Friendship on Fire

by Joss Wood

  Noah was the only man who made her explore the outer edges of love and despair, attraction and loathing. Kissing Noah made her feel sexy and feminine and powerful beyond measure. But his actions when they were younger made her feel insignificant and irrelevant. He’d hurtled her from nirvana into a hell she hadn’t been prepared for.

  He’d dismissed her opinions, ignored her counsel, and those actions she could, maybe, forgive. But she’d never forgive him for destroying their friendship, for flicking her out of his life like she was a piece of filthy gum stuck to his shoe.

  DJ clapped her hands, signaling that she was moving into work mode. Jules forced herself to think business. She had designs to draw up for a revamp to a historic bed-and-breakfast, craftspeople to meet to finalize the furnishings for a bar in Back Bay. Maybe she should stop dating for a while and immerse herself in work. They had enough of it to keep them all busy for months, if not years.

  “Profit and loss, expense reports... I need your receipts,” DJ said, and Jules wrinkled her nose. “I need the cost estimates on the Duncan job.”

  “Ack,” Jules said. She loved designing but hated the paperwork it generated. “Deadline?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Hard-ass,” Jules muttered.

  “I am,” DJ replied, not at all insulted. “That’s why we are in the black, darling. It’s all me.”

  Darby and Jules laughed, knowing that DJ was joking. They were a team and each of them was an essential cog in the wheel. As always, they were stronger together.

  Darby looked at her watch and stood up, nearly six feet of tall grace. Jules looked out of the window and lifted her hand to wave at Dani, the personal assistant they shared, Merry, their shop floor assistant and their two interns.

  Her smiled faded when she saw who was standing behind them, six feet four inches of muscle wearing chinos, a blue oxford shirt and a darker blue jacket. His wavy hair was cut short and, like always, he was days beyond shaving that dark blond scruff off his face.

  Through the display window, his eyes met hers and her stomach contracted, her heart flip-flopped and all the moisture in her mouth disappeared.

  It seemed that Noah did indeed intend to talk.

  Three

  Jules...

  Jules shoved her hands under her thighs and tingles ran up and down her spinal column. Darby and DJ turned in their seats to see who’d captured her attention and immediately jumped to their feet, their beautiful faces showing their delight at seeing him. Noah was, always had been, one of their favorite people.

  Kisses and hugs were exchanged and while her sisters—one by blood and the other of the heart—and Noah did a quick catch-up, Jules allowed her eyes the rare pleasure to roam. Tall, broad, blond, hot...all the adjectives had been used in various ways to describe him, and Noah was all of those things. But Jules, because she’d once known him so well, could look beneath the hot, sexy veneer.

  There were fine lines around those startling eyes and a tiny frown pulled his thick sandy brows together. He was smiling but it wasn’t the open, sunny smile from their childhoods, the one that could knock out nuclear reactors with one blinding flash. The muscles in his neck were tense and under the blond scruff, his jaw was rock hard.

  Noah was not a happy camper.

  Noah stepped away from Darby and DJ and their eyes met, the power of a thousand unsaid words flowing between them. Noah pushed back his navy jacket and jammed his hands into the pockets of his stone-colored pants, rocking on his feet. His eyes left hers, dropped to her mouth, down to her chest, over her hips and slowly meandered their way back up. Every inch he covered sent heat and lust coursing through her system, reminding her with crystal clear certainty what being held by him, kissed by him was like. Suddenly, she was eighteen again and willing to follow him wherever he led...

  The thought annoyed her, so her voice was clipped when she finally remembered how to use her tongue. “What are you doing here, Noah?”

  Noah pulled his hands from his pockets to cross his arms and his eyes turned frosty. “Nice to see you, too, Jules.”

  Darby, sensing trouble, jumped into the conversation. “Do you have time for coffee, Noah?”

  Noah shook his head. “Thanks, hon, but no.”

  Jules linked her shaking hands around one knee. “Why are you here, Noah?”

  “Business,” Noah replied. He held out his hand and jerked his head to the spiral staircase that led up to the second floor, the boardroom and their personal offices. “You and I need to talk.”

  Jules didn’t trust herself to touch him—he was too big and too male and too damn attractive. She didn’t trust herself not to throw herself into his arms and slap her mouth against his, so she ignored his hand and slowly stood up. After taking a moment to brush nonexistent lint off her linen pants, and to get her raging hormones under some sort of order, she darted a look at Darby and then DJ, and they both looked as puzzled as she did. “Okay. I have some time before my conference call in thirty minutes.”

  She didn’t have a call, but if dealing with Noah became too overwhelming, she wanted an out. Walking to the spiral staircase, she gestured for Noah to follow her. As they made their way up the stairs she could smell his subtle, sexy cologne, could feel his heat.

  She was two steps ahead of him. If she turned around, right at that moment, they would be the same height and their mouths would be perfectly aligned. She could look straight into those deep, dark eyes and lose herself, feel his mouth soften under hers, find out whether his short beard was as soft as it looked, whether the cords of his neck, revealed by the open collar of his button-down shirt, were as hard as they looked.

  She hadn’t touched him long enough the other morning, and if she turned around, she wouldn’t have to wonder...

  Jules gave herself a mental head slap and carried on walking. How could they go from friends who’d never so much as thought of each other in that way to two people who wanted to inhale each other? And, dammit, how could she suddenly be this person who wanted to rip his clothes off and lick him from top to toe?

  Jules groaned silently as she hit the top step and turned right to head for her corner office. Giving herself another mental slap, she reminded herself that she would rather die than give Noah the smallest hint that he still affected her, that she’d spent far too much time lately remembering him naked, imagining his hands on either side of her head, lowering himself so that the tip of his...

  Oh, dear God, Brogan! Jules curled her arm across her waist and pinched her side, swallowing her hiss of pain. Get a grip! Now!

  At her office door, Jules sucked in a breath and stepped inside her messy space.

  Making a beeline for the chair behind her desk—she needed a barrier of wood and steel between her and Lockwood—she gestured him to take the sole visitor’s chair opposite her. Steeling herself, she met his eyes and opened her hands. “So, business. What’s up?”

  Noah...

  Noah sat down in the visitor’s chair and placed his ankle on his knee, thinking that Jules’s eyes were the color of a perfect early morning breaking over a calm sea. Light, a curious combination of blue and gray and silver. Looking into her eyes took him back to those perfect mornings of possibility, to being on the sea, where freedom was wind in the sails and the sun on his face.

  If the dark hair and light eyes combo wasn’t enough to have his brain stuttering, then God added a body that was long, slim and perfectly curved and, as he remembered, fragrant and so damn soft to the touch. Being this close to her, inhaling the light floral scent of her perfume, in the messy, colorful space filled with fabric swatches and sketches, magazines and bolts of fabric, Noah’s lungs collapsed from a lack of air.

  The urge to run was strong, away from her and the memories she yanked to the surface.

  A decade ago there had been reasons to distance himself from Jules, including that clause writ
ten into his sponsorship deal with Wind and Solar. As a new year bloomed he’d grasped that his friend was no longer a child or a girl but a woman who he was very attracted to. They’d kissed and he knew they could never be lovers because they were such good friends. Two seconds later the thought had hit him that they could never be friends because they had the potential to be amazing lovers.

  Walking away from her, shivering, into the falling snow, he knew something fundamental had shifted inside him and that there was only one thing he was sure of: their friendship would never be the same again.

  Now and then, whether it was monster waves or his mom’s death or Ethan morphing from a loving father into a money-grabbing bastard, Noah faced life head-on with his chin and fists raised. He had the ability to see situations clearly, to not get bogged down in the emotion of a life event. As tempted as he’d been to say to hell with everyone and fall into the romance of the moment—best friends kissing and being blown away by it!—he’d been smart enough to know that decision would come back to bite him in the ass.

  Even if he’d been able to push aside his other problems back then—no money for the legal fights and his fake engagement to Morgan—he knew he was standing in a bucket on an angry sea. They couldn’t be friends or lovers or anything in between. Her siblings were his and vice versa. They shared two dozen or more mutual friends and her parents were two of his favorite people. He and Levi had been talking about going into business together since they were in their early teens. He and Jules had been—were still—tied together by many silken cords, and if they changed the parameters of their relationship and it went south, those cords would be shredded.

  If Jules hurt him, his brothers would jump to his defense despite the fact that they adored Jules; she was their sister from another mother. If he hurt Jules, her family would haul him over the coals... Either way, the dynamic of their blended family would be changed forever and he would not be responsible for that.

  He could not relinquish the little that was left of the Lockwood legacy because of one kiss, a fantasy moment. He had to save the boatyard and the marina, and now the estate, if not for him, then for his two brothers. He owed it to his mom to keep Ethan’s grubby, money-grabbing paws from what was hers and, morally, theirs.

  “Are you just going to sit there in silence, or do I have to guess why you are here?”

  Jules’s snippy voice pulled him out of the past and Noah blinked before running his hand over his face. Right. He did, actually, have a valid, business-related reason to be there.

  “Congratulations on your award as the best designer in the city, Ju,” Noah said. Despite his frustration with the situation, he was extraordinarily proud of her. He’d always known she was an incredibly talented designer. But he hadn’t expected her and DJ and Darby to create such a successful and dynamic business in so short of a time. People said that his level of success was meteoric, he had nothing on Jules and her friends. From concept to kudos in four years, they were a phenomenal and formidable team.

  “Thank you,” Jules replied, her voice cool. She rolled her finger, impatient.

  Right, time to sink or swim. Noah preferred to, well, sail. “I have a job for you.”

  Jules’s small smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Not interested. I’m booked solid for months.”

  Yeah, he’d expected that. “I’m designing a superyacht, a bit of a departure from the racing yachts I’ve developed my reputation on. My client is pretty adamant that she wants you to design the interiors.”

  “As interesting as that project would be, I can’t take on another client, Noah. It’s just not possible.”

  Jules leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. Her eyes were now a cool gray and Noah knew she was enjoying having him at her mercy, being able to say no. Jules was taking her revenge on him for walking out of her life and, yeah, he got it, he’d hurt her. But the hell of it was that he needed her. He needed her now more than he ever had before.

  Ignoring his need to save Lockwood Estate, his reputation depended on him persuading her to say yes. Noah opened his mouth to explain, to tell her how much rested on him gaining her help and cooperation but his phone rang, stopping him in his tracks. Grateful for the reprieve, he pulled his phone out of the inside pocket of his jacket and glanced down at the screen. A once-familiar number popped up on his screen.

  The thought that there was no way she’d still have the same phone number as so long ago jumped into his mind. Then he remembered that he’d had the same number all of his life.

  But why would Morgan be phoning him? Confused and shocked, he shook his head and tucked his phone, the call unanswered, back into his jacket pocket. He had nothing to say to his ex and never would.

  “So, as fun as this nonconversation has been, I need to get back to work,” Jules said, standing up and gesturing to the door.

  Noah cursed softly and pushed an irritated hand through his hair. “Ju, we need to talk. At least, I need to talk—”

  Jules placed both hands on the desk and glared at him, her eyes laser cold. “No, Noah, we really don’t! You don’t get to walk into my office demanding my time when you walked out of my life years ago, tossing our friendship without a word of explanation. How dare you think you can demand that I work for you when you treated me like I was nothing?”

  Jules shook her head, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I mourned you. I mourned what we had. You abandoned me, Noah. You walked away from me and our friendship like it was nothing, like I was nothing.” Jules circled her desk, headed toward the door and yanked it open. She rested her forehead on the door frame, and for the first time Noah realized how much he’d hurt her. Suddenly, his heart was under the spiky heel of her shoe.

  No one knew, nobody had the faintest idea, how hard it was for him to leave Boston. On the surface it had been a pretty sweet deal, he’d been offered the money he needed and he had the opportunity for travel and adventure. He was twenty-three years old and the world was his playground. But underneath the jokes and the quips, his heart wept bloody tears. He was still mourning his mom, feeling helpless and angry at her death. He was gas-fire mad with Ethan for treating her like crap and lying to them.

  His stability, everything he knew was in Boston: it was in the kind eyes and solid, unpushy support of Callie and Ray, in Levi and his brothers standing at his side, not talking but being there, a solid wall between him and the world. It had been in DJ’s and Darby’s hugs, in their upbeat, daily text messages.

  It had been everything—her smile, her understanding, her kisses, her laugh—about Jules.

  Leaving meant distance, walking away from everything that made sense. It had been frickin’ terrifying and, apart from burying his mom, the hardest thing he’d ever done. Sailing that tempestuous, ass-cold Southern Ocean had been child’s play compared to leaving Boston. And, because he’d just barely survived leaving once, he knew he couldn’t fall back into the life he had before. He wouldn’t allow himself to rely on Levi’s friendship, Callie’s support, his brothers’ wall and Jules’s ability to make everything both better and brighter. Because he couldn’t survive losing any of it again.

  Once was ten times too many...

  Jules gestured for Noah to leave. “I have a call I need to take. Clients to look after.”

  Noah stood up and pushed his hands through his hair. Okay, this was salvageable. He would just tell Paris that Jules wasn’t available, wouldn’t be for some time. This wasn’t a train smash. It was business. Paris would understand that. It was business...

  In fact, it would be better if he and Jules didn’t work together. Professional wasn’t something he could be around Jules.

  At the door, Noah stopped in front of Jules and bent his knees to look into her spectacular eyes. He wanted to explain, to banish some of the pain he saw there. “I never meant to hurt you, Jules.”

  Jules looked up at him and lifted her chin, her
eyes flashing defiance. “But you did, Noah. And you still haven’t explained why.”

  He didn’t do explanations. Noah sighed, dropped a quick kiss on her temple—the intoxicating scent of her filling his nose—and before his hands and mouth did something stupid, he walked away.

  It was only when he reached the sidewalk that his heart started to beat normally again, when his brain regained full power.

  Noah stepped off the sidewalk to hail a cab. It was a good thing Jules have didn’t the time—or the inclination—to work for him; she turned his brain to mush.

  Jules...

  The following Saturday, Jules picked up two breakfast rolls and made her way to the marina, where she knew she could find her brother, Levi. Despite them living in the same house, it had been ages since she’d spent any time with her older brother and she was looking forward to seeing him, but she did, admittedly, have an ulterior motive. She needed him to make a steel frame for a coffee table, and Levi, or rather the newly named Lockwood-Brogan Marina, owned a welding machine.

  Along with his business degree, Levi also knew how to weld and the ham-and-egg sandwich was her way to bribe him. If Levi couldn’t, or wouldn’t, she’d ask Eli or Ben...

  All three Lockwood boys and Levi had held part-time and summer jobs at the marina, and they all knew how to use their hands; Noah’s grandfather had made sure of that. As a result, she and her sisters rarely had to pay for home repairs.

  Besides, the boys had frequently made their lives hell: short-sheeting their beds, hiding their dolls, scaring the crap out of them. Making them work was payback.

  Jules, dressed in a pink-and-red-patterned sundress and flip-flops, walked into the blessedly cool reception area of the marina and smiled at Levi’s new receptionist, Meredith. The young blonde was talking to a middle-aged couple but she smiled before lifting her chin, silently telling her that Levi was in his office. Jules nodded her thanks, walked behind the counter and down the short passage to the end office, which had a spectacular view of the marina. Levi, dark-haired and blue-eyed, had his feet up on his desk and his tablet on his knees.