Jill Shalvis - Smart And Sexy

He lowered his weight to his forearms, his fingers gliding into her hair, his face close to hers. He kissed her jaw, her ear, her mouth. “It’s been over six months for me,” he said softly. “And I’m safe, too.”

A long time for a man who probably had women throwing themselves at him, but she set that thought aside because her brain simply didn’t have room for it, not with him filling her so completely that she had to feel him move again.

Had to.

She glanced toward the lamp, but he shook his head. “On.”

“But off would be so much better.”

He didn’t say anything to that, instead began a set of hot, wet, open-mouthed kisses along her neck to just beneath her ear. She’d never thought of herself as a particularly sensual creature. Sex was very nice when done right, but it wasn’t always done right, and truthfully? In most cases, she’d found better release from a battery operated toy than a man.

But not tonight.

Tonight she had Noah, who knew his way around her body better than she did. How else to explain why just a kiss made her ache for more, or why her body felt fluid in his arms, or how mind-blowing it was to have him move within her, in a perfect rhythm that she never wanted to end?

He would never hurt her. He would never disappoint her. How she knew these things about him, she had no idea, but she did.

She knew them as certainly as she knew he’d give her his last breath.

He slid his hands down to the backs of her bare thighs, spreading them wider, allowing for a deeper penetration, which wrenched a groan from him and a matching one from her. No one had ever been so deep inside her before; no one had ever made her thoughts dissolve into mindless sensation and need, such desperate, clawing need.

He whispered her name and the sound alone had her body going taut again, her breath coming in pants as she heated, slickened.

Still on his forearms, his hands in her hair, his eyes locked on hers, he let her see everything he felt as he slid in and out of her, in and out in that mindless rhythm that brought her right back to the very edge.

And then he dipped his head and took her breast into his mouth, and she fell right off that edge back into the abyss, and this time, he followed her over, rocking into her, pumping hard and deep, her name on his lips, his body rigid as his release poured out of him, and somehow she knew…that dependence she’d been reduced to…he’d felt the same.

It united them, and if her heart hadn’t caught before, it was snagged hard now as she drifted back to earth locked tight in his arms.

“Jesus,” he breathed when he finally relaxed and rolled to his side, taking her with him.

She had her face pressed against his chest. She could feel the erratic beat of his heart, and a little dazed, she shook her head. “That was…”

“Defies words, doesn’t it?”

Defied logic, too. Or maybe in her mixed-up world, this at least, out of everything, made sense.

“Know what I think?”

She didn’t know, but hoped it was that they should do this again.

He pulled her over the top of him, his hands running up the backs of her legs, urging them to straddle him as his mouth cruised down her collarbone.

“That’s what I was thinking,” she gasped.

He let out a soft laugh. “I should be thanking my lucky stars I happened to be on the tarmac yesterday.”

“I was waiting for you,” she murmured, eyes closed, body already humming, or still humming-

He’d gone still, so utterly still. Why? When she opened her eyes, she found his locked on her.

“What did you say?”

Oh, God, what had she said? The sensual haze began to dissipate. “Um-”

“You said you were waiting for me.”

“Yes.”

“But before, you said you didn’t know it would be me.”

“Right, but-”

He rolled her off of him, then slid off the bed. “But you did know, didn’t you?”

And here was a prime example of why sex shouldn’t be mixed in with deep conversation. She didn’t have enough blood in her body to work her brain and her other parts at the same time.

“You waited for me,” he said slowly. “That’s why you kept canceling those other flights. I didn’t show up. And you picked me because…because Brody or Shayne would have turned you in.”

“Yes. No. Damn it,” she said when those green eyes froze to ice. “Noah, I picked you because-”

“No. Don’t say it. Don’t come up with yet another lie, or omission, or whatever the hell you do.” Unself-consciously naked, and looking like a Greek god while he was at it, he grabbed his jeans. “Time to roll, Princess. If you want a shower, now’s your chance.”

“Noah-”

“Hurry up. It’s dawn.”

Stomach jangling, she looked out the window and saw the purple and pink streaks across the sky. She couldn’t believe it, but she’d survived the night.

All thanks to the six feet of sexy masculinity standing next to the bed, staring down at her, still and tense and gorgeous.

“Where to next?” he asked.

“Noah-”

He shook his head. “Forget it. No doubt it’ll just be some Bailey mixture of the truth anyway.” He tossed her clothes at her. “Let’s get a move on.”

She hugged her clothes close, aware of the irony that she’d been so terrified of their close intimacy, and yet now she feared its loss. “I won’t go back. I can’t-”

He whipped back, eyes furious. “You think I’d take you back and turn you in now? Knowing you’d face-flattering, Bailey.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “Look, I’m not taking you back. I’m taking you on your mysterious scavenger hunt.”

Relief rushed through her so fast she felt faint as he went to the bedroom door and yanked it open.

Relief, and a regret so big and strong and overwhelming it nearly choked her. She stared at his back, her vision blurred by the tears she refused to shed. “I can’t believe you’re still going to help me.”

He shoved his fingers through his hair, holding it off his face, making quite the picture as he did, arms raised, body hard and practically shimmering with tension. “Yeah, I’m going to help you. And I know exactly how big of an idiot that makes me, so you’d better hurry the hell up before I change my mind.”

She wanted him to look at her all soft and sweet again. She wanted him to hold her, stroke away her fears.

Touch her. Kiss her…

But to get those things again, she had to trust him, really trust him, and tell him everything.

She knew this. Do it, she told herself. Try him. “Noah-”

“Don’t.” He shook his head. “Don’t look at me like that, with your heart in your eyes. Too late. Just get ready so I can help you, and then get you the hell out of my life.”

And with that, he walked out of the room.

Noah entered the spare bathroom and cranked on the shower. Dawn had sneaked up on him, and with it came a whole host of things he’d rather not think about with his heart still beating like a drum and sweat cooling his body, which even now was half ready to go again.

In fact, with just one encouraging word from Bailey, he’d-

Hell. He’d have done whatever she wanted, and more.

Sap. Sucker.

Idiot.

But she hadn’t given him any encouraging words at all. She’d sat up, and he’d known without even looking at her that she was thinking so hard her head hurt, because the tension radiating off her had filled the room.

He’d never met a woman who could think so damn hard.

He stepped into the shower and scalded himself, and when he was done, he went downstairs to the kitchen and straight for the chocolate glazed donuts.

On his first bite, his cell phone began vibrating. He heard the master bedroom shower go on, and he thought of Bailey, naked beneath the streaming water, and his entire body tensed because apparently, his dick hadn’t gotten the memo that Bailey was bad for him.

Extremely bad.

He opened his cell. “What?”

“Why aren’t you sleeping?”

Shayne.

Noah rubbed his temples. “How do you know I’m not?”

“Because you wouldn’t have answered. You having wild monkey sex with a snow bunny yet?”

He glanced upward at the ceiling and once again pictured Bailey. Wild monkey sex? How about the best sex of his life? “Uh…”

“You did not catch a bunny that fast.”

Noah had to let out a short laugh. “You would have.”

“Yes, but I haven’t gone six months without so much as looking at a woman either.”

Noah didn’t know what to say to that.

“Listen, Noah.” Shayne paused. “I know.”

“Yeah? You know what?”

“That you have Bailey Sinclair with you.”

“Jesus, Brody is such a woman. Tell him that for me, would you?”

Shayne didn’t bite. “You still have her, right?”

The shower turned off. She was probably reaching for a towel to rub all over her body, a body that he could be rubbing all over himself right this minute if he hadn’t been such an idiot.

“She’s trouble, Noah. As in she’s in it up to her eyeballs. And if she’s hanging with the same crowd her husband was, she’s no good for you.”

“Yeah, listen, I’ve got to go.”

“She stowed away on you for crissakes.”

“She had…reasons.” What the hell was he doing, defending her? But he couldn’t seem to get around the fact that she hadn’t been in cahoots with those men; she’d been on the run from them. He believed in her. He just didn’t know why.

“I don’t know what kind of sob story she gave you,” Shayne said. “But we should be calling the authorities. We should-”

“I can handle this.”

Shayne was quiet a moment. “I fueled up the Moody. I’m coming up there.”

“I can handle this.”

Bailey walked into the kitchen then, looking like a million bucks, though how she’d done it in so short of a time was a marvel. She’d obviously gone through her duffle bag and created another heart-stopping look for today: a pair of black jeans and a soft, white fuzzy sweater, this one with a zipper running down her torso, everything hugging her curves well enough to make his mouth go a little dry. Her hair was relatively tamed, which meant it flew around her face in alluring waves. She’d put some glossy stuff on her lips that made them difficult to tear his eyes from, but he managed, and then found his gaze snagged on hers, which was filled with all the little mysteries that made up Bailey Sinclair.