by Amy Olle
A choked sob wrenched from Mina and her hands flew to her mouth. “But when—? How—?”
“The well guys were here yesterday.” He crunched on another bite of apple.
She’d worked a double shift at the pub and might’ve missed seeing the well crew. “There’s an injunction.”
He waved the apple in front of her face. “That professor guy said it was okay.”
“Noah? He didn’t say anything to me.”
“Yeah, that’s him. I overheard him talking to Eddie about it.”
Mina frowned. “When?”
“Uh, a couple of weeks ago. I think.”
“He talked to Eddie? While Sam was on vacation?”
Tyler scratched his chin. “Yeah, I think he was, actually.”
Noah had lifted the injunction.
Right after he’d fucked her on her front porch.
Cold dread snaked its way through her veins. Was he rewarding her for sleeping with him? Or had he been punishing her for not doing so all along?
She shook her head. No, it wasn’t like that. Noah wasn’t manipulative, and he wasn’t malicious.
She was being paranoid. The quality of her thinking often plummeted after a visit with her mother.
She set to work wiping up the now-caked-on footprints. Soon she discovered they tracked through the entire house. She scoured and scrubbed until her muscles grew stiff and exhaustion pulled at her.
When she was done with the footprints, she kept cleaning, removing layers of drywall dust and dirt that’d been building up for months.
All the while, the shame spiral whipped up by Hurricane Vivian raged inside her.
Outside, the sun slipped into the lake and cloaked the landscape in darkness. Long after the crew packed up and headed home, she continued to work.
Until Noah appeared. He didn’t press her to talk but simply picked up a cloth rag and silently worked beside her. It wasn’t the first time he’d helped her by doing work on the house.
He was a hard worker and a good friend to her.
Or a ruthless career man manipulating her to some ambiguous, but no doubt wicked, end.
The thought came unbidden. It was ridiculous, of course, and ultimately unimportant. They were both getting what they wanted from each other—a smooth-running, timely excavation, and sex.
She fled upstairs, as though she might outrun her negative thoughts, and holed up in the bedroom she used to store items she didn’t want sitting in the carriage house garage with its dirt floors and damp stone walls.
Earlier in the week, new windows had been installed across the front of the house—with plans to finish the back after she amassed a few more paychecks—and she turned to peeling the manufacturer’s labels off the glass of the room’s oversized, arched windows.
So, although her waitressing skills hadn’t improved and she dreaded her shifts, she was grateful for the income that allowed her to keep the renovation limping along.
Some of the stickers stuck, so she retrieved a razor and a wet rag to help remove the adhesive.
Engrossed in her task, she didn’t realize Noah stood in the doorway until she caught sight of his reflection in the window.
A chill raced down her spine, for in that moment of his silent inventory, she spotted no desire in his eyes. The knowledge that he was very dangerous stole over her.
“I can’t understand why they use so many stickers.” Her voice sounded taut. “It’s going to take forever to get them off.”
He pushed off the doorframe and moved into the room. “You’ve been at it a long time.” His casual words belied the intense, thoughtful perusal he’d been giving her. “Can I make you some dinner?”
She shook her head. “I just want to finish up in here if I can.”
He came to stand behind her.
She renewed her attack on the stickers.
“Does it upset you to hear of Drew’s engagement?”
She searched his reflection.
She used to dream of that face. When she was young and still bothered to dream, and again, after she’d agreed to marry Drew.
Like an unwelcome ghost, he’d haunted her, until sometimes, when Drew had kissed her, she’d wished he were Noah, and when Drew had touched her, she’d imagined it was Noah’s hands on her body.
The old horror crashed over her, sending her back to the darkest days of her relationship with Drew. When she’d thought she might die with the loneliness of it all.
Before she’d learned to close off her heart.
“No. I feel sorry for his fiancée.” She folded and unfolded the rag. “The last thing Drew Alexander wants is a wife.”
His dark eyes were smudgy pools of liquid in the dim light. “It’d make your mom very happy if you went back to him.”
A choked and brittle laugh stuck in her throat. “I don’t want him. I never did. I just wanted someone to... someone who...” Tiny pieces of herself started to crack, crumble, and her whole body shook with the effort to keep from falling apart. “Someone who’d make me forget about you.”
Shocked disbelief flashed over his features.
“He never made me happy.” She didn’t know why she kept talking, except it seemed imperative that she make him understand. Make herself understand. “In two years, we never laughed together. We never did anything silly or fun. I never had an orgasm with him, for crying out loud.”
She’d done all those things with Noah, though their affair was still new.
“You went without for two years?”
Heat burned across her face and neck. “I didn’t go without. Not entirely.”
Deep furrows appeared on his forehead. “You were with other men?”
“I learned to take care of myself.” The confession fell from her lips. “While Drew found his pleasure with other women, I found mine alone, while thinking of you.”
Shock rendered him mute.
“I was supposed to be in love with another man, and I couldn’t stop thinking about being with you.”
Her death grip on the cloth wrung the excess water from the rag, and the cold struck her skin. She sucked in a sharp breath and jerked the rag away from her body. Water soaked through the thin white fabric of her T-shirt, and one pink aureole, puckered with chill, was visible through the cotton.
The heat burned away the emotion in Noah’s eyes, and his gaze riveted to her chest. The column of his throat worked as he swallowed hard.
She clasped her arms over her chest.
Naked hunger blazing in his eyes, he reached around her and pulled her hands away from her body. In the window’s reflection, he stared.
A flutter of arousal licked through her.
He laced his fingers through hers and pressed his body up against hers. “If I brought you any amount of pleasure, I’m glad for it.”
“It wasn’t just about the pleasure.”
His mouth brushed next to her ear. “What was it about?”
The old anguish seared. “You made me feel less alone.”
His eyes softened and remained locked on hers when he pressed his mouth to the spot where her neck and shoulder met.
“I want you, Mina.” His breath rushed across her skin. “Please say I can have you.”
Words jammed in her throat, so she nodded.
He popped the button on her blue jeans and lowered the zipper. Her underwear came down with her jeans when he tugged them away from her body, and she stepped free.
His calloused hand smoothed over her bare bottom. A foot nudged hers until they were shoulder-width apart.
Liquid pooled between her thighs.
His hand traveled around to the softly curved swell of her lower abdomen. He gathered a fistful of her T-shirt to reveal the soft fuzz between her legs while his other hand cupped her breast, bonding the wet fabric to her skin. The pad of his thumb skimmed over her beaded nipple visible through her shirt.
His dark molasses gaze feasted on her body.
Her heart quit.
Her
core clenched in hopeful anticipation of his touch while his hand on her stomach roamed downward.
“You are so hot.” His voice rasped in her ear.
Never before. Only with him.
He gripped her waist with both hands, and then the warm heart of his palms cupped her bare backside.
“So fucking beautiful,” he said.
She swallowed a startled laugh. No one had ever called her beautiful. “You don’t have to say that.”
“I know.”
From behind, his feather-light stroke brushed along her slit.
Her quick intake of breath rolled into a deep moan as the sweet thrill of sensation spiraled through her. With one finger, he nudged at her opening in tight, tiny circles.
Her body yielded to him.
He played with her, and soon her legs began to tremble. She braced both hands on the windowpane.
His hands left her body and he yanked his T-shirt over his head. His belt jangled as he fumbled with his jeans, and the weight of them landed on the hardwood floors with a heavy thud.
His erection pressed against her behind.
She arched her back and his arm came tight around her waist. He slid inside her with one prolonged, silky stroke. A groan vibrated in his chest, and his head dropped to her shoulder.
For many long moments, he didn’t move.
Then he started to pump his hips. He pushed deep and pulled all the way back to the edge of her entrance. Thrust and retreated. Again and again. Her body took every inch of him, rocking to the rhythm he set. She ached with a nameless need.
More, longer, faster, forever, now.
Her heart filled and she let her head fall forward. Noah tangled his fingers through her hair and tugged gently.
“Don’t you dare close your eyes, mo chroí. Look how beautiful you are when I fuck you.”
Her stomach fluttered with his words and she lifted her gaze. The flats of her hands pressed against the glass, and her tousled hair fell across her forehead. Her cheeks flushed pink with arousal while her heavy breasts swayed with each thrust of Noah’s hard length. His large hands gripped her hips, and his dark eyes smoldered with intense regard.
Sensation built in her, expanded to fill the space between every heartbeat, but with sweet relief upon her, he pulled out.
A broken sob tore from her throat and she turned to him. He took her face in his hands and soothed her with a tender kiss. Then he took her hand and led her through the maze of boxes and furniture. A mattress leaned against the far wall and, pushing a few boxes back with his foot, he laid the bed on the floor.
He moved over her when she eased back and suckled her nipple through the wet T-shirt. Then his mouth continued its downward path, dropping kisses on her abdomen and the inside of her thigh.
He licked inside her, but his hot mouth was gone before the first ripple of pleasure reached her swollen center.
He lifted himself off her and sat back on his haunches.
Old insecurities sliced through her and she pushed upright. She lacked the knowledge to please a man, having had the desire to do so stolen from her before she ever had the chance to learn.
“Show me.” His voice cracked, and his cock stood flat against the plane of his stomach.
“Wh-what?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Show me how you touched yourself.”
Heat rushed to the surface of her skin.
Noah laced his fingers through hers and drew her hand to his mouth. He pressed a soft kiss to the tips of her fingers. To the pulse point on the inside of her wrist. Her fingertips danced over the taut skin of his cheekbone.
He guided her hand lower. Her heart stuttered.
“Show me. Please.” His soft plea held a desperate ring that stirred some buried part of her. “I have to know.”
Arousal swelled in her with the possibility that she might please him. She lay back once more.
Their fingers brushed over her nipple, the sensitive skin of her stomach, and pushed into her soft curls. Together, they stroked.
She closed her eyes and gave herself over to the moment. Warm slickness aided them as they rubbed her swollen lips.
Noah’s hand fell away.
Her eyes flew open.
He eased back to sit at the end of the mattress, his attention locked on the juncture of her thighs. His cock jumped and his tongue slipped out to lick his bottom lip.
Her touch, along with his rapt attention, fed her hunger. Her knees fell farther apart and her hips swiveled beneath her hand.
Noah’s fingers clamped around her ankle, as if to keep her from floating away. His thumb swirled around her inner anklebone.
Her muscles clenched as the first spasm screamed through her.
Her motions mixed with his rapt attention to feed her arousal. She arched her back and cried out.
He pushed her hand away and covered her body with his. Gripping the edge of the mattress above her head, he drove into her. She wrapped her legs around his lean waist as the orgasm crashed over her.
Emotion surged with the climax that rippled from her core out to her limbs. Her throat tightened and she clung to him.
Her body slackened and his frantic thrusts slowed, elongated. He settled more heavily between her thighs. A lock of dark hair fell across his forehead, and she reached up to push it back. His eyes drifted shut and he turned his head to press his lips into her palm.
Then his mouth sought hers in a languid, lingering kiss. The musky scent of their mutual desire swirled around them, and the soft, slippery sounds of their lovemaking filled the quiet room.
His hands found hers, and he pressed them to the mattress while he gazed down at her through heavy-lidded eyes.
She couldn’t escape him when he reached inside her and touched some secret, sacred place. A place for only the two of them.
His St. Nicholas pendant danced before her eyes. She’d asked him about it once, a long time ago. His mother had given the necklace to him when she’d learned she was dying. St. Nicholas, the patron saint of children, would protect him in her stead.
Mina’s heart ached, and all the while, his hips worked as he pumped inside her.
She’d never experienced sex like this. She’d known awkward and ugly, and the kind of sex that left her feeling lost and lonely. With Noah, it was intense and lusty, gentle and tender.
But this... She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her jaw to quell the sob rising in her throat. Her heart hammered painfully in her chest.
His thumbs stroked back and forth over her skin at the spot between her thumb and forefinger.
“Fuck me, Mina.” His dark eyes shimmered with determination, but vulnerability, too. “Not because you’re scared or sad or lonely but because you want me.”
Her heart lurched and overflowed with emotions she didn’t understand. He was trying to steal her soul, but another orgasm crested, and she was helpless to stop him.
She tried to close her heart to him, but he took it anyhow.
“Of course I want you, Noah. I love you.”
He tensed above her. She lifted her hips to take him deeper.
He groaned and plunged deeper.
She loved him.
Had loved him all along. Though now the quality of it was different.
She hadn’t known him before, not truly. She hadn’t known he slept little, or that when his mind was working at a problem, he chewed the side of his thumb. She hadn’t known he drank milk by the gallon, or that he sought the love of his family with a desperate urgency that broke her heart.
She loved him.
“I still don’t want anything from you,” she whispered in his ear.
He gripped her ankles and pushed her legs higher. The color rose high on his cheeks and his dark eyes blazed.
“Say it again,” he demanded in a low voice.
She gasped when he grew bigger, harder inside her.
“I love you, Noah.”
With a harsh cry and one last thrust, he shuddered and e
mptied himself inside her.
Then he held her as she flew apart.
Chapter Twenty-Four
She’d sucker-punched him.
The chill night air bit at his skin as he stumbled across the lawn on shaken legs. Mina remained quiet at his side as they climbed the rickety porch stairs and ducked inside the carriage house. She disappeared into the bedroom.
For once, Noah didn’t mind her avoidance. He sank into a chair at the dining table.
She loved him? What the fuck was he supposed to do with that?
The sound of running water came from the back of apartment. Noah flipped open his laptop and switched it on, sensing he needed to focus his careening thoughts.
No one had said those words to him in so long he’d forgotten how it felt to hear them. His mom was the last to utter them to him, and she’d been dead more than twenty years.
Since then, a few women had gotten it into their heads that they’d loved him, but they didn’t count. They couldn’t love him. They didn’t even know him, and he knew they didn’t know him because he’d made damn sure of it.
That wasn’t the case with Mina.
He released a slow breath from deep in his chest.
Whatever was happening between him and Mina was different.
But was it love?
He wanted her. He wanted to spend time with her. Coax that infectious laugh out of her and talk to her about his work and travels. Bury himself inside her and never pull out.
He chewed the side of his thumb and waited for his email to open.
Most of all, he wanted her. All of her. For as long as he could have her. But love?
He loved the tiny mole not three fingers’ width from the honey-brown fuzz at the juncture of Mina’s thighs. He’d discovered the secret mark when he’d kissed her there just that morning.
He loved her smile. The real one.
And when she came... Oh, God.
He’d seen the sunrise over Jerusalem, touched the walls of the Hagia Sophia, and smelled the air inside the Sistine Chapel, but none of it compared to Mina in that moment of trust and freedom. She broke his heart.
But the sad fact was, at thirty-four years old, he’d never been in love, nor had he known the love of a good woman.
He shook off his sentimental thoughts and scrolled through the list of new emails. An email from his department chair in Ireland sat at the top of his inbox, and he clicked on it. She’d written a brief note to inform him the Irish consulate had approved his request to perform an excavation in western Ireland. Three other times, he’d applied for this same permit, only to be turned down. He could begin as early as February.
