Chapter 37
REID
The bedroom door settled into its frame with a quiet click.
Noah did not release my hand.
He had crossed the hall without the walking pole—twelve deliberate steps from the kitchen tile to the bedroom rug. By the tenth, the effort had drawn a tight line around his mouth. By the twelfth, his fingers had closed harder around mine.
But he had made it without stumbling.
The old navigation lamp burned green in the hallway, its muted light slipping through the narrow gap beneath the door. Rain whispered against the windows. Far below, in the dark storage yard, a loose halyard struck a mast with a slow, hollow knock.
Noah stood beside the bed and faced me.
Confidence had carried him out of the kitchen and down the hall.
Now that we were alone, it began to fray.
His gaze stopped at my chest rather than rising to my face. His thumb pressed into the center of my palm as though searching for a pulse there.
I waited.
“I haven’t changed my mind,” he said.
“About what?”
The corner of his mouth moved without becoming a smile.
“You always make me say everything.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you deserve to hear yourself choose.”
His eyes flicked up to mine, then away again.
“I want us naked.”
“All right.”
“I want you touching me.”
“Yes.”
“I want to try preparing.”
My pulse kicked harder.
He felt it through our joined hands.
“And maybe,” he continued, softer now, “I want you inside me.”
The words were quiet.
They were not uncertain.
I lifted his hand and kissed his knuckles.
“Maybe is enough.”
“I don’t want you treating maybe as a refusal.”
“I won’t.”
His shoulders lowered a fraction.
“What do you hear?”
“I hear that we can move toward it. I hear that we stop wherever you need to stop. I hear that neither of us has to know the ending before we begin.”
He breathed out.
“I’m scared.”
“I know.”
“It isn’t you.”
“I know that too.”
At last, his gaze met mine.
“I’m afraid I’ll want it. I’m afraid my mind will be certain, and then my body will panic.”
“Then your body gets to answer too.”
“What if it disagrees with my head?”
“Then we listen to both.”
“And what do you get?”
I stroked my thumb across the side of his hand.
“I get to want whatever leaves you able to trust me in the morning.”
His expression softened.
“That sounds unbearably noble.”
“It’s self-interest.”
“How?”
“I want tomorrow. And the day after that. I don’t want one night badly enough to damage everything that follows.”
Something in his face opened.
He touched the first button of my work shirt.
“Green,” he said.
I let my arms fall loosely at my sides.
He opened the button.
Then the next.
And another.
His fingers slowed as more skin appeared. My body was no longer new to him. Since coming home, he had seen me undressed, slept against me, explored me with his hands and mouth, watched desire strip the composure from my face.
Tonight was still different.
Intention changed familiar things.
Every inch he revealed seemed to acquire meaning because he had brought me here with a purpose neither of us could pretend not to understand.
When the shirt hung open, Noah eased it from my shoulders. His palms traveled over my chest and stopped at the black compass inked beneath my ribs.
“Still dramatic,” he murmured.
“Your opinion remains noted.”
He bent and pressed his mouth to the center of the tattoo.
My breath caught.
Noah looked up immediately.
“Green?”
“Yes.”
He kissed the ink again, lower this time, his lips moving along one dark line.
He was not teasing me.
He was learning what happened when he touched me with this particular promise between us.
I rested one hand at the back of his neck. I did not guide him. I only let him feel that I was there.
He straightened and reached for my belt.
I covered his hand before he opened it.
“Do you want me undressed first?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
A hint of mischief appeared in his eye.
“So I can reconsider while you stand there naked.”
I laughed.
“Practical.”
“And rewarding.”
I stepped back and removed the rest of my clothes.
Noah watched every movement.
His gaze was not shy. Hunger showed in his gaze, along with curiosity and a fine thread of apprehension that neither of us tried to deny.
I stood before him without covering myself.
He reached out and touched me lightly. One slow pass of his hand sent heat through my body.
“You’re already hard.”
“You led me into a bedroom and began issuing instructions.”
“This could be clinical.”
“You are failing to create that impression.”
His smile came more easily.
Then he looked down at his own clothes.
“Your turn?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I began with his shirt.
His left shoulder had improved, but sudden rotation still caused pain. I opened the buttons one at a time rather than pulling the garment over his head. After each one, I kissed the newly exposed skin.
His breath changed when my mouth touched the scar near his collarbone.
“Color?”
“Green.”
I kissed it again.
Then the pale line beneath his ribs.
The incision had healed cleanly, but I could still remember the surgeon explaining what they had removed, what they had repaired, what they were still uncertain he would survive.
His stomach tightened beneath my lips.
“You don’t have to kiss all of them,” Noah said.
“I know.”
“Then why do you?”
I raised my head.
“They’re part of you.”
“That sounds prepared.”
“It isn’t.”
He watched me.
For once, I did not soften the truth before giving it to him.
“I hated them at first.”
His fingers went still in my hair.
“Why?”
“Because they hurt you. Because they proved the accident had happened. Every time I saw one, I was back in that hospital corridor waiting for someone to tell me whether you were going to live.”
His throat moved.
“And now?”
I touched the scar with my mouth once more.
“Now they belong to the man who did.”
His eye shone.
I rose and opened his pants.
He lifted his hips carefully while I eased denim and underwear down together. The movement tightened the muscles in his right thigh.
“Pain?”
“One.”
“Sharp?”
“No. Just stiff.”
I freed his injured leg slowly and placed his clothes aside.
Then Noah stood naked in front of me.
The scars had faded. They no longer looked raw or newly acquired. Muscle had begun to return to his shoulders, chest, and thighs, though months of recovery still marked him.
Desire did not ask me to compare this body to the one I remembered.
I wanted the man who stood before me now.
Nothing about that wanting was diminished.
He saw it in my face.
“You look as though you’re trying not to devour me.”
“I’m demonstrating restraint.”
“Unconvincingly.”
“Come here.”
He stepped into my arms.
Bare skin met bare skin.
Noah exhaled against my throat, and some of the tension seemed to leave him. His hands moved over my back, tentative at first, then lower with sudden confidence.
His grip tightened.
I kissed him.
Slowly.
Not because my desire lacked urgency.
Because I wanted him to feel every decision inside it.
His lips parted beneath mine. His tongue met mine. His body pressed into me, hard and warm, his arousal unmistakable against my stomach.
He shifted closer.
“Still green?” I asked against his mouth.
“Yes.”
“Head?”
“One.”
“Hip?”
“Good.”
“Fear?”
He took my hand and placed it flat over his sternum.
His heart beat fast beneath my palm.
“Here.”
“Do you want to stop?”
“No.”
“Slow down?”
“No.”
“What do you want?”
He glanced toward the bed.
“That.”
I drew back the quilt and arranged the pillows the way Maeve had shown us.
One beneath Noah’s knees. Another supporting his right hip. A third positioned near his left arm so he would not have to bear weight through the recovering shoulder.
Noah watched with growing suspicion.
“This has become a medical demonstration.”
“The lighting is romantic.”
“The light is green.”
“You like green.”
“I do.”
He sat first, testing the mattress beneath him, then lowered himself onto his back.
I lay beside him rather than moving over him.
The position left the room open around his body. He could see me. He could turn away. He did not have my weight above him or feel pinned against the mattress.
He noticed.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
I touched his cheek.
“May I kiss you?”
“Yes.”
“Your chest?”
“Yes.”
“Lower?”
His breath caught.
“Yes.”
My hand traveled down him slowly.
Chest.
Stomach.
The curve of his hip.
The tense line of muscle along his thigh.
I avoided the place where he most wanted me.
Noah made an impatient sound.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“I’m being patient.”
“That is not a denial.”
“No.”
He caught my wrist and guided my hand between his legs.
I closed my fingers around him.
His head pressed back into the pillow.
“Green?”
“Yes.”
I moved slowly.
His breath broke on the second stroke.
When he turned his face toward me, pleasure had darkened his eye.
“Can I touch you?”
“Yes.”
His hand found me.
For several moments our movements refused to match. Our wrists collided. Noah laughed softly into my mouth.
The laughter loosened something in him.
His grip grew surer. Mine slowed as his body began to tighten.
“Not yet,” he whispered.
I stopped the rhythm without taking my hand away.
“All right.”
“I want more first.”
“What kind of more?”
His eyelids lowered.
“Your mouth.”
I kissed my way down his chest.
Across his stomach.
Along the sensitive crease of his hip.
Noah’s hand settled on my shoulder as I moved lower. I paused long enough for him to stop me.
He didn’t.
When I touched him with my mouth, his body lifted slightly before settling again beneath the steadying weight of my hand on his thigh.
The sounds he made began quietly.
A breath pulled too sharply.
A syllable without shape.
My name.
I kept the pace unhurried, watching every reaction, letting his body learn pleasure without demanding that it outrun fear.
His fingers twisted into the sheet.
“Close,” he warned.
I eased away.
Noah stared down at me, flushed and incredulous.
“You stopped.”
“You said you wanted more.”
“I did.”
“What do you want now?”
He swallowed.
“Touch me from behind.”
“Only outside?”
“Yes.”
I reached for the lubricant in the bedside drawer.