by Maggie Marr
“Oh, thank God!” Mrs. Hyland said. “I thought with the tears and the puffy eyes something much more tragic had happened.”
Noel pressed her fingers under her eyes and reached for a tissue from the box on the counter. “No, I mean she fell and her blood pressure was hard to stabilize, but they think a day or two and she’ll be home.”
Mrs. Hyland and Ted and Sylvia and Dorothy looked past her. She closed her eyes. Yes, the enemy was in their midst.
“You!” Ted said. He marched past Noel with his finger wagging at Nick. “You’re the asshole who wants to level our town houses.”
Any softness in Nick’s features slipped away with Ted’s accusation. Nick’s eyes roamed over the White Pines resident in the same manner a grizzly might assess a gnat.
“What is he doing here?” Ted turned to Noel. His gaze shifted from Nick to Noel as though to indicate he wouldn’t be fooled.
“It would, seem … well …” Heat rushed to Noel’s cheeks. “Mr. North and I … I didn’t realize that Mr. North was … He and I were once … Well … We were—”
“Noel and I attended graduate school together. For a while.”
“What? You know the guy who wants to make us homeless?” Ted’s bushy black brows pulled tight above his eyes. “What kind of shenanigans are going on here?”
“Mr. Frazier,” Noel said, “truly, before the channel 32 interview today, I had no idea that Nick was the person responsible for—”
“What? Didn’t know? How could you not know? It says North Industries across every damn thing they’ve got! The trucks, the wrecking ball, even the hard hats say North Industries on them. How in the Sam Hill didn’t you know?”
Noel closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, I just didn’t put the two things together. I thought … I mean, I don’t know what I thought … I think I was just so worried about the building coming down before Christmas that I didn’t even connect the two.”
“Well, that’s just stupid,” Ted said.
“Mr. Frazier!” Mrs. Hyland pressed her hands to her hips. “I’ll ask you to refrain from speaking to Noel in such a way. She’s had quite a day. And part of it for our benefit. Noel, we’re all going to leave, and we’ll expect a report on Christine’s progress sometime tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Evelyn.”
“No worries, dear.” She shot Mr. Frazier a hard look that told him he’d better zip his lip or face her wrath.
“We won’t be moving forward during the next two days,” Nick said. “Just so you’re aware.”
“You’ve decided to let us keep our homes?” Evelyn’s eyes sparkled.
“That is not what I said,” Nick’s gaze was hard and his tone all business. “While Non—I mean Christine—is in the hospital, we will not proceed with the demolition.” Nick pressed his lips together and looked toward the picture of Nonna and Noel above the fireplace. “I’ve given her my word.” His gaze then fell again on Evelyn, Dorothy, Sylvia, and Ted. “As for renegotiating the agreements that have already been reached? I see no need to do so.”
“I see,” Evelyn said. She pulled her sweater tighter around her full bosom. “Mr. North, might I suggest that you consider how important this place is to not only Christine, but to all of us who live here. We’ve become a family to each other, and for some of us, it is the only family we have left.”
Nick took a step toward the group of elderly assembled before him. “Then why, Mrs. Hyland, did you ever agree to sell your town house?” He raised one eyebrow and let his hard gaze pass over each of them.
“Because, Mr. North, we were informed by the city that we didn’t have a choice.” Mrs. Hyland pressed her hands to her hips and her head shot forward. “It wasn’t until Noel got here and looked at all those letters and all those contracts that we even found out we didn’t have to sell to you.”
Nick glanced over his shoulder at Noel. She crossed her arms and her nostrils flared. He’d tried his damnedest to use his lawyers, the mayor, and the town’s zoning commission, along with a whole bunch of legalese, to confuse Nonna and her friends.
“I see,” Nick said. “Thank you, Mrs. Hyland. I appreciate your thoughts on the matter. I’m quite certain that my legal department at North Industries would have a different perspective.” Nick turned and walked toward the patio door at the back of the town house.
Mrs. Hyland’s eyes widened and she clamped her mouth closed as though forcing herself to swallow her words. Noel put her arm around Mrs. Hyland and Dorothy and walked them to the front door. Dorothy and Sylvia gave her a hug and a kiss while Mr. Frazier squinted at her, unconvinced that she wasn’t part of the plan to destroy their homes.
Noel closed the front door. Nonna’s friends were depending on her. Nick was a much different person than the man she’d fallen in love with. The warmth for people that had once radiated from Nick when they were in graduate school was gone. He was colder and more lonely, and really, aside from the heat of passion, she wasn’t certain that warmth ran through his veins any longer.
Chapter Four
A cold blast of wind blew the drape across the back patio door. Noel walked onto the patio. “What are you doing out here?” She pressed her hands to her arms.
Nick’s head tilted toward the sky and he gazed at the star-laden sky. Her eyes stung from not only the cold but also Nick’s beauty. He was solid and thick, and she remembered feeling so safe in his arms. Even tonight, she’d felt secure, as though she could stay there forever.
“Was it worth it?” He didn’t turn to her, he didn’t stop staring at the blackened night sky where the stars sparkled like diamonds on velvet. “Leaving me for Africa? Was it the right choice?”
Noel’s heart jumped in her chest. The cold grasped her and slipped around her as though a living creature, stealing her ability to speak and even breathe. Nick’s question, his words, were carried on such a soft note but contained the weight of so many unanswered questions. Questions she had about her own life, and now with Nick here, questions about the life she’d left behind.
“It was the right decision at the time,” Noel said.
He turned to her. His eyes were cold and hard, his mouth a tight line. Pain streaked his face. He moved like night claiming the end of day, smooth and stealthy. In an instant, his giant body was next to hers. In an instant, he towered over her, his body blocking out her ability to see anything but him. She wasn’t afraid of him, or his masculinity, or his power, though she’d seen many men older and wiser cower in his presence. He’d always had the ability to frighten even the toughest people.
“You still believe that?” His gaze searched her face as though he were looking for an answer that the muscles under her skin would give him, no matter what her words said. “With everything I offered you? With everything I am now? You still believe that saying no to me was the best decision for you? For me? For our lives?”
A cold wind whipped across the patio and blasted her face. Her lips tightened under the cold. He looked as though he wished to warm her, to shield her, but he caught himself.
“I never said it was the best decision, but at the time, saying no was the only decision I could make.”
He took a deep breath and she waited for his retort. The hot words that he would respond with and blast her for what she’d done to him, the heartbreak she’d caused them both. Instead, his lips captured hers. His hands grasped her arms and pulled her close to him. The cold vanished. Her whole body burst into flame. His lips, hot and fierce and in need of her. Her lips wanting his kiss. Damn. She’d missed his kiss and his touch.
She pressed her body against his. The planes of his body were still thick and hard. She knew what was under the fine linen fabric. The great care with which Nick attended to his health, his body, his muscles. He was as disciplined about his workouts as he was about his business. Puritanical. Maniacal. Methodical. He made love the same way, with a wild desperation, as though there was no room for error. He gave the ultimate pleasure always, his
primary desire to please his lover.
Hadn’t she longed for his touch nearly every night she lay in her bed in Africa? She hadn’t been able to sleep. She’d wanted only Nick. Dreamed of his fingertips on her flesh and now … now … His hands gripped her arms. His cock was hard and pressed between them and she angled her body so that the vee between her legs pressed against him. His teeth pulled at her bottom lip and teased it forward with a bite. Her whole body was engulfed in flame. Want. Desire. Her lips opened with a low moan, and his tongue was in her mouth, plundering her. Exploring her. His hand left her shoulder, and he cupped her breast. His thumb stroked over the tight bud of her nipple. There was no chill in the night winter air, there was only Nick’s touch. The heat of his fingers on her. The grasp of his hand on her arm. The press of his lips and his tongue and his cock, hard and wedged between them She was wet for him. She wanted him to fill the ache between her legs.
His broad body protected her from the winter wind. She would let him take her here, now, in the cold of winter, if he would. Even after the years apart, even after the knowledge of who he’d become, a desire for the pleasure that only his touch could provide her fired in her belly.
He pulled away from her. A shiver raced down her spine.
“You’re cold.”
She wasn’t. She was so far from cold. She was burning with a deep, impervious heat she hadn’t felt in years. Nick’s touch, his desire, her desire for him—she’d forgotten how he made her feel. How much she had always wanted him, even after their relationship ended. She shouldn’t want him. Hadn’t she decided he wasn’t the man for her? They were so different in what they wanted out of life and what they expected from a mate.
“I’m fine.” She backed away from him.
The cold wind tunneled toward her. She turned and walked back into Nonna’s town house. The warmth hit her and her fingertips tingled. She turned and Nick was right there, behind her. His thick body filled the doorway. The sheer force of the masculinity that radiated from him overwhelmed her.
His eyes grazed over her. He stepped closer. The pad of his thumb ran over her bottom lip. Her sex clenched with his possessive touch, yet she did not pull away. Her tongue chased his finger across her lips, and his pupils dilated, black holes that contained hot desire, surrounded by rings of thin gray. Her body was wet and ready for him, her nipples hard from his touch. Her skin longed for him to place his hands under her shirt and cup her breasts.
“Your cheeks are magical when the cold wind kisses them.”
A chill shot up her back, chased by a tremble. He was strong and forceful in the bedroom, had always made her pleasure his primary goal. A memory of his hands possessing her body raced through her mind. Her breath shortened. He stepped closer and crowded her against the wall. His nearness excited her. She should ask him to leave. She should scoot away from him. She should tell him to get the hell out. She should know that after she’d broken his heart, Nick couldn’t possibly wish her anything but ill will.
“I always loved your pink cheeks.”
The skin of his knuckles brushed over her face, and she fought her urge to lean into his caress. He lifted an eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth pulled upward as though he could read her thoughts and took great pleasure in the idea that he still aroused her. He still had this power over her body, even if he could no longer lay claim to her heart.
“Good night, Noel.” He turned and with two long strides was at the front door.
Her body wanted him to stay, for his thick, wonderful hands to run over her bare skin, for his lips to suck on her hard nipples and plunder her and heat her flesh.
“I hope you sleep well.” He pulled open the door, and with that he was gone.
*
How had this happened? How had he failed to discover that Noel Klaus’s grandmother lived in Winter Pines? Nick jerked at the buttons of his shirt and tossed the wrinkled linen into the dry-cleaning bag in his walk-in closet. For fuck’s sake, how was he going to get around this pain in his ass? He stepped out of his pants and, now naked, walked toward the giant marble bathroom and the steam shower. His cock was hard and throbbed for her. Noel. She drove him mad with her liberal do-gooder socialist leanings and her wild red curls, her green eyes, her pert mouth that held words and thoughts and pure pleasure.
He turned on the jets of water with one hand and his other hand grasped his cock.
Noel.
There had been other women, but none that Nick had loved. He’d utilized every bit of his will tonight to walk out of that town house without taking her. Slipping her warm flesh from each piece of clothing. Without spreading her thighs and letting his tongue stroke up one side of her pussy and then deep into her. He longed to roll her clit between his lips and suck. To tease her with his tongue as her back bowed and her flaming red hair spread all around her.
Nick stepped into the hot shower and pulled harder on his cock. He pressed the palm of one hand against the shower wall and closed his eyes.
Noel.
Those wild red curls and her deep green eyes. Her full lips and fair skin. He grasped the base of his cock and pulled upward. The memory of her lips on his. He stroked to the top of his cock and then slid his hand down the hard shaft. Her lips, damn those lips. Her breasts, full and soft. He’d cupped his hand around those tits. He’d stroked them, had his lips around her tight bud of a nipple. Years before, her body had been his. Water from the shower pelted his back, and he pulled his hand down his cock. He grasped tighter.
His eyes closed. Her lips on his cock. He remembered her hot little mouth taking him. Her head bobbing up and down on his shaft. He’d not allowed himself these memories in years. They were too painful when coupled with the knowledge that Noel would never be his again. But now she could be. If only for a while. The fire he felt was reflected in her eyes. The same fire that had lit her eyes the last time he’d fucked her. He’d thrust his cock deep inside her sex. She’d tightened around him. Hot and wet and pulsing with desire for him. His hand pulled faster and faster. The memory of sinking his throbbing cock into her hot, wet pussy. The moans that escaped her lips. She’d gasped his name, her pussy drenched as she took all of him. Tonight he could have had her again. Nick pumped hard and fast along his cock. The memory of Noel tight and wet around him. His balls drew tight to his body. A tingle started low in his back. He pulled faster and harder and faster and harder.
Fuck yes.
His head dropped forward. To push into Noel and fuck her. To thrust deep into her. Her breasts heaving beneath him. Her hips thrusting up toward him. He pulled on his cock. He’d lost the slow and steady rhythm as the memories of Noel’s tight pussy claimed his mind. Hot pre-come trickled from the head of his cock. He grasped tight and pulled harder. Sudden and hard, the force of his come built and then jetted from his body. He pulled again and again and again and pumped out the last bit of pleasure as his mind stayed on Noel’s face, as she came and called his name … “Nick, oh yes, oh my God, Nick. Yes, yes, yes…”
Chapter Five
“Mr. North, if we don’t demo before next Wednesday, then the project is stalled until after the first of the year.”
Nick paced from the wall of windows in his office to his desk. His day was scheduled with meetings regarding new projects, bigger projects, not phone calls about the overdue demolition of Winter Pines. Irritation tightened his gut.
He pressed the On button for the TV remote and flipped through the errant trash that placated the masses.
“Thank you, I understand,” Nick said, interrupting the foreman. “Tell the crew they are off for the next two days. Fully paid. Please check in with Frederick end of day.” Nick hung up with the foreman and dialed Frederick. They’d get started on changing the project. He’d stay downtown, far away from Noel and Nonna and all this want that stormed through his chest.
“Freder—” Nick turned away from the window and back toward the TV. He stopped speaking. His jaw dropped open. He scraped his hand through his hair. MSNB
C. Fuck. That blonde tart’s little news story had gone national. There he was, on MSNBC, front and center and looking as though he was being beaten by Noel. He wrinkled his brow. The biggest man in real estate, thrown by a hippy-dippy Peace Corps alumna chained to a front door.
Nick’s nostrils flared. This was not good. Not good for him, not good for North Industries, and not good for any project that Nick had where there was any community opposition. If people thought they could make him scrap a project by chaining themselves to a door, then they would crawl out of the woodwork with padlocks and chains to stop every project that some peon didn’t want to go through. North Industry created progress and change and jobs and revenue. Nick wasn’t about to let this subset of people, of which Noel was one, wreak havoc on his business plans.
This changed the game. Completely. How could he surrender now? How could he back down in the national spotlight? If he did, wouldn’t every wacka-doo with a cause, egret, swamp, or endangered dodo bird protest his developments and think that North Industries would capitulate?
“Sir, your car is here.” Frederick stood at the door.
“You saw this?” Nick asked, pointing the remote toward the TV.
“Earlier. The story was picked up by the Asian channels long before it aired in New York.”
“Asia?”
“Your car, sir.” Frederick seemed unconcerned with the story of him being bullied by Noel taking on global proportions.
“If people think I’m soft, then North Industries’ next five projects will be jeopardized.”
“Perhaps.” Frederick never seemed rattled. “There were calls from Lake Grove’s mayor and zoning commissioner. They’d like to see you today.”
The head of the Lake Grove’s zoning board and Lake Grove’s mayor were not strong men. Their lack of thought had been beneficial to North Industries in the Shopping Extravaganza deal. Based on environmental and economic-impact reports, the mayor and the commissioner had been easily persuaded to allow North Industries to tear down Winter Pines.
