Page 35 of Seize the Night

Remi did her best to play it cool on Wednesday. Luckily her father was busy enough he didn’t interrogate her about the unplanned horse-hunting trip she’d taken, seemingly on a whim. The irony of it all was that he trusted her implicitly, and she no longer trusted her father at all.

She tried to concentrate on her work that day—bills, invoices, ordering supplies, scheduling races, meeting trainers—but Julien had taken over her mind. She thought of his face, so angular and striking. She thought of his skin—so young and smooth and warm. She thought of his body and how it belonged on top of her, inside her, underneath her, and every other sexy position she could think of. She missed the light citrus smell of his sheets on her skin and his arms that had held her as she’d fallen asleep during the all-too-brief nights she’d spent in his bed.

On her way to her small house that sat on the edge of her parents’ thousand-acre property, Remi’s phone buzzed with a text message.

Here,the message read. Remi grinned at her phone.

Where?she wrote Julien back, desperate to see him again.

My family picked us up at the airport,he wrote.Trapped with them. That’s why I’m texting instead of calling.

Remi stared at her phone as she unlocked her door and walked into her house. She’d lived in the house for three years now and never before had it felt empty or lonely to her. And it didn’t feel empty or lonely now. But it needed something, someone else here. That someone else unfortunately was trapped at his parents’ house.

I need to see you,came the next message from Julien. Five little words that made Remi’s heart dance, her stomach trip, and her feet flutter.

Tell me when and where and I’ll be there,she wrote back.

Mom won’t let me out of her sight for a couple days. We’re visiting my grandparents in Ohio. I’m being smothered.

Your fault you’re so damn cute.

I love you,came Julien’s reply.

That too, she replied and then added anI love youof her own. She wasn’t used to writing those words, saying those words, feeling those words. But the more she wrote them, spoke them, felt them, the better they fit onto her fingers, her tongue, her heart.

She went to bed alone and cursed the cold sheets. She had loved sleeping with Julien. Every night after sex, he’d rubbed her back while they’d talked. Their very last night together had been their best night. They’d dared to discuss the future, a future they could share. Remi had asked Julien what he wanted to do with his life.

“I never had a dream job before I had leukemia,” he’d answered as Remi curled up on his chest. She’d gotten so used to his scar by now she rested her head over it without a second thought. “So maybe one good thing came out of being sick. Now I know what I want to do with my life.”

“Which is?”

“Help teenagers with life-threatening illnesses. I don’t want to be a doctor. That’s not my thing. I want to help them the way Salena helped me—by getting me out of the house. I don’t know what to do with that dream yet, but at least I have one now. You? Do you always want to work at Arden?”

“Not anymore,” she’d confessed. “The place seems tainted now by what my parents did. I still want to work with horses, but I want to find a way to be around horses and do something with them other than running them into the ground. The best part of my job is the charity work we do at Arden, the people we help. I just want to find a way to do that as a full-time job.”

“You dreams good dreams,” Julien said, kissing her on the top of the head.

“You’re my best dream.” They’d made love again after that and fallen asleep tangled in each other. Five nights ago was the last time they’d been together. Five nights and an eternity.

She wouldn’t survive another five nights and she told Merrick exactly that when he shuffled into work an hour late the next day with a big smile on his face.

“Did you spend the night at Salena’s?” she demanded.

“Yup.”

“You’re fired.”

“For getting laid?”

“Yes.”

“My aren’t we sexually frustrated this morning,” Merrick said, handing over her coffee.

“Five days,” she said. “I’m not going to make it.”

“You’ll make it. If I can last five days you can last five days.”

“Have you ever gone five whole days without sex?”

---