Juliet threw herself onto the couch, grabbing the pillow and wrapping her arms around it.
Dan took her in for a moment; her long, dark hair was swept back into a messy bun, and her feet were bare, peeking out from the bottom of a well-worn pair of jeans. She was wearing a pale pink tank top that clung to her curves with a loose cardigan over it in dark brown. Dan could tell she was exhausted, but somehow she was still beautiful to his eyes.
When she had hugged him, he had breathed in the scent of her perfume-she favored old fashioned floral scents, particularly roses, and for years he hadn’t been able to smell anything with roses in it without thinking of this woman.
“You have a house, you know,” he commented, pulling up a rolling chair and sitting a few feet away from her. Juliet giggled and tossed the pillow aside, stretching long and luxuriantly; Dan couldn’t help the instinctive way his gaze flicked down when her movement made the tank top ride up slightly, revealing a flash of tanned skin and parts of the tattoos she had decorated her hips with.
“Well, I was working late and I was too tired to drive, so I thought I’d take a nap and then go home. And then I woke up with an idea for how to fix a problem on a song. And then I tried working on another song…” she shrugged. Dan could understand the impulse perfectly, and in spite of himself, he smiled.
He had flown out to help her on the album she was currently working on; returning a favor she had done him and his brothers a year before. He worried about her when she worked on a new project; Juliet was exactly the type of person who would become so engrossed that she would forget to eat for hours at a time, would sleep only enough to get her to the next day of work.
The two of them had met as peers, years before. Juliet had been coming up just as his brothers’ band had been fading into relative obscurity and the indie scene. He remembered that from the very beginning he had been impressed with her talent and the fact that her brain was constantly working; when he and his brothers had started working on developing their own proprietary label to keep releasing music, she had been several steps ahead of them.
Even as Juliet had been gaining popularity as a singer-songwriter, she had refused to work with the conventional recording label system, instead settling for nothing less than a distribution deal on her own terms. “I figure, if they want the money I can make them that much, they’ll do it my way,” she had said when he had asked her about the odd decision.
Dan had been seventeen when they met, and Juliet no more than fifteen or sixteen; yet somehow Dan had often entertained the idea that she was much more mature and worldly than him. His attraction to her had crept up on him-certainly he hadn’t noticed her finer qualities when they had first met.
He had admired her music and respected her sense, but he hadn’t really given much thought to her looks. In the years since their initial meeting at a music festival they were both playing, Juliet had changed and grown.
Where she had been slightly awkward, with features that were slightly too adult-looking for her teenaged face, she was now a confident woman whose high cheekbones and big, dark eyes were in perfect balance with the rest of her face. And then, of course, Dan had noticed that as she had gone through puberty her curves had intensified; the woman in front of him had the kind of hourglass figure that women went through surgeries to acquire.
If Dan had to put an exact moment to when he had become attracted to Juliet, it would have been sometime around when she had turned eighteen. She had finished school early and spent months in France, working on material for her second album.
Dan envied the way that she had managed to balance a normal school life with a career in the music industry. He and his brothers had invited her to come out to their rural home and visit for a few days, and she had happily accepted. Dan had met her at the airport, and she had appeared in the crowd, jet-lagged and in the most comfortable clothes she owned-and suddenly beautiful.
She had greeted him with real, genuine enthusiasm, her eyes flashing and her smile as bright as he had ever seen it. Dan remembered that her hair had been in two braids that day, hanging down from either side of her head and extending down to her full bust. When she had hugged him, he'd had to fight the urge to crush her body against his and breathe her in.
Dan was pulled back to the present by Juliet speaking. “You want some coffee?” she asked, standing up. For a moment, she was slightly wobbly on her feet, and Dan instinctively reached out to steady her. She giggled, smoothing her hair back from her face and yawning.
“I’ll have some coffee and then we can talk about this project, and then we’re driving you to your own house and you’re going to sleep.”
Juliet pouted, putting her hands on her hips and trying to stare him down. Dan laughed and stood, giving her a gentle shove toward the door.
“You’re exhausted, admit it.”
Juliet sighed, ruining the effect with a grin. “Okay, fine, I admit it.”
Dan drove the two of them to Juliet’s house after they had gone over the details of what she wanted help with on the album. For the most part, she wanted help with the percussion arrangements; Dan had been pleased and flattered when Juliet had mentioned that she had tried working with several studio musicians, but none of them had quite the knack for her peculiar time signatures and sound that Dan did.
On one or two songs, she had wanted his voice-and Dan had looked over the lyrics and started the process of working out the harmonies with her. Toward the end of their discussion, as they were singing parts to the basic melodic framework, Juliet’s voice had started cracking with fatigue, and even she had to admit she was too tired to work profitably.
Dan noticed her hands shaking from the caffeine as she put on her shoes and had snatched the car keys out of her hand, holding them over her head. “Your hands are shaking, you’re exhausted. I’m driving.”
When they arrived at Juliet’s house, she snatched the keys back and unlocked the front door. Dan had stayed at her house more than once, so he carried his suitcase in with him, putting it down next to the couch.
“I’m going to get a shower,” Juliet told him. “Make yourself at home, as usual.” She gave him a friendly grin and Dan nodded, heading straight for the kitchen. He had managed to take a nap on the flight over, but he was always hungry-and Juliet was a good cook who always had a well-stocked fridge.
He heard the water come on from the direction of Juliet’s bedroom; he concluded that she had left the door to the master bath open in case he needed to ask her something. Dan closed his eyes, standing in front of the fridge.
For a moment his brain was consumed with an image of the curvy woman standing in the shower, water sluicing down her body. He had never seen her naked, but he could easily imagine-a shiver moved down his spine, a bolt of arousal heading straight for his cock at the thought of her.
He groaned, pressing his forehead against the cold fridge door. One or the other of them had been in a relationship the entire time they had known each other-until now. For once, they were both single.
Maybe it would have been a better idea to stay in a hotel, Dan thought. It was potentially dangerous for them to both be under the same roof, both single, and with the overwhelming attraction he felt for her-dangerous, at least, if she returned his interest. Dan forced his eyes open and opened the fridge, making himself to go through the motions of building a sandwich with automatic movements.
Juliet stepped into the kitchen just as he was finishing his first sandwich and working on his second one. Dan held himself back from staring at her; her dark hair was down, still damp from the shower, and clinging to her face, neck and shoulders.
She was in pajamas, with no bra on underneath the tee shirt she wore; the cool air had made her nipples press against the thin fabric.
“Feeling better?” he asked, tearing his gaze away from her chest. Juliet grinned, nodding and heading toward the fridge.
“The hot water worked out most of the kinks in my neck and shoulders, at least,” she said, taking out a pitcher of filtered water and pouring herself a glass. Dan closed his eyes while her back was turned to him for just a moment; the way her pajamas clung to her skin was almost unbearable. He took a shaky breath and opened his eyes in time for her to turn back around to face him.
“I’m still too keyed up to sleep,” she said. Dan chuckled, standing up from the bar stool he had taken to eat at the counter.
