by Lauren Layne
“Yeah?” I ask.
“Put your hands on me.”
It’s as much of an admission as I’m going to get from him, and it’s enough. I set one knee on the bed, then another, kneeling beside him instead of straddling him as I reach for him.
Honestly? I haven’t done this a lot. I mean, I’ve touched guys a couple of times, but it’s usually been just a few quick shy touches as part of rushed foreplay.
This is different.
I turn toward the lamp, thinking to turn it off, but he shakes his head. “I want to watch you.”
Well. Crap.
Better make it good, then.
I stroke him slowly, learning the feel of him, velvety soft skin over steel, my thumb brushing over the top of moisture on the tip, spreading it around and smiling slightly when he moans.
Over and over I stroke him, learning that he likes it best when my touch is firm. The quickening in his breathing tells me he likes it when I lean over him, giving him a view of my cleavage.
My grand plan was an epic hand job. An even exchange for last night.
But having him completely at my mercy, hearing him unravel under my touch, makes me bold.
I bend forward even farther until my lips hover just over him. Almost touching, but not quite.
“Jenny.” His hips buck, but I pull back.
“Yes?” I ask, turning my head to meet his eyes.
He shakes his head. “You don’t have to—”
“I can stop if you like.” I dip my head lower so my lips brush over his tip.
His eyes are closed now, his chest rising and falling, and I know I’ve won.
I take him in my mouth and he rears off the bed with a stream of profanity.
Here’s another thing I’ve never considered myself particularly skilled at. An awkward thing, the blow job.
But it doesn’t feel awkward with Noah. I feel sexy as hell bent over him, my lips wrapped around him. I even arch my lower back a little, knowing from his groan that he’s enjoying the visual as much as I’m enjoying his taste.
“Fuck,” he says, his hips moving faster to meet my mouth, his feet digging into the mattress as he strains to get closer. “Jenny, you need to stop. Now.”
I don’t stop.
Instead I wrap one hand around the base of him, pumping as my tongue swirls under the underside before I tighten the suction.
I’ve never felt quite so powerful and wanton as I do the moment Noah Maxwell comes in my mouth with an animalistic roar.
I stay with him through every shudder, relishing every oath before slowly easing back. I dab lightly at the corner of my mouth with my middle finger as I watch him with hungry, curious eyes.
His breath rises and falls, his closed eyes showing off those ridiculously curly eyelashes to perfection.
When he finally opens them to meet my gaze, they’re unreadable.
I give him a nervous smile as I glance up at the zip ties. “I, uh, didn’t quite think through this part,” I say. “Are those things easy to remove?”
He lets out a little laugh and shakes his head. “Unbelievable.”
“Either you can tell me what to do or I can leave you like this.”
“Drawer to the right of the sink. There’s some kitchen shears that should do the trick.”
A few moments later I cut the zip ties free, wincing as I see him rub lightly at the red lines around his wrist. “Do they hurt?”
He meets my eyes. “Worth it.”
I turn away in embarrassment. I wasn’t kidding when I said I hadn’t thought through what would come after, and I have no idea how to make a graceful yet saucy exit.
I retrieve my tank top once more as he pulls up his boxers and pants. I hurriedly pull on the shirt before giving him a wide grin. “So. We’re even, then.”
His hand flexes as though he wants to reach for me, but he doesn’t. “Princess…”
I shake my head and back up. “No words necessary, Noah. I’d say we both got what we wanted. Maybe now this…thing between us will ease and we can go back to ignoring each other.”
He says nothing as I bend down to pick up my bag, and as an afterthought I pull out the bag of pink zip ties and toss them at him, since I’d bought two bags. Because you never know. “Here. A souvenir.”
“At least let me walk you home.”
“I’m good. Really.”
“Princess—”
“I want to be alone. Please.”
I bend to pet Ranger as I leave, his tail thumping happily against the wood floor, never pausing in chewing his bone (one of my more brilliant ideas, if I do say so myself).
I let myself out, stopping to pick up the big-ass gator stick as I make the trek back toward the main house.
About two minutes in, I hear a twig snap behind me, and I tense, my grip adjusting on the stick, but then I hear a low, quiet whistling, something low and mellow and masculine.
I smile, realizing it’s Noah letting me know that it’s him, and that he’s found a way to walk me home and still give me my space.
I don’t turn back to acknowledge his presence until I get back to the house, where I pause on the back porch and turn toward him.
He’s there in the shadows, hands in his pockets.
I lift my hand in a wave. Thanks.
He doesn’t wave back. Doesn’t say a word.
Instead he turns, walking back toward his cottage. Only as I go back into the house do I realize what song he’s whistling.
“Predator.”
The song I was working on all day, the song I wrote for him…he’s singing it right back to me.
And I can’t help the grin.
Noah
The morning after the best blow job of my life, I get a hell of a rude awakening.
Ranger’s frantic barks are followed by the unapologetic slam of my front door. I open one eye, hoping that it’s Jenny, here to make all my dirty dreams a reality.
I groan.
Definitely not Jenny.
“What the hell, dude?” I mutter. “What time is it?”
“Time for you to stop being a fucking pansy,” Vaughn says, looking around at the cottage in disgust. “Is this where you’ve been living?”
I roll to my side, reaching around on the floor until I come up with my jeans. “Make some coffee, would you?”
I go into the bathroom to pee and splash some water on my face, and when I come back out, Vaughn’s found his way around the tiny kitchen well enough to start a pot of coffee while he stares down at the mangled chew toy Ranger’s dropped at his feet.
“He wants you to throw it,” I say.
“Throw it where? I’ve seen shoeboxes bigger than this place.”
“You sound like a snob,” I say as I open the front door to let Ranger out for his morning dump.
“I’m not going to apologize for liking nice things, and right now I’m not seeing anything nice. Although I guess the TV’s not bad.”
I get down two mugs, then cross my arms and glare at him while I wait for the coffeepot to finish doing its thing. “You want to tell me what’s brought you out here at seven A.M.? Isn’t it a workday?”
“Oh, so you’re familiar with the concept?” Vaughn says. “Wasn’t sure, what with the two-week vacation and all.”
“Hey, I’ve practically broken my back out here,” I snap. “Installing new appliances and replacing drywall’s not exactly sipping mai tais by a pool.”
“Which would be fine if this was your actual job. But have you forgotten you’re the owner of a major corporation?”
“The owner, yes. Not CEO. I don’t run the business.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Jesus, not this again,” I mutter as I turn and jerk the coffeepot off the machine even though it’s not all the way done brewing.
I pour us both a cup, going to the window to watch Ranger happily bound after a flock of birds.
It drives Vaughn fucking nuts that I spent three years being groomed to take over the compan
y only to tell my father I had zero interest in being CEO. Objectively I know it’s none of his business, but because he’s my friend, it gnaws at me that I can’t make him understand.
Nothing pisses me off more than that disappointed look on his face every time I tell him I’m taking another consulting gig, investing in a new start-up, or doing anything other than being a good little robot in a suit who shuffles into the company headquarters in downtown Baton Rouge.
You’d think I’d be well used to the look by now. Lord knows I saw it often enough on my father’s face before he died.
And on Yvonne’s.
Still, my dad and Yvonne wanted me to take over for selfish reasons—my father so that he could have the perfect protégé he’d always wanted, his damned legacy, and Yvonne because she wanted the prestige of being married to the CEO of Walcott International. Apparently it wasn’t enough to have access to the money.
General contractor doesn’t make for good cocktail party introductions, Preston.
Yeah, you know what else doesn’t make for good cocktail party introductions, Yvonne? “This is my fiancée, who’s been cheating on me the better part of a year.”
As though reading my thoughts, Vaughn reaches for the cup of coffee and drops the bomb of why he’s here.
“I got a wedding invitation yesterday,” he says quietly.
“And?”
“It’s Yvonne’s.”
I turn around. “Seriously? She’s marrying that prick?”
I’m trying to decide if I care. Leaning toward no.
Vaughn gives me a disgusted look. “You’re an idiot. It’s your wedding invitation, fool.”
“The fuck.” I jerk in surprise, hot coffee spilling over my hand, which earns another stream of curses as I turn on the faucet and run cold water on my hand, hoping to hell that either Vaughn’s lost his damn mind or I’m still asleep and this is the world’s worst nightmare.
“She’s been trying to get ahold of you,” he says quietly.
“Finn told me.”
“You shouldn’t have ignored her, man. She got desperate.”
I turn off the sink and grab a paper towel. “Right. This is my fault. She cheats on me, I tell her the wedding’s off, she decides no it’s not, and sends out invitations anyway?”
He takes a sip of coffee and studies me calmly. “I’m gonna ask you something, and you’re gonna get pissed.”
“Wonderful,” I mutter. “That sounds really great.”
“Had she not cheated on you…would you have married her?”
I don’t look at him as I pour myself more coffee. “I don’t know,” I say finally.
“So you were having doubts even before?”
I shrug. “If you’re asking if her affair felt like an out, yeah. If you’re asking if I was a little relieved…yeah to that too. If she hadn’t had the affair, would I have figured out that our marriage would be an unhappy one in time to call it off? I don’t know.”
To my relief, he doesn’t give me shit. Just nods slowly with that thoughtful look on his face that he gets whenever he’s gearing up to interfere with my life.
“What are you going to do?” he asks. “A part of me hoped that she just sent the invitation to me, knowing it’d be a way to get your attention. But everyone has one, Preston.”
I feel a surge of rage so intense I literally don’t know what to do with it, and it’s all I can do to slowly set my coffee back down and brace my hands on the counter while taking deep breaths.
I want to rage that this isn’t fair. That it’s not my fault that Yvonne’s being a stubborn bitch who’s trying to manipulate me down the aisle.
But of course it is my fault, at least partially so.
I don’t regret calling off the wedding, not for one second. But I do regret that I didn’t see the warning signs that she wasn’t going to take the rejection lying down.
In my defense, I genuinely thought that disappearing would help get it through her thick skull that I wasn’t coming back around, but clearly I’ve made a major judgment error, because she’s just called my bluff in a big way.
And hell if I know how to get out of it.
“I’ll deal with Yvonne,” I mutter, picking up my mug once my temper’s subsided slightly.
“How?”
“I don’t fucking know, man,” I snap. “You got any ideas how to call off a wedding?”
“I’m working on it,” Vaughn says.
I’ve known the guy long enough to be aware that this is his go-to evasion when he doesn’t have a clue, but I can’t really blame him. I don’t have a clue either. I mean, obviously I can just not show up on the wedding day, but I’m not such a dick that I’m cool with letting a few hundred people show up at a church for a wedding I don’t intend to be at.
“Okay, next problem,” Vaughn says.
“Jesus, there’s more?”
“You asked me to keep an eye on your email, the one that’s public record on the company website.”
“Yeah? So? Nobody ever writes to that one except requests for charity donations, and you can just forward those to the public relations office.”
“Yeah, mastered that, thanks,” he says dryly. “I’m more concerned about the world-renowned superstar who sent an email to that address a couple of weeks ago thinking she was reaching your father.”
Jenny.
Fuck. I forgot that that’s how she got in touch with me.
“She sent another email. This morning.”
“How? She doesn’t have Internet access here,” I say, feeling a little trickle of panic. Not that it’s up to me when Jenny ends her “information diet,” but it’s belatedly occurred to me that just as the Internet can give her information she doesn’t want about herself, it also has a shitload of information about me. “What did she want?” I ask, strangely more tense about mention of Jenny than I am about any mention of Yvonne.
He gives me a curious look, no doubt noticing my reaction. “She wants to buy the place.”
“What place?”
He rolls his eyes and lifts an arm, gesturing in a circle. “This place. God knows why, but she wants to know if you’d consider an offer.”
“No. Hell no.”
Vaughn blinks. “What the hell, man? Just give it to her. Get rid of the dump.”
I’m already shaking my head. “It’s not for sale.”
He looks incredulous as he slowly sets his mug down. “What is going on with you? You can’t mean to stay here.”
I scratch my eyebrow and don’t respond.
“Talk to me, Preston,” Vaughn says quietly.
I don’t respond, because there’s really nothing to talk about. I only know that I need more time to figure shit out. What I want, who I am, what’s next. And I need to do it here.
This may sound weird since I’m not a musician, but I get why Jenny Dawson was so obsessed with this place that she remembered it and returned a decade after a summer vacation here.
It doesn’t make sense. It’s old. Run-down. It’s not even remotely convenient to modern life.
But there’s something about it that calms me. It’s one of those places where you hear your thoughts louder and more clearly than anywhere else.
And Jenny wants to buy it.
Reluctant as I am to sell, I feel an odd sense of camaraderie with the little seductress. We have nothing in common save for a fucking intense physical attraction, but we have this. This house.
“I just need a little more time to figure things out,” I say, meeting my friend’s eyes.
He nods slowly. “Fine. But you don’t have much. Your wedding date’s at the end of August.”
Two months.
Fucking Yvonne.
“Finn texted me,” Vaughn says, helping himself to more coffee.
“ ’Bout Yvonne?”
“That. And your new tenant.”
I tense. “What about her? He hasn’t said anything about her being here, has he?”
“Even he’s no
t that much of a dick,” Vaughn says. “But he does think you’re screwing her.”
I say nothing.
“Are you?”
“No.”
Technically true. Differentiating between oral sex and actual sex feels a bit high school, but I have zero intention of talking about what’s going on between me and Jenny Dawson.
As if I even know.
“Well, keep your dick in your pants around that one,” he says, taking a sip of coffee.
My gaze sharpens. “Why?”
“Look, I’ve got zero problem with a sexually liberated woman, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that that one’s a man-eater. The last thing you need is to get your cock tangled up with this girl when you’re still trying to untangle it from the last one.”
“I’m untangled from Yvonne,” I say wearily, wondering how early is too early for a beer. “We hadn’t had sex for weeks even before we broke up.”
He winces. “No wonder she cheated.”
I glare at him. “I didn’t cheat.”
“Because you’re decent when you’re not being an idiot,” Vaughn retorts. “Just…be smarter, okay? Make sure Jenny Dawson isn’t your rebound or balm for your wounded ego.”
“She’s not,” I all but snarl.
There it is again. That fierce, unfounded urge to protect her. To shield her from her own reputation.
“At the very least, end this idiotic charade,” Vaughn says tiredly. “Tell her who you really are.”
“She doesn’t need to know. And I didn’t lie to her about who I was. Just who you were. I really am Noah Maxwell.”
“You’re also Preston Walcott,” he snaps. “Don’t make her pay the price because your parents were stubborn idiots who gave you like twelve names, or because you like to pick and choose which name to use depending on your mood.”
“I’ve always wanted to be Noah,” I say. “Just Noah. You know that.”
“Yeah, but you’re not,” Vaughn counters. “And I, for one, don’t regret that your father dragged you into his life, because it means he brought you into mine.”
I feel a little stab of guilt. Edward Vaughn is one of the best men—the best friends—on the planet, and I’m all but spitting on our connection.
“A little more time, Vaughn,” I say quietly. “I hate having to say this out loud, but I’m…I’m reeling, man. I feel like I’ve been in an aimless free-fall for years, and this place…it’s helping. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but it’s helping.”
