Pulled him close.
“Bailey,” he murmured, groaning when she bought into the kiss, lining up their lips, hers parted, warm and welcoming. He’d have staggered if he hadn’t been sitting down. “This,” he told her roughly, kissing her jaw, her neck. “Because of this.”
She sank her fingers in his hair-he loved it when she did that-and pulled back a fraction, to see his face. “Because of…sex? With me?”
It’d been more than sex, far more, and he looked at her until she closed her eyes. “Okay, yes,” she whispered. “Because of this.”
“And more, damn it.”
To prove it, he kissed her again, slid his tongue against hers and tasted her, filled himself up with her, which he, realized, was all he wanted. Needed.
It shouldn’t bother him that after all this time, all his life really, he’d kept his heart intact, and that she’d not only cracked it open, but had also taken it in the palm of her hand.
But it did bother him, big-time.
“Noah,” she whispered in a voice designed to make him instantly hard, except that he already was.
He had his tongue in her mouth, a hand tangled in her hair, his other gliding down her back, then lower, until he cupped the sweetest ass he’d ever had the pleasure of squeezing. “Tell me where you’re going.”
Panting a little, she wriggled around to fully straddle him, which good Christ, had the hottest part of her gliding over the neediest part of him.
“Catalina,” she whispered, and pressed her face into his neck. “There’s another nearly finished resort on the island, and I…”
“Need to find ‘something.’” Yeah. He knew that part. “I’m flying you.”
“You don’t have to-”
He shut her up with his mouth, until they had to break apart for air.
“Promise me you won’t do anything stupid,” she said.
Do something stupid? The only stupid thing he was in danger of doing was drowning in her eyes.
Oh, and falling for her.
Details.
“See,” she whispered, cupping his face. “If something happens to you, I won’t be able to live with it.”
Because things happened to the people in her life.
He knew that now and understood her fear. “Nothing stupid,” he promised, mentally crossing his fingers. Because he’d already done something stupid. And was in the middle of something else even more colossally stupid. That being sliding his hands beneath her sweater and up her back, then down, and into the back of her jeans as far as he could get, which admittedly wasn’t far enough.
She wriggled a little bit more, giving him better access so that his fingers encountered something silky, something that, oh God, felt like an itty, bitty, tiny thong.
God bless the thong.
“Nothing’s going to happen to me,” he whispered roughly. “To either of us. Except…”
“Except?” She sounded as if she’d been running uphill for miles.
“Except this-” And he slipped a finger over the silk barely covering her.
“Ohmigod.” Her hands fisted in his hair, her arms tightened around his head, placing his mouth at, ah yes, right at her breast. With his nose, he nudged the neckline of her sweater aside and gently closed his teeth over her silk-clad nipple at the same time.
Because of the grip she had on his head, he couldn’t see anything but her beautiful nipple, and he flicked at it with his tongue as he fumbled with his left hand for the seat lever. When he hit it, his seatback flew backward, and so did he, flat to his back.
She fell over him.
Perfect.
Nudging her up his body, he unzipped her sweater, opening it so that he was able to glide his mouth past her breasts, her ribs, to her belly, and then he pulled on her jeans, working them down to her thighs so he could kiss even lower…kiss every inch of skin that passed him…and then lower, oh yeah, lower. Scraping her panties aside, he stroked her with his tongue.
“Noah-”
Reluctantly he lifted his head, but he could still taste her, which worked for him. His gaze ran up her glorious body to her face. Her eyes were still the bluest on the entire planet, glazed with desire.
For him.
That shot a surge of pure lust straight through him. Her hair was adorably rioted as usual, all around her face, and she licked her lips in a nervous gesture. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. But I don’t think…”
“Perfect,” he said, holding her above him with his hands on her hips. “Go with that.” When he used his tongue again, she gasped. When he sucked, she cried out and arched right into his mouth.
Nice. He was going to make her forget, for just a few minutes if nothing else, the horror she’d been through, what she was still going to have to go through.
“We’ve got to go,” she managed, her hips rocking restlessly.
“Not go. Come.” He unbuttoned his Levi’s, and with her help managed to liberate the essentials. She bashed her knee on the console, and he hit his elbow on the window, but finally, oh, God, finally, he pushed up into her and proceeded to make them both forget everything but this.
Chapter 15
Bailey had never been a particularly good flyer. Being in the air always made her nervous, but when she’d been with Alan in the back of a private jet, she’d been able to draw the shades and somehow pretend she wasn’t really thirty thousand feet above sea level.
There were no shades in the copilot’s seat.
Noah glanced at her. His eyes were covered in his aviator sunglasses, but the amusement was clear in the quirk of his mouth. “A lot more relaxing when you’re not hijacking someone, huh?”
Regret slashed through her. “Noah, I-”
“Hey.” Reaching over, he put a hand on her thigh. “That was a joke. Not funny, huh?”
“It’s just that I’ll never be able to tell you how sorry I am.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry. Let’s just get this done.”
She’d let him talk her into flying with him, and was torn between terror and relief that he’d be at her side in Catalina.
He got on the radio and called ahead to the airport there, asking if any other private aircraft had flown onto the island that morning.
They hadn’t.
He also checked in with the two local island charter services. They’d had two flights since dawn, one filled with a group of businessmen for a conference, the other with tourists. There were no cars on the island for visitors, only rental golf carts, and no one could say if anyone had gone exploring near Alan’s resort in one. But no one remembered four goons in black.
He called air traffic control next, because even though he was flying them directly to the private strip at the resort, he wanted to check on cloud coverage, or any other inclement weather.
Everything was clear.
Noah looked at her. “After this is over, you’ll be able to go on with your life.”
She’d been scared so long that being safe seemed completely out of the realm of believability, so much that she couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Going on with her life…What would that entail? Teaching? Yes.
Noah?
Terrifying how much she’d like that. But would he? How could he after what she’d put him through? And yet the way he looked at her said otherwise. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on her part.
But surely he couldn’t look at her like he did and intend to walk away…
Reaching for her hand, he pressed his lips against her palm, giving her stomach a little flutter.
And south of her stomach? More interesting reactions.
It still shocked her how with just a touch from him, she let go of all inhibitions. Last night had been so far out of her league that little tremors of sexual zings still coursed through her.
And then this morning in the Jeep…well. Just thinking about that had her squirming some more. No doubt, he could just look at her, and her body reacted. Proving it, he glanced over at her, and as if he could read her thoughts, cocked a brow, his eyes heating just a little.