4. Chapter 4
Chapter four
Ashley
A wareness comes to me with a warm sensation and a strange sound, almost like a crackle. I blink, and the warm glow of a fire in a stone fireplace is in my direct view. It’s then that I notice the soft, snuggly blanket covering me. I lay there, basking in the comfort of the moment and trying to remember where and how it came about. But I’m sleepy, so very sleepy, and at the moment, I’m obviously safe and comfortable, so much so, I’m not ready to do anything but shut my eyes and drift away. In my mind, I’m back in time, back in Houston, and I’m waking up in Noah’s bed for the first time, waking up to the sensation of his big, hard body wrapped around mine.
“You’re awake,” he murmurs at my ear, his voice like warm, honeyed whiskey that sets me on fire and then soothes every part of me.
“Hmmm,” I reply groggily, basking in everything that is this man. “I am.” My eyes pop open as the full impact of the morning after hits me. “Wait. Is this where you want me to leave?”
He gives a low chuckle and nuzzles my neck. “The last thing I want right now is for you to leave. Unless,” he presses the thick ridge of his erection between my thighs, “do you want to leave?”
“No,” I say, arching into him. “I don’t want to leave.”
“Good,” he says. “Because I make a killer waffle, and since I plan to keep you naked and in bed all day, you’re going to need your energy.” He surprises me by rotating me around to face him and then I’m staring into those deeply brown eyes, my hand stroking the rasp of his shadowed jaw. “Unless you have another plan for the day?” he queries.
As if I could even remember anything but him right now. “Waffles are good.”
“Yes,” he says, molding me close. “Waffles are good.” He leans in to kiss me, and I cover his mouth with my hand. “I need a toothbrush.”
He kisses my hand and then kisses me anyway, lips to lips, before he says, “toothbrush, waffles, and then back to bed.” He throws off the blanket and stands up, naked as the day he was born, and good lord, the man has a perfectly tight backside.
He turns around, showing me other really perfect parts of his body. He takes my hand and pulls me (as naked as the day I was born as well) to my feet with him. “I’ll show you where the shower is.” He scoops me up and starts walking.
“Noah,” I laugh, but there’s no question that I’m thoroughly charmed by this man.
I come back awake with a smile on my lips and the same crackling fireplace in front of me. The same warm blanket is on top of me, but this time, a deep muffled male voice resonates through the room and me, stroking me into a seductive sigh. “Noah,” I whisper, my lashes lowering only to pop back open. Noah.
I shoot to a sitting position, my gaze jerking around what appears to be a cabin of some sort. What the hell is happening? Where am I? How did I get here? I press my fingers to my temple and try to remember something, anything, when Noah’s voice lifts in the air again. “No,” he says to someone. “I had no choice. She was a sitting duck. If I could find her, they could as well, and if they found her, she’d be dead.”
My hand goes to my throat. Dead . I’d be dead.
“I’m not letting that happen.” He’s silent a moment. “I didn’t need an excuse to go after her,” he adds. “I was never going to let her go.”
Never going to let me go ? I like this. I hate this. I’m so very confused by this and everything to do with me and this man. My hand leaves my neck and presses to the cushion of the soft cloth couch beneath me. I’m even more confused when Noah, or Aaron—they told me his real name is Aaron—or whoever he is walks in the room looking like sex and sin in jeans, no shirt, feet bare, and two steaming cups in hand. I’ve lost time. I’ve lost the time between the moment he showed up in my bedroom and now. I will the memories, the time, to come back, but my God, he’s gorgeous. He’s perfect. The perfect killer , I remind myself. The perfect shirtless killer. I blanch. Wait. If he’s shirtless, what am I wearing and what did I forget? I throw my legs off the cushion to the floor and sit up. He sits down next to me and offers me one of the cups he’s holding.
“Milk chocolate cocoa, the way you like it, with whipped cream.”
I shoot to my feet and throw the blanket aside, free to run, to fight. “What is this? Where are we? Why the hell don’t you have on clothes?” I look down at myself, and I’m in my favorite jeans, my favorite pink sweater, with Converse sneakers on my feet. I jerk my attention back to him, as he sets the mugs on the table.
“I don’t remember how I got here,” I accuse.
“There’s much to talk about, baby. Let’s just sit and drink the cocoa and talk.”
“I am not your baby. You want to talk. Give me my loaded gun then we’ll talk.”
He holds up his hands. “You have nothing to fear from me. You know that. You know me and us .”
“I know nothing about you. You’re nothing you said you were. Why is the fireplace lit in Texas? And why are you shirtless and shoeless?”
“We didn’t have sex if that’s what you’re thinking,” he says. “And you damn sure better remember when we do. And as for my shirt and shoes, the Colorado snow soaked my shirt and boots.”
My eyes go wide. “Colorado? We’re in Colorado?”
“Yes,” he confirms. “We’re in Colorado.”
“Why? How? I can’t remember anything. Except—” My mind flashes back to my apartment and him touching me and kissing me and then—I grab a pillow from the couch and chuck it at him. He ducks, and I turn and start running. But he’s there, catching me from behind, arms around me, cheek next to mine.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You drugged me,” I pant out. “God, I let you kiss me, because—”
“You love me the way I love you. Let me explain. Just give me five minutes.”
His arms around me are so damn familiar, his body is familiar. “Give me my gun, and I’ll listen to your lies.”
He turns me in his arms, his hand between my shoulder blades, molding me close; the other catching my hair and tilting my face to his. “I’m not going to shoot you, and you’re not going to shoot me.”
“Just poison me with damn hot chocolate?”
His hands move to my shoulders but keeps me close, his eyes meeting mine in challenge. “Why would I bring you here to kill you?”
My chin lifts in defiance. “I don’t pretend to know anything about you.”
“Please. Sit with me.” He presses his forehead to mine, his hand in my hair once more, settling on the back of my head. “Just listen to what I have to say.”
“You kissed me and drugged me. Why would I be that stupid again?”
“I had no time to explain,” he says. “We were in imminent danger.”
I shove on his chest and pull back. “Which is why you took the time to kiss me? You are so full of bullshit.”
His eyes meet mine. “It had been too fucking long since I kissed you.”
His voice is low, rasping with emotion that I feel in my chest, and the damn air around us is thick and heavy. He’s sucking me in. He’s dragging me under his spell and to what end? “It won’t work this time. I know who you are and that’s a traitor, a dirty CIA agent, not the investment banker I was supposed to marry. I know what you are. I know what we aren’t.”
“Someone set me up. I had to run. I was a hot target, and you were in protective custody before I could get to you. I made the call that ended this, fixing it so you’d be safe. It was the right decision.”
There’s hope in my chest and that makes me stupid. That makes me angry at me and him. “And now?”
“It’s not over, baby, but you’re no longer safer without me. The dark web had a call for your assassination.”
“The dark web,” I repeat, remembering a case I’d help manage at the firm involving the dark web, aware of just how illicit and real it is. “Because they think I can hurt you? Because they think I know something I don’t know?”
“Because of me, yes. Because you matter to me. Because in my lifetime in the CIA, I’ve never shown any weakness until you. I will not let them hurt you. The only one who dies is anyone who comes after you.”
“Because you’re a killer.”
“I swore to myself and I swear to you that I won’t lie to you again. So, yes, because I’m a killer.”