Outside The Lines:: Third Person Narration (10 page)

He said nothing for the longest time. She stared at her glass glumly.
 

“Of what?” he asked.

She thought about her sterile apartment, her non-existent romantic life, her non-existent friend life, her non-existent recreational life, and felt a stab of fear.
 
“A lot of things.”
 

He glanced over briefly, then back to his drink. One thing a person could count on with Johnny Danger, you never had to worry if you got emotional and said stupid stuff, he’d just ignore it. Bypass it like an accident on the highway.
 

She glowered at her ruby red drink. It glowed back.

“You don’t look it,” his voice came rumbling in.

“Look what?” she asked glumly.

“Scared. Of anything.”

She laughed and stared at her glass. “Yeah, I’m deceitful that way.”

“You look like you’re invincible.”
 

Surprise yanked her head around.
 
She didn’t really want to be looking straight at him, the power of his sensual heat was simply too much, but the compliment—it was a compliment, right?—kicked wisdom to the curb and made her turn and stare. Right into his gem-green eyes.

As long as she looked away quickly, she should be okay. The important thing was not to get
locked
. She’d seen people locked in Johnny’s gaze; it wasn’t pretty. It was a
place
they went to, and they came out looking like something had happened in there. They came out…changed.
   

Especially the women.

“Really?” she said.

He nodded.
 
“Really.”

“Invincible?”

“Utterly.”
   

“Well.”
 
She cleared her throat. “I didn’t know.”

“Now you do.”

His eyes never left hers.
 
In a moment, he’d lock.
 
Look away, dummy.
 
She listened to herself. Turned back to her glowing red drink. Quiet ensued. It was very restful.
 

“I don’t like sharks,” he said, his voice pitched low.

Well, he was a bag full of surprises tonight.
 

She turned again but let her gaze glance off him this time, like she’d read you were supposed to do with wizards, if Harry Dresden had any wisdom at all to dispense, and Juliette was pretty sure he did.

“You what?”

“Sharks.
 
I don’t like sharks.”

She sat back, drink in hand, considering him and the implications of this. They were myriad. Amusing. Confusing.

“Okay,” she said thoughtfully.
 
“So, does that mean you don’t go—”

“Swimming?
 
No.
 
I avoid open waters.” He lifted an eyebrow. Either daring her to laugh or inquiring if she, too, avoided open waters. His fingers slid around the rim of his glittering glass, turning it slowly, so secret little rainbows darted through the dark hair on his wrist.
 

“So, you’re scared of shar—”

“Don’t. Like. Don’t like sharks,” he clarified.

She smiled. He smiled back. It made her realize how strong the drink was; she could feel its effects sliding through her body in slow waves of heat.
 

“Wow,” she said, holding the confidence gingerly.
 
“I didn’t know.”

His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Now you do.”

She squinted slightly into the near-distance.
 
“I never considered sharks. I will now.”

“Don’t. It’s stupid.”

“Well, they’re big,” she allowed.

“Sharp teeth.”

“Eating machines.”

“I’m taking a SCUBA course,” he said.

“I heard they can swim for—
 
You’re what?”

“Taking a SCUBA class. Doing a dive in Australia next year.”

She blinked at him.
 
“Don’t you think you might run into some sharks out there?”

“That’s the point.”

She laughed and felt oddly lighter. “Right. Me too.” She tapped the table. “I’m doing ski SCUBA.”
 

He laughed too, warm and rich and deep, and leaned forward to splash more whisky in his glass. And more vodka into hers.

Did she stop him? No.

“Here’s to scaring yourself shitless,” she said, lifting her glass. They toasted again. Grinned at each other. They were becoming positively chummy. She was getting a little tipsy. A little stupid.
 
If she wasn’t careful, she was going to start coloring outside the lines.

They settled back in their seats.
 
“So, what else is on your shitless list, Jauntie? What else you scared of?” he asked, and although he sounded truly curious, she knew better: he was testing.

 
The stack of files Johnny had brought up was at the corner of her vision and, seeing how her list of fears was a long one, she went with the most obvious. “IRS investigations.”
   

He grinned.
 

“Drinking in empty bars.”

He nudged the bottle of vodka her way.
 

She peered at it, then slid her gaze up. “Expensive jewelry.”

He laughed.
 

“You.” Stupid confessions. “I didn’t mean that.”

His silence was unnerving.
 
The way his eyes almost gleamed at her was even more so.

“I just…you can be so…you loom,” she explained lamely.

He looked surprised.
 
“I
loom
?”

“You loom.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Now you do.” She downed the rest of her drink in a single swallow. “Are you going to stop?”

He reflected a moment. “Probably not.”

“You shouldn’t,” she agreed glumly.
 
“It makes people do what you want.”

He snorted. “Is it going to start working on you anytime soon?”
 

She gave a half-hearted shrug. “I’m oppositional.”
 

He laughed softly.

She swiveled around and peered at him.
 
“What about you?” she demanded, since they were clearly acting like drunks and sharing secrets and saying things that shouldn’t be said.
 
“You and your hot prospects and your movie star girlfriends and your perfect teeth, what else are you scared of?”

He looked taken aback. “I have perfect teeth?”

“Yes, dammit, you do.”
 
The words were tumbling out.
 
“And perfect hair and perfect….”
 
She made a swiping motion at his whole body.
 
“It’s very annoying. You know some people work extremely hard and never have teeth like that?”

He gave this the thoughtful consideration it deserved.
 
“People work hard at having perfect teeth?”

“People work hard, period.” She tapped the tabletop in an illustrative, menacing way.
 
“And they don’t have perfect anything.
 
Period. You, you have it all.”
 

He shrugged. “I work hard for it all.”

She shrugged back. “So what?
 
Lots of people work hard.”

“You mean
you
work hard.”

“I mean me.
 
No, wait, I mean—” She stopped short. She needed to remember he was a lawyer as well as an accountant; best not to talk too much. She made an immediate vow to that effect.

“You’re jealous,” he surmised.

“You bet, I am,” she retorted sharply. So much for vows.
 
“I have the same degrees as you. I work just as hard as you. I work just as late as you.”

“You don’t work as smart as me.”
 

She narrowed her eyes at him.
 
“That’s helpful. Thanks.”
 

He took another sip of whisky. He looked perfectly relaxed, like he was enjoying himself. She felt like a tiger ready to pounce.
 
“You’re too tense,” he said helpfully.
 
“You need to loosen up.”

She closed her eyes and forced herself to inhale. “I’m well aware of that.”
 
She leaned her head back until it touched the back of the chair. “That’s why I’m here. I’m loosening.”
 

He laughed. Her eyes popped open. He was looking around, at the work papers strewn across the table, at her empty fifty-two ounce refillable coffee mug and her stupid, pathetic rolling suitcase, because she didn’t even want to spend one night out in the world.
 
Had to hurry back home to all her nothing.
 

She tilted her head down slightly and looked at him. “I’m trying.
 
A person can’t just…
let go.
” She waved her hand around.

“Sure she can.”

She straightened and pushed to the edge of her seat, all pounce-y. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t know how?”

“Oh yeah, it occurred.”

“I need practice.”

He sipped his drink. “You need headbanging sex.”

She straightened with a snap.
“Sex?”

“Headbanging sex,” he clarified. “The kind where your body takes over, and you’re so hot your skin burns, and you pant for breath and forget your name.”

“Oh. That kind.” And here she’d thought she needed a hobby.
 
She put her hands to her face. Her fingers were cool stripes against her hot cheeks. “You do know, you’re the one who brought all this work up here?” She nodded toward the papers.
 
“If anyone’s hyper-focused on work, it’s you.”

“Yeah, but I know how to have sex.”

She gasped and dropped her hands. “I know how to have sex.”

He smiled.
 
“Yeah?”

“Absolutely.”

He just kept smiling. Like he didn’t believe her.

“I have sex all the time,” she informed him. She left out the part about it being mostly with a showerhead.
 

He still didn’t say anything. His silence would be her downfall, the path to her truth.

“I mean,” she said after another moment of it, “maybe it’s been a little while.”

No laughter now, just his gaze burning through the room.

“And I don’t know that it was ever
headbanging
,” she allowed, looking away. She picked up a napkin, began shredding it. “But how often does that happen in real life anyhow?
 
Books and movies, but real people…?”
 
She dabbed at a bead of water with the napkin shreds. Her skin felt hot.
 
“But that’s my fault.
 
You know,” she rolled her hand through the air, “the uptightness and all.”

“Your fault,” he repeated softly, like he was turning the idea over in his head.

She nodded.
 
“Yeah. It’s hard to make me lose my head, let alone bang it. I don’t know how.”

Silence.
 
Then, “Want me to show you?”

Five words, that’s all it took.
 
Her body shivered, a hot, glorious sort of shiver. Her brain rebelled.
 
“Show me?” she said stupidly.

His eyes never left hers.

She noticed she was trembling.
 
“What does that mean?”
 

“It means I fuck you.”

She got to her feet.
 
She had no idea what she was doing, and standing sure wasn’t going to help things, since her legs were shaking.
 
“Fuck me?”

He nodded slowly.
 
“Yep.”

“You’re going to do me a favor and fuck me?” she whispered.
 
Her head was buzzing.
 

“Let’s try this again,” he said softly. His eyes locked on hers—dammit—and he started saying—whispering really,
promising
—and she knew she was doomed, “I want to fuck you, Juliette. Please let me fuck you. I really, really want to make you come.”

Her face roared with heat, her ears rang, she couldn’t hear herself, only his words, rushing over her like fire.
 

She had to open her mouth to breathe, because she
knew
, knew
, in the depths of her soul, that she was standing at the edge of a precipice.
 
This was a moment of decision.
 
She could get a life, right now. With a guy whose last name was Danger.
 

Cold fear sliced through her. No, it had been too long, she didn’t know how. And flat-out, she was scared. One could almost say terrified.

But…wasn’t that the whole point of coming up here?
 
 

What she
did
know was that her heart was beating stronger than it ever had before, and Johnny was watching her, and she felt electric, like she’d been lit up in the darkness.
 
Like she could be seen.
 
And only Johnny was watching.