Leaps & Lies

Chapter Twenty-One

F or all of Julian’s apparent contempt for her cramped studio apartment, the car ride to his place is shorter than expected. They ride together in his car after he tells her in no uncertain terms that her car is “one more inch of rust away from disintegration.” After an orgasm and shower, Vivian finds that she’s notably less motivated to fight him on it.

He drops a hand onto her thigh as he drives, settling long fingers over the curve of her quad. Julian lives closer to Ellapond than her, on a domestic-looking street boasting quaint townhouses with matching front yards. The driveway he pulls into has a maroon mailbox and a tree that occupies most of the small front yard. Thanks to the recent October weather, the foliage is vibrant, and leaves have only just begun to collect along the sidewalk. Thanks to the picturesque townhomes and the golden lampposts glowing in the early evening light, the street looks akin to an autumn catalog rather than a real neighborhood that her duet instructor calls home.

Julian hustles her out of the car, ushering her through the garage and into the house. As soon as he’s locked the door behind her and hung his car keys on a nearby hook, he’s pressing her back against the door. He pins her between the warmth of his body and the unyielding door.

And then he kisses her, open-mouthed and fierce, as though earlier was merely an appetizer. It strikes her then that despite the way he fell to his knees for her earlier, despite their moment in Studio C on Friday, they haven’t kissed until now. Improbable yet true, just like them.

Julian tastes sharp, like mint, as she kisses him back, fisting a hand in his jacket and pulling. Even pressed against her, he’s not close enough. She wants more. Always more.

It isn’t until he chuckles against her lips that she realizes she’s been quietly voicing her desires aloud with a desperate, needy chant of, “More, more, more.”

“And here I thought my mouth made you polite?” Julian teases.

“Fine. More, please ,” Vivian answers, nipping at his bottom lip.

“Oh, that’s much better,” he purrs. “Now tell me what you want.”

Instead of replying, Vivian mouths at his neck and slips a hand down the front of his joggers, teasing the skin of his lower stomach with the very tips of her fingers.

“You.” The second it’s out of her mouth, it feels cliched and trite. Surely, that line won’t work on a man like him.

Yet when he surges in to close the distance between them, licking right into her mouth in a manner that suggests far more lewd and delicious things, she’s proven wrong. It’s galvanizing.

Julian kisses fiercely, as if he intends to consume her entire being, beginning with her mouth. She kisses him back, tangling her fingers in his hair and pulling, pulling, pulling , until he lets out a groan that sounds as desperate as her own racing heartbeat.

“Up,” he orders with a swat at her thigh. His hands are quick to catch her under her thighs when she jumps and clings to him. He’s blindly carrying her up the stairs, nibbling at her neck all the while before she can process how many floors the townhouse spans.

After a brief stop on a landing for wet nips to her neck and even more stairs, Vivian is gently dropped on a fluffy duvet covering a bed that immediately puts her ugly futon to shame. The cotton is smooth and crisp under her back and if a hungry-looking Julian wasn’t staring down at her, she’d be tempted to settle in for a nap.

“Pants off,” Julian orders without looking up from where he’s already undressing himself.

“Only my pants?” Vivian sasses. Years of tireless rehearsals and workouts have left her body petite and slim. Her breasts are nothing extraordinary, but keeping her baggy hoodie on doesn’t sound sexier than removing it.

“Everything,” Julian quickly corrects. “Take off everything, but pants first.”

The instructions immediately make sense when he drops to kneel next to the bed, tugging her to the edge, and splays her thighs over his shoulders.

He dives in to lick her indulgently, and she’s struck again that this—the seemingly selfless act of dropping to his knees for her—might be for his pleasure just as much as hers.

Propping herself up on her elbows, Vivian sits up to stare down at Julian where he’s delivering his tithe, one lick at a time. His chest is bare and broad, his warm olive complexion is smattered with a hint of bronze hair over his pectorals and sternum. Muscles flex and straighten as he lifts a hand to spread her lips, spearing her with his tongue.

She’s electric, as though a high-voltage current is running directly from his mouth into her body. Vivian can hardly bear it. She never wants it to end.

She wants more and yet cannot imagine what she’ll do if she gets it. Can she stand more?

It’s not until Julian pulls back and mumbles soft reassurances into the thin skin of her hip crease that she realizes she’s whimpering, a soft, high-pitched sound that she’d denounce as pathetic if she had the wherewithal to speak.

“More, please,” she begs, incapable of surviving without Julian’s mouth on her flesh.

“Yeah, baby, you can have more, but you have to relax. Lie back for me,” Julian soothes.

Vivian is quick to drop down from her elbows, the bed a soft comfort at her back. She can’t reach Julian’s hair, so she fists her hands in the duvet, gripping and clenching instinctually.

“Do you wanna come?” Julian taunts with the most delicate, soft, unsatisfying lick to her clit. Vivian wants heat. She wants pressure and sensation and electricity. She wants to absorb Julian into her skin until they are sharing the current coursing through her. She wants more .

“More. Please ,” she groans out. “You’re being cruel.”

He huffs against her, air tickling her sensitive skin in the meanest way.

“Me? Cruel? What happened to the prim and polite Vivian who says please and thank you so nicely?” the asshole taunts.

Vivian groans, now frustrated. “She’s waiting for you to do something worthy of praise.”

Since they first met, Vivian’s always known that her sass and back talk would get her in trouble with Julian one day. It was inevitable. But she never expected that it would be today .

Karma comes with a swift, sharp smack to her clit.

In retrospect, he must have pulled back his strength because the smack hardly hurts.

The novelty and shock of the action, though? That has her moaning and arching up toward him, desperate for another touch, whether it be gentle or harsh.

“Fuck. Did you like that? You drive me insane, Sugar. When you challenge and push me, I go insane trying not to push back until you’re at the edge. But then as soon as I get my hands on you, you’re as polite and submissive as can be. Which is it? Are you acting out for attention?” he asks.

Is she?

It’s never been intentional. She doesn’t mean to challenge him, to poke, prod, and banter. It’s hardly a choice. He simply inspires it in her. Something about him begs her instincts to push back, to respond with bold ferocity. She feels more herself than ever.

When she tells him as much, he laughs into her skin and the rumble is an earthquake to her heart.

“Well, you have my attention now.”

And when he returns his face to her, sucking on her clit as he slips two fingers into her, she can tell that she does.

His fingers curl and caress inside her until she’s shaking and sweating, too blissed out to do anything but writhe.

“Come all over my face, baby. Get me nice and wet.”

His fingers pump and press as he nibbles her clit slightly too hard, and it’s perfect. She’s exploding, cresting, and soaring. A never-ending fireworks display.

When Julian finally drags his face from her skin, his mouth and chin are shiny and wet in a manner that’s becoming dangerously familiar and addictive.