by Jill Shalvis
Serious danger.
“Bailey—”
Just then, from inside her pocket, her cell phone vibrated and chirped, signaling she had an incoming text message.
Noah watched Bailey debate with herself on whether to look at the message in front of him or not, but she finally reached into her pocket and opened the phone.
WHERE R U?
“Where is he?” Noah countered, reading over her shoulder.
“Hidden.” She looked away, and chewed on her lower lip in a gesture of nerves. “Hopefully.”
“What does that mean?”
She said nothing, and he sighed. “Bailey.”
“After—” Her mouth tightened. “I told him to stay away. But now I’m afraid he’ll get so worried about me he’ll come back.”
“Why didn’t you go with him?”
“He’s fine moving around doing carpentry, which suits him. But my life is in California, Noah. I teach here….” She shook her head. “I really thought I could handle this.”
She had courage and guts, and he didn’t like the way that softened him even further toward her. “Don’t,” he said when she hit reply. “Don’t text him back.”
“What? I have to.”
“Fine. But don’t tell him where you are.”
“Why?”
He just looked at her.
Still shivering, she looked shell-shocked, frozen to the spot. “Are you kidding me? You actually think he—”
“I don’t know what I think. Keep your location quiet.” Hating the fear on her face, he had to temper down on his bottle of emotions, of which frustration and impatience were leading the way. “If he’s really gone, then it doesn’t matter. Right?”
She hadn’t moved other than to keep shivering. Her eyes were dilated, and she looked near shock. Steam drifted in from the opened bathroom. She nearly dropped her phone, she was shaking so hard. He had to get her into the hot water.
To that end, he took the cell phone out of her hands and set it aside. Clothes next, he thought.
“C—cold,” she said.
“I know.” He shouldn’t care. She’d hijacked him, had really thrown a wrench in his whole ski-and-screw-his-brains-out weekend, but she’d been desperate and terrified, and he’d been helpless against those things. Still having no idea exactly what she’d been through, but more determined than ever to find out, he dipped down a little to look directly into her eyes.
She tried to look away, but he simply cupped her jaw. “I’m going to help you,” he said, and ran his hands down her arms. “Starting with a hot shower.”
“I don’t need help.”
“Could have fooled me.”
A sound of extreme exasperation left her lips, which he figured was a good sign. If he could piss her off, she wasn’t dying of hypothermia.
“Okay, up until this point I needed your help,” she conceded. “But I’m fine now.”
“Okay.” Leaning back, he crossed his arms. “Go ahead, get yourself warm, then.”
She glanced through the open door at the shower, at the steaming air rising from it, and walked into the bathroom. She lifted her fingers to her sweater as she looked pointedly at the door, which he ignored. “I’ll be fine,” she said, her fingers trembling so that she could hardly grip the buttons on her sweater. “Just fine.”
“Uh huh.” He followed her. Brushing her fingers aside, he went for the buttons, but there were a million of them, and they were tiny and slippery. He got two undone, just enough for his fingers to brush creamy, soft skin beneath. A muscle in his jaw began ticking. “Do these buttons even function?”
“They did this morning.”
He sighed. “Your lips are blue.” So was her skin, blue and mottled.
“We’re not…doing anything.”
Other than getting naked. That would probably be enough for him, after six months. “I know.”
“Good. Because it’s been so long, I’ve forgotten how.”
He stared at her, his brain whirling from the quick subject change, not to mention the subject itself. “How long?”
“Really long.”
“Really long,” he repeated, a little dumbfounded, still holding on to her sweater. He could feel her smooth skin beneath his fingers. Just from that, he got hard.
“He lost interest,” she whispered.
Jesus, how was that even possible? “Don’t take this the wrong way, Bailey, but Alan was a complete idiot.”
She lifted a shoulder, and he vowed right then and there to somehow make sure she knew that there was nothing wrong with her, to prove exactly how desirable she was, but right now, he had another mission.
Get her warm. Make her feel safe. Without letting her think on it too long, he tightened his fingers over the hem of the fuzzy soft material that had been clinging to her breasts for the past hour—not that he’d noticed.
Shit, he was such a liar. He’d so noticed.
He’d noticed and had found himself nearly poleaxed by the way her nipples, two tight peaks, pressed against the thin, wet, soft material.
Alan had lost interest? Noah would have to lose his head. Both of them. The hot, brain-cell-melting kisses they’d shared hadn’t helped. No, those hadn’t done anything but make him want more.
Then her eyes met his, wide and half wild, and he tempered down on himself and his ridiculous thoughts. This was about getting her warm.
Not about the fact that he was hard from just looking at her.
Nope, his needs had no place here, no place at all. Repeating that like a mantra inside his head, he lifted up on her sweater, forcing her arms up over her head.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
She said nothing to that, which sent a foreboding down his spine. If someone had laid his hands on her…well, he didn’t want to think about it. He’d spent his entire life hating violence, and yet it was pouring through his veins now.
“I just don’t want to be dead,” she whispered. “I want to stay alive.”
He stared into her eyes, seeing all sorts of things there, things that somehow soothed the beast roaring within him, things that made him incredibly aware of his fingers resting on her sides, spread wide so as to touch as much of her as he possibly could. “Alive is excellent.” His thumbs were just beneath her breasts. If he moved them, he’d be able to feel those curves, take the weight of them in his palms and—
And she was breathing erratically again, so he swallowed his own emotions, his arousal, and kept going.
He pulled the sweater off over her head.
Her bra…it was a barely there number, a pale, pale pink thing that just skimmed her nipples with satin and lace, like in his fantasies. Her breasts were two perfect pale curves plumping out of the bra, tipped with small, tight nipples poking at the satin, and her quickened breathing didn’t help any.
Truth was, he was breathing as wildly and as loudly as she was. He could hear them both over the water hitting the tiles in the shower.
Bailey stared at his throat while he took in the button and zipper on her jeans. Since she didn’t reach for either, he sucked in a breath and did it himself, trying to ignore the way her belly fluttered when he touched her skin.
Pop went the button, and with a hard swallow he reached for the tab of her zipper.
The rasp of the metal sounded incredibly loud in the room.
Then he dropped his gaze to look down at what he’d exposed, and what he’d exposed was a wedge of soft, creamy, pale skin that he wanted to put his mouth to so badly he was shaking for it.
For her.
Yeah, way to keep your distance.
Tightening his mouth, he hunkered down before her and pushed her jeans to her thighs, trying not to notice that he was at eye level with the most beautiful, erotic sight he’d ever seen—a pair of absolutely heart destroying pale blue string bikini panties with a satin ribbon over each hip and a little triangle that barely covered her mound. Trying not to stare, he shoved the denim farther, to her knees.
Looking at her perfect body, it was a moment before he was able to speak. He wanted to hold her. God, he wanted that so much he ached. Surging to his feet, he looked into her eyes and felt his heart engage.
Hard.
Which was some pretty damn bad timing.
With the slow, exaggerated movements of someone either sick, drugged, or exhausted beyond all sense, she kicked free of her boots.
And then stepped out of her jeans.
His heart stopped, then kicked back into action, going from zero to sixty in two-point-one seconds. Maybe less.
Oblivious to his reaction, she turned her back and afforded him a front-row-seat view of a world-class ass.
Weaving, she grabbed the shower door. He lurched to help, but she held up a hand to hold him off, and he forced himself to stand very still rather than put his hands all over her.
“I’ll be quick,” she promised, glancing at him over her shoulder as she gripped the shower door. “So you can warm up, too.”
Before he could do anything stupid, like suggest they conserve water and shower together, or better yet just get down on his knees and beg to worship at the temple of her body, she stepped into the water and shut the glass door.
“Okay, then,” he said, and backed to the bathroom doorway, running into it like an idiot. “I’ll just be out here if you need anything.” Please need something.
Me.
She didn’t answer, so he stepped outside the bathroom. Paused. Waited. She still said nothing, so with no choice left, he shut the door. Leaning back on it, he surveyed the master suite and let out a slow, deliberate breath.
Because he wasn’t seeing the huge bed, piled high with luxurious bedding. He wasn’t seeing the gorgeous oak furniture, or the huge picture window revealing the dark, dark night.
He could see only Bailey, and how she’d just looked beneath the streaming, steaming hot water running in rivulets down her body—
He thunked his head back against the door, but the image didn’t dispel. It seemed like days ago since he’d gotten onto the Piper to come here. Days since he’d first looked into Bailey’s eyes and been drawn in…
Since that thought brought him back to her naked and wet and gleaming, he tightened his jaw and stalked out of the bedroom, making his way through the house, checking each door and window lock.
The shower was still running.
In the kitchen, he put water on to boil, got out a mug and found some tea. When he had it steeping, he picked it up and headed back to the bedroom. He looked at the bathroom door. She’d been in there long enough to broil herself. “Bailey?” He knocked twice.
Nothing. Just the water hitting the tiles.
And suddenly, he got worried. Or more worried. “Bailey? You okay?”
Again with the no-answer thing.
The hell with preserving her privacy, he thought, and helped himself to the door.
Chapter 11
The shower looked empty. Heart in his throat, Noah set the mug down on the counter and yanked open the glass door.
And felt his heart crack.
Bailey was huddled on the floor in a ball, her head bent over her knees.
Yeah, all distance had definitely gone out the window. He’d done as she’d wanted; he’d gotten her to Mammoth. Now he should turn around and get her the hell out of here, or walk away.
But he couldn’t.
He couldn’t walk away from her and didn’t know who could.
She hadn’t moved. Concerned, he stepped right into the shower and squatted down at her side. “Bailey.”
She jerked as if she’d been shot, and then stared at him from hollow, haunted eyes.
She’d fallen asleep, he realized, just sitting right there, too exhausted to even move.
He knew how she felt. Even now, with the water beating down on his back, soaking into his jeans, he felt the same.
The water was beating down on her as well, and with her hair in her face, and the little bit of mascara she’d had left smudged beneath her eyes, she looked like a drowned rat.
Ah, hell, who was he kidding? She looked hot. Way too hot to touch, but he couldn’t just leave her there. He stood and turned off the water. “Come on, Princess,” he murmured, and scooped her up into his arms. Not noticing how her bare wet skin felt in his hands, he told himself. Not noticing that her pale blue satin panties and pink bra had gone sheer, and snug as a second skin, revealing far more than they hid.
Christ, she was mouth-watering.
Nope, not noticing. He tossed a towel around her, did his best to dry her off some, and carried her into the bedroom. He went to set her down on the floor next to the bed so that he could pull back the comforter, but she tightened her grip around his neck and burrowed in, making a soft little sound that tugged right at his gut.
“I’ve got to set you down,” he said. “And get your wet things off.”
She loosened her hold, and he let her slide to the carpet, maybe coincidentally keeping her snug against him as he leaned over the mattress and yanked down the covers.
Or not coincidentally.
Dropping the towel, she moved to crawl into the bed, but he stopped her. “Your things…” He gestured to her bra and panties, which were outlining every curve and nuance. Her breasts were pushed up, her nipples two tight points. Her belly rose and fell quickly with her stressed breathing. And those panties, the way they clung to her every single jaw-dropping, sexy, erotic inch.
But he might as well try to stop breathing.
Or to not get impossibly hard at the sight of her.
Yeah, like that was in his control.
“Sorry,” she actually said, and reached behind her to unhook her bra, while he stood there afraid his tongue would fall out and embarrass him.
A man should not go six months without sex, he told himself. Should. Not. Because now, suddenly, the only thing that was going to make him feel better was exactly that, complete with a mind-blowing orgasm, the hotter, the sweatier, the wilder, the better.
It was crazy, beyond crazy, but after the unexpectedly rough flight with the landing gear troubles, then the goons with guns, the wild goose chase…they were finally going to end up naked.
Just to prevent hypothermia.
A big, fat lie, by the way. He hated liars, and he’d become one, but with the feeling of Bailey wrapped around him like warm honey as she’d been, he didn’t give a shit.
She was struggling with the clasp on her bra, her motions lethargic, as if she was so out of energy she could barely move. In the meantime, with her arms behind her, her breasts were thrust out like two ripe offerings. Water from her hair dripped down her belly and into her panties, which concealed exactly nothing, not the fact that she was neatly trimmed or that she was a natural strawberry blonde.
Jesus.
“I can’t—” Her voice was slurred with sheer exhaustion.
“Here.” Putting his hands to her shoulders, he turned her around and brushed her hands aside. Her shoulders and neck were bared because her hair had fallen to her front, showing off her
