Owning Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy 3)

Julian Bastille was my leap of faith. I understood why I’d married this man on our first night together. This was my act of rebellion. It was utterly insane, and this kind of madness couldn’t be solved with cold, unfeeling rationality. He made me feel alive.

“We both have a tremendous amount at stake here. Our reputations. The rest of our lives. Our happiness, even. And neither of us want to compromise what we’ve earned—I get that. And you know what? It’s okay. We shouldn’t have to give up everything we’ve worked for because we couldn’t live up to other people’s expectations of us. It’s the world that’s wrong here, not you and me.”

“But what does that mean for us?” he asked, searching my face. “How do we reconcile where we’re at with where we want to be?”

“We start by making the best of it, I think,” I answered, blowing out a long breath. “We know a few things right offhand: we’ve got reputations to protect; we’ve got careers that are important to us; we’re both looking for security; and we don’t hate each other.” This time, when he laughed, it wasn’t so hollow and heartbreaking. “Honestly, Julian, this… arrangement wasn’t the worst idea in the world. And if I’d met you without Tessa in the room? Maybe things would have gone differently. I sure as hell wouldn’t have had the same reservations about seeing it through.”

“Then what if I say we leave Tessa out of this as much as possible?” he asked, taking both my hands now. “From now on, we make decisions about this situation between us. Come what may. If we cock it up, we’ve no one to blame but ourselves.”

Julian was speaking my language. He was talking about responsibilities and independence, liberation even. I closed my eyes to take it all in. I’d known that communication was a two-way street, and I’d known that I had to make the effort to speak from the heart so that he’d understand where I was coming from in all this, but I hadn’t expected him to reach out to me this way. I hadn’t thought him capable of it. I hadn’t thought him selfless enough.

“I like the sound of that,” I told him at last, opening my eyes again to meet his verdant gaze. I found it just as compelling as ever, beckoning me to reach out and touch him, to make the same kind of connection we’d made a few hours before—the one that had felt so damn good…

Nervously, I wet my lips, glancing away from him as I fought to hide the flush creeping into my cheeks. I knew now, firsthand, that there was such comfort to be had in his embrace—and such pleasure, too. I had told myself that I was going to let my heart lead more often, and the fact of the matter was that my heart wanted both the security of his affections and the unpredictable nature of the ecstasy he inflicted upon me.

“I’d really like it if you’d kiss me right now,” I whispered to him, watching as his eyebrows shot up in surprise. That color in my cheeks was starting to spread right across the bridge of my nose now. “Please?”

With a great deal more confidence than I had expected, Julian pulled me right against his body, eliciting a soft yelp from my lips as he released my hands to settle his palms on my hips. I turned my head up to meet him as he pressed his soft lips to mine, closing my eyes as I surrendered to the heat of his mouth, his tongue.

I slid my hands up underneath his shirt, caressing the topography of his muscles, my fingers charting all the curves and planes of his flesh. There was so much for me to hold on to, to hide in, to bury all my fears and doubts. So much of him was stalwart and steady, underneath the façade. I wanted more of that, more of the surety only Julian could give me now. He shrugged out of his jacket, and gripping the hem of his shirt, I unveiled him.

He took me by my hips, slowly working at the pajama pants I’d slipped into after he’d left. My breath caught and went wetly skipping through my throat, but I made no move to stop him, though I whimpered as he expertly slid them over the roundness of my ass and down to the floor. I hadn’t bothered to put panties back on, and part of me was glad for it.

The cold air against my sex made me gasp, my nipples growing taut beneath the thin tank top I was wearing. I felt so utterly exposed as Julian’s hands began to work their way up my sides, pulling my shirt up as I lifted my arms to assist him. Finally I stood there, bare, in front of him, my heart pounding against my sternum, my breasts hitching with each labored breath.

I didn’t wait for permission to continue. As he looked me over, admiring what he’d revealed, I unfastened his belt and lowered the fly on his jeans, pressing closer against him. I couldn’t help it; I needed to feel him against me like I had before, but this time, it seemed to mean so much more than whatever childish ego trip had led to it then. This, here, was more than mere curiosity or thinly veiled excuses for release—this was passion.

I pulled down his jeans and boxers, exposing his impressive cock and the even more impressive piercing running through the tip of it. That silvery ring gleamed enticingly, reminding me of what it had looked like all wet with Julian’s desire. That memory came flooding back to me, the one I’d recalled earlier when I’d seen his cock again, and I dragged the tips of my fingers over his balls, up his shaft, and to his reddening crown.

“Where?” he asked breathily, directing my attention back to his face. He shuddered as I stroked him, hips twitching to move him closer to my fist. So eager already, like he just couldn’t wait to have me—like he needed me, somehow. I bit my lip.

“Right here,” I said, pressing him back against the wall with my hand on his chest. I could feel his heart beating beneath my palm, the rapid cadence only increasing as I drew the rest of my body up against him, smearing his desire over my lower stomach. Somewhat reluctantly, I abandoned his cock to wreath my arms around his neck instead, lacing my fingers together around the back of it. “Think you can hold me up?”

“I don’t spend all that time at the gym for nothing,” Julian said around a grin and with a glint in his eyes. He slipped his hands down to my ass, grabbed me there hard, and pulled me flush with him, legs bracketing his narrow waist.

We slotted together almost instantly, as though the natural course of our bodies was to be joined like this. His tip buried into my wet channel and with a moan, he sawed deeper, pulling back out before pushing the next inch in. I was so ready for him, still a little silky from the last time we’d fucked, and there was no resistance to the way he impaled me, only pitiful cries for more.

I arched my spine as he hilted, throwing my head back to release a sigh of satisfaction. Gripping his hair I leaned forward, kissing his neck as I squirmed for him, adding even more friction to the heat we were already generating. Julian bucked harder, moaning as I worked into a faster pace. In response, he drove so deep into me I was sure I could taste him on the back of my tongue.

“Fuck,” he snarled, gripping my shoulders hard so he could use my body to fuck him as much as he was fucking me. I’d never felt so unmoored in all my life, so out of control, so reckless. Julian had the power here. I had given it to him. And that made what we were doing all the more exciting.

And the way it was turning him on did wonders for me. Every time I was struck through with him, I looked into his hooded eyes and watched that gorgeous green seem to grow all the more vibrant. He was trembling, not with effort it seemed, but with restraint. It made me wonder what he might do if he lost control.

The thought thrilled me. And so every time he hoisted me up, I sat back down as heavily as I could, driving Julian’s cock in so roughly I began to see stars. “Liz,” he gritted, thumbs leaving trails of dusky marks across the bottom of my ribs. That was fine—I wanted it that way. “Christ, woman…”

We interlocked like the parts of a divine machine, churning, fueled by a heat and a passion that lit us up from the inside. I could see a spark in Julian’s eyes, a bright glimmer of something vital, something alive. No wonder we’d created something together our first time around. His passion was life-giving breath in my lungs. I inhaled him each time he moaned.

It was like making love in a dream. Everything flowed seamlessly from one momen

t to the next, so fluid that it was difficult to recall later who did what and when. Sensation was my only interest, releasing this darkness inside me my only goal. I wanted to feel—truly feel—and the only way to do that was to let go. To surrender.

To submit.

Julian pulled out and turned me. My face was against the wall, cheek pressed tight to the coolness of it. His fingers spanned my throat, forcing my spine to arch as he slipped into me a second time. He was ranged over me, his abs clenching and flexing against my back. There was so much power in him, and so little mercy. Every thrust drove him right into the heart of me, into the spot that make my knees quake and my teeth clench.

With his free hand, Julian delved into the slickness between my shuddering thighs, and he stroked a path through my cleft that began with his tender point of entry—the place where my muscles stretched taut around his pistoning shaft—and ended when he pulled back the delicate hood of my clit. Those desperate nerves exposed, he lathered them with my wetness and tapped out a beat like he was fretting a guitar. I was accustomed to rubbing, to flicking, to caressing that hungry bud into blooming. The way Julian did it, though…

I shoved my ass into his hips, rocking as I chased that friction, spreading my legs wider, making room for all the sensation bundling into one, throbbing mass between them. His other hand left my throat to sweep down my chest, grasping one of my breasts and plucking at the nipple. I realized then, albeit dimly, that he was humming a little. He was playing my body just like an instrument, and pretty soon, it was going to sing for him.

My core was getting tight. Julian was swelling inside me, thickening, fattening up. I felt his balls jerk up closer to his body and knew he was close, knew he was only holding back for my benefit. The way that heavy pair slapped against me and the wet sound they made when they did was the perfect accompaniment to the symphony of sounds he extracted from me. His low, gravel-laden grunt—and the way he rolled my nipple between the rough pads of his forefinger and thumb—made me pulse enthusiastically.

“Close,” I warned him, holding myself away from the wall as I slapped it with my hands. My fingernails curled into it. I was sure I was going to peel the paint right off. “More… just a little…”

Despite my plea for an inch, Julian gave me a mile. He doubled the pressure on my clit, pressing into it now, then working his finger in a spiral. The heat was intense. It made me want to move, shredded my resolve until I could no longer stand still. I squirmed and bucked against him, legs snapping almost shut on instinct. The tighter fit for him wrested a gasp from his lips. He hadn’t been expecting that, and I felt a single rope of his come fill me as he whispered, “Goddammit…”

His hand tore away from my breast, hooking under the crease of my thigh instead, lifting one of my legs up so that my knee nearly touched his hip. I threw myself back against him, skin to skin, my shoulders against his heaving chest as he spread me enough to let his fingers continue their wicked work. He worked just the tip of his cock in and out of me. I whined like a cat in heat for him.

“Oh, fuck. Julian. I’m…”

“Uh huh,” he rasped in my ear. “I know.”

All the tension inside me funneled down. The clench of my poor, aching muscles increased in frequency. I panted, hair sticking to his chest and shoulder, my face to the ceiling and my eyes shut tight. For a moment, there was only me, Julian, and the rhythm of his cock and fingers. Only these things comprised the universe.

And then I was spreading out like a drop of ink in a warm glass of water, the fabric of my being stretching and seeping back into reality, cast in such sharp relief I cried out. The sound of it was so strong it rattled my teeth, my throat burning as the exhortation of all my need and desire came scraping and clawing its way out. Even my blood cells seemed to vibrate with the force of my climax, tearing through my body at supersonic speeds, leaving me little more than a quivering, hyperventilating mess. Every hiss and groan that left me thereafter was borne on the back of a wheezing gasp. And still, Julian refused to let up.

Spurred by the crescendo of my voice, he stabbed inward once again, now giving me the full length of his cock. How sweet it was to have something for my inner workings to clutch and clench around, to bear down on and yes, even to milk. I knew what I wanted. I’d had a dose of it just a moment before. But that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted more. I wanted all Julian had, and then some.

The sound of him crashing into me was even wetter now, punctuated by his staccato moans. I reached down and grasped at his balls, teasing them, rolling them in my palm. He gave a shudder and I pulled them down, away from the base of his cock. He throbbed once, twice, and once more. He drove all the way into me, then nearly all the way out.

I was so very wet that he easily could have withdrawn, then plunged in all over, again and again, penetrating me to the fullest with each stroke. But I knew he didn’t want to leave the heat and death grip of my dripping channel. Not when he was so very, very close to flooding it anew.

“Please,” I breathed. “Julian…”

“Liz,” he hissed in my ear. And then he let go, pressing his forehead hard against my neck, burying his face there as he came for me in a series of juddering, erratic strokes. I reached back to grip his hair and turned my face enough to catch his mouth, to kiss him hard enough to swallow his groans, to accept his tongue so that any part of him that could penetrate me was. I wanted to feel utterly consumed and claimed. I wanted to feel like I was his.

And then he was turning me again, this time toward him, lifting me even as he knelt down. I gasped as he laid me on the floor with a tremulous gentleness, taking great care not to unsheathe his cock from me. He was still pulsing and my head was still spinning. I was heady and giddy, utterly drunk, and unwilling to come down from those intoxicating heights just yet.

“Don’t pull out,” I whimpered as I looked up into his smoldering eyes. “I don’t want it to be over yet…”

Julian smiled at me, holding himself over my body as my hands blazed a trail along his tattoos. “Oh, love,” he purred as he bent his head. “We’ve only just started.”

And he pressed his lips to mine again.

Julian

Lying here with Elizabeth in my arms was the most natural thing I’d felt in a long time. Every breath brought the scent of her perfume into my nose, filling my senses as she snuggled up against me, eyes closed. We’d just finished another round together, our bodies still loosely entwined as our chests rose and fell in perfect harmony. I basked in her glow, in the radiant warmth of her sleepy bliss.

I’d never been more satisfied by sex. Then again, sex for me had never amounted to much more than a means to an end, an opportunity to feel wanted for just a little while. What Liz and I had done meant more than that. She meant more than that.

For the first time in my life, I finally felt that maybe I could just be something else other than a rock star, a sex symbol, or even a celebrity. Maybe, with her, I could be Julian Bastille and no one else.

Would that be enough for her? It was hard, even for me, to tell. I hadn’t made any effort in years to be “just Julian.” I couldn’t begin to surmise what kind of a man I was without my rock star persona—the one I’d hardly ever let drop in more than a decade of performing. Who was the man behind the mask, and was he the kind of man she’d want to stick around? Was he the kind of man worthy of being a husband and a father?

All I knew was that since Liz had come into my life, I was beginning to feel like someone new, someone I actually liked. I wasn’t the boozehound that spent weeks drunk off of his ass, picking up groupies after his sets—I was someone who took responsibility for the things that he did, someone who wanted to make sure Liz thought well of him. That wasn’t the Julian Bastille that I’d been only a week before, and in every way possible, I was glad of it.

She’s the first person who’s ever made me feel like I could be something more than just a pretty face on a stage, I thought, coursing my fingers through her hair as she

began to wake up from her post-coital nap. I smiled, brushing the back of my hand down along the line of her jaw as her eyes fluttered open, a smile already pulling at the corners of her lips.

“Hi,” she said, voice husky from her nap. I couldn’t help but smile back down at her as she leaned against my touch.

“Hello, Mrs. Bastille,” I said, my sweet smile turning into a mischievous grin as she rolled her eyes—though for once, it didn’t seem out of derision, but rather a valiant effort to hide her widening smile.

“I’m never going to get used to that,” she said, trailing her fingers up over my arm. “Not being Liz Lawson is going to be so weird.”

“I guess there are a lot of things we’re going to have to get used to,” I said, toying with a lock of her hair. “Where we’re going to live, how we want to raise our kid… just being parents in general. It’s a hell of a lot to take in.”

Liz nodded. “It is. And while this has been a distraction of the best kind…” She bit her lip. “We’re going to have to venture back out into the real world, eventually.”

She was right, of course. We couldn’t stay cooped up in this hotel room forever, as fun as such a thing sounded. We both had business to attend to, responsibilities we had to own up to. But it had been nice, for a little while, to imagine a world in which we only owed things to each other. I hoped to make that fantasy become reality someday. For both our sakes.

“You’re worried about something specific,” I noted, narrowing my eyes at her. “I can tell. What’s on your mind, love?” I grinned. “Or should I be working on wiping it blank again?”

Her cheeks colored. “Maybe not just now, but…” I saw her glance down my body, a spark of intrigue in her eyes. That was good enough for me—the fact that she was still interested. I didn’t want a repeat of our first time together where she went slinking off into the sunset. “I was thinking about the baby.”