Dirty Seduction

ROSIE

I awoke with a start to find Julian wasn’t lying in bed next to me. I put on my glasses and grabbed my phone to check the time. It was still early enough to see him before college. I was still in his shirt, smiling a happy grin as I found him leaning against the kitchen counter with a bowl of muesli. He was already dressed. Suited. Not a surprise, but… his hair was more styled this morning. His tie was knotted perfectly.

He looked gorgeous.

“Hey,” I said, feeling weirdly nervous.

“Hello,” he replied, and his smile put me at ease. He put his bowl down and went to the fridge. “What would you like for breakfast? I have bacon and eggs… how about another fry-up? I have to leave soon, but I can get you started. Let’s get you an orange juice, too. How about that?” He paused with another smile. Looking me up and down. “I didn’t want to wake you. You looked so peaceful lying there.”

“I wasn’t snoring, then?”

“Ha, no. No. Although you’d still look cute as a snoring angel. Anyway, breakfast. What would you like?”

He was so attentive that it took me aback. I still wasn’t used to someone taking care of me.

I wasn’t feeling all that hungry. My stomach had fluttered just looking at him.

“I’d love some of your muesli, please.”

“Are you sure? No fry up?”NôvelDrama.Org copyrighted © content.

“I’m sure,” I said. “Muesli is great.”

“Right,” he said. “Muesli it is.”

His bowl was still half full as he busied himself getting me mine. I watched him in fascination, enjoying the spring in his step. He seemed so different this morning.

“Here you go,” he said, handing me a bowl and a glass of juice.

“Thanks.”

“You look very fresh considering you only had a few hours of sleep,” he said.

“Yeah, I feel pretty rested.”

It was true. I did. Even though I should have been bleary-eyed and exhausted, I felt excited enough that I could have danced around the room. Already, I was close enough to Julian to want to stay here for a lifetime. The memory of Scottie’s bullshit downstairs felt like it was buried in a pit, far away.

“I have to be off to work,” he said. “Please feel free to make yourself at home, of course. Take your time.”

“Thanks,” I said again, realizing it was becoming a bit of a mantra. I was thanking him for so much that it was getting unreal.

“You’re very welcome,” he said and rinsed his bowl in the sink.

He must have been way more tired than I was, but he wasn’t showing it.

I wished there was no work for him today, and no college for me. I wanted to curl up with him, talk with him, and explore his body as he explored mine. There was so much I still needed to know. So many questions…

I wondered where exactly he worked, and who he worked with. I wondered what he was like in the office, and whether people thought he was as amazing as I did. I wondered what he did for true fun, and not this excuse for a life he’d plunged himself into in shame. He used to be an English professor, I knew, but not much else. Not really. Why did he become one? Did he like reading, like I did? What did he read? I knew he liked writing. So, what did he write? When? Why? How? I didn’t know a thing.

He dried his bowl and put it back in the cupboard. “I’d best be going now.”

“I’ll take a shower,” I told him. “And then I’ll head downstairs. Scottie will be gone now.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m sure he will be.”

He hovered as he passed me, and I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to pull him close and tug him back to the bedroom, begging him to show me my first time and make me like the girl in the photos, but I couldn’t. It was too bright and too early, and I was too gawky as I stood there.

“I’ll see you again soon,” he said and kissed me on the forehead before he walked on by.

Soon. It sounded quite vague.

“Wait…” I said, my bowl still in my hand as I followed him through to the living room. “When you say soon, do you mean… do you, um, want to see me again? As in have me here? Because I’d love to be up here with you and away from Scottie.”

“I’d love to have you here with me again,” he said. “But we need to make sensible choices. Let’s see how you feel about things when you are back at home this evening after work. Maybe things will be considerably calmer for you downstairs.”

I doubted that somehow. Scottie would be holed up with Mum, still in the stupid loved-up phase, rushing around after him like he was king of the world. I didn’t want to be a part of that. I didn’t want to see the nasty prick for the rest of my life. The thought of coming face-to-face with him again gave me shivers.

“We’ll see, then,” I said, not wanting to put more pressure on his door. I wanted to be here because he wanted me here, not because I was a little stray girl with nowhere else to go.

His eyes were smiling as he placed his hand on the door handle.

“Have a good day, sweetheart.”

“You, too.”

The apartment was so quiet without him. It felt almost forbidden to wash my bowl in his sink and put the kettle on for a coffee. The urge to know him only increased in his absence.

I looked around through new eyes, trying to get a feel for the man who’d treated me like a goddess last night. There was a pull into the mystery of everything. His past, his present, and his future. I wanted to be here a whole lot more…

I wanted to be with him.

I’d known it since before he’d played a tune with my body, but his touch had cemented it firmer than words. I wanted Julian. Crazy age gap or not. Seedy games, and a twisted family past or not. None of it would make any difference. My heart was already too invested in my savior to want out.