Smart and Sexy (17 page)

Utterly unable to help himself, he bent and put his mouth there, then worked his way up as his arms banded around her, his hands cupping the weight of her breasts, his fingers grazing her nipples.

Her hands came behind her, grabbing his hips, yanking him flush to her. He was going to last exactly one more second like that, so he took her hands in his and brought them in front of her, stretching her out, settling them on the edge of his granite countertop, tightening his on hers in a silent plea to keep them there.

She did, arching her back, still rubbing her ass up and down on him as everything within him began to draw up tight. Even his toes began to curl.

He couldn’t hold back.

With her, he could never hold back.

He’d wanted to make her come first, wanted to hear her pant out his name in that breathless, sexy-as-hell way she had when he’d put her in the throes, but he couldn’t, he just couldn’t, and fisting himself, he gripped her hip, bent his knees, and thrust home.

She cried out, a primal sound.

Heat, pure and simple, slid through him. He groaned with the pleasure of it and sank over her body as he gave himself up to what she made him feel, gliding a hand around her front, up her belly, over her breasts, his other holding on to her hip as he began to move.

He watched as he slid in and out of her, glistening, rock hard to her gorgeous softness, which gripped him like a velvet glove with every thrust. He was drowning in her, literally drowning. Every part of him was so primed to go off that he could no longer see past the sexual haze in his own head. He bent over her, pressing his mouth to her ear, the side of her neck, running his nose over her skin, absorbing the feel of her, her scent. On the very edge, he slid his hand down her belly and further, grazing his fingers over her center, his entire body jerking again when she let out a low gasp as he gently drew her between his thumb and finger.

When he rubbed, she cried out his name and covered his hand with hers to hold him there as she shuddered and exploded for him.

Wait
, he ordered himself. Wait and get a repeat performance out of her, because listening to her pant out his name, feeling her tremble, for him, experiencing her tighten and constrict around him as she came, was the wildest, sexiest thing he could imagine, and he wanted to experience it over and over. But he just couldn’t hold back, and opening his mouth on the patch of skin where her shoulder met her neck, he let himself follow her over into the abyss.

She ate, as she’d promised. Noah hadn’t intended for it to be
him
she put her mouth on and nibbled, but he didn’t utter a single complaint when she’d tasted and licked her way over his entire body. Nope, he lay there and let her feast, and if anything had passed his lips, it had been a groan for mercy.

Which she’d given.

Later they made it as far as the shower, where they started all over again, and then finally, they staggered to his bed, where they both collapsed.

He hadn’t slept well in months, but with Bailey in his arms, he slept like a damn baby, waking only when his obnoxious alarm went off at six. For the first time in far too long, he felt a grin split his face, and more astonishingly, the muscles there didn’t feel so unused.

He’d grinned a lot last night.

And he was up for plenty more, say round four—

Or was it five?

He rolled over, but the spot next to him was empty.

Ah, hell. He slid a hand to it.

Still warm.

Leaping out of bed, he ran to the bathroom.

Empty.

She wasn’t in the kitchen either, nor the living room. In fact, he discovered standing in the middle of his house, she wasn’t anywhere, which meant only one thing.

She’d gone without him. But the pillow had been warm. He had to be only a moment or two behind her. Whipping open the front door, he was just in time to see a taxi vanish down his driveway. He was halfway out the door after her before the slice of January wind reminded him he was butt-ass-naked.

“T
o LAX,” Bailey told the cab driver in the still dark morning, and put on her seat belt with shaking fingers. She’d made a tactical error last night, a serious one.

She’d engaged her heart.

There was no use beating herself up over it. She should have moved on that first night, separated from Noah at the Mammoth airport and gone on her own.

But you’d have faced Stephen and those men on your own, too. Twice.

Okay, she couldn’t have separated from Noah then, but certainly yesterday she could have.

Should have.

Instead, she’d gone with him to Catalina, and while she hadn’t had any more luck there than she had in Mammoth, once again he’d gotten her out of a situation she couldn’t have managed on her own.

She owed him so much.

And last night, lying in his arms, happier than she’d ever been in her entire life, she’d realized how to repay him.

By leaving him.

She’d been over it and over it in her head, and there was no other way to protect him. God. She pressed her fingers to her eyes, as if she could rub away this huge disastrous mess that she’d made out of her life.

It was still dark outside, with only the tiniest tinges of pink in the far east.

Was Noah awake? What had he thought when he’d found her gone?

He’d be furious.

He’d worry.

God, he’d worry. She knew it. But she couldn’t let him do this, couldn’t let him take her to Cabo, especially not now that she knew what had happened to him there.

Plus, a small part of her knew…she was falling for him, hard and fast. Too fast. She was afraid for him, desperately afraid. No, there was no other way to keep him safe than to leave him.

Then she realized they were passing her street. “Excuse me,” she said to the driver. “I need to make a quick detour.”

“No detours.”

“Please, just real quick. Can you turn right here?” In tune to his annoyed sighs, she directed him to the house where she’d lived with Alan in style—and in lies.

A lifetime ago.

The place was dark and had a For Sale sign in the driveway. It was being sold as a part of the impending bankruptcy, but hadn’t gone yet despite the fact it’d had some heavy traffic. Looky-Lous, mostly, but it didn’t matter to her. She wouldn’t receive a penny. She didn’t care, she didn’t want a cent of Alan’s tainted money.

She just wanted her life back.

And herself.

She really wanted herself back. Last night she’d felt a glimmer of the old Bailey, and it had been wonderful, so wonderful her heart still ached. “Thank you,” she said to the driver, taking her last look at a house she never wanted to see again. “We can go straight to LAX now.”

As they drove away, she wondered if her life would ever be the same. How much of herself was she going to have to give up? She thought of Noah, how it felt to give him up, and rubbed a hand over her heart.

She was truly alone now. She hated the feeling. She slipped her hands into her pockets. Her fingers closed over her cell phone.

Not completely alone.

She still had Kenny, and suddenly she needed to hear from him in the worst possible way. Pulling out the phone, she turned it on, and read a waiting text message. BAIL, WHERE R U? K

She began to type in her answer, then stopped. Every single time she responded to Kenny, Stephen had caught up with her.

Coincidence?

She might never have even thought about it, but for Noah’s suspicions. He believed that Kenny was somehow using her texts to locate her. And if that was true, if he was in cahoots with the bad guys, then she was playing right into his hands by answering.

She stared at the phone as if for the first time. A little frisson of doubt of Kenny’s innocence went through her.

But if she was being honest, it
wasn’t
the first time. Truthfully, she’d been fighting with the doubt for days now. She turned off the phone, then stared at it with growing dread as she remembered Noah’s words.

Don’t give anyone a way to track you.

With a small cry of pain, betrayal, and a bone-deep despair, she lowered her window and tossed the phone out in the street.

“Hey!” the cab driver yelled back. “You can’t do that!”

“Sorry.” She craned her neck to watch as the phone hit the ground, only to be run over by the car behind her—

Oh, God. The car behind her.

Noah.

The sun was rising now, slanting across the low-lying hills on either side of them so that she couldn’t see in past the windshield of his BMW.

She didn’t need to.

He was looking at her,
right
at her. She could feel the weight of his gaze as she’d felt the weight of very little else, ever.

He’d followed her.

Torn between terror and a huge, almost overwhelming relief, she nearly slipped bonelessly to the floor, but she forced herself to sit there and look at him.

Could he see her?

He’d already seen far more of her than she’d meant him to, and she didn’t mean just her naked body. She’d done everything in her power to keep him at arm’s length, but for the first time in her life, that had been impossible. He’d taken down her carefully constructed walls that she’d built around herself, one brick at a time.

Hell, he’d blasted through them.

But he hadn’t left her to her own defense; he’d hung around, no matter what the cost to him personally. Oh, God, the implications of that alone…

“If I get pulled over,” the crabby cab driver yelled at her, “the traffic ticket is going to come out of
your
wallet, not mine! The rules are stated very clearly on the back of the seats!” Reaching behind him, he patted his headrest, where indeed, a list of rules had been clearly laid out for any idiot to read. “There. You see?”

“Yes,” she said, still staring at Noah. “I see, and I’m sorry, very sorry.”

“Nothing else out of the cab, or no more ride for you.”

“I promise.”

The cabby sniffed in indignance, and continued driving. Bailey waited with baited breath as they pulled into the huge drop-off loop at LAX. The cabby hit the curb in front of her airline and held out his palm.

She was still pulling the cash out of her purse when the taxi door on her side was hauled open. She’d no sooner handed the cabby his money when two big, warm hands pulled her from the car.

“Hey,” she said to one damn fine chest, covered in a beat-up leather aviation jacket.

“Hey,” Noah said fiercely instead of friendly, then hauled her against him. “Now tell me you’re in one piece because I’m not sure I can believe my eyes.”

Running her hands up his arms, she felt the tension in his body. It gripped him from head to toe, and she pulled back, looking into his face. “I’m in one piece.”

“Unhurt.”

“Unhurt,” she promised.

He stared at her for a long moment, then let out a slow, deliberate breath. Probably trying not to strangle her, she thought.

He had remarkable control that way.

“Look,” he said. “Probably another guy, a normal guy, would assume you’d left this morning because you were done with him.”

Her throat closed up at the thought of him thinking that.

“But I’d like to think I know better,” he said. “Stop trying to protect me, Bailey. Because the truth is, you’re the one who needs the protection.”

What could she say to that, the utter truth? When she’d left him only a half hour ago, he’d been gloriously naked, sprawled facedown over three-quarters of the bed, looking much finer than any male had business looking at the crack of dawn.

And she’d stood there for just a moment, throat nearly closed, eyes filled, a shaking hand to her mouth to hold in any words that she might have recklessly spilled.

God, he meant so much to her. In such a short time, he’d come to mean so much.

In any case, he hadn’t stayed gloriously naked, and she had a feeling he’d dressed while cursing her and running for the door. Besides the jacket, he wore a T-shirt and a pair of faded, soft-looking jeans that fit him in a way that had the other women walking past them giving him both a second and third look.

He was oblivious of course, his full attention on her. He had his sunglasses on, but she had no trouble detecting the temper in him. Just in case, he shoved the glasses to the top of his head and glared at her, those normally warm green eyes cool as rain.

Cool, and furious. “So. Where were you going?” he asked with remarkable politeness.

“You know where.”

He reached into the cab for her bag. Once he did, the cab took off, and she was left alone with him. Except for the hundreds of people at LAX, going about their day.

“I would have flown you,” he said, shouldering her duffle bag.

“I know.” She stepped close and put a hand on his chest. “I couldn’t ask you to do that, Noah. Not after what happened to you there—”

“Don’t,” he said. He pulled her into the terminal.

She knew that had been to get her out of the brisk morning air, and her heart squeezed all the more. Even now, he cared. “Noah—”

“Which airline?”

“I want to explain—”

“Which airline?”

She pointed, and he looked over his shoulder, noting the take-off times, and the long, winding line of people waiting. He headed toward the end of it, with her in tow.

“I already have my ticket,” she said to his stiff, broad shoulders.

“But I don’t.” He kept a tight grip on her hand, not a lover’s touch, as he’d used on her last night, all night long, not even a friendly one, but a tight, don’t-even-think-about-letting-go grip.

“You can’t just buy a ticket because of me—”

He shot her a scathing look.

“It’ll be expensive,” she said. Hers certainly would have been except she’d used her dead husband’s frequent-flyer miles. “And I can’t—”

He ignored her. Just totally and completely ignored her, making sure to keep her hand in his as he turned his back on her and studied the people around them.

“Noah.” His spine was tense when she set her hand on it. The muscles quivered beneath her touch, the only sign that he was aware of her. “
Noah
.”

He turned and looked at her. Someone jostled her from behind, and she used the excuse to slide her hands up his chest, and around his neck. She set her head down on his shoulder. “I couldn’t keep leaning on you,” she whispered.

He didn’t touch her back, but let out a tense breath. “I just keep thinking…I nearly missed you.”

I’d have come back.
The words nearly rolled right off her tongue and into his ear, but she clamped down on them. She had no right to say such a thing, and no right to even want it.

He stepped back from her, as if needing distance. “Why did your cell phone take flying lessons on El Segundo Boulevard?”

She smiled wryly. “Saw that, huh?”

“Ran it over.”

She’d left her hand on his chest. She didn’t want to ever let go.

“Why, Bailey?”

“I got a text from Kenny.”

The look on his face as he absorbed that defied description: amazement that she’d allowed the contact, fear for her safety, and temper that he hadn’t been able to stop it. “How?” he finally asked. “I thought we agreed you would leave the thing off.”

She felt the guilt flash across her face. “No, you agreed I should. I…” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Noah. I had to see if he’d tried calling me.”

“I understand.”

“I mean, he’s my only family, and I just couldn’t seem to reconcile the fact that he’d—” She stopped. “You understand?”

“Do you think I’m completely cold and unfeeling?”

“No,” she said softly. “I don’t think you’re cold and unfeeling at all.”

He held her gaze for a long beat, then let out a breath. “So he called?”

“He texted. He’d done so before. Yesterday, too, when I was in the closet at Sky High. But this time he came right out and asked me where I was.” She took in his knowing expression and closed her eyes.

“Ah, hell, Bailey.” His sigh warmed her temple. “I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t want to see it…”

Again she was jostled from behind, and she bumped closer into Noah. Chest to chest now. His hand settled on her waist, and for a moment, she let herself pretend that they were a couple.

He brought a hand up to her hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to be right.”

She set her forehead to his chest and absorbed the betrayal and pain. “I don’t know how or why, but if he’s working with the investors to recover their money, then…” To even say the words felt wrong. “Then he’s been using our text messages to keep track of where I am. It would explain how they always seem to be right there with me, you know?”

He tipped her face up, staring down at her for a long beat. “No matter what happens, I’m there. On your side. Can you believe that?”

She wanted to. “I’m not very good at believing. But…”

“But…?”

“But I’d like to try, with you.”

He let out a long breath, then pressed a kiss to her jaw. A conciliatory kiss, a sweet connection that had her sighing as she leaned into him. She had no idea what she’d ever done to deserve him here at her side helping her, but she was ever so grateful that he was as stubborn as she. “I’ve always held back, you know. I think a part of me knew I couldn’t reveal everything, couldn’t fully trust.”

He ran his hand up and then down her back, comforting. “A sucky way to live.”

“It nearly killed me,” she confessed. “In more ways than one.” She managed to look at him, into those melting eyes and admit the truth. “I don’t want to live that way anymore. I want to learn to believe. To trust.”

“Then don’t pull another vanishing act on me. Let’s see this thing through to the end. Together.”

Her breath caught. “Another weak point of mine.”

“What, seeing things through to the end?”

“No, the together thing.”

“Me too,” he said. “But maybe it’s time for us both to try. To take a risk.”

“Next!” one of the airline representatives called from the counter.

For a moment, Noah didn’t move, just looked at her, gaze heated. Then he shifted around and moved to the counter.