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.
And suddenly he didn’t care about any of that. He wanted her. He’d just had her, and he wanted her again.
“Gotta go,” he said to Shayne.
“Noah-Goddamnit.”
Noah shut the phone, watching Bailey as she managed to not meet his eyes. “Your next move.”
“Excuse me?”
“What is it?”
She looked away, and that was the topper on the Not Trusting Cake, so he bent down into her face and showed her his. “Look, Alan was an asshole. Your father? Asshole. I wish they were both still alive so I could pay each a visit and tell them personally. But-” But she wasn’t listening, so he put his hands on her arms. Not a good idea because then he automatically pulled her in, tucking her up against him. “But not all men are assholes.”
Wide-eyed, on her tiptoes because he was holding her there, she blinked once, slow as an owl. “I know that.”
“Do you? Do you really? Because it sure as hell feels like you’ve lumped me into that whole men-are-all-untrustworthy-dickwads, and while I’ve definitely got my faults, I’m not going to play with your head, leave you stranded, or put your life on the line for my own stupid mistakes.”
Given that he was saying he wasn’t an asshole with his mouth and yet manhandling her all the same with his body, she did the last thing he expected. She put her hands on his shoulders. Slid them up to cup his face. “I know,” she said softly.
Undone, he let her feet hit the floor but didn’t take his hands off her. Setting his forehead to hers, he found himself taking in a gulp of air, of her. “Then let me help you.”
She stared at him for a long, long moment, during which time he held his breath.
“I’m going to charter another flight,” she said.
“On your own.”
Surprising him again, she didn’t break eye contact. “It’s for the best.”
Hell no, it wasn’t. On her own, she’d run into those guys again, and he doubted a warning would be all she suffered this time. “You can’t walk back to the airport.”
“I’ll call a cab,” she said quietly, looking unsure of her welcome.
His fault. “Sure, you could do that. And risk being found through that trail.”
She looked dejected, and scared again, and damn if his heart didn’t squeeze. “Just tell me where you’re headed, damn it.”
Her eyes went stubborn. “I can take it from the airport.”
“Like you took it the other night at your place when they came to warn you?”
She paled, and he felt like the biggest jerk on the planet. “Fine,” he said. “Let’s do this one step at a time. You need a ride to the airport. Let me take you that far at least.”
They got into the car in the garage, with Bailey picking at the bagel Noah had insisted she eat. He knew when he pulled into Sky High, she’d probably run out of the Jeep before they could even say good-bye, and it was making him very uptight. Hating that, he leaned in and looked into her eyes. “When we get there,” he said. “I’ll-”
“No.”
“No?”
“I am going to make this easy,” she said, shaking her head. “You need to let me.”
Her hair was in his face, again, and he tried not to notice that he loved the way it felt clinging to his day-old beard. “Easy went out the window yesterday. Tell me where you’re running off to, Bailey.”
She looked out the Jeep window, even though her view consisted of bare garage walls.
Turning her to him, he gave her a little shake. “After all we went through yesterday, and then last night, you still can’t tell me? Are you kidding me?”
She squeezed her eyes shut, and her voice wobbled when she spoke. “I’m trying to protect you, Noah.”
No one had ever said such a ridiculous or touching thing to him before, and right then and there he fell a little bit in love.
But just a little bit.
Certainly it was reversible, or at least survivable.
Or so he told himself.
“That’s stupid,” he said. Granted, it was an unfortunate word choice, but he couldn’t help it; he was getting mad.
Her eyes flashed, too, and she shoved free of him. “If something happens to you, I couldn’t bear it, okay?” she cried. “And if that’s stupid, then I’m sorry, but-”
“It won’t. Nothing will happen to me.”
“You can’t make that promise.”
He realized she’d been through too much for her to trust that far. She simply couldn’t do it, he hadn’t earned it yet. “You’ll see,” he said very quietly.
“Noah…” She looked baffled. “Why would you do this for me?”
Why? Because he couldn’t not. Because she was something to him. Everything. To show her, he pulled her over the console and into his lap. She opened her mouth, probably to come up with more reasons not to trust him, so he put his mouth over hers.
She went still with shock, but he didn’t care. He just wrapped her in his arms and nibbled at her, first one corner of her mouth, then the other, until with a soft whimper, she let him in. With another soft sound, her hands glided up his chest and snaked around his neck.