Noah looked away as if to save her the embarrassment. “Still, strong or no, that armoire must have been a bitch to move on your own. You should have called me.”
Right. The person she’d been so careful to avoid. “I knew you’d left early this morning. I, um, heard your car start,” she added hastily, not wanting him to think she’d been keeping tabs on his comings and goings.
“Dean, then. He was here this morning.” Noah shrugged out of his suit jacket and slung it across the desk, then went to work on the starched cuffs of his dress shirt.
“Oh.” Juliet tried not to stare as he revealed his powerful forearms by rolling up his sleeve. The skin was tanned there, too, of course, and sprinkled with dark hair. She rubbed at the smoother skin of her own with the palms of her hands, trying to rub away a sudden chill. “I wouldn’t bother Dean.”
“Because you’re embarrassed to face him?”
“Embarrassed?” It was Noah who she’d been so anxious to evade. “Why would I be embarrassed to face Dean?”
“Because he saw us kiss the other night.” Noah focused on his shirt sleeve as he carefully rolled it to his elbow. “Because he knows, or guesses . . .”
She frowned. “He knows or guesses . . . what? What exactly are you getting at?”
Noah hesitated.
Giving her time to fill in the blanks.
“Are you saying Dean knows that we . . . that you . . .” His friend knew Noah had gone to bed with her and he expected she was distressed about it. Why?
Then it hit her. Heat crawled over her face.
“Why should I care that your friend knows you took pity on the dried up, lonely old widow across the pool?” She flung the question at him, in order to get the words away from herself. “I don’t really know him, and you—well, in his eyes you likely just look like a nicer guy for doing the generous deed, don’t you think?”
No wonder Noah had treated her like she’d break. Little old widows were frail like that.
Blinking at the burn that was in her eyes as well as on her face, she whirled back to the door, jerking on the knob and kicking the paneled bottom at the same time.
Incensed, she yelled at the stubborn thing. “Let me out!”
Arms wrapped around her from behind. She struggled against their hold, throwing herself from right, to left, then right again.
“Settle down,” Noah said, tightening his embrace. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Too late, she thought, still twisting. All her life she’d played the perfect lady, the composed hostess, the gentle wife, but the jagged emotions roiling inside of her were shattering that pose. “Leave me alone!”
He turned her easily, his arms still holding hers, fast, against her sides. “Not until we have this out.”
She stiffened in affront, then went crafty instead, going limp in his grasp. Noah instantly relaxed, releasing her and stepping back.
Triumphant, Juliet whirled again to make another desperate attack on the door.
Noah was only a second behind. Once again he had her, one arm banding her waist, the other around her chest, and as if it was no effort at all, he lifted her wiggling body off her feet to walk her toward the seating area she’d earlier arranged.
“No,” she said through her teeth. “Don’t do this.”
“I’m not doing anything,” he replied, his voice as tight as her own. “I just want to talk.”
“But I have nothing to say.” Her bottom bounced on the loveseat and then he dropped beside her, his hand like a vice around her upper arm. Fuming, she tried getting to her feet, but he held her against the cushions with just those five, implacable fingers.
“Stay put,” he ordered.
Had she ever been this angry? A high whine buzzed in her ears and her blood was crashing through her system, hot and intoxicating like some kind of terrible drug. Under its influence, her right hand reached out, fast as a blink, and slapped him across his handsome face.
They both froze and she stared, horrified, fascinated, then horrified again at the faint red mark blooming on his lean cheek. Her blood halted its frenzied dash, her stomach tossed as if she’d thrown it into the ocean.
A single thought dominated her mind: What had she just done?
This time, when she got to her feet, he didn’t try to hold her down. She took a step away from the loveseat, and then another, still staring at what her unfamiliar temper had wrought. “You bring out the worst in me,” she said.
“You think?” His eyes narrowed and he slowly rose from the couch. “Maybe I bring out the best. Maybe I bring out what’s real about you.”
His taller figure towered over hers, and fear skittered down Juliet’s spine. Not fear of Noah, even though she’d just slapped him. The one she was afraid of was herself: What might she be capable of next? When he moved closer, she placed her palms against his chest to keep a distance between them. “No.”
The muscle in his jaw—his jaw that was still faintly red because she’d slapped him!—ticked. His gaze was trained on her face, the blue color hot as the center of a fire.
It burned her, so she looked away, and caught a glimpse of her reflection in that mirror she’d hung. Her usually straight hair was disheveled and a little wispy at the temples. A flush covered her from neck to forehead, making her own blue and green eyes stand out unnaturally bright. Her memory flashed to Nikki, stomping into Malibu & Ewe, intensity in every step, in every breath.
She’d thought then: That’s how I’d look if I ever really let go. In passion or in anger.
Noah had said: Maybe I bring out the best. Maybe I bring out what’s real about you.
In the mirror, she knew she had never so closely resembled her fiery little sister. And she marveled at the likeness. Was this Juliet at her best? Juliet . . . real?
Her gaze jumped back to Noah’s.
One of his hands lifted and he traced a finger down her hot cheek. “Juliet . . .”
“What?” In the wake of his touch, her skin prickled with a heat that had nothing to do with anger.
He stroked again. “Pity is the last thing I feel for you.”
“Is it?” It was that different Juliet, a tempestuous Juliet who was speaking through her lips, a carpe diem creature who curled her fingers and dug her nails into Noah’s dress shirt in order to get to those hard muscles behind the cotton. Now it was passion that was crawling like a flame inside of her. She shivered, as sensible thoughts—they should discuss this, they shouldn’t probably do this—evaporated in the heat.
“Well, me,” she said, staring into his face where she could see the reflection of her own desire, “I just want to feel.” Then, thrilled by her own audacity, she jerked her hands apart, tearing buttons from their moorings.
Revealing Noah’s naked chest.
Dimly, she registered the buttons pinging against harder surfaces. Vividly, she took in the view that had been distracting her since that first night when she’d caught him naked in her pool. His bare chest, bronzed, cut like a Play-girl centerfold, tempting with its heavy musculature and hard-tipped copper nipples.
If it was cold, she could fool herself and think it wasn’t a reaction to her. To what she’d just done. But it wasn’t the least bit cool in the room.
And she wasn’t going to fool herself anymore.
She wanted to feel. She wanted passion and sensation and her skin against a man’s skin.
No. This man’s skin.
Without another thought, she stepped forward and took that tempting nipple into her mouth.
Noah’s body tightened against hers. He groaned, and she didn’t even bother deciphering the tone. She wanted to taste his skin, to suck that small pebble of flesh, to experience the heavy pound of his heart against her hands.
He groaned again, one of his palms rising to cup the back of her head and she flattened her tongue against his areola, her own pulse slamming in secret places. Her breasts swelled against her bra and her inner thighs tightened, trying to hold her erotic re
sponse close.
Warmth and wet flooded despite that.
But she didn’t care. She ran the heel of her hand over his other tight nipple, rolled over it with the ball of her thumb, and Noah let her take the hard caress. With another groan, he let her own it.
Then she replaced her mouth with her other hand and lifted her head, demanding. He took the hint and dipped his lips to hers.
There was nothing gentle about their meeting.
His tongue thrust into her mouth, his penetration only a precursor to what she really wanted, and it was her time to groan because he knew what she needed. Hard, wet, invasion. Sensation.
This was real.
Him. She wanted all of him.
Yanking the dress shirt from the waist of his slacks, she pressed closer and let the kiss go wild. She bit at his bottom lip, sucked on this tongue, took his upper lip between hers to suckle it in hot, sweet, delight.
Did other women play like this?
She didn’t know. She only knew she needed it, and that Noah was not ready to refuse her.
That knowledge sent her to her knees.
Amazing, yes? She’d never been this turned on, this ready to try anything, this determined to take every taste of life and passion available to her. Her hands fumbled at his belt and zipper, but she persisted, even though his head fell back and his groan rubbed like a calloused hand against her skin.
In the vee of his opened pants was the muted print of a pair of silky boxers. It was just a thin layer of satiny sensation between her hand and the heavy jut of his erection. She cradled it, letting the cup of her palm fold around his hard heat. He jerked into her touch and more wetness rushed between her thighs.
Hard. Heat. Wet.
Sensation piling upon sensation.
Who would have thought she’d need even more? That she’d push aside that silk so that his erection pushed toward her. Pushed toward her mouth.
And she wanted that sensation, too. She rubbed her cheek against him and reveled in the smooth heat that was softer than his lips and as hard as any of his other male muscles. His fingers slid into her hair—more dishevelment—but the light tug on her scalp sparked sensation all across her skin. She turned her cheek again and her lips found his soft skin. His erection jerked against the touch of her mouth, and his tense silence almost made her laugh.
Yes, this.
Of course, this.
She opened her lips and took him inside. The sleek head rested on her tongue and she swirled around it, savoring him like ice cream in summer, then she stroked along his shaft as she would lick a peppermint stick in winter. His fingers scraped against her scalp and she tightened her own around his hard thighs as she slid her mouth back up to suck on the tip.
Noah groaned again, maybe it was her name, but her heartbeat pounded loud in her ears, distancing any other noise. Everything took second place to the virility of his hard thighs against her palms and the aggressive jut of his sex in her mouth.
Yet she controlled that aggression, even on her knees. She was the one with the power. It was exhilarating to have all this life at her mercy, when for so long she’d been at the mercy of slow death and suffocating grief. Leaning into his legs, she pressed her swelling breasts against him and took him deeper, finding a rhythm that worked in counterpoint to her pounding pulse.
The knuckles of one of his hands traced the fiery heat of her cheek and she lifted her gaze to his, seeing the blue irises almost eclipsed by the pupils. A shiver rolled down her back.
I do this to him.
Another shiver rocketed along her spine, and she slowed her rhythm to ratchet up his need. Then, without breaking eye contact, she stopped altogether, holding him gently in the wet cavern of her mouth. His chest expanded, but he didn’t move otherwise.
“Whatever you need, baby,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You take whatever you want, for however long you want.”
But she wasn’t an idiot. The tension in his frame made clear that despite his best intentions, he couldn’t hold off forever. And there were places left to explore.
With a last reluctant tongue-stroke, she got to her feet—and found herself wrapped in his arms and her mouth busy once again . . . with his. She melted against him and let him take over for a moment, unable to resist the glorious feel of his chest pressed to hers. Her hands slid up his sides and she wiggled her fingers under the shoulders of his shirt to lift it off.
As it fluttered to the floor, he pushed her away. “Now you.”
The ultra-sensitive skin over her rib cage twitched at the brush of his hands, but then her shirt was gone, too. Across the room, the mirror showed her breasts heaving over the cups of her bra and Noah glanced back to see what had snagged her attention.
He turned to her with a smile and his forefinger traced the upper edges of her bra. “Pretty. Can you blame me for my fascination?”
But she was fascinated again, as her attention shifted to the reflection of Noah’s back. The powerful shoulders slimmed to narrow hips and she saw the flat planes of his muscles shift as he continued to caress the tops of her breasts with that maddening finger. “I want you naked,” she said, her gaze still trained on the mirror. “I want to see everything.”
The other morning, silly woman that she was, she’d spent too much time with her eyes squeezed shut. She’d wasted too much time worrying about what he thought and what she could possibly do for him. Now she wanted to see, touch, taste, experience for herself.
Without hesitation, Noah pushed away his slacks and boxers. Breath caught in her chest and heat flashed over her at the sight of his powerful curves and warm skin. Her hand seemed too heavy as she slid it around the hard flesh at his waist to cup one round, male cheek.
His grin blinked on. “Yeah, honey. Touch me.”
And she did, not because she had his permission, but because it was what she needed, what she craved. She slid her hands over his high buttocks, down the back of his muscled thighs, around the front so that she could play between his legs and make him groan again. With every inch of skin she explored, with every new place she discovered, she went wilder herself, her blood burning under the surface of her flesh, her nipples hard beneath her bra, the place between her thighs clenching in anticipation of more.
Then she rolled her palm up his erection and the tide changed. His body tensed, his breath huffed out, his fingers tightened on her upper arms. He yanked her close, somehow dispensing with her bra before their chests met.
She moaned.
He sucked the sound away with his mouth, and then it was everywhere, on her cheek, her chin, running down her neck to nip at the curve of her shoulder. At the bite, her passion exploded.
Whether Noah sensed it or his own desires were driving him, she didn’t know. And she didn’t have the breath to ask because they went from upright to horizontal with one beat of her heart. Her yoga pants and bikini panties had melted from her body. Somehow he’d put on a condom. Noah made a place for himself between her legs, jerking her thighs apart and muscling his hips into the opening without the tender finesse of their last time together.
There was nothing of finesse now.
He entered her in one heavy stroke, but it wasn’t enough, and she jerked her pelvis high to impale him farther. He grunted, reared back, and then invaded again.
Merciless, sweet invasion.
He started a ruthless rhythm, one she would have demanded had she known such perfection existed. Her hands crabbed for purchase against the soft area rug, digging in as he continued to fill her. Without breaking the tempo, he rested more heavily on his knees and caught the back of hers in his big hands. He pushed them into her chest, holding her open for him. Vulnerable and open.
Impassioned and liberated.
She bit her bottom lip to keep back her pleas. She didn’t want to interrupt a moment of his rough possession of her. She didn’t want anything to mar this proof that she, Juliet Weston, had driven a man to such abandon.
And then he abandoned
her.
“What? No?” she cried out, but her voice turned into a strangled sob as he placed his mouth against her wet, swollen flesh.
“I have to go down on you,” he muttered, his gaze flicking up to her face and his breath burned hotter against her than even the melting center of her body. “I have to have this.”
And he had it, took it, licking, sucking, exploring with his tongue, finding another rhythm that made her mad with need. She was moaning, begging, surrendering to him with all that she had when he took pity. Lashing her clitoris with his tongue, he slid two big fingers inside her.
Her hips lifted, her body quaked, she couldn’t find breath to let out the scream of delirious pleasure.
The next one was silent, too, because he didn’t give her a chance to descend or even inhale before he replaced his fingers with his body. He had to force past her still-clenching muscles, but that was good, too, necessary, so she’d know that such ecstasy was real.
One thrust, two, and he went over, then made her tumble after by inserting his clever hand between them.
Minutes passed. His head was still buried against her neck when she felt his mouth move on her damp skin. “I don’t dare ask you if I broke anything.”
Juliet slid her hand up his back. “Just a few of my notions about myself.”
He looked up, that killer smile tugging at his beautiful lips. “Sounds promising.”
She’d been wanton—and that wasn’t a bad thing. She’d been demanding—and that was just as thrilling, too. “I don’t think I have to paint a picture, do I?”
“If you do, I’ll be the first in line to make a purchase.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “That was pretty spectacular for me. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Her eyes drifted closed and she wondered how long she would continue throbbing. There was a sweet, pulsing ache at the place where she’d been opened by him. The point where he’d bit her neck seemed to have its own heartbeat.
Her hand drifted over his back again. “Did you really want me like . . . like this before now? When . . .”
“When the general was alive?”
She nodded.
Unravel Me Page 19
