She broke her kiss with him, because her common sense had finally caught up with her libido. He just looked at her, his shirt rumpled, his tie askew.
"What's going on here," he asked, "Why did you stop?"
Alexis just looked at him, her lips swollen from his kissing a moment ago and her blouse half unbuttoned.
"We're in the conference room."
His eyes blinked.
"I can see that."
She rolled her eyes at his attitude tinged with frustration.
"I had it renovated with the rest of the suite when I leased it."
It hadn't cost much after she'd applied for the new grant program created by Mayor Felicia Scorpio to encourage commercial development of the blighted lots on the waterfront next to the harbor. The perfect spot to set up her new legal practice for women and girls after submitting her resignation letter to Sonny.
Dianne had purchased the building after Max cashed in the mob's version of workman's comp with his boss after the warehouse shooting some months earlier. She'd leased out a suite to Alexis at a discounted rate and Alexis accepted it quickly. She'd been busy working the weekend to get it ready for business. Sam, Patrick. Magic Milo and Nathan had been busy working on the carpentry and electrical work leaving her with sorting out all the equipment for her offices, library and conference room.
Having a couple of gorgeous shirtless men working hard at restoring her suite in an old Brownstone style house had been stimulating to say the least. Made her own work day go quickly but it hadn't distracted her attention from the one man she wanted, Julian.
He'd dropped by this morning bearing takeout from Kelly's for lunch and enough Gardenias to fill several vases. She had Maxie her new legal assistant handle that before heading out on her lunch break.
Then he insisted on staying and talking about the date she owed him from the damn auction. The one they'd been discussing in the elevator at the MC Hotel.
That had quickly led to her providing him a tour of her new suite including the conference room, with a nice sturdy oak wood table.
It hadn't taken them long at all to get into trouble. One glance, one furtive movement. One shift in body posture and KABOOM.
Alexis knew she had to be the sensible one. This simply could NOT happen between them given that they'd broken up because he'd lied to her about leaving the business.
So she'd broken up their make out session in the conference room.
She rolled her eyes at Julian and pulled away from him, straightening her blouse because buttoning it proved to be impossible when she discovered a couple of them missing.
"I think I saw one roll under the table," he said, trying to be helpful.
"Julian what are we doing here?"
He just looked at her blankly.
"I thought it was obvious."
She put a hand on a hip and just shook her head at him.
"I'm not going down this well-traveled road of ours where we fight and then you try to seduce me."
His mouth quirked into a knowing smile, taking in the view in front of him.
"It works doesn't it? Alexis I know you want this as much as I do."
She bit her lip at his statement. It hadn't started out that way. He'd come to her suite bearing offerings including the Gardenias. She had thanked him though she hadn't trusted his intentions.
He'd told her it was to celebrate her moving into her new offices and starting a new chapter with her own law firm.
She'd smiled a bit warily but she'd thanked him. He'd touched her arm so innocently….
One thing had led to another and next thing she knew they had been kissing, with his hands fondling her breasts beneath her blouse. It had felt wonderful, and she had arched her head back in delight until she realized they had crossed a dangerous line.
Not before he told her what beautiful breasts she had, creamy white in contrast to the tanned skin surrounding them and the rosy pink tips that had hardened beneath his fingers. He whispered that he'd missed them so much. What could she do but sigh as his hands started unbuttoning her blouse, three buttons at a time which meant sacrificing some of them. God, it felt so damn good to be with him like this again.
But then reality hit.
"I can't…"
He looked up at her.
"I've wanted to taste them again and you for so long," he said, readjusting her blouse for her, returning into the shoes of the man she had fallen in love with before realizing that she didn't know him as well as she thought.
She stroked his jaw line with one fingertip, strongly built like the rest of him. His skin felt stubbly there because he hadn't shaved this morning. Damn it was like instinct in her to want to stroke his skin.
"We can't…we can't cross that line or we'll never find our way back."
He grabbed that hand and damn if he didn't move his lips over it, including his tongue. Her insides wanted to melt and her legs, buckle but she had to be strong. She had to be firm with him. Everything depended on it.
"It won't matter Alexis," he said, backing her into the table until she sat on it, then he moved his hands up her thighs, bunching up her skirt. Damn he had always loved her legs, supple and strong and he knew he'd love them gripping his waist while he rocked against her.
She put her hands against his chest.
"I can't…it's wrong…we broke up. I walked away from you"
He grabbed her hands and held them together while looking into her eyes.
"It's never felt so right," he said, "I know you want me. You can't deny it can you?"
She sighed, wondering what this all meant to him. After all the man had lied to her about being out of the mob. Was he lying to her about his feelings?
He nudged her thighs open with his body, and ran his hands over both inner thighs, stroking them, very persuasively. Her panties dampened in response to his ministrations. Damn he could be quite persuasive. Her body already had been sold but her mind, damn not to mention something called her heart, where deep down inside it she harbored feelings for Julian but no way would she act on him. After all they were through.
Except when she lay quietly alone in her bed at night and her mind wandered to where it had been forbidden to go during daylight hours. She remembered what Sam had once told her about choosing to embrace the love of one's life even if they lived a lifestyle she disagreed with. Sam had made that choice with Jason up to the point his violent profession had ended that life.
Julian must have caught a glimpse of that desire etched on her face just now, when he had her where he wanted her on the damn conference table. Because his hands remained around her own, keeping her captive some might call it. But his eyes looked directly into hers without blinking, and she felt herself unable to move away.
Oh he definitely had that effect on her and he knew it. She just wished she weren't so transparent in how he got under her skin as deftly as he'd gotten his hands underneath her skirt.
"Oh there's every reason Julian," she said, "It'll mess everything up. You know why I walked away from you. You lied to me about quitting the mob when the whole time it was all about you assuming the leadership position from Ric."
He sighed, releasing her hands. She saw him flinch a bit at the mention of her odious ex's name but then his face relaxed again.
"That doesn't mean we can't be together. You know you want that."
She almost…but no she shook her head and knew they needed to get to their opposite corners before anything happened.
If only to cool themselves off before they did something totally reckless, that couldn't be taken back again. Alexis envied Julian's ability like most men to compartmentalize different sections of his life so they didn't overlap in any messy ways. On the other hand, her entire life was a haphazard pile of overlapping the parts of it she'd tried to keep separate from one another. She wanted him but knew she couldn't have him so that meant she had to keep her distance.
His hands moved towards her blouse and began to fidget with the damn buttons, but she noticed his hands shook a little as he tried to undo them one at a time.
"Julian what are you doing?"
"I think it's obvious…"
She knew that too but her head flooded with all the reasons why they couldn't sex it up on the conference table, only they were slipping away from her at the moment. Because damn it, she wanted it and she wanted him.
"You know you want it too Alexis…"
Oh, that pissed her off, she had forgotten that Julian would use sex to seduce a woman into doing what he wanted. He had used that on Carly to find out on info about his enemy Sonny while he'd been posing as Derek Wells. She wasn't going to wind up like Carly. It didn't make sense because she knew on some level he did love her but when she'd walked away from him, he'd tried to reel her back…while still remaining the unrepentant mobster.
She put her hands up on his chest.
"Stop," she said, "and I mean it Julian."
He did, he knew what the word, 'no' meant after all but it didn't mean the urge to discover what she kept hidden under her clothes hadn't gone away. Hardly, he still kept much of his weight on the balls of his feet, but he did back off. He always respected her boundaries even if he tried to negotiate past them.
"Okay, what's wrong?"
She just sighed heavily.
"This…like I said, okay we do it on the conference table and that everything will go back to being the same."
He had an answer for that but then he usually did for everything.
"We're alone in the suite," he said, "Everyone else has left for the day and they're out having fun which we could be having and you know it's much more than that."
Damn him, those words came quickly enough and she knew he wasn't interested in casual. That scared her all the more.
"I don't think we should be doing this," she said, "I just can't. I told you why and I've got a family to protect."
His brow arched.
"I told you I'd protect our family…and I meant it. I killed to protect it remember?"
She did remember but her definition of family might be different than his own. She had two daughters besides the one sired by him. She'd kill or die to protect any one of them, no matter who their father might be.
She just looked at him, reproachfully.
"Okay then what am I after we…have sex? A part of your family again? Someone you might protect?"
He paused for a while and she really thought she had him there. Maybe it had been all about him wanting to recapture the lustful interaction of their youth. Any love that might have sprung up between them since might not have much to do with it. For her, it hadn't just been words. She struggled to tell those she loved that she did love him. Julian, he'd been different from other men but had that been the truth really?
Now he looked at her in a way almost tender and a hand reached out to coax a strand of hair out of her face.
"You'll be the woman that I love," he said simply, "Afterward and beyond that. Come on, you want me too. I know that you love me too."
She sighed. He did have her there but after everything that happened, she felt the need to shield herself.
"Don't flatter yourself Julian," she said, "My list might not be as long as yours but I've had my share of men."
"Not like me…"
Her defenses fell flat.
"No…none like you…"
"So are you... why can't you just go with it? Why do we have to be apart?"
Her words in response were cut off by something more powerful, his mouth which he brushed over her lips, much more gently than earlier. It almost felt like the flutter of something soft, if insistent, and just the faintest trace of his tongue, coaxing its way inside of her mouth. She closed her eyes because who wouldn't be drawn into a silky smooth as honey kind of kiss like this man brought. But if she waited…it would become more potent, more pressing and then she'd lose control…
"Julian…"
Since his lips still covered hers, only a murmur emerged and he took that as encouragement, prompting to deepen his assault on her mouth, because she really meant to stop him, really she did but oh….where did that slow burning sensation come from, the one that radiated from her lips to…other places.
He broke his kiss and focused on other areas of her face, around her mouth and her jaw line. Each one felt different against her flushed skin. Alternating tender, with tawdry the man had great skills. She knew first hand that this was the truth.
Well no more but shouldn't she be pulling away from him, telling him how wrong it was like she had just been doing…maybe when she got her breath back and her heart stopped thudding inside her head.
This time when he started in on her blouse buttons again, she didn't say anything, as one by one she felt the stillness of the air find enough energy to caress her exposed skin. His eyes widened when he saw what lay underneath.
"Damn my favorite color…but anything you wear is my favorite…"
Her skin flushed further at that thought…when Julian had gotten the buttons out of the way to slide his hands inside her blouse where he met smooth, supple skin and tantalizing silk and lace.
"Julian really we can't and you know why…"
He continued to kiss her and somehow she managed to keep breathing but when he rubbed her breasts with his fingers while grasping them, it made her want to throw her head back. Only her lips couldn't seem to separate from his and the light stubble of his jaw line tickled her.
"Oh god…"
Somehow that managed to slip out and wasn't it the truth, she thought because she felt so damn good right now.
Then his mouth left hers and she swallowed quickly, knowing where his lips would wind up next and then…
She gasped, as she felt the tickling sensation of his tongue on one of her nipples, playing with it, circling it as it peaked and ripened. She felt herself spinning because how did he know how much she liked that? Oh wait; didn't most women love breast play from their men?
Stop asking questions, she chastised herself and just enjoy the moment. And when he gently and slowly sucked one of her nipples inside his mouth and the moist heat that awaited there, surrounding it…she nearly jumped off the table but he'd moved his hands to hold her still for him.
He changed breasts but not his ministrations, tonguing her until she couldn't stand it, then making love with her body with that mouth.
Damn he was good and she couldn't help herself.
Then she heard a bell ring and she knew they were no longer alone. She pushed him away from her.
"Julian someone's here to see me."
He gazed at her still in the moment.
"Can't they wait?"
She shook her head.
"It could be a client," she said, "or a vendor. I need to see them."
He nodded finally and detangled himself from her reluctantly. He adjusted his clothes while she did likewise.
"We still need to settle on this date."
She shook her head.
"I can't do that with you. It's over between us."
Julian adjusted his shirt, so sure that they'd get together again.
"It's just dinner Alexis."
She ran a hand through her mussed up hair.
"It's never just that between us."
He couldn't answer that not able to deny it as part of his smooth talk. Alexis buttoned what she could of her blouse and slowed her breathing down.
"Now I have to greet my client as if nothing's happened."
He just grunted fixing his own clothes.
"You know that's not true Alexis…"
She shrugged at him hiding her own vulnerability.
"I don't know any other way to be Julian. Now excuse me…."
She'd been excited at the thought of attracting new clients as part of this new direction in her legal career but Julian, he had a way of making it clear that he wanted her…even when it could never be.
The guest at the door surprised her.
"Nikolas?"
He looked relieved to see her.
"I didn't mean to just drop by and interrupt your work but I needed to talk to you."
She heard the concern in his voice.
"What is it Nikolas?"
He sighed before answering.
"Stavros. He's still alive."
Just then Julian entered the lobby to hear that news.
"Stavros, what do you mean he's still alive?"
Both Alexis and Nikolas looked at him.