Page 77 of Entirely Yours
“Surely what?”
My head falls onto his chest. “Shirley. That’s my middle name.”
Jules hand comes under my chin, forcing my eyes up to his. “Thea Shirley Rose. You are not a burden. Chloe is not a burden. Hank is not a burden. Understood?”
I nod.
“Words, Thea. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Julien. Understood.” I stick my tongue out at him, and he returns my sass by nipping at my bottom lip. His hand slides to my ass, squeezing gently as he takes my mouth with his.
His kiss is a promise, a declaration.
He drags me further and further in with each swipe of his tongue against mine. After a few minutes my hands get a mind of their own, reaching down to unbutton Jules’ jeans.
“Woah there, Rosie girl.” He smirks. “Later, okay? I have to get back to work and so do you.”
I groan, wanting to continue down the path we were going.
He laughs, planting one more kiss on my lips. “Have you eaten?”
I shake my head, realizing I haven’t eatenandI never made it to the craft store.
“C’mon.” We go back to the coffee shop where Jules fixes me a croissant sandwich and makes me sit down to drink an entire glass of water before he lets me leave.
Despite everything weighing on me—the apartment and running into Melissa—I spend the rest of the day with a smile on my face.
I swing by Ben and Gabe’s apartment a few days later. I knock, waiting for one of them to answer while eyeing the door across the hall.
Thea still hasn’t said anything about her place being ready, and, after some thought and a little more sleep, I’m not keen to bring it up in case she decides she wants to move back in. I have made it as clear as I can that what I want is for the Roses to stay exactly where they are, but ultimately it’s up to her.
I’m lost in thought when the door swings open and—“Cole?”
“Julien. I was just leaving.” She looks like her normal mixture of mildly annoyed and cleverly observant.
Ben runs up behind her, shouting, “Wait!”
“Fuck off, Benjamin,” she calls, brushing past me, down the stairs, and out of sight.
We both stand there watching her for a moment. “What the hell was that about?”
“Nothing,”he replies.
Exasperated, I walk into the apartment. “I’m getting really damn tired of people keeping things from me.”
“Who else is keeping things from you?” Ben asks. But I don’t want to get into it either so I wave him off.
“Right… so you want me to talk but you don’t want to talk. I think there’s a word for that…” he muses.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m a hypocrite. Got it. Can I get to why I even came over here to begin with?”
He winks. “It wasn’t because you missed your favorite brother?”
“I heard that!” Gabe yells from the back.
“You come in here, too!” I call back. He wanders in wearing only his boxers. “Were you sleeping?” I check my watch. “At 5 PM?”
He stretches his arms up above his head. “I was trying to, but it was hard with Ben and Cole going at each other like cats and dogs.”
