Juliet's Law (13 page)

“Maybe so,” Juliet said. She took a breath and said, “I was on a business trip for my firm. I'd just had dinner at the hotel restaurant and I went outside.”

In a steady, plain voice, she told him the story, factually and without elaboration or hysterics. As she got to the end, when she was finally home, two days later, and could not go to sleep in her own bed, she realized tears were streaming down her cheeks, and Josh was ever-so-gently rocking her, side to side.

She was half-naked beneath the blanket. Her sister was in jail. Claude was dead and she'd broken up with Scott, and nothing seemed the way it should…except Josh. There was something so unbelievably, perfectly right about his arms around her, his gentle rocking, the feeling of his nose in her hair as she wept. Wept and wept and wept, for all the darkness in the world and all the women who had ever been raped and her sister who had a broken heart and Claude, who was dead.

And all through it, Josh held her. A blessing.

 

When Juliet was finally spent, her tears leaking out of her in a long, slow stream, never noisy, never hysterical, but steady and seemingly endless, he helped her into a T-shirt from his closet and put her to bed in his own bed.

Exhausted, she said, “Thank you,” and fell asleep so hard he thought she'd probably be there a long, long while.

He, too, was exhausted, and slipped between the covers next to her, cradling her curvy self into his belly. She shuddered in post-weeping release, and allowed herself to be cuddled, lifting his hand to her mouth before falling back over the cliff to her rest.

And then, he too, was asleep, carried away into a restless world of vivid, violent dreams where a cat was tearing apart a rapist, where Desi was sitting in a jail cell crying out his name, where the silence seemed vast and endless and terrifying. Over and over, he surfaced the slightest bit to discover the Juliet part of the dreams was real, that she was still in his bed, still sleeping soundly, protected and safe in his arms.

When he started awake suddenly to find that circle empty, it was light outside, and he heard Juliet in the bathroom, running water. She came back out, and when she found him awake and looking at her, she paused.

“You look so beautiful,” he said, and it was true. Her hair, the shimmery color of the lemon crayon in Glory's box, was mussed and tumbling over her slim shoulders in the plain white T-shirt and a pair of underwear.

“Do I?” she said with a laugh and looked down. “I was coming back, if that's okay. I didn't mean to wake you.”

Wordlessly, he flipped the covers back and made a place for her. As she crossed the room, her breasts, bare beneath the T-shirt, swayed and bobbled, a sight that made him instantly, furiously hard.

At the edge of the bed, she showed him a small foil packet. “I hope you don't mind,” she said, “but I found this in the bathroom cabinet.”

“I don't mind,” he said. If there was any more blood in his organ, it would explode, but more surged in when she reached down, grabbed the bottom of her T-shirt and pulled it off over her head.

For one moment, she stood there, pink and white and blond, her skin smooth and pale, her tummy slightly rounded, her shoulders delicate like butterfly wings, and her breasts, white and round and full, tipped with pearly pink nipples.

He pulled the covers further back, showing his bare upper body and the raging hard-on in his briefs. Lightly he touched himself and said, “See what you're doing to me?”

One impish eyebrow lifted. “Very nice.”

Josh said, “Come here.”

She did, flowing forward to put her body against his, naked chest to naked chest, legs tangling, mouths open to absorb, inhale, meld. Hands tangled in hair, his and hers, hers and his. He tasted her lips, her chin, her neck. She straddled his erection and he groaned at the heat and pleasure of her rubbing against him. He held her hips and rose up, bending her slightly backward in his lap so he could take a nipple into his mouth and play with it, teasing with his tongue, sucking and letting go, using his fingers on her other one, until she was whimpering softly in longing, her hips moving restlessly against him, hot and damp and ready.

But not as ready as she would be. He slid his fingers between them, beneath her panties and into the layers of folds beneath, all trembling and shivery. His organ throbbed in furious desire as he rubbed her, slowly, deeply, bringing out a rhythm of cries, a bucking hunger. When he knew she was very, very close, he stopped.

Her blue eyes flew open. “Josh,” she panted. “I've never…this is—”

He kissed her, thrusting his tongue deep into her mouth, and rolled them over until he was on top, it took a moment of fumbling to get rid of the fabric between them and another moment to sheath himself properly, but Juliet was like cake falling to pieces beneath him, and when he nudged her legs apart, reached down to ease himself into her, she cried out in guttural pleasure, that rich, panting sound of mindless, pure, physical enjoyment. His own flanks quivered at the pleasure of her
around him, the beauty of that tousled hair on his pillow, her pink and white breasts straining upward for his mouth, her legs wrapping around him and pulling him home with surprising strength. She pulled him in with strong arms.

They kissed, and it was a rocket of sensation, touch, sound, movement, a pleasure so profound and rich and earthy Josh wanted to stay right there, an orgasm building in his loins by degrees. Go go go go, nerves, lips, legs, hands, tongues. Her hair tangling in his fingers. Her breasts, her belly, her sex pulsing like a squeezing fist around him as she came, crying out with a high, blistered keening. He tumbled right after her.

And then it was the next best thing, the first moments afterward. He kissed her and kissed her, her breasts all sweaty against his chest, their breath still coming fast, his organ doing that last little throb, uh uh uh, and she was pulsing around him now and then, the little aftershocks.

“Wow,” Juliet said, blinking up at him.

He grinned down at her. “Have a pretty good time, did you?”

“Uh, yeah.” She raised a hand and brushed hair over his shoulder. “You're amazing.”

“It's you. Or us.” He realized how heavy he must be and made a move to slide sideways. “Or something.”

She sighed as he left her, making a sound of soft regret. “Come on back now, anytime,” she said, and laughed, putting her head against his arm. It was a giggle, a sound of pure, unfettered pleasure.

“You sound pretty happy.”

“Wonder why?” She put her finger on her cheek, looking exaggeratedly vacuous. “I've only just had great sex with the sexiest guy I've run into in years—”

“Only years? Is there someone better than me out there?”

“Okay, ever. And I slept like a baby, and it snowed a lot less than I thought it was going to.”

“Really?” He flipped the covers off his body and jumped up to peek outside. The snow was spitting a little, but he could tell from long experience that it wouldn't be long until the sun burst through the clouds. Snow had definitely piled up in corners, but it was more the sort of accumulation that came of wind. “It should be gone by suppertime, I'm guessing. Maybe sooner.”

She'd propped herself up on the pillow and inclined her head, frankly admiring him. “You, Mr. Mad Calf, have very, very nice legs.”

He grinned, and turned around. “Yeah? Anything else you like?”

Her eyes looked suddenly smoky, and there was the faintest betraying flare of her nostrils. “Everything,” she said distinctly.

It was cold. He dived back into the bed. And they did it all again.

 

After a long, luxurious,
hot
shower, Juliet found Josh in the kitchen, watching the news on a tiny white television set. The scent of bacon frying and coffee brewing perfumed the air, and there were agreeable piles of food lined up on the counter—eggs, cheese, apples.

But for a moment, Juliet was seized with a sense of
surprise, looking at Josh himself. At his long, powerful legs, his graceful hands, the thick black fall of his hair.

She'd taken a new lover! How amazing!

And what a lover—every cell in her body felt properly tended for the first time in a very long time, as if every inch of her had been taken out, washed, dried, brushed, and put back into place.

Her mind, her heart, all those places that ordinarily sent out objections and got so noisily involved in these things, were strangely silent. “What's your pleasure, my lady?” Josh asked, gesturing toward the supplies on the counter. “Omelets with cheese, bacon on the side?”

She grinned. “A girl could get used to this.”

He wiggled his dark brows. “Promises, promises.”

“What are you having?”

“Omelets, bacon on the side, coffee.”

“I'll have that, too. Do you want some help?”

He gave her an ironic grin. “You just sit there and look purty, little lady.” From the cupboard, he took a cup and poured coffee into it. “Milk's right there.”

On the television, a newscaster showed the ski slopes in Aspen, and a shot of a beautiful blond woman. “Josh, look! It's Christie Lundgren. On the news. Turn it up!”

The newscaster said, “—Lundgren was said to be in a heated relationship with the artist who was murdered two days ago in the glitzy ski resort town of Mariposa.”

Josh pointed to a banner below the picture. “It's an old picture of Christie,” he said. The banner read photo January 2004.

“Prominent Aspen art dealer Renate Franz has issued a statement that her collection of Tsosie art will be on
display through the end of the month, when she will hold an auction.”

A photo of an elegant, tiny woman with a wealth of dark hair stepped in front of the camera, visibly upset. “We're all grieving,” she said. “The world has lost a major talent and a man we will mourn for years to come.”

Josh said, “German accent, you think? How old do you think she is?”

“Thirties?” At first, Juliet didn't make the connection. Then she turned back to the screen. “Ah! Do you think she might be the one Claude was with last summer? An art dealer?”

Josh frowned. “I think she had more than art on her mind.”

On the television, the newscaster wrapped it up. “Investigations are continuing, but Tsosie's wife, Desdemona Rousseau, has been arrested.”

Juliet's stomach flipped. She wondered if her sister Miranda had seen this story. “I've gotta call my other sister after breakfast.”

“We need to go talk to Desi, too, make sure she's all right.”

Spiraling tension rose through Juliet's chest, tightening and compressing her lungs.
Breathe,
she told herself. They would get to the bottom of this. She stood up, shaking off the anxiety, and peered out the window. There were still heavy clouds overhead, but the snow had stopped falling. The tiny pellets, the rain-snow, had not particularly piled up, though the wind had blown it into drifts here and there.

It was plenty for the dogs, however. They pranced
around in it happily, dancing, dodging, almost laughing aloud. “The dogs look very happy,” she commented and watched them as they played with each other, bowing down, throwing up tufts of snow, getting covered with it. “I was never much of a dog person before Desi got so wrapped up with the wolves, but there's really nothing like them.”

At the stove, Josh turned slightly to indicate he was listening. “What do you mean?”

She lifted a shoulder. “They're so…fluffy and happy and devoted.” Faithful, she wanted to add, but didn't, afraid it would be too leading. In the yard Crazy Horse dashed away from a charge by Tecumseh and she could almost hear him laughing. “They make me feel protective and protected.”

“I love dogs. When I was in the army, it was impossible to keep them and it was terrible. I missed having a dog every single day.” He smiled. “I love it that I can leave for five minutes, come back, and there's Jack, at the door, dancing around like I've been gone for three days.”

“I'll have to get a dog when I go back to Hollywood.”

His head jerked up. “Are you going back?”

“I have a life there.” Used to have a job. “A condo.”

“Right. I get it.”

Juliet looked at him. “You sound angry.” She had considered not going back, but what did his reaction mean? Did she want to get so involved?

“Sorry.” He focused on the eggs, very gently flipping them over their filling. “I'm not. I just have to remember not to let Glory get too attached.”

Juliet crossed her arms and sat down. “Maybe you
should drive me back up the mountain before she comes home.”

He brought the pan over to the island and slid the omelet out on to the plate. “Do you have any idea how much snow is up there right now? We'll go get her this afternoon, but you're not going up that mountain for at least a day.”

Juliet looked at the steaming eggs and her stomach growled. He passed her a plate of bacon. “So what do you want to do?”

“Just don't give her any false promises,” Josh said. “That's all.”

The back of his neck looked stiff and she wondered if she'd been rash to sleep with him. “I didn't mean to lead you on, Josh. I thought we were grown-ups here…. I…” She looked at him, feeling both rejected and pleased at his jealousy and pierced at the possibility that—what? He wanted her here? “I'm sorry.”

With a thud, he put the pan down and came around the island. With a sexy, vulnerable forcefulness, he took her face in his hands and kissed her. “No, I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm being an ass. It's not your fault that Glory thinks you're a princess. It's not your fault her mother let her down. It's not your fault that I wish you lived here instead of in California.”

She put her hands on his, holding him there, aware of a thudding something in her chest—some strong, unacknowledged emotion. “Josh, I'm pretty much a mess right now. I lost my job. I haven't been able to do anything much for a year. I don't know that I'm ever going to be any better, okay?” A wave of that volatility
she'd felt last night struck the back of her eyes and she blinked hard. “Please don't make me cry again.”