"I like the way you think." And before Jenny could so much as say 'Abracadabra!' there was a bowl of whipped crème in front of them. Julian retrieved another strawberry and dipped it into the bowl and held it just out of reach above Jenny's head so she was forced to crane her neck back. The blanket fell off her shoulders, forgotten. Then he 'accidentally' dropped the strawberry so it tumbled down Jenny's front, leaving a trail of whipped crème in its wake.
"Oh my gosh!" she exclaimed, bolting upright. Turning to Julian she saw the look of glee on his face and narrowed her eyes at him. "You did this on purpose, didn't you?"
"Who, me?" he replied with such an exaggerated look of innocence that Jenny couldn't help but laugh.
"Very funny. Now I have to go clean this off."
"Oh allow me," he said, his voice dropping in timbre with each word. Then he bent over her and proceeded to lick the first spot of whipped crème within reach. Jenny arched into him and sighed loudly.
"I like the way you think."
He grinned and moved to the next spot, working his way up and down her body. She giggled when his tongue hit an especially sensitive spot and bit her lip to keep from crying out when he licked the cup of her bra. By the time he was done 'helping' her clean up she was writhing underneath him and they were both breathing heavily.
She curled her leg around his, trailing her foot up his calf muscle. Jenny went to work on the buttons of his shirt, smiling against his lips when Julian decided to help her by ripping the shirt open, sending the buttons flying in every direction. She let her fingers trail down his neck to his chest, where she splayed them over the smooth skin. She bent to kiss the hollow at the base of his throat and when her tongue darted out to taste him it was Julian's turn to sigh in contentment.
"This is heaven," he murmured.
"I couldn't agree more," she replied.
He bent his head so there foreheads were resting against one another. They took a few moments to catch their breath and gaze into each other's eyes.
"So why the extra dose of romance tonight?" Jenny asked.
"What do you mean?"
Jenny rolled her eyes.
"The strawberries. The tux. The dress. Was there something special you had planned for tonight? Something we're celebrating that you're going to let me in on?"
He tilted his head back and laced his fingers around her neck, using his thumbs to caress her jaw line in slow circles.
"You are what we're celebrating tonight. We're celebrating how sexy you are, how wonderful I feel when I'm with you. We're celebrating the time we've been granted together, and our gratitude for that time and for each other."
One of the definite pluses for having a boyfriend who was older than millennia was the lines he had picked up along the way. They were smooth, that's for sure, and melted Jenny into a puddle when he said them with that look in his eyes reserved only for her. She leaned in and kissed him, a slow soft kiss that soon turned into a heated embrace.
"Plus," Julian said later, as if he had never stopped talking, "You have finals coming up and the slumber party tomorrow night."
"So?"
"Well you're probably planning on staying up all night at the slumber party and then you'll most likely pull a few all-nighters for finals, right?"
"It could happen, sure. Why?" Then it hit her. "Oh no! I won't see you!"
He chuckled.
"So I wanted to give you some nice memories to help get you through the next few days."
"I like the sound of that," she replied, "But how about a little sample of what you've got in store for me when I get back?"
"And what makes you think I've got anything in mind?" he said with a smile.
"Because you've obviously been thinking ahead and planning for a while. So let me in on the secret."
He pretended to consider her request and laughed when she pouted up at him. He leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose.
"Well maybe I do have something special planned. But it's a surprise."
"Come on, give me a hint!"
"Okay. It has to do with you, me, and a Jacuzzi."
She thought about that prospect for a moment, allowing all the delicious images to come forth.
"Yeah, I could get on board with that," She finally said in a throaty voice.
"Good. I'll be waiting for you," he replied, laughter evident in his tone. "But for now you better wake yourself up. You've got a long day ahead of you."
"Trying to get rid of me, are you?" she teased.
"Never in a million years." He denied.
"Okay I'll go. But I can't promise not to fall asleep and dream about you unexpectedly."
"I'll take my chances."
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And regretfully her eyes opened and she was once again in her own bed. Looking at the clock she realized with a groan that it was a full 45 minutes earlier than her normal wake-up time. Throwing the covers back she stumbled out of bed and gathered her things for a quick shower. Realizing that she wasn't fighting anyone for bathroom time since it was so early made her smile and she decided to run a bath instead. Adding all sorts of salts and gels whose scents made her little brother gag Jenny stripped down and plunged into the water, sighing in bliss as the heat slowly began to work its way into her skin.
"Hey mom," she greeted as she made her way to the refrigerator to grab the orange juice a little while later.
"You're up early. How are you feeling this morning?"
With a glance at the clock she smiled.
"I guess I am up early. But I want to get to school. I talked to Summer last night. She said I didn't miss anything too vital, just review stuff, but I want to make sure. Oh, and I'm feeling better. I'm thinking it was just the stress of all the stuff that's been happening. I'm just glad it didn't happen during finals…that would have stressed me out beyond belief."
"Well you better pack some extra food like another piece of fruit today, just to be sure."
Jenny promptly choked, her mind being called back to last night with the mere mention of fruit. She covered her coughing fit well.
She just shook her head at her mom's comments. Like a piece of fruit would help cure anything and everything? Gimme a break! But she said nothing aloud and just did as her mom asked, having learned long ago that her parents were sometimes easiest to get along with when she just went along with their crazy notions. After all, she had matured enough to realize that those suggestions came from a place of love and concern for her.
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Thankfully classes were so filled with endless review information that Jenny didn't have time to be accosted by any of her friends regarding her absence until lunch. Most of them simply mouthed an "Are you okay?" to which she replied with the obligatory thumbs-up sign.
As she sat down at "their" table it was Tom who turned to her.
"Where were you yesterday?"
Jenny took a moment to reflect on the fact that back in the old days Tom wouldn't have been amongst the last to know of one of her absences from school. He definitely wouldn't have waited until he saw her the next time to ask her about it, that's for sure.
"Well I was feeling a little flushed and went to the nurse's office to see if she had a cold pack for me to use during lunch but she insisted on taking my temperature and once she saw that had a slight fever she made me lie down…"
"So you spent the afternoon snoozing in the nurse's office? Nice. I wish I had thought of that." Michael interjected with such a wistful sigh that it was hard not to laugh.
Audrey smacked his arm and turned to Jenny, who was laughing like everyone else.
"And nothing's wrong, right?"
Jenny simply smiled and shook her head at Audrey. She barely resisted the urge to say "No, Mom, I'm fine. Want to see my extra piece of fruit to prove it?"
"Great! So we're still on for tomorrow night then, right?"
Dee cheerfully announced with a look around that table which clearly meant that this particular topic of conversation was over.
"Oui, mon chere. So do you need us to bring anything?" Audrey questioned.
"Nope, I sure don't," Dee replied and then looked at Jenny and Summer who had yet to respond. "You guys are still coming over, aren't you?" After receiving the nods she was looking for she went back to her salad.
A companionable silence fell over the group and Jenny decided she may as well break the news now, instead of later. The longer she put it off the worse it was going to look.
"Hey guys, I've got some news."
All eyes swiveled to fix themselves on Jenny. Her own eyes widened in response. She suddenly felt like she was on trial.
"What is it?" Summer asked breaking the silence the staring had caused.
"Well I got accepted for this camp counselor position for the summer."
"I didn't know you were even looking into getting a summer job," Dee said in a voice that didn't quite manage to disguise the underlying disappointed tone.
And we're off…Jenny thought.
"Well I was interested for a while but I didn't decide to do anything about it until last week." Here she looked around at her friends and saw to her dismay that none of them were looking her in the eye.
"I just felt like doing something that would help me decide what to do with the rest of my life," she continued, although her friends' discomfort with the situation caused her voice to tremble a bit, "And this opportunity came up and it sounded like a pretty neat thing. So I took a chance and got accepted. I only found out about my acceptance the day before yesterday and my folks and I just finished making the decision last night."
"What camp is it?" Tom inquired. Jenny shot him a grateful look. At least he was trying to learn more. That was a sign of support, right?
"Camp Penwick."
"Oh. Well that's not that far away." Dee said, brightening considerably.
"No, it's not," Jenny agreed, "I'm sure you guys can come and visit. In fact I'll be insulted if you don't!"
"Road trip!" Michael yelled and they all laughed, the tension having dissolved almost magically.
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Disclaimer: Still living in the Land Where I Own None of LJS' Characters. But you will be the first to get my change of address card if I move.
Author's Note: Sorry about the delay with this chapter. I wasn't feeling it for the longest time. But anyhoo here it is. If you appreciate Star Wars and a good parody go over and check out Kiya-Kenobi's fics. And if you like a good fairy tale and are familiar with LJS' Night World series go over and check out Shadow's story: "Night World: A Fairy Tale." And now I must thank my lovely reviewers.
Amber Evans Potter, Julian and Jenny—Jenny, hope this chapter coerced you into allowing Julian back into your good graces? If not I hope the promise of the Jacuzzi will help you at least give poor Amber a break. Amber—I am going to try to keep Jenny happy. Julian—tsk, tsk. All these women fighting over you…looks behind shoulder for Jenny if it weren't for the fact that I know Jenny's your soulmate I would take you up on your offer to talk in private and I would do my best to eventually even talk. But that was a pretty low trick to play on Amber…I bet she had nightmares for weeks! Maybe you should do something to make it up to her?
Agggghhhhh—Welcome to my circle of reviewers! I'm so glad you found this site and are enjoying it…will we see any stories from you? Let me know and I'll be happy to check them out! Your review—wow! I mean, wow! It was so chock-full of feed-my-ego goodness that I'm still on a high from reading it! So thank you for taking the time to find, read, and review my story…I certainly appreciate you doing so! Thank you for making my day brighter!
Venus Smurf—Glad my command to Jenny left you cheering. I certainly intend to keep her horizontal as often as possible. I hope your finals went well? After reading your A/N from "Roommate" I'm guessing it'll be waaayyy past the appropriate time for me to ask but I wanted you to know I was thinking of you during your finals anyway. And if I could make a Julian for you I would. You know that, right?
Of course you're right on about Jenny missing her chance to spill the beans about camp with Summer. I decided to just have her wait until she got everybody together. Seemed like the fairest way to do things. I mean back in the day she would have told Tom but loser, er, um, I mean Tom is out of the picture so maybe subconsciously Jenny felt that telling someone else before Tom would be a betrayal of sorts. So she's better off dropping the bomb on everyone.
I should have consulted your review before writing this chapter, that's for sure. Dee might be able to put the hurt on anyone who disagreed but I think she's a little bit sensitive about the changes and stuff they're all going through and so maybe she wouldn't react the way Jenny would want.
So to bottom-line it: Jenny took the coward's way out.
Dee definitely had some problems with Julian. And that may come into play when they all learn about his existence. But I join you in the shuddering: she must be converted into one of the believers!
I'm sure there are people out there who wouldn't mind Jenny/Julian "encounters" for the whole story, bypassing any semblance of a plot whatsoever but I need her to get to the slumber party. So she's going to go through withdrawal, and take all of us along for the ride, too.
Yes, between the two of us we can definitely make a play for Julian and try to untangle him from Jenny's web…if we get our sleep patterns set so one of us is on days, one on nights he would never ever be lonely again! What a deal! He would jump at the chance to be with us I'm sure!
Glad you liked that I left him partially dressed in his tux. Made it that much sexier for me, and I do agree, he can't get any sexier.
Sorry that you were only able to find strawberries. I shared in your sense of disappointment when my own search failed to produce any form of Julian in my refrigerator either.
Are you sure you want me to stop with the images of Julian, hot fudge, strawberries, and whatever else makes your mind go straight to the gutter? Because I will, for you and only for you. I don't think there's anyone else out there who could convince me--reads next paragraph again Oh ok. Thank goodness!
"It's definitely worth becoming a tomato if I can read this!" hee hee hee! Oh boy that left me laughing! I talk about doing my impression of a tomato so I could definitely relate!
Sorry you don't watch Law and Order: Criminal Intent but I'm doing my best to just write it as a stand alone story that you don't have to have seen a single episode to understand it. I introduce the characters by their full names and stuff so you at least get a sense of the background (I hope).
If you have seen the series you would recognize references to a few things from some eppys and of course you would be able to tell me if I'm so far into Out Of Character-ness that it's a disgrace to ppl everywhere who worship the show but that's about it. Not too much at all.
Happy to read that you're not a member of the undead. Sorry to read that you think you're scarier looking at 3:00 a.m. than Count D would ever be…somehow I doubt it's true.
I really, really, REALLY adore you, too! You have to know that by now.
I'm so sorry that your little brother fried your computer…bless you for not killing him dead.
Please tell your friend whose computer you used a few things for me:
1) I am so grateful to her that she considers you such a good friend that she would sacrifice sleep to allow you to log on
2) Said act of kindness on her part qualifies as a huge deposit in the old Karma Bank so she's probably due for something big and positive!
3) I appreciate her willingness to read over your shoulder and I thank her most humbly for the compliment
So I am trying to hypnotize myself into forgetting that I ever read your earlier stories but it just won't stick. Maybe it has something to do with my heart not being in it or the thought that you're crazy for thinking they're horrible running through my head. Who knows?
I am definitely going to miss reading your reviews for a while…what am I going to do without your support?
I'm going to do my best to just write as well as I can and hope that the time passes quickly. I hope your summer goes well, that your life isn't too hectic and that YOU continue to write while you're sans computer! I could live without hearing from you ever again if I knew it meant that I could read updates from you! I miss you already!
ArchAngel pixxistixx4me—Heavens to mergatroid? I say that all the time! How funny is that? Well I find it funny, at least. Sorry this update didn't come in time to help you avoid your math project but maybe it can distract you from studying for finals? Sorry for turning you into a little blob of goo, btw!
Sunshine—Yeah I needed to have a sundae after writing the last chapter, it was too much. Thanks for taking the time to let me know you're out there! Glad you've enjoyed the story so far!
Angel—Aww thanks! I appreciate that you took the time to write, and I'll try to get in some longer chapters just for you!
Shadow—Thanks so much for taking the time to hit that old Go button. I hope you get some more face time with your computer soon…I know I tend to go into hives if I'm offline for too long. Glad you liked the last chapter, hope you enjoy this one, too!
melissarxy1—Thanks for your comments about the way I write our beloved Jenny's folks. I try to keep them in the story as realistically as possible. Glad you enjoyed the strawberries. Thanks for reviewing!
Kyia-Kenobi—Well I'm glad you were looking out for an update from me. I hope this one makes you equally eager for more! Thanks for checking in!
ArchAngel pixxistixx4me—So you are turning Canadian, eh? Well I suppose it could be worse. Thanks for the virtual cookies, btw! They are much appreciated. I'm sorry if the last chapter seemed to end too soon, I'll try to do better. The teaser for Easter sounds great…I can't wait!
Clare—hey there! Thanks so much for reviewing! Yours are always so nice to read and make me grin. Thank you thank you thank you!