Love Beyond Words (City Lights: San Francisco Book 1) (11 page)

He looked at the investment accounts and stock holdings in which the bulk of Julian’s fortune was doing them both some good. David beamed to see the numbers for EllisIntel LLC, especially. It was the kind of company that made Julian’s eyes glaze over with disinterest at the mere mention. He’d only agreed to invest at David’s urging, and never even thanked him when the company skyrocketed.

“One cannot live on royalties alone, my dear,” he muttered. At least not without sacrificing some of the lavish lifestyle David had established for them. But EllisIntel wasn’t just a moneymaker. Eight months ago, it became a lifesaver.
Mine and Julian’s, though he doesn’t know it.

David pulled an envelope from his jacket pocket, fresh from yesterday’s mail. It was addressed to Mr. Julian Kovač, sent from EllisIntel Holdings. The quarterly dividend check. Money Julian didn’t know about because as far as he knew, EllisIntel didn’t pay dividends.

Oh, but they do.

David’s heart thudded dully in his chest as he opened the envelope. He already had an idea how much it would be by tracking the company’s stellar performance in the markets, but he still nearly wept with relief to see $63,890 in black and white.

“Sixty-three thousand…” He clutched the check to his chest. He’d have enough to keep Julian safe from those blackmailing thugs for another three months…just in time for another dividend check to arrive in March. “God bless EllisIntel.”

David shot another glance at the security console, and even peeked over his shoulder, as if Julian could materialize behind him like a ghost. Bile rose in his throat and sweat broke out on his forehead. It never got any easier. With fingers that trembled with reluctance, he took out his smart phone, brought up a banking app, and took a picture of the check.

“Like magic,” he said sourly.

Sixty-three thousand dollars Julian didn’t know was his was now safely deposited in a savings account he didn’t know he had. David took the check, and instead of filing it in with the other financial documents in the cabinet beside his desk, tucked it back into his inner jacket pocket to take back to his own apartment.

Then, as he always did, David whispered, “I’m sorry,” to the computer and hurriedly signed out of all the accounts.

The job was half-done. The second part of his task was infinitely worse than the first, but the banks were closed. The delivery would have to wait until tomorrow.

He took a deep breath and ran both hands through his unruly brown hair. The empty silence of the apartment began to pull at him, enticing. Julian wasn’t here, and yet he was. The very air was tinged with his scent: the remnants of soap and steam from his shower; the cleanliness of his fine clothes, his cologne... David could almost sense what routes Julian had walked through the house earlier that day. The kitchen was cold, but David smelled ribbons of coffee, eggs, and chorizo hanging above the counter, dissipating slowly. Julian was everywhere. David wanted more.

The desire rose fiercely this time, taking him by surprise. The thievery hurt and so his devotion to Julian surged to assuage his guilt, to reassure his conscience that what he did was out of love. And it wasn’t often he indulged his hungers, but it was Christmas Day, he reasoned. A gift to himself.

David drew a duster from a cabinet in the kitchen if Julian happened to come home and catch him unawares. It was a meager excuse and hardly necessary in any event. Julian’s trust was David’s best defense.

He meandered toward the back of the apartment, twiddling the duster here and there, until he arrived at Julian’s bedroom. He let out a little gasp. Julian was fastidious, but not obsessive: the bed was made but the towel from his morning shower lay over the comforter, like a gift left for a lover.

Left for me.
David swallowed hard.
Save it,
he thought, and kept to his usual route.

First the bathroom. Quartz counters with gleaming chrome fixtures, marble walls veined with silver, dark gray ceramic tile floors. Coldly beautiful. Masculine. David trailed his fingers in the little puddles of water left on the sink from Julian’s morning ablutions, and picked up Julian’s toothbrush. It had been in his mouth, had been past his lips and along his tongue… David chuckled to envy a toothbrush and set it down.

The bedroom was brighter but no less elegant. The hardwood floors were dark, the walls pale, the furniture modern Italian with asymmetrical designs in beige and gray. David thought it all beautiful and perfect, but then he had been in charge of the design renovation while Julian had been working on a book, so of course it was beautiful. He made certain Julian had only the best.

David turned next to the walk-in closet. Usually on the rare occasions he indulged in one of these covert excursions into Julian’s private chambers, he saved the closet for last. But there was bathroom towel on the bed…

The closet doors glided soundlessly open and the feather duster fell from David’s fingers. There was nothing to dust here. If Julian caught him, he’d make up a story about wanting to take inventory before making a new purchase. It was one of his favorite tasks—ordering Julian’s clothes. Julian cared little for styles or labels, so long as he appeared neat and comfortable. David took that indifference and made the most of it, dressing Julian as if he were a doll, taking great pains to see that his clothes were elegant and tailored to his body. David had his measurements memorized, and he delighted in finding expensive clothes from Milan or New York and imagining how the rich fabric would lie against Julian’s dusky skin, or how they would accentuate his fit frame.

David went to the hanging shirts and coats, embraced them, inhaling deeply. L’eau Serge Lutins, Julian’s preferred cologne, filled his nose with its clean, crisp scent. David would have preferred something with more personality, but Julian never wore anything else. It was his signature scent, and now David appreciated it for how it immediately conjured Julian in his mind.

The third wall, the wall opposite the door, was his favorite. A mahogany dresser held socks and underwear in the bottom three drawers. Stored on the top: cufflinks, tie pins, watches, and other personal treasures from his past, such as foreign coins and photos. David never touched the items in the top drawer. He was not a thief by nature, no matter that those horrible men forced him to be one. He respected Julian’s privacy and only opened the drawer, never touching what lay inside.

Someday, he thought, he would be in the top-drawer of Julian’s life, loved and protected just as David loved and protected him. And he was close—so close—to that love. He was sure of it. Julian trusted him completely, had handed him the greatest secret of his life and asked him to guard it with his own. The sting of his one little failure bit at him, but he brushed it aside. It was minor and he had it under control. He would never let anyone hurt Julian. Never.

David took a deep breath that quavered when he exhaled, and left the closet. On the bed, the towel was waiting for him. It was still damp.

He sat on the bed, holding the cloth to him, inhaling its scent and touching its softness to his cheek. It had touched Julian’s wet skin, kissed it and left it dry and warm. Julian had held it in his hands and used it over every part of his body, and then discarded it without a thought. David shuddered. To be used so…

He squeezed his eyes shut and hugged the towel to him, curling his legs around it. He let his imagination go, and it began with soft, loving caresses and long, lingering kisses that he could feel in the pit of his stomach.

He pressed the towel between his legs, inhaling its scent again and again. His body rocked and he moaned. The phantom of Julian’s body was over his, his tanned skin taut with lean muscle. His hands, long-fingered and deft, touched David—he reached his hand under his waistband—with strong, hard strokes.

“Yes…”

He was writhing now, the towel clenched between his teeth and Julian was riding him mercilessly, driving into him with hard, impassioned thrusts. David cried out, a half-laugh, half-sob, and his hand was full of his own sticky wetness. He buried his face in the towel. “I love you.”

It was dangerous to forget himself like that, but sometimes the desire was too much. The constant, day-in, day-out of it granted him no peace or rest. If he didn’t indulge from time to time, he thought he’d go mad from the sheer relentlessness of it. He closed his eyes and as his breath became deep and even, it drew him into a relaxation made all the more wondrously heavy and deep by his pleasure.

He started drifting toward sleep, hoping to dream of impossible blue eyes and whispered promises that he would never be alone when the alarm panel by the bedroom door
beeped
. Panic pierced his heart. Julian was home.

David jumped to his feet and smoothed his rumpled clothing. He didn’t think Julian would remember what he’d done with his towel that morning; he wiped his hand on it and tossed the towel into the clothes hamper. He could hear Julian moving about in the living room.

David rumpled his hair up on one side and walked into the living area, stretching and pretending to yawn. “Oh, I didn’t hear you come in.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I came in to do some year-end account clean-up.” He offered a sheepish smile. “A good excuse anyway, for escaping the terminal dysfunction of my family around the holidays. I must have fallen asleep at my desk. What time is it?”

Julian said nothing; his gorgeous eyes were on the cityscape around him. He looked extremely displeased.
Did my phone call do that?
He thought it just might have. Julian stood in his customary stance that meant he was trying to regain control of his fiery temper: stiff and still, like a statue. David knew it well. Julian was a passionate, emotional man. He had to be, David supposed, to write as well as he did. His temper was slow to burn but when it flared, he used his talent with words to cut the object of his anger to ribbons. He struggled painfully with it, and, David was pleased to note, he was struggling now.

“How uh…how did your date go?”

“Not well, thanks in no small part to your incessant phone calls.” Julian’s blue steel gaze could have frozen boiling water, but David had his defense planned and prepared. “What the hell were you doing, David?”

“I know,” David said, all contriteness and regret, humbling himself like a groveling dog. “I feel terrible. I absolutely loathed interrupting your date, but the credit card company has never been so insistent before.”

Julian’s rigid posture didn’t bend an inch. “It was humiliating.”

Music to my ears.
David’s face was a perfect mask of agony. “Oh Christ, Julian, I’m so sorry. I thought that might happen but I worried they’d cut you off and you’d be
more
humiliated trying to use the card and be denied with—Natalie, was it?—standing right there.” He held up his hands in a helpless gesture. “Lesser of two evils.”

Julian remained stony for a moment more and then released himself from the prison of his rigid stance and sank onto the couch, his back to David, his voice ripe with defeat. “I can’t lay all the blame at your feet. Or any of it, really.
I
thoroughly wrecked the date at the end. Until then, it had been exquisite.”

David bit back his smile of triumph. “What happened?” he asked. “If you want to talk, I mean…”

“What the hell am I doing?” Julian said. “Five months. Five months and I finally work up the nerve to ask her out and then I spoil it with more hesitancy and awkwardness.”

David sat in the chair across from Julian, keeping his face open and sympathetic. “You’re being cautious. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Cautious?” Julian snorted. “I’m being insanely defensive. She’s going to think I’m a lunatic, if she doesn’t already.”

“Julian, in light of what happened with Samantha—”

“This is different,” he snapped. “I think Natalie cares for me. I know she does. But I’m too pessimistic to believe she feels as strongly for me as I do for her.”

“You feel…strongly about her?” David’s stomach began to twist the triumph of his interference right out of him.

Julian hung his head between his hands. “I’m in love with her.”

David was proud he managed not to flinch, given how Julian’s words slapped him.

“But I’ve likely ruined it.”

A ray of hope. “What happened? I mean…aside from my terribly uncouth interruption.”

“I wanted to tell her everything. I owe it to her, before we...start anything. But she loves the writing so much…” Julian carved his hands through his hair. “Guess who her favorite author is? And not her favorite the way someone prefers blue over red, or cats over dogs. She feels spiritually connected to…
him
. I thought if I told her the truth she’d feel trapped in the car with a madman, and I just…I bumbled everything. I couldn’t speak. I’m supposed to be so deft with words,” his voice dripped sarcasm, “and I couldn’t find any to properly explain myself. So she left—escaped, really—and I don’t blame her.”

David hadn’t heard much after,
I wanted to tell her everything.
After those words, his blood had turned to sludge in his veins. “The secret keeps you safe,” he managed. “You know that.”

“Maybe. Or maybe not. I feel as though some horrid twist of fate is testing me and the vow I made to my mother. I’m telling you, David, I was ready to throw it all away.” Julian sighed. “But I have to finish the book. It’s nearly done and it needs to be completed at that café, with her.”