Jennifer and Rocket (The Princesses of Silicon Valley Book 6) (18 page)

The Princess of Silicon Valley

Book 1

Meet Me

in Silicon Valley

The Juliette Trilogy

By

Anita Claire

This story has a lot of characters. To help navigate all these characters I have included my character chart.

Princesses – college friends

* Juliette Cole – Snow White – long dark hair with curls, white skin, brown eyes

* Meredith Price – Cinderella – morning running friend – blond hair blue eyes – works biochem, lives with her college boyfriend Sam

* Hita
Chamarthi
(pronounced Heeta) – Pocahontas – works with Juliette – parents came from India

* Isabelle Becker – Belle – dad white, mom Chinese

* Jennifer Takahashi – Mulan – Asian –Hawaiian – teaches middle school, crafty

* Olivia Habibi - Jasmine – middle eastern – med student

* Kelly Flannigan - Marida – wild red hair – very athletic, wild energy

High school

* Grayson (Gray) Barber - Fenced with Juliette–law student – brown eyes

* Elizabeth Wilder – high school queen bee

* Cassie – high school friend, lived in LA

* Cody – Cassie’s ex-husband

* Luke Tomlin – Cassie’s boyfriend - professional football player

Work

* Caroline - works in the client side department –has bad relationships

* Kami - works in the client side department, on the chubby side

* Mark – nice coworker – annoying dog Buddy

* Roger – boss – late 20’s early 30’s, from New Jersey

* Flint CTO – Matt Flinter, Co-Founder, Chief Technology Officer

* Tyler – CEO of the company

* Sid - VP engineering

* Rajive – fellow new engineer

* Jim – macho engineer

* Jessica – manages swag – lives in SF

* Megan – works in web design – Asian, dresses artsy – lives in SF

* Terri - round face, blond hair, blue eyes

Additional characters

* Nate Lombard – MD, opposing player’s brother, 29 years old, tattoo on right arm, brown curly hair and blue eyes

* Leigh – Older sister , 5’8”, same coloring, very thin

Swimmers

* Zach – Abs guy –dark hair and steel gray eyes - engineer

* Kevin – half Asian - engineer

* Austin –blond hair - engineer

* Amanda – Kevin’s girlfriend

* Sean – dark hair

I’m standing on the pool deck watching everyone swimming fast. Abs Guy stops at the end of his lane. He looks up at me, giving me a panty-wetting smile as he plants his hands on the end of the pool. In one quick pull up, he’s out of the water. His body glows, he breathes hard from his recent exertion, his muscles rip along his chest and stomach. He strolls across the deck, stopping inches from me. He raises his hand and runs the back of his finger along my cheek. “You want me,” he says, in his low, deep voice.

I look into his eyes, surprised, how does he know?

He chuckles, “I can tell. I saw you watching me.” The pads of his fingers glide along my jaw and down my neck. The heat of his body radiates off him, he smells like chlorine with a light male musk scent I equate with sex. His eyes move down to my mouth while his fingers continue down along my stomach and then he grabs my butt.

With a knowing smile, he says, “Yeah, you are so into this.”

As he stares at my mouth I run my hand down the flat hard planes of his chest while my other hand runs through the soft wet waves of his hair. I lean in and lick the water droplets off his chest.

He then moves in closer and licks my lower lip. I gasp, and then shudder as his tongue flashes inside my mouth and circles my tongue, causing sparks to erupt along my jaw and neck that creep up to the base of my skull. My fingers glide down his chest, feeling the planes of his muscles and the ridges of his abs. He pulls me closer; his mouth engulfs mine as the pace of his tongue increase. It feels like he is consuming me as I quake in response. A sound that is high-pitched and breathy escapes from my lips.

Pulling away from the kiss, he whispers into my mouth, “I want you so bad.”

I can tell I’m turning him on. He leans over and licks my ear, then blows gently, which sends its own cavalcade of sensations. Then he whispers, “I want you now.”

My breath is hard and unsteady as I feel someone tap me on the shoulder. An authoritarian voice says, “Juliette, you can’t be doing this on the deck.”

I gasp, and push away from Abs Guy, repeating what the coach just said. “We can’t be doing this here.”

He laughs, turns around, and jumps back into the water.

“What the hell?” I gasp as I find myself suddenly
and fully
awake. I look around the gray light of my room. Wow, that was so…vivid…and…pornographic. I curl back under my blankets as I feel my face flush from embarrassment. Did I really dream that up? I saw that guy walking across the deck at swim practice. Then again I’m glad that my dream was about Abs Guy and not about Stephan, my ex.

***

Once swimming, I no longer mind waking up at a quarter to six, since the water feels so good. I flip-turn into another long, lean glide that stretches every vertebra and ligament in my body. Swimming is like no other sport; plus the health benefits must be amazing. I watch people who are around my parents’ age parade across the deck looking shockingly good in only a swimsuit. Coming up for breath, the sound of water in my ear provides a Zen like background to help relax all the thoughts spiraling through my mind. After finishing grad school this spring, I had a disastrous summer following my boyfriend to London. It’s nice to be back and be able to move on with my life. The last month has been a whirlwind as I settle into a new job, while simultaneously moving in with a childhood friend, and reconnecting with my close group from college.

On my next lap, I reach up and grab a kickboard. On my way back, I casually look up at the deck as I start to order and prioritize my day. Our masters swim coach is giving the fast guys the next set. A big guy pulls himself out of the pool with one fluid movement and walks over to the tall bin where we keep the pull buoys and paddles.

It’s Abs Guy.

My face feels hot.

My chest constricts.

Did I really have an X-rated dream about him last night? He’s definitely in his twenties, long and lean, with slim hips and wide well-toned shoulders, defined chest, and muscled neck. Oblivious to me watching, he leans in to grab a couple pull buoys, his abs ripple, I feel like I’m watching it in slow motion. Then turning to throw the buoys to the other guys in the lane, he smiles which lights up a dimple as he reaches back in to grab a few more.

I’m mesmerized by those abs.

That body.

Have I ever seen a man this spellbinding?

Man, has it been that long? I can barely breathe from the sight of his torso. Watching him jump back in the pool, my mind has completely lost focus.

Who in the hell is this Abs Guy? C’mon Juliette, stay focused! You’re here for fitness! Who am I kidding? I am so here to look at men like Abs Guy.

As I swim, all other thoughts leave my head. All I can think about is the dream I had last night and how I’m going to meet him. Does he have a girlfriend? Is he as interesting as he is beautiful? My roommate, Cassie, is a savant when it comes to men. Cassie would know what to do. The problem is that Cassie would want to check out Abs Guy—which brings up my big issue with Cassie.

Cassie and I were inseparable best friends in elementary and junior high school, spending all our weekends sleeping at each other’s homes. As a kid, she was tall and painfully skinny, with long, thin, stringy pale brown hair, glasses, braces, and a face too angular to be cute. Both of us loved sports. From kindergarten till the end of junior high, we were on the same swim team, soccer team, and rode horses together. The summer between eighth and ninth grade she turned from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan. She got boobs, her braces came off, she started highlighting her hair, and got contact lenses. Cassie’s summer transformation turned her into every teenage boy’s wet dream.

Unfortunately, once the beauty kicked in she lost interest in sports and school. She chose what was easiest, using her beauty and charm to get ahead. In high school she ran with the “beautiful people” crowd, a clique of arrogant, fast moving, hard partying, good looking kids—that group always made me feel awkward, innocent, and nerdy.

Somehow, Cassie and I managed to maintain our friendship. We always had a good time when it was the two of us. While she was dating and partying with the handsome and popular boys, I was on the math team, the debate team, the fencing team, and the soccer team. I was a geeky jock. Our lives diverged when I went off to college to study electrical engineering and computer science, and she went to LA to be discovered.

In high school, I was a late bloomer having plenty of boys that were friends, but never a boyfriend. Cassie was always going on about one guy or another. About half way through our sophomore year, Cassie kept on pushing me to tell her who I thought was cute. Finally, getting up the courage, I confessed to having a crush on this senior, Beau Bradley. His locker was across from mine. He had a look I really liked—dark eyes, dark shaggy hair, chiseled features, a tall lean body. He didn’t strut down the hall like the jocks; his attitude was more brooding and hipster. We had a large high school, about four hundred and fifty kids per grade, which was merged from two middle schools and two junior highs. Cassie had no idea who he was because he didn’t run with her beautiful people crowd. Confiding in Cassie, I told her Beau Bradley always stopped at his locker after third period, and I had arranged my schedule around his so that I would be at my locker then too. At that point, I hadn’t yet gotten up the guts to even say hi. He was a senior, which intimidated me.

The next day after third period, Cassie made a point of going back to my locker with me. Like clockwork, Beau strolled to his locker to pick up his books. Cassie struck a pose and “coyly” stared at him until he looked her dead in the eyes. She then flashed him one of her award winning smiles and giggled. By the end of the day, he had asked her out. They dated for about a month. Cassie was never one for keeping a guy long-term. She didn’t see that flirting with—and then dating—someone I had a crush on was hurtful. At the time, I was too shocked to say anything. When I finally got my thoughts together to tell her how wrong that was, she justified it by saying, “He had no idea you existed.” Then flicked her eyebrows in annoyance, “you weren’t going to do anything about it anyway.”

Cassie had been competitive. After her summer transformation, she stopped competing with me on athletics and academics. Still, I think Cassie wanted to prove that she could always beat me in one arena--with guys. That incident has always been painful, it was the first time Cassie had ever broken my trust. Since then my feelings towards her have been torn. She was such an essential part of my childhood, but that betrayal has undermined my trust.

All these thoughts flutter through my mind as I pull a long set in the pool. Resolving to stop ruminating on high school and focus on today, I decide to find out more about Abs Guy. My mind spins with questions. At the end of the workout, I do another kick set so I have the opportunity to watch Abs Guy walk across the pool deck. Oh man, swimming has to be the best sport. His beautiful body is seared in my brain.

It’s interesting to listen to the women talk in the locker room as they shower and dress. I’m probably the youngest person here. There are a lot of women in their thirties, forties, and fifties. They all walk around comfortably naked while I stand in a corner covered up with my towel listening to them talk about kids, husbands, schedules, food. Some coordinate getting together for a run or bike ride. This would be the only group who knows Abs Guy…. but, I sense it’s probably not the right place to ask any of them about him. I’m on my own with that. Well, at least I know if I swim at six in the morning there’s a chance I’ll see him again.