“I was wearing the same thing when we were making snow angels,” she told him, “underneath my ski clothes.”
“If I had known that—” he took her all the way to the bed and laid her on it; her hair spread out across the pillow, her body lush, her skin soft, his every dream come true “—I would never have let you go.”
* * *
COLBIE KNEW HER BODY wasn’t perfect. Her hips were a little too big. Her legs would never be long and lean like a model’s. But she also knew how responsive she was to touch.
And she knew how much desire there was in Noah’s eyes whenever he looked at her. Lust flared so powerfully from him that heat flowed all across her skin.
He’d looked at her like that from that first moment up on the snowy mountain. Whether she was covered in a down jacket or was naked except for her panties and heels, he desired her.
And for the first time in her life, she felt absolutely perfect. As beautiful as he’d—repeatedly—told her she was.
She didn’t know how long he simply stared before he finally put his hands on her—all she knew was that it was too long. Whatever she’d expected from him, it wasn’t this slow movement of his hands over her face, his fingertips caressing the curve of her eyebrows, the arch of her cheekbones, the thrust of her chin. And then down her neck to the curve of her shoulders, the soft edges of her breasts, the bones of her rib cage, until he reached the swell of her stomach and hips.
She tried to keep her eyes open, tried to hold on to rational thought, but oh, it felt so good, and ultimately she had no choice but to sink into the pleasure of his touch, her eyes fluttering closed as she drank in the tenderness of his hands on her. Slowly, he ran his hands down her thighs, skirting past the extremely sensitive skin at the backs of her knees, to press his fingertips into her calves so perfectly that she groaned aloud at the pleasure of his touch. He slipped off her heels. When her feet were bare, he stroked them, too, with the pads of his thumbs, as if he wanted to give every part of her pleasure, leaving nothing out. And then, finally, he drew her panties from her body.
“Beautiful.” The one word from Noah’s lips was more of a caress than any other’s man’s touch. “So beautiful.”
She opened her eyes just in time to see him lick his lips at the sight of her sex, slick and wet and completely bared to his gaze...and she finally realized he still had all his clothes on. Immediately, she reached for his jacket and slid it from his broad shoulders.
She could feel the heat of him, the barely leashed strength beneath the pressed dress shirt, as her hand moved to the buttons that ran down his chest. She wanted him naked, wanted to see all that power without anything covering it up. He could take off his clothes much faster than she could do it for him, but there was something so sensually satisfying about her being the one to uncover him, about being able to run her fingertips over his skin, his bones, his muscles, the dark hairs on his chest that curled against her knuckles as she undid one button and then another.
When she finally had his shirt pulled out of his pants and all the way open, she had to stop...and stare.
Only, looking wasn’t enough. Touching wasn’t enough, either.
She needed to taste him, too.
She leaned up and put her mouth over his collarbone. It was natural—so perfectly instinctive—to slide her tongue into the hollow just behind the bone.
“Mmmm.” He tasted clean and a little spicy, too. She needed to memorize not only his scent but also his flavor, so she moved her mouth lower, down over one of his pectoral muscles. She found his nipple with the tip of her tongue, and, as his hands ran through her hair, she put her teeth on him. The light scrape against his hardened flesh caused him to groan with pleasure.
Or maybe it was her own groans she was hearing, because Colbie had never done anything more pleasurable than taste—and tease—Noah.
She pushed his shirt off and together they worked to strip him of the rest of his clothes until he was wonderfully naked...and she couldn’t wait to get her hands, her mouth, on every new hard, tanned inch of skin that she’d uncovered. His muscles jumped beneath the stroke of her fingertips, the lash of her tongue as she explored him with a greed that rivaled his for her. She wasn’t even close to getting enough of him as he pulled her back up his body and took her mouth again with his. She didn’t know when he’d pulled a condom out, but when her fingers brushed against the package, she immediately picked it up, ripped it open and reached for him. She felt him stiffen and was surprised to realize that he was holding his breath as she rolled it down his thick length.
She knew she’d never stop thanking her girlfriends for insisting on that ski trip. She wanted to send a truckload of chocolate-chip cookies to the little girl who’d whipped past on her pint-size skis and sent Colbie falling face-first into the snow—just in time for Noah to come by with his strong hands, his warm arms and his gorgeous smile.
She’d never felt sexier, never felt more adored in her whole life than she did as his eyes ran over her, pleasure lighting his features as he moved fully between her legs and gazed down at her with wonder.
“No one has ever looked at me the way you do,” she whispered.
“I never believed in love at first sight.” He reached out to stroke his hand across her cheek. “Not until I saw you.”
“Noah.”
His name was still on her lips when she took him inside her. And even as he gave her his heart with words, while she gave hers back to him without needing any words at all, passion took them both over. What had begun in patience, in gentleness, now transcended any control either of them had been able to hold on to.
Oh, but she loved it, loved the juxtaposition of dirty and sweet, the rough with the gentle, the fast and the breathtakingly slow. It was what she was doing with her store, after all, by stocking the finest silks and laces, the headiest perfumes, all meant to recklessly seduce in the heat of the night. All intended to shatter control...and to seduce with irresistible pleasure. As their tongues danced together, their bodies were doing a dance of their own, slipping and thrusting and sliding and craving.
Loving.
He was rough, his kisses were desperate and greedy, but she was all those things, too. There were no rules anymore, no hesitation, nothing but passion and hunger, woman and man. Slick with sweat, breathless with desire, Noah slipped one hand between them and took her up higher than she’d ever been...before he sent her spiraling out over the edge, crying out his name.
She couldn’t have imagined even this, let alone more.
But, oh, there was so much more as his name was on her lips and hers was on his when their mouths crashed together again. She could feel every beat of his heart against her chest, the fast pounding that matched her own racing, out-of-control rhythm. She caught a flash of his eyes—dark, beautiful and so incredibly full of emotion—and then his hands were gripping her hips and she was wrapping her legs even tighter around him and arching her breasts into his waiting mouth as they both fell together this time.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The next morning...
COLBIE HAD BEEN drifting in and out of sleep for a while as the rare Seattle sun tried to break through the clouds outside Noah’s bedroom window, but she hadn’t wanted to wake all the way up and end what had been the most incredible hours of her life.
But then Noah shifted against her, and she knew the moment of truth had come.
Their one night was over.
One perfect night, when all her dreams had become reality.
Last night, she’d felt as though she belonged in Noah’s arms in a way that she’d never belonged in anyone else’s. He’d told her, “We belong together,” and he’d said it to her again and again with every kiss, every caress.
The truth was that she’d been as afraid to believe it as she was not to.
But,
oh, how she wanted to believe. And to trust that she’d been right to take the biggest risk of her life with him last night. Because deep in her heart, Colbie knew that this had been more than just incredible, mind-blowing sex.
So when he slid her even closer to him, and asked, “Did I prove it to you?” in that low, rough voice that made every nerve in her body fire with anticipated pleasure, joy exploded inside her, starting at her heart and radiating out from there to fill every cell, every pore, every last corner of her soul.
Colbie shifted in his arms so that they were face-to-face, and the hairs on his chest tickled her breasts in the most wonderful way, his heart beating strong and steady against hers. She pretended to think about his question, working hard to keep her mouth from moving up into a smile, even though her tone was clearly light. Teasing. And inherently seductive.
“What if I told you I needed another night before I could decide?”
He grinned down at her, relief mixing with the heat in his eyes. “Then I’ll work to prove it to you tonight and tomorrow night and every night after that.”
She gave a happy little squeak as he lifted her up out of the bed, carried her into the bathroom and turned on the shower.
“But for now, since I know you have to get back to your new store instead of goofing off in bed with me all morning, I’ll settle for making sure you’re perfectly clean.” He grinned as he added, “Everywhere.”
She laughed as he pulled her under the warm spray. Only this time, instead of being seduced, she wanted to be the one to seduce him. “You’ve given me a perfect day and a perfect night.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and lifted her mouth almost all the way up to his. “Now it’s time for me to give you the perfect morning.”
She claimed his mouth with soft kisses that teased as much as they promised more to come. With the edges of her teeth, she nipped at his lower lip, then soothed the small sting with her tongue. He threaded his hands into her wet hair and moved them so that she was trapped between the tiled wall and his hard body, but even though the press of his muscles against hers shocked her with pleasure, she was intent on loving him the way he’d loved her. Her skin was slick enough that she could shimmy her way down his body, covering each muscle across his neck, his shoulders, his chest, with the same kisses she’d given to his lips.
As she began to drop lower to press kisses to his stomach and to glide her hands and mouth over him—all of him—he groaned her name into the steam rising both from the water and from their bodies. Before too long, though, he had her pressed up against the shower wall again, his hands in her wet hair, his mouth devouring hers.
He had protection ready just when they needed it. This time her hands weren’t steady enough to help him with it. In one quick move he was covered, and then she was wrapping her legs and arms tightly around him and he was licking, sucking, biting at the curve of her neck, then lower to the upper swell of her breasts, as he found her wet and hot and beyond ready for him to take her.
She didn’t feel the hard tile behind her back as he thrust into her, barely heard her own gasps of pleasure over the pounding of her heart in her own ears. All she knew was that Noah had her...and she had him. In a rush of pleasure so sweet, so hot, so sudden that she was stunned by it all over again, Colbie came apart in his arms, with Noah less than a heartbeat behind her.
Ten hours later...
SHE’D JUST LOCKED the front door of Indulgence after a fantastic second day in business, when Noah wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “You’ve created something great here, Colbie.”
She turned around in his arms so that he could kiss her mouth, too. Of course, when one kiss turned to two and then ten and then a hundred, she let him pull her into the back room for another round of sensual arguments aimed at winning her heart...this time on her desk with her legs wrapped around his waist.
“Now that is the meaning of indulgence,” she murmured a while later as she worked to catch her breath.
“No matter where we are, no matter how many years go by, I’ll never stop proving my love to you,” he told her, his eyes still so dark and hungry, even in the aftermath of their passion. “Every day. Every night.”
“Even if I’ve finally decided?”
“Especially then.”
Even though she knew he could see the truth of her feelings reflected back to him in her eyes, and that he had to feel it in the way she responded to his kisses, to his caresses, she wanted to give him more.
She wanted to give him everything he’d given to her, multiplied. Her faith. Her trust.
Her heart.
“As a little girl, I used to believe in love at first sight.” She pressed a kiss over his heart, which beat hard and fast as she declared herself to him. “I think every little girl does. But then, slowly at first, and then faster and faster as I grew older and made bad choices, I lost that belief.” She cupped his face in her hands even as she still held his body inside hers. “You gave it back to me on a snowy mountaintop in one perfect day. And then again in one perfect night.”
And later that night in his bed when he took her even higher than she’d been before and they flew together from peak to peak, she forgot to be afraid...because she didn’t need to be ever again.
* * * * *
If you enjoyed Colbie and Noah’s story,
be sure to check out Bella Andre’s upcoming novel
in the SEATTLE SULLIVANS series,
IT MUST BE YOUR LOVE
where Mia Sullivan meets a musician
who’s eager to rock her world...
Available soon!
CHAPTER ONE
THE MUSIC WAS still ringing in his ears as Ford Vincent headed through the winding halls at the back of the stadium he’d just played in Tempe, Arizona. Nearly seventy-five thousand people had been in the audience tonight and he’d given everything he had to them. And now, like every night on the road, dozens of women were waiting for him just outside the back door yelling, “I love you, Ford!” and “I’ll do anything to be with you tonight!”
Despite his security staff doing their best to keep things from getting out of control, at least five women pressed up against any part of his body they could reach as soon as he stepped out of the building. It would be easiest to keep his head down and push through the crowd, but disrespecting his fans had never sat well with Ford. Even if they often crossed over his personal boundaries.
This was what he’d always wanted, he reminded himself as he started signing autographs. For people to love him. For people to appreciate him. And he’d succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.
So then why did it all feel so hollow?
Ford was nearly through the crowd when a fresh wave of women saw him from around the corner of the parking lot. He signaled to his security staff to clear the way for him and at long last got onto his tour bus.
Natasha Lawrence was sitting in the dining booth with her computer open. Looking up, she said, “Pretty rowdy bunch out there tonight, aren’t they? Go take your shower and then I’ve got a couple of things I’d like to show you.”
She was one of the most respected documentary filmmakers in the business, and after the past couple of months working with her, Ford not only appreciated her skill and talent, but also her utter faithfulness to her husband and family. After what he’d seen and experienced during more than a decade of touring, he’d come to believe that kind of devotion was very, very rare. The only man he’d ever seen her light up for was her husband. After years of being a sex symbol, he relished being around a woman who wasn’t even the slightest bit inclined to whip off her bra and throw it at him.
A minute later, he let out a breath of relief as he stood under the hot spray. His post-show shower was his only real must-have when he came offstage. Other rockers needed women, drugs, booze and their entourage. He could hav
e had any one of those women tonight by doing nothing more than snapping his fingers in her direction. But the morning-after aches and pains, the fogged-up mind and the ass-kissing “friends” had stopped being fun long before he hit thirty. Not to mention that waking up next to a stranger got old really quick.
Especially when he always, inevitably, compared those women with the only one he’d ever truly enjoyed waking up with...
He rinsed the shampoo and soap from his hair and body, then let the warm water run over him for a few more seconds before turning off the shower. After shaking the water out of his hair, he opened the door and reached for a towel hanging from a metal rack in the small tiled space. After quickly drying off, he yanked on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
“We got some great footage tonight,” Natasha told him as he slid into the booth and she clicked Play on one of the windows on her computer screen. “Really colorful crowd, and—” she added with a grin “—the music didn’t suck, either.”
“Arizona is always good,” he agreed.
But despite the enthusiasm of the crowd and his great band backing him up, Ford knew it hadn’t been his best show. The magic used to be there all the time the moment he stepped onto a stage, but now he had to work harder and harder every night to light those sparks. Some nights, like tonight, he left the stage feeling as if he hadn’t quite earned the encores.
Natasha slid a couple bottles of water over to him just as the bus started moving, and he downed one in a long swig to replace the sweat he’d lost tearing across the stage with his guitar and microphone during the three-hour show. She would be filming his next stadium show in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the following night, and given that it usually took Ford a couple of hours to come down from a performance, it made sense for them to get in some work on the film, even if it meant midnight meetings like this one.
“As you know, I’ve been collecting video clips from the earlier stages of your career—mostly taken by news cameras and people’s personal devices.” She shut down the video window with tonight’s show playing and opened a new one that had obviously been filmed with a far less high-end camera. “While the quality of some of these clips isn’t spectacular, a few of them are powerful enough that I can easily make quick cuts in and out of them without the overall quality of the film being affected.”
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