His Runaway Bride (Alphalicious Billionaires Book 7)

by Lindsey Hart

  “I know that I’m attractive,” he agreed. “But not like you’re making me out to be. I don’t know. I guess I stopped noticing. Got busy with work and stuff. I was into female attention for a while, when I was young and dumb, but now, it just got old. The drama and the dating and stuff. I can do without it.”

  “Is that why I’m here? Because you prefer one-night stands that are sexy and meaningless?”

  “No! No. That’s not what I had in mind.” He ran a hand through his hair, completely discomfited. How the hell did she manage to turn him inside out? He didn’t have this problem with other women. They were the ones chasing him while he was bored and disinterested most of the time.

  “Right.” Noemi grinned like she was enjoying herself a little. “I guess I came to you with my… problem. You were all about waffles and being a good host. I was the one that shot that to shit and ruined your plans and cost you fifty bucks in pizza.”

  “Best fifty bucks I ever spent.”

  Noemi’s smile faded. “I didn’t want to have this conversation because it’s awkward and I don’t want to come across as crazy or needy, but now that we’re talking about it, I wanted to say that this was fun. Is fun. I- I’d be open to something more if you are. That’s not- you don’t have to though. We just met. Seriously. I never thought I’d say this, but some people talk about meeting people and they say that they just have this instant connection and things are just easy. I never believed it. I thought it was just made up like holidays are an excuse to sell more merch to people in flagging retail seasons. With you though, I can kind of see it.”

  “Because I ate your pussy three minutes after you walked in my door?”

  Her lips twitched. “I’m pretty sure it was more like ten minutes. Give me some credit.”

  “So, if I told you that I wanted to see you again tomorrow, would you be up for that?”

  “It depends if tomorrow means the morning, when I wake up, throw my clothes on, and do the whole walk of shame thing for the first time in my life, or if by tomorrow you mean that even if I throw my clothes on and do a walk of shame, you’d still want to see me in the evening for a redo on those waffles?”

  Something prodded him in the stomach. It felt like an actual object and he was pretty surprised to find nothing there when he glanced down at his t-shirt. “It’s only a walk of shame if you’re ashamed about something.”

  “I’m not ashamed.” She sounded like she meant that. Her face was totally sincere.

  “You’re right. This is really good pizza.”

  Noemi threw back her head and laughed. Really, truly, laughed. She was so beautiful it hurt to look at her. Literally. Suddenly it felt like his eyes were on fire and he had no idea why. He liked her laugh too. It was melodic, twinkling and had that sweet cadence to it like the cheery kind of classical music that wasn’t annoying as shit.

  “Okay, I give up. If you want to make waffles tomorrow night, I’d show up.”

  Would you show up too if I told you I wanted to strip you naked, turn you around and eat you from behind?

  Pussy normally wasn’t his thing. Okay, so he was a dude. Pussy was basically always his thing, but he’d never really enjoyed eating out a girl that much. Back when he was young, maybe. The novelty wore off with time. It wore off on getting his dick sucked too. He wasn’t a double standard kind of guy. It was all just old. Old and boring. Devoid of meaning. Ultimately empty.

  Not Noemi.

  Her pussy was like finding the fountain of youth. He wanted to drink and drink and never share. God, he wanted to turn her around and eat all of her, and he was definitely not an ass man. At least not in that respect.

  He’d known her for all of a few hours. What the hell was going on with him? He was supposed to convince her to fake marry him. Not fall head first into straight up lust because she was beautiful, tasted like the rarest honey- the kind made from, like, golden bees or some shit, smelled like vanilla and flowers, and made him come in under a minute.

  Also, on that list- she was kind. Compassionate. She was extra cute when she blushed and when her nose crinkled up. Her laugh could sustain him for days. She unlocked real, actual feeling in him. She liked pizza. She looked fucking incredible in his t-shirt. She had nice breasts. A great ass. Perky nipples. A body that he’d kill anyone if they thought they were going to get to see it naked. He’d cut off a person’s hands if they thought they could touch her. She was loyal. Obviously loved her family. Didn’t seem to care about money, even though her daddy was rich. Wasn’t one of those spoiled bratty, empty headed, cruel women.

  He could sum her up with one word. Not perfection, though he did think about it. Dangerous.

  She was dangerous.

  He remembered his mom saying, when she knew she was dying, that she was worried about his dad. She’d said she wanted him to remarry, but she knew he never would. That he’d never be happy again because for him, she was it, just like he was it for her. They’d promised each other forever and she would have given him a hundred years if she could have, but she couldn’t, and she knew he wasn’t going to be alright without her. That she’d break him, just like he would have destroyed her had it been the other way around.

  Of course, being basically just a kid, though he’d grown up fast after his mom died, he hadn’t understood what she meant. Not really. She’d been right, but he hadn’t got it.

  He’d never fully got it.

  Until Noemi.

  It was like walking into a brick wall dick first. Painful as shit. World ending. Mind numbing. Nut wrenching. Gut wrenching.

  “Cason? Long silence after I said I’d come back tomorrow isn’t the most reassuring thing…”

  He gave himself a shake. He also didn’t do that. Drift off into the middle of no man’s land or cyberspace or wherever he’d just been. He didn’t examine his feelings. Ever. It was best not to have any in the first place. It was much less trouble and far less mess.

  “Sorry. I was fanaticizing about a few things of my own. I think I’ve discovered a few more uses for whipped cream other than as a topper for good.”

  Noemi colored again, like he knew she would. She distracted herself by fiddling with his t-shirt and he took the moment to reach for the remote, hoping like hell the TV was easy to use. If not, he’d have to break the damn thing in some subtle manner to save his ass.

  Cason. She called him Cason.

  Maybe he should stop worrying about the remote and figure out how the ever-living hell he was supposed to come up with a subtle way to tell her he’d lied to her about everything.

  CHAPTER 10

  Noemi

  A heaving ship, tossing about the in waves. On deck. Struggling to get below. Swaying and tossing in the stairs. Hitting the wall. Righting herself only to be tossed forward. Wet. Why was she wet? She was soaking, her hair damp and plastered to her face, her clothes drenched in sea water, the salt already making her skin itch. She faltered on, taking a few more hesitant steps, her hand on the wall for support. Finally, she was at her door. The door to her cabin. To safety. She tried the handle, but it was locked, and the ship tossed again, sending her flat onto her ass. It groaned and let out a shudder that could only mean disaster and she wasn’t entirely startled to find that the stranger whimpering echoing off the lonely hallway, was her own.

  Noemi woke with a start.

  She’d been on a cruise once, with both her parents when she was young. Eleven. A storm came up and tossed even that huge boat about, so that the water in the pools on deck splashed violently and the very cabin they were standing in seemed like it was adrift, tossing in the salty waves. She’d been afraid. Her dad had been ill, but her mom was like a rock through it all. She remembered clinging to her mom’s waist and crying, soaking her shirt with tears like the storm lashing on the outside of their cabin. Her mom rubbed her back and assured her it would all be fine, and in a few hours, it had been.

  She turned her head side to side when the fog of sleep finally cleared off. Still, the r
oom wasn’t right. It took her a minute of blinking sleepy eyes to realize that of course it wasn’t right. She was in her hotel. She realized, a few seconds later, that she wasn’t there either. She was in a house. With one end table, not two beside the bed. There was no shadow on her side, denoting furniture.

  The bed was wrong. Hard, not soft like the one at her hotel. And dark. So dark. She always left the lamp on at the desk when she went to bed, mostly so she wouldn’t bang her skins or stub her toes in the night if she got up.

  The bed rocked and dipped again, and it was like massive hands reached down from above and shook her fully awake. She turned on her side, a little shocked to find another person there, just beyond her shoulder.

  Cason.

  Of course. They were watching a movie. She was tired. She must have fallen asleep and he’d carried her to bed. She did a quick mental scan and found she was still wearing his t-shirt. She wasn’t totally wet, like her dream, but her arm closest to the big form to her left was damp. She pulled it back before her grainy, sleep heavy eyes flew to the shadow’s face.

  He was dreaming. Twitching and moving all over the place, which would explain the whole tossing ship trick that her sleepy subconscious decided to play on her. When her eyes finally adjusted to the total darkness of the room, she could see that the thin covers were completely flattened around Cason’s massive outline. She reached out and brushed her fingertips against the sheets pulled up around his shoulders and wasn’t entirely surprised to find them soaking.

  As if that little brush of her fingertips had the force of a full-on grip and shake, Cason startled awake. He shot upright, chest and shoulders heaving, his breaths loud, rattling out of his chest like a chainsaw.

  “Whoa,” Noemi whispered, like she was talking down an enraged bear. “It’s okay. It’s just me. I think you were- having either a really good dream… or a really bad one.”

  Cason ran a hand through his hair, a dark outline moving in a cloak of blue black dark. That was the best her eyes could do with blinds that shuttered the outside world out completely and no glowing guide lights in the room. No clock on the nightstand on Cason’s side, no glowing phone, no night light. Nothing.

  Cason’s other hand plucked at the damp sheets, peeling them away like a second skin. “Jesus,” he cursed, without turning his head to look at her. “I’m sorry. Don’t usually try and drown my partner in bed. At least not on the first night over. I try and save all the nefarious stuff for when they’re too emotionally invested to find me disgusting and to leave in the middle of the night after cussing me out.”

  Noemi blew out a breath. She maneuvered herself upright against unfamiliar pillows and a surprisingly plush upholstered headboard. “I’m not going to do that.”

  Cason ran a hand through his damp hair again. She could tell that it was plastered to his head, since the dark outline, a damn impressive dark outline, didn’t look right. “Sorry. I- I’ll get us some new sheets.”

  “It’s alright.” She’d never actually been in a situation like this and it was surprisingly a few shades less awkward than she thought it would be. “I’ll get them. Why don’t you go have a warm bath?” She couldn’t exactly see his lips curl up, but she had the feeling he was smiling at her, that knowing, disarming smile that guys like him could so effortlessly produce.

  “A bath?”

  “It usually fixes all my problems.”

  “Only if you’ll join me after.”

  Now that definitely wouldn’t fix all her problems. All it would do was create a whole different set. She’d never bathed with anyone. The shower was one thing. A bath… that involved sitting down. Naked. Probably rubbing up a whole lot of skin against a whole lot of other skin that didn’t belong to her. In essence, it was strangely intimate, even though she’d had Cason’s more private regions in her mouth not more than a few hours ago and had told him a heck of a lot more about her fantasies than she’d ever done with Rob, even after a few years.

  “After you’re out, maybe.”

  Cason chuckled, low and dark in his throat. “Okay. I’ll leave it up to you.” He pushed back the blankets and slid effortlessly from the bed, like he wasn’t still drenched in his own sweat.

  It wasn’t until a few minutes later, when the tub cranked on from down the hall and the pipes in the house actually shuddered like it was built in the last century, not the nineties like she figured it to be, that she realized he was a master of communication. As in, he mastered it without communicating at all. Without having to.

  She didn’t ask him what the dream was about.

  She didn’t ask him what could be so bad that he sweated through a sheet and a quilt and soaked the bed below him. That kind of thing probably wasn’t the good kind of dream. Did it have to do with the wicked scar on his back that he’d downplayed?

  Noemi slid slowly off the other side of the bed. Luckily there was a slant of light coming from the bathroom down the hall, telling her that Cason left the door open in invitation. She didn’t have to fumble to find the bedroom light. She didn’t ruin her legs or stub her toes and have to let out un-lady like curses all the way to the door and back. She flipped the switch, bundled up the bed, threw the pile on the floor and stood there, wondering where the hell the extra sheets were.

  Probably down the hall. Didn’t everyone keep their extras in some tiny little, nearly useless, closed in smelling closet right next to the larger, darker, shadier closet where they kept all their skeletons?

  She went on a search, telling herself she was just being paranoid. Cason was far more free with everything than she ever would have been, even after months of knowing someone, maybe even years. He made her feel at home in his house, even though he was virtually a stranger. He’d made her feel that way from the second she met. Like he was an old soul connected to her old soul in some strange cosmic pattern that she’d never be able to understand. She’d never felt that with anyone else. If anything, it was always the exact opposite, the sense of entire wrongness plaguing her well into the relationship until she felt panicked and edgy, like she needed to get away, but couldn’t quite figure out how. Trapped. That was the word she was looking for.

  How was it possible that she felt more comfortable fumbling around in a stranger’s hallway in the middle of the night, wearing nothing but his admittedly huge t-shirt that hung down to her knees, her mysterious fire smothering, waffle making, pizza ordering not so white knight soaking in a tub only a few feet away, than she had the entire time she was with Rob?

  The Completely. Naked. And. Totally. Gorgeous. Stranger?

  Noemi ducked her head and tried the first narrow door she came to. She opened it and of course, there was a stack of folded sheets and towels, and even a few extra pillows inside.

  She took out a bundle and made quick work of the bed. Her mom had been a stickler for keeping things neat. She was still allowed to be a kid and make messes, but she had to learn how to clean them up.

  After, she walked down the hall and into the kitchen. The mess from that evening was still there, the spilled flour and the buttermilk sitting out on the counter, spoiled. The urge to clean it up was so strong that her fingers itched, but then she glanced at the spot on the counter where Cason had set her right before he turned her whole world upside down, and she scurried past, to the steps that she’d spotted earlier. They led to an unfinished basement that somehow wasn’t creepy, even with the concrete floors and open wood beams and insulation. She was correct in thinking they led to the laundry room.

  She tucked the sheets in the washer, found the detergent, and got everything working.

  Back upstairs, she hesitated in the kitchen for a few seconds before she scurried back down the hall. She paused just outside the bathroom door and when soft snores issued into the hall, she stepped around the door.

  She wasn’t staring. She wasn’t creeping. She wasn’t… okay. She was. She was totally staring and creeping, and she was completely unashamed at both. Cason’s massive bronzed body w
ould do that to anyone. His head thrown back against the edge of the tub, his eyelashes resting against his cheek, his lips slightly parted… he was gorgeous in a vulnerable sort of way that a strong man never was. The water and the edge of the tub hiding anything more than his broad, rippling shoulders and head, so that she felt like less of a Creepy McCreepington.

  Just a shade less, but still.

  She was trying to come up with a game plan, because sleeping in a bathtub wasn’t exactly safe and it would probably leave him with a horrible crink in his neck come morning, when one tropical blue eye popped open and those devastatingly wicked lips curled into a grin.

  “So, you do want to join me after all.”

  Noemi let out a snort and crossed her arms as she thrust out a hip against the doorjamb. “You’re an asshole. Straight up. You were faking it the whole time.”

  Cason sat up so that the water sloshed in the tub and she was dangerously close to having her eyes come in contact with the same choice bits she’d decided to pleasure with her mouth earlier. She dropped her eyes to the floor in a hurry.

  “You know that it’s physically impossible for someone my size to drown in a bathtub when I can’t even fit half of my body into it, right?”

  “It’s… it’s a modern tub. Big on the sides. Who knows how much water you put in there. It’s a deep tub and- and all it takes is an inch…” Her mom had said that once, when she was a kid. She felt utterly ridiculous standing there parroting it back.

  Cason laughed, that rich, velvety, dark sound. It enveloped her and suddenly, like a punch straight to the solar plexus- even though she didn’t entirely know what that was, but it sounded accurate- it was hard to breathe.

  “Come here.” He crooked his large index finger in a come-hither motion.