20. Molly
20
MOLLY
I woke up before Noah.
I glanced at the window and saw that it wasn’t full light yet. Not yet dawn. I’d always been an early riser, and now I was glad of that fact. Granted we were in my room, and I should have been safe here, but there was a big problem with that plan.
A Noah problem.
I rolled over, trying to move as quietly as possible–silly, when I was in a bed–and came to rest facing him. God, he was beautiful. His face was gentler when he was asleep. That line between his eyebrows went away, and he didn’t hold his mouth so stiff. All the tension left his cheeks and he looked almost childlike this way. Sure, the blond hair was messy and needed washed. His chin was rough with stubble. And ink climbed its way up his neck and into his hair line. But the face...
I wondered if this was how he’d looked when he was a kid, back before he moved to the orphanage. I met him when he’d already been there a few years and had been scarred by what it did to you. But before that...
Had he looked this innocent all the time?
Probably not, I realized. He told me once what his mother had been like, and that he’d never even met his father. I knew he’d been starving and cold and neglected even before he came to the orphanage, and that it had been even harder, perhaps, as he’d been trying to look after the woman who should have loved him. I didn’t know if she’d been intentionally evil–he’d never said–but she hadn’t given him what she should have. She certainly hadn’t provided a safe or welcoming home.
Maybe he’d never been able to be a child, really.
The thought broke my heart a little bit, and I reached one gentle finger out to brush his cheek lightly. He twitched, but didn’t wake up, and I bit my lip. How the fuck was I going to get him out of my room and to his own before anyone else was up and around? He wasn’t supposed to be here. He was my big brother and my oldest friend, as well as part of the band I was covering. He’d promised Taylor he was going to clean up his act, and I’d promised Janette I wouldn’t get involved with anyone in the band.
We’d both broken our promises, and put our careers at risk. We were insane. I was going to lose my job. He’d risk any new contract the Authors might win. This would be the worst possible publicity for the band, and for me, and for him. God, what had we done? This had been a terrible idea. The worst. His, of course. And as far as my career went, I didn’t need a guy getting in my way now that I was finally on the road to something big. I’d landed a job at Tempest, for fuck’s sake, and here I was risking it for...
For...
For Noah, who’d been in and out of so many beds I’d lost count. I trained myself a long time ago not to look at him as anything more than a friend, and yet at the first soft touch, I’d fallen right into his arms.
Fucking stupid.
And yet I couldn’t stop the grin spreading across my face. I didn’t even try to keep from touching him again. The idea that I could reach out and brush my finger down the line of his nose, then across his lips, was too wonderful. This man was in my bed. In my bed. And he’d spent much of the night wrapped up with and inside me.
I groaned at the memory and stretched, deliciously sore in all the right places.
No, I didn’t regret a moment of it. And I wasn’t going to wake him up and hustle him out of my room and to his own. I didn’t know how often he slept or whether he even made it out of light sleep and into something deeper. The shadows under his eyes told me that he needed the rest.
He must have finally realized I was touching him, because he stretched slightly, then reached for me. I flipped over again as he pulled me to him, so that when I met his chest it was with my back. He curled around me, threading his legs through mine and wrapping me in both his arms, then rested his chin on my shoulder.
“God, you smell good,” he breathed.
My grin turned soft and dreamy and romantic, full of satisfaction and affection for this man, and I let him pull me even closer. If anyone found out we were in here together, or that we’d spent the whole night naked and feasting on each other, we’d be in big trouble. We’d made a huge mistake, and it might change everything. Including our friendship.
But for right now, he was big and heavy and warm, and I was content to let him possess me.
After all, we were still behind closed doors.
M y eyes flew open some time later and I glanced at the window, panicked. Full light. We were into the morning, now. And there were voices outside in the hallway. People were out there walking around.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I should have gotten him up earlier, when it was still at least semi-dark. We might have been able to get him to his room without anyone seeing. Now it was light and there were people up, and that was bad. I couldn’t afford for anyone to see me shuffling him out of my room in the morning, still wearing the clothing he’d had on at the meeting yesterday. People weren’t stupid. They knew how close we were. They’d immediately guess at what we’d been up to.
And we’d both be cooked.
I turned, hoping he’d be awake and have some sort of plan, but he was still dead to the world, his eyes shut tightly and his lips relaxed. I laid a hand on his arm, sighed, and closed my eyes as well. Our schedule was open until later, when we were due to catch a flight to Seattle. We had the morning to ourselves.
Hours in which to figure out how we were going to get out of this one.
Maybe I’d order room service. At least that way we’d be scheming on full stomachs.