Chapter 34
He’s writing.
Noah’s fingers fly over the keys of his laptop. He was right, his hunt and peck typing seems to be a good method for him.
Though I’m longing to reach my fingers into his hair where he’s tunneled his own, watching him work is intoxicating. He moves his face when he works, no doubt mimicking the characters he’s writing. I know Lily has accused me of the same.
I have a notebook in my lap, a pen poised in my fingers.
The book I’ve been working on for years isn’t what I’m thinking about now.
It’s a new story, one where a man happens into a woman’s world and turns it upside down.
A broody man who really is a cinnamon roll.
He’s older. He runs his fingers through his hair.
He doesn’t say much, but when he does, he rocks her world.
Maybe it’s my story. Maybe it’s the story I want.
I worry my lip and continue watching him. I think he’s the story I want.
The pen falls from my fingers and Noah looks up from his computer.
I don’t even think to pick up the pen.
This is selfish, but I can’t help it. I drop the notebook to the chair as I stand. He watches me as I begin to unbutton the front of my shirt.
He’s more aware of our surroundings sitting the on porch of the cabin, as he scans a look around, but there’s no one there.
Noah licks his lips as he watches my every move, eventually closing his laptop and standing when I let my shirt fall.
There are no words. There is no need for them. I turn from him and walk toward the cabin.
From the corner of my eye, I see him pick up my shirt, his laptop tucked under his arm as he stands and follows me.
I never see him lock the door to the cabin, or discard his laptop on the table. All I know is that by the time I make it to the bed, stepping out of the rest of my clothes, his hands are on my shoulders and he turns me to face him.
His gaze takes in every inch of me, and there’s nothing but appreciation in his eyes. I’m comfortable with him doing this, it’s a new feeling for me. I’ve never been this secure in my nakedness with any man—not even when I was married.
Noah’s hands come to my waist and he brushes them up my sides, his fingertips leaving a tingling trail.
“Thank you,” he says softly, his breath on my throat before he kisses my skin. “I shouldn’t have been working so hard.”
“Forgiven,” is all I can manage as his hands wander up to cup my breasts.
“I’ll make it up to you,” he promises, his mouth skimming my jaw.
“Uh-huh,” I say almost silently because I can’t control my breath as one of his hands moves down the front of me.
“I’m going to love you, Emma, all night long,” he says lowering me to the bed.
There are no more words, well, not words meant to hold conversation. As the night progresses there are only those words he promised me he’d make me say over and over again.
There is a bliss that hangs in the air between us as I drive back toward Pine Haven, through the awakening forest, with its browns giving way to hues of green.
The sun peeks through the treetop canopy forcing me to put on and take off my sunglasses, yet I’m more aware this morning of the sun’s absolute glory than I have been in a long time.
Next to me, in the passenger seat, Noah has his computer on his lap and his fingers again fly over the keys. I know he got up in the middle of the night and worked too. This is what I had assumed he would look like the entire week in my office, but I think only now he’s unblocked and is creating.
There is no conversation, and that’s okay. I have enough conversation happening in my head.
Though they all agreed to cover for me while I was gone, I know that when I get back to the store, Lily and Julia will side eye me for at least a day. I don’t know how Katie will be with Noah. And then there’s the fact that by the time we get back, Sylvia St. Clare will be arriving.
He said they had that one kiss, but in my head it was more than that. Yeah, I know that’s not true, but it’s hard to separate my imagery of it since I the man next to me is really a stranger.
I shift a glance at him, his head down and his eyes laser focused on the screen, and I realize that, no, he’s not a stranger. I know this man better than anyone—doesn’t that say something?
As we descend out of the forest and into the valley, the car fills with that sunlight that has been playing peek-a-boo with us. It’s then that Noah lifts his head.
“God, that’s beautiful,” he says taking in the town below us.
“I know. This is why I couldn’t stay in the city. This beckoned me back.”
There is a lightness to him now. That dark cloud that hovered over him since the moment he’d walked into my store is lifted. Will I be the only person that sees that?
He closes his laptop and takes in the surroundings. He’s like a child on an adventure, I think, soaking it in.
And, while I drive, I soak him in. We have one week left. Sure, we’ve agreed to a long distance thing, but in reality, we have one week.