Not Just Friends

Adam circled the table to Julia and reached for another scone, resting his hand on the small of her back. “Just one more,” he murmured.

She glanced at him, her gaze fixed on his mouth, and he knew instantly what she was thinking. Could he steal one more kiss without anyone noticing? “You know, I think I’ll wrap up a few of those scones to go.”

“I’ll get you a bag,” she said. Julia turned back to the kitchen and a few seconds later, Adam followed her through the door.

She spun around when she realized he was in the room with her, her hands braced against the edge of the work table. Adam slowly crossed to stand in front of her. She was so close, he could feel the heat from her body and hear her breath coming in quick gasps.

He slipped his hands around her waist and pulled her against him. Adam didn’t bother to ask. He could see what she wanted the moment their gazes met. His mouth came down on hers, and this time, there was no hesitation, no doubt about what it all meant.

They wanted each other and denying it was an exercise in futility. His tongued delved into the warm depths of her mouth and she responded eagerly, matching his desire in every way. Adam’s hand skimmed over her hips and he cupped her backside, drawing her even closer.

But there was a limit to what he could take from her before the evidence of his desire was on display for all to see. He stepped back, knowing if he went on, he’d need a cold shower or at least ten minutes alone to recover.

“I’ll see you later,” he said, letting his palm smooth across her back.

A smile touched the corners of her mouth. “Don’t you want your scones?”

Adam shook his head. “No. It will give me a chance to come back.

“Later,” she repeated.

When he reached the door, he glanced back to find her still standing where he’d left her, her hand pressed to her chest, her lips still damp from their kiss.

Adam strode through the dining room and out onto the porch. “It’s going to be a good day,” he said to Mason as they strolled out into the sunshine.

JULIA’S KNEES WOBBLED and she drew in a deep breath, trying to steady herself. But the rush of oxygen only made her dizzy. She stumbled to the sink and splashed some cold water on her face. Would she ever get accustomed to kissing him? Would the after-effects wear off more quickly the more they did it?

Since their kiss in the cabin, she hadn’t been able to think of anything else. She’d accidentally dropped two eggs, spilled a glass of orange juice and burned a batch of scones just reliving that moment. And now there was another moment to add to it.

She drew another breath. Though she’d dreamed about kissing him for years, she’d never expected it to have such a profound effect on her. The taste of his mouth, the warmth of his lips, the strength of his hands on her body, were enough singly to drive her to distraction. But combined, she was powerless to do anything but surrender.

When she was teenager, all her fantasies were colored with romance. But now, everything was about raw lust. His touch made her body ache from something more satisfying and she knew exactly what it was. Naked bodies, limbs entwined, searching mouths and soft sighs.

This was exactly what she’d dreamed about and now that it was happening, she wanted to remember every single moment. Slowly, she sank to the floor and closed her eyes. The taste of him was still on her lips and she smiled. Blindfolded, she could kiss a hundred strangers and recognize him.

She wanted to run and jump and scream, letting loose the wild emotions that coursed through her body. But Julia knew that for now, she had to keep her feelings to herself. This could last a day or two and then, just as suddenly as it began, it could be over. And the last thing she wanted to do was make a fool of herself.

And yet, it was so hard to believe it was real when she was the only one who knew about it. If she could tell Kate or Frannie, then maybe it wouldn’t seem so surreal. And maybe it wouldn’t frighten her so much.

There hadn’t been a man in her life that had made her feel this heady mix of elation and anticipation since—well, never. What would happen when she saw him next, when he touched her again?

“Jules?”

She looked up to find Kate standing beside her, the coffee carafe in her hands.

“What are you doing?” Kate asked.

“Nothing,” Julia said, scrambling to her feet. “Just … relaxing. I didn’t sleep very well last night.”

Kate sat down next to her. “Are you all right? You look a little flushed.” She pressed her palm to Julia’s forehead. “Are you getting sick?”

“No. It’s just the heat in the kitchen. The oven’s been on. I’m great, really.”

Kate sighed. “Sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever finish what needs to get done. With everything we cross off the top of the list, we add another two or three on the bottom.”

“So, we have to fix the screens on the cabins?”

“Don’t worry, it’s not that hard. It just takes time and patience. But we don’t have to get to work yet.”

“What are you guys doing in here?” Frannie said, wandering into the kitchen. She plopped down on the other side of Kate and leaned over to look at Julia. “Are you all right? Your face is all red.”

Julia clapped her hands to her cheeks. “Yes.”

“She’s just warm,” Kate explained. She sighed softly. “I can’t tell you how much we appreciate all your help. We just never could have done this alone. And hiring help is beyond our budget. Do you have any idea what plumbers cost these days?”

“It’s no problem,” Frannie said.

“I just want you to know that—”

“Stop,” Julia said, wrapping her arms around Kate’s shoulders. “We’re all here because we love this place and we love you.”

Kate pulled them both into a group hug. “I’m so glad we’re all back here, together.”

“We haven’t changed at all, have we, girls?” Frannie said, stretching her legs out in front of her. “But you know who’s gotten better with age?” She leaned over the table. “Adam. Oh, my God, I didn’t think he could get any hotter, but he has. Why hasn’t some woman snapped him up by now?”

“Maybe he’s gay,” Kate said. “Look at Derek and Steven. We never even suspected they were.”

“I don’t think he’s gay,” Julia said.

“How do you know?” Kate’s eyes went wide. “You two haven’t—”

“I saw him in Chicago once. On Michigan Avenue, walking down the sidewalk with this gorgeous blond woman. He was definitely into her. It was obvious. I think he just likes women too much to settle on one.”

“When a guy looks like that, I guess he can afford to play the field,” Kate said. “I still say the best thing to ever happen to Mason was his hairline receding. Marriage looks pretty good to a guy who thinks he’s going bald.”

Frannie scrambled to her feet. “We need to have a toast.”

“It’s too early to start drinking,” Julia said, getting to her feet. She reached out and pulled Kate up. “We should really wait until at least 1:00 a.m.”

“I was going to say noon,” Kate countered.

“We’re on vacation. We can start whenever we want,” Frannie said. She filled three glasses with orange juice and passed them out. “To Camp Winnehawkee. Friends forever.”

“It really is true,” Julia said. “Look at us. All these years have passed and we’re still friends. I don’t think I have any better friends than you two.”

“We really should get together more than once a year,” Frannie said. “After all, we don’t live that far apart.”

“Well, that’s about to change,” Julia said. She set her glass down on the prep table and took a deep breath. “I’m moving to Paris with Jean-Paul at the end of the summer.”

Her friends stared at her, mouths agape, as if she’d just sprouted horns and a tail. “With Jean-Paul? As in, you two are going together? As a couple?”

Julia shrugged. “I suppose there’s that possibility, but no. We’re going for professional reasons. He wants to compete in the M.O.F., so he’s going back to work there for a few years in his family’s patisserie. He asked if I wanted to come.”

Kate frowned. “What’s the M.O.F.?”

“The Meilleurs Ouvriers de France. When you’re certified M.O.F. that means you’re the best. He’s the only teacher at the Pastry School that doesn’t have the certification and that’s because he came to the U.S. when he was just out of school.”

“Are you going to live together?” Frannie asked.

“No. We’re not even going to work together at first. He’s set me up with a very famous pastry chef and I’m going to work in his shop.”

“For how long?” Frannie asked.

“I don’t know. It could be six months, a year. Two, if things go well. Or I could come back after a few weeks if they don’t.” Julia shrugged. “I just feel like I need a change in my life.”

Kate shook her head. “I don’t know, Jules. You had a romantic relationship with this guy a few years ago. As I remember, he wasn’t very nice to you. And now you’re going to Paris with him. It sounds like it’s a bit more than just a professional trip.”

“Do you want it to be more?” Frannie asked. “Are you still in love with him?”

“Still?” In love? Julia wasn’t sure she knew what it meant. After spending less than a day in the general vicinity of Adam Sutherland, she’d decided that if she could take any man to bed in the entire world, he would be the one. Jean-Paul wouldn’t even come in a distant second. “No, I don’t love him,” she said. “This is just a really great opportunity and I can’t pass it up.”

“What about the bakery?” Kate asked.

“The bakery will be fine. I have a wonderful manager and plenty of people who will keep it going until I get back.” She forced a smile. “I need a change. I need to shake things up a bit. Besides, you guys can come and visit. Think of all the fun we could have in Paris. It’s not that far. We could even meet in London or Rome.”

“I don’t think I’m going to have a lot of extra cash for traveling,” Kate said. “We’re putting every spare penny into the camp.”

“Oh, don’t you worry. I have frequent flyer miles that would take us both to the moon and back,” Frannie said. “We’ll go next spring. Springtime in Paris. It will be perfect.”

“Perfect,” Julia said. And yet, the thought of Paris didn’t seem quite so perfect anymore. Paris was an ocean away from Adam, from this scary, exciting, confusing affair that they’d jumped into. And though it might be over tomorrow, Julia wanted to believe that there might be a chance it would survive their week at Camp Winnehawkee.

She’d never in her life thought it would happen at all.

And now that it had, she didn’t want it to end. She drew a ragged breath. So, maybe she’d have two months of unbelievable reality before she’d have to return to her fantasies. Two months to get her fill of Adam. And then she’d go to Paris and make another dream come true.

Still, if all she had was two months, she was going to make sure every day counted.

“OUCH! SONUVA BUNNY.”

Adam straightened and set the nail gun down. He worked the kinks out of his neck and back, stretching his arms above his head and groaning softly. He’d been on the roof of Porcupine for over an hour, finishing up the work that he and Mason had begun before Mason had to leave to help Kate with dinner preparations.

Julia was somewhere inside the cabin, working on replacing the screens. And from what he’d been hearing in between the sounds of the air compressor and the nail gun, it wasn’t going particularly well.

He walked across the shallowly pitched roof to the ladder and climbed down. Adam found her hunched over one of the windowsills, a hammer in her hand. He watched through the screen door as she tried to pound a small nail into a strip of wood that held the screen in place.

“Sonuva bunny,” she cried again as she hit her thumb with the hammer.

“Sonuva bunny?” he said.

Julia jumped at the sound of his voice, then slowly turned to face him. “I guess I’m falling back into old habits. We weren’t allowed to swear at Camp Winnehawkee.”

“Why would you need to swear?”

“It’s the only thing I can do. My carpentry skills are almost non-existent. My fingers are all smashed.”

“Can I show you a little trick?” he asked, opening the door.

“If it involves finding a way to make my fingers stop throbbing, I’m listening.”

“Well,” he said. “First things first.” Adam grabbed her left hand and brought it up to his lips, then gently kissed the tip of each finger. “Better?” he asked.

She released a tightly held breath, then shook her head. “Not quite.”

He pressed his lips to the center of her palm. “How about now?”

“That feels a little better. But the pain is kind of creeping up my arm.”

Laughing, he pulled her into his arms. “And has the pain reached your lips yet?”

Julia playfully pressed her hands against his naked chest. “Almost. Do you have a remedy for that?”

Adam nuzzled her neck, biting softly on the silken skin just beneath her ear. “Don’t start something we can’t finish, Jules.”

“It’s just a kiss,” she said.

“Maybe this morning it was just a kiss,” he murmured. “But I’ve been up on that roof all morning thinkingabout you. And I don’t want to stop at just a kiss. I don’t think you do, either.”

“Are you saying that I can’t resist you?” Julia asked. “Because I can, if I want to.”

He growled softly, dragging his thumb over her lower lips. “No, you can’t.”

She tipped her chin up at a stubborn angle and regarded him coolly. “I resisted you for ten years.”

“Yes, but that was then. This is now.” He leaned forward and brushed a kiss across her mouth, his tongue tracing the crease between her lips. Adam had never really put much effort into kissing. It always came quite naturally. But this kiss would put away the last of her resistance.

At the first flicker of submission, he smoothed his hands over her face, molding her mouth to his and deepening his assault. He could feel her surrender in the way her body sank against his, her hands clutching at his shoulders.

He shifted his touch, moving his hands over her body in a lazy caress. She moaned as he cupped her breast and her body went soft when he pulled her hips against his, his hard shaft evident beneath the fabric of his shorts. And when Adam felt that he’d made his point, he suddenly stepped back, leaving Julia off-balance.

She stumbled and reached for a nearby bunk, her face flushed and her lips swollen. Wide-eyed, she looked over at him. Drawing a ragged breath, she shrugged. “All right. Well, I can see you’re determined. I’ll give you that.”

Adam grinned. But when he heard Mason’s voice outside, his smile quickly faded. Julia frantically ran her fingers through her tousled hair. He crossed to the window and picked up the hammer, turning his back to the door to hide his erection.

“Adam? Are you in here?” Mason opened the door and stepped inside the cabin.

“He’s here,” Julia said in a bright tone. “He’s just helping me with the screen. I keep hitting my thumb with the hammer.”

Adam glanced over his shoulder and nodded. “I’ll just be a minute. I’m going to show Julia how to do this so she doesn’t keep bashing her fingers.”

Mason looked back and forth between the two of them. Adam groaned inwardly. Mason wasn’t blind. He knew when someone was trying to hide something. Hell, he was a schoolteacher. Schoolteachers had a built-in bullshit detector.

Adam picked up the needle-nosed pliers and put a small nail between the grips. “See, you can hold the nail with this and then pound. Once it’s started, it’s no problem.” He quickly handed the pliers to Julia.

“Thanks, I’ll give that a try,” she replied.

“Right,” Mason murmured. “Well, carry on, then. Kate says dinner is in a half hour. I’ll just be up on the roof until then.”

They both watched as Mason walked outside. Neither one of them moved until they heard his footsteps on the roof. “Sonuva bunny,” Adam said softly.

“I don’t think he suspected anything,” Julia whispered. “It wasn’t like he caught us doing anything.”

“Well, I wish he would have,” Adam said. “Sneaking around like this is stupid. We’re nearly thirty years old and we’re acting like a couple of teenagers.”

“This is the way it has to be,” she said.

“Why?” Adam asked. “Give me one good reason.”

“Because if you decide to dump me after three days, I won’t be humiliated in front of all of my friends.”

Her words hit him like a slap to the face. Is that really what she thought of him? That he’d be so shallow, so cruel as to seduce her on a whim? Adam stared at her in disbelief, his gaze fixed on hers.

“I’m sorry,” Julia murmured. “But I don’t want to look like a fool.”

“Jules, I would never do that. I care about you.” He shook his head. “I—I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything,” she replied. “I’ll be fine if this only lasts a week. In fact, that would be perfect. I don’t expect more and I’m not sure I want more. But, I don’t want my friends assuming the worst about you or me.”

“And what is the worst?” he asked.

“That you’re a shallow creep and I’m a pathetic loser.”

He drew a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Discussing this was going to take a lot more time and privacy than either one of them had right now. But he did intend to address it the very next time they were alone. “I have to go help Mason. We’ll talk about this later.”

She nodded silently, staring down at the pliers in her hands. Adam reached out and covered her fingers, drawing both her hands up to his lips. He kissed her wrist and she managed to meet his gaze again. “This is not just about sex,” he said. “And I would never do anything to hurt you. Do you believe me?”

She paused before she nodded. “You should get going. Mason is going to be wondering what’s taking you so long.”

With a quiet curse, Adam turned and walked out of the cabin. When he got outside he paced back and forth on the gravel path, fighting the urge to go back inside and set Julia straight. But all the talk wouldn’t change her mind. She was working off an image she had of him that was eight years old. He’d have to show her that he’d changed.

He circled the cabin and climbed the ladder, crawling up on the roof, then crossing to where Mason stood.

“Everything all right?” Mason asked.

“Fine,” he said. “She just needed a little help.”

“Is there something going on with you two?” Mason asked.

Adam shook his head. “No. Why would you think that?”

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