by Lisa Jackson
Graduation. Opening her own business.
It was fitting in so many ways that he was the one to do this now.
In ways she hadn’t even imagined.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Finish that sentence, Meg. I’m very interested.”
“I’m going to sound like bad porn.”
“What do you know about bad porn?”
“I’m a twenty-eight-year-old virgin, Noah. I know quite a bit about porn, bad, good, and in-between.”
He chuckled, but it wasn’t an easy sound. “Fair enough. Still. I want to hear what you were going to say.”
“Just that . . .” She cleared her throat. “You’re bigger than he is.”
“I’m caught between feeling like I really didn’t need to know that about my friend and feeling pretty damn pleased.”
Her face was so hot she thought it might be on fire. “Well, I’m pleased.”
He treated her to a cocky smile and tore open a packet, rolling the latex down over his hard length, his grip on his shaft firm. And much more arousing than she would have imagined it could be.
He made his way back to the bed, grabbed hold of her face, and kissed her, deep and fierce, and she forgot what they had been talking about. She forgot that there had ever been another man to compare him to. Noah was the first and only man to give her an orgasm. And he was going to be the first one to be inside of her.
She forgot to be nervous, because she was so hot for him she couldn’t feel anything but desire. Slick want between her thighs, and a building sense of restlessness that she had thought would have been taken care of by her orgasm.
But no, she was ready again.
Her heart slammed against her breastbone, her nipples tight, her breasts feeling heavy, aching. And he seemed to sense that, because one large, rough hand came up to cup her sensitized skin. He slid a callused thumb over one tightened bud and then swallowed the sound of pleasure that she made as he licked deep into her mouth.
He moved his hands down her body, grabbed hold of her hips, and settled between her legs, the thick, blunt head of his arousal pressing against the entrance to her body. She gritted her teeth as he began to press inside of her, stretching her, filling her.
It hurt. She had known that it would.
What she hadn’t anticipated was that it would make her chest feel full, too. That having Noah inside of her would suddenly make the world feel like it had turned on its head.
She looked up into his dark eyes as he held tightly to her hips, thrusting forward hard and seating himself fully inside of her. His mouth was set into a grim line, his jaw held tight. She could see just how much self-control it was taking him to remain still for a moment, the cords in his neck standing out, his breathing hard and uneven.
She gripped his shoulders, sliding her fingertips down his back, along the line of his spine, all the way to his tight ass. She had definitely looked at Noah’s ass before. Because she was a woman, flesh and blood, and not made of stone.
And it was a nice one.
Even nicer naked. Even nicer with her hands on it.
Much nicer when he was inside of her. So big, thick, and intense.
She kept waiting for him to move, but he didn’t. Instead, he grabbed hold of her chin with his thumb and forefinger, holding her face steady as he looked down at her, his dark eyes like fire.
Her own eyes stung, her throat getting tight, hard rock settling in the center of it.
He kissed her. Tender. Sweet. Completely at odds with every delicious, dirty thing that had come before it.
Then he began to move.
And the world shifted.
Because even as the pleasure built, all-consuming and intense, she couldn’t forget that it was Noah inside of her. Noah above her. Noah.
She clung to him, wrapped her legs around him as he thrust into her, hard and intense, his expression that of a stranger, even while his face remained familiar.
She lifted her hand, traced the lines on his face, touched his lips. Then he closed the distance between them, kissing her while he continued to move inside of her. She was lost.
Meg held his face between her hands, kissing him intently. The only sounds in the room were her fractured breathing, his skin slapping against hers.
And her heart, pounding in her head. Seeming to speak his name each and every time.
Noah. Noah. Noah.
And it was his name on her lips when she climaxed again, pleasure ripping through her, seeming to tear her in two.
He lowered his head, burying his face in her neck as his whole muscular body shuddered against her, as he froze, pulsing inside of her as he found his release.
He moved away from her, rolling to the side, his chest pitching with each breath. She looked up at the ceiling, at the wooden beams that crossed over the simple plaster. Then she looked at the wall, the paneling barren of any kind of art.
The plaid blanket was scratchy beneath her skin, definitely not the kind of bedding that would have been on that big bed in that penthouse in New York.
She looked to the side, at the man beside her. At the lines next to his eyes, that dark beard. His heavily muscled arms and chiseled stomach.
So very different from the man she had imagined going to bed with.
And she knew, in this moment, that she wouldn’t trade the way things had happened for anything.
CHAPTER 6
When Noah woke up, the room was cold. He’d let the fire die overnight, and he’d clearly forgotten to turn on the space heater in the small room. Mostly because he’d been distracted. By Meg.
Meg, whose bare bottom was nestled up against his hardness. Meg, who was breathing steadily and deeply as she slept up against him. In his bed.
Meg. Finally.
He moved his hand over her curves, down to her hip, and she stirred beneath his touch.
“Noah?” she asked sleepily.
And the fact that it was his name she had said, that she wasn’t confused even for a moment about who she was with, did something to him. Pride was the least of his concerns, really. But even he didn’t want to believe she was thinking about being with Charlie while she was here with him.
Second choice was one thing. The only available guy to use while she fantasized about someone else was another.
“Yeah,” he said, dropping a kiss onto her lips.
“I guess I fell asleep,” she said.
“Yeah,” he responded. “Me too.”
She turned over so that she was facing him, and he could barely make out her glittering eyes in the darkness. “Was I okay?”
He huffed out a laugh. “It’s a miracle the top of my head didn’t blow off.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Yes, it was a very crass compliment, which unfortunately is all I’m capable of.”
She laughed, then snuggled more deeply against him. “That’s not true.”
“Sure it is. You were supposed to lose your virginity in some high-rise apartment. Not in this place.”
“I’m not sorry,” she said. “I’m not sorry that I’m here. I’m not sorry that it’s you. You talk yourself down, Noah, but you’re the one who brought me cookies.”
He wasn’t even going to pretend he didn’t remember that, even though he probably should. Even though discretion was the better part of making sure you didn’t get your guts ripped out. He didn’t have much discretion with Meg. At least, not anymore. He had spent so many years keeping it all locked up; now that he had set it free, it was all but impossible to put it back in the cage.
“They were just cookies,” he said.
“Noah, I was the little girl that no one paid attention to. And once I was taken from my parents, I was the little girl that bounced from place to place. And even though there were good homes in between those times when I went back to my mom and dad, it was all very temporary. And there didn’t ever seem to be a point in anyone getting to know me, because they were only going to have to give me away. And I know t
hat some of that came from me. Some of it was me holding myself back because I knew I was going to lose the nice people who had taken me in, that I was going to go back to that house where no one looked in my direction, so why should I try? Why should I try to connect with anyone?”
“You never acted hard because of it,” he said. “I remember seeing you for the first time and thinking that you were still soft. And I couldn’t fathom how.”
“I wished I weren’t. I wished that I were more like you.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because you seemed bulletproof. Like nothing could hurt you.”
He shifted, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. “And how did Charlie seem?”
She lowered her head, pressing her face to the center of his chest and taking a deep breath. “Safe.”
“I didn’t seem safe?” He posed the question gently.
“No, it’s just . . . No. ‘Safe’ is not the word I would use to describe you. And ironically, it’s not exactly the word I would use to describe Charlie now. Except . . . I don’t know, maybe ‘nonthreatening’ is a better word. But it was funny tonight, you telling me that you were my friend, so of course you remembered me talking about books. And you remembering the cookies. I don’t think he would remember any of that. And I’m not trying to compare the two of you.”
“Meg, we’ve been friends for thirteen years. The three of us. And during most of that time you and Charlie had the relationship that you had. I think comparison is somewhat inescapable.” Even if it did gall him a little bit, he had to be fair. Or he had to try to be.
“I spent a long time being ignored,” Meg said. “And when I first came to Jim and Nancy’s, I was ready to fly under the radar there, too. To just hide away until I got moved on. But you didn’t let me. You drew me out, and you brought me cookies. And you made me feel like it was worth knowing somebody. Charlie made me laugh—I think he makes us both laugh. And that’s one reason it’s easy to forgive all of the crap he does. The fact that he isn’t dependable. The fact that he doesn’t show up when he says he will, and he . . .”
“Offers to marry you while he’s sleeping with someone else?”
Meg sighed heavily. “Did he do that to you, too? Because that is surprising.”
Noah laughed. “No. But I would have punched him in the face. You know, instead of flying all the way back here.”
Meg shook her head. “I didn’t even yell at him. I apologized. I apologized for showing up unannounced. I wish I hadn’t done that. I was embarrassed, and I was upset. And the more I think about it, the more I think he should have been the one who was embarrassed and upset.”
“Hell yes, he should be,” Noah said. “And if he knew what was good for him, he should have chased you to the airport. He should be calling you every few minutes, begging you to take him back.”
“No one has ever done that for me,” she said, the words matter-of-fact rather than self-pitying in any way. “I’ve always thought my parents were relieved when I got taken from them. Every time it happened. When Child Services showed up, and they knew that they didn’t have to deal with me anymore. That they didn’t have to carry the burden that was me.” She sighed. “I imagine Charlie feels the same way.”
Noah locked his teeth together, clenching them tight, and he wrapped his arms around Meg, pulling her up against his body. “Do you know why they felt that way?”
“Because I’m high maintenance?”
“Because they’ve never loved anything in their lives more than they love themselves. That’s sad. For them more than it is for you. And with Charlie . . . It’s the same. He’s broken, and he doesn’t know how to make himself uncomfortable for someone else.”
“You make me sound like a rock in someone’s shoe.”
“That’s just life, Meg. It’s not you being a problem. It’s that anything in life that has value costs a little something of yourself. What about your brewery? Is it always fun?”
“Is your ranch always fun?”
“No. And you know it isn’t. But it means everything to me. I was a kid who had nothing, and I started working at this place when I was in high school. I never imagined when I started that I would have the chance to buy it. That old John Anderson would offer to carry the loan for me so that I could buy the place when he retired. Sure, it costs. It costs in sweat, and in blood. In time. But I have something to show for it. Something I can hold with both hands. I can go outside and dig through the snow, kneel down, and get a handful of dirt that belongs to me. For a kid who never owned anything, let me tell you, that’s a hell of a thing.”
He let his hands drift down her back, skimming over her curves, coming to rest on her ass. “And let me tell you something else. It would have been easier sometimes not to try. We were never shown an example about why trying mattered. Mostly, we saw what giving in to failure looked like. What I know is that sometimes not wanting anything feels a lot easier. But this . . . trying . . . You get more in the end.”
“You got more than you bargained for,” she said, lifting her face and nipping his chin.
Electric arousal shot through him. “Not nearly enough,” he growled, pushing her onto her back and looking down at her. “I’d like a little more, actually.”
She smiled up at him, reached out, and touched his face. She kept doing that. Touching him like she was trying to orient herself to the fact that she could. Touching him like she was trying to make sure this was real. He liked it. He liked it a little bit too much.
“Please,” she said, the word simple and beautiful.
He kissed her, reaching over and grabbing another condom off the nightstand, trying to keep on kissing her while he tore the thing open and rolled it onto himself with one hand.
He didn’t have the patience for foreplay, not this time, and when he pushed inside of her for a moment he was afraid that he had hurt her. The way she gasped, the way she stiffened for a moment. But then she rolled her hips up against him, taking him in even deeper, and she sighed, a deep, satisfied sound that he had never even fantasized about hearing from her lips.
He kissed her again, gathering her wrists and pulling them up over her head, holding them fast while he teased her breasts with his other hand, as he moved inside of her, driving them both crazy.
He had never thought something like this was possible. When he had fantasized about being with Meg, he had only ever let it be sexual. When he had imagined getting her naked, she had become some kind of porn bot in his mind. He had to admit it, even if he hated to. He certainly hadn’t imagined talking about cookies, and the past. About hard work and sacrifice. The kinds of things he would normally talk about with Meg, and with no one else, even while they were naked together.
This was something he hadn’t anticipated. Something he hadn’t even wanted. And now that he had it, it was breaking his chest apart, making him feel things he hadn’t imagined were possible for him to feel.
The room had been cold when they’d woken up, but it was warm now, their bodies creating heat together. Or maybe the heat was just inside of him. He had always burned for her, but now it was blazing out of control. And now it was something more than sex.
In his fantasies, sweet, beautiful Meg was his friend during the day and his lover at night. But during the last few hours those things had all melted together, and he wasn’t sure he could ever separate them out again.
He didn’t know what that meant. He didn’t know if he wanted to know what it meant.
She grabbed hold of his shoulders, her fingernails digging into his skin. She raked them down his back as she panted his name in his ear, as she wrapped her legs around his hips and took him in deeper, her internal muscles pulsing around him as she found her pleasure.
And he wasn’t far behind, his self-control unraveling completely, the fire inside of him burning out of control.
When it was over, she lay against him, her hand pressed to his chest, right over his heart.
“Noah?”
“Wh
at?” he asked, looking up at the ceiling.
“It’s Christmas Eve,” she said.
“Yeah” He tightened his hold on her. “It is.”
She wrapped her arms around him, her breath hot against his skin. “Merry Christmas Eve, Noah.”
And for some reason, his throat was so tight, he couldn’t answer.
CHAPTER 7
It was almost noon by the time Meg and Noah committed to getting out of bed. Noah had gone into the kitchen earlier in search of food, and coffee, and they had both indulged before indulging in each other again.
Then they had napped, and when they’d woken up Noah had told her to get on her knees and hang on to the headboard while he showed her a brand-new position that only made her curious about what else the two of them might explore.
But it was Jim and Nancy’s Christmas party tonight. They had a big one every year, inviting all of the foster children who had ever passed through their house. And people gathered from all over the state, sometimes all over the country, to come back to see them.
Suddenly, she felt slightly shamefaced that she had planned on missing it so that she could go hook up with Charlie, who would also be missing it.
“Do you always go to Jim and Nancy’s party?” she asked, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and hunting around for her clothes.
“Yeah,” he said. “Every year.”
She had missed a few years here and there. Because of the brewery or because Charlie had needed a date to something.
She looked over at Noah and battled with a little bit of internal disappointment as he covered his extremely gorgeous ass with his jeans and then pulled a tight T-shirt over his head, followed by a sweater.
“It’s late,” he said. “I have to go out and do some overdue work. You’re welcome to . . . stay here.”
She finished putting on her own sweater and tugged idly at a loose thread on the sleeve. “Could I . . . Can I go with you? It would be interesting to see the place. I haven’t actually gone on the grand tour in a while.”
