Bending The Rules: Stewart Island Book 10

by Tracey Alvarez

  He crooked a finger. “Come here,” he added when she hesitated for a beat.

  She crossed on wobbly high heels to him. Capturing her gaze in a heated battle of wits, Noah stroked his hands down her arms then bunched the hem of her sweater in his hands. His cool knuckles grazed the warm skin of her waist. She trembled as he worked the soft wool up over her breasts. Her lashes fluttered shut as the sweater slipped over her head, and she lifted her arms, nipples pebbling even tighter as cooler air prickled against her skin. She kept her arms raised as he peeled the garment off, and a moment later he gripped her wrists with one hand and splayed the other on her back, pressing her close. Skin on skin, she melted into him. When he released her wrists to once again boost her up in his arms, she clung limpet tight.

  While he walked them into his bedroom, she reacquainted her lips with his jaw, skimming her mouth over lovely rough stubble until she found her own personal nirvana. This time she took his mouth and poured everything, every second she’d spent fantasizing about him, into that kiss. Raw and without candor, she told him with each deepening and sensual caress of her lips and tongue how much she wanted him. How the very thought of being with him in this way had driven her to distraction and beyond.

  Noah set her on the edge of his bed—gently peeling her octopus arms from around his neck first—and crouched in front of her. He slipped off her heeled boots then wedged himself between her spread thighs. Leaning forward, he flicked open the button of her jeans. His gaze never left hers and somehow that was far sexier than if he’d just drunk in the sight of her half-bared body.

  For a moment her breath caught, a ripple of unease prickling over her skin. This wasn’t turning out to be a casual hookup, not with the emotions rising with her beating heart into her throat. They threatened to overwhelm her, and the only way she knew to fight being overwhelmed was to metaphorically put her head down and barrel on through the barriers.

  He unzipped her jeans and on autopilot she lifted her hips so he could slide them down her legs. She propped herself up on her elbows as he rose gracefully—all six foot something of smooth muscle and come-to-bed eyes. The sight of him gazing down at her was like a connection of invisible wires tethered to her and he’d just fired a bolt of electricity along them. She sizzled and sparked, clenching her teeth as anticipation and need slammed into her. She had to touch him, right now, before she blew a fuse.

  Tilly pushed herself upright and wriggled to the bed edge until she was close enough to hook her fingers into Noah’s waistband.

  “Come here,” she said.

  With a rough sound that could’ve been a chuckle or a groan, he stepped between her knees. He’d already undone the top button of his jeans. His erection stretched the age-softened denim tight across the fly. On the flat expanse of his stomach were a couple of reddened scrapes where something during the day’s competitions had grazed his skin. Tilly slid the tips of her fingers around the inside of his waistband, knuckles brushing warm skin and tightening at either hipbone. She tugged him forward a little more and pressed a soft kiss on the longest scrape.

  “Poor baby.” She skimmed her lips to the sprinkling of hair arrowing downward from his navel. Another kiss dropped on a smaller scrape with accompanying bruise just by his right hip. Noah’s abs flexed and his hands fisted at his sides.

  She moved both hands back to the center front of his jeans and tilted her head sideways to slant a glance at his face. ”Anything else you want me to kiss better while I’m here?”

  “Tilly.” Her name, ground out of a terse jaw, his eyes hot on hers, made her womb squeeze in a hot pulse of need.

  Officer Always-In-Control was on the brink of losing it. The idea excited and inflamed her.

  “You’re right.” She unzipped him and tugged the edges of his fly apart. “As a writer I’ve got a few good ideas.”

  He was thick and straining against his black boxer briefs, one might even say he filled them out to perfection. Tilly certainly would. She grasped him through the knit fabric and rubbed her lips down his length. His devilishly long length. Wow. He shuddered and his hand stroked over her hair. Peeling aside his briefs, she only let herself admire the most beautiful penis in the history of penises for a couple of heartbeats before leaning in to place a long, wet kiss on his dusky skin.

  Noah groaned, arching his hips, pushing himself into her hands. She wrapped her fingers around him and captured the velvety smooth crown with her mouth. Dipping her head, she explored each ridge and crevice with her tongue.

  She took her time, being very, very thorough.

  This wasn’t her first blow job, but—and the thought shimmered through her mind before it disappeared in another hot squeeze of pleasure—it was the first time she wasn’t counting the minutes until she could stop. In fact, she was the one who made a groan of complaint when Noah gently pushed her mouth off him and took a step back. Tilly was gratified to note it wasn’t the steadiest of steps either.

  “God, Til.” He toed off his shoes and shucked off his jeans and underwear. He also muttered something else, but Tilly missed it since a hundred percent of her remaining brain power was required to memorize the sight of a fully naked Noah Daniels.

  Double wow.

  He returned to the bed and, in a swift, sneaky sneaker move, had her flat on her back with his weight bearing her into the mattress. Even sneakier—her panties somehow vanished in the maneuver. Tilly wasn’t complaining. He kissed her again, long and lush, each stroke of his tongue in her mouth soothing the chaos spinning around her brain. Then he ramped it up again by tracing a line of hot kisses down her throat to where he cupped one of her breasts in his big hand.

  She gasped as he sucked her nipple into his mouth, hot threads of pure sensation darting through her nervous system, melting everything in its path. His tongue flicked around the sensitized peak, and the light scrape of his teeth over her areola had her spine arching up off the mattress. But he wouldn’t be rushed; taking his sweet time exploring her, as she’d done exploring him. From one breast to the other and back again, he teased and coaxed pleasure from her until she was a boneless puddle of goo in his hands.

  Payback was such a bitch.

  Especially because he wasn’t done with her yet. A wicked smile crossed his face as he ran his palm over her stomach and down, cupping her intimately. One long finger slipped between her folds and stroked with a feathery touch.

  “Twice in a day?” He circled her clit then applied gentle pressure.

  Tilly’s hips bucked and she clamped her hand on Noah’s shoulder. “Please.” It was the only word remaining in her vast vocabulary. He’d stolen the rest with each slow rub of her swollen flesh.

  He shifted off her, angling his upper body toward his nightstand. While he slid open the drawer, Tilly became up close and personal with the smooth skin of his chest. She breathed him in—musky irresistible male—then gave in to impulse and licked him from the top of his six-pack to one flat male nipple. He definitely tasted as good as he looked.

  Noah barked out a laugh and came back to her, a small foil wrapper clenched in his hand.

  “Hungry?”

  She eyed up the condom and the part of his anatomy it was designed for. “Starving.”

  He rolled onto his back and tore open the foil, smiling at her as he suited up. “Since you missed the pony ride at the gala today…”

  He held out his arms and Tilly straddled him, heart racing both from wanting him but also the unexpected sweetness of lust combined with an almost familial ease of friends who become lovers. She guided him inside her, and the sensation of being stretched to perfect completion, the simple rightness of his hands grasping her hips, awoke something deep inside her. Something that had been in hiding, tucked away for safekeeping. Something that made her lean forward and cup Noah’s face, to kiss him as she moved on him, with him, his slow measured thrusts inside her body breaking one more chain that kept her heart in lockdown.

  Oh God. This was so not just a hookup.
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  That was her last opportunity for focused thought as Noah rolled with her onto their sides, trapping her leg on his hip with one big hand. His strokes grew faster, matching their panting breaths, taking them both into a relentless spiral with no way out of the building pleasure other than catastrophic release. Then he let go of her leg, his hand sliding between their bodies. The press of his fingertips on her tipped her over the point of no return, and she arched as the pulse of her womb squeezed around him.

  Noah didn’t let a little thing like her mind-blowing climax stop him from driving her wild. Wilder. He flipped her onto her back, spread her knees up and out, and pounded into her. As orgasm number two of the day bulleted toward number three, Tilly opened her eyes. Noah staring fixedly down at her with a look of such intensity it catapulted her into that third climax. She whisper-moaned his name, lacing her fingers tightly in his hair and holding on. After one last blistering kiss, he buried his face in her neck and shuddered out his release with a rough shout.

  * * *

  Tilly lost track of how long they lay together, but sometime shortly after remembering to breathe again, Noah eased off her. He lay beside her, disgustingly relaxed while she continued to huff like a marathon runner—she really needed to step up her cardio game—and then linked their hands.

  “Til?”

  She answered something along the lines of, “Ungh?”

  “I didn’t win the grand title of Manly Man of the Year. Just so you know, I got second place.”

  Tilly managed to tighten her fingers on his. “Noah, if you were any manlier I’d be in a coma right now.”

  He laughed and rolled off the bed, giving her a spectacular view of his manly ass as he walked to the bedroom door. “Second place got me a dozen of Erin’s muffins. Feel like dessert before I rock your world again?”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Yes, please, you cocky bastard.”

  He laughed again, disappearing into the hallway.

  Tilly slumped into the pillows and turned her face into one. It smelled like him. Hell. She smelled like him. Like she was his. Her poor heart needed a rush job to repair the walls around it if she was ever going to be able to resist falling for this man.

  Chapter 15

  Breakfast never tasted as good as it did when made by a woman wearing nothing but his shirt and a satisfied smile. That Tilly insisted on wearing one of his uniform shirts made Noah smile even more. Police blues had never looked so sexy.

  He stood at his stove, tending fried eggs and strips of bacon, banned from wearing anything other than his boxer briefs since Tilly deemed this morning a pants-free zone. He suspected his smile turned lecherous as he eyed her bare legs and the tail of his blue shirt just covering her literally pants-free ass. There was something to be said about the woman’s good ideas.

  “Hey.” He set down the spatula and took a sideways step toward her, sliding his palm down her spine and squeezing one delicious ass cheek. “I could get used to this bed and breakfast thing.”

  Glancing up at him, her hair damp and curling around her face fresh from the shower, she laughed. Then swatted his forearm, but not hard enough to dislodge his hand. “I would’ve made you breakfast in bed if you hadn’t stolen the first shower.”

  “I know how long women take in the shower so I preempted the disappearance of all the hot water by getting in first.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Smart but sexist. Have a lot of women using up your hot water, do you?”

  “Make a lot of men breakfast in bed, do you?” It was knee-jerk banter, but suddenly the thought of Tilly in bed with other faceless men made his gut give an unpleasant sideways lurch.

  “No, just the one.” She angled her head to meet his eyes, her mouth thinning for a moment before she stretched it into a closed-lipped smile. “And not since before my dad passed away.”

  He brushed his mouth against hers, wiping away the tight smile. “You made breakfast in bed for your dad? You’re a thoughtful daughter.”

  Tilly reached up and wove her fingers through his hair. “Well, technically I was a thoughtful daughter and a thoughtful girlfriend. Though my ex didn’t appreciate the gesture nearly as much since I spilled his English Breakfast over his laptop accidentally on purpose.”

  “Morning tea drinkers. Bunch of inconsiderate, caffeine-deprived assholes.”

  She laughed, but there was a hollowness to it that pinged a warning signal. He wanted to ignore it—should ignore it—because asking about previous relationships was an indication that a new one was about to develop. Yet he couldn’t help but want to know more about her.

  “What did this ex do to earn the Montgomery wrath?” He eased her fingers out of his hair and kissed her knuckles, letting her hand go as he stepped back to the skillet to check on the eggs. “And do you need me to send a few of the boys round to sort him out?”

  She snorted and shook her head, turning to face him with her arms folded and her hip braced against the countertop. “Although the idea has some merit, I don’t think it’s a sensible career move considering he’s my boss.”

  “Your ex is your boss? Still your boss?” A kernel of irrational jealousy formed a pit in his stomach.

  “Yeah.” Her nose crinkled, lips turning down. “Bad judgment on my part. But Jonas can be very persuasive when he wants something.”

  “And he wanted you.” The pit doubled in size and grew thorns.

  “For a while.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I don’t know. Jonas must’ve used up all his verbal skills writing dialogue because he never seemed to have much left over for me.” The toaster popped and she started, giving a sheepish little chuckle. She fished the slices out, then dropped another two pieces of bread into it. “I never knew what he was thinking or feeling. It’s so bizarre—he writes the most emotional, heart-wrenching scenes, but he never once told me what I meant to him.”

  Ice coated the stomach pit, which had morphed into a boulder-sized rock. “Some men show their feelings with actions, rather than do the whole talking-about-them thing.”

  He was one of them. He sucked at the how do you feel about me/us/the future line of questioning. Then again, apparently he fell short of showing emotions also, since Hayley accused him of not loving her. It wasn’t true—he had. Just not in the way that made either of them happy.

  “I get that.” She kept her gaze fixed on the toaster dials. “But in hindsight I figured out what Jonas’s actions meant. Why he’d rather work on his laptop than share breakfast in bed with me. Why I only got scraps of his time and why he’d only show up at my place when it was convenient for him. Why he looked almost relieved when I caught him screwing another woman at his desk three weeks after my father died. I wish he’d had the balls to tell me his feelings before he showed me how little he cared for me by walking out of my father’s funeral three times to answer his phone.”

  “Jesus, Tilly. What a tool.” Noah flicked the burner off under the eggs and moved to enfold her in his arms.

  He held her close, stroking his palm in slow circles across her shoulder blades. But even as she burrowed into him, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt. Would he have reacted better in the same situation? He sure as hell wouldn’t have left Tilly’s side to take a damn phone call, but would he have been able to provide her with any comfort? Other than comfort sex?

  Quite an apt bit of self-examination considering his cock was beginning to stir to life being pushed up so close to her. Sex he was good at, so maybe he should forever give up on the possibility of anything else. Noah liked to think he learned from his mistakes.

  The front door banged open and footsteps, accompanied by off-key whistling, moved down the hallway. Tilly’s eyes bugged open and she lunged for a tea towel draped over the oven door. She’d just managed to shake it open in front of her thighs when Wade strolled into the kitchen.

  “What’s for breakfast, bro? And, lady bro?” His gaze zipped between them, a smirk appearing on his fa
ce as he straddled a dining chair. “Not interrupting anything, am I?”

  Noah didn’t need to glance sideways at Tilly to feel the wave of heat radiating from her face. “Don’t you knock, asswipe?”

  “Door was unlocked and I could smell bacon,” he said as if that was explanation enough. “Since the breakfast part of bed and breakfast didn’t seem to be forthcoming, I figured my hostess was down here with you.” He tipped his head toward the stove and rubbed his hands together. “You haven’t eaten yet; good. I’m starving—and, oh, morning, Tilly.”

  Noah looked at Tilly, remembering her starving description from the previous night. If it were possible, he could break another couple of eggs on her cheeks and have them cook in half the time a skillet took.

  “Um, good morning.” She continued to hold the plaid tea towel in front of her like an apron as she sidled toward the kitchen door. “I’ll just get changed and then I’ll put on some extra toast.”

  “And extra bacon,” Wade said.

  Tilly shuffled across the room and backed through the doorway.

  Noah glared at his brother as the view hotter than the bacon and eggs sizzling in the skillet disappeared down the hallway. “Fry your own damn bacon.”

  “You’re bloody cranky for a man who obviously got lucky last night.” Wade showed him a toothy little-brother smile and unfolded himself from the chair. “And again this morning.” He crossed over to the stove and shoulder checked Noah aside, picking up the spatula. “I’ll take over while you go and put some pants on before I lose what’s left of my appetite.”

  “It’s my house, my choice if I decide it’s pants optional.”

  Wade flipped a bacon rasher and eyed him speculatively. “Tell you what. Give me a probable yes about coming to Wellington and I’ll take my breakfast to go.” He wriggled his eyebrows, tilting his head toward the doorway.

  “You blackmailing little prick.” Noah grinned at him.