Wicked Knight (15 page)

He turned left on the first landing and walked the long hallway. He stopped at the third door on the right. The blue room. His room for the duration of his stay. True to its name, the room was blue. The comforter, curtains, rugs, and pillows were all blue in color. He wouldn't be surprised if he found all the washcloths and towels were in blue.
Hmm...
Maybe the toilet paper, too. He quickly discarded the last thought.

Tristan dropped his duffel bag on the desk, took out his change of clothes and started undressing. It didn't take him any time to do it. He needed a cold shower, pronto. Taking his things up to his room was a made-up excuse. He needed a few moments of time away from Julie. The whole time they were walking at the beach, his mind was focused on stripping her naked and driving into her, hard and fast. It was as though he was possessed with a lust spirit. If there was such a thing.

He had been attracted to Julie for quite some time now and hid his feelings from everyone, especially his family. They would have teased him mercilessly if they knew. His parents liked and treated her as their own daughter. His brothers enjoyed her company, too. She was witty, beautiful, and smart. And they all agreed with one thing—Julie was a kind, tenderhearted person—so tender that she would cry at the story that had happened a long time ago of a boy who rescue a total stranger.

It was one of those scary nights. He was at another wing of Swedish hospital doing his rounds when he received a message in his pager. Apparently, his sister was in the emergency room. Receiving emergency calls was a constant thing if you were a doctor. It was part of working in a hospital—no sweat. However, it was different when the call was about a family member. Edmund, who happened to be on duty that night, met him in the hallway and assured him that Kirsten was okay. The danger had already passed.

When he finally made it to Kirsten's room, he found the woman Edmund mentioned holding Kirsten's hand. The one who saved his sister's life because she didn't hesitate to plunge the syringe in his sister's thigh to help her breathe. Julie

Both Kirsten and Julie were asleep. He remembered waking her up. When she did, she all but ignored him. Instead, she looked at Kirsten and then he saw it.
Tears
.

Julie was crying for his sister, a woman she hardly knew. How someone could care for a total stranger was beyond him.

Since then, he felt an instant admiration for her. The feeling turned into an attraction when Kirsten brought her to their house to stay for a weekend. Without telling anyone, Kirsten traced Julie and thanked her in person. The two hit it off and became friends.

Now, here he was. Because of Kirsten's forgetfulness to check the food labels for peanuts, he'd been walking all day with an erection. He wasn't sure if he should thank his sister for his discomfort or not.

Tristan stood underneath the cold shower. An effort to freeze his brain and forget about Julie's pink tongue, pink nipples, pink...
Fuck!
He smacked his hand flat on the tiled wall. Even with a cold shower raining on his back like pellets, his blood still pounded in his groin with the mere thought of Julie. He turned the shower to full blast and faced the spray.

Thinking he already emptied the water tank, he hopped out of the shower, feeling a mighty bit better. With his hair still dripping wet, he went back downstairs.

The house was eerily quiet. He wondered how Julie could stay in the house without any music on to accompany her. He grew up in a big house full of boys that seemed to make every room small, but he preferred it anytime to living in Julie's cold, quiet, and lifeless mansion. He even liked the one bedroom condo his brother, Bors, let him use.

Even with its upper class appliances and furniture, the house looked dreary, except when Julie walked in the room. The house needed only the minx to make it look like a home.

She was the opposite of the house—warm and passionate, full of life and vibrancy. She had that effect on anything, anyone, on him.

Someday her children would probably fill this house, their voices bouncing against the Tudor ceiling, crayons and markers would stain the pristine white walls. They would be like Julie, a prankster, a brat, silly, passionate, with green eyes that flared when angry like her flaming reddish-orange hair. Her daughter would be beautiful like her and the sons would look like...

He rubbed his face with his hand, feeling the anger bubbling inside him.
Fuckin’ eh.
Every time he thought about Julie with another man, his stomach would twist into knots. Why? God knows why, he thought. He didn't have the answer to it, just as he didn't know the answer to why he felt a strong urge to protect and hold her forever.

Forever. What a strong word to throw around
.

Wearing only his white
Churidar
, a cotton knee-length pants he bought from India, he prowled around the house.

At the end of the long hallway, he found a room that housed Julie's family portraits. Baby pictures covered one wall. One customized frame held elementary school pictures from Kindergarten through sixth grade.

Tristan smiled as he looked at Julie's picture. She must be seven, smiling, showing her missing two front teeth.

“Terrible, huh.”

His heart thudded, hearing Julie's voice.
Damn
. Tristan kept his back on her. “No. I think you looked cute.” Moving to the next frame, he read the caption aloud. “
Julie M. Parrish, age seven. First communion
. Pretty dress and veil. You looked virginal. Who would have thought you'd grow up to be a prankster?”

“My mom. She said that the moment she saw my flaming hair, she knew that I would turn out to be a hellion.”

Tristan looked at Julie. She was smiling at him, unaware of the captivating picture she made when she smiled. Quickly he looked away before his mind started wandering again. “Hmm...
Julie M. Parrish, Altar Girl, Holy Rosary Church, Edmonds
.” Tristan felt her beside him. A scent of lavender assaulted his senses. Man, scent of a freshly showered woman was his weakness. His dick stood at attention.

Down, boy.

Dark green pajama pants printed with frog heads and an old University of Washington shirt two sizes smaller than her size, showing all her womanly curves, completed her ensemble. The shirt was old, but on her—sexy. He throbbed. Jesus, the woman would kill him before the weekend was over.

“You were an altar girl?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you give the priest a hard time?”

“All the time. I drank the wine and snacked on the wafers. I stole the chalice, too.”

He pulled a strand of her hair. “You're joking, right?”

“About the chalice, yes.”

He raised an eyebrow. She lowered hers and punched him in the arm.

“I wasn't as bad as you think.”

“Tsk. Tsk. Testy, aren't we? By the way, I like the pajamas.”

“I like yours, too. They look comfy.”

“Yup. I have another one. It'll be big for you, but you can have it if you want.”

“Aww...thank you. I'll find it when I run out of clean pajamas.”

I'd rather you stay naked.
He quickly shook the image off his mind. “Hope you don't mind me looking around your house.”

“Not at all.”

“So is this supposed to be a Julie Shrine?”

“Parrish shrine, I suppose. My Mother was a catholic. She raised me like one, or at least she tried. She had these pictures put up here as a reminder, I imagine, that we were once a happy family, that I was once an obedient altar girl.”

“I could see you had a good childhood life. Lots of memories here.”

“Yeah, I would add my own someday. I meant to keep this house for my future children. So, what have you seen so far? You want a night tour of the house?”

“Sure.”
And a tour around your body.

“Do you have other family other than your dad, Marla, and Sebastian?”

“Yeah. Mom's family. They're all in Canada. Don't have any contacts with them. Saw my aunt during Mom's funeral, but that was it. Mom was a cast-out, you see, because she got pregnant before she was married. Dad, as far as I know, has family in Florida. Never met them, though. He came here to work for Seattle PI, but lost his job after a year because he missed work a lot.”

“Because of his drinking habit,” Kirsten told him that.

“He met Mom in one of the conventions they both attended. Mom fell in love with him, Dad saw Mom as a lifesaver. They got married when Mom got pregnant.”

“How come no pictures of the wedding?”

“Mom told me they went to the city hall in the morning and got married. That same day she went back to work. So unromantic.”

Tristan followed Julie around the house. She showed him every room, telling fun and sad memories each one held. He was fascinated by the way she spoke with enthusiasm and animation. He noticed Julie's mannerisms, like tapping her fingers on her arm and chewing her bottom lip. Other things about her, like how her long hair reached the middle of her back. She made him laugh and feel comfortable, but a tension like a tight bowstring hummed around them. He could feel it. The way she would jump as if fire licked her skin when he brushed against her, he knew she felt it, too.

He listened to everything she was saying, but truth be told, all he wanted to do was pull her in his arms, bury his fingers in her hair and make love with her—downstairs and upstairs.

“What about upstairs?”
Cool it, boy
, a warning voice whispered in his head. He couldn't believe he voiced what he wanted.

“What about it?”

“Nothing. I thought maybe you have rooms up there other than bedrooms.”

“We do have a library on the west side. And an office that used to be my Mom's. I use it now. There is nothing worth seeing up there.”

“Ah,” Tristan said. Really, what else could he say?
I want to see your bedroom? Feel your sheets on my back while you ride... Fuck.

Their long tortuous round in the house ended in the kitchen. Tristan let out a deep sigh of relief. Finally, he didn't have to stand too close to her and smell her heavenly scent, bump into the arms he so wanted to wrap around him. Now he could just look at her and see how her breasts...
Damn it to purgatory, she wasn't wearing a bra.

“You want some milk and Oreo cookies?” She reached in a cupboard. Her shirt rode up, exposing the small of her back. “Earth to Tristan, you want Oreos?”

Hmmm... I'd rather snack on those breasts.
“What about real food like...dinner?”

“I thought about calling for pizza.”

“Pizza sounds good.”

“Or we could just share this bag of Oreos.”

“That is not dinner.”

“To me it is.”

“Your grandchildren will love you someday. Bet you'd feed them Oreos for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

Julie turned around, shaking her head. “With milk.” She reached in the box and before Tristan figured out what she was up to, an Oreo whizzed past his ear.

Tristan laughed and ducked when another Oreo flew and hit him square on the chest. He caught the cookie and popped it inside his mouth. “Geez, you wasted one.” He bent down to pick up a broken piece, blew on it and put it in his mouth.

“You still believe in the two second rule?” Julie poured milk in two tall glasses and handed him one.

“In my house, it's a two minute rule. For Gawain, even if the food has already been on the floor for an hour and there were ants crawling all over it, it's still good. The man's a pig.”

She laughed again. Tristan felt elated. He liked making her laugh.

“I love all of your brothers. I think they're all wonderful. You're lucky. Having brothers like them would be like hitting the Washington Lottery.”

Tristan drank his milk. She didn't say she loved him, too. He didn't know what to think of that.

“Most of the time they're wonderful.”

“Your parents are sweet and your sister, well, no need to tell you how much I love her. She's the sister I never had.”

“She'll be your sister-in-law soon.”

“Oh yeah! And brothers-in-law, too. Neat. There is something good about this wedding other than shutting Marla off.”

“My sister would love to hear you'll be her sister-in-law. I'm not sure about my brothers.”

“Why? They like me, I know that.”

“I didn't say they didn't like you. I am sure they love you, too. What I am saying is I don't think they would like the idea of me being married to the woman they wish they could kiss.”

“Awww...Well, they could kiss me on the cheek.”

“If they could get past me. I would beat all of them if they even
tried
to kiss you. Bors is a good punch, trained. It might take me longer to drag him away from you. Gawain, well, so long as you stay away from his planes, he won't be able to kidnap you. Percy. Now, I could probably lure him with computer software to make him leave you alone,” he said, taking an Oreo from a pack.

“Well, who's going to beat you away from me?” She smiled and an Oreo lodged in his throat.

God, that smile was a definite turn-on. He took a sip of his cold milk, wishing he could pour it on his dick instead.

“I have full control of my situation.” Who was he fucking kidding? His dick throbbed like a headache—painful and blinding. He needed a diversion. On the floor, he spotted the other half of Oreo, picked it up, and took a bite.

“Do you tell your patients about your two minute rule?”

“Of course not. The kids I see every day have enough germs on them. They don't need to know another way to get more.”

“Someday I'll have a dozen kids.” Julie sighed, her eyes focused above his shoulders turned dreamy.

“You are?”

She split the Oreo in half and licked the white cream. “Uh-huh. Hmm...this is good. You got to try licking the cream.”

Tristan took a big gulp of his milk and looked up the ceiling. He'd do anything to avoid looking at her sensual display. He doubted though that she knew the effect of what she was doing to him.

“Here, try it. I don't have germs.”