High Maintenance by Lia Fairchild Read Free Book Online Page B

lightly caressed her upper thigh, attempting to pull her from her dream state. Lying on her side, she sensed a body conforming to her shape. Julian knew how much she loved waking up to sex, when your body is at its most calm and natural state, somewhere between sleeping and being awake. But Lexy hadn’t seen Julian’s face when her mind’s eye pictured the man in bed with her. It was Tate’s face she saw. It was Tate’s body she pictured touching hers, skin to skin.
    His hand glided from her thigh to her ass, giving it a little gentle kneading that woke her a little further. When his hand landed on her bare breast, that’s when her senses came alive. He stroked her nipples, sending a wave of electricity through her insides and down to her core.
    Lexy kept her eyes closed, still live with the image of Tate, and continued to let him do whatever he pleased. Her shoulder tugged back into him and his mouth covered her breast, his tongue delivering soft kisses that made her heart pound radically. Aroused, yet somehow still in that peaceful state, she opened her eyes and saw Julian. A sigh escaped her, reality both surprised and disappointed her, but Julian didn’t seem to notice.
    Lexy kept her eyes open, fighting the urge to fall back into her fantasy, as Julian’s kisses trailed from her breasts, down her stomach, and to the border of her panties. He slipped his hand under the satiny material and brought his mouth up to meet hers. “God, I missed you, baby,” he whispered against her lips. “I need to be inside of you, Lexy,” he said as he pushed her panties down. “I need to make you mine again.”
    When he kissed her this time, instinctively her eyes closed and there was Tate. She was with Julian. She was marrying Julian. Was a little fantasy so wrong? It didn’t matter what she thought because now she had no control over it. In the darkness, caught between a dream and reality, Tate was making love to her.
     
    ***
     
    Something woke her, and she looked at the clock. Four forty-two. The bed next to her was empty. A light from the bathroom and the sound of the shower running spilled through the slightly ajar door. Lexy got up, tossing on a T-shirt of Julian’s, to go to the bathroom. When she opened the door and stepped in, she stood there for several seconds. She watched Julian’s silhouette in the shower, thinking of their painfully ugly last breakup and praying that he’d kept his promise.
    A familiar vibration sounded behind her. Julian always had his ringer off. She glanced to his hanging coat. Though it was early, it could have been a business call. Maybe another country, ending their day. She wouldn’t want him to miss it.
    With a tentative reach into his pocket, Lexy pulled out the phone and gaped at the screen: a text from contact labeled initial “B” and the message: Received the payment, but I’m done! I can’t do this anymore. Doesn’t seem to matter what I do to screw up her apartment, anyway. Don’t contact me again .
    “What the hell are you doing?” Julian’s voice cut through her.
    She stared at him for a moment before replying, trying to process what she’d just seen. “Me? I was about to ask you the same question.”
    Naked and dripping, Julian stepped out of the running shower and snatched the phone from her. He looked at the screen. “Lex…I…”
    “I’m surprised, Julian. You don’t have a cover story ready to feed me?”
    “Baby, listen. God, you know how much I love you.”
    He reached for her hand, but she pulled it away. She ripped the towel from the rack and threw it at him. “So what? You hired someone to make all that stuff break in my apartment just so I’d move in with you?”
    “No…no, it wasn’t like that. I just had someone watching out for you over there because it’s such a crap place, and I didn’t think you were safe in that neighborhood. That’s it.”
    “Bullshit! That message was pretty damn clear to me. You promised me, Julian!” She flung