Chapter 24 #2
But if anyone figured it out—if they ever put together the terms of Lollie’s estate and Noah’s quest to snap up all the land on this side of the cove—it would be bad for us. Really bad.
The school wouldn’t want a half-witted con artist teaching impressionable children.
The town wouldn’t want to buy milk and apples and raspberry jam from the farmer who defrauded an estate to grab some bargain-priced land.
People around here had memories that stretched back generations.
They wouldn’t soon forget this and they wouldn’t rush to forgive Noah either.
Not to mention Gennie. God, things were hard enough on her as it was.
She didn’t need us piling on and making it worse with our antics.
I had to move in here. I had to leave my cocoon and my underwear wine behind. Unless I wanted to abandon everything—my teaching assignment, Lollie’s farm, Noah and Gennie and everything we had going—I had to do this. I had to keep playing this game.
When I met Noah’s gaze from across the room, his brows pinched and furrowed, it was clear he knew it too and he hated it as much as I did.
“I’m going to talk to my toys until the pancakes are ready,” Gennie announced. “I think you guys need some alone time.”
Once she was gone, Noah let out a long breath. His hands fell open on the tabletop. “I had no idea that she”—he pressed his palms to his eyes—“that she picked up on all that. When did she start reading everything on my screen? Hell, when did she start reading?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I shook my head, hoping to locate some levity in the midst of the wreckage I’d brought to everyone’s lives. “Where would I find the”—I swirled my hands in front of me—“the thing to cook a pancake on? The flat surface thing.”
Noah pushed to his feet, a scowl carving grooves around his mouth and eyes as he approached. He took stock of the aggressively beaten eggs and the other ingredients I’d lined up like brave soldiers. “This isn’t how you make pancakes.”
“It’s not?” I tipped my head up to meet his gaze. “I don’t actually have a lot of experience with pancakes. It just sounded like a good project for the moment.”
He dropped his hands to my waist and backed me into the corner of the cabinets.
The one from last night. The one with the biting.
And…everything. With one swift movement, he picked me up, plopped my ass on the countertop, and pushed my legs wide-open.
“Can we just go back to bed and pretend none of this ever happened?”
That sounded like a brilliant idea. Really and truly brilliant. But— “We can’t do that again, Noah. We can’t make this any more complicated.”
He nuzzled into my neck and slipped a hand into my shirt. I mean, it was his shirt. Not that any of it mattered when his thumb stroked over my nipple, steady and firm and reminding me of all the things we should’ve been doing this morning.
“It’s always been complicated, wife.”
I ran my hands up his back, over his shoulders. “I’m not going to say last night was a mistake—”
“Thank god.”
“—but I don’t want to do that again.”
He leaned back, shot me a growly frown. “Why not? It wasn’t good for you?”
“It was amazing for me.” I couldn’t downplay it even if I wanted to. I was still recovering from the unbelievable high of all those orgasms. “ Everything was amazing.”
He settled between my legs, pressing tight to my center. I groaned at the feel of him, heavy and luscious against my most sensitive spots. “Tell me again about these complications.”
“We don’t want to make things more difficult,” I ground out. “We can’t sleep together anymore.”
He brought his hands to my backside, shifting me to the edge of the countertop and then steering my body to slide right up against his in the most devastating ways. My inner muscles clenched hard, hard enough for a painful throb to radiate out from my core and leave all of me aching.
He scraped his teeth along the base of my neck. “Good luck with that plan.”
“Maybe one more time,” I said, my voice whiny and far away. “But just that one time.”
“If that’s what you want to tell yourself, go right ahead.”
“But…Gennie,” I said. “She thinks we’re married .”
“And I’ll schedule some extra sessions with her therapist to talk it out,” he replied, still occupied with my ass. “She’ll be okay.”
“You’re sure about that? Because it wasn’t long ago that you were telling me how Gennie had to stay far, far away from this mess of ours.”
He growled against my neck, and for a minute it seemed like he wasn’t going to respond. Eventually, he said, “Yeah. It would’ve been better that way. Better for her . But this is where we are now. Gennie and everyone else knows, and we can’t change a damn thing about it.”
“But what happens when this ends?”
The soft, fluffy cloud of sex hormones we’d been floating on for the past twelvish hours disintegrated with those words. Noah shifted his hands to the countertop, flat on either side of my backside, and leaned back so that only my knees pressed to his hips. “I’ll handle it.”
Again, I said, “But…Gennie. How are we going to protect her from that?”
He folded his arms over his chest. “I don’t know.
” He nodded and dropped his gaze to my shirt.
I knew he was staring at my nipples. Anyone within twenty feet would be staring at my nipples because they were tight, tender bullets that were testing the limits of this shirt.
“Do you want Lollie’s farm or not? That’s the question you need to answer, Shay.
I can protect Gennie. I’ll figure it out.
Just don’t make her any promises you don’t intend to keep. ”
“I wouldn’t.”
We stared at each other for a long moment, the shadows of last night climbing up around us, pressing into every notch and groove between his body and mine.
Everything was different. We were different.
But here, it didn’t feel different. It felt like we were on opposite sides of the bargaining table, every one of our unwinnable battles lined up, waiting for someone to make a concession.
“If you want Lollie’s farm,” he started, his words clipped, “we have to go down to Thomas House, get your things, and move you in here today.” He lifted a hand, let it fall back against the arm banded over his chest. “I have an engineering crew scheduled to visit Twin Tulip this week and survey the site. Tell me now if you want me to call them off.”
“I don’t want you to call them off.” I shoved my fingers into my hair. God, I needed a shower. I needed to sit in the shower and think for five or six hours. “But I don’t want Gennie’s world turning upside down. Or yours, for that matter.”
“Of all the changes Gennie and I have experienced in the past year, this will be the least dramatic. It will turn your world upside down far more than it will ours.”
With a petulant sigh, I said, “I can’t just move in.”
He eyed me, his brow arched up and those forearms just begging me to run my fingertips over the cords of muscle. I ignored that begging. “Yes, you can.”
“And—and what will I do here?” I sputtered. “We can’t play house, Noah. That’s crazy and we already have enough crazy.”
With a slow, indulgent blink, he said, “You’ll do whatever you want, Shay. Come and go as you please. There’s a spare room upstairs. I wouldn’t force you to sleep with me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“It’s not what I’m worried about.” A tiny, desperate part of me wanted Noah to demand that I sleep with him.
Wanted his hand around my neck and his hips pinning me to the bed.
A very tiny part. The rest of me knew that getting between the sheets with him again wasn’t the answer to our problems. “This is your place. I don’t want to intrude. ”
“I don’t mind.”
“Maybe you should,” I said.
“That’s tough shit because I don’t.” He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, muttering something to himself I couldn’t make out.
“Come on, wife. I’m teaching you how to make pancakes now and then I’m breaking the news to Gen that you won’t be taking the top bunk.
Brace yourself for that storm.” His jaw tight, he ran a glance up my legs, over my borrowed shirt, across my face.
“You’re not intruding. Stop thinking that.
And stop pouting. You know I can’t function when you do that. ”
“I’m not pouting.”
He cupped my jaw and traced the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip. “You’re pouting and I can’t suck your nipples through this shirt right now because I don’t want to stop at your nipples and— oh my fucking god , I said that out loud.”
“And what else?” I whispered. “What was the next thing you were going to say?”
He dropped his hand as he stared at the floor. “Shay. Please.”
“Tell me. I want to know. What would you do after you suck my nipples through this shirt I stole from you? What would come next?”
He shook his head. It seemed like this conversation was over when he blew out a ragged breath and said, “We don’t have time for that this morning.”
I couldn’t stop pushing. Even if I pushed us all the way over the edge of a cliff, I couldn’t stop. “What don’t we have time for?”
He gave a dry, stuttering laugh. His cheeks were beet red. “That’s enough out of you, wife. I need you to stop making that face and go find a bra unless you want me dragging you out to the barn and fucking you up against the wall.”
Was it still a gasp if it came from the lusty region of France or was it just a sparkling moan? “Well—”
“No,” he said. “You made me say it and I’m telling you right now, you don’t want that. It’s hot and dark in there, and it smells like motor oil. And I’m in no mood to be nice.”
I tipped my head to the side. “You weren’t nice last night.”
He picked up a bowl, scowled at the aggressively beaten eggs. “That was different.”
“How?”
“That was for you,” he said, turning his scowl toward the items assembled on the countertop. “This…this would not be for you.”
“Ohhh.”