At the start of the night, I’d settled on the occasional touch.
But now it looks like I’m going to get a whole lot more.
Chapter 14
Jules
Russell looks down at me with a set jaw, his face clearly giving me an out. Saying,you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.
Because, after that weird exchange in my apartment, maybe he thinks Idon’twant to. Maybe he’s really clueless enough to think that any heterosexual, warm-blooded woman would be able to spend any time around him andnotwonder what it might feel like to press her lips to his.
I’ve already been thinking about it. At the start of the party, he’d said theoccasionaltouch, then proceeded to keep his hand on my hip or at the small of my back the entire time. The warmth of it was maddening. It was all I could think about, like I could feel the precise pressure of each fingertip. Like tonight, when I pulled this dress off and looked in the mirror, I’d see his handprint still there, branded on my skin.
Of course I want this. My mind scrambles to justify my actions when I lift up onto my tip-toes, reaching my hand up and around the back of his neck, tickling the little hairs at the nape of his neck.
He’s already spent a lot of money on me. I want to do thisarrangementjustice. Carry out my side of the deal. Do a great job.
In fact, I want to be named employee of the fucking month.
That’s what I’m thinking when his lips meet mine, and for the slightest, slimmest fraction of a second, I think that he’s not going to kiss me back. Then that restraint seems to break, and Russell seems to shift, turning from something slightly stiff and poised to another thing entirely—molten. Coveting. Commanding.
One of his hands slides down to the small of my back, and he draws me up, smashing my chest against his. His other comes to the back of my head, fingers sliding into my hair and tugging my head, so I tip up to him, and in the next second, he’s slanting his mouth over mine.
If I had any delusions about this being a chaste kiss, a closed-mouth peck for the onlookers, I was sorely mistaken. I can’t think of anything but the clichés, but it’s all true—Russell kisses me like he’s just come home from the war. Like he’s starving for oxygen, and I’m the only way to get breath back in his lungs.
He kisses me like he might get only one chance, and he wants to prove that he could do itexactlyhow I want.
In fact, it doesn’t feel like Russell is doing what I want, but teaching it to me, showing me how each thing is what I’ve been missing. That tug at the roots of my hair—see? You like that sharp cinch, that whisper of pain. His hand, anchoring at the small of my back—see? You like feeling bracketed, supported, held up on all sides.
And his tongue, sliding against mine, usually something I try to zone out about, something I try to think about abstractly or it might gross me out—I’m not zoning out now. Russell kisses me, licks into my mouth like he wants to show mepreciselywhat hewould do with the rest of my body, with his tongue, given the chance.
Of course, like with everything else, Russell does an excellent job of it. So, when he releases me, depositing one final, soft kiss on my stunned lips, I’m already in the middle of the fully pornographic movie of the two of us, that kiss like a script for the film I want nothing more than to watch over and over again.
From the kiss, I know how he would touch me. Maneuver my body, take control, not make me ask for or explain a single thing. Just like with every other way Russell has in my life so far, he would lift the weight from my shoulders. There would be noa little to the left, orharder pleasewith him. Just clear, blinding, mindless pleasure.
In fact, it feels not just like a movie that I’d like to see, but one that I’ve seen before. A mouth that I’ve already tasted, hands that have already searched my body, and finding me at the center.
My mind slowly starts to come back into the present, like emerging from the bottom of a pool, and I hear the whoops and whistles around us. The party comes back into hazy focus—the green and red lights blinking on the walls, the tall, slender figures around us, their Gucci and Prada and Louis Vuitton like a heavy scent lingering in the air.
I should be paying more attention to this party, like I thought when I got here. Do some networking, like I thought I’d do all those years ago, at the last event like this I attended. But I can barely even register the world around us because I’m still staring up at Russell, breathing hard, our chests pressing together with each breath.
Russell blinks, drops his hand from my back, and for a moment, his face looks completely and totally blank. Then, like an actor slipping back into his role, a smile slides over his lips and he turns, looking at me with an intent gaze.
That gaze says,Now is as good a time as any.
I blink back at him, startled and still trying to recover from the kiss. I don’t know what that telegraphs to him, but it’s not enough.
“Jules,” he says, pulling me close to him, whispering roughly in my ear. “I’m going to propose to you now, okay?”
I’m nodding before I realize I’m moving, then he’s pulling back, dropping down to one knee, making the still-gathered crowd around us gasp. It’s more eyes on me than what I’ve ever experienced. Some of them, from the other people in the crowd, adoring and proud, like they’re our own parents and grandparents. Or like they’re remembering their young love.
But there are plenty of pissy, unhappy gazes trained on me, too. Jealousy floating through the air like a bitter fragrance. This must be what the girls on the bachelor feel like when they’re the first to receive a rose.
“Juliette Harper,” Russell says, clearing his throat and looking up at me, and I realize for the first time that a proposal probably means a speech. Is that what people always do? Or is that just in the movies? “I’ve loved you since I first laid eyes on you.”
My heart—which has just started to settle down after thatfrankly erotickiss—starts to double-time again. I stare down at him, and maybe it’s the champagne buzzing joyfully through my veins, or maybe it’s just that Russell is gazing up at mesobelievably, but I have to remind myself that this isn’t real and again to keep the warm adulation at bay.
This isnotreal, I chant, while Russell goes on, “Anyone who knows me knows that I go for only the best. The best education, fastest car, mostgorgeouswoman.” There’s a sound that moves through the crowd, half laughter and halfawwfrom the ladies around us. “But you’re not just beautiful, Jules—” my nickname,fuck, it’s what everyone calls me, but it sounds so preciouscoming from his lips, “—you’re tenacious, fierce. You’re the brightest person, the most thoughtful woman, and the hardest worker I’ve ever met. There could be no better mother to Gus. So not only am I in love with you, but I’m so accustomed to having the best. That’s you, Jules, and I’m hoping you’ll do me the honor of being my wife, so I can prove to you every waking day that I’m worthy of having you.”
