Chapter 5 - Helen's House
When they pulled up to the petite, one-story house, Helen was already at the door, waiting for a hug with her arms outstretched. James lingered near the car, getting Juliet's suitcase and the rest of the clothes they'd purchased out of the trunk, while Juliet made her way up the front walk.
"It's so good to see youuu," Helen rocked her cousin in a big hug, then held Juliet at arm's length. "Please tell me you finally left that piece of shit husband of yours."
Juliet smiled brightly. "Actually, I did."
"No shit?!" Helen was shocked, then elated. Then she noticed the man fetching Juliet's bags from the car. "And who is that?" she asked from the side of her mouth.
"That's…James." Juliet glanced shyly over her shoulder. "I met him a few days ago. He's helping me through the heartbreak of my pending divorce."
Helen chuckled wryly. "Of course he is."
"Is that Juliet?" said a curious male voice from inside the house. A man in a wheelchair rolled up behind Helen. She stepped aside, hand on her hip, so he could get a look. He smiled big when he saw the blonde on their doorstep.
"Hey, handsome." Juliet smiled back.
John made a show of peering around her, and whispered, "Edmund's not with you, is he?"
"Nope. He's been replaced." Helen murmured right before James reached the doorstep.
"Oh, good! Come in, come in," John insisted, wheeling himself out of the way and gesturing for Helen to do the same. "Introduce us to your friend, Juliet."
Helen smirked and looked James up and down as he passed over the threshold, letting him know she knew the score and she didn't mind it one bit.
"You know I love you, Juliet. And I wish we lived closer to each other all the time. But I can't make myself believe that you driving all the way here from Los Angeles was a spur of the moment vacation."
They all sat in the living room, drinking margaritas from tumblers. John had picked fresh limes from the tree in their back yard when he heard they were coming. Now Helen wanted to know exactly why they were there.
"We need a favor." Juliet confessed.
"Let me guess." said Helen. "It's vehicular in nature."
Juliet smiled, not so much sheepish as she was relieved. Helen would help her no matter how bad it was.
Helen regarded Juliet with a serious You better tell me the whole truth look. "Are you in trouble?"
"No," Juliet assured her. "But a couple of new driver's licenses wouldn't hurt."
Helen turned to her husband. "What do you say, sweetie? Feelin' frisky? You wanna break the law for this sweet, innocent girl?"
John chuckled and finished a sip. "I can arrange it," he said, resting elbows on the arms of his wheelchair. "No problem."
"How about some records?" Juliet asked.
"Sure," John said easily. "What do you need?"
Helen smiled proudly. John would ride through fire for her, and he extended the same loyalty to her closest family. It was not the first time they'd used his position at the Department of Motor Vehicles to benefit themselves and the people they cared about.
"We're looking for someone," Juliet explained. "He might move around a lot, and go by different aliases."
"Ooh," John's eyebrows jumped, and he smiled. "A challenge."
Helen peeked at James while they spoke. Juliet's 'friend' sure was cute. And if he'd been given the honor of being Juliet's partner on a cross-country road trip, he had to be equally naughty.
"You're quiet," Helen remarked to James. "But you don't strike me as the shy type."
James sat back on the couch, his drink dangling between his legs.
"Not shy, no." James agreed. "I'm just not one to interrupt family business."
"Well, Juliet must like you a whole hell of a lot. She doesn't bring just anyone to meet us."
James looked at Juliet. The softness of his smile spoke volumes when she returned his subtle look. He liked her a whole hell of a lot too.
"Are you the one that needs a new driver's license?" Helen asked him point-blank.
"It'll be my first." he answered sheepishly.
"Do you have a social security number?" Helen followed up quickly.
"Ya know, that's a funny story too…"
"Don't worry about all that stuff, honey." John assured his wife. "I'll make do without it. I'm more interested in hearing about what these two have been up to." He gestured to Juliet and James with an impish smile. "How did you meet?"
James waited for Juliet to take the lead on this one. His life was in her hands. Just how much did she trust her cousin?
"James needed a ride home from the bank," Juliet began. "Edmund and I just happened to be stopped outside."
"So you met Edmund?" Helen asked, eyebrows raised.
"Briefly." said James, raising his glass to his mouth for a big, cleansing gulp of tequila.
"I always hated him." John remarked idly.
"I should have listened to you." Juliet admitted with an appreciative smile.
"At least he was rich." Helen shrugged. "I would have stopped the wedding if it wasn't for that."
"I appreciate that, Helen." Juliet said dryly. Helen wrinkled her nose and raised her glass to her sarcastic cousin.
"So you stole Juliet right from under Edmund's nose, huh?" John asked James.
"It was over his nose…" said James, remembering Edmund as he left him, curled up on the pavement. "If you want to get technical. But yeah," James smirked at Juliet. "I guess I did."
Helen and John stole a glance, letting each other know they both saw how James and Juliet looked at each other.
"It's good to know romance isn't dead." Helen said jokingly, though her sarcastic tone had warmth in it too.
"Best carjacking I've ever experienced." Juliet slipped in while everyone was quiet.
John laughed into his margarita. "That's a new one."
"Oh, Juliet." Helen shook her head in mock dismay. "You were never meant for that quiet, normal life, were you?"
James shrugged confessionally. "Now you see why a real driver's license wouldn't do me much good. Not with my record…"
Juliet could see in James' eyes, when she saw his sheepishly amused reaction, that she was owed a good spanking for that one.
"How permanent do these new licenses need to be?" John asked. He wheeled over to a desk set against the opposite wall, and opened the laptop that sat charging there.
"We want to travel internationally," Juliet told him. "But we'll take whatever you can give us."
"Let's see who's working tomorrow…" John murmured as he logged into his work profile.
"You do this often?" James asked.
"What, forging legal documents?" John flashed a sly smile. "Not really. Just for family in need. Especially the pretty ones."
"Isn't he the sweetest?" Helen asked the room.
Juliet smiled at John. "If I wasn't so terrified of Helen, I'd steal you for myself."
"Pfft." Helen rolled her eyes. "One night with you, he'd probably start walking again just to get away."
James choked laughing on his drink hearing that.
Helen smirked and gestured at James with her glass. "He knows what I'm talking about."
"Oh," James cleared his throat as he recovered. "I do," he said, filling it with enough suggestion to get her back for letting the details of their first meeting slip.
Juliet took a big gulp of her margarita, lips puckered around the sour lime to hide a big smile.
"You can stay in Boone's room," Helen told them later, after dinner. "He's off at college. At least, we hope. Haven't heard from him in a bit, but he's all grown up now. Lord knows that didn't keep us out of trouble…"
His room contained all the trappings of a teenage boy. School pendants, trophies and books still sat on his messy shelves, along with action figures and poorly hidden pornography.
"Sorry about the mess," said Helen. "Boone made me swear I wouldn't touch anything. But I did put fresh linens on the bed."
"Thank you." Juliet told her with palpable relief. "For everything."
"Anything for you." Helen kissed her cousin's cheek, smiling warmly at her. Helen looked at James next. "You be good to her," she warned him.
"My life is hers to command," he promised.
John took medications that had him knocked out by ten o'clock. Helen didn't stay up much later.
Once they were alone, Juliet closed the door to Boone's bedroom and turned to James. She watched him survey the contents of the boy's teenage years. There didn't seem to be anything older than that.
"They adopted him when he was twelve," Juliet explained. "One of the reasons they moved out here. To get him away from the trouble he was in, in Tustin."
"Hm." James half-smiled at the spattering of notebooks and half finished school work left on the small desk. "Your family has a habit of saving wayward boys."
"We have a type."
"And I didn't even know your type existed."
James came back to where she stood in the middle of the room. She slipped her arms around his waist, and held back from kissing him like she wanted to. He was looking at her with a warmth and thoughtfulness she wasn't sure she could comprehend.
"What are you thinking?" she asked.
His eyes darted around the room, as if its usual occupant might jump out at any moment.
"It's home-y." he said.
"Does it make you uncomfortable?"
"No. It's just a different vibe, is all. Compared to the last few days."
"See? I'm not all fancy restaurants and bank heists."
"You're full of surprises." James tilted his head, stealing a kiss. "All kinds."
He kissed her again, and Juliet looked up at him with a playfully innocent expression. She glanced at Boone's book shelf, then back at James.
"You want to look for his dirty magazines?"
James smiled smugly, looking down at her body. She was actually in jeans and a t-shirt today.
"Why would I bother," he said, pulling at the bottom of her t-shirt. "When I got the real thing right in front of me?"
Juliet released his waist, allowing him to lift the shirt over her head. He looked at her breasts, levitating in her bra.
"You got me ruined for anything else."
She smiled at his words, and when he pushed her gently by the waist toward the bed.
He laid her down and kissed her neck, taking his time now that they had some to themselves. He traced a line with his tongue to the tops of her breasts, his hand touching her between her legs, over her jeans.
Juliet lifted her chin as he made his way up the other side of her neck.
"Major adolescent energy in here," she murmured, poking fun at how safe he was playing. James chuckled and pulled his face away from her neck, so he could prop himself up on one elbow. Juliet hooked a leg over his waist. She hadn't meant to stop him. But something was on his mind. He'd pulled his hand away too, resting it on her thigh. He squeezed her there, not letting go entirely.
"I gotta level with you," he said. "Before your family does anything illegal for me."
Juliet stroked the side of his face, her thumb tracing along his jawline.
"You don't have to." said Juliet.
"I do." James took her hand in his, giving her palm a kiss. "This still feels like a dream I don't want to wake up from. But if it's real, I can't take you where we're going with your eyes closed."
James placed her hand against his neck. It was time for the story; the one he couldn't tell at their fancy dinner.
Juliet's reasoning for letting him off the hook was the same as his; she didn't want their dream to end. If things got too deep, it could break the spell. But James needed to get this off of his chest. So she curled up on her side to listen.
"There are two guys, they were already criss-crossing all over the south when I came up. Gordy - he's nothing to mess with, but mostly a normal guy. You can trust him to be up front about things. He just wants his money at the end of the day. The other one, Hibbs…he'll find ways to hurt you, if he needs to. Or if he wants to. Part of me thinks he enjoys it. I learned my lesson with him a few times."
Juliet's sharp blue eyes were on him, her hand resting lightly against his chest as she listened.
"Neither of them were the top guys. But they were the guys everyone talked to. They knew everyone and everything that was going on. It was hard to make a deal without both of them knowing about it. And impossible to deal without one of them being directly involved."
"But you tried?" Juliet guessed.
"Yeah. I tried to go around 'em. When I realized I fucked up, I doubled down and pitted 'em against each other. A couple of guys that had nothing to do with it got caught in the middle, based on some lies I told to save my own ass. It got 'em killed."
He couldn't look into her eyes when he said that part. His gaze lingered on her hip and the smooth side of her abdomen, arcing up to meet the fabric of her bra.
"Did you know them?" Juliet pushed gently without judgment.
"No. Just something I heard about secondhand, after the fact. They weren't innocent; nobody blinked an eye when they turned up dead. But still. They should have bought it on account of their own actions. Not mine."
"Is that why you left?"
"Not right away. The right people started putting it all together, sniffing out my part in the fallout. Once that got back to me…let's just say I was lucky to get out, and I haven't been back since."
Now she understood his trepidation. The closer they got to their destination, the more his hesitation grew. It wasn't only that he felt responsible; it was that people there might still hold him responsible, too.
It was pretty heavy stuff. James looked at Juliet, and felt her lying next to him, relaxed in his arms. She hadn't tensed. She hadn't moved away. All she needed to know was what he wanted to do about it.
"We can turn around." she said after a long moment. "Go back to California. Or Mexico."
James smiled appreciatively. "Antarctica?"
"Way too cold." she said without missing a beat.
"Naw, you're right." James ran his hand through Juliet's loose hair, pushing it gently from her face. "But we've come this far. And I've been feeling kind of invincible, ever since I met you."
He liked the way she smiled when he said that.
"You have to be," she said. "I don't think I could live without you at this point."
"Then I won't go anywhere." James promised. "I just don't want you caught up in the wake of another one of my fuck-ups."
"James. I can get away with a lot. And anything I can't get away with, I can pay my way out."
Aw, shucks . James smiled as if she'd called him cute. "You'd pay them off for me?"
"I'd give up all of my money, if it came to that."
"Don't do that," James scolded her. "You can't give up your hotel suites and fancy cocktails." He leaned closer, his hand on her hip sliding lower to grip her ass. "And all those designer clothes…" he added, giving her ass a squeeze.
Juliet happily snuggled closer. "I can't keep my clothes on around you anyway, so what does it really matter?"
"It matters," said James. He kissed her lips. "I like you the way you are."
He kissed her again, this time on her cheek.
"Rich and beautiful…"
James nuzzled her earlobe, and kissed her neck.
"Sexy as fuck…"
Juliet stroked his chest over his snug t-shirt, sliding her hand upward to put a soft grip on his neck. He tongued her cleavage before working his way back up to her mouth.
"A little crazy…"
"Only a little?" Juliet asked.
"One hundred percent wild, baby."
Juliet kissed his lips before he had a chance to plant another one on her himself. Capturing his bottom lip between her teeth, she bit softly before letting go.
"So we're still on?" she asked sweetly.
James shrugged, at a loss for any other option.
"I told you what could happen," he said. "If that don't scare you off, I don't know what will."
"Nothing." Juliet murmured the word against his lips before she gave him another kiss. Her grip on him tightened, and her hand slid up into the hair above the nape of his neck.
James pressed his lips to hers, growling deep in his chest. Their kiss ended with a smack, and he smiled down at her.
"And I can't resist the idea of sneaking up on Montgomery and getting back what he owes me."
Juliet smiled up at him and tilted her head so she could see him straight on.
"Does he think you're in jail right now?" she asked.
"He probably heard there were no arrests. Just a stolen car and no credible witnesses. He's probably wondering where the hell I am and how I got away."
"You're his bogeyman."
James' eyebrows jumped and his smile turned mischievous. "It's kinda nice, being on the other side of that for a change."
Juliet slipped her arm around his waist, pulling his torso closer and pressing herself tight against him. She asked for deeper kisses, and James gave her his tongue eagerly. The next time they came up for air, the energy had shifted.
"I really want to fuck you." Juliet whispered.
"Mmm." James kissed her again. "I want you to fuck me, too."
"I don't want to be quiet, though." Juliet said, deadpan with her teasing. "I want to go wild. I want you to make me scream."
"Should have gotten us a hotel room." James teased back.
He slid his hand over her stomach, finding the button of her jeans with his fingers. He pulled harshly at it, rocking her body and making her brace herself on him. With the zipper down, James stuffed his hand down her pants and made contact with bare skin.
Juliet pressed her lips together, breathing a sighing moan out through her nose.
"You worried your cousin will hear us?" James taunted her, gripping her tightly between her legs. "She already knows you're naughty…"
"Mnnh," Juliet groaned, grabbing his wrist and doing nothing to stop him. "This is the only place on earth," she whispered quickly. "Where I actually give a fuck about offending the people who live here."
"I got you to keep quiet in that restaurant."
"I was motivated," Juliet reminded him.
James chuckled, smirking softly. "I know how to keep us both quiet."
James pulled his hand out of her jeans, pulling her waist one way and directing her legs the other.
"We gotta get naked first," he explained.
He pulled her bottoms off as efficiently as possible. It was Juliet's sudden laughter that threatened to wake her family on the other side of the small house. She got rid of her bra while James stripped himself down. He was on her again the second he was free, pulling her on top of him, laying on his back while he directed her limbs where he wanted them.
"Oh…" she said, pleasantly surprised at the position she found herself taking, on her hands and knees above him.
"Uh huh." James confirmed.
Juliet giggled. Her thighs framed his head, and his cock stared her in the face. She gave it a lollipop lick, and flipped her hair to her left shoulder so she could tease the head with her lips.
James grabbed her ass with both hands, burying his face in the pussy that made his mouth water and his dick hard every time he thought about it. He knew she'd have to stuff her mouth to keep herself from calling out.