Chapter 21
Noah
In the morning,I made us breakfast. It seemed like the right thing to do, and besides, I was hungry and Emma probably was, too. We hadn’t talked yet, because I’d gotten up while she was still sleeping and gone out to the back deck to have my first coffee. Now I was in the kitchen, and I’d heard the shower turn off and the thump of Emma’s suitcase opening as she got out some clothes to wear.
Her routine must have been an efficient one, because it didn’t take her very long to come out into the kitchen. Still, she looked amazing, like the boss CEO she was for most of every day. She wore a dark blue pencil skirt with a sleeveless cream blouse that set off her incredible skin. She had tied her dark red hair up off her neck in a twist that looked elaborate but practiced and had probably taken her seconds to do. Her makeup was understated but hot. Her expression was carefully blank, and went even more blank when she saw me laying food out on the breakfast bar.
“Morning,” I said.
She just stood there, silent. So she was going to shut me out, then.
Oh, hell no, baby. Nice try.
“It’s breakfast,” I said, motioning to the food. I’d put out a cup of coffee, some fruit, granola, yogurt, whole wheat toast. “You eat breakfast, right?”
Emma blinked and looked away, and I knew in that moment she was trying not to be the woman who had come to my door last night, then gotten naked in my bed, begging me to fuck her and falling apart over and over. “I can pick up something on the way to work.”
“Or you can eat something now and be on time for your first day.” I picked up my own coffee cup. “I’m guessing you don’t want to be late.”
She glanced back at me, and her gaze took me in, probably without her realizing it. I was wearing my most worn jeans and an old button-down of light blue that I’d only buttoned most of the way. I’d showered, but next to her I looked like a beach bum, and I knew it. Still, her eyes lingered before she pulled them off me.
The moment lingered. Honestly, I’d been inside this woman bare, and she thought she could do this to me. She’d obviously, until now, been dealing with idiot boys instead of actual men. “Emma, it’s a few things I grabbed from the fridge. I hardly cooked you eggs Benedict. Just sit down and eat it.”
Her gaze flashed, annoyance mixed with appreciation. Then she pulled up a chair to the breakfast bar and sat.
She was hungry, like I’d known she would be. She devoured the coffee, the yogurt, and the granola, then asked for peanut butter for the toast. It was kind of endearing. I got the peanut butter from the cupboard and passed it to her, along with a knife.
She wrinkled her nose at the label. “Organic?”
“You’re in California now.”
“That is fucking gross,” she said, a little of the old Emma coming through. Then she ate the peanut butter.
“I want you to tell me something,” I said.
“Only if I feel like it.”
And damn, I liked this woman. I liked her a lot.
I took out the coffee pot and refilled both of our cups. “I want you to tell me why we don’t need to use condoms.”
She swallowed, pulled her cup toward her. But this was Emma the CEO, Emma the fighter, who had been fighting since she’d been left on a doorstep as a baby. “Because I’m a cliché,” she said.
“A cliché?”
“Yes. I’m the career-obsessed woman who can’t have an orgasm and can’t have a baby. It’s biologically impossible. I think I’ve appeared in several Hallmark movies, where my problems are fixed by going home to my small hometown and meeting the guy I went to high school with, who now is a single dad who owns a hardware store.”
There was a lot to unpack in that—her hurt and her wicked sense of humor—and I spent a second processing which part I wanted to understand first. “Biologically impossible?”
“Yes.” She pulled the bowl of fruit toward her and picked up her spoon. “I had my fallopian tubes removed five years ago. If you’re really interested, I can talk to you in detail about ovarian cysts, infected endometrial tissue, and bleeding so heavy I ended up in the hospital. I can go on and on, if you want.”
She had more defenses than a medieval fortress right now, and I didn’t blame her. Still, after what we’d done last night, this was partly my business, at least for now. Also, she was trying to gross me out, and it wasn’t working. This woman was going to be a lot of work. “That sounds painful,” I said.
That seemed to surprise her, and she paused for a second. “It was.” She cleared her throat. “It was very painful. I never told anyone what happened, so please don’t repeat it.”
I felt my eyebrows go up. “You didn’t even tell your sister?”
She shrugged, scooped a few raspberries and blueberries into her mouth. “No.”
“Well.” I scratched the back of my neck, because we needed to see this conversation through. “I realize it’s a bit late to tell you this, but I get checked with every physical, and I’m clean.”
“So am I.”
“And you can have orgasms,” I added, because I couldn’t help it. “But only with me.”
She looked at my grin. “Fine,” she grudgingly admitted. “I have them with you. But your magical sperm isn’t going to impregnate me, Noah.”
That made me laugh. “You’re hell on a man’s ego, you know that? I’ll have you know my sperm is very magical.”
“Sure it is.” She pushed the bowl with the last of the fruit away. “Thank you for breakfast, though from now on I can get my own. And I haven’t thanked you yet for letting me stay here. I appreciate it.”
I leaned a hip against the counter and watched her until she got uncomfortable.
“What?” she said.
“We need to lay down some rules,” I said. “The first is that you don’t give me a line of bullshit like that again.”
Her eyes flashed. “Excuse me?”
I gestured around me. “This is my house,” I said. “I earned every penny I paid for it. I bought every piece of furniture. It’s where I come to be alone in a world that is mostly shitty. It’s mine.” I crossed my arms. “I never invite people here out of pity, or because I’m trying to be nice. Fucking never. I invited you to visit, to stay, because I want you here. I made breakfast because I wanted to. If I want to do it again tomorrow, I’ll do it. If I don’t, I won’t. That’s how it goes.”
“Fine,” Emma snapped. “But if you want to make rules, then I get to make them, too. I’m here to work, so I won’t have time to pay attention to you all the time. I want room in your closet. And don’t mistake what we’re doing here for dating. We’re not dating. We’re...”
“Fucking,” I supplied for her. “I know.”
Emma hesitated for a second, as if there was something else she wanted to say. Then she picked up her purse and walked out without another word.
The air crackled with energy, even after she left.
“Well,” I said to the empty room, my arms still crossed as I leaned against the counter. “I think that went well.”