by Soraya Lane
“Sure thing.”
She lingered too long, batting her eyelashes, and Noah felt uncomfortable for Bella.
“Sorry,” he muttered once the waitress left.
Bella raised an eyebrow. “Not your fault women want to fall at your feet.”
“Yeah, every single one but you.”
The second he’d said it, he regretted it, but Bella recovered quickly, ignoring it. He might be able to get himself in and out of some of the toughest situations his job threw at him, but put him at a table with Bella, and he was useless.
“So, about the cats . . .” she muttered.
Noah breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s the claws that get me. I mean, they’re just way too smart for their own good, so freaking intelligent, and then to arm them with razor-sharp claws, for Pete’s sake?”
Bella looked relaxed. She’d leaned back into her seat, beer in hand as she studied him. “I’m allergic, so there’s no chance I’ll be getting one for the boys. You’ll be able to sleep easy.”
He chuckled.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean—”
He held up his hands. “Hey, we’re both saying stupid things tonight. Let’s just give each other a break, huh?”
“Good idea.” She tipped back her beer and finished it as he downed the rest of his.
“Pizza or pasta?” he asked.
“Lila said pizza, so pizza it is.”
“Hey, she can’t exactly tell us off if we don’t obey her,” he teased.
Bella laughed. “Don’t apologize for that,” she said as he groaned again, “but we’re having pizza. She’ll probably blast me with lightning from up there if we don’t do what she says, just to show me she’s still boss.”
They settled on pepperoni, and Noah made sure to let Bella order so he didn’t have to deal with the overly friendly waitress. He always flirted with pretty women, but for the first time since he could remember, the one he was sitting across from was enough to hold his attention. Bella’s smile was easy, even though he knew that every time they talked about her sister, it would be like gnashing on a raw nerve ending. He knew it because it was how he felt every single day.
He slid her second beer across to her and picked his own up. “So you haven’t told me your secret.”
“Does it count as a secret if it’s something I told Lila, but no one else?” she asked, face serious.
Noah nodded. “Yeah. I’d say it does.”
“My ex,” she started, ripping at the label on the bottle.
“The one I met at Gray and Lila’s wedding?” he asked. He recalled a tall guy, remembered him standing at the bar when he’d gone up to get shots.
“Yeah, him. He was a former SEAL, and he beat me up so bad one night that I ended up in the hospital.”
Noah froze. He angled his head, was about to look away; only the honesty in her gaze told him she was telling him the pure truth. Anger thumped through him, threatened to knock him out of equilibrium when he was so used to being able to hold it together, no matter what the situation. So this was the truth behind why she hated military guys so much.
“I don’t know what to say.” It was the truth—what the hell could he say in response to that? He reached for her hand, squeezing it and looking straight into her eyes, needing to say the right thing. “No woman should ever have to be scared of a man. I’m sorry it happened to you.”
She looked down at his hands. “I never thought it would happen to me, but I guess that’s what just about every victim of domestic violence says.”
“And Lila was the only person you told?” he asked, just to make sure he understood the situation.
“Yep. I swore her to secrecy, wouldn’t let her breathe a word to Gray because I knew what he’d do, and I didn’t want him taking matters into his own hands.”
“Did you file a police report?” he asked before forcing himself to stop asking any more questions. He needed to be more gentle with her, understand what she’d been through.
She nodded. “Yes. But he lied, made up such a bullshit story about what had actually happened, and I dropped the whole thing. I’m not proud of myself; I should have done more, but it is what it is.”
He gripped his beer bottle in his other hand, afraid it was going to smash in his hands because he was holding it so tight. Anger thumped through him, as he thought about someone, anyone, laying a hand on Bella. “And your parents?”
“My dad would have killed him.” She grimaced. “I’m not kidding, he would have.”
Noah didn’t doubt it. “So what did you tell them?”
“Lila told them I’d gone away on vacation, I called a day later to tell them that I’d been so stressed with work that I’d treated myself to a trip, and I spent a week in the hospital and then a week on vacation in Mexico. When I came back, I explained my bruises as a bad experience going paddleboarding. Which, for the record, I never tried, even though I watched couples learning on the beach every day.”
Noah breathed deeply, relieved when the pizza arrived. He let go of Bella’s hand slowly and took a slice, burning his mouth by trying to eat it too quickly.
“The second part to that secret is that I haven’t really dated much since then.”
“And you think all military-type guys are assholes,” he added.
She shrugged. “Pretty much. I hate that whole macho thing, but I know that’s only a certain type of guy. My dad and Gray weren’t like that.”
He ducked his head, then forced himself to look back up again. I’m not like that either. They were the words he wanted to say, should have said, but for some reason they just weren’t forming when he needed them to.
“I know you’re not like that, Noah,” Bella said softly as she held a large slice of pizza, twirling some cheese off with her fingers. “You don’t need to prove yourself.”
He finished his mouthful. “How do you feel now? About what you went through? I mean, it must be hard to trust again.”
She put the slice back down. “I know you’re not going to go around hitting women or getting into fights, and neither are most trained military guys, but you’re still the type. Big, tough, strong. Women drop like flies around you. You’re all work and then way too much play on the short bursts of time you get away from the Navy.” She grimaced. “I can’t help what I think, and yeah, it affects the way I feel about men.”
She was right. He was all of those things. But the fact that he was a SEAL didn’t define the way he was in his personal life. There was a whole lot more to his fucked-up ethos of not wanting anyone to get close to him than just his career.
“I might know this guy if he was actually a SEAL.”
She shrugged. “He said he left because he got into a fight with one of the instructors who was giving him shit.”
“Bullshit. He was never a SEAL. Guys who say that kind of crap are just embarrassed about being in the ninety percent who never make it through training. If anyone so much as threw a punch at an instructor?” He whistled. “They’d receive a hiding. And besides, I know plenty of SEALs who love a fistfight, but not one who’d hit a woman. And none who go around bragging about their jobs.”
Bella pursed her lips. “I just believed him, never thought to question him.”
Noah smiled, deciding not to engage any further. The only way to prove Bella wrong about SEALs was to show her, and he couldn’t do that over pizza. “I’ll prove it to you, Bella, that I’m not like that. Just to show you that men, especially military guys, don’t need to be physical to be real men.”
She smiled, but he could see she was uncomfortable. He was trying his best, wanted to make everything okay for her, but nothing had prepared him for this kind of situation. “Can we just change the subject now?” Bella said.
Noah didn’t need to be asked twice. It wasn’t exactly comfortable conversation, and he had no intention of pushing her for more information if she didn’t want to talk about it.
“So, uhhh, do you ever think the kids need a pet?” he sai
d, clutching for any safe topic to bring up.
She looked puzzled. “A pet? I thought we’d just decided against a cat.”
“I was thinking a dog. Maybe a Golden Retriever.”
Bella groaned. “Seriously? I’m only just getting used to picking up after the boys. I don’t need a freaking puppy to contend with, too.”
“It was just a thought. If I were around more . . .” And he realized he’d said too much, just when he’d been trying to get their chat back on lighter ground.
“Are you going to be around more?” Bella asked.
He wanted to reach for her, needed to connect with her, but instead he just stared. “Maybe.”
They went back to eating their pizza, slice by slice, in between sips of beer. Noah was happy to stay quiet, lost in his thoughts, and Bella seemed content for the meal to pass in almost silence, too. He didn’t know when it had happened, but being with Bella and not saying a word didn’t feel awkward at all. And that wasn’t something he’d encountered often in his life—outside of work, anyway.
They drove home mostly without saying much and said a quiet “Good night” once they were home. Bella disappeared up the stairs first, and Noah hung back and filled a glass of water before heading to bed.
“Noah!” Bella urged, hand on his shoulder. “Noah!”
Noah jumped and grabbed at the person touching him, going for the throat. He needed to protect himself, didn’t know where he was, why it was dark.
“Noah!”
The strangled, choked cry hit through the wall in his head, brought everything crumbling down, made him enter reality. The room was dark, a little light filtering in from the hall, but the second he let her go, she reached for the lamp and flicked it on.
Noah stared down at his hands, expecting to see blood. Expecting them to be stained red and dripping, but there was nothing. He looked up, saw the wide-eyed look on Bella’s face, the way her fingers were pressed to her neck.
Fuck! “Bella, I’m so sorry,” he whispered, pushing the tangled sheets away and fighting to get out of bed.
She backed up, making him feel like the biggest jerk in the world.
“I thought you were someone else. It took me a second to come back to reality,” he admitted, the dream still fresh in his mind—the blood, the smell of gunpowder, the burning heat of the sun as they hid against the rocks, searching for cover.
“I didn’t want you to wake the boys,” she whispered. “I’ve just gotten Will back to sleep.”
Noah reached for her, stepped into her space when she went to back up again. Her hair was messy, falling over her shoulders. Her nightie was made of satin and fit her tight from her breasts down to just above her knee; it was hot pink, with a lacy edge around the bottom that he wished was a few inches higher so he could get a better look at her thighs.
“I would never hurt you,” he said honestly, keeping his voice low so they didn’t wake the kids. “Not in a million years.”
She moved again, and he took her hand. He wasn’t holding tight—she could have broken free if she wanted to—but she stayed still.
“You just did,” she whispered.
“I know.” He couldn’t deny it, but he could show her just how gentle he could be, that he believed in touching a woman with all the gentleness in the world.
Noah watched her, took in the soft rise and fall of her chest, the wide-eyed expression, the way her mouth parted when she knew he was staring at it. He’d been wanting to kiss her for a long while, to feel her mouth against his and taste her lips, but until now he hadn’t had the opportunity.
He paused, gave her the chance to get the hell out of Dodge, but she didn’t move an inch. Noah lowered his mouth, softening his hold on her wrist as he stepped into her space. She lifted her chin as he bent to her height, touched her mouth to his so tentatively he wasn’t even sure he’d kissed her, but he wanted her to know she held the power, that she wasn’t being forced into anything. He knew he should pull away again, like he had the other night, but he just didn’t have the strength to say no this time.
When a soft moan escaped her as he tried to pull back, Noah let go of her wrist entirely and circled his arms around her body, drawing her closer, fighting a groan as the soft satin of her nightie brushed his bare stomach. He deepened the kiss, pressed his lips harder to hers, crushing her mouth, waiting for what felt like forever before touching his tongue to hers, exploring.
They stood for a long beat, mouths fused, bodies tight. Bella’s hands were slipped low around his waist on one side, the other to the back of his head like she was trying to stop him from ever moving away. But kissing wasn’t enough for him, was only making him want her more, to explore every curve of her body, to feel every inch of her soft skin.
“You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do this,” Noah muttered when he finally pulled his mouth from hers, transferring to her neck, kissing along her collarbone, loving every little soft moan that came from her lips.
“We should stop,” she murmured, but he could barely hear her and decided to ignore her completely. The way she was pressing into him, her fingers digging into his skin, told him she wanted it to stop about as much as he did.
“Why?” he asked, not really caring what her reasoning was so long as she kept grinding against him, head tilted back as he made his way across the top of her breast.
“Because it’s a bad idea,” she whispered, gasping as he flicked his tongue down lower, teasing her. Bella grabbed hold of his hair and yanked him up. “A very bad idea.”
He laughed and went back to pleasuring her mouth, his hands low and skimming over her bottom.
“Bella!”
The soft call from the room down the hall made them both freeze, even though it was virtually impossible for him to stand still and not do anything with Bella’s warm, sexy body rammed hard up against his.
She sighed and dropped her head to his chest, forehead first, her lips connecting with his skin. “That’s my cue to go.”
Noah laughed. “I would, but . . .” He gestured down low, his erection visible against his boxer shorts.
“Yeah, I think I’ll go,” she teased.
“Bella!” It was Cooper, and he was more insistent this time.
“Go,” he whispered, cupping a hand under her chin and stealing one last kiss.
Bella kissed him back before turning, glancing over her shoulder before disappearing out the door. He had no idea what had just happened, but it was damn good, and he wished it didn’t have to end.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Upstairs it was mayhem. Bella could hear squealing and laughter, not to mention way too much water splashing out of the bath. But the fact that Noah was up there with the boys meant she could get the dishes done and run around like a crazy woman, tidying up, before sprinting upstairs and getting the boys’ beds ready for them. She wasn’t too proud to admit that it was like the movie Groundhog Day, with every day repeating over and over again, but she was starting to get the rhythm of things. When she’d been the one looking after them, taking turns with her parents on the rare occasions that Gray and Lila had been deployed at the same time, it hadn’t bothered her to bend the rules and not be so strict. But now that she was here full time, getting them to bed before seven-thirty meant she had a few hours to herself. With Noah. She pushed the thought away as she let the soapy water run out of the sink; she was still finding it hard not to think about the kiss they’d shared two nights ago.
“I’ll be there in a sec,” she called out as she went into the boys’ room and pulled the drapes, fingers gliding slowly over the dark blue taffeta. She could still remember planning the room for Will, the dark blue paired with a much softer shade on the walls.
“Don’t come in!” Noah called out amid a burst of giggles and even more splashing.
“Why?” she called back, thinking it was a game the boys were playing and sneaking closer, avoiding the squeaky floorboards.
“Noah!” Cooper squealed, follo
wed by hysterical laughter from Will—or at least that’s what it sounded like.
Bella waited, both hands on the door, before pushing it open and bursting into the bathroom.
“Whoa!” she exclaimed, clamping her hands over her eyes. Noah was naked, in the bath with the boys, the few bubbles that were left doing nothing to hide his bare skin.
“Shit—sorry,” he swore.
“Money for the swear jar!” Will happily announced, holding up his hand for a high five from his brother.
Bella peeked between her fingers, seeing Noah with a hand over his crotch. It didn’t matter that she’d instantly blocked her gaze—the image of him lying back in the big bath, completely stark naked, was burned into her memory. Even now, with his shoulders so broad, slick with water, one big arm resting on the edge of the bath, his legs hardly fit in the confined space. Then she laughed. All that view, and she hadn’t noticed the bubbles on his head.
“Hey, I like the hairdo,” she said, dropping to sit on the closed lid of the toilet.
“Thanks,” he muttered. “I was coerced into this, in case you were wondering.”
“Oh, I’m sure it was really hard for the boys to convince you,” she teased straight back. Something had changed between them, an easiness that hadn’t been there before. Even though she was seriously twisted in knots over the kiss they’d shared, the kiss that was as ingrained in her memory banks as the view of him naked, she still felt more comfortable around him than she ever had. They hadn’t talked about what had happened. She wondered if maybe it had only happened because they’d both been so emotionally charged from what they’d talked about, and she was happy to just sit on the memory.
“Hey, have you booked the sitter for Friday night?” Noah asked.
Bella nodded. “I have.”
The boys were playing with little boats, making circles in the water and climbing all over Noah in the process. She loved the fact that they were so comfortable around him, and their little naked bodies, so skinny and all sharp elbows and knobby knees, always made her smile.
