Wrong Man, Right Kiss (11 page)

With slow, deliberate precision, he placed his hands on either side of her head against the back wall and caged her between his arms as he leaned forward. A gravelly sound stole into his voice as he slid his fingers through her loose hair and encircled the back of her head. “Say it to my face, Molly. Say it one more time to my face. I dare you.”

Longing burst open inside her. Hunger. Want.
Everything.

She knew this was crazy and wrong and yet she couldn’t help herself, couldn’t stop. Her body was trembling, head-to-toe, trembling. He had been playing a game with her and perhaps she wanted to play back, but this was more than a game.

Maybe?

Was it?

She didn’t know anything anymore, except that maybe she should apologize for calling him by his most loathed nickname and just leave.

Maybe she didn’t really want to be kissed by Julian John, because she wanted Garrett. Or maybe she’d truly lost her head tonight, because as she met his gaze in the shadows, she heard herself speak between panting breaths.

“I said
JJ,
JJ.”

* * *

The silence was deafening.

Julian’s eyes widened, for he was sure that he hadn’t heard right the first time. But this second time, he just couldn’t believe it.

Molly had called him JJ, and he was going to have to make her pay for that. Stat.

In a whiplash move, he yanked her up against him and hoarsely demanded, in a voice as jagged as torn paper, “Do you remember what I told you I would do if you ever, ever called me JJ again?”

Smiling a smile that was all mischief, Molly tilted her back, her breasts rising and falling fast. She nodded slowly, provocatively—tauntingly.

The little she-cat wanted this!

Almost drugged with the thought of exacting his punishment, Julian caressed his hands up her slender arms, savoring the feel of her smooth skin against his calloused palms. “Well, then, I’m going to have to kiss you now,” he purred, the words acting like foreplay as he leaned closer. He could almost taste the gloss on her lips already.

“O-okay, Jules,” she said, almost a squeak as she gripped the rolled-up sleeves at his elbows as though hanging on to him for dear life.

Swamped with every single emotion in the world and close to exploding with wanting her, he cupped her face between his large hands and lowered his head, his heart going a powerful
baboom baboom baboom
. “‘Okay, Jules’? Is that all you have to say? All right, then, you asked for it, Moo…now you’re getting it good…”

He started easy, her face framed in his grasp as he lightly set his lips on hers, but with that whisper touch alone, lightning streaked across his veins and seared their mouths like fire. Suddenly, that single, wholly erotic fusion of their bodies lit his entire being on fire. He grabbed her closer, and she slid her hands up his bulging arms, their mouths parting hungrily in unison.

Groaning as her plush lips opened for him, he plowed his tongue into her mouth in a thirsty search for hers. Her soft moan tumbled down his throat as she shyly licked him back.

She tasted like peaches. And he
loved
peaches.

Deepening their kiss, he trailed his open palms down to the small of her back and conformed her curvy body to his. Her breasts softly pressed against his diaphragm, and it drove him crazy when she rubbed the tips of her nipples up against the wall of his chest.

Her nails bit into his shoulders while her mouth eagerly explored his, and when her hips began rocking against his, too, his senses swam with both pain and euphoria. The pain came from his pulsing length pressing against his pants zipper, aching to grind against those luscious hips she taunted him with.

His fingertips dug into her waist as he crushed her tighter to him, and plunged deeper into her mouth, stealing dozens of incredibly sweet and wet tastes of her. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. She tasted pure. And he desperately wanted to make love to her.

Undone by her wildness, he grappled with her hands and lifted them above her head, pinning her against the back wall. This surprised her, and she gasped. He caught the sound and kissed her harder. Wetter. Longer.

His body exploded in chaos as she responded in kind, pulling her arms free and rubbing her hands up his biceps, through his hair, making soft purring sounds against his mouth.

She felt incredible.
Incredible.

He had never wanted anything or anyone more in his life. Molly. His tiny, sweet little gypsy. He wanted to hear her come undone for him, to lose control like she made him lose his.

But did she really want this? Did she have any idea how serious he was about this, about
her?

“Molly,” he murmured tenderly, then he dived down her neck and twirled a wet path to her delicate collarbone.

“Don’t stop yet,” she mewed in a little helpless plea, her fingertips sliding back into his hair. “Please let me pretend for a little bit.”

His insides twisted with foreboding. “Don’t you
dare
—” he came back up and shoved his tongue into her mouth, taking all of her taste, taking all that she could give “—pretend that I’m my brother.”

But that tormenting thought now held him back like an iron chain, and he had to rest his forehead against hers with a groan, his breaths jerking in and out as he fought to get a grip. Suddenly, the reminder that Molly was making out with him to make his brother jealous gnawed a hole the size of Texas into his gut.

But her slim arms still clung to him. Her face was still tilted up to his in offering. And he could hardly think straight while she looked up at him as if she adored him.

“You look thoroughly kissed, Molly,” he rasped. He cradled her beautiful face with his big hands, drinking up the dewy desire that softened her features.

She licked her lips, her pupils dilating as her gaze darted from his eyes to his mouth, up and down, up and down. He could barely speak, his voice roughened with painful, dizzying arousal.

“Should we just go out there so my brother gets to see what I’ve been doing to you? He’ll probably think I’ve had my hands all over you this evening.”

She made a little choking sound and dropped her face. “Jules, stop. Please don’t tease.”

Julian’s thighs trembled as he fought for control, fought to keep from doing more, doing everything to her. With
her. “I’d just like to know if this kiss was just for Garrett—or because you want me, Molly?”

She kept her head bent, intoxicating him with the smell of raspberry shampoo that wafted to his nostrils. “Everybody wants you, Julian. Everybody. I just can’t believe this. What did we do? This was so insane, so stupid!”

“Shh.” He pinned her against him when she squirmed, his hands firmly curled around her shoulders as he kissed the top of her head and tried to ease her. “If you can’t do this sort of stupid thing with your best friend, then I don’t know who the hell you can do it with.”

She shook her head but nonetheless buried her nose in the crook of his neck. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. All this is your fault! For being such an expert seducer—please don’t let go yet. I just want you to hold me. Jules, you smell so good….”

One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve…

Not enough. He could count to a million and it was not. Enough. Not enough of her. Not enough time. To hold her. Be with her. Drown in her.

A groan of pent-up desire rumbled up from deep within his throat as his fingers clenched around her waist. “I wasn’t seducing you, Molly—but you shouldn’t have tempted me to kiss you.” Unable to stop himself, he recklessly slid his hands upward to engulf her breasts as he heatedly nibbled on her earlobe. “Now I want to kiss you until you’re weak and pliant in my arms. Until you tell me what it is that you really want, because I don’t think you even know what you’re asking for—”

“
So!
Are you two finished in here—or do we have to
call the fire department?”

* * *

The baritone voice that cut through Julian’s delicious, seductive words yanked Molly to full wakefulness. She jerked in Julian’s arms as if she’d just been dumped into the frigid waters off Alaska and straightened to see Garrett—the man she wanted to marry—standing just outside the open door. Landon stood next to him, and while Landon’s expression verged on amusement, Garrett did not look pleased.

And now he’ll think I’m a whore.

The sudden thought popped into her mind and she almost wanted to groan in self-pity.

Her cheeks glowed hot as Julian pushed her behind him in a stance that reeked of protectiveness, and she was grateful for that. Taking advantage, she hid against his back and frantically struggled to rearrange her dress and hair.

“We’ll be done as soon as you two dopes leave us alone.”

How Julian could sound so calm and collected, she didn’t know, because panic had gripped Molly by the throat and she could hardly even breathe now.

She’d wanted Garrett to imagine she and Julian had shared a little romp this evening. But she had never, ever expected to be caught while doing it.

What had she been thinking? She had clearly been undone by the strange, tantalizing complexity of Julian’s male scent, the desperate desires his mouth evoked, his kisses always somehow bringing the heartbreaking reminder of her night with Garrett at the masquerade. Every time she kissed Julian, her chest began to
ache,
and not in a good way.

“We apologize, but Mother sent us,” she heard Landon explain to Jules almost apologetically. “Not a task I was looking forward to.”

“I’m surprised she didn’t summon the whole party to come stop us,” Julian grumbled, and with one of his powerful arms, he slammed the door back shut.

Cursing low in his throat once they were alone, he extended an arm to keep the door closed and glanced past his shoulder.

“You okay?”

“Yes,” she said as she arranged herself frantically, wanting the small room to develop an appetite and suddenly swallow her whole. She couldn’t believe Julian had touched her
breasts
just now.

“The point was to look disheveled, Molls. And you do.”

He sounded calm, almost too calm. When he reached into his pants pocket and handed over her butterfly clasp, Molly reached for it and clipped her hair back as best she could, her hands still trembling when she finished.

She sighed dejectedly.

What Julian had said made sense, of course. But she felt incredibly guilty and maybe still a little aroused. The things he had been saying to her before they were interrupted? The things he had been saying while he was cupping her breasts?

That was major, major stuff he’d been whispering in her ear!

“You’re right,” she said, avoiding his gaze, his all-knowing gaze that would intuitively pick up on just how far past her comfort zone they had gone. “This is perfect, couldn’t be more perfect. You’re a master, Jules. Master of disaster.” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and tried to sound businesslike. “Thank you.”

Ducking under his arm, she yanked the door open and swept outside. Determinedly, she walked past both the Gage men, who stood like sentinels down the hall, with their black suits and matching impassive expressions on their faces.

She shot each of them a smile, smiling with her inflamed mouth that had just been kissed like a hussy’s.

She even pretended she was proud of it.

But she could feel Julian’s eyes on her back, sensed he hadn’t moved from the office doorway yet, and as she rounded the corner to the busy and crowded living room, all she wanted was to find a nice spot where she could collapse safely and sort out her out-of-whack emotions.

She heard footsteps and suddenly Garrett loomed at her side, his fingers curling around her elbow. “I’d like to talk to you in private, Molly,” he said. “Do you have time tomorrow?”

Surprised, she looked into her beloved’s eyes while an avalanche of emotions buffeted her from the inside.

He seemed concerned, intense, his obsidian eyes peering into hers so fiercely, she feared he’d be able to see how aroused and guilty she was.

“Of course,” she said with a shaky nod, her voice husky for all the wrong reasons. “I’ll stop by your office at noon, Garrett.”

“Thank you,” he said softly, and placed a kiss on her forehead, his hands lingering on her cheeks for a second.

She was so numb that she couldn’t even enjoy his caress that she’d fantasized about feeling again for days and nights.

She could hardly believe that she’d finally caught his attention.

In a daze, she crossed the living room toward Kate and Beth, her thoughts scattered and unfocused. She should be celebrating, she knew. Garrett wanted to talk to her in private tomorrow, and he was, at the very least, concerned. Maybe he was even hiding his jealousy with grave effort. By all appearances, her plan was succeeding. Wasn’t that what she’d been dreaming of accomplishing?

But no. She couldn’t enjoy her victory because she was too rattled by what she’d done.

What on earth had gotten into her, to tempt Julian the way she had? Were those the actions of a woman in love with another man?

And what if things became awkward with Julian now? What if this stupid charade affected the one relationship in her life she cherished above anything?