearm to her elbow, and he ached to trace it with his fingers, then with his lips. He noticed the empty paint tubes scattered around her sleeping form and glanced up at the colorful wall before him. His heart wrenched with regret when he realized she’d been trying to finish the mural.
So she could leave.
Leave him for good.
Now, when JJG Enterprises was almost ready for his final walk-through and just days away from opening to its employees. Now, when he had grown accustomed to her being here as he met with contractors, architects, painting her heart away on a wall that had been empty before she’d made it come to life with little playful flicks of her dainty hands.
She wanted to leave now, when Julian was days away from fulfilling one of his dreams and ready to focus on the next one—the possibility of sharing the rest of his life with her.
Throat dense with emotion, he stro
ked the curve of her cheek with the back of one fingertip.
She sighed contentedly at that, relaxed in her sleep. Shoving aside his hesitation, he reached out, gently scooped her up and carried her back to the elevator. She was as light as a feather and as warm as a little chicken, and his chest swelled when she sought out his heat and snuggled closer. But when the audible chime signaled their arrival on his apartment floor, Molly grew heavy in his arms, and he saw her spiky titian lashes flutter open.
Their eyes clashed. Her gaze was dewy, sleepy, and Julian’s muscles tensed as he waited for her to speak up, praying her first words weren’t “Put me down!”
He tightened his grip as he waited for the inevitable, but instead of kicking or screaming and demanding he release her, Molly hugged him even tighter and buried her face into his neck, where she quietly started sobbing.
The words tumbled out of his throat in an anxious rush. “Molly. Molly, I’m sorry. Don’t cry. I’m sorry for what I said.”
“No, Jules, I’m s-sorry, too. I—I overreacted, I—I’m s-so stupid. I should’ve known you anywhere. I should’ve known it was you.”
Julian might have been considered a daredevil among his sports friends, but seeing Molly cry just now tore up his insides.
He didn’t think about what he was doing, only followed his instincts and carried her to his bedroom. He sat on the edge of his bed and clutched her quaking body to the exact place where his heart spasmed like an open wound inside his chest.
“I’m sorry, Molly. I should’ve brought it up and at least apologized,” he said, smoothing his hands down her shivering back.
Her chest heaved as she sighed and stayed buried against his throat. “No, no, it was me. How could I not have known…not have realized?” She sniffled and glanced up, her eyes wide and blue and glazed with emotion. “At first I thought it was you, but then I felt his ring pressing against my arm. Why were you wearing it? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Baby, I thought you knew it was me that night. I thought you responded because it was me. I was going to leave you alone, Molly, but you called me back onto the terrace and I couldn’t stop myself.”
He had a similar sensation now as he marveled at the incredible feel of her in his arms, warm and shivering and vulnerable, like she’d been that night, ravenous for his mouth and his touches. He wanted to protect her, possess her, claim her, love her, make her never ever think again of anyone but him.
Cradling her face, he wiped her tears with the pads of his thumbs. “Why would you think it was Garrett, Molly? Don’t you see the way I look at you? The way I want you? Everyone around us has noticed but you. Do you believe I’d help another man, any man, get even a little piece of you, when I’ve been waiting all my life to claim you as mine?”
She looked into his face, and her eyes widened at his words, as though she’d only just realized that he wanted her. Her hands trembled as she cupped the back of his head, and then she kissed him. Softly. Whispering against his lips, “I love you. I’d die if I lost you, Jules. I’d rather lose my arms and never paint again than lose you.”
Her lips pressed lightly against his, the words, the touch sending a shock of awareness bolting through his system. He stiffened under her, his heart kicking full speed, pumping hard and loud as a jolt of arousal coursed through his bloodstream.
When she drew back, her eyes shone like beacons, and the blatant desire he saw in those blue, blue eyes could’ve toppled him to his knees.
He was having trouble getting a word out, his arms shaking as he palmed her face between his open hands. “Do you want me?” he finally rasped.
His lips tingled from her sweet kiss, and now his mouth burned with the hunger to plunder her lips. Ripe with innocence, wet and pink and waiting to unleash all her passion on him. He needed to make her his. Only his. He couldn’t bear another night, another second, another moment of his life without this.
He splayed his fingers across her scalp and gazed into her eyes in the shadows, so intoxicated with her nearness, he could only murmur in a thick whisper, “Do you want me, Molly? Do you want to be with me?” He slid his fingers down her back to palm the round curves of her buttocks, gently pulling her closer.
She nodded, struggling for air.
He gripped her hair within his fists and pinned her in place as he swept down. “I need to kiss you, touch you, make love to you.” He fitted his lips perfectly to hers. His tongue plowed, swift and fast, into the warmth of her open mouth, and the pleasure of connection was so intense, a riptide of sensations racked his entire body.
She felt familiar and at the same time exotic and intoxicating to him. She was marshmallows in fire, lollipops under the covers, the best memories of his youth…she was museums, Monaco, fine wine….
She was Molly.
His lovely, effervescent Molly.
And he’d loved her almost as long as he’d been alive.
His arms snaked out to guide her legs around his hips, and suddenly she was straddling him, almost weightless, but burning hot and moving in restless excitement against him, her hands gliding up the bare muscles of his torso, her mouth ravenous on his. “Jules,” she murmured. “Jules, I’m sorry for what I said.”
“Shh, I’m sorry, too. Let’s just forgive each other. You’re mine, Molly, and I can’t wait to be inside you.” He twirled his tongue around hers, her body eagerly rocking over his hardness. Agonizing pleasure ripped through him as her weight bounced seductively over his straining erection.
Things went from slow to urgent in a heartbeat.
He anxiously unbuttoned her shirt, and when she started doing it herself, his hands slid up to caress her face. Panting fast and hard, he stroked her reddened bottom lip with alternating thumbs, her lovely jaw cradled within his cupped palms. He’d never seen so much desire in a woman’s eyes. So much emotion. Her lips were so luscious, plump and damp and so unbelievably swollen from his kiss.
Desire pumped, hot and heady, through his bloodstream as he laid her down on the bed and pushed off his drawstring pants, licking her calves, her knees, touching her, looking at her—he couldn’t get enough, do it quick enough, couldn’t see her naked fast enough.
He wanted to part her slim, white thighs and taste her honey. He wanted to make her gasp and moan and thrash against him as he introduced her to the greatest pleasures in the world. He was cooking inside of his body and he hadn’t even started to do everything he wanted to. He had never thought he could want a woman like this.
He wanted to revere her. Adore her.
Molly was just as desperate, her fingers somehow cramping on the last buttons of her shirt. “I can’t get this thing off. Please get it off, get it off, Jules!”
He cursed under his breath and lunged forward. He was being ripped in two from so much desire, so much rapture. He could barely speak from the euphoria, his fingers working as fast as they could through the tremors already shaking him.
“Is this mine? Is this an old shirt of mine?”
She nodded, and he swiftly grabbed it in both fists and tore it open, buttons flying everywhere. His blood roared like a monster in his ears when he parted the material, revealing flawless creamy skin he wanted to devour until tomorrow.
“Is this what you want, Molly?” He ducked to put his mouth on a beaded nipple that thrust up in the air. He laved it thoroughly as he rolled her to her side and sprawled his body right next to her as his hands engulfed the round curves of her buttocks and he drew her tighter against him, enabling him to feast on her breast like a man possessed.
She arched up against him as he twirled his tongue around the protruding tip, her whispers tickling his hair, “Yes, oh, please!”
He groaned, because he could never deny her. Never. He wanted her to be certain she wanted him and only him, as a man and as a lover, but she felt so right, was hot and lusty in his
arms, in his bed, where he’d spent many sleepless nights as he imagined her lying in her own bed just next door.
No. He couldn’t stop if he’d wanted to. For the first time in his life, he would be truly making love with someone.
Heart pounding at what was about to happen, something irrevocable, monumental, something he’d thought about his whole life, Julian turned her onto her back, his hands roaming down her curvy body, squeezing her lovely thighs as he kissed her long and languorously. “I want you. I need you. You feel so perfect. It’s like coming home.”
Her red hair splayed over his white down pillows. Her chest rose and fell heavily with each breath, her eyes so trusting he could drown in them. “I’m still a virgin, Jules.” She reached out to stroke his dampened lips with one fingertip.
He placed a kiss on the tip of that fingertip. “Sweet, sweet baby, you have no idea what knowing that does to me.” He was so honored, so turned on that he would be her first, her only. His hands shook as he eased the shirt off her shoulders and helped her pull it off her arms. “I’ll be extra careful, but you have to tell me if I ever go too fa— Oh, Molly, look at you.”
His eyes blurred at the sight of her completely naked. Her slim legs, her tiny hips, the little thatch of red curls at the apex of her thighs, and the two perfect globes of her breasts staring back at him, large and round, with those perky pink nipples that begged to be laved and licked and loved until morning.
She drew his hand up to one large globe, her eyes holding his with such innocent seduction he could’ve wept. His body trembled with anticipation, excitement.
“Do you want me to kiss you here again?” he gruffly said, and cupped both her breasts in his big hands, gently squeezing. She shivered in pleasure when he began teasing the pink areolae with his thumbs.
He bent his head and took one firm bud between his lips. He flicked it with his tongue first, then drew it deeply into his mouth as his hand trailed down her stomach. She gasped under him. Her hips rolled enticingly as his fingers teased through her moistness.