by Paige Tyler
Noah looked like he wanted to say something suitably sarcastic in response, but Peyton caught his hand and gave it a squeeze. It was after midnight and she was too tired for this.
“This isn’t over,” Noah said. “Not until the cops catch that other guy.”
Peyton only hoped that was soon.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I FEEL HORRIBLE taking your bed,” Peyton said as they walked into his apartment. “If you had to sleep on my couch when you were staying at my place, shouldn’t I get the couch at yours?”
“I slept on the couch at your place because it put me between your bedroom and the easiest way into your house,” he said, taking off his suit jacket and tossing it over the back of the couch. “I’m sleeping on the couch here for the same reason. Anyone coming in the front door will have to go through me first before they can get to you.”
Picking up her bags from where he’d set them down on the floor, he headed for his bedroom. It was probably an indication of just how rattled Peyton still was by the kidnapping attempt that she didn’t even try to argue the point. Just like she hadn’t complained when he suggested staying at his place instead of hers. She’d simply packed an overnight bag as fast as she could, grabbed her laptop and a yoga DVD, then followed him out the door.
Trying to grab her right in front of a crowded hotel in the middle of town was an act of desperate men. Someone—maybe even Magpie—was pushing to get Peyton’s book sooner rather than later. And with one of the would-be thieves already in police custody, the other had to know he was running out of time. He’d come for Peyton as soon as he figured out where she was. Which meant keeping her somewhere they wouldn’t expect.
“Do you have someplace I can set up my laptop?” she asked, following him into the bedroom. “I came up with a few thoughts for the ending of the book while doing the signing and I need to get them down before I forget what they are.”
Noah turned to see her looking around, her gaze resting on his king size bed and the thick comforter spread across it. He wondered if he should point out that it was nearly midnight but knew it wouldn’t matter. Peyton might be physically exhausted after the evening she had, but mentally, she was probably pinging off the walls. He wouldn’t be surprised if she ended up staying awake half the night.
Adrenaline could do that to people who weren’t used to it.
“You’re more than welcome to pile up the pillows and write in bed,” he said. “Or you can use the desk I have in the guest room. I have a home office set up in there, along with my workout equipment.”
“I think I’ll try the office,” Peyton said. “If I write in bed, I’m afraid I’ll end up falling asleep.”
Noah quickly cleaned off the paperwork scattered around the desk and was shoving his weightlifting gear aside so she wouldn’t feel so crowded when a knock at the door made him freeze. From the corner of his eye, he saw Peyton tense.
“Relax,” he said softly. “If it was the bad guys, I doubt they’d knock. It’s probably one of the guys bringing us leftover pizza. I sent them a text earlier, letting them know we’d be staying at my place.”
Her shoulders dropped down from where they’d been crowding her ears even as another knock came, this one more insistent.
“I’d better get that before whoever it is gets worried and kicks in the door,” he muttered.
Peyton flipped open her laptop with a smile and slid into the office chair, her fingernails clicking over the keyboard before he barely made it out of the room. He couldn’t imagine being creative enough to sit down and start typing like that. But that was what made her a writer and him not.
He felt the slightest twinge in his left knee as he walked across the living room. Considering how hard he’d gone after that van, he was lucky it wasn’t worse. He could have blown out his knee completely.
Not that it would have stopped him. When he’d heard Peyton scream and turned to see some asshole dragging her into the back of a van, his heart seized in his chest. He’d run after the vehicle as fast as he could, his only concern getting to her in time.
It wasn’t until they’d been lying on the sidewalk, his arms wrapped tightly around her, that Noah realized he was in trouble. At some point during the release party, he’d convinced himself that he was going to walk away when this was over. It was obvious that Peyton wasn’t suited to being involved with a SEAL and getting out of Dodge was the smart thing to do. It would save both of them the trouble—and heartache—of watching everything fall apart later.
But after rescuing her from that pair of kidnappers, he realized he couldn’t walk away from her. Not in a million frigging years. She’d already burrowed into his heart too deep to let her go.
He was still thinking about what that all meant when he yanked open the door and found his chief standing there.
Crap.
Chasen knows.
That was the only thing that made sense. Somehow…his boss had figured out he was working as Peyton’s bodyguard and was here to rip him a new one.
“Is Peyton okay?” Chasen asked, stepping past him and into the apartment.
Noah stared at him. “What?”
“The kidnapping attempt at the Bayfront was all over the eleven o’clock news,” he said, as if it should have been obvious. “Hayley’s coworkers at the Daily News were calling every five minutes hoping I’d give them inside information on the Navy SEAL who kept the city’s most famous author from getting abducted. Since you’re seeing Peyton, it wasn’t difficult to figure out you went to the signing with her and put yourself in the middle of everything, exactly like I’d expect you to do.”
Noah breathed a sigh of relief. Chasen didn’t know anything about the bodyguard gig. It sucked that word of the kidnapping attempt had made the news, though. He hadn’t even considered that.
“You could have texted me,” Noah said. “How did you even know I’d be here? I could just as easily have been at Peyton’s place.”
It was Chasen’s turn to laugh as he cocked his head to the side and listened to the sound of rapid clicking from down the hallway as Peyton typed at a furious pace.
“You know I’m not a fan of texting when something is better done in person,” his chief pointed out. “And as far as knowing you’d be here, that’s easy. Peyton was threatened. It’s only natural to bring her somewhere you consider home turf, so you can keep her safe.”
Noah considered that. Chasen had put his recent actions into words far better than he’d ever be able to do.
“Is she okay?” Chasen asked again. “I hear typing going on in there, so I assume so.”
“She’s okay,” Noah said softly, not wanting Peyton to overhear them talking about her. “A little rattled, but physically fine. She’s dealing with it a lot better than I thought she would, considering how close she came to being kidnapped.”
Chasen crossed his arms over his chest with a frown. “You think this was a one-time, random thing or an indication of something more?”
Part of Noah wanted to tell his boss about the true threat Peyton was facing. That someone—maybe Magpie—was after the manuscript of her next book and that he’d been protecting her ever since the break-in at her place. But there was no way in hell he could tell Chasen any of that. Not if he wanted to keep protecting Peyton.
“Her publisher thinks it was a one-time thing,” he lied smoothly and feeling like crap for doing it. “It’s probably because she has a book releasing next week. But I still felt better with her staying with me for a while.”
“Makes sense,” Chasen said with a nod. “But you have to admit, it’s a little quick, isn’t it? I mean, you’ve only known her for a couple days, right? It there something serious going on between the two of you?”
Noah almost denied it out of instinct, but then he realized Chasen probably already knew the answer to the question before he’d asked.
“Yeah, there is,” he admitted quietly. “On my part at least. I don’t know if Peyton feels the same way. Or whethe
r she’s willing to explore it if she does. I think my being a SEAL might scare her off.”
Chasen was silent for a moment, an understanding expression on his face. Like he knew exactly what Noah was going through. Which he did. Looking for someone to share their lives with while doing a job that asked so much, not only from them but everyone around them, was the same thing every one of his Teammates had to deal with.
“You can’t hold it against her,” Chasen said. “If she doesn’t want to deal with it, I mean. Expecting a woman to live with the kind of stress our career choice puts on her is a big ask for anyone. At the end of the day, all you can do is let her make the choice. But if she decides to try, it’s on you to give her everything you have. At least everything the job will let you give her. Make sure she knows how much you care about her and that she’s important to you.”
They talked for a few more minutes, focusing on far less weighty matters than his potential relationship with Peyton or the danger that had her spending the foreseeable future at his place. The conversation centered on Noah’s knee and assurances that he was maintaining his physical therapy schedule and not doing anything that would jeopardize his recovery.
Noah promised he was being a good little SEAL. Outside of running down the occasional kidnapping vehicle, of course.
When Chasen left, Noah stood for a moment in the middle of his living room, wondering why it was so quiet. It took him a moment to realize he couldn’t hear the click of computer keys. Had Peyton fallen asleep at her keyboard?
He wandered down the hallway, stunned when he looked in the bedroom door and found her lying in the middle of the floor staring up at the ceiling intently. He stood there for a moment, waiting for her to see him, but whatever she was thinking about must have been damn interesting because she didn’t notice him until he pushed away from the door jamb he’d been leaning against. She started, turning her head his way, and he immediately felt like crap for making her jump.
“Sorry.” He offered her a smile with his apology. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I wanted to let you know that it was Chasen at the door. He heard about the kidnapping attempt and wanted to make sure we were okay.”
“Oh. That was nice of him,” she said, clearly still preoccupied. “Thanks.”
Noah wanted to ask if everything was cool, but when she went back to staring at the ceiling, he figured it would be better to let her work through whatever it was she was thinking about on her own.
“Wait!” Peyton said when he turned to leave.
He turned back around to see her standing in the middle of the room, her hand outstretched toward him.
“I could really use your body right now,” she said.
It was quite possible his jaw dropped. Noah couldn’t be sure because the rush of images that popped into his head right then made rational thought damn near impossible. He’d had women throw themselves at him before, but it usually happened after hanging out in a bar for a couple of hours. Never in a situation like this, and never as blatant and as matter of fact as this. He didn’t know how to respond.
“Can you get on the floor with me?” she asked.
He opened his mouth, then closed it, not sure where this version of Peyton had come from. She wasn’t acting normal. Or at least not what he’d come to think of as normal for her. Could this simply be a reaction to what happened tonight? Had almost getting kidnapped made her decide to do something she’d usually never consider?
He took a deep breath. “I know you went through a lot earlier, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea to jump into this. I wouldn’t want you regretting it in the morning.”
Peyton frowned, clearly confused. She looked at him for a few seconds before her eyes went wide.
“Oh! You thought I meant…” A rosy blush colored her cheeks. “I wasn’t saying I wanted to have sex with you.”
He lifted a brow, wondering if he should laugh or be offended. That only made her blush more.
“Crap, that didn’t come out right! Of course, I’d have sex with you. What woman wouldn’t?”
If putting your foot in your mouth was an Olympic event, Peyton would win a gold medal for sure. She must have figured that out, too, because her face started heading for beet-red.
“Double crap! That didn’t come out right, either.” She sighed and ran a hand through her long, blond hair in a gesture that was seriously sexy. “Let me start over before I say something I’m really going to regret. I asked you to get on the floor with me because I suck at writing fight scenes and the end of this book has a really big one that’s giving me even more trouble than most. I thought you might be able to help me if we acted it out together.”
It was his turn to be embarrassed. Talk about jumping to conclusions. Though he had to admit, while there was part of him relieved Peyton wasn’t throwing herself into bed with him as a way to forget the earlier trauma, another part couldn’t help but feel disappointed. It was a stupid thought—one he fought to shove aside as quickly as he could—but no matter how hard he tried, the disappointment was still there.
“It was a silly idea,” Peyton added before he could respond, clearly embarrassed as hell now. “Forget I asked.”
She started toward her computer, but he stopped her with a gentle touch on her arm. Now she was making him feel bad about jumping to the wrong conclusion in the first place.
“It’s not silly. I’d be happy to help you.”
Peyton caught her lower lip between her teeth, a move as sexy as running her hand through her hair—maybe more. “You don’t mind?”
“No, not at all.” He grinned. “What do you want me to do?”
She thought a moment. “In the scene, the hero and the other guy are fighting on the floor, but I can’t figure out how the hero gets the knife away from him. Can you lie on the floor on your back?”
“Sure.”
Noah walked into the center of the room and sat down on the carpet, then leaned back. “Like this?” She nodded. “And where are you?”
Peyton knelt down beside him, then straddled his legs, careful to make sure her dress didn’t ride up too high. “Right here.”
O-kay.
He supposed he should have seen that coming since she’d asked him to get down on the floor with her. But damn, with her on top of him like this, the last thing he was thinking about doing was choreographing a fight scene.
“So, I have the knife and you’re trying to keep me from stabbing you,” she said.
Peyton clasped her hands together and lifted them over her head like she was holding a weapon, then lowered them as if she were going to stab him. Noah automatically lifted both arms to block the downward thrust, then immediately slipped his hands sideways until he could wrap them gently around her wrists. The move was pure instinct, but his next thoughts weren’t. Because all he could suddenly think about was how slender those wrists were, exactly like the rest of her. And her skin was so soft.
“This is as far as I got,” she explained. “Any tips on what the hero should do?”
It was difficult to answer with her warm body practically lying on top of his. His cock stirred in his slacks. He ignored it. As much as any man can ignore a hard-on. “Are these guys experienced fighters? Do they have any special training?”
She shook her head, the ends of her hair brushing his shirt. “Not really. They’re both on the football team, though.”
Noah thought a minute, trying not to let himself get distracted by the way her breasts rose every time she took a breath.
“There are a few things the hero could do.” Noah took his right hand away from her wrists, shifting the left so he could hold both of them in that one. “He could punch the other guy in the jaw or the ribs. Or he could buck up to get the other guy off balance and roll him off.”
Her perfectly arched brows furrowed. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
Realizing it was easier to show her, Noah lifted his hips suddenly to throw her off balance, then rolled both of them over until
he was the one on top. He felt a slight twinge in his knee at the move, but nothing too bad. So, he focused on the move, reaching out to gently pin her wrists to the floor over her head.
Peyton blinked up at him, her blue eyes wide, her mouth slightly parted. Her lips were the color of strawberries. He bet they’d taste just as sweet. If he leaned over a little bit more, he could kiss her and see if he was right. It’d be so easy.
And stupid.
The cock straining against the front of his pants didn’t agree. Crap. All he needed was for her to realize he was sporting wood.
Noah cleared his throat. “You can have the hero pin down both hands like I’m doing or just the one with the knife. Either way, from this point, it would be easy for him to punch the bad guy in the face a few times, then yank the knife away.”
Peyton nodded, her expression a little confused, leaving Noah unsure as to whether she’d heard anything he said. Instead, she gazed up at him, the heat in her eyes making him think of nothing but kissing her. But he couldn’t do that. It would only make a complicated situation more difficult.
“I should probably let you get back to writing,” he said, trying to ease his weight off her enough to ensure Peyton wouldn’t feel his hard-on rubbing up against her.
Something he thought might be disappointment flickered across her face, but it disappeared too quickly for him to be sure. She licked her lips once, then nodded.
He released her wrists, then reluctantly pushed himself to his feet. The sight of her lying on the floor, one leg bent at the knee, her skirt riding up her thighs was nearly his undoing, and it took everything in him not to get back down there with her and do what his body was begging him to do.
He swallowed hard and held out his hand to help her up. She placed her smaller one in his, allowing him to tug her to her feet. While she was tall, she still only came up to his chin, and she tilted her head back to gaze up at him.