by Amy Olle
His sharp gaze betrayed his casual tone. “Pizza’s on its way. I hope you like veggies,” he said.
“I love them.” She slipped past him and pulled a wineglass from the cupboard.
He shifted to give her room in the tiny kitchen at the exact moment she moved to sidestep him, and their bodies bumped. Both tried to duck out of the way, but again, they collided.
With a laugh, he scooped his milk off the counter and, crossing to the table, dropped into a chair.
She filled her wineglass, took a long drink, and refilled. Lifting the glass to her lips, she froze when she saw the deep lines bracketing his eyes and mouth. Beneath the table, his knee bounced to a staccato rhythm. Tension radiated off him.
Relief poured through her. She wasn’t the only one reeling. Feeling trapped.
She plopped into a chair across from him. “You’re free to leave any time you want to, Noah. It’s all right.”
His knee stilled and his brows slammed together.
“I meant it when I said I’m okay with whatever you want out of... uh... our arrangement.” She shrugged and sipped from her wineglass. “Even if it’s only sex, and pizza.”
The crease vanished from his forehead and he leaned back in his chair. “Is that right?”
She mirrored his posture. “No matter what, I promise not to cry or pout or beg you to stay.”
“I meant it when I said I’m staying. There are some things I want to talk with you about.”
The dry wine caught in her throat and she coughed.
He smacked her on the back until she waved him off. “Oh? Like what?”
“Like your ex-fiancé.”
Her stomach gave a little wrench of misery. “You said you weren’t mad.”
He held up his hand. “I’m not mad.” A muscle in his jaw ticked. “I’m jealous.”
Mina frowned. “Jealous of what?”
“Of Drew.”
Mina rolled her eyes. “Can you be serious for five minutes?”
He held her gaze, not a hint of humor on his face.
She choked down her laughter. “You have no reason to be jealous of Drew Alexander. Believe me.”
“No? He’s wealthy. Powerful. Good-looking. And he had you in his bed for... how long did you say?”
“First off, he didn’t earn any of those things. The money and power were given to him at birth. At least half of his appeal is what people mistake for confidence. But he isn’t confident. He’s conceited, and there’s a huge difference.”
“And yet you were going to marry him.”
Her cheeks heated.
“How long were you together?”
“Two years,” she said.
“Why did it end?”
She shifted in her seat. “It’s... complicated.”
“Try to explain it to me. Please.”
She gulped down a large swallow of wine while she searched for the words to explain how she’d almost made the biggest mistake of her life. None were adequate to the task, so she took a deep breath and stated the facts.
“Our families were political enemies and decided a marriage was the quickest way to mend the generations-long divide.” Cynicism tightened the line of her mouth. “It also happened to be coming up on a reelection year.”
“How romantic.”
“They pushed the relationship for years before we gave in and went on a date. Eventually, I agreed to marry him to make them happy.” She met his gaze. “I failed.”
She searched the contours of his face and found no judgment there.
“Did you love him?” he asked.
“I tried to. I thought I did.” Memories of their disastrous relationship began to replay in her mind. “But, no, I didn’t love him. Not as a man. I loved the idea of him but nothing more.”
“Was he good to you?”
Surprised by the question, she fumbled to answer. “Yes and no. He was a friend to me, once. A long time ago. As a boyfriend and fiancé, he sucked.”
“Is he a friend to you now?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so, no.” For some reason, that fact depressed her.
“How long ago did you break up?”
She frowned. “Don’t you have any failed engagements or unstable former lovers we can discuss?”
“Nope.” He took a long drink of milk.
“Too many lovers to remember?”
His smile vanished, replaced by a fierce scowl. “Absolutely not.”
She peeked at him beneath her lashes. “More than a hundred?”
He laid a hand over his heart, feigning offense. “That’s only seven women a year. Do you think so little of me and my sexual prowess?”
She thought quite a lot of his sexual prowess.
An amused smile played on his lips.
“More than ten?” she ventured.
“Per year?”
“Grand total.”
“No, not so many as that.”
“What about the love of your life? Was she in there somewhere?”
A peculiar expression slipped across his face, quickly replaced with a roguish grin. “They were all the love of my life in the moment.”
Boy, didn’t she understand that. A rush of heat warmed her body as she recalled the front porch. Drew’s aim in bed, as in life, had been strictly goal-oriented, while in contrast, Noah’s focus centered on the process.
“I have no doubt they felt well loved,” she said. “Were you?”
His wicked smile faded. He hesitated, and she thought he wouldn’t answer her, but he did. “I’ve been lonely as long as I can remember.”
Her heart squeezed.
“And, no, I wasn’t in love with any of them.”
“So you never married, either?”
“Not even an engagement.” His foot nudged hers. “Ill-advised or otherwise.”
A knock at the door announced the arrival of their pizza. Noah paid while Mina fetched plates and utensils from the kitchen. The pizza’s aroma filled the small loft, and her stomach let loose with an angry growl. At the table, he opened the box and steam rolled out.
He dished a warm, heaping slice onto a plate and slid it her way.
“Are you going to avoid my questions then?” He scooped another piece.
“There’ve been, like, seventy questions,” she said. “Which one are you referring to?”
His lips twitched. “When did your engagement end?”
Mina stifled a groan. “March.”
Mid-chew, he froze a moment. He swallowed. “This March? As in seven months ago March?”
“That’s the one.”
His pizza landed on the plate with a thud. He sat back and folded his arms across his abdomen. “What happened?”
“He cheated on me.”
Noah’s face darkened. “One more reason I don’t like that guy.”
“The cheating was only the deal breaker.” She picked at her pizza. “I knew before that I couldn’t marry him.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this before now?” he said softly.
Mina sighed. “It’s humiliating. Not exactly something I enjoy telling everyone about.”
“I didn’t ask you to tell everyone. I asked you to tell me.”
Her stomach gave a little flip. “That’s the hard part.”
“What do you mean?”
She hedged.
His eyes narrowed.
She pretended immense interest in her pizza slice.
Noah cursed. “You think it’s your fault.”
She winced at the accusation, given how ridiculous it sounded.
Ridiculous and yet true.
“He’s a cheating asshole.” Noah ground out the words through clenched teeth.
“And I’m the stupid woman who trusted him. Who almost married him.”
Noah shook his head. “The sweet ones always blame themselves.”
She opened her mouth to defend herself, but he cut in before she got the chance.
“Pricks like him
seek your type out and ruin you for the rest of us.”
Pleasant warmth replaced the knot in her chest. “He didn’t want me to buy the house.”
Some of the anger smoothed from Noah’s face. “I gathered as much.”
“It sat abandoned for years. Most of the damage occurred during that time. I bought it a month after I found out he was sleeping with someone else.”
A light sparked in his dark molasses eyes. “Nicely done.”
The warmth spread through her.
“Did he also blame you for his infidelities?”
Her heart tripped over in her chest. “Wh-what?”
“Did he tell you that you didn’t please him? That you forced him to seek out another woman?”
It was as if he’d peered inside her heart, found her greatest insecurities, and shined a spotlight on them.
“Wo-women,” she said.
He frowned.
“Not one woman but women. Lots of women.”
Noah slid to the edge of his seat so her legs nestled between his hard thighs. “Your ex is a bastard. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you.”
A watery laugh bubbled up and slipped out, but her chest ached. “How did you know Drew said those things?”
“I’ve known guys like him. It’s always someone else’s fault. Never their own.”
She feigned great interest in picking black olives off her pizza. “Some of what he said is... sort of... true.”
“How so?”
Patient and watchful, he waited.
Until the words started to pour from her. “I don’t... I didn’t... I’m not very adventurous. In bed. I didn’t want to try some of the things he liked.”
Noah’s eyebrows inched upward. “Like what? Sex on the kitchen table? Or, say, the front porch?”
Her cheeks burned.
His voice gentled. “I don’t doubt Drew lacked the skill to bring about your pleasure, and I seriously doubt your relationship dissolved because of some defect in you.”
She bit down hard on her bottom lip. She wanted so badly for that to be true. To know she wasn’t broken, flawed beyond redemption.
Ruined.
“Isn’t it possible he was simply the wrong guy for you?”
“Oh, he was definitely that.” Just as she was the wrong person for Drew, too.
Noah nudged. “But?”
No words would come to explain the numbness she sometimes battled, or the suffocating self-doubt.
So again, she settled for the facts. “I don’t... I didn’t... sometimes...” She gulped. “I can’t or-orgasm. Very often. Ever.”
His dark eyes flashed. “I made you come.” He eased back. “Twice.”
Heat spiraled through her and set off a flurry of flutters in her stomach.
He unfolded his lean body from the chair.
Her gaze tracked up his tall frame, past the broad expanse of chest and shoulders, to his throat, and sensuous mouth, before colliding with those penetrating eyes.
He took her hand in his and pulled her to her feet so she came up hard against the full length of his body. One hand stole around her waist. He leaned close but didn’t kiss her.
His mouth next to her ear, the warmth from his breath tickled across her skin when he said, “Shall we try for three?”
Soft light from the lamp bathed her bedroom in a buttery glow when he moved over her and pushed deep inside her. Warmth spiraled through her with her orgasm.
Afterwards, a smile touched her lips at the sight of him in her bed, lying spent and satiated beside her.
It was a singular experience for her. She shared a bed with a man and her stomach didn’t hurt. He wasn’t drunk, and neither was she, and she was almost certain he wasn’t thinking about how fat her thighs were.
Slumber pulled at her when he whispered something near her ear, too quietly for her to hear.
She roused and turned her head. “What did you say?”
A gentle kind of sadness came into his eyes. “I asked how you lost your hearing in this ear.”
The smile froze on her face. Her heart stuttered while her mind struggled with the question.
She rolled to her side, facing the wall. “It was so long ago I hardly remember.”
“Tell me what you do remember.”
With that, the memories began to emerge from the darkness.
“After my dad died, his brother sort of adopted my mom and me.”
“The senator?”
“He wasn’t the senator then.” She tried to snuff the bitterness from her voice. “Turns out, his dead brother’s widow and young daughter made a great prop on the campaign trail.”
Noah’s hand moved to her hip.
“We lived with Uncle Preston until I was seventeen. His son, Jeremy, and Drew were friends.”
She felt him stiffen beside her.
“One night, they got in a fight, which I walked into the middle of. Jeremy had Drew by the throat, and Drew was turning this horrible shade of purple. Like an idiot, I tried to break them up, but Jeremy... He turned on me.”
His hand on her hip squeezed.
“I remember falling and an awful pain, but not much else. My eardrum shattered.”
His warm mouth found the spot below her ear and her eyes fluttered shut.
“The doctors couldn’t help?”
“They thought it might heal, but I got an infection, and my hearing never came back. After that, my mom sent me here, to live with my grandma.”
“To protect you?”
“Yeah, I guess.” The lie dropped easily from her tongue.
He toyed with the hair at her temple. “It must’ve been hard for you, not living with your mom.”
“I was so happy not to have to go with Uncle Preston on campaign anymore I didn’t care if I only saw my mom once every few months.”
In the quiet, Mina’s eyelids grew heavy. She stifled a yawn.
Sleep beckoned once more when Noah’s soft voice reached out to her. “I don’t remember anyone named Jeremy Winslow.”
Her eyes shot open.
“Did he go to Sacred Heart?”
“Yes. He was four years older than us.”
“What does he do now?”
“He died.”
Noah pressed a kiss to her temple. “I’m so sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.”
Into the silence, he asked, “Did he ever put his hands on you again?”
She stared at the far wall, at the spot where light gave way to shadow.
“No,” she whispered into the dark. “Never.”
Chapter Twenty
She was like a drug. The more he had, the more he wanted. One night with Mina stretched into two, and three, and before he realized it, more than a week had passed.
He liked women, sophisticated, smart women, and he liked sex with sophisticated, smart women. Mina was both those things, but somehow her sophistication didn’t translate to the bedroom. Still, her seeming lack of experience only intensified his fascination with her.
As it turned out, she was the best he’d ever had.
Noah rubbed a towel through his hair as he emerged from the bathroom after a quick shower. Mina lay beneath the sheets in her oversized bed and blinked heavily at him. Twin bags of puffiness sat under her droopy eyelids.
Each morning, she met the crew at the house while he headed to campus or the site. The last three nights, she’d worked the late shift at Lucky’s, as well, returning to the carriage house past midnight.
Despite her obvious exhaustion, her gaze swept over his bare chest, and a small, secret smile softened her face. She sighed.
Noah laughed.
Doubts and worries melted away and he fell into bed beside her. He pulled her plump bottom lip between his teeth, and then he proved to her, yet again, that she was anything but orgasmically challenged.
Lying in the dark after, he started to doze when she heaved a sigh into the dark. The mattress dipped and bounced as she rolled to her side. After
a moment, she rolled to her stomach, and the movement aroused a hint of white jasmine to tease his nostrils. He realized his own unique scent now mingled with hers. It’d taken only a few short days.
For some reason, that pulled a satisfied smile from him.
She twisted to her back again and her elbow caught his shoulder.
Noah grunted. “Woman, go to sleep.”
“Sorry.”
He rolled to his side and ran a hand over the delicious curve of her hip. “Need me to distract you from your thoughts?”
“I’m still sore from the two times you distracted me already today.”
That coerced a chuckle from him. “Man, you’re easy.”
Her soft laughter held a distinct ring of delight.
He laid his head on his bicep. “Am I going to have to tell you a bedtime story?”
“Maybe one with a happy ending this time?” Her dry tone brought to mind a desert landscape.
Noah frowned. “There aren’t too many of those.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
“Okay, I’ve got one.” He rolled again and pulled her into his side. “This story is a classic tale,” he began. “A poor boy falls in love with a beautiful girl. It’s an impossible love, you see, for she’s the daughter of the king, and her family would never accept him. He’s a hoodlum and street rat and isn’t good enough for their beloved daughter. But the girl is charmed by his handsome face and good manners, and, miracles of miracles, she falls in love with him, too.”
“Is this a Disney movie?”
“No. As I was saying, her family would never allow the match, but the daughter is obstinate, and she defies them. From her father’s palace, she gathers all the valuables she can carry and goes in search of her one true love. She bestows all her riches upon him and begs him to take her to see the world.
“The boy refuses her gift, as he desires her, not her abundant riches. They agree to marry, and in anticipation of their vows, they consummate their love for one another beneath the stars.”
Noah couldn’t resist the exposed skin of her neck and pressed his lips to the spot before picking up the story.
“Afterwards, they go in search of the priest, but on their way, the king’s men catch them. They drag her away, screaming and with tears in her eyes, and lock her in the dungeon beneath her father’s palace, a place so horrible it was called La Fosse Noire—The Black Pit.”
