Chapter 18
Noah
She was here.On my doorstep, looking lost and a little disheveled. Emma Riley, the woman I’d been fantasizing about for weeks—the woman I couldn’t get out of my head. I didn’t want her out of my head. Which was crazy, because she didn’t want to be there.
I had no idea what she was doing here. But something was wrong, that much was clear. She didn’t look like she usually did—she was wearing leggings and a T-shirt, her hair down and mussed, no makeup—but it was more than that. It was her stumbling apology. The way her confidence seemed to have drained away. And it was the fact that she had come here at all, across the country from where she was supposed to be, ringing my doorbell.
She didn’t resist when I took her wrist, but she didn’t come forward, either. I slid my hand down until it held hers and I tugged her through the door. “Get in here,” I said.
“Are you mad at me?” she asked as she came inside. In the light of the front hall, I could see how tired she was, but she was still so fucking beautiful. She glanced at me, her gaze sliding down my body as if she didn’t even know she was doing it. Then she looked away again.
“My ego is bruised,” I said as I closed and locked the front door behind her. “You’re good at that.”
“I’m—”
“Sorry, I know.” I kept hold of her hand and led her down the hall, through the living room. “I’m not angry. My ego can stand a few jabs every once in a while.”
She looked around the half-dark living room as we walked. “Did I interrupt anything?”
I knew what she meant, because to me she was that transparent. “You mean, do I have a woman here?” I shook my head. “You have a lot to learn about me, sweetheart.”
“Like what?”
“Like I don’t travel across the country every day just to tie a woman up. Not even for the ones who want to talk to me afterward.”
“I’ve been going through some things.” This sounded more like the Emma I knew, as if she was slowly being revived. “Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?” she asked with a touch of her usual imperiousness as we passed the kitchen.
“No.”
“Then where are we going?”
“To bed.”
It was possible she’d balk, but I didn’t think she would. Call it a sixth sense I had where Emma was concerned.
Her hand didn’t even flinch in mine as I led her past the kitchen to the bedroom, but she said, “This isn’t a good idea.”
“It’s the best idea either of us has had in weeks.”
“Noah, I didn’t… I mean, I didn’t come here for sex.”
We were in my bedroom now. There was only a dim bedside lamp on, and my king size bed was neatly made. It was early, and I’d been about to watch TV in the living room when she’d rung the doorbell.
I let go of her hand and turned her to face me. I cupped her jaw lightly with both hands, looking down into her eyes. She was vulnerable and very turned on. She had come here for sex, but she didn’t want me to think that was the only reason. That she’d showed up just to use me.
“I have no idea why you’re here,” I said truthfully, looking down into her beautiful face. “I don’t think you do, either, even though you came all this way. But here’s how it’s going to go, Emma. First we fuck, then we talk. Got it?”
I was taking a risk. She could have kneed me in the balls for that. But she didn’t. She kissed me instead.
She leaned up and put her mouth to mine like she was starving for it. It was exactly what I wanted, exactly what I needed since I opened the door and saw her on the porch. I didn’t think she was using me. I just wanted her to want me.
I kissed her back, savoring the flavor of her, the way her mouth moved on mine. She put her hands on my stomach and pushed me backward as we kissed, and we didn’t stop moving until the backs of my legs hit the bed. Then she grabbed the hem of my shirt.
So that was how it was going to be. I broke the kiss long enough to pull the shirt off over my head, and then I pulled hers off. She was wearing a cotton bra beneath it, a simple, stretchy thing that wasn’t fancy at all, the kind of thing that was probably sensible to wear for a long plane ride. Her breasts were small and plump beneath it, her nipples hard.
I gripped her hips and turned us so I could push her onto her back on the bed. I slipped one of the cotton triangles off of one nipple and took it in my mouth.
Emma moaned and arched off the bed, her hips moving, her hands gripping into my hair. “Please,” she said, lost to it as I moved to the other nipple. “Please,” and from the tone of her voice, I knew.
She hadn’t been with anyone else since me. And no other man had made her come.
I kissed down her body, savoring the warm skin of her flat stomach as my thumbs moved over her hipbones. I tugged her leggings down, taking her panties with them. I paused just long enough to tug off her boots while she pulled the cotton bra off over her head.
And then she was gloriously naked, right there on my bed. Half an hour ago I’d been lazily wondering what to watch on TV on a night like any other, and now I had Emma Riley, naked and ready. In another minute I’d be inside her, where I’d wanted to be for weeks. This night had turned out better than I could fucking imagine.
I dropped my pajama pants. I was naked under them, and I liked the way Emma’s eyes darkened, how she looked greedy when she saw me. I got on the bed, pinning her and kissing her as she let her hands roam wherever she wanted them. I broke the kiss long enough to open my bedside drawer and rifle for a condom.
“We don’t need to,” she said softly, which was a surprise. I’d never had sex without a condom in my life.
“We’ll talk about it later,” I said, and in the meantime I rolled onto one hip and put the condom on.
Emma ran a hand up my arm as I worked, and as I finished she tugged on my bicep. “Hurry up.”
When a woman flies across the country for you, the smart man will simply give her what she wants.
And there’s one thing I can say for myself: I’ve always been a smart man.