Unravel Me

by Christie Ridgway

  “Juliet?”

  She managed to turn toward Nikki.

  The mermaid smiled. “This feels like that song, you know, ‘Some Enchanted Evening.’ ”

  “Noah’s no stranger,” Juliet protested.

  “Convenient, that.”

  The sensation of his gaze on her back was impossible to ignore. Prickles of heat cascaded down her spine and she could actually feel her blood surging through her veins. Awareness, attraction, sex—call it what you will, but it had never found her from across the proverbial crowded room.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Juliet confessed in a whisper.

  The band had segued into a loud version of Rocky Horror Picture Show’s “The Time Warp,” but Nikki seemed capable of reading lips.

  “That’s easy,” she replied, pushing on Juliet’s shoulder. “Just turn around.”

  She did, and he was there. Broad, and so tall that she had to tilt up her head to meet his gaze. Behind Noah, someone pushed by and he stepped nearer, the warmth of him mingling with the warmth of her.

  They stood together in a bubble of combined body heat.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.” She couldn’t pull air into her lungs.

  “You came to the party.”

  She swallowed. “A woman has to get out sometime.”

  His gaze moved from her eyes, to her mouth, down her neck to her pulse point. There was a wealth of bare flesh between her throat and the edge of Cassandra’s low-cut peasant blouse, and Juliet was aware of each millimeter of hot-chilled skin as he took that in, too.

  “Nice costume,” he said.

  She swallowed again. “You, too.” Of course his was leftovers from his Army days. She’d seen those ragged camouflage pants before, and the cotton knit of his T-shirt looked soft and worn, so thin that it couldn’t hide the curve of his pectoral muscles and the tight points of his nipples.

  New heat flashed over her body and she was sure her skin flushed with the sudden change in temperature. Her fingers curled so that her nails dug into her palms and she didn’t know what to do with her gaze. What to do with herself.

  Her skin pulsed with each beat of her heart and she didn’t think she’d ever felt more alive.

  “Juliet?”

  She met his eyes. They were intense, their blue color hot. His hands were fisted, and she could sense his restraint. There was power in those flexed muscles, but she knew he had every impulse leashed this time.

  This time, there would be no hug ending in a kiss. No kiss ending in a touch.

  There wouldn’t be any fun to be had with this fire-breathing attraction unless she did something about it herself.

  Unless she wanted it.

  Unless she asked for it.

  Nine

  Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

  —SAMUEL JOHNSON

  Juliet took a breath. Then took a chance. “Want to take a walk?” she asked Noah.

  He hesitated a moment, and she could see his muscles bunch beneath his shirt. Then he shrugged, as if forcing himself to relax. “Sure.”

  A small breath eased out of her tight chest. She led the way—that was what this was about, wasn’t it?—and he followed, closely, but not touching her, even though the small of her back twitched in expectation. Around her, people parted for their progress, until a man dressed as a cannibal—wild wig, “bone” in his nose, painted skin, and brandishing a big fork—leaped into her path.

  “Yaahh!” he yelled.

  Swallowing her surprised shriek, she jolted back, bumping into Noah. He drew her close, twisting to put himself between her and the happy carnivore.

  “Damn,” the other man said, looking crestfallen. “And I wanted to make a meal out of this morsel of sweet meat myself.”

  “She’s not a morsel, she’s a lady,” Noah said through his teeth. “A widow, for God’s sake. Show some respect.”

  The cannibal’s painted face turned even ghastlier at the word “widow” and he backed off in a big hurry. “Sorry. Excuse me. Uh, gotta go.”

  Juliet felt as embarrassed as the other man looked. “I didn’t need saving,” she protested.

  “From that guy?” Noah responded, enclosing her hand in his and stepping through the restaurant’s back exit that opened onto a bluff. From there he towed her down a narrow, gritty trail that tracked through low-lying ice plant toward the beach below. “Yeah, you did.”

  The steep path quickly dropped them beneath the level of the restaurant. Juliet glowered at his back as annoyance joined the arousal inside her. “Because I’m a poor little widow?” she asked.

  Or worse, was his protective response because he considered her such a “lady”? No wonder Noah hadn’t followed up on those kisses in the kitchen. No wonder he’d backed away. He probably pitied her, the poor, desperate widow lady.

  As they continued down the path, the annoyance grew, smoldering embers of it flaring into the fire of real anger. It was cool outside, but dressed in her velvet robe and thorny mood, she barely noticed. Trying to keep up with Noah’s longer strides, she stumbled over the root of a scruffy bougainvillea, and the graceless movement stopped her short, her bad temper spiking.

  “Damn it,” she yelled, kicking at the scrubby brush. “Damn it all to hell!”

  Noah turned to stare at her, and she yanked her hand from his then kicked the bush again. Twice. She glared at the offending plant and then at him. “And don’t you dare look at me like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you didn’t think I knew any swear words. Because, hell yes, I do, and when I’m mad I’m going to let them loose.”

  Noah’s voice softened. “Juliet, what’s the problem? What’s made you so upset?” In the bright moonlight, she saw his expression soften, too. It only made her madder.

  “I’m not upset.” She took another swipe at the bush, and its barbs caught the hem of her robe so she had to reach down and jerk it free.

  “Okay.” His placating tone did nothing to help matters.

  She kicked the bougainvillea once more instead of stomping her foot like she wanted to. “I’m enraged, all right?” And before he could ask the obvious question, she let the answer tumble out from wherever it had been packed away all these months. “I’m enraged at Wayne. What was he thinking? How could he have done this to me? How could he have left me alone?”

  “Ah, honey—”

  “And then how am I supposed to do this . . . this thing we’re doing now?” Her throat tightened, but the ball of anger inside her was growing and it pushed the words up and out. “I barely dated before I was married—did you know I didn’t have one date in high school?”

  “Uh—”

  “Well, I didn’t. And so guess what? It means that here I am, over thirty and unmarried, with no idea of how to play the game or read the signals or where to find the rules. There are rules, aren’t there?”

  “I’m not sure I know . . .”

  She rolled her eyes. Six plus feet of soldier muscle and a law degree and he was trying to play dumb with her? Before Wayne’s death, she’d watched the leggy girls, the curvy women, the feline females Noah had escorted in and out of his above-the-garage apartment. “Oh, you know the rules all right, which is why I’m furious with you, too. Sure I’m angry at Wayne for leaving me, but you, you’re worse because, damn it, you’ve been leading me on.”

  Noah jerked at the accusation and stepped forward. “Now wait a minute. Now wait just a minute.” His hands closed over her shoulders.

  She wrenched back. “Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me unless you’re prepared to follow through.”

  His arms dropped.

  Now she did stomp her foot. She stomped her foot and fisted her hands and addressed the swathe of stars flung across the night sky, her frustration pouring out of her. “Damn it all! Is it too much to ask that I could have just a little time with a man I admire? Is it too much to ask that I could have a man to hold me through one simple, single
night? Is it too much to ask that I could find some way to prove that I didn’t die, too?”

  As the last words echoed in her ears, the desperate note in her own voice doused her anger. It subsided as quickly as it had built, leaving her still hot and bothered—but only by distinct embarrassment. And Noah was staring at her, silent.

  Aghast, most likely.

  “Oh, God,” she said. She covered her eyes with her hands. “Oh, God. Now you not only think I’m a pitiful widow, but a crazy pitiful widow.”

  The ground didn’t open up and swallow her. Noah didn’t back away as she was sure he wanted to. Instead, his fingers circled her wrists and he yanked down her hands, leaving them eye to eye, toe to toe.

  “That’s it? Someone to hold you through the night?” At Noah’s guttural tone, her eyes widened. “That’s what you want?”

  But he didn’t wait for her answer. Instead, he jerked her hard against him. Her feet slipped on the sandy ground, but that didn’t matter, because he held her with a grip that wouldn’t allow her to move, let alone fall.

  Then he kissed her.

  The last dregs of anger evaporated. Embarrassment fled. Everything but the feel of him against her dropped away. Juliet stepped closer to his solid strength and moaned into his mouth, parting her lips so that his tongue could push inside. Sweet, heady intrusion.

  Her fingers curled around his biceps and she hung on as he took her mouth, took it without hesitation or doubt. It was all confidence and need and when he sucked her bottom lip, she could only press into him with her hips and breasts.

  His hand slid upward to cradle the back of her head and hold her steady for more searing kisses, one after the other, creating a string of perfect, burning sensation. She dug her fingers into his resilient skin and opened her eyes to marvel at the moonlight on his face, his eyelashes feathery shadows against his cheekbones.

  His mouth was coarse-edged with whiskers and she reveled in the rough burn of them against her chin, her cheeks, the corners of her lips. “Juliet . . .” It wasn’t a question, she thought, it was just her name, an extension of the desire she could feel running through his veins. Noah desired her.

  Noah desired Juliet.

  A woman, not a widow.

  And suddenly the kisses and the embrace weren’t enough. They were hot, but still too chaste, and remembering the other times they’d kissed, she worried that she might only have this moment, this chance. Grabbing his hand from her shoulder, she yanked it down to cover her breast.

  His groan made her womb clench.

  Her head fell back and his whiskers abraded her skin as his mouth followed the column of her neck. She felt the prickly burn everywhere, could imagine it everywhere, on her shin, behind her knee, against the tender flesh between her thighs.

  His hips pushed against hers and she felt the heavy weight of his erection along her belly. She tilted the cradle of her pelvis toward it—taking the heavy male thrust of him against her softer abdomen, wishing right now that she could take him into the softest, hottest part of her.

  “Noah.” How far was a car, a couch, any comfortable flat surface? “Noah.” His hand kneaded her breast and her urgency only flared higher. “Please.”

  His hair was cool against the palms of her hands as his head dipped toward her breasts. Flat surface forgotten, Juliet only thought of more. More of his touch, more of this pressing desire, more man against her.

  More knowing she was, indeed, alive.

  His fingers brushed over her nipple. Not enough, not enough. But then she realized he was pushing the edge of the velvet robe away, tucking it below her left breast so that it was only covered by sheer blouse, sheer bra. The surf below them roared, but her blood was louder in her ears as she waited, breathless, for what he would do next.

  His mouth latched onto her breast. With his tongue, he wetted the fabric. His lips drew hard on her nipple.

  Her knees buckled. Her womb clenched. Wet heat rushed between her thighs and she wanted to cry with its goodness.

  His arm was a steel band around her back, and his mouth was as relentless at her swelling breast. She felt her flesh there expand, as if it wanted to fill his mouth like she wanted to be filled by the erection pressing heat and life against her belly. Her fingers bit into his scalp and he nipped her in return.

  Her hips jerked against him, helpless against the sweet sting. He nipped again, and it wasn’t so sweet, only better, and she yanked his shirt from the waistband of his pants so she could touch skin. Noah’s hot, smooth skin.

  He lifted his head as she explored beneath the soft cotton. His mouth was full, redder than usual, and his eyes were intent as he worked on the other side of her robe. “More,” he said, glancing up at her. His eyes glittered in the moonlight. “More.”

  “Yes.”

  At the word, beneath her palms, goose bumps rose on his skin. Her blood raced, guessing the physical reaction meant he was as turned on as she, and then she was certain he was, because he jerked the blouse down, taking her bra with it, exposing her breast to the night air.

  To him.

  He stared at it a long moment. She clutched his sides, feeling a matching set of goose bumps rise along her flesh from the top of her head, over her exposed chest, and down the sensitive insides of her legs.

  Noah’s gaze lifted as his mouth lowered. He was watching her, she thought, excitement a booster rocket to her already speeding pulse. He wanted to see how she reacted when he took her bare nipple in his mouth.

  Heat and wetness closed over her tight bud. His tongue stroked, drawing a delicate circle around her areola. She heard herself whimper. Surely he could see the plea in her expression.

  Yet still he kept up the subtle strokes. Had she imagined that earlier bite?

  Could she have imagined it? No man had ever touched her with less than gentleness. During lovemaking she’d always been treated like a breakable piece of expensive crystal.

  She dug her fingers into Noah’s scalp and his gaze intensified.

  “More,” she whispered the word this time, desire and the desire to be more than a precious object making her voice husky. Demanding. Would he understand what she needed? “More.”

  His lips locked onto her flesh.

  She bowed in his embrace and gave herself up to the fire and pressure of his mouth. A shiver raced through her, shaking her bones, her thoughts, her understanding of herself. After years of living with a dying husband, she’d considered herself a woman of mild desires and low-level libido, but now she only wanted strong sensation after strong sensation: the rasp of a beard, the clutch of strong fingers, the stinging edge of a man’s teeth.

  Then she could be sure she was living.

  Suddenly, Noah’s head jerked up. She jerked, too, startled by the movement and how much she already missed his mouth. The night air was cold against her wet nipple.

  “Someone’s coming,” he said.

  She whimpered, less disturbed about being seen than being cut off from this dark, delicious round of sensation.

  A grimace crooked the corners of his mouth. He bent his head swiftly, and then there it was, that little sting.

  She moaned, her nipple throbbed, Noah yanked her clothes back into place. Then he pulled her to him, tucking her face against his chest. “That’s what you want?” he asked, repeating the question he hadn’t let her answer earlier.

  Her arms wrapped around his waist and she shivered again, reacting to all that she desired and all that she was being denied—at least for the moment.

  “That’s what you want?” he said, again.

  She lifted her face to look at him. “It’s a start.”

  Noah pushed through the doors leading into the restaurant, towing Juliet behind him. He had to get her somewhere, somewhere private, before he woke up. Because if this was merely a dream, he intended to stay within it as long as he possibly could.

  Juliet pulled back on his arm.

  Should have known this was too good to be true. He closed his e
yes a moment, then looked back.

  Her eyes . . . the Iraq sky, the green of spring. Her cheeks were pink from the cool breeze and her mouth was reddened, the edges blurred from the scrape of his whiskers. He couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and using his thumb to outline her lips. “Second thoughts?”

  Her tongue darted out to taste his skin. He hissed in a breath, then his hand shifted to cup her chin. “No second thoughts?”

  She shook her head. “I came with Nikki and Jay. I need to tell them I’m leaving.”

  “I’ll do it.” He was already scanning the crowd, looking for the couple. “You stay right here.”

  Catching his hand, Juliet squeezed his fingers. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  And wasn’t that just another sign he was asleep? But he wove through the crowd anyway, in case it really was Juliet he’d been kissing outside, in case it really was her unspoken demands that had caused him to tighten his hands and his mouth on her. Perfect, classy, golden Juliet had begged him in every way for a rougher touch.

  Hell, his body was telling him he was well on his way to wild monkey sex with Juliet Weston. He must be dreaming.

  But there were Jay and Nikki, dancing, and he shouldered past a Raggedy Ann and Andy to tap the mermaid on the shoulder. She turned her bicolored eyes on him, the ones so like her sister’s, and it halted his thought processes.

  It was Juliet’s face he saw, full of frustration and unexpected anger. Is it too much to ask that I could have a man to hold me through one simple, single night? She’d said that.

  A man I admire. She’d said that, too.

  “Noah?”

  He shook his head, and focused again on Nikki’s questioning expression. So that she could hear him over the band’s rendition of “Thriller,” he leaned in. “I’m taking Juliet.”

  The younger woman glanced back at Jay. He was all innocence and no comment—practically gazing up at the ceiling and whistling. She turned back to Noah and narrowed her eyes. “Taking her?”

  “Yes.” Then he realized how that sounded and amended his response, eager to get back before Juliet disappeared like the soap bubble he was afraid she might be. “Taking her home.”