• Tomorrow Will Be Different • {J.C} (P.1)

•Chapter Thirty-Two•

Erin was relieved to wake up alone. She was still undressed and overwhelmed with confusion. She was also incredibly sore, her body ached in ways it never had before.

She had slept with Julian, and not in a platonic way, either—she'd had sex with Julian. Erin randomly reminded herself of it aloud, still trying to wrap her head around the events from last night.

From the time she woke up, while in the shower, while brushing her teeth—Erin still couldn't believe that she'd had sex with Julian.

It wasn't just the sex that had Erin distracted; she had reached an unexpected pinnacle point during the performance. It seemed to come out of nowhere, a crescendo that eventually detonated—shattering her insides.

Julian had made Erin come... hard.

She wasn't herself during that full minute of absolute ecstasy. The ways in which her body convulsed had been unnatural. Picturing herself through Julian's eyes in that moment triggered intense discomfort that made her cringe.

As she started to float down from the peak, Erin recalled questioning if the condom had broke. She felt a warm secreting fluid spilling out between them, oozing down her backside.

The good news was that it didn't break—Jules hadn't come yet. The bad news was that it didn't break—it was (embarrassingly) all her.

While coming back down, the ascension started to build up again. Luckily, the shattering of her insides the second time around wasn't as intense as the first time—Julian didn't last much longer.

Erin had started to make a confession, but retreated from the idea when Julian had told her that she was pretty.

She didn't want Jules to know—she didn't like the thought of him having more power than he already had.

Jules knew that Erin had come—she couldn't exactly deny that; but what he didn't know, was that he had been the first to achieve it.

There wasn't any particular reason as to why—it was simply sex. She wasn't contorted into some unusual position, the rhythm of his hips hadn't moved in a specific fashion—the pace of his thrusts pushing into hers was actually quite typical.

Perhaps it was because his body melted perfectly into hers; perhaps it was the way he kissed her, or maybe because of the way he had looked at her.

Erin couldn't be too sure, but she saw something settle in his eyes.

Jules looked at Erin as if she were the most incredible thing he had ever had the privilege to touch. He peered down at her with an intensity she had never seen before—like she was the most important thing in the world—as if she were his entire world.

Erin forced the memory of that look out of her mind by keeping herself busy. She cleaned up the apartment, being sure to strip Albert's bed first for a planned trip to the cleaners.

No matter what Erin did to take her mind off it, Julian still managed to creep up into her thoughts.

He had left sometime before she awoke—his whereabouts unknown. Jules didn't leave a note, or have the courtesy to tell her where he was going.

Erin would never admit it, but Julian's undisclosed departure filled her with mortifying dread. The uncertainty of how Julian felt about the events from last night loomed over her like a dark cloud.

She was nervous, fearful of Julian's regret. He would never admit it either, which drove Erin insane.

Jules had a particular way about him—avoidance. He hardly ever expressed himself in regards to his own emotional turmoil; he kept those thoughts to himself. When it came to others, however, he was pedantically brazen—unapologetically blunt.