He slaps the door when he says the word, and Clarke remembers. She wasn’t sureheremembered, because they’d been drinking and he never brought it up after, but then—they never talked again, after.
It had been close to the one-year anniversary of Connor’s death. Julian had been having one hell of a second season in F0, racing like he was determined to dethrone Delphine in Connor’s memory, and Clarke’d been feeling unmoored. They hadn’t spoken much since Connor’s funeral, but she knew Julian would make her feel better, so she’d shown up here unannounced, like tonight, and he’d let her in, like tonight. They talked for hours.
At the end of the night, as she’d been on her way out the door, he’d caught her arm. Touched her waist. Called herMaddie, like the name was precious. Asked her to stay.
She’d left. She’d walked away for the millionth time, thinking she was protecting their friendship by not letting them cross a line. Julian let her go for the millionth time, thinkinghewas protecting their friendship by respecting a boundary.
“I always understood your reasons for not being with me,” he says, voice raw with emotion. “I don’t, anymore. I get thatthings are complicated for you, but you keep giving me excuses and deflections, so all I can think is that even though you want me, you don’t trust me, and I can’t fix that by trying to pull you over a line you’ve never been willing to cross. I have to step back, and you don’t get to be angry with me for doing that.”
Clarke’s blood is boiling by this point, a clash of rage and indignation and tenuous restraint. “I will be angry about whatever I damn well—”
“How can you not see the mixed signals you’re sending me?” he demands, a flush high on his cheeks. “I’m trying to do what you want, and you’re pissed about it?”
“Maybe you don’t know what I want! Maybe I needed time to sort it out! Maybe I came here tonight to tell you I’m choosing you despite the rest of my life still being a mess, and you conveniently decide thatnowis when you’re done?”
The air between them goes taut. Julian’s voice is a full octave lower than normal when he asks, “Isthat why you came here tonight?”
“No,” Clarke says on a hard exhale. The boiling of her blood is complete, and she’s left with nothing but rushing bubbles in her veins and the heady feeling that if she doesn’t touch him soon, she’s going to burst. “I only figured that part out about ten seconds ago.”
She closes the rest of the distance between them and kisses him.
It’s not perfect, as first kisses go. Julian wasn’t expecting it, and he freezes long enough for Clarke to panic. Did she misread this somehow? What—
Julian’s brain kick-starts. His hands are on her so quickly that she doesn’t even process it as a transition: One second, his arms are at his sides and she’s retreating, the next he has one hand onher waist and the other along the side of her throat, fingers hooked around the back of her neck and thumb stroking her cheekbone. He pulls her in, and this—thisis what she knew it would be like to kiss Julian Casperi.
His lips are soft. His jaw is strong. His tongue is sure. He lines up their bodies, opens her mouth with his, fills her head withJulianandyesandmore.
She’s on fire. She’s floating. She’s drowning in him. She’s aware of every point of contact between them like a constellation in the dark sky.
They break for air, but it doesn’t last. He spins them, pressing Clarke against the door and crowding in close to kiss her again like all the oxygen in the worlds won’t help him catch his breath unless he’s getting it directly from Clarke’s mouth. She brings her arms up around his neck; he trails his fingers up her rib cage and traces along the undersides of her arms, making her shudder and let out an embarrassing whimper of desire. He releases his own sound, a groan that’s more of a rumble, and his hands go back to her waist, then her hips, then lower, flexing over the muscles of her ass and pulling her off the door, into him. The hot length of his erection makes itself known, from just below Clarke’s belly button up toward her ribs.
His dick curves to the left a bit.
It’s such an absurd thing to notice that a giggle bursts out of her. Julian kisses her through it, smiling at her happiness, and it’s not agoodkiss because she’s laughing and he’s grinning and there are too many teeth involved, but it’s theirs.
He ducks to bite at her jaw, little nips lighting up a path of fireworks back to her ear. “Something funny?”
“Your—ah—Julian,” she says, thoughts evaporating when he kisses the side of her neck, hot and wet. She tips her chin togive him more room to work, but he’s apparently dissatisfied with the available real estate, because he gets a hand into her hair on the other side of her head. He tightens his grip, pinpricks of pain-pleasure sparking in her skull and racing down to between her legs, and tilts her neck to the angle he wants.
“Don’t get distracted,” he says into her skin. “What were you laughing about?”
Asking matters to Julian. She puts a hand on his chest and pushes, just enough that she can look him in the eye. “Can I touch you?”
His hair is a mess from her fingers. His eyes are bright. “Anywhere.”
She slides her hand down his chest, flipping her wrist so she can cup his cock over his pants. “You’re curved.”
He groans again and bucks against her palm. “A lesser man might be insecure about his dick getting laughed at, but I don’t think you’re going to have any complaints. I’ve never been given a less-than-glowing review.”
The reminder that he’s slept with other people doesn’t bother her. Instead, her mind treats her to a mental image of him fucking someone, using that experience and the single-minded focus he displays on the track to make his partner absolutely shatter with pleasure. Then her mind slots Clarke into the role of his partner, and it’s impossible to keep standing there with her legs pressed together. She wiggles her left knee free and brings it up, hooking it over his hip. His hand goes to help, catching under her thigh, and he shifts his weight to press against her more fully. It brings friction and pressure to Clarke’s clit for the first time, a dizzying spiral that has her searching for more.
“You’re going to kill me,” Julian says, looking down at whereshe’s rolling her hips against his thigh. “You’re—this is it. You’re going to kill me.”
“Dramatic,” Clarke says, the intended chiding undercut by how she’s gasping.
“I’ll give you dramatic,” he says, which doesn’t make sense, but then he’s kissing her again so she really doesn’t care.
She could come like this. No—she’sgoingto come like this, if they keep going. The feel of him grinding against her, his tongue flicking over the roof of her mouth, his hands moving her, encouraging her. He’s going to come, too; she can tell by the way his hips are starting to stutter, the rhythm escaping him in increments.
