Risky Taste (Sinful Surrender #4)

1. Chapter 1

Chapter one

NOAH

I button my shirt, rolling my shoulders to settle the fabric against my skin.

The shirt is just short of too crisp, like ironing it was the wrong idea, despite the pristine image I like to keep.

Maybe that’s just my mood talking. I haven’t slept right in weeks and today isn’t shaping up to be any different.

I rub a hand down my face, staring at my reflection in the mirror, grimacing at the sight before me.

My eyes are hollowed out, tired, like a man living on borrowed time.

Cheeks are thinned out, my face with all sharp angles and not in the good way.

The hair could use some love instead of the rat’s nest of curls sitting on top of my head.

My only saving grace is the charming smile I’ve practiced over the years, taking away from the torrent of emotions currently running through me.

Shaking it off, I stuff my phone in my pocket and grab my keys from the nightstand.

The clinic is only a few blocks away, a path I’ve memorized until I can point out every little crack in the concrete.

But what used to be a joyous career, a profession I dreamed about, has become so much more difficult than I planned.

Some days I wonder if I should even be treating people when I can’t seem to figure out how to fix myself.

I think back to my last therapy appointment, the next one long overdue, and how many times she told me that I needed to change my frame of thinking. That I am worth it, that my existence and my profession does help others, regardless of what’s going on in my head.

Some days, the reminder works.

Others? Not so much.

Blowing out a deep breath, I hop down the stairs, trying to bolster some excitement for my shift ahead, the last one before my brother returns from a 3-year deployment.

We’re not that close but the silence in the house is unbearable ever since I separated from my husband.

A bastard who won’t fucking sign the divorce papers, thinking that I’ll magically just forget every wrong thing he’s done.

Spoiler alert: I won’t.

I’m not even a step out of the house before my phone starts vibrating. “It better not be Heath,” I mutter to myself, slipping out the device and staring at the screen. It’s not. It’s Sebastian, one of my brother’s best friends, bunk mates, and as close to a brother as it gets.

I freeze, breath catching somewhere in my throat. My fingers tighten around the phone, thumb hovering over the decline button. I could let it go to voicemail, pretend I never saw it, shove the emotions crashing into me into some deep, unreachable place.

But I can’t. Not when it’s him . I press accept, bringing the phone to my ear, my heartbeat loud in my ears as I remain silent.

“Noah.”

Sebastian’s voice slides through the speaker, like molasses, the kind of voice that used to make me feel safe. I swallow hard, gripping the doorframe to keep my balance. “How are you doing, babe?”

I almost drop the fucking phone. It’s instant, the way my body reacts. Like something inside me is cracking wide open, years of distance falling away in an instant. My throat clenches and I have to close my eyes because if I don’t, I’m going to fucking lose it.

There’s so much he doesn’t know. So much he’s missed. And it’s my fault.

Because I married a man who never gave a shit about me.

Because I let myself suffer in silence. Because I thought moving on meant making decisions that only ended up breaking me further.

I squeeze the phone tighter, forcing myself to breathe.

“I—” My voice catches. I clear my throat, willing myself to sound normal. “Didn’t expect to hear from you.”

There’s a beat of silence and I can hear his smirk through the phone. “Yeah? Thought I’d wait another three years?” Sebastian sighs, and when he speaks again, his voice is quieter, smoother, like he knows exactly how I’m struggling. “Talk to me, babe.”

Fuck. I slowly close my front door and twist around to lean my head against it, forgetting how easy it is for Sebastian to draw out emotions I’ve locked away.

A man that I should have never looked at twice and yet, the last time he called me that, I had been tangled up in his arms, too drunk on him to remember why this was a bad idea.

The moment he left, I’m not sure if I was filling a hole or just craving attention so bad that when the first man looked my way, I gave in. And now, three years later, I’ve left Heath behind—or at least I’m trying to while slowly falling apart.

Sebastian doesn’t rush me as he waits patiently on the other side of the phone, like he always does. Like he knows I need the space to say what I need to say.

I exhale, pressing my thumb against my temple. “I’m… managing.” A lie.

And he knows it. “Noah.” His voice drops, all warmth and care and the kind of undeniable understanding I never got from Heath. “What happened?”

My chest aches because I want to tell him everything.

I want to tell him about how I lost myself trying to please a man who never loved me.

I want to tell him how I spent years crawling out of that grave.

How I buried myself in my work and alcohol and long nights beating myself up over my choices just to feel like I was still here.

But I don’t because I can’t be selfish with Sebastian anymore. “Nothing.” The word barely makes it past my lips. “I just—got busy.” Not completely a lie. The clinic has been keeping me busy, one of the few things that helps me keep my sanity.

Sebastian sighs again, but there’s no anger. No judgment. Just a quiet kind of knowing. “You still at the clinic?”

I force myself to clear my throat, rolling my shoulders back like that’s going to shake the tension out of my body.

My grip on the phone is still too tight, my fingers aching from how hard I’m holding onto something I should have let go of years ago.

“Yeah,” I finally say, my voice cracking.

I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, trying to sound like I haven’t spent the last-minute standing against my door like an idiot. “I’m good. What’s up?”

“We’re on our way back,” he says. “Should be there in a few hours.”

That should be good news. It should be good that my brother is finally coming back home, that Sebastian is coming back home. And yet, all I can feel is this tight, uncomfortable pressure settling in my ribs. Mostly because it isn’t Kurt calling me, letting me know that he’s coming home.

“Where’s my brother?” I ask, trying not to sound as exhausted as I feel. “Why isn’t he calling?” I push off the door and start heading toward the clinic, counting the cracks as I pass them. There’s a new one just off to the side that I catalog before realizing that Sebastian hasn’t answered me.

There’s laughter in the background, a very deep, hearty voice that doesn’t surprise me.

Kurt is being himself, not caring about a thing in the world except for him.

I’m not sure why I thought things would change after three years apart.

He’s the same brother he’s always been—larger than life, loud, too much for most people to handle, and yet somehow loved for it.

And he doesn’t think about the smaller things. The finer details like checking in on his brother. Not that I need him to. I don’t. It’s just… it would be nice. To get this call from Kurt and not Sebastian.

Not that I don’t want to hear Sebastian’s voice.

Sebastian chuckles. “Babe, he’s doing Kurt things,” he says, voice rich with amusement. “Currently bothering our driver. I just know how much you despise surprises so I thought I’d give you a heads up.”

This man is too precious. He knows every little thing about me, every quirk, every want, need, desire…

and he never forgets them. He catalogs them away like I do the cracks in the concrete.

Three years ago, just before I married Heath, I had been on my own mission before everything went south and I was sent home to work at the clinic.

Everything had become too loud, too much—my brother said I hadn’t been ready, that rushing off to follow in his footsteps had done me more harm than good. Yet another instance of the world revolving around him.

A heavy sigh falls from my lips before I remember I’m on the phone, horrified that Sebastian is seeing this side of me.

“Missed you,” Sebastian muses.

I swallow past the lump in my throat, shifting the phone against my ear. “Missed you too,” I mumble, barely above a whisper.

I hate the way my chest aches for a man I haven’t touched in three years. He’s always been on my mind, always lingering in the back of my thoughts, the idea that if we had become something more…

No. Not possible. I clear my throat and quickly say goodbye, not wanting to drag the conversation out any further. “I have to go,” I say quickly, already pulling away from whatever this moment is.

“Noah,” he starts, but I cut him off before he can say whatever it is he’s about to say that might make this worse.

“It’s fine,” I say, forcing myself to sound lighter, forcing myself to make this casual.

“It’ll be good to have some noise in the house.

I’ll see you in a few hours.” I barely give him a second to respond before I end the call.

I have until this afternoon to figure out how to greet Sebastian without completely falling apart.

I head into the clinic, managing a few hellos before slipping into one of the offices at the back that I claimed as mine. Set far away from patient rooms, it gives me peace and quiet when I so desperately need it. A place to escape from my reality and the chaos in my head.

My phone buzzes again, my shoulders falling. If it’s Sebastian again, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say to him. No doubt he knows something is wrong at this point, but it’d be selfish on my part to unload on the one man who’s ever truly seen me.

And… it’s not him. It’s the bane of my existence. Heath Whitmore.