Love Is Crazy (Love Is… #1) (32 page)

She didn’t know why this conversation made her so nervous. Ian understood the way the world worked and surely, he’d understand her need for an income. It wasn’t that she expected him to react badly or yell at her or anything like that. It’s just that a job would be a serious time commitment. It would mean the end of this little blip of fantasy life, spending her days working with Ian and her evenings playing with him. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye to that and she definitely wasn’t ready for him to start thinking that she was trying to create distance between them.

He was quiet while he opened the trunk and put the paint and supplies inside. Still didn’t say anything when he opened the door for her and she slid inside. He didn’t close the door so she could enjoy the breeze and her nerves went haywire waiting for him to come back from putting the cart in the corral.
Calm down, silly. If he’s mad, then it’s just another sign that he’s not the kind of guy you need.
Of course, her heart fluttered around down in her stomach at the thought because so far, he’d been everything she’d ever needed and then some.

She looked up expectantly as he lowered himself into the car and pulled the shades out of the window. She waited for him to crank the AC before they both closed their doors, the heavy thunks sounding small compared to the sound her heart was making.

“A job would be silly,” he said, pulling out of the parking spot. Juliet’s heart sank. “I could just pay you for the time you spent on the renovations.”

“But you’re already giving me free rent for that.” She held her breath for his response, needing him to give her a good reason for not wanting her to find a job.

He blew air out his mouth and checked the mirrors, the space between his eyes tight. “That’s true.” He waited about a million years to finish his thought. “Here’s the thing. I’m feeling a little greedy about my time with you. I’m not sure I’m ready to give up even a minute of it.”

Well, that was a pretty decent reason. “I understand. Believe me, the fact that I’ve waited this long to even consider looking for a job is a testament to how much I like spending time with you. But, it makes me nervous. My entire life savings is in an envelope in my room, and sure, I only take out a little at a time, but that money is finite. I’m living a fantasy right now.” She turned in her seat, put a hand on his thigh. “A wonderful, exquisite fantasy that I don’t want to end. Not at all. But, that money
is
going to run out.”

“What would you do? What did you do in New York?”

“I’m not sure that I want to do what I did in New York.” She sighed, the thought of having to find a job dampening her mood. “I don’t know, like I said, waitressing? Something simple.”

Ian shook his head. “You’d be wasted as a waitress.”

“Yeah, but I’d get to spend time with you. Maybe only take part time hours. Match them up to when you’d be working on the other houses, or doing whatever other work you have to do to keep things running.”

“I know it makes sense for you to work. I know you’re gonna need an income. But, do me a favor. Live the fantasy with me a little longer. And we can look for a job that would suit you together.” He finally smiled again and her heart unclenched.

“I don’t know.” She swallowed, wanting to do exactly what he suggested, but not sure if it was the smartest path. Her head was a mess of
should’s
and
want’s
and
supposed to’s.
“I just need to know that I can stand on my own two feet.”

“But you already know that. You’ve done that your whole life, haven’t you? And here I am, more than capable of helping you with your finances, asking you to let me help you.”

Juliet’s head and heart went to war and it was a few seconds before she could find her voice around all the conflict. “I just can’t let myself be controlled.” Her words were a whisper, the voice of fear, the voice of the woman who’d signed a terrible contract that let a man do terrible things to her.

Ian pulled off the road and flicked on the emergency lights. “Oh, my angel,” he said, turning in his seat, his expression soft. “There’s a difference between being controlled and being taken care of. I’m not ordering you to stay unemployed, I’m not trying to make you weak and reliant on me. I’m asking you to stay with me because I feel like I can’t take a full breath when we’re apart. Because you are my sun and the world goes dark when I’m not with you. I’m here to help. I
want
to help. And if you need a job in order to feel in control, then fine. We’ll find one that’ll get you some money and still let us be together. But if you need a job in order to feel like you’re doing the right thing, then let me just say this.
My
right thing is taking care of you and it would make me feel like I’m being the best man I can be if you let me make you feel safe.”

Juliet blinked back tears, her voice obliterated by a rush of emotion. His words gave her heart all the ammunition it needed and her head sulked in a corner, admitting defeat. “You just keep proving that whole Ian-Moore-is-amazing thing, don’t you?” she finally managed to ask.

“I hope that what I’m proving is that I care a lot about you and your happiness matters to me.”

“Yeah,” she said, her voice cracking on the word. “That too.” Juliet blinked back the tears that blurred her vision. How did he keep managing to speak directly to her heart like that? “I can’t tell you how good it feels to know I matter.” And then her throat constricted against any further words and she swiped at her eyes. She refused to cry in front of Ian.

“Well, hot stuff, give me enough time and I’ll show you just exactly how much you matter. Because this,” he made a broad gesture with his hands, “is just the tip of the iceberg.”

J
uliet didn’t start looking
for a job. And when she started to worry about how that made her a bad person, or how she wasn’t pulling her own weight, she just thought back to what Ian had said that day in the car. And she felt better. It didn’t make any sense. There wasn’t any logic to it, none at all. She should be terrified and embarrassed, living off some guy she’d only known for a couple weeks, waking up excited to see him and falling asleep with his name on her lips.

But she wasn’t embarrassed. She was happy.

“You be good,” she said to Lulu as she closed and locked the front door, on her way to meet Ian at his house for dinner. This was going to be the first time she’d been to his house and she couldn’t wait to see it. You could tell a lot about a person by how they lived and she never got tired of learning more about the amazing Ian Moore. He’d given her a set of handwritten directions and she pulled them out of her purse, smiling at the precise letters neatly marching along the lines of the page. He’d even included the number of miles she’d spend on each road before she made a turn and important landmarks to help her know she was on the right track.

A storm bloomed in the evening sky. Dark clouds, bulging and heavy with rain, poured across the horizon and wind whipped her hair around her shoulders and her dress around her thighs as she ran for her car. As she drove, she watched the ocean churning and thrashing against the shore. Even like this, all frenzied and dangerous, it was beautiful. Would she ever grow tired of seeing it? Would she ever grow numb to the beauty?

It didn’t take long to find Ian’s house, which was, of course, on the beach. It was a lot like hers, only bigger, and in better shape, and way more secluded. His driveway was paved rather than gravel. She parked her car next to an unfamiliar vehicle and got out. Juliet held her hair in one hand to keep it from flying around in the wind and ran up the steps to the front door. Ian had left the main door open for her.

“Hello?” she called through the screen door, knocking lightly on the frame.

“Hey!” Ian called from somewhere deep inside the house. “Come on in. I’ll be right there.”

She pushed through the door and the wind slammed it shut with a bang. She looked around. “Something smells amazing!” She was hesitant to move much further into the house without him. “How many cars do you have, anyway?” she asked, bending over to admire a picture of the Moore family on a small table near the door.

“That’s not his car,” came an unfamiliar male voice. “It’s mine.” The owner of the voice peeked out through a doorway at the end of a hall that extended down past a set of stairs. The warm smile and dark hair marked him as most definitely a Moore. No doubt about that in the least. Juliet headed down the hall towards what turned out to be a huge kitchen with granite counters and stainless steel appliances. White cabinets and clean lines.

She found Ian leaning on the counter, watching his brother work. He straightened when she walked in, opening his arms to her and kissing her deeply when she stepped into them. “You didn’t think I was going to cook a whole dinner myself, did you? Ruin my chances at impressing the hell outta you?” he asked, pressing his forehead to hers.

“You’ve already impressed the hell outta me. I’m sure you’d have made something delicious.”

Ian’s brother—Harrison, if she remembered correctly—snorted and shook his head. “No,” he said with a gleam in his eye, even though he kept his attention on his work. “He’d have made something akin to charred poison, or it would have been cold cuts and cheese.” He wiped his hands on a dishtowel and offered Julz his hand. “I’m Harry by the way. We’ve not officially met, although I feel like I know you after listening to Ian go on and on. And on.” Harry met her eyes briefly, only to let his gaze flicker away.

“He speaks the truth,” said Ian as Juliet took Harry’s hand. “I’m no cook. And I can’t shut up about you.”

“And on that note, I’m gonna let myself out and give you two some space.” Harry gave Ian a few instructions to get dinner finished up and said his goodbyes, cursing at the rain as he opened the front door into a deluge.

“And that was Harry,” Ian said as he held up a bottle of red wine, a question on his face. “More comfortable in the pouring rain than he is next to a beautiful woman.”

Juliet nodded at the wine and smiled at the sentiment. She’d instantly liked Harry in the same way she’d instantly liked James. She said as much to Ian as he poured them each a drink. “Seems like the Moores are just good, likeable people.”

Ian chuckled. “You haven’t met Lilah yet. She’s good, but she makes you work to like her.” He led her to a breakfast table near a window and lightening pulsed outside. Ian shook his head. “See? Couldn’t get more ominous than that.”

“She can’t be that bad.”

“Let’s see. She’s beautiful and knows it. Spoiled and bossy as the day is long. She’d do anything for you, as long as you did it her way and you thanked her for the next hundred years. Preferably with gifts.”

Juliet could see the affection he had for his little sister dancing in his eyes. “Yeah, but, I bet if anyone else talked about her like that, you’d beat them up and make them apologize.”

“Damn straight.”

The first bottle of wine barely made it through dinner and they were halfway through a second when Juliet finished the last bite of dessert. Her head spun with wine, lust, and laughter and Ian didn’t look all that steady himself when he led her into his living room. She sank into the brown leather couch and kicked her shoes off, tucked her legs up underneath her and took a long drink of wine.

“Alright,” said Ian. “More questions. But let’s skip all the easy stuff. I want to know the most dangerous thing you’ve ever done.”

Her experience with Michael pressed against her lips and she drowned it with another drink of wine. “Skydiving,” she said instead. “What about you?”

“Skydiving,” he echoed with a quirk of his mouth. “Back to you. What else?”

“Now hang on. I don’t believe for a second that skydiving was the most dangerous thing you’ve done.”

“Well, I guess flying a fighter jet, landing on a battleship, trying to pull my friend out of a burning plane,” he said and then took a sip of wine to cover the flash of pain that flared across his face. “I guess those things are
kind of
dangerous.”

“Kind of? I can’t even imagine the amount of courage it took for you to do your job.”

Ian shrugged off the compliment. “Now, I’ve given you like...” He held up his hands, counting off on his fingers. “...five answers for the price of one.”

“I don’t think that’s how this game works.”

“Hey, now. I made the game, so you can bet your sweet ass that I know the rules backwards and forwards. Even the super advanced secret rules. So. I gave you five answers, you owe me five answers.”

Again, the Michael Phillis thing was the first thought that came to mind, but she chased it away with another drink. “I moved to New York City all by myself just after I graduated high school.”

Ian faked a yawn and gave her a bored look.

“Hey! That took a lot of guts!”

“I’m sure it did, but that doesn’t fall into the realm of what I’d call dangerous.”

Juliet puffed out her cheeks. It’d sure felt dangerous to her. “Okay. Well, there’s the bridge jumping stuff—”

“I’ll agree that’s dangerous, but you’ve already used that one.” Ian leaned forward. “Come on, what have you done that’s really bad?”

Flustered, Juliet said the first non-Michael thing that came to her mind. “Sometimes, when I go through the self-checkout lanes at the grocery store, I think about how easy it would be to keep an item or two in my cart.”

Ian laughed and shook his head. “But I bet you’ve never done it.”

“No. I always pay for everything.” The way he was spinning it, she sounded really safe and boring. And worse, now she felt embarrassed. She finished her glass of wine and hoped that he’d assume that was the cause of the flush on her cheeks.

“Okay, you owe me at least one more thing. Dig deep, Juliet, make it really good.” He held up a finger and looked stern. “And don’t you dare try to use the bathroom sex. That was too amazing to be dangerous.”

“I signed a BDSM contract with my boss,” she blurted out. The words fell hard and heavy between them and her entire body went on pause while she waited for his response. Her heart stood still. Her breath caught in her lungs. She couldn’t even bring herself to blink. She didn’t even know if it felt good to have it out in the open, yet. Wouldn’t know until he responded. She swallowed, afraid that her happiness hung on the edge of a knife.

Ian choked on his wine and set the glass on the table. “What?”

She explained the whole sordid affair, her words coming first in short, gasping sentences, but then, as she got comfortable, they rolled out of her in great waves that matched the ocean raging with the storm outside.

“At first, it sounded absolutely perfect. A no strings attached way to be in a relationship without actually being
in
a relationship. And I’d always liked sex a little rough, or at least I thought I did. I hadn’t had much experience before … you know.” Ian nodded and she continued. “But then he, well, when we signed the contract, it was all very professional. We sat in his boardroom and went over the things I said I would and wouldn’t do. You know, hard and soft limits? I wasn’t very interested in the pain stuff. Turns out I’m way more BD and not at all SM. You know, bondage and domination instead of sadism and masochism.”

“I know what BDSM stands for.”

Juliet couldn’t read Ian’s face, but she’d broken the dam and the words flowed forth. “This guy—”

“Michael Phillips.”

“Yeah. Michael Phillips. CEO of Tech Lord. He was a total sadist…” she trailed off, her voice beginning to shake. “He was happiest when it hurt. And I took as much as I could. But I had to use my safe word. Twice. The first time he stopped but was just awful about it. The second time? He just didn’t stop.” Juliet swallowed and wished her glass wasn’t empty.

Ian had wanted dangerous. There was a whole lot of dangerous right there between them, and he just kept sitting there, without saying a word. She needed him to talk. Needed him to say something, anything. Even if it was just to tell her to get out of his house because he couldn’t be with someone who’d done something so … dirty.

Well, no. Not that. That was the last thing she wanted to hear. But at least then she’d know. At least then she could stop sitting here, holding her breath, hands shaking, waiting to hear if she’d just ruined everything.