Chapter 29
“Do you have a day you don’t work?” Noah asks me as we sit on my couch, my head rested on his lap as he strokes my hair.
“I go in late on Wednesdays.”
I feel his body move as he laughs.
“Why is that funny?” I ask looking up at him.
“You go in late one day a week? No days off?”
I shrug. “When it’s all you have in your life, there’s no need to take a day off.”
“Go away with me,” he says, but as if it were a thought that didn’t even process, but just jumped out of his mouth.
That has me sitting up, studying him, and then I straddle his lap. His hands come to my hips, and admittedly, I might grind myself into position before I work into the conversation at hand.
“We don’t have time to go away,” I remind him.
“We do. I’m saying a few days. One if it’s all we can get. We could go to Denver and stay at the Brown Palace. Or go down to Colorado Springs and stay at the Broadmoor. Or even rent a cabin in Estes Park.”
I study his dark eyes as his hand moves from my hip, up and under my shirt, his thumb lazily tracing the sensitive skin under my breast.
“You’ve done some homework,” I say.
“I only have so much time here, and I want to spend it all with you.”
Doesn’t that hit hard?
This thing between us is temporary, and I know that. I’ve already battled with this, but when it comes up, it stings.
“What do you plan on doing on our time away?”
“You,” is all he says, and I throw my head back with a laugh.
“You’re never going to finish that book.”
“I’ll finish it. Deadlines are in place for a reason.”
I can feel him grow beneath me as his hand moves to my breast and now his thumb brushes my peaked nipple.
“Estes Park,” I say again moving myself against him. “If we’re in a cabin, no one can hear us.”
Those dark eyes of his grow darker, and his hand comes back to my hip again as if to position me into the right place on his lap.
“You do tend to use words some people might find offensive,” he says and I grin down at him.
“Do you find them offensive?”
“Fuck, no,” he growls. “I love that I can make you say them.”
One thing about having some random sexual encounter in my fifties—there’s no reason to hold back.
Noah makes me feel everything. And though I could easily turn that around and make it all about his experiences with other women that make him so skilled, it doesn’t play in my head that way.
He likes to pleasure me, and he does an exceptional job.
“One night,” I say and he eases his head back against the couch to look up at me.
“One?”
“We can’t afford more.”
“One night it is.” His fingers dig into my flesh. “I think we’re going to need to go to your bedroom so you can use those words. It appears that I have a little—something, going on.” He moves beneath me.
“There is nothing little about that, and I’m happy to use all the words.”
From the moment I walk into my store on Wednesday, I’m putting out fires. Books that were supposed to arrive the day before are stuck in Denver and patrons are none too happy when they can’t have their preordered book that released this morning.
Mrs. Packer’s store had a water leak and it managed its way under the door between our stores.
Luckily Lily caught it as it happened and nothing was damaged.
Katie gave Sylvia St. Clare my phone number, and knowing that this woman, who has kept me on the phone for the past forty minutes, has a thing for the man I’m sleeping with, hits me wrong.
She’s been nothing but nice, but I already don’t like her.
“And I know it sounds strange and all, but the sticky notes we use to write people’s names on the books so that I can personalize them while they’re there, yeah, don’t get the super sticky ones.
They leave residue and sometimes just don’t come out well.
Ya know what I mean?” she says as I’m taking notes at my desk.
“I do understand.”
Noah walks into my office with a bag from the deli down the street and sets it on my desk. I look up at him and I must have a look of distress because he mouths the words, Are you okay?
I roll my eyes and nod, then turn around my notepad where I’ve written Sylvia’s name at the top.
His eyes go wide and his cheeks turn a color red I’ve yet to see.
I’m not sure what the true motive is, but he leans in and lingers a kiss on my lips as Sylvia talks about the kind of tea she would like me to serve at our author talk, because she doesn’t want people to have to spend money on anything other than her books.
When the call is finally over, I look up at Noah, who has set out our lunch on my desk, and now perches against the desk watching me with great interest.
“You didn’t sleep with her, right?” I ask, defeated.
“I told you I didn’t,” he confirms.
“I’m just a bit disgusted that I’ll have to share my space with her. I didn’t want to have shared you too.”
The corner of his mouth turns up. “Nothing to be jealous over.”
“Me? Jealous?” I leave it there, because, yeah, I’m probably jealous of every woman that came before me. Though, funny enough, I have no jealousy over Abby.
“I’m sorry she’s causing you some unwanted anxiety,” he says as he takes the folding chair from between the two file cabinets and sets it next to me. “Fuel up. We’re going to work on your book now.”
To that I drop my shoulders. “I don’t have time for that. My writing isn’t important. This event is top of the list.”
Noah turns me in my chair so that our legs fit together, thigh to thigh. “You need something for you.”
“I have you, in this moment,” I say as if reminding each of us that this is all the time we have.
“Two hours,” he negotiates.
“One.”
Noah runs his tongue over his teeth. “One hour. Uninterrupted. During business hours.”
I snort out a laugh. “Why during business hours?”
“Because after hours, you’re all mine,” he says, lifting a hand to the back of my neck and pulling me toward him, kissing me so thoroughly that it takes me a moment to remember what we’d agreed to. “One hour. All mine. No interruptions.”
I nod. I can’t say no to this man, and isn’t that a bad thing?