One Perfect Night (7 page)

She knew she’d never stop thanking her girlfriends for insisting on that ski trip. She wanted to send a truckload of chocolate-chip cookies to the little girl who’d whipped past on her pint-sized skis and sent Colbie falling face-first into the snow—just in time for Noah to come by with his strong hands, his warm arms, and his beautiful smile.

She’d never felt sexier, never felt more
adored,
in her whole life than she did as his eyes ran over her, pleasure lighting his gorgeous features as he moved fully between her legs and gazed down at her with wonder in his eyes.

"No one has ever looked at me the way you do," she whispered.

"I never believed in love at first sight." He reached out to stroke his hand across her cheek. "Not until I saw you."

"Noah."

His name was still on her lips when she took him inside her. And even as he gave her his heart with words, while she gave hers back to him without needing any words at all, passion took them both over. What had begun in patience, in gentleness, now transcended any control either of them had been able to hold on to.

Oh, but she loved it, loved the juxtaposition of dirty and sweet, the rough with the gentle, the fast and the breathtakingly slow. It was what she was doing with her store, after all, by stocking the finest silks and laces, the headiest perfumes, all meant to recklessly seduce in the heat of the night. All intended to shatter control...and to seduce with irresistible pleasure. As their tongues danced together, their bodies were doing a dance of their own, slipping and thrusting and sliding and craving.

Loving.

He was rough, his kisses were desperate and greedy, but she was all of those things, too. There were no rules anymore, no wariness, nothing but passion and hunger, woman and man. Slick with sweat, breathless with desire, Noah slipped one hand between them and took her up higher than she’d ever been...before he sent her spiraling out over the edge, crying out his name.

She couldn’t have imagined even this, let alone more.

But, oh, there was so much more as his name was on her lips and hers was on his when their mouths crashed together again. She could feel every beat of his heart against her chest, the fast pounding that matched her own racing, out-of-control rhythm. She caught a flash of his eyes—dark, beautiful, and so incredibly full of emotion—and then his hands were gripping her hips and she was wrapping her legs even tighter around him and arching her breasts into his waiting mouth as they both fell together this time.

Chapter Eight

The next morning…

Colbie had been drifting in and out of sleep for a while as the rare Seattle sun tried to break through the clouds outside Noah’s bedroom window, but she hadn’t wanted to wake all the way up and end what had been the most incredible hours of her life.

But then, Noah shifted against her, and she knew the moment of truth had come.

Their
one night
was over.

One perfect night, when all of her dreams had become reality.

Last night, she’d felt as though she belonged in Noah’s arms in a way that she’d never belonged in anyone else’s. He’d told her,
"We belong together,"
and he’d said it to her again and again with every kiss, every caress.

The truth was that she’d been as afraid to believe it as she was not to.

But, oh, how she wanted to believe. And to trust that she’d been right to take the biggest risk of her life with him last night. Because deep in her heart, Colbie
knew
that last night had been more than just incredible, mind-blowing sex.

So when he slid her even closer to him, and asked, "Did I prove it to you?" in that low, rough voice that made every nerve in her body fire with anticipated pleasure, joy exploded inside her, starting at her heart and radiating out from there to fill every cell, every pore, every last corner of her soul.

Colbie shifted in his arms so that they were face to face, and the hairs on his chest tickled her breasts in the most wonderful way, his heart beating strong and steady against hers. She pretended to think about his question, working hard to try to keep her mouth from moving up into a smile, even though her tone was clearly light. Teasing. And inherently seductive.

"What if I told you I needed another night before I could decide?"

He grinned down at her, relief mixing with the heat in his eyes. "Then I’ll work to prove it to you tonight and tomorrow night and every night after that."

She gave a happy little squeak as he lifted her up out of the bed, carried her into the bathroom, and turned on the shower.

"But for now, since I know you have to get back to your new store instead of goofing off in bed with me all morning, I’ll settle for making sure you’re perfectly clean." He grinned as he added,
"Everywhere."

She laughed as he pulled her under the warm spray. Only this time, instead of being seduced, she wanted to be the one to seduce him. "You’ve given me a perfect day
and
a perfect night." She wrapped her arms around his neck and lifted her mouth almost all the way up to his. "Now it’s time for me to give you the perfect morning."

She claimed his mouth with soft kisses that teased as much as they promised more to come. With the edges of her teeth, she nipped at his lower lip, then soothed the small sting with her tongue. He threaded his hands into her wet hair and moved them so that she was trapped between the tiled wall and his hard body, but even though the press of his muscles against hers shocked her with pleasure, she was intent on loving him the way he’d loved her. Her skin was slick enough that she could shimmy her way down his body, covering each muscle across his neck, his shoulders, his chest, with the same kisses she’d given to his lips.

As she began to drop lower to press kisses to his stomach and to glide her hands and mouth over him—
all
of him—he groaned her name into the steam rising both from the water and from their bodies. Before too long, though, he had her pressed up against the shower wall again, his hands threaded in her wet hair, his mouth devouring hers.

He had protection ready just when they needed it, only this time her hands weren’t steady enough to help him with it. In one quick move he was covered, and then she was wrapping her legs and arms tightly around him and he was licking, sucking, biting at the curve of her neck, then lower to the upper swell of her breasts, as he found her wet and hot and beyond ready for him to take her.

She didn’t feel the hard tile behind her back as he thrust into her, barely heard her own gasps of pleasure over the pounding of her heart in her own ears. All she knew was that Noah had her...and she had him. In a rush of pleasure so sweet, so hot, so sudden that she was stunned by it all over again, Colbie came apart in his arms, with Noah less than a heartbeat behind her.

* * *

Ten hours later…

She’d just locked the front door of
Indulgence
after a fantastic second day in business, when Noah wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. "You’ve created something great here, Colbie."

She turned around in his arms so that he could kiss her mouth, too. Of course, when one kiss turned to two and then ten and then a hundred, she let him pull her into the back room for another round of sensual arguments aimed at winning her heart...this time on her desk with her legs wrapped around his waist.

"Now
that
is the meaning of indulgence," she murmured a while later as she worked to catch her breath.

"No matter where we are, no matter how many years go by, I’ll never stop proving my love to you," he told her, his eyes still so dark and hungry, even in the aftermath of their passion. "Every day. Every night."

"Even if I’ve finally decided?"

"Especially then."

Even though she knew he could see the truth of her feelings reflected back to him in her eyes, and that he had to feel it in the way she responded to his kisses, to his caresses, she wanted to give him more.

She wanted to give him everything he’d given to her, multiplied. Her faith. Her trust.

Her heart.

"As a little girl, I used to believe in love at first sight." She pressed a kiss over his heart, which beat hard and fast as she declared herself to him. "I think every little girl does. But then, slowly at first, and then faster and faster as I grew older and made bad choices, I lost that belief." She cupped his face in her hands even as she still held his body inside hers. "You gave it back to me on a snowy mountaintop on one perfect day. And then again, in one perfect night."

And later that night in his bed when he took her even higher than she’d been before and they flew together from peak to peak, she forgot to be afraid...because she didn’t need to be ever again.

~ THE END ~

Please enjoy the following excerpt from the first book in Bella Andre’s bestselling Sullivan series...

THE LOOK OF LOVE

Chase & Chloe – The Sullivans # 1

Chloe Peterson is having a bad night. A really bad night. The large bruise on her cheek can attest to that. And when her car skids off the side of a wet country road straight into a ditch, she’s convinced even the gorgeous guy who rescues her in the middle of the rain storm must be too good to be true. Or is he?

As a successful photographer who frequently travels around the world, Chase Sullivan has his pick of beautiful women, and whenever he’s home in San Francisco, one of his seven siblings is usually up for causing a little fun trouble. Chase thinks his life is great just as it is—until the night he finds Chloe and her totaled car on the side of the road in Napa Valley. Not only has Chase never met anyone so lovely, both inside and out, but he quickly realizes Chloe has much bigger problems than her damaged car. Soon, Chase is willing to move mountains to love—and protect—her, but will Chloe let him?

Enjoy the following excerpt from THE LOOK OF LOVE...

Chase almost missed the flickering light off on the right side of the two-lane country road. In the past thirty minutes, he hadn’t passed a single car, because on a night like this, most sane Californians—who didn’t know the first thing about driving safely in inclement weather—stayed home.

Knowing better than to slam on the brakes—he wouldn’t be able to help whomever was stranded on the side of the road if he ended up stuck in the muddy ditch right next to them—Chase slowed down enough to see that there was definitely a vehicle stuck in the ditch.

He turned his brights on to see better in the pouring rain and realized there was a person walking along the edge of the road about a hundred yards up ahead. Obviously hearing his car approach, she turned to face him and he could see her long wet hair whipping around her shoulders in his headlights.

Wondering why she wasn’t just sitting in her car, dry and warm, calling Triple A and waiting for them to come save her, he pulled over to the edge of his lane and got out to try and help her. She was shivering as she watched him approach.

"Are you hurt?"

She covered her cheek with one hand, but shook her head. "No."

He had to move closer to hear her over the sound of the water hitting the pavement in what were rapidly becoming hailstones. Even though he’d turned his headlights off, as his eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, he was able to get a better look at her face.

Something inside of Chase’s chest clenched tight.

Despite the long, dark hair plastered to her head and chest, regardless of the fact that
looking like a drowned rat
wasn’t too far off the descriptive mark, her beauty stunned him.

In an instant, his photographer’s eye cataloged her features. Her mouth was a little too big, her eyes a little too wide-set on her face. She wasn’t even close to model thin, but given the way her T-shirt and jeans stuck to her skin, he could see that she wore her lush curves well. In the dark he couldn’t judge the exact color of her hair, but it looked like silk, perfectly smooth and straight where it lay over her breasts.

It wasn’t until Chase heard her say, "My car is definitely hurt, though," that he realized he had completely lost the thread of what he’d come out here to do.

Knowing he’d been drinking her in like he was dying of thirst, he worked to recover his balance. He could already see he’d been right about her car. It didn’t take a mechanic like his brother, Zach, who owned an auto shop—more like forty, but Chase had stopped counting years ago—to see that her shitty hatchback was borderline totaled. Even if the front bumper wasn’t half smashed to pieces by the white farm fence she’d slid into, her bald tires weren’t going to get any traction on the mud. Not tonight, anyway.

If her car had been in a less precarious situation, he probably would have sent her to hang out in her car while he took care of getting it unstuck. But one of her back tires was hanging precariously over the edge of the ditch.

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Get in my car. We can wait there for a tow truck." He was vaguely aware of his words coming out like an order, but the hail was starting to sting, damn it. Both of them needed to get out of the rain before they froze.

But the woman didn’t move. Instead, she gave him a look that said he was a complete and utter nut-job.

"I’m not getting into your car."

Realizing just how frightening it must be for a lone woman to end up stuck and alone in the middle of a dark road, Chase took a step back from her. He had to speak loudly enough for her to hear him over the hail.

"I’m not going to attack you. I swear I won’t do anything to hurt you."

She all but flinched at the word
attack
and Chase’s radar started buzzing. He’d never been a magnet for troubled women, wasn’t the kind of guy who thrived on fixing wounded birds. But living with two sisters for so many years meant he could always tell when something was up.