“Everyone in the house wore them around me,” Julien said. “And that’s where Salena comes in. My parents hired Salena to be my live-in doctor. Salena had burn-out and student loans from med school. My parents paid off her loans, and now she has only the one patient. Well, two patients counting Mom. First thing Salena did was diagnose my mother with ‘Vulnerable Child Syndrome.’ Real syndrome. It’s basically, pathological overprotectiveness. And then she wrote her a prescription. Four words—‘Let Julien move out.’”

  Remi would have applauded if her hand had been free.

  “Thank God for Salena. That’s really smart, writing it on a prescription pad.”

  “Doctor’s orders,” Julien said. “Salena writes me prescriptions all the time. ‘Go running’ or ‘Go hiking’ or ‘Ask her out on a date.’”

  “She writes you prescriptions for dates?”

  “I know. She’s awesome, right? I had to have a ton of tests and stuff to get cleared to have sex. You know, they had to make sure my immune system could take it. Salena did all the tests and then after I got cleared, she sat me in her office and gave me a three-hour lecture on sex, women, and the female anatomy. She had charts and diagrams. The films were my favorite part. It was amazing. I’ve never had sex, but I know where the clitoris and the g-spot are, and I know what to do when I find them.”

  “Can I go kiss Salena now? On the mouth?”

  “Can I watch?” Julien asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I love Salena,” Julien said with a wide-eyed exhalation. “She’s my hero and my best friend. She rescued me from my own house, makes me go out, have a life, try new things.”

  “Like moving to Paris?”

  “Once I was cleared for ‘adult activities’ as Salena calls them, she staged an intervention with my parents and told them they were making things worse by keeping me cooped up and treating me like I was on death’s doorstep. My parents worship doctors so they took her seriously and let me go. I just had to take Salena with me so she could monitor my medical condition.”

  “So you ran off to Paris?”

  “I said Paris. They assumed Paris, Kentucky. I didn’t exactly correct them.”

  “Did they freak out?” Remi asked.

  “They did at first. But Salena talked sense into them. France has the best health care system in the world. Much better than the U.S. And I’m healthy as a horse now. Salena makes sure of that.”

  “I’m happy to hear that.” Remi realized she might have made the understatement of the century with that statement. Ecstatic would have been more accurate.

  “My parents are calmer now about the Paris thing. Salena loves it here. I love it here. Been learning the language, trying to meet people.”

  “Meet women?”

  Julien shrugged. “Been on a few dates.”

  “Only a few?”

  Julien gave her a crooked smile and a half-hearted chuckle.

  “Did you know cancer is the same word in English and in French? No matter what language, the word sends girls running. It’s not that it’s in the past. That’s not what scares people. It’s that it can come back. It might come back. Anytime I get a headache, a cold, anything, my family freaks out. Anybody who is in my life will share in that fear. Hard to ask that much courage from someone you just met, right? No wonder the girls go running when I tell them the truth.”

  Remi rose up and looked down at Julien still lying on his back on the bed.

  “I’m not running,” she said.

  “Why not?” Julien asked.

  “I am the least romantic person I’ve ever known,” she confessed. “But for some reason…”

  She said no more because she knew she didn’t have to.

  “I know,” Julien said in a low voice, almost scared.

  “I’ve never forgotten you. I should have. You were seventeen. I was a senior in college. I should have gotten over you a long time ago. I never did. And now that I’m here with you, I feel like this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.”

  “Although it ended badly, I was so grateful we had that night at the Christmas party. Those nights I was alone in the hospital with nothing but my fears and my exhaustion, and I thought maybe I would just stop fighting, go to sleep and never wake up again, I would remember that night with you. I remembered kissing you, touching you, being touched by you…and it helped me remember what I was fighting for. A future where I was healthy again and wasn’t alone. You were with me the whole time, Remi.”

  Remi blinked back tears. Neither of them spoke. A heavy, meaningful silence descended. She didn’t want to rush things, didn’t want to push him. But for all her noble intentions, she also wanted to kiss him again, touch every inch of him, and spend all night with him in this bed helping him make up for lost time and show him exactly what he’d been fighting for.

  “This is going to sound like a line,” Julien finally said, “but I swear it isn’t. The thing is…when you spend age seventeen to nineteen thinking you might die, it changes the way you look at your life. I decided I wanted to move to Paris on a Thursday. Salena and I were on a plane Monday. When you want to do something, you do it. You don’t wait a week, a year. Because you know you might not be around next year, next week.”

  “Carpe diem?” Remi asked.

  “That means ‘seize the day,’” Julien said. “It’s night.”

  “Carpe…Hold on a second. Merrick?” she called out loudly, loud enough she knew her voice carried throughout the entire apartment.

  “Little busy, Boss!” he yelled back, his voice easily penetrating the wall of Julien’s bedroom.

  “What’s Latin for ‘night’?”

  “Depends on the part of speech!”

  “Direct object!”

  “Noctem!” he yelled.

  “Thank you!”

  “Carpe noctem,” Remi whispered to Julien although seconds earlier she’d been shouting at Merrick. “Seize the night.”

  “We could have just Googled that,” Julien said.

  “I know. But I wanted a little payback for all the times Merrick starts conversations with me when I’m in the bathroom. Plus, what’s the point in having a genius assistant who knows Latin without asking him to help you with your Latin?”

  “Good point.”

  “So…” Remi said as that tense, taut silence descended on the room again.

  Remi slid her hand up and down the center of Julien’s chest. With each pass down his stomach she moved lower. Under her hand she felt his stomach fluttering. Julien was nervous. She liked that.

  “So…” Julien said. “What do you want to do?”

  “It’s your decision,” she said. “You have more to lose than I do.”

  Julien laughed and his stomach muscles dance under her hand.

  “Literally,” he said.

  “How about this? How about I kiss you right now and you kiss me back and we’ll keep kissing until something more happens or we fall asleep?”

  “I like that idea. And, you know, carpe noctem.”

  She nodded and whispered. “Seize the night.”

  Remi leaned over Julien and brought her lips to his.

  Julien slid his fingers through her hair and pulled her even closer as the kiss deepened. The position was uncomfortable enough Remi felt entirely justified in yanking her skirt to her knees and straddling Julien’s thighs. Julien inhaled sharply.

  “I don’t weigh too much, do I?” Remi asked, freezing. She was no waif by any stretch of the imagination. At five-nine with muscles and curves she may even weigh more than Julien.

  “You weigh the perfect amount and the perfect amount of you sort of came in contact with a certain part of me. Please do it again.”

  Remi laughed and settled in on top of him. The kissing, at first tentative, quickly turned torrid. Julien might not have done much kissing in his life, but Remi had no complaints about his technique. She couldn’t get enough of his mouth, nor he hers. Julien rolled them onto their sides without breaking the kiss. He slipped his hand under her shirt and caressed her back. She wanted to feel his skin too, as much of it as she could. She slid her hand under his t-shirt and rubbed his side. He was so warm and young and eager, she knew if he wanted, kissing would only be the beginning of their night together.

  “You smell like roses,” Julien whispered into her neck as he nibbled under her ear.

  “It’s my soap.”

  “It’s not your soap, it’s your skin. It’s all of you,,” he said, his hand now at the center of her back, teasing the expanse between her shoulder blades.

  “If you’re trying to seduce me, it’s working.” Remi pushed her hips into his. Pressure had already started to build inside her.

  “I thought you were trying to seduce me?” Julien teased.

  “I can if you want me to.”

  “I’d love to see what you try,” he said, a wicked grin on his face. She adored that face, adored those eyes that shone so bright with desire.

  “Let’s see, when we were last alone together in a bedroom, I believe I was…”

  She came up on her knees and unbuttoned her blouse. Julien reached out and helped pull her shirt down her arms. She threw it onto the floor with a flourish. Julien knelt in front of her and kissed the tops of her breasts. She forced herself to do nothing as he kissed her neck and chest. They shouldn’t rush things. This night could be Julien’s first time. He’d spent his teen years fighting for his life. Why not show him exactly how much light had been waiting for him at the end of that tunnel?

  “You’re really okay, now?” Remi asked as Julien wrapped his arms around her back and pulled her even closer. They faced each other on their knees, her breasts pressing against his chest. She could feel his heart pounding.

  “I’m fine. You’re not going to hurt me, I promise.”

  “Good,” she said and pushed him down onto his back. He laughed as she straddled him again. But the laughter stopped the moment she unhooked her bra and took it off. She took him by his wrists and brought his hands to her breasts.

  “Oh my God,” he said, holding her breasts, squeezing and cupping them. “I’ve missed them so much.”

  Remi laughed but the laugh abruptly turned to a gasp when Julien pinched her nipples. A shock of pleasure bolted through her from her breasts to her back and all the way down her spine. Her nipples hardened as Julien teased them and gently tugged them. She closed her eyes and did nothing but let Julien touch her. She felt his erection pressing against her even through his jeans.

  “Your turn,” she said breathlessly. “I don’t want to be the only shirtless person in the room.”

  “Okay, but…”

  She shook her head. “No butts yet. Just your shirt.”

  Remi sat back so Julien could roll up. He sighed heavily before pulling his shirt off over his head.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said, lying on his back again.

  Remi gazed down at his chest. He was thin, yes. Thin but muscular. He’d clearly taken getting into shape after his recovery very seriously. He had a chiseled stomach, sinewy biceps, a broad chest, and…

  “No,” she said. “It’s not bad at all.”

  She reached out and touched the raised four-inch scar on the right-hand side of his upper chest. It was smooth and bright pink, much like Julien’s face at the moment.

  “They put this thing in your chest—a Medi-Port,” he explained. “It’s how the drugs are delivered.”

  “Then I’m glad you have the scar. It saved your life.”

  “The day they took it out was the best day of my life. Until today.”

  Remi’s fingers fluttered. When had she ever desired someone this much?

  “It’s hideous I know,” Julien said, wincing slightly.

  “It’s not bad at all.”

  “Good. You can keep staring at it. It’ll give me an excuse to stare at your, you know.”

  “Boobs? Breasts? Tits?”

  “All of the above…”

  Remi put her hands on either side of his shoulders and lay on top of him. When her bare breasts touched his naked chest, he inhaled sharply.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “I’m so happy I’m not dead right now, I could cry,” he said. “Am I dead? Is this heaven? Can you get massive hard-ons in heaven?”

  “Wouldn’t be heaven otherwise.” Remi stretched out on her back so Julien could have total access to her chest. They kissed again as he ran his hand over both her breasts, gently touching, squeezing, holding, caressing. He lightly pinched her nipples between his thumb and forefinger. His touch gave her breathtaking amounts of pleasure. As he touched her, she slid her hand up and down his arm, relishing the ridges of muscle he’d worked so hard for after recovering.

  Remi threw her leg over Julien’s hip to bring his body even closer to hers.

  He closed his eyes tight as if he were in pain.

  “I am seriously turned on right now,” he said. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t say you’re sorry. Do you want to stop or keep going?”

  “Keep going. Definitely.”

  “Are you saying that because you mean it or because you’re turned on?”

  “Both is my answer,” he said. “If that’s the right answer.”

  “There is no right or wrong answer. It’s whatever you want,” she said, running her hand through his hair again and stroking the side of his face.

  “I want you.” Julien took her chin in his hand and caressed her bottom lip with his thumb. “I want you so much it hurts. But…”

  “I know,” she said. “If our families find out about this, we’re dead.”

  “Very dead. And me and death were on speaking terms not that long ago. I know death. They’ll kill us.”

  “Whatever they’re up to, they need the press to think both families hate each other.” Remi knew this public rivalry was making them all a fortune.

  “And they do hate each other,” Julien said. “They just love money more.”

  “So what do we do?” Remi asked, aching at the thought of walking away from Julien so soon after finding him. “We can’t just pretend I’m not a Montgomery and you’re not a Brite.”

  “Maybe we can for one night,” he said. “You’re just Remi. I’m just Julien. No last names.”

  Remi grinned at him. Not a bad idea. Whatever they did tonight was no one’s business but theirs. Why should it matter what their last names were? It shouldn’t obviously. That was the answer. Now that she had that answer, she had only one question.

  “Okay, Just-Julien, now what do you want to do?”

  Carpe Noctem

  Now what do you want to do? Remi had asked Julien, and he hesitated before answering.

  “Maybe we should follow the doctor’s orders,” Julien said with a sly smile.

  “Doctor’s orders?” Remi asked.

  Julien pulled the paper out of his pocket that had been taped to the door. He unfolded it and showed it to her. It was a prescription pad for Dr. Salena Kar—Internal Medicine. And the good Dr. Kar had prescribed a very special medicine for Julian.

  “SEX,” it read in all caps. The one and only word on it.

  “Well, she is the doctor,” Remi said.

  Julian threw the note in the air and wrapped both arms around Remi. He pressed Remi onto the bed, and lightly gripped her wrists. He kissed her from her neck to her breasts and drew a nipple into his mouth and sucked it gently.

  “That is such a good idea, Just-Julien,” she sighed with relief, his choice made. He wanted her as much as she wanted him. “Whoever you are.”

  “I’m nobody,” he whispered against her skin. “I’m just a random guy you met in Paris.”

  “I was here for a vacation,” she said as he kissed his way across her chest to her other nipple. “I work my ass off.”

  “You needed a vacation,” Julien said. “And I needed your ass.” He playfully cupped her bottom and squeezed.

  “I did. And while on vacation I saw a gorgeous younger man walking down the street.”

  “How gorgeous?”

  “Beyond gorgeous. Striking. Not normal gorgeous. Different. Big black eyes-”

  “Did someone punch him, you think?” Julien looked up at her and winked.

  “Someone’s going to if he doesn’t get back to her nipples,” she teased.

  Julien laughed before taking her nipple into his mouth again. She moaned as the heat seeped into her skin and sent delicious shivers all the way to the pit of her stomach. Her clitoris was swelling. She couldn’t stop her hips from moving against Julien.

  “So what else about this guy?” Julien asked as he palmed her breast.

  “I’m not sure. I feel like I’ve known him all my life. Usually I don’t jump into bed this fast with a guy but he seems special. And not just because of the aforementioned striking-ness.”

  “Is that a word?”

  “It is now. But I think maybe this is something…I don’t know.”

  “I know,” Julien said, looking up at her. “I feel it too. Like this was meant to happen, and we have to let it happen.”

  “Do you want it to happen?” she asked.

  Julien nodded.

  “Then we’ll let it happen,” she said, her voice as soft and tender as the look on Julien’s face. And she knew they weren’t talking about sex anymore. Not only sex anyway. But them. The future. Whatever it meant. They would let it happen. Their hearts left them no other choice.

  No more words were exchanged. No more words were needed. Julien stood up and Remi pulled the covers back on the bed. She rested on her back, propped on her elbows and watched Julien undress. He didn’t hesitate, not even when the moment came to take his boxer briefs off.

  He had a beautiful young body and she devoured the sight of it. Once Julien was naked, she unzipped her skirt in the back. Julien pulled her skirt down her legs and tossed it to the floor. She had on nothing but her panties now. Julien crawled onto the bed and stretched out on top of her.

  Remi reached between their bodies and wrapped her hand around his erection. She stroked upward as Julien closed his eyes.

  “I remember that,” he said as she ran her fingers from the wet tip to the base and back up again. She touched him lightly at first and then gripped him firmly with her entire hand.