All You Need Is Love (8 page)

Julia gave a little squeal of surprise when Nathan gave her a fierce, almost possessive hug, and then buried his face against the side of her neck.

“I love you, Julia,” he told her, the passion evident in his voice. “So damned much. Sometimes I don’t think mere words can begin to tell you how much.”

“I know,” she replied softly, her hand stroking the side of his face. “You show me how much every day, Nathan. I feel loved every minute that I’m with you. And I love you, too, baby. Though I’d love you a lot more if we could get up off this wood floor and into our bed. My ass is starting to get sore.”

He gave a shout of laughter, and swiftly stripped off his clothing before standing and helping her up off the floor. Julia promptly presented him with her back, indicating her zipper. “Do you mind?”

Nathan’s hands smoothly lowered the zipper past her waist. “Mind helping you take your clothes off? Only when I’m dead and buried, baby. And what the fuck are you wearing anyway? Jesus – you’ve been wearing
that
all night and didn’t tell me?”

The sheer ivory garment that he had assumed was a slip was in actuality some sort of one-piece, strapless confection with a wired bodice. Her tits were almost spilling over the low-cut top and she looked a hundred times sexier than any lingerie model could ever dream of doing.

Julia gave a careless, flirty little shrug. “Hey, it was your idea to stay and have an extra beer with your buddies after that baseball game this afternoon. You couldn’t very well expect me to wait until you got home before I started getting dressed, could you?”

Nathan growled in response. “Especially since you knew we’d have been running late –
very
late – if I’d seen you in that – what the hell do you call that thing anyway?”

“It’s a strapless garter slip, of course.” She gave a mock eye roll. “Really, Nathan? You’ve been living with me for all this time and you still know so little about fashion. I think I ought to drag you to New York with me in September for Fashion Week. Make you sit through days and days of fashion shows.”

He groaned. “Sounds a little bit like hell to me, actually. Unless, of course, you were the only model. And I got to pick out exactly what you wore. What you have on right now would go to the top of the list for sure. In fact,” he teased, wrapping his arms around her waist and hugging her back against his chest, “why don’t you give me a private little fashion show right now?”

“Hmm. And here I was thinking of giving you a private little striptease instead,” she lamented mockingly. “I guess that will have to wait for another time since apparently you’d rather I kept my clothes on.”

She shrieked when his hand swatted her ass – a bit too sharply to be considered playful – and then looped her arms around his neck as he scooped her up into his arms. Nathan grinned down at her as he walked into the bedroom.

“You are
such
a wiseass.” He shook his head. “I’d begin to speculate on how your sister is becoming a real bad influence on you, but I really, really don’t want to think about Lauren right now. In fact, the only thing I want to think about is how fast you can get naked.”

Julia gasped as he set her down in the middle of the bedroom and began to swiftly unhook her stockings from their lacy garters. “But what about my little strip show?”

He shoved the wired bodice of her slip down to her waist and cupped her breasts. “Cancelled, due to a – uh, impatient audience member. But I’ll definitely take a raincheck.”

She was about to utter another protest, but moaned in pleasure instead as he tumbled her back on the bed.

***

Nathan eyed the three-cup French-press coffeemaker dubiously. “Baby, that is not going to be anywhere near enough coffee for even one person this morning, much less both of us. You’d better get out the big guns. Here, want me to do it?”

Julia placed a restraining hand on his forearm as he would have risen from his kitchen stool and began to scoop freshly ground coffee into the filter basket of her 12-cup Krups. “I’ve got it. No offense, honey, but you need to work on your coffee making skills. It either comes out weak as tea or strong enough to apply wallpaper with. Why don’t you get the ibuprofen instead?”

They were both admittedly more than a little hungover this morning after the festive night of celebrating they’d indulged in last night. Julia rubbed her temples soothingly as the coffee began to brew, groaning a little and wondering why they had thought it a great idea to start bolting tequila shooters at two in the morning.

Nathan half-staggered out of the bathroom, clutching the bottle of painkillers in his hand and looking even worse than she felt. She poured him a glass of water and then looked on in alarm as he downed four tablets at once.

“Uh, aren’t you only supposed to take two at a time?” she asked in concern.

He shrugged. “That’s for adolescent girls. And for people who don’t have an entire steel drum band rehearsing inside their head. Guess we shouldn’t have broken out that bottle of Patron your sister left behind the last time she visited.”

Julia gave him a weak smile. “Hey, that’s it. This is all Lauren’s fault. Damn her, she should have known we’d come back from Ian’s birthday dinner already half drunk and then decide to finish off the rest of her tequila.”

Nathan shuddered in recollection. “God, we did finish it off, didn’t we? Which means that not only do we both have the hangovers from hell but that I’ve got to buy your sister a replacement bottle. And God forbid Lauren should drink the cheap stuff. Last time I checked a bottle of Gran Platinum was close to two hundred bucks.”

She swallowed two ibuprofen, re-read the instructions on the bottle, and then tossed back a third. “What the hell. The way I’m feeling right now, how much worse can it be to take a third tablet? Do you, um, want breakfast?”

“Jesus, no.” He placed a hand over his stomach and the other over his eyes. “At this particular moment I can’t envision ever wanting to eat again. And
why
is that damned coffeemaker taking so long to brew anyway?”

Julia took two brightly painted ceramic mugs from a cabinet. “Relax. It has a brew pause feature, remember?” She poured both of them a full cup then let the brewing process resume.

Nathan, who took his coffee black, very nearly burned his tongue as he drank a huge gulp. Julia opened up the refrigerator to get the cream and made a distressed sound as she did so.

He glanced up. “What’s the matter? Did you burn your tongue, too?”

She shook her head, covering her mouth with one hand. “No. But I think it’s going to be awhile before I can stomach the sight of another lime.” She removed the carton of creamer and quickly shut the door so she wouldn’t have to look at the offending green-skinned fruit that rested on the top shelf.

Nathan tried to laugh, but gave up when the effort caused his head to pound even harder. “Well, at least I was able to check “doing body shots in bed” off my bucket list.”

She glared at him. “Next time don’t use the extra coarse sea salt, okay? I swear I was picking grains of the stuff out of my belly button this morning.”

This time he did chuckle, even though he winced in pain as he did so. “I can, uh, give you a onceover if you’d like, make sure you don’t have any more clinging to, uh, various body parts.”

“I think a shower will take care of things nicely, thanks all the same. And as soon as I have about five more cups of coffee that’s where I’m headed.”

Julia had just poured both of them a second cup when her doorbell rang. She frowned, wondering who’d be calling at such an early hour, then gasped as she glanced at her kitchen clock and realized it was already past noon.

“Expecting company?” he asked, even as he began walking towards the front door.

“Nope. Angela is out of town visiting Dwayne, my sister’s in Timbuktu – literally, her latest assignment is actually in Africa – and my parents wouldn’t drive all this way without calling first. My bet’s on Jehovah’s Witnesses or a vacuum cleaner salesperson.”

But the person on the other side of the door was actually delivering flowers – a gorgeous bouquet of pale pink roses inside a cut crystal vase that bore a card addressed to Julia. Nathan had a puzzled look on his face as he set the vase down on the kitchen counter.

“Who in the world is sending you flowers? And on a Sunday morning at that?”

Julia frowned as she plucked the card off its plastic holder. “These aren’t from you?”

He shook his head, wincing anew at the effort even that simple movement took. “Baby, I’m lucky I’m standing upright this morning. As much as I’d love to take the credit for this, there’s no way in hell I’d have been able to think clearly enough to order you flowers.” He scowled. “I’ll bet they’re from that fucker Jackson West. I thought I told Travis to assign Olivia to that old bastard’s remodel job.”

Julia took the card out of the small cream colored envelope. “Nathan, enough already with Jackson, hmm? He’s just a client. Not to mention he’s only two years younger than my dad. And the roses are definitely not from him. Oh, my God!”

She was clutching her abdomen with one hand as she giggled uncontrollably, while the other hand was pressed gingerly to her pounding temple. At Nathan’s quizzical expression, she handed him the card, as her laughter grew progressively louder in volume. As he read the brief but succinct message, a grin spread across his features until he, too, was laughing right along with her.

Dear Julia
,

My most sincere thanks to you and Nathan for joining Tessa and I for dinner last evening. It was a wonderful night with good friends and we must get together again very soon
.

And my very deepest thanks to you, Julia, for your unsolicited but greatly appreciated – ah, advice. By far the most amazing and memorable birthday present I’ve ever received
.

Warmest regards
,

Ian

Nathan pulled Julia into his arms, his shoulders still shaking with mirth. “Well, I guess this means he isn’t going to fire us.”

Chapter Four

Late May

Nathan grumbled as he reached over to shut off his alarm, scowling when he noticed it wasn’t even seven a.m. He shoved his hair out of his eyes as he pushed himself to a sitting position, blearily wondering why he was waking up so damned early on a Saturday morning. And then he remembered he was supposed to be meeting up with a couple of friends to swim laps at the health club, followed by breakfast.

He slid out of bed as quietly as possible, careful not to wake Julia, who’d been up until the wee hours of the morning working on wedding stuff. Until he realized that she was already up, her side of the bed glaringly empty.

Nathan frowned as he stumbled sleepily out of the bedroom, clad only in a pair of gray cotton briefs. The welcoming odor of coffee greeted him as he walked into the living room, and then he stopped dead in his tracks as he surveyed the chaos surrounding him.

One of the things he’d always adored about Julia was that she was even more of an organized neat freak than he was. Her clothes and shoes were even sorted by color and style within her walk-in closet. But there was nothing the least bit organized about the mess that obliterated almost every surface of the room.

The dining table was covered with boxes of wedding RSVPs, thank you notes, some sort of master seating chart, a huge binder that Julia referred to as her “wedding bible”, an assortment of glossy brochures, and a mind-boggling array of post-it notes in various sizes and colors stuck on every available surface.

And all of that was just for starters. There was an unopened box on the coffee table that Nathan knew was from Julia’s Aunt Madelyn. It contained Maddy’s most recent shipment of clothes, shoes, and accessories, and the mere fact that Julia hadn’t already happily torn into the huge box gave him cause for concern. His very fashionable fiancée lived for her quarterly “fashion fixes” as she jokingly referred to the shipments her aunt sent, and usually couldn’t wait to see the new additions to her already extensive wardrobe.

There was a vase of flowers on one of the side tables that had died at least a week ago. Dead leaves and blossoms were scattered all over the table and floor, and they were beginning to stink something fierce. On the other side table was a stack of folders, interior design books and magazines, and Julia’s drawing materials that he knew were for several projects she was currently working on.

Last night’s dinner dishes were still stacked on the kitchen counter, as well as the leftover food that Julia had apparently neglected to store in the refrigerator. She had shooed him off to bed around midnight, assuring him she’d clean everything up after working on the wedding plans for a bit longer. Nathan couldn’t recall even one occasion when Julia had left a single dish unwashed, so the mess he found this morning shocked him speechless.

But the real shock was the sight of Julia herself. She hadn’t noticed him yet, absorbed as she was with all the papers, envelopes, and post-it notes – one of which was stuck to the back of her hand. She was sipping coffee from the biggest mug she owned, and eating what looked like a donut. She was writing frantically with one hand while alternately eating and drinking with the other. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a messy ponytail, and he had to blink several times in disbelief at what she was wearing.

“Are those – sweatpants?” he asked in alarm. “I, uh, didn’t know you owned any.”

Julia didn’t even glance up as she continued jotting things down on those damned post-it notes, and sticking them God knew where. “They’re Lauren’s. At least I think they are.”

Nathan walked closer, his unease increasing with each step. “And is that my old Nirvana t-shirt? Baby, I thought you threw that out months ago. After you refused to sew up any more holes and told me you couldn’t get the stink out no matter how many times you washed it.”

She gave the shabby garment a dainty sniff, and then shrugged. “I can’t smell anything. Maybe you’re thinking of a different shirt.”

He frowned. “Uh, uh. It’s definitely this one. I remember because the neck is half ripped out. And,” he added, clutching a handful of the worn fabric, “it
does
stink. Are you, um, okay?”