“Don’t worry about what everyone else thinks about you or says about you. Worry about how you feel and who you think you are.”
I smiled. “I can see why your students like you so much.”
She laughed. “Sometimes I wonder if I should have gotten a second degree as a guidance counselor.”
“You’d have been good at that, too.” I glanced at the clock. “What time is Joey coming to get you?”
“Did I hear my name?” a male voice said from the hallway. A second later, Joey stepped inside. He only had eyes for Addi as he crossed the room to her. She stood and wrapped herself in his embrace, accepting a lingering kiss from him. When they pulled apart he glanced at me. “Hey Tara.”
“Hi Joey. How’s the mountain?”
Joey managed Winter Ridge, the ski mountain at the edge of town. He and Addi met when she was helping with ski club there, and they fell in love on the mountain.
“It’s still quiet. It’s going to snow tomorrow though so we’ll have a busy weekend.”
“I thought you guys could make your own snow?”
Joey nodded. “We do, but it has to be colder. Right now it won’t stay. If we have a good layer of real snow, ours will do even better. It’s still early so it’s not a big deal. December is when we really start to worry if we don’t have snow yet.”
“I need to take some lessons sometime. Do you guys have any coaches or anything like that?”
Joey nodded. “Let me know when you want to come up and I’ll give you lessons myself.”
“Thanks. That’ll be much better than embarrassing myself in front of a bunch of strangers. Been there. Done that.”
Addi gave me a pointed look.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I said to her, confusing Joey.
“What did I just miss?”
I laughed. “Your wife gave me some advice that I’m already ignoring. If I listened to her, my life would be much easier.”
“She’s definitely the smartest woman I’ve ever met.”
“Well, she did pick you,” I teased.
Joey laughed. “I practically had to beg her. In fact, I think I might have begged. But it all worked out in the end.”
“That’s what really matters, right?”
Joey gave Addi a look of pure love. “It is.”
“I’ll get out of your way. Thanks for your help, Addi. I’ll get in touch with Claire soon, too.”
“Good. She’ll be a good resource. We’ll all help you out. I think it’s a great idea. And I’m really happy you’re seriously considering sticking around Winterville.”
“Thanks. Me too.”
I spent the next couple days looking into what it would take to start a non-profit business and checking out local real estate. I had enough cash saved up for a decent place, but not anything too big. I knew it was likely to take the rest of the school year before everything fell into place, but if I could do it a little faster, I could send flyers out before school let out for the summer and try to get started with a few things over summer break. Like writing the movie and working with whoever would be the director.
Friday night I was supposed to go out with Noah, but it snowed that afternoon. He insisted I come over. He said he had a tradition that couldn’t be broken and he needed my help.
And that I needed warm clothes.
Dressed in my sweats, including a layer of long-johns underneath and my heavy winter coat, I headed to Noah’s for dinner Friday evening. I pulled in the driveway and turned off my car. I reached over and grabbed my purse then got out. As soon as I shut the door, something hit me. In the back.
Startled, I spun around, looking for… something. No one was there so I tried to tug my coat around and see my back. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw snow exploded in my back.
“A snowball?” I asked aloud, wondering why some annoying kids were targeting me.
I turned to go into the house when another snowball hit my side. I spun just in time to see someone ducking behind the hedges in front of Noah’s house. I started yelling and stalked across the yard toward where I saw the person hide. When I was just a few feet away, he popped up, scaring me, and threw a snowball that hit me square in the chest.
“Noah!” I screamed. “That was you?”
“Who did you think it was?” he asked, laughter obvious in his voice.
“I don’t know. I thought it was some jerk of a kid. Why are you throwing snowballs at me?”
He bent and started packing another snowball. “My brother and I always had a snowball fight the first day it snowed. He’d hide behind the bushes at our house and wait for me to get off the bus if it was a school day. On the weekends, I was always up earlier than he was so I’d come outside and hide until he came out. It’s a tradition, but since he isn’t here, you have to do it with me.”
“You really are a man-child, aren’t you?”
He laughed and followed it up with a loosely packed snowball that exploded on my right breast.
“Hey!”
“Hey, what? Pack some snow. Catch me if you can!”
He took off running, leaving me standing in front of the house. I shook my head, laughing. Once my purse was tucked inside the garage, I started making snowballs.
Without any siblings, I didn’t have that many snowball fights, but I was pretty sure I was doing okay. When I had a few packed, I stuffed them in my pockets and went in search of Noah, knowing he had the advantage of knowing the best places to hide around the house.
Three snowballs hit me before I saw where they were coming from. I launched one in his direction but it blew apart long before it hit him. The second one stayed together, but it didn’t make it anywhere near close to him. I moved closer to him and heard him laugh as he ran toward me.
“You’ll never get me!” he teased as he ran right past me, dodging the snowballs I threw toward him. He hit me in the leg, in the arm, and on my back before I ran out of snowballs.
“This isn’t fair. I don’t even know how to make a snowball,” I whined, hoping he’d take pity on me.
“I thought you grew up here.”
“I did, but I didn’t have a brother to have a snowball fight with. You need to show me how to make good snowballs.”
He stepped out from behind a tree a few yards away. “Is this a trap?”
I shook my head, my face expressionless and innocent. He moved closer cautiously. When he was standing next to me he bent to get a handful of snow and I smashed the snowballs I had in my hands in his face.
“What the hell?” he sputtered, spitting out snow and laughing. I ran away, cackling that I’d managed to trick him.
He chased me and tackled me to the ground, pinning me beneath his large frame. The snow was cold beneath me, but when he pressed his lips to mine, I forgot all about the snow.
He kissed me deep, his tongue eagerly stroking mine. I felt him harden against my hip and slid my glove-free hand into his hair, needing to feel his skin on mine. He unzipped my jacket and palmed my breast, tugging my shirt up to expose my breast. I hesitated for about a minute, but dismissed my concerns. He lived at the end of a dead-end street and we were in the backyard. No one would see us.
Then he pushed back and flashed me a smile that was pure devil.
And shoved a handful of snow in my bra.
Chapter 15
“You are so dead!” I screamed as I shoved to my feet.
Noah wisely ran off, laughing the whole time. I shoveled the snow out of my bra, but I was still freezing. My bra was wet and quickly turning to ice. I tugged my shirt back into place, then my sweatshirt, and finally my jacket.
Then went looking for some payback.
Noah was hiding behind the bushes in the front again. I tried to sneak up on him, but he saw me and launched snowballs at me, making me dodge them as I tried to get closer to him.
“Okay!” I called out. “I’m going inside. Or I’m leaving. I’ve had enough snowballs for this year.”
“Don’t go!
I’ll stop. I promise.”
I stood still and waited for him to come to me. He held his hands up as he approached me.
“I’m unarmed. No more snowballs. I promise.”
I arched an eyebrow at him.
“Hey, I’m not the one who tricked the other.”
“Really? Then how did I get snow in my bra?”
He snickered. “That was pretty good.”
“Uh huh. I didn’t think so.”
“Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “You smashed snow in my face.”
“And the appropriate response is to shove it down my bra?” I asked, trying not to laugh. We were having fun though, and my face wasn’t cooperating. I broke into a grin as Noah wrapped his arms around me.
“Admit it. That was fun.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Oh, come on. It was! Tell me you had fun.”
I shook my head. “Freezing my nipples off isn’t really my idea of fun.”
“What if I offer to warm them up?”
I laughed. “Yeah, well, they’re numb right now. Let’s build a snowman.”
“Seriously?” he asked, leaning back.
“Yeah, seriously. It’s been years since I’ve built a snowman.”
He nodded. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
An hour later, we had a snowman, a snowwoman, and a snowbaby. Noah joked about putting snow in her bra, then chased me around the yard trying to put more snow in mine. When he caught me, he melted away the chill instead of adding to it, then carried me inside.
My stomach growled loudly when Noah slid me down his body. He chuckled against my lips. “Well, I was going to ask if you wanted dinner or dessert first, but I think your stomach just answered that question.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t keep this rounded figure without food.”
He slapped my ass. “Then I better feed you because I love this round figure. I can’t have you getting skinny on me.”
His words warmed me in a way that they shouldn’t have. I always wanted to be skinny, but I also wanted a man who didn’t want me to be skinny. Finding one who loved my body and wanted to keep it like it was, instead of looking for a mini-version, was refreshing and made me want him even more.
“What did you want to order tonight?” I asked, brushing off his comment. I couldn’t dwell on it. We were still having fun. I liked him, but I wasn’t going to hold on to the L word that he uttered. He was talking about my figure, not me. I couldn’t grab on to that.
Even if I was starting to think about that word when it came to him.
“We’re not ordering in. I thought we could cook dinner. Unless you don’t want to.”
I shook my head. “I enjoy cooking. Even more with someone.”
“Someone I should know about?” Noah asked, a quirk of his eyebrow that led me to believe he wasn’t being entirely playful.
“My mom,” I answered with a nudge of my hip into his. “Since I’ve been back she and I have been cooking together most nights. I lived alone before I left California so it’s been nice to have someone to be in the kitchen with.”
“Oh,” he said softly. “That’s nice.”
I lifted an eyebrow at him. “Were you expecting a story about another man in my life?”
He shrugged but didn’t meet my eyes. “It did sort of sound like there was someone.”
I smiled. “Not for a long time.”
He nodded once and let the subject drop.
We set to work on beef stroganoff, a dinner I hadn’t had in years but loved. I sliced onions and mushrooms while Noah sliced the beef. He got out a skillet and added garlic, butter, and the veggies.
“What’s your favorite food?” he asked as he pushed everything around in the skillet.
“You gotta give me more than that. Favorite as in something I would choose to eat every day for the rest of my life or what I would pick as my last meal if I were on death row or my go-to when I want comfort food? What are you looking for?”
He shook his head and laughed, drawing me in for a kiss. “I love that you enjoy food so much.”
There was that L word again. It kept creeping up. Startling me whenever it did.
“How about your favorite comfort food?”
“Macaroni and cheese,” I answered without hesitation.
“So if I ever see you eating that, I should be worried?”
I shook my head. “No. I like it and eat it a lot, but it doesn’t always mean I’m in a bad mood. Just that when I am, that’s what I want.”
“What about something you would eat every day for the rest of your life?”
He scooped the veggies into a bowl then slid the beef into the skillet. He added broth, salt, and Worcestershire sauce and stirred the whole thing.
“I’d have to say chocolate, but only if I could eat other things, too. If it was the only thing I could eat for the rest of my life, I’m really not sure. Maybe pasta. There are a lot of different ways to cook pasta.”
“Ooh, speaking of which. I forgot the noodles.” Noah crouched in front of a cabinet and dug for a pot. He filled it with water, tapping the side impatiently, then set it on the stove. He turned the heat up to high and lowered the heat on the beef mixture. “Sorry. I always forget to do something.”
I grinned. “I’m the same way. It never even occurred to me that we needed to do that.”
He stared at the pot of water. “Maybe I should dump some of the water out so it’ll heat up faster.”
I stepped between him and the stove and tipped my chin up. “I can think of a few ways we can pass the time.”
He smirked at me, his eyes lighting up. He leaned closer, his lips a breath away from mine. “Dinner can wait a few minutes.”
I looped my arms around his neck and closed the last bit of distance between us. He smiled against my lips then pulled me tighter to him. His lips parted and his tongue brushed my lips, asking for entry. I eagerly opened for him, ready to get his tongue on any part of me.
Every part of me.
He kissed me like it had been years instead of minutes since we last kissed. I felt how much he wanted me, in his lips and in his pants. His tongue teased mine with long, deep strokes then quick, darting ones that left me laughing.
“You’re crazy,” I said, looking up into his rich, brown eyes.
“I love that I can be crazy with you.”
I was really starting to get a complex with how many times he’d thrown the L word around. Was he trying to tell me something without saying the words? Or feeling me out maybe? Did he love me?
I moved away from him, using the boiling water as an excuse. “We can add the egg noodles now.”
He looked at me for a moment longer, then dumped the noodles into the water. He turned the heat back up on the meat and stirred everything. We didn’t speak for a few minutes, focusing on finishing dinner, but I was worried. I was falling for him, but it was terrifying. I knew we still had secrets from each other. There was a part of me that knew Noah would never approve of what I planned to do to Patrick, let alone everything I’d done in Hollywood. Destroying a person’s career was exactly the kind of thing he said he hated about society. The ugliness, as he put it. If he found out, I was fairly certain I’d see a very different look in his eyes.
Which left me wondering again what I was doing. Patrick was inconsequential. He was nothing to me. He hadn’t been anything to me in far too long.
“Are you okay?” Noah asked, sliding his hand around my waist.
I shook my head. “Yeah, sorry.”
“Where’d you go?”
I smiled. “Nowhere important. What can I do to help?”
Noah shook his head. “It just has to sit for a while. Hopefully everything will be done around the same time. But I think we were right about here.”
He moved in and tipped his jaw up. I followed his lips with mine, chasing him. He grinned and captured my smile. He pressed my back to the counter and trapped me in his arms. Then kissed the hell out of
me.
I gave as good as he did and in minutes we were both panting. My nails went up his back. His lips went down my neck. My hand went down his pants. His palms went up my shirt.
“I thought we were going to have dinner,” he mumbled when he heard my stomach rumble again.
“It’s not done yet,” I breathed, wrapping my fingers around him. He groaned and squeezed my breast.
“I want you so bad, Tara. I want to lay you out on this floor and have you.”
“But?” I asked, pulling back slightly.
“But I want to worship you tonight. I don’t want this to be another race to see who can get who off first. I want you to beg me to be inside me because you’ve had so many orgasms you don’t think you can handle another one. I want you to tremble with just a touch of my fingertips on your skin because you’re so turned on that’s all it takes for you to erupt. I want you to watch me when I’m buried deep inside me so you know exactly how much I care about you.”
My throat closed up. I couldn’t breathe. Whether from anticipation or anxiety, I couldn’t tell you, but I knew everything was going to change when Noah and I finally went to his bedroom.
We parted, somewhat reluctantly, and finished dinner. We worked together to get food on plates and carried them into the living room. Nerves took hold of me as we ate and I could barely finish my dinner, let alone taste it. I was sure it was good, but all I could taste was Noah.
When dinner was over, Noah took my hand. The look in his eyes told me he was ready for the rest of our night to start. I was too, but I was barely able to contain myself. I’d never been so nervous, not even my first time. But that had been about sex. Nothing about the way Noah was looking at me told me sex was on his mind. No. He was going to make love to me. He was going to make me forget about every man who’d ever touched me. He was going to ruin me for any future man who thought about it.
Once I stepped in his room, I’d forever belong to Noah.
He undressed me slowly, his lips kissing every inch of skin as he revealed it. When I was down to my bra and panties, he brought my hands to his body for me to do the same. There were no words. We didn’t need them. We both knew what we were doing. And we were both ready for it.
Round & Ravishing Page 12
