“Christ, woman.”
At his tortured tone, she laughed. Laughed. She couldn’t believe she’d managed to find anything funny about this night, hell, about her life, but he’d made her laugh.
But then he wrapped his fist in her hair and gently tugged her head back to meet his gaze. His eyes weren’t laughing, but oh, so serious, and her smile slowly faded.
He just looked at her, a look that brought a whole new meaning to anticipation, and she shivered, a bone-deep quiver that had him letting out a low sound filled with regret, concern.
And arousal.
It brought her own to the surface, and then suddenly he was even closer, running his nose along her jaw, pressing his cheek to hers, and then finally, finally, kissing her.
There was nothing, nothing in the entire world, like kissing Noah Fisher. His mouth touched hers at the corner, and then his tongue, and she opened for him, opened and dove in, and lost herself. The night had been so monumentally bad, a nightmare. The only thing holding her together was him: his heat, his strength, his unbelievable wit and ease in any situation.
Only when air was necessary did they break to breathe, and again he lifted her face to his, gaze serious. “Back to that whole stripping thing.” He stroked a finger ever so lightly over her jaw, then down her throat, her shoulder…nudging her sweater off as he went.
Oh, God. She’d never toggled back and forth between fear and arousal before, but she’d been doing just that since she’d stepped onto his plane, watching him pilot without knowing he had an audience.
He was looking into her eyes, and whatever went through his mind, his jaw went tight, and he moved into the bathroom and cranked on the hot water in the shower.
“Kick off your boots,” he said, coming back to her.
“Um-”
His eyes held…things, lots of things, and that was when she realized. She wasn’t so much in danger from the bad guys at the moment, but from within her own self.
Serious danger.
“Bailey-”
Just then, from inside her pocket, her cell phone vibrated and chirped, signaling she had an incoming text message.
Noah watched Bailey debate with herself on whether to look at the message in front of him or not, but she finally reached into her pocket and opened the phone.
WHERE R U?
“Where is he?” Noah countered, reading over her shoulder.
“Hidden.” She looked away, and chewed on her lower lip in a gesture of nerves. “Hopefully.”
“What does that mean?”
She said nothing, and he sighed. “Bailey.”
“After-” Her mouth tightened. “I told him to stay away. But now I’m afraid he’ll get so worried about me he’ll come back.”
“Why didn’t you go with him?”
“He’s fine moving around doing carpentry, which suits him. But my life is in California, Noah. I teach here…” She shook her head. “I really thought I could handle this.”
She had courage and guts, and he didn’t like the way that softened him even further toward her. “Don’t,” he said when she hit reply. “Don’t text him back.”
“What? I have to.”
“Fine. But don’t tell him where you are.”
“Why?”
He just looked at her.
Still shivering, she looked shell-shocked, frozen to the spot. “Are you kidding me? You actually think he-”
“I don’t know what I think. Keep your location quiet.” Hating the fear on her face, he had to temper down on his bottle of emotions, of which frustration and impatience were leading the way. “If he’s really gone, then it doesn’t matter. Right?”
She hadn’t moved other than to keep shivering. Her eyes were dilated, and she looked near shock. Steam drifted in from the opened bathroom. She nearly dropped her phone, she was shaking so hard. He had to get her into the hot water.
To that end, he took the cell phone out of her hands and set it aside. Clothes next, he thought.
“C-cold,” she said.
“I know.” He shouldn’t care. She’d hijacked him, had really thrown a wrench in his whole ski-and-screw-his-brains-out weekend, but she’d been desperate and terrified, and he’d been helpless against those things. Still having no idea exactly what she’d been through, but more determined than ever to find out, he dipped down a little to look directly into her eyes.
She tried to look away, but he simply cupped her jaw. “I’m going to help you,” he said, and ran his hands down her arms. “Starting with a hot shower.”
“I don’t need help.”
“Could have fooled me.”
A sound of extreme exasperation left her lips, which he figured was a good sign. If he could piss her off, she wasn’t dying of hypothermia.
“Okay, up until this point I needed your help,” she conceded. “But I’m fine now.”
“Okay.” Leaning back, he crossed his arms. “Go ahead, get yourself warm, then.”
She glanced through the open door at the shower, at the steaming air rising from it, and walked into the bathroom. She lifted her fingers to her sweater as she looked pointedly at the door, which he ignored. “I’ll be fine,” she said, her fingers trembling so that she could hardly grip the buttons on her sweater. “Just fine.”
“Uh huh.” He followed her. Brushing her fingers aside, he went for the buttons, but there were a million of them, and they were tiny and slippery. He got two undone, just enough for his fingers to brush creamy, soft skin beneath. A muscle in his jaw began ticking. “Do these buttons even function?”
“They did this morning.”
He sighed. “Your lips are blue.” So was her skin, blue and mottled.
“We’re not…doing anything.”
Other than getting naked. That would probably be enough for him, after six months. “I know.”
“Good. Because it’s been so long, I’ve forgotten how.”
He stared at her, his brain whirling from the quick subject change, not to mention the subject itself. “How long?”
“Really long.”
“Really long,” he repeated, a little dumbfounded, still holding on to her sweater. He could feel her smooth skin beneath his fingers. Just from that, he got hard.
“He lost interest,” she whispered.
Jesus, how was that even possible? “Don’t take this the wrong way, Bailey, but Alan was a complete idiot.”
She lifted a shoulder, and he vowed right then and there to somehow make sure she knew that there was nothing wrong with her, to prove exactly how desirable she was, but right now, he had another mission.
Get her warm. Make her feel safe. Without letting her think on it too long, he tightened his fingers over the hem of the fuzzy soft material that had been clinging to her breasts for the past hour-not that he’d noticed.
Shit, he was such a liar. He’d so noticed.
He’d noticed and had found himself nearly poleaxed by the way her nipples, two tight peaks, pressed against the thin, wet, soft material.
Alan had lost interest? Noah would have to lose his head. Both of them. The hot, brain-cell-melting kisses they’d shared hadn’t helped. No, those hadn’t done anything but make him want more.
Then her eyes met his, wide and half wild, and he tempered down on himself and his ridiculous thoughts. This was about getting her warm.
Not about the fact that he was hard from just looking at her.
Nope, his needs had no place here, no place at all. Repeating that like a mantra inside his head, he lifted up on her sweater, forcing her arms up over her head.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
She said nothing to that, which sent a foreboding down his spine. If someone had laid his hands on her…well, he didn’t want to think about it. He’d spent his entire life hating violence, and yet it was pouring through his veins now.
“I just don’t want to be dead,” she whispered. “I want to stay alive.”
He stared into her eyes, seeing all sorts of things there, things that somehow soothed the beast roaring within him, things that made him incredibly aware of his fingers resting on her sides, spread wide so as to touch as much of her as he possibly could. “Alive is excellent.” His thumbs were just beneath her breasts. If he moved them, he’d be able to feel those curves, take the weight of them in his palms and-