by Lauren Layne
“Told you I liked puzzles.”
“I thought you were joking,” she said, bending over to get a better look at the London scene. Or at least, what would be the London scene. He hadn’t even finished the border pieces of this one yet.
“How do you even know where to start?” she asked, picking up a piece, running a finger around the edge as she studied it.
He watched her for a moment, wondering what sort of childhood had resulted in someone never doing a puzzle.
“Well,” he said slowly, coming around to stand beside her. “It’s like I said a while ago: you start with the corner pieces.”
She smiled and looked up at him. “I remember. You thought you’d found one of mine.”
“I know I did.”
“What’d you figure out?”
He held her gaze. “That you don’t trust people. And that you definitely don’t trust men.”
“Yeah, well.” She dropped the piece back to the coffee table. “That applies to most of the women of Manhattan.”
“Because of Brayden?”
She shrugged lightly. “Because of a lot of things. In my experience, men generally aren’t . . . nice.”
“I am.”
She looked up at him again. “Yeah,” she said slowly, as though surprised. “You are.”
His gaze dropped to her lips.
Just friends, he reminded himself. He’d meant what he’d told her the other day. He didn’t think he could survive another Bridget. Couldn’t handle another woman who couldn’t handle Dad. Couldn’t risk falling for her only to watch her walk away.
She bent to the table again, this time to pick up his cup. She sniffed the contents. “High West?”
The woman knew his favorite whisky by scent?
It was too damn late. He was already falling for her. Falling for every one of her moods, and there were many. Falling for her strength and her vulnerabilities, falling for the fact that she was kind even when she didn’t want to be . . .
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she said with a nervous laugh. “You can get back to your football game. I can read or maybe figure out how to do this nerdy puzzle thing . . .”
Oliver slid a hand behind her head, tilting her face up to his.
“Wait,” she said a little breathlessly, placing her hands against his chest when he bent his head toward hers. “I just came over to hang out. I thought we weren’t doing this.”
“I don’t know what the hell we’re doing,” he said, his voice a little lower than usual. “Do you?”
Wordlessly she shook her head, and the hands against his chest moved slightly, going from pressing in resistance to tugging slightly at his shirt until . . .
His lips brushed over hers, teasing, testing, wanting.
Her lips softened beneath his, bringing him in, drowning him in her spicy-sweet cinnamon taste, seducing him with every sexy move against his mouth.
He meant to take it slow—to sate them both with a kiss to take the edge off, but his willpower began to fade the second he got his hands on her.
Oliver wanted this—wanted her—in a way that went beyond physical need.
Since the day he’d met her, she’d gotten under his skin, pissed him off, confused the hell out of him, and he was damn grateful for it. Naomi Powell had brought him back to life, made him realize that he hadn’t died with his mom, or with his father’s diagnosis; he’d just been living that way.
He was thirty years old. He was a man.
And right now, he was a man who needed a woman—this woman.
Her hands slipped under his shirt, her nails digging into his back as he kissed her neck. “You like this,” he murmured against the hollow of her throat.
In response she arched into him further, pressing soft feminine curves into everything that was hard and masculine.
“Tell me to stop,” Oliver said, even as his palm found the fullness of her breast. “Remind me . . .”
He lost his train of thought as Naomi stepped back slightly and, holding his gaze, reached down and pulled the hem of her shirt up and over her head so she stood before him all white skin and plain black bra.
Oliver’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. She was beautiful. Stunning. But that wasn’t what undid him. It was the soft vulnerability in her eyes, the quiet warmth that told him this was more than just about the physical for her, too.
He stayed still too long, because her cheeks began to flush and she started to reach for her discarded shirt.
Oliver’s hand shot out to her waist. “Don’t.”
Slowly, deliberately, he bent his head, bringing his mouth once more to hers as he tugged her closer. Naomi sighed against his lips as his hand glided up her slim back. Her breath caught when his fingers unhooked her bra. She cried out when his hands found her bare flesh.
He was lost. Utterly and entirely gone for this woman.
Oliver bent slightly, scooping her into his arms, the old-fashioned gesture feeling exactly like the right one with this thoroughly modern woman.
He carried her to the bedroom and set her on the bed. He saw something flicker in her eyes, something almost familiar that told him he was missing something crucial.
Then Naomi reached for him, warm and willing, feeling very much like his future.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4
Naomi woke up slowly, registering first that the window had moved. She was lying on her right side, as she usually did, but the window wasn’t where it was supposed to be. She was looking at a bare wall.
And the pillow was different, too. It was warm, and . . . moving.
She froze as Oliver shifted beneath her.
Oliver.
She’d slept with Oliver Cunningham.
Naomi squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the wave of self-loathing, bracing for the onslaught of guilt. What would her mother think?
But . . . nothing came.
For the first time in a long time, Naomi’s primary thoughts weren’t of the past, but of the present. Present Oliver. And Present Oliver, or at least, Last Night Oliver had been . . .
Perfect.
She tilted her head up slightly, wanting to run a finger along the scruff on that sharp jawline but not wanting to wake him up. She liked him with a little bit of facial hair. Liked him without it, too. Liked him in sweats, liked him in suits. Just . . . liked him.
He spoke without opening his eyes. “Why are you watching me?”
She laughed. “That obvious?”
Oliver glanced down, blue eyes soft and a little sleepy. “Morning.”
“Morning,” she said softly.
His arm came more fully around her, and she burrowed closer. She’d never been much of a cuddler, but for some reason she couldn’t seem to get close enough. Maybe because she knew this was likely to be short-lived, because once he found out who she was . . . that she’d been lying.
Claire was right. She had to tell him.
“Hey,” she said softly, dragging her finger in lazy patterns on his chest. “So—”
Oliver groaned just slightly. “Naomi, something you should know about me—I’m no good for talking before coffee.”
A reprieve.
She didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed.
“Noted,” she said, lifting up slightly so he could slide out of bed. “Never stand between a caffeine addict and his coffee.”
“You don’t drink it.”
“No, I do,” she said, flopping back down on the pillow. “As long as it’s like, half coffee, half sweet creamer stuff.”
He winced as he pulled sweatpants out of a dresser drawer. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. Where’s your key?”
“Hmm?”
“Your apartment key. I don’t think I even have milk, but if you have the makings to bastardize coffee in your place, I can go grab it.”
“Back pocket of my jeans,” she said, sitting up and pulling the sheet under her armpits. “Which are . . .”
Ol
iver picked them up from the doorway, where they’d been dropped. Flung? Hmm.
“I’ll go,” she said as he held up the key.
“You’ll stay. I find I’m really liking the looks of you in my bed.”
“Good, because I’m pretty damn happy to be here.”
Naomi flopped back on the pillows as he disappeared.
Several minutes later, he reappeared with two steaming mugs and her trusty Coffee-mate tucked under his arm.
“Okay, I added some,” he said, setting one of the mugs on the nightstand and handing her the other. “I was assuming you didn’t literally mean half-and-half, but . . .”
“No, I meant it,” she said, waggling her fingers for the bottle of vanilla creamer.
“I don’t think I can watch this,” he muttered, handing her the bottle and pulling a spoon out of his pocket.
She added a generous dollop more and stirred. “You know it’s right when it’s mostly white with just a little hint of brown.”
He stared at her, horrified. “I think I want to break up.”
Naomi popped the spoon in her mouth, sucked it clean.
Oliver blinked. “Or not.”
“Break up. Seems to me in order to break up, we’d first have to be . . . together?” she asked, taking a sip of the perfectly sweetened coffee.
Oliver sat on the edge of the bed. “Seems like it.”
Are we? she wanted to ask.
She didn’t. Because she couldn’t, in good conscience, ask him to think of her like a girlfriend when he didn’t even know her. Didn’t know their history.
Damn it, she’d done that thing.
That thing where you wait too long to tell someone something important, and what would have been merely an awkward conversation now felt monumental.
“Oliver—”
“Naomi.” His voice was steady. Calm. Because he was steady and calm. He was a rock. For his mother when she was sick, for his father now. He was that guy. The one people could count on. The one who stuck around when shit got difficult.
She studied him, trying to remember the monstrous little boy he’d been and . . . couldn’t. Adult Oliver had replaced all memories of crappy, brat Oliver. The boy she’d hated had become a man she—
“Do you want to go to brunch?” she blurted out. “There’s this great little place in the Village with the most amazing French toast and eggs Benedict. It’s impossible to get into without reservations, but one of my employees is dating the owner, so I could probably get us a spot at the bar . . .”
Even as she babbled, she saw the light go out of his eyes, watched as he shut down.
“You don’t like brunch?”
Never before had she seen someone dim so much at the mention of French toast.
“No, I do.” He rubbed a hand over his hair, looking suddenly exhausted. “It’s just—it’s not really a luxury I’ve been able to indulge in the past couple years.”
Ah. “Walter.”
He looked at her, eyes tired. Apologetic. “Janice does brunch and church with her sister’s family every Sunday. I’m on Walter duty. If I know in advance, I can sometimes make it work, but—”
“No, of course,” Naomi interrupted, holding up her hand. “I should have realized . . . I know you’re usually with him on weekends. And evenings.”
“Rethinking that together thing?” he asked, his eyes bleak as he looked at her.
Yes, but not for the reason you think.
“Maybe you’re right,” Naomi said quietly. “This whole thing is complicated. It’s happened fast. If we could just slow down for a second—”
“Naomi. I get it,” he said. “It’s like I told you the other day, I don’t hold it against anyone who wants no part of this, but this is also my life. You’re young, gorgeous, successful. You deserve the brunches and the fancy happy hours and the late-night dinners. But that’s never going to be with me. Not anytime soon.”
She nodded because it was easier to let him think that was the reason she was walking away than the real reason.
Naomi took another sip of coffee before handing him the mug. “I’ll get dressed.”
He stayed still for a minute, looking at her with undisguised regret before he stood and took both mugs into the kitchen. Naomi got out of the bed, finding her underwear and jeans, then wincing when she realized her bra and shirt were still in the living room.
Deciding that borrowing a T-shirt without asking was decidedly less embarrassing than leaving the bedroom topless, she helped herself to a Columbia University shirt she found in a drawer.
Oliver did a double take when she came out of the bedroom wearing it but said nothing as she picked up her bra and shirt as calmly as possible, wrapping the bra inside the shirt in case she ran into any other neighbors on the way back to her apartment.
“So.” She turned and faced him. “Um.”
He smiled. “You don’t have to.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“I just meant you don’t have to say anything,” he said, setting his mug aside and coming toward her. “I’m not boyfriend material. Not right now.”
He stopped, setting a hand to her cheek. “No regrets about last night. Promise me.”
“I promise,” she whispered, turning her cheek into his hand and closing her eyes, relishing his scent. His warmth.
He kissed her softly, before stepping back. “See you around, Naomi.”
She swallowed, a little puzzled to realize there was a lump in her throat. “See you.”
Naomi left his apartment and walked woodenly down the hall. Blindly, she climbed into the shower, hoping the warm water would wash away the sense that this was all wrong. That she was being an idiot.
And that maybe he was, too, for not having the courage to ask someone to stick with him. To tell him he was worth the sacrifices that came with his situation.
When she realized she was being an idiot, Naomi hurriedly shut off the water. She dried her hair in record time, tugged on yoga pants, and pulled on Oliver’s college T-shirt once more.
Two minutes later, she was out the door, five minutes after that, she was at the grocery store, then back to her apartment to pick up the bottle of cheap champagne she kept in the fridge.
It was just before ten when she knocked on Walter’s door with the toe of her sneaker, since her arms were full of grocery bags and a bouquet of confetti roses she’d bought on a whim.
Oliver opened the door, his expression nonplussed. “Naomi? What are you doing here?” Automatically he reached out to take one of the bags. “What’s all this stuff?”
“Eggs. Hash browns. Bacon. Some sort of cinnamon bread that looked too delicious to pass up. Orange juice and bubbly, because what’s a brunch without mimosas,” she said, pushing past the stunned man.
She went on her toes and kissed his cheek. “You couldn’t go to brunch, so I brought brunch to you. And Walter. Good morning, Walter,” she said, turning and seeing him in his favorite easy chair by the TV.
He glanced over, lifted his hand in greeting. “Naomi.”
She smiled at Oliver. “See? Off to a good start. Okay, how are your scrambled eggs skills? Mine are mediocre, but I’m really good with bacon—”
Oliver hauled her toward him, cutting off her bacon bragging with a searing kiss.
It was long and hard, and loaded with emotion. They were both breathing hard when he pulled back, resting his forehead on hers. “Thank you.”
She brushed her mouth over his softly. “You’re welcome. Now feed me?”
He grinned in response, off-loading the rest of the bags as she went to search for a vase for the flowers. “Walter, how do you like your bacon? You a crispy kind of guy?”
“Sausage. You got any sausage?”
“Work with me here, Walter,” she said, giving the man an exasperated look.
He looked over and smiled, and Naomi was surprised to feel herself smile back.
This wasn’t even remotely close to ho
w Naomi had envisioned her relationship with the Cunningham men.
And she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so . . . happy.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5
Yes, I know it’s last minute. Yes, I understand—nope, absolutely understand your agency prefers twenty-four hours’ notice . . . yep, and I appreciate you making an exception. Yes, six o’clock tonight would be perfect.”
Oliver spent another minute groveling on the phone with the caretaking agency before making another phone call, this time to one of his favorite restaurants that he hadn’t been to in . . . way too long.
Sure, Monday nights weren’t the most popular date nights, but he wanted to surprise Naomi. To show her that he could meet her halfway, to find a way to make them work.
The woman had gone above and beyond. First with brunch yesterday, not even batting an eye when it had devolved into an expected tantrum from Walter. Then this afternoon when Oliver had gotten hung up with a client at the same time Janice had a sudden, severe tooth pain, Naomi had casually offered to stay with Walter so Janice could get to the dentist.
Just like that, as if it were no big deal. As if they were partners in this, even though he had no right to ask it of her so soon in the relationship.
Oliver knew he was dangerously close to falling in love with the woman, and the only thing holding him back was the nagging sense that she was holding back.
That was what tonight was for. Just the two of them. Nice wine. Fancy clothes. No hard-boiled eggs. Not even puzzles.
To give them a chance, he needed to get them beyond the walls of 517 Park Avenue, to show her—to show himself—that they could make it in the real world.
After making dinner reservations, he made one more call, this time to Naomi. She didn’t pick up, which wasn’t all that surprising, considering his dad frequently demanded all of someone’s attention.
He nearly sent her a text, letting her know that he’d gotten alternate care for the evening, since Janice—on pain pills following an emergency root canal—would likely be ill-equipped to deal with Walter.
He decided instead to surprise her, stopping on his way home to get her flowers. She’d insisted on leaving the roses from yesterday at his place to “brighten it up,” and he wanted something for her place—a congratulations on the new office.
