Unravel Me (18 page)

She thought of that old marmalade cat, already ancient, according to the vet, when it had found them, and how it had disappeared one day, never to be seen again. She remembered how she’d cried, how Wayne had held her, promising other cats, other pets, a whole zoo, just to assuage her grief.

“I’ll never love another,” she’d said then.

“I’ll never love another,” she said now.

 

Dawn came late to Malibu, because the Santa Monica Mountains blocked the sun’s earliest light. But the sky overhead was turning from midnight blue to morning gray as Noah pulled in front of the house on Mar Vista Drive and turned off the engine. When Juliet didn’t stir, he steeled himself and glanced over.

She was looking at him.

He almost jumped out of his skin.

They’d been together for hours, first on the beach, and then at a twenty-four-hour diner where he’d plied her with little pots of lemony tea and stacks of rubbery pancakes doused in sticky syrup. Juliet had been her customary courteous self, quick with her usual “please” and “thank you,” but he wasn’t certain she’d even been fully aware of his presence. They’d not spoken beyond the polite phrase or two.

He hadn’t known what she was thinking. For his part, he’d been preoccupied with the memory of her shaking and sobbing in his arms.

Echoes of that whisper had raked at his insides.

But he didn’t want to think about that anymore. Somewhere between that stark whisper and the final drip of maple syrup, he’d made a decision. Juliet had taken her big step last night, and today was a new day. His new day, the day he would take his first step away from her.

He couldn’t think when she was looking at him like that, though. “What?” he asked. “Do I have jam on my face or something?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m just realizing I haven’t thanked you.”

“Not a problem.”

“I just assumed you would go with me to do that last night.”

He shrugged.

“I wasn’t surprised to see you wading out to get me, either. Or to find myself comforted in your arms.”

A night without sleep hadn’t dimmed her blue and green gaze. As usual, their bicolors unsteadied him, and the fragility that the faint purple shadows beneath them added only made him rockier. He jerked open his door before he did something stupid like draw her into his arms again. It was that new day.

They both followed the front path leading to the door. He stooped for the morning paper, then stood back as she put her key in the lock. Yeah, he could have gone around the side gate to get to the guesthouse, but it was quicker to go through her place, and having seen her this far, he decided to go the whole nine yards.

In the kitchen, he hesitated before the back door, the newspaper still in hand. “Juliet,” he started.

“Noah,” she said at the same time.

They both went silent for so long, deferring to each other, that the moment turned awkward. Awkward enough for Juliet’s face to go pink. He wondered if what she wanted to bring up was as uncomfortable as what he wanted to say, and that’s why they were both still mum.

But he had to get on with his life. “Mind if I take the classifieds with me?”

She blinked. “Oh, sure.”

Glancing down to separate the sections, he took the plunge. “I’m going to look for another place to live.”

Her answering silence told him nothing. He had to shift his gaze upward. Their eyes met. Again, the silence stretched thin.

Finally, she turned away. “Orders all carried out then?” she asked, an odd tightness to her voice.

Noah frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Wayne’s orders. He issued them, didn’t he? That’s what this has been about these months, I know that. That you helped me with everything after his death, that you helped me move here, that you thought you needed to check up on the situation with Cassandra and Nikki, that you . . . that you . . .” She made a vague gesture with her hand that seemed to encompass all manner of things. “That you did everything I asked for or needed.”

Hell. This wasn’t a conversation he wished to have. He’d merely wanted to make his plans known and then escape. “Of course the general talked to me about you and . . . what would come after. He was concerned.”

“So he came up with a plan. Told you how to carry it out.”

Noah tossed the newspaper onto the nearby counter. “I’m not here because of what the general wanted.”

Her head whipped toward him so fast her hair flew out like a golden banner. “Then why?”

Shit. And he’d been thinking he was so smart.
Walked
right into that one, Smith.
He ran his hand down his face. “Juliet—”

“Be honest. How did it go?” she asked, her voice rising. “Because I’d really like to know. Did he say something like, ‘Give her time, soldier.’ Did he say, ‘Watch her, watch her closely, and there’ll come a day when you’ll feel free to walk away’?”

“It wasn’t like that.” Christ, didn’t she know he’d never be free? The rest of his goddamn life he’d remember her, he’d remember every moment with her, from the day he spotted her chasing after that feckless dog to those hours last night when he’d held her against his heart.

Her whole body pivoted to face him and she crossed her arms over the chest of her snowman sweats. They were thick, white cotton and so unsexy that his mind shouldn’t be drifting that way at all, but just the mere glimpse of the slender column of her neck had him thinking about how it had tasted under his tongue, how she’d slid her fingers through his hair and brought his head lower . . .

“Then what was it like?” she demanded.

Sweet, he remembered. And hot. So damn arousing. His mouth tingled and he almost felt the stiff nub of her nipple against his tongue.

“Noah?” Her voice was sharp.

He tried snapping back to the question at hand, but she was too quick for him. “Never mind,” she said, turning her back on him again. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Juliet, I’m sorry—”

“I said it doesn’t matter!” Then her voice cooled, slowed. “And I’m sorry, too. I had no right . . . not when you’ve done your job. You should feel good about that.”

He felt like shit about that comment. “It hasn’t been just a job, Juliet.”

She nodded. “I know. I get that. You’ve been a good, um, pal. Not just to me, of course. There was all that you did for Wayne, too.”

Pal
? God, this was torture. Noah closed his eyes. “I liked your husband very much.”

“He was a worthy man.”

“The best.” Better than Noah, that was sure.

She turned to face him again, so damn beautiful whether it was in snow-sweats or Shakespearean velvet or bare-naked between the sheets of his imagination.

“Juliet . . .” There was so much he wanted, and so much he wanted to say.

She plowed on. “I hope you realize how much he thought of you, too, Noah. I know he considered you a real friend.”

“Yeah?” A real friend? Christ, he couldn’t take this. And worse, she was gazing on him as if he was some sort of self-sacrificing, decent-minded Dudley Do-Right.

“Yes,” she said, a little frown digging a line between her eyebrows. “A real friend.”

“God!” He shoved his hands through his hair, then let his arms drop to his side. “
God!
” He really didn’t think he could do this anymore. He really didn’t think he could play noble Noah for one more moment.

And who could blame him? Just hours ago he was inches away from wild monkey sex with the woman and he’d ended up with ashes instead—another man’s ashes. Jesus Christ, it was enough to provoke even the Boy Scout she considered him to be.

“Noah?” She moved forward and placed one cool hand on his forearm.

He steeled himself not to react to the touch.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Did I say something wrong?”

It was him, he was all wrong. But with her hand on him, with the thousand fantasies he’d had of her flooding his head, he couldn’t hold back an instant longer. “Christ, Juliet, do you suppose he’d still consider me a ‘real friend’ if he knew the truth?”

“The truth?” she echoed.

“Yeah.” He laughed, but there wasn’t an ounce of humor in it.

“What truth? What are you trying to say?”

“I’m trying to say I doubt the general would consider me a real friend if he knew how goddamn much I’ve always wanted to make love to his wife.”

There. That should do it. Those words and her shocked reaction to them would surely give him the push he needed to walk away from her.

Except she was only staring at him, as her hand slipped off his arm. “W-What?”

He shook his head. Christ. No wonder she was confused when he was still prettying it up. “Let me be clear, Juliet. I don’t want to just kiss your cheek or hold your hand. I want to go to bed with you. I’ve always wanted to go to bed with you. Bad.”

She blinked. “You have? You do?”

“Oh, yeah. And I wouldn’t be what you’re used to, honey. I’m no officer and gentleman outside the blankets or underneath them either. I’m a guy from the streets who likes his sex sweaty and raunchy and more intimate than you can imagine.”

Still looking like twenty-four carats of class, Juliet stared up at him. Why wasn’t she throwing him from the house or at least running, screaming, from it herself?

Noah dropped the veneer he struggled so hard to maintain when he was in her presence. “I want to touch every inch of your skin . . . I want to lick it with my tongue and roll across it with my cock, and when I’m done I want to use my mouth and teeth to mark every place I’ve been like a tagger marks a street corner.”

Now she stepped back.

Well, good. Good for her. Good for him, too. He took it as his invitation to leave. Gritting his teeth, Noah turned to the door. But then something caught at the back of his ancient Army T-shirt.

Over his shoulder, he saw Juliet’s fist in the hem. He didn’t want to stay for what else she had to say. Eye on the door, he made to yank free of her hold.

His shirt gave way, and at the sound, so did his resolve. He spun, jerked her into his arms, and covered her mouth to take one last kiss before he left.

Eleven

To love is to place our happiness in the happiness of another.

—GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Except, Noah realized right away, this wasn’t a good-bye kind of kiss. Juliet had her arms around him, holding him close with the same kind of desperation that was driving him, and then when he took the kiss deeper, she did that thing that fired his blood and thickened his already-hard cock.

She sucked on his tongue.

He groaned, and when she sucked harder, he had to wrench his mouth away from hers before he did something more drastic like wrenching all the clothes from her body. His chest heaved as he stared down into her blue and green eyes, desire burning like fire in his blood and his erection pressing like heated iron against his belly.

It should be a crime to want this much and have no chance at getting the prize.

Except—no chance? Because Juliet was still clutching his shoulders and her breathing was an erratic rhythm as she gazed up at him. She looked confused, maybe even bewildered. Dazed by surprise to find herself again in his arms or . . . dizzy with desire?

She’d wanted that earlier, she’d wanted that man to be Noah, but he’d assumed the events that came after—Helen’s rejection at the restaurant and what Juliet had done at Zuma—had put that wish right out of her mind.

But now, now that the long night had passed, perhaps her need for proof had resurfaced.

Or maybe he was just kidding himself. Two-and-a-half years of fantasizing about the unattainable could fool a man.

She shivered, and hell, there was his answer. Time to go. So he moved back—but then she moved with him, her fingers digging into his muscles and her belly ghosting a kiss against his cock. Even that brief stroke sent lust punching through him like a syringe of adrenaline. Without thinking, he reacted to it by hauling her hips against his and taking her lips again.

She didn’t protest, no, not at all, because as he sank his tongue deep into her mouth, she sank against his body. Wasn’t nature amazing, he thought, his arms steeling to keep her upright. When he went pole-hard, she went pliant. When he needed in, she went open. And God, wasn’t that yin-yang opposition just so damn good.

As was that message her sweet pliancy, her sweet yielding delivered.

She trembled against him, but he knew what that signaled this time, and he petted a path up her back to tangle his fingers in her long hair. “It’s okay, baby,” he said, putting an inch of space between their lips. “I’ve got you. I’ll give you what you need.”

She buried her forehead against his chest and through his palm on her back he felt the hitch in her rapid breaths. “You know?” she asked, her voice a throaty whisper.

The husky note traveled down his chest to wrap like a hand around his dick. “Oh yeah, baby, I know. And I’m going to do you so good.”

At the bawdy words, she jerked against him, and he smiled over the top of her golden head. He’d laid it out for her before, he’d told her without a dab of sugary icing and in the crudest terms how and what he wanted, and he refused to back away from it now—because she hadn’t. Maybe part of what Juliet needed was a little slumming with Noah so it wouldn’t be anything like the sex she’d had with . . .

... in the past.

He wasn’t going to think of her with another man.

He sure as hell was going to do his best to make sure she didn’t either. Noah had this one time to make her feel alive and he wasn’t going to let anything or anyone get between them.