I was so ready, almost angry with how ready I was for him.
The continuous tease of having to be around him the last few weeks had built up the desire in my veins. Each day the passion had built with no outlet for escape.
Now, we finally had the chance to do something about it—in this fucking bathroom. I knew I could finally alleviate the ache. I slid my hand past the waist of his swim trunks and gripped him in my palm.
“Fuck,” he moaned, leaning his head against the glass over my shoulder.
I slid my palm up and down slowly, feeling the length of him. He’d fill me up, sate my desire, and leave me with a feeling of utter completion. I knew that…now I wanted to feel it firsthand.
“Julian—” I breathed, prepared to beg him at that point.
Just then, a fist pounded against the bathroom door, practically shaking it off its hinges.
“Excuse me! Some of us need to use the freaking bathroom!”
I jumped a mile in the air, scrambling to pull my hand out of Julian’s swim trunks and cover myself lest the person actually pried the door open like they were threatening to do.
“Seriously. I need to pee!” the girl yelled again, just as pissy as before.
She kept pounding her fist against the door, rattling the wood on its hinges.
“Shit,” Julian groaned, shoving his hand through his hair and taking a step back.
I was sitting there with my legs splayed open and my breasts poorly hidden behind my arm. I knew how I looked. I knew why he couldn’t look away.
His gaze slid over me and his nostrils flared.
“Hand me my cover-up, you jackass,” I said, pointing to where it lay in a puddle on the floor.
He raked his hands through his hair and then bent down to retrieve it.
I took a deep breath and tried to settle my nerves.
Another round of pounding started on the door, louder and longer this time.
“Stop fucking pounding. We’re coming,” Julian yelled.
“Julian—
He shook his head and looked away. “If you had any idea how much I’m restraining myself right now, you’d tie that bikini back up and put your dress back on.” His hazel eyes swept across me. “I’m two seconds away from fucking you while she listens outside.”
My mouth dropped.
“It’s your call.”
Chapter Twenty
Julian
Can someone die from a case of blue balls? Would I be the first?
I was due to visit Lorena on Sunday afternoon. We had an entire sheet of topics to cover that she’d emailed to me the night before. (Apparently you have a lot of time to create Excel spreadsheets in rehab.) I needed to get my head in the game but I’d hardly managed to sleep off my hangover from the day before. Every time I took a step, it felt like a donkey was dropkicking the back of my head, and I was still carrying around the weight of what could have been, thanks to the boat-ride-from-hell the day before. The next time Dean invited me on his boat, I was going to come prepared with a box of condoms, a padlock, and a port-a-potty for the top deck. For fuck’s sake, I’d been two seconds away from reaching the pinnacle of nirvana, and White Wine Wendy couldn’t hold her pee for a minute longer.
WE WERE ON A BOAT. Pee off the side dammit.
“Julian! My beautiful, annoying big brother,” Lorena sang as I pushed through the door to her room. She was sitting at her kitchen table with papers spread out around her, clearly ready to conduct business. Me? I was ready to stick my head between my knees and pray for the apocalypse. The fiery pits of hell had nothing on the pounding headache positioned right behind my eyes.
“C’mon. You’re walking like a snail. We have a lot to get done and I have a rebirthing ceremony at noon.”
I arched a brow. “Rebirthing ceremony?”
She shrugged. “They give you cookies. It’s the only time they give you actual sugar in this place. It makes no sense. I was addicted to cocaine, not sweets. Why do I have to pretend to be ‘born anew’ to have some freaking candy?”
“I’ll sneak you in some the next time I visit,” I promised, pulling out the chair across from her. The sound of the metal legs scraping against the floor felt like daggers stabbing my head.
I leaned against the seat and waited for the room to stop spinning. When it did, I was met with a smiling Lorena, clearly pleased to see how shitty I felt.
She looked more like her old self than she had in years. Gold bracelets encased her right wrist, jingling every time she moved. She was wearing bright green glasses and her hair was braided across the crown of her head. Her shirt read, “Black is the new black,” which I found funny even in my present state. She looked like the Lorena I’d grown up with, the creative genius that no one really understood.
“Do you have any new spaces for me to look at?” she asked, drawing the topic back to work.
I groaned and forced myself to get it together. I’d promised Lorena I’d take care of her business while she was in rehab, and I didn’t want to let her down.
Josephine and I had narrowed down our top three picks for her store. I passed Lorena a folder with photos and floor plans of the three spaces. She vetoed the first two right away, cursing their uppity locations. The third one—the location Jo had found during her morning walk—Lorena loved.
“And it’s within our price range?” she asked, scanning through the photos I’d brought along with me.
“It’s at the top, but the foot traffic would ensure that the storefront would pay for itself. We’d convert the back space to offices. I think people will like the idea of shopping at your store, knowing there’s a chance that they’ll get to meet you while they’re there.”