Outside The Lines:: Third Person Narration (28 page)

Maybe she had it too. Maybe evidence of it was walking up the stairs right now.

She turned when she heard the banquet doors open behind her, her heart hammering, her breath short, her face hot and flushed.
 
All in all, a state of high emotion.
 
Shaken and stirred and in no way inert.
 
And this time, she wasn’t going to run from it.
 
Because although she knew that with or without Johnny, eventually she’d be okay again, maybe ‘okay’ wasn’t good enough anymore.
 

And when she’d seen Johnny coming for her, she’d felt a whole lot more than okay.

He came into the room, crossed halfway, and stopped.
 
They looked at each other.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

“Did I fuck up?” he asked, his voice low.

She nodded.
 
Her eyes felt hot and wet.

“I’m sorry.”

She nodded again, a little faster.

He held out a hand.
 
“Come here?”

She nodded a third time, but her feet didn’t move. He muttered a curse and came for her, and she started forward too, so they met halfway, and he scooped her up and held her against the front of his body and said he was sorry again, which was good, then he kissed her, which was better, and she felt his heart hammering almost as fast as hers, and that was excellent news.
 

As long as both their hearts were hammering, that was good enough for now.

He set her down, flattened his palms and pushed all the hair off her face, then cupped her face in his hands.

“Thank you,” he said.

Her heart felt hot and full. So did her eyes. She nodded.
 
“You’re welcome. For what?”

“What you said. You were right.
 
It helped. I’d been feeling a little….”

He dropped his hands and leaned back against a table, shoved his hands down in the pockets of his jeans, looking down at the ground.
 
Short, dark hair curled forward past his temples.
 
He stared down for so long, she wondered if he’d forgotten he’d started a sentence.
 

“Lost.” He looked up. “I’d been feeling a little lost.”

She gave a small, unsteady laugh.
 
“I know the feeling.”

Still leaning against the table, he stretched out an arm, curled his hand to cup her jaw, and stroked her cheek with his thumb. “You feeling better now?” he asked. His palm was warm.
 

“Absolutely. You?”

“Absolutely,” he murmured, and pulled her forward again, into his arms.
 

“I didn’t say a word to anyone this time about where I was going,” she whispered against his chest.
 
“How’d you find me?”
 

“GPS tracker on the company car.”

She shook her head and muttered, “Dammit. You’re an ass.”

“I know. But it’s my car.”
 

“I know.”

He brushed his hand over her hair. “Anyhow, I knew where you’d be going.”

“How?”

“It’s what I would have done,” he murmured, and lifted her face, and gave her one of his soft Danger kisses.
 
The slow, melting kind, tasting her from one end of her mouth to the other, his eyes half-closed, watching her, breathing on her, making her body whisper,
It doesn’t get any better than this.

Except it did.
 
But a girl had to expect it.
 
Ask for it.
 
Require it.
 
From others, and from herself.

She pulled back slightly from his kiss, touched her fingers to his chest and held him there.
 

“You can’t do that to me again, Johnny.”

She felt him get still.
 
“Okay,” he said slowly, stretching out the ‘a’ into a long, doubtful sound.
 
“Do what?”

A good question.
 
What was she saying he couldn’t do?
 
Leave her?
 
What, were they going to get married?
 

A bolt of something moved through her.
 
Fear, maybe terror, at the thought of being bound to Johnny for eternity.
 
No, that would never happen, of course, but…what was she asking for?

He was watching her, waiting, his body rock-still.
 
The hand on her back had stopped its slow caress.
 

What
was
she asking for?

“Don’t treat me like I’m…disposable,” she said tentatively, feeling her way through the new idea.
 

“I’m not sure I know what that means,” he said quietly. “Want to explain?”

 
“Look Johnny, we both know it’ll never work, this thing between you and me—we’ll probably blow something up along the way—but if we’re going to do things like have headbanging sex, you need to know,”
she needed to know,
“I’m not something to be disposed of.”

He nodded slowly.
 
“You absolutely are not.”

“And don’t lie to us. If you don’t want to be with me anymore, fine,” her heart got squeezed unpleasantly as she said the words, “but don’t tell me you’re too busy or too messed up to be with.
 
I can decide that for myself.
 
And also…,” she continued, gaining steam. She might be onto something, this setting up of ultimatums.
 
“If I’m worth being with, then be with me, even if you’re scared.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Or leave now.” She held her breath.

His eyes never left hers. “I just got here.”

She exhaled.
 
“Did you?”

He nodded again, slowly. “Yeah, I’m here, Juliette.”

They stared at each other, then she started nodding too, as slowly as he was. “Okay then. You’re here.”

His hand moved against the small of her back. “So are you.”

A hot, swooping feeling coursed through her chest. “I am definitely here.”

The faintest smile touched his mouth. “I thought it was you.”
 

She reached up and slid her hands around his neck. “Look at us, being here.”

He interlaced his fingers at the small of her back and rested his chin on the top of her head.
 
He didn’t kiss and he didn’t caress, he just held her. She could feel his heart beating.
 
She pushed up against the length of him to feel it more, his heart and his heat.
 

For a long time they stood there, in the center of the banquet hall, silent, just breathing together.

It was a good moment.

Then she frowned and pulled back, looked up at him. “I was just thinking….”

A faint smile. “Of course you were.”

“Did you have any rules for me?” It was only fair, after all.

He looked interested in this. “Rules?”

“I mean ultimatums,” she explained hurriedly. “Things you need from me.”

“Yeah, don’t be crazy.”

“I should leave.”

He smiled.
 
“Your kind of crazy is okay.”

 
She eyed him.
 
“That’s sort of vague.
 
What does it mean?”

His palms skimmed her bottom lightly, raising chills. “It means I’ve liked pretty much everything I’ve seen so far, Jauntie.”

This sounded a little generic. Also untrue. “You didn’t like when I asked a lot of questions in the car,” she pointed out. “Or your office.”

“Good point. My rule is you stop asking questions.”

“No,” she retorted promptly.

He grinned. “I have an idea.”

“What?”

His hands tightened, cupped her bottom, pulled her up against him. “Just be you. Let’s see how that goes.”

She felt the breathless heat of happiness, making it hard to talk loudly, so she whispered, “Okay.”

He rocked his hips against hers, and she felt the outlines of his erection.
 
“I have another idea,” he murmured into her hair.

She was no dummy; she knew what was coming.
 

“I’m listening.”

He unlaced the fingers at the small of her back and slid his fingertips across her hips as he looked down at her in a considering way.
 

Okay. Hadn’t expected that.

“Have you ever considered a new job?” he asked.

A job?
 
They were talking about jobs?

She blinked. “Um, no?”

“Do you want to?”

She smiled confusedly. “Do I want to consider a new job?”

“Yeah. Working for me.”

She stared, went motionless due to shock until, a few seconds later, her jaw dropped.
 
Then she sort of stepped-fell-tripped backward, into the table a few inches behind her.

“Did you just ask me to come work for you?” she breathed, disbelieving.
 

He nodded. “Yeah. You could do worse.”

“I could absolutely
not
do worse,” she assured him.
 
“You do know I work for myself?”

His smile was slow. “I’ll beat any offer.”

She laughed at that.
 
“You just want to own everything.”

“Not everything.
 
Just the excellent things.”

A shot of excitement went through her, but, being wise, she shook her head.
 
“Not on your life, Danger.”

He grinned.

She narrowed her eyes.
 
“I’m serious, Johnny. I would never, ever,
ever
work for you.”

All that did was make him grin bigger as he took her hand and pulled her away from the table.
 
“Want me to try and convince you?” he murmured as he kissed her lips, very softly.
   

“You want to use sex to convince me to come work for you?”

“I would use sex to convince you of anything.”

Something to remember.

“I think that’s sexual harassment,” she pointed out as he rested his hands on her hips.

“You don’t work for me. Yet.”

She couldn’t help it; she laughed.
 
“You’re insane.”

“Don’t be scared,” he said, a teasing, laughing tone in his words as he kissed each of her cheeks.
 

“I’m not scared,” she protested.
 
She wasn’t scared; she was terrified at the thought of Johnny setting his mind to convince her of
anything
by dint of sexual prowess. He could probably convince her the world was flat if he tried hard enough, at least for a little while.

“Come on,” he whispered beside her ear, then nibbled the lobe.
 
Shivers woke up and marched down her body from her scalp to her bottom, and her hands went up around his shoulders as he began kissing down her neck.
 
“Let me try.”

You should always let a person try, right?
 

He was tracing hot little butterfly licks at the V of her collarbone as he worked his way to the other side of her neck.
 

“Well, okay,” she said softly as she tipped her head back, giving him access.

He slid a hand to the back of her neck and moved in.

She let him kiss her silly, cup her bottom and rock her against him. She pushed her groin against his and rubbed up and down, until she felt his erection hard and curving against her belly. She even stuck her hand down his pants and jerked him off a little, until his breath was coming hard by her ear, then she whispered against his lips, “After my ski lesson.”
 

She slid her hand out of his pants.

He stopped. He stared. “You’re joking.”

Juliette shook her head.

“You have a ski lesson?”

“I have a ski lesson.”

 
“You sure?
 
Because,” he glanced around at the empty room, “I could take care of you real quick, right now….”
 

She shook her head sagely. “Skiing, Johnny.
 
You know skiing comes first for me.”

He smiled and tipped his head to the side and considered her from this new angle.
 
Then he nodded and pushed away, releasing her.
 
She could see the bulge of his erection under his pants.

“Okay, Jauntie. Let’s get you to your lesson. I’ll wait.”
   

Heat and happiness corded inside her, like a hot wire, as they walked to the elevators. She felt like she was glowing. The people standing around them, also waiting for the elevator, looked at her and smiled back.
 

She did not recall that ever having happened before.