Definitely determined. But she gives in to me.
Stepping forward, I pull at the covers until they’re out from under her and unwrap the towel from her head. Her damp, dark hair falls over the white bedding. Then I yank my towel off and climb in. When I roll her to me, she doesn’t open her eyes but comes willingly.
“So tired,” she mumbles into my chest.
I run my hand down her back until it lands on her ass, a place I’m liking very much. “It’s hard getting used to the time change. Go to sleep.”
When she presses her body against mine and her thigh rubs my bare dick, her body tightens and her words go alert. “You’re naked.”
“I am,” I agree.
“Why are you naked? I’m too tired for another one-nighter.”
“Technically that would make it a two-nighter, but I can see that you’re tired. For now, I’ll stay your one-night stand.”
“But,” she pushes away from my chest and looks up at me with her tired, blue eyes. “You’re naked.”
“You’ve seen me naked. I always sleep naked. No reason to change that now.”
“I can’t sleep with you like this. I never sleep with anyone, let alone anyone naked.”
I’m serious when I offer, “You could be naked, too, then it wouldn’t be weird.”
Her fingers tense on my muscles. “I never sleep naked.”
I shrug and pull her to me. “Suit yourself but if you’re going to sleep, sleep. Otherwise I’ll strip you down and I won’t be your one-night stand anymore.”
“There’s no way I’ll be able to sleep.”
I push her hair out of her face. “Your eyes are bloodshot you’re so tired. You’ll sleep.”
“Is that your way of telling me I look like shit?”
“Most people look like shit when they’ve been up for two days, Gracie.”
She tries to give me a punch that’s backed with the energy of a mouse. “You’re not going to get me naked anytime soon talking like that.”
“You want someone to lie to you, you picked the wrong guy. You’ll only ever get the truth from me.”
She sighs and that tension my naked cock caused a few moments ago disintegrates. “You’re a strange man.”
I can’t argue with that. “Go to sleep.”
“Noah?”
My hand trails down her spine and back to her ass. I can’t lie, I’m happy she’s using my first name again. “Yeah?”
“I let you butt into my day in Europe, but you can’t follow me to Uganda. I mean it. Today was amazing. Thank you for spending it with me, but I need to go on my own.”
I look over her dark hair and into the dark room, pulling her flush to me. “I know you do.”
“You know because you read my file?” she chides.
“No. Because you told me and I can tell it’s important to you even though you haven’t told me why. But you might later. I’m willing to work for that information.”
She sounds tired again. “I wish you wouldn’t.”
“I know that, too.”
“Stop it,” she grumbles.
“Stop what?”
“Stop saying the right things. It’s unnerving.”
I don’t answer that and put my lips to her forehead. “Go to sleep. You’ve got an early flight.”
She sighs and doesn’t say another word, but her body relaxes into my bare one as she falls into a rhythm I’m not anxious to lose.
Chapter 8
Game-Fucking-On
Jarvis
Cupping her tit, I press my dick into her panty-covered ass.
Fuck, I want her. Want to bury my face between her legs. Make her beg until I let her come and then sink into her and stay there for-fucking-ever.
“Mmm,” she moans as I pull at her nipple.
Now isn’t the time. And not just because I let her sleep as long as possible so she could catch up before her long day. This needs to wait until I understand more about her.
I put my lips to the side of her head. “We need to get up so I can get you to the airport on time.”
She arches back into my cock and brings her hand up to cover mine, squeezing it over her breast. I like that she wakes up like this. She wants it, too.
But not today.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
I taste her skin at the spot where her neck meets her shoulder. “Waking you up.”
She exhales a deep breath. “I know, but what are you doing?”
Because I have to know, I slide my hand down her body, spanning her stomach, and when my hand dips between her legs, her head falls back on my shoulder. I squeeze and confirm what I knew without a doubt would be true—her body is not in accordance with her brain. She’s soaked through her panties and the thought of her like this—ready and wanting me as much as I do her—is almost too much for my resolve.
That’s why I only slip her panties to the side long enough to drag one finger through her. She gasps, but that’s all I give her. When she loses my touch, her eyes fly open and she turns to look at me. Those blue eyes—bright and not at all bloodshot this morning—flare when I bring my finger up to my mouth to taste her. Then I bury my hand in her hair and crane her neck farther to take her mouth.
She’s breathless when I let her go and announce, “Good morning, Lover.”
I don’t give her a chance to say anything because I’m harder than stone and need another shower where I can jack off to the taste of Gracie Cain’s pussy on my tongue. Because if I don’t, she’s going to miss her flight.
* * *
Gracie
Jarvis didn’t become a two-night stand.
We did just what he said we’d do and slept, even in all his naked glory.
But he did wake me up with his hand up my shirt, cupping my bare breast. I not only woke up wet, but also willing to make Jarvis a two-night stand. He was pressed to my back and his bare cock teased the crack of my ass through my panties. The way he played with my nipple and ran his tongue up my neck had me squirming. Then he touched me between my legs and I thought I might come on contact. But his words were not only a bucket of ice, but also a disappointment I’m trying not to think about. “You have to be at the airport in an hour. Time to get up.”
I think I groaned.
I also think I felt him smile against my skin so he knew exactly what he was doing.
The vendor returns Noah’s change and hands him two coffees and the two bags of food he ordered, while speaking Dutch this time, and he hands me one of each.
After checking my bag, Noah somehow got through security by showing them a slew of documents, and met me on the other side. My strategy of not knowing anything about Noah Jarvis to keep from wanting him isn’t working. My curiosity about him is going bonkers.
“How many languages do you speak?”
I follow him to a couple chairs at the end of a row and we sit. He takes a drink of his coffee and shrugs. “Seven, give or take. But only five fluently. I can make my way around some others.”
I open the bag and pull out a streusel that’s warm and wonder how my stomach can growl after all the food I ate yesterday. “And how did you get through security again without a ticket?”
His dark eyes slice to mine. “That, I can’t tell you. Just know that I can.”
Well, I guess he kept his promise about not lying. I’m not sure I’ve ever met a man as direct as him.
He keeps talking. “I’m leaving Brussels later today because I have an assignment. When I work, there are times I can’t communicate with anyone.” He puts his coffee down and turns to me and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him so serious. “I want to keep in touch while you’re doing your thing. Message me anytime you want but just know there will be times I can’t communicate. It’s not that I won’t want to, but for safety reasons, I can’t.”
This change in him is so drastic, I’m not sure what to do with it but I ask about the only thing going through my mind, which I hate, because worrying about Noah shou
ldn’t make me unsettled. “Safety?”
His expression reiterates his words. “Not for me. For you. Or anyone I might try to communicate with. I can’t risk someone picking up a signal.”
My face falls, and all of a sudden, the streusel tastes like bile on my taste buds. I force myself to swallow and don’t know what else to say. “Noah.”
He keeps on, all business and nothing like the relaxed man who took me hiking yesterday and bought me enough chocolate to satisfy every PMS junk-food craving I’ll have for the next three years. “I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to think I’m brushing you off. You can’t get on that plane thinking I’m a one-night stand. Hell, that’s what we both thought the minute we laid eyes on each other that night. But we both know that’s changed. I’ll be back and the next time you see me it’s going to be game-fucking-on. No jet lag is going to get in the way of me figuring out why you insist I should walk away and forget about you.”
“Why are you choosing now to get all intense on me?”
All his passion continues. “Because I don’t know when I’ll see you again and I don’t want you getting on that plane thinking anything but the reality of what this is. Where I’m at. And when I don’t answer you, I don’t want you cussing my existence in a way I’m going to have to fix later. I’m fixing it now.”
“But I told you what I wanted, Noah. Or more specifically, didn’t want. I don’t want a relationship.”
He settles back in his chair and digs out his own breakfast of baked goods and shrugs. “Well, I’ve never wanted a relationship either. Consider me proof that people can change.”
“Holy shit,” I seethe, finally awake and alert enough to become irritated. “You know, plenty of people have tried to change me, Jarvis, and every single one of them failed. You’re not that special. I am what I am and you can’t do anything to—”
“Who’s tried to change you?” he interrupts.
“Maybe change is the wrong word.” I shake my head and pick up my coffee. “Repair, fix, alter. Everyone has tried to do all the things when I don’t want or need them to. Why do you think I’m going to Uganda?”
“Besides the obvious—to heal the world—I have no fucking clue because you won’t tell me.”
I pause because his tone catches me off guard. He’s frustrated and I’m finding myself in a tailspin from all the Noahs I’ve encountered in the short time since I’ve met him. Well, I’m just as exasperated with him—so much so, I don’t know what’s coming over me but I give in, just a little.
I lower my voice and give him a tiny bit of me. “When I was nine, the man who called himself my father beat me so badly, I was in a coma for two weeks. It wasn’t the first time it happened but it was the worst. Grady walked in, lost it, and killed him with his bare hands. My family was told I wouldn’t live, but I did. I was unwanted but I proved them all wrong. I didn’t lie the night we met—I can’t be broken.”
Noah’s dark eyes don’t change as I tell him about the horrors of my childhood. He doesn’t even flinch. His jaw tenses but his stare into my eyes never wavers.
I lean back putting space between us and utter, “You knew.”
His eyes narrow.
“Shit.” I stand and turn away. I’m not sure why I’m surprised. He said he knew everything but I figure that meant where I lived and worked.
He grabs my hand but I pull it away and he calls for me, “Grace.”
I try to keep my voice steady. “Don’t Grace me, Jarvis. You’re not the one here who’s had their privacy invaded.”
I feel his heavy arm circle behind me before his lips are so close to my ear, his words brush my skin. “Didn’t lie, baby. I told you I knew everything.”
I swallow and will my heart to calm. “I didn’t know that meant everything. Do you do this to everyone you meet?”
His arm around me flexes and his voice turns hard. “No fucking way. Besides work, I’ve never done it before.”
“I hate that you know.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s humiliating. You knowing my own father didn’t give a damn. That he became a raging alcoholic and we never knew what to expect from him. That I almost died because I didn’t pick up what few toys we had? I don’t like people knowing I was that unwanted.”
“You’re not unwanted.” Even though I’ve heard them before, those same words from Noah sink into me and settle.
“I was then.”
“You’re wanted now.”
I turn to look him in the eyes and sigh. “You might be right, but it doesn’t matter. Some damage can’t be undone.”
He holds my gaze for a second before he says, “The damage doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me,” I tell him the truth. “It matters more than anything.”
“And fixing the unwanted children of the world is your answer to that?”
I try to smile, but my heart isn’t in it. “Yes. That’s exactly what I hope to do.”
“And you have to do that in Uganda?”
This time I do smile but it’s small. “That’s what everyone has asked and my answer is why not?”
His nod is slow and methodical. Finally. Maybe I’m getting through to someone. “Why not, indeed.”
“Thank you.”
He twirls a strand of my hair in his finger. “For what?”
“Yesterday. For understanding. And for the memory.”
“This doesn’t change anything, Gracie.”
I freeze. “But it does. You get it.”
He shakes his head and a wisp of a smile touches his lips. He’s about to say something else when a voice comes over the speaker, first in Dutch, then French, and finally English.
He fists my hair and brings my mouth to his, and I’ve never been kissed with such ferocity. I feel it in every nerve ending, through my veins, to my toes, and straight to a place that’s had a do not enter sign on it for a very long time. His tongue invades my mouth, claiming me, consuming me as if he hasn’t eaten enough for five people in the last day, and his touch on my face is almost desperate.
When he finally lets me go, he rests his forehead on mine as we’re both forced to catch our breath. I open my eyes, seeing nothing but his dark ones. “Your flight is boarding. Don’t leave the airport during your layover in Rwanda and message me when the organization has picked you up when you get to Uganda. Be careful, Gracie, because when I’m done with my assignment and you’ve healed the children of the world, we’re picking this up. In no way, shape, or form is this even close to being done.”
“Noah,” I whisper.
“Go chase your dreams, baby. Every single one of them. You deserve it.”
“Stop it,” I demand, and dammit, my voice cracks.
“I’ll text when I can. I’m tracking your earrings—don’t take them out.”
A burst of something that falls between a laugh and surprise slips between my lips. Even though I don’t mean it, I say, “I knew I never should have agreed to wear them.”
He kisses me one more time. “Get in line before I don’t let you go.”
I smile because he can’t keep me from going and he knows it. I stand and grab my bag before turning to him one more time. “Thank you.”
He doesn’t say anything. No good luck, goodbye, or good riddance. He kisses me one more time before picking up his coffee and breakfast. And this time, I get to watch him walk away and wonder if he’s right. It shouldn’t matter, even though it does.
But I can’t worry about that right now. Now, I get to start my journey.
And I can’t wait.
Chapter 9
Chase Hard
Jarvis
“You made it to Paris?”
I keep my eyes on the road. “No. On my way now. Made a stop in Brussels—I’m driving since it’s only three hours.” The line goes dead and I think I lost him. “Vega?”
“Fuck.”
“Look, don’t worry. She’s on a plane and will be in Uganda tonight. I p
romised to leave her alone while she’s there. I have this assignment to focus on anyway. Are things in order?”
“I just got off with Carson. Things are falling into place sooner than we expected. Get to the apartment and I’ll have more directions for you tomorrow. You’ll need to pack for at least three weeks, maybe four.”
“Got it.”
“Have you talked to Grady?” he asks.
I grip the phone and tip my head. “Does Grady have directions for me concerning this job?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Then why would I need to talk to Grady?”
I hear an exhale over the line and he finally gives up and minds his own business. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
I disconnect and press a button to connect my next call. I hate to make it but I waited as long as I could.
It rings twice when he finally answers. “This better be important, Jarvis.”
“Asa,” I greet him with a smile. “How’s the honeymoon?”
“It was perfect until you called.”
“Don’t go hurting my feelings.”
“What do you want?”
I veer onto the highway that will take me to the border of Belgium and France. “Sorry to bug you. I’m on my way to Paris and might be gone for a month. I need to know what happened with Prosk the other day. Crew told me you had Saylor. I don’t know what’s going on but I plan to find out.”
I hear him move and a door shut before he gets down to it. “He wanted to know in what capacity you work for me. He knew you were discharged from the Navy and he also knew your dad wasn’t happy about it. I told him you’re a contractor for my company and he even had the balls to say he didn’t buy it. I’m not sure how I got on his radar but I’m not the only one, your dad is too. I know you had a falling out with your old man after you joined us—”
“No. I had a falling out with my father when I was eight years old. I just couldn’t do anything about it until I left the Navy.”
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