Chapter 18
Briar
He walked beside me quietly.
I was starting to recognize the difference between his different kinds of quiet — the one that meant he was thinking, the one that meant he was waiting. This one felt like the second.
He’d automatically taken the outside, keeping me ‘safe’ on the inside of the sidewalk. The way the streetlights shone around us, I was smothered in Noah’s shadow.
I didn’t ask him how he got here. He didn’t offer. I led him to my car, and as we drew closer, my steps slowed.
“This is me.” I pointed to my blue Honda and looked up to see him looking down at me. “Do you need a ride?”
Noah shook his head. “Nah. Got here on my own.”
Right, I knew that.
“What kind of car do you have?” What kind of lame ass question was that?
“Dustin’s.”
“What?”
His lips twitched. “I took Dustin’s car.”
There was something about the way he said it. I took a small step to the side, enough to give me room to look up at him comfortably, because this guy was so tall.
“Does Dustin know you took his car?”
Noah pulled his phone out of his pocket. I saw a quick flash of a grin as he read something, and shoved it back.
“He does, yeah.”
I had so many questions. Like, did he know after he took it?
“Are you allowed to drive his car?”
I saw the grimace. It was small, but it was there.
“You stole his car.”
Noah rolled his eyes. “No. That’s so . . . no.”
“You totally took his car without asking.”
“I totally did not.”
We held the stare-off, and Noah caved first. “Fine, I took the car, but I’m taking it back. That counts as not stealing.” He ran a hand through his dark hair, and I felt an irritating surge of jealousy at the sight of his fingers running through those thick dark locks.
“For a guy who looks put together, you make shit choices, Matthews.”
He was watching me again. “What makes you say that?”
“There’s a gym in the athletic building. Why open yourself to scrutiny by going to the shady gym in town?”
“The gym’s shady?” He pulled a face. “Why are you going to the shady gym?”
He didn’t balk at my flat look. “You know why.”
“You don’t want to get caught?”
I shrugged, not looking at him.
“Or you don’t want to make friends based on a lie?”
I turned back to look at him, my glare hot. “Fuck you, Matthews.”
“Any time you’re ready.”
I gaped.
“I am not going to sleep with you.” I felt it needed to be said.
“No problem. I don’t plan on sleeping either.”
This guy was just . . . wow.
“We’re not having sex.”
“Not right now, that’s correct.”
“Ever.” He didn’t look convinced. “Ever.”
Noah looked completely indifferent. His fingers hooked into his pants pockets. Why was that ridiculously hot?
“You getting in that car, or are we going to stand here some more and argue over the inevitable? Or . . .” His look turned calculating.
“Or?”
He stepped closer, and I didn’t step back. When his large hand slid through my hair and cupped the back of my neck, I didn’t know what to do. Noah tipped my head back slightly.
“Or are you waiting to see if I’ll make a move?”
Yes.
“No.” I stepped back, and he let me go. I immediately missed his touch. “I’m not waiting for anything from you.”
He watched me for a long moment. “Okay.”
Was that it? Okay?
“Do you want to talk about the gym?”
“Nah.”
“Who are you thinking of hitting when you used the bag tonight?”
His lip curled upward into a sexy smirk. “I can tell you what I’m thinking of hitting now.”
“Me?” My eyebrows were at my hairline. I knew they were. “You’re thinking of screwing me?” I blew out a loud breath. “Dude, you’re so far from hitting the mark that I fee—”
His mouth pressed softly against mine. He wasn’t pushing the advantage, he was just silencing me with a simple, almost chaste, press of his lips against mine.
He moved his head back slightly, his lips still touching mine. “You protest so much, and so loudly about me fucking you, Sterling, I’m beginning to think you want my cock as badly as I want to sink into that tight body.”
His tongue gently caressed my bottom lip, and I almost moaned.
“Tell me what you want, Briar.”
I looked into his dark eyes in the evening light, my pulse hammering so loudly it was all I could hear. I’d thought his eyes were brown; instead, they were dark blue, like midnight.
“I want to go home.” How I sounded as sure as I did when my body was practically vibrating with want was beyond me. “Alone.”
Noah moved forward, his mouth stealing one more kiss, still gentle, still a promise of so much more.
“Drive safe.”
He was walking away.
He was walking away.
I almost called him back.
Almost.
What stopped me? Pride? No. Survival? Yes.
If I called him back, I’d let him into my car, into my home, and into my bed.
“He’s wrong for you.”
I got into my car, locked the door, and watched him walk around the corner.
“So wrong,” I said with more fire this time. It was becoming a mantra that I needed to play every hour of every day.
Kissing Noah was wrong.
Then why did he feel so right?
“Get your slutty ho ass to bed, girl,” I chided myself as I stabbed the key into the ignition. “This is stupid.”
I was talking to myself in a parked car. This man was bad for me in multiple ways.
The engine didn’t start. I looked at the key and then the car.
“What?” I tried it again. The engine didn’t even turn over. “You died on me?” I asked the car.
It didn’t reply.
And then I saw it.
The knob for the headlights. I hadn’t turned it off. I had a dead battery. “Shit.” My eyes closed in despair. “Only you, Briar.” I tried the engine again. Nothing. Not surprising.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket.
“Is this a sign?” I asked the heavens as I scrolled through my contacts. “Or a punishment?”
I pressed dial.
He didn’t answer.
No wonder. I wouldn’t either, I surmised. I looked around the dark side street I’d parked on. I couldn’t remember if there were parking restrictions during the day.
My phone rang, and I jumped. “Hi?”
“Everything okay?” Noah didn’t do what I expected and ask me if I’d changed my mind.
“My battery is dead. Does Dustin’s car have cables?”
“Doubt it. His car is newer, and so is yours — jump leads won’t work.”
I looked at my dashboard. “Why?”
“The engines in newer models are encased in plastic. If they die, they need more than simple leads. Unless you want to take the casing off? I don’t know if it’ll work, and I’m not touching Dust’s car like that.”
That made sense.
“Did you forget to turn off your lights?” He sounded amused.
“No.”
“You lying to me, Sterling?”
With every bone in my body. “No.”
“I’m coming back.”
A few minutes later, he pulled in behind me. I watched him unfold himself from Dustin’s car. It looked painful. Noah wasn’t that much taller than Dustin, I didn’t think, but he clearly had longer legs.
Nice, strong, thick legs.
“Will you behave?” I grumbled.
He rapped on the window.
The power obviously didn’t work because the battery was dead, but I still tried to open the window anyway by pushing the button.
Noah didn’t hide his grin, and he opened the car door. “Hey.” He tapped the window button. “Won’t work.”
“Yeah, I knew that. Muscle memory, I think.”
“Yeah.”
I got out of the car. “Do you know anything about cars?”
“Yep. I know if you put the key in, it starts. If you press the accelerator, it goes forward. If you press the brake, it stops.”
I felt my stomach sink. “That’s not even basic driving.” He was mocking me again. “You said all those things about the engine, you said casing.”
“Yeah. And? Just because I know the words doesn’t mean I can fix it.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I thought you might like someone to stay with you while you call for roadside assistance, or I can take you back to Wrighton, and you can arrange it from there?”
“You can’t fix the car?”
He shook his head slowly. “Not a mechanic.”
I sucked my teeth. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called my brother. “Hey it’s me. Where are you?”
“A bottomless abyss of self-pity and loathing. You?”
I couldn’t stop my grin. “Halston. The battery’s dead in my car. How do I bring it back to life?”
“Jump start.”
I glared at Noah, who sighed as he leaned against my car.
“No, wait, your car’s too new,” Mason corrected himself. “You need roadside assistance. What did you leave on? Lights?”
Noah hid his smirk with his hand when he saw me glaring at him.
“I didn’t leave anything on.” I rarely lied to my brother. But he’d understand, given the circumstances.
“Batteries just don’t die, Bri.”
If Noah Matthews’s shit-eating grin got any bigger, I’d need recovery for my car and for the giant lug beside me tonight.
“So there’s nothing I can do?” I asked Mason.
“Sure there is, call roadside assistance.”
“You’re the worst possible help, little brother.” I hung up on him.
I refused to look at Matthews, who was struggling not to laugh out loud. I checked the sidewalk for parking signs, checking that I wasn’t in any danger of something bad happening to my car.
“Can you give me a ride back?” I asked him without making eye contact.
“Of course.”
“Will you promise not to mention tonight?”
“Nope.”
“If I ask nicely?” I gritted my teeth so hard, my jaw ached.
“Fuck no. But I would like to see you beg.”
I glared at him, and he winked. “You’re a dick.”
“I’m your free ride back to the campus.”
I started walking away from my car. “Nothing in this life is free.”
Mason called me just as Noah caught up with me.
“You changed your mind and know how to fix it?” I asked him desperately.
“No,” Mason sounded amused. “I called your roadside assistance company, figured you didn’t want the emergency fee added on, they’ll be there tomorrow between eight and nine.”
“Isn’t the whole fact of emergency assistance, so they come in emergencies?”
“It’s not an emergency, Bri, it’s a dead battery in a town with free parking, and it saves you a huge bill you can’t afford. Take the win.”
I glanced at Noah, who was suspiciously expressionless.
“Fine.” I almost hung up. “Thank you for calling them,” I added grudgingly.
“It’s fine, they have an app, I just used it.”
My roadside assistance service had an app? News to me.
“How will you get back to campus?”
Such an innocent question. Such a complicated answer. “I met a friend from work, they’re giving me a ride.”
“Which friend?”
The way my brother’s voice could change in an instant from cajoling little brother wanting more peanut butter than jelly on his sandwich, to ‘I will break every bone in their body,’ used to amuse me. Not so fun on the receiving end of it.
“From work,” I stressed. “I’ll let you know how I get on tomorrow.”
“You’ll call me tonight, Briar.”
I didn’t bother arguing. The silent shadow beside me was loving this.
“Whatever.” I hung up. “As I said earlier, jocks are assholes.”
Noah’s chuckle was enough to lift my crappy mood. “The car will be okay?”
“Your car will be fine,” Noah assured me, opening the door. “Mason checked, and let’s face it, he probably knows this town better than we do.”
That was true. I hesitated at the car door. “No kissing in the car, okay?”
“Done.”
I believed him. “Okay, good.”
The drive back to campus was quick and quiet. Noah took me right to the building, but instead of stopping, he carried on turning the corner.
“What’s happening?”
“This is Dust’s car. If Hadley looks out her window and sees it driving away from her building, I don’t want to be responsible for that mix-up.”
“Good point,” I murmured. He pulled to a stop just around the corner. “Thank you.”
“How will you get back to Halston for eight tomorrow?” he asked me. “I’m at practice.”
I hadn’t even thought of it, but the fact that he had? I felt warmth in my belly as it dipped again.
“Oh, I’ll get the bus, don’t worry about it.” I heard back what I’d said. “Not that you would be worried about it.” His eyebrow rose. “No, I mean I know you’d be concerned, not, no, that’s not right either. Um . . .”
Amusement flickered across his face.
“I think I should shut up.”
“I like the way I shut you up,” he told me smoothly, “but you said no to kissing in the car.”
My insides wanted off this roller coaster.
“You’re dangerous, Noah Matthews.” I reached for the door handle. “Thank you for the ride back to campus.”
“Anytime.”
I lingered. I knew I lingered.
He knew I lingered.
And I still lingered.
“I should go.”
You were already there, Briar. Now you just look a little pathetic.
“Wait a minute.” Noah got out of the car, and I was too lost in my own thoughts to notice that it was so he could open the door. I got out, stepping away when he closed the door behind me.
“Such a gentleman,” I teased.
“Not a gentleman, just working around the set play.”
He kissed me. Slow. Sure. Confident. Sooo good. I’d said no kissing in the car. He’d waited until we were out of the car. He was always one step ahead of me, I wasn’t sure whether it was keeping me off balance, or that I liked that it was.
My palms lay flat against his chest, feeling his solid muscle. His pecs felt sculpted under my fingertips. His arm encircled me, and his other hand rested on my hip.
Our mouths moved in perfect unison, no awkwardness, no confusion over who took the lead.
It was a great kiss.
Noah lifted his mouth off mine.
“That might have been reckless,” he murmured, looking around the empty street.
I felt as if cold water had been flung over me.
I stepped back hastily. “You kissed me, asshat.”
“And I’ll kiss you again.” It sounded like a promise. “But this is where that photo of Dust and Hadley was taken.” His gaze swept the street calmly. “I wasn’t thinking.” Dark eyes landed on me. “I don’t usually make careless mistakes.”
My hand automatically tugged my hair forward, covering my face. “It’s fine, we’re both to blame,” I conceded. “Still, I should go.”
“Yeah.”
We looked at each other, and I wanted to say more. But saying more would be dangerous because the words ‘do you want to come in’ were so close to spilling from my lips.
“Go,” he told me gruffly. “Before we fall into the same trap as Dust and Hadley — get too caught up in each other, forget we’re in the street.”
Or he could just blurt out and let me die of embarrassment that I wanted exactly what he did.
I didn’t say goodbye. I just ducked my head and hurried away from him.
From temptation.
Because my God, that man was tempting.
I’d told him not to kiss me in the car. So he kissed me in the street. I told him I wasn’t going to sleep with him, and he told me he didn’t plan on sleeping.
I told myself I would not be tempted by the middle linebacker of the Lions, and I was three seconds away from telling him to come upstairs and show me what he’s got.
I entered the building, hearing the faint sound of an engine starting. By the time I reached my apartment, I knew he would already be gone.
Good.
One of us had to exercise restraint.
No one said it had to be me.