by Regina Kyle
“Don’t worry,” Gabe’s fiancée, Devin, assured her best friend. “If she wakes up before then I’ll take care of her. I could use the practice. Who knows? We could be next.”
She sat next to Gabe and they exchanged a look so full of love and tenderness, it made Noelle want to jump on a plane to Sacramento. She and Jace had been texting and calling and Skyping daily in the week or so since her first phone call, but none of that, no matter how steamy, was a match for up-close-and-personal, longing looks.
Instead, she had to put on her game face and stand up to an interrogation the likes of which only the Nelsons could muster. The Spanish inquisitors had nothing on her siblings.
“Mangia e statti zitto.” Noelle’s mother slapped a platter of fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil salad on the table. “Stop your bickering and eat. There will be plenty of time to ask Noelle all the questions you want after dessert.”
Her parents took their traditional seats at opposite ends of the table, and the rest of the meal progressed as peacefully as a Nelson Sunday dinner could. Until the second the last dessert plate hit the dishwasher, and her sisters and sister-in-law let the questions fly.
“Ok, spill. What’s the deal with this Jace guy?”
“Is he as hot as he looks on TV?”
“Did you two do the deed?”
Noelle shot a glance at her parents, still seated at the table sipping their coffee, then glared at her siblings. “I am so not talking about this in front of the parental units.”
“Tack så mycket.” Nils Nelson shuddered. “Thank you. There are some things a father doesn’t need to know about his little girl.”
“Noelle’s right.” Holly closed the dishwasher and hit the start button, the machine’s low hum underscoring her words. “Come on, ladies. Let’s take a walk. We can finish this discussion in the greenhouse.”
“Discussion?” Noelle wiped her hands on a dishtowel and draped it over the edge of the sink. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
“What about us dudes?” Gabe asked, leaning back in his chair. “We’ll miss all the fun.”
“Yeah,” Nick chimed in. “Now who’s the traitor?”
“Don’t worry, babe. I’ll fill you in later.” Holly came up behind him and dropped a kiss on the top of his head. “Can you check on Joy? She should be waking up soon.”
“No sweat.” Nick reached back and squeezed his wife’s hand. “Go have your girl talk. I’ll take care of the baby.”
Another pang of longing—or was it jealousy?—hit Noelle. She wanted what her brother and sisters had. She wanted a home, and someone to share it with.
Could Jace be that someone?
For so many years her career had consumed her life, taken up every waking moment, every inch of free space. Where she went, who she knew, what she ate were all dictated by ballet. The only person she’d dared to imagine a future with was Yannick, and that was only because he was already a part of that world.
Jace was about as far from Yannick as a fish was from a bicycle. Yet the more she thought about it, the more she realized she and Jace made sense together in a way she and Yannick never had. They just...fit. He was the light to her dark, the yin to her yang, the Rudolf Nureyev to her Margot Fonteyn. Sure, it would be a challenge juggling their respective careers. But a career couldn’t keep her warm at night.
Or give her multiple orgasms.
“Earth to Noelle.” Ivy snapped her fingers in her sister’s face. “Greenhouse. Stat.”
“Fine.” Noelle pushed off the counter and followed the others. She might as well get it over with. They were going to wring the dirty details out of her sooner or later. Maybe when they were done with their good-natured prying, they’d have some words of wisdom for her.
“Okay,” she said when the greenhouse door had closed behind the last of them and the thick, musky scent of her father’s prize roses wafted around her. “Let me have it.”
“Are we that bad?” Holly asked, overturning a five-gallon bucket and sitting on it.
“Yes, you are.” Devin sat cross-legged on the floor beside her. “But I survived. Barely.”
“Cut us some slack.” Ivy pulled up a garden stool and plopped herself down. “We’re just excited to see you with someone other than Yakov.”
“Yannick.” Noelle looked around for something to sit on and came up short. She settled for widening her stance, hands on her hips. “And who says I’m with anyone.”
Ivy blew out an exasperated raspberry. “The shining eyes. The rosy cheeks. The way you keep checking your cell phone every other minute.”
“And smiling every time you get a text,” Holly added.
“Ooh, are you sexting?” Devin licked her lips. “Can we read them?”
Noelle stamped her foot. “Absolutely not.”
“You’re absolutely not sexting, or we absolutely can’t read them?” Devin asked with a smirk.
“Focus, ladies, focus,” Holly, clearly the ringleader, scolded, then turned her attention to Noelle. “In all seriousness, baby sister, we just want to let you know we’re happy for you. And if you need anything, like advice on how to balance two demanding careers...”
“Or some sexy boudoir photos to remind him how good he’s got it when he’s on the road... ” Ivy offered.
“Or a tasteful tattoo as a symbol of your love, in a discreet location, of course...” This from Devin.
“We’re here for you,” Holly finished.
Noelle’s gaze bounced from sister, to sister, to sister-in-law, her eyes growing increasingly moist. Her family really was the best, even if she occasionally wanted to exile them to a deserted island. She blinked the tears away and broached the subject she was most interested in. “Well, there is one thing.”
“The pictures?” Ivy asked.
“The tattoo?” Devin suggested.
“Generous offers, both, but no.” Noelle smiled. “At least not now. What I’m curious about is how did you all know?”
“Know what?” Holly sat forward, elbows on her knees, if possible even more intent.
Noelle took a deep breath and plowed on, knowing once she said the words, there was no going back. “That you’d found the one person you were meant to be with for the rest of your life.”
“Christ.” Devin released her long, dark hair from the clip that had been holding it back. “When you put it that way, it sounds so...”
“Ridiculous?” Noelle sank to the stone floor next to her sister-in-law.
“No.” Devin shook her head, sending her newly freed tresses flying. “Impossible. Like finding a polar bear in a snowstorm. Yet here we are, Holly, Ivy and me. Living proof it’s not.”
“I knew with Cade when he brought me fire safety equipment after I almost burned down Holly and Nick’s cottage cooking pasta.”
“Nick walked out on Spielberg for me.”
“Gabe was going to quit the race for DA.”
“Jace took me to Fright Fest,” Noelle muttered, staring at her lap.
“He what?” Devin scrunched up her nose.
“Smuggled me out of Spaulding and brought me to a horror film festival in Phoenix so I could meet John Carpenter.”
“Ohmigod, Noe,” Holly squealed. “How did he find out?”
“Find out what?” Devin asked.
“Noelle is a closet horror movie fanatic,” Ivy answered. “She can’t get enough of ’em.”
“He dug up an interview I gave to some small weekly newspaper about a million years ago.” Noelle rested her back against a potting bench and sighed. “I think that’s when I started falling for him.”
“So you have fallen for him.” Holly tilted her head and squinted, the better to study her youngest sibling. “Is the feeling mutual?”
“I don’t know.” Noelle twisted the hem of her peasant blouse into a ball. “He said he wants to be more than friends. I’m just not sure how much more.”
Ivy traced the outline of one of the paving stones with the toe of her electric pu
rple Chuck Taylor. “As a wise French man once told me when I was in a similar situation with Cade, there’s only one way to find out.”
“What’s that?”
“Ask him, ma chére,” Ivy said in her best cheesy French accent.
“Easier said than done when he’s on the other side of the country.” Noelle fingered the velvety, fragrant bloom of a crimson-tipped, pale peach rose on the bottom shelf of the potting bench. No doubt another one of her father’s hybrids. “It’s not exactly the kind of thing I can ask in a phone call or on Skype.”
“When will you see him next?” Devin asked.
“Another thing I don’t know.” There seemed to be a lot of that going around. “He’s dealing with some family stuff right now. That’s why he went home.”
Noelle left it at that, not wanting to betray Jace’s confidence. She’d been scouring the internet, but somehow he’d managed to keep his dad’s arrest quiet. And she wasn’t going to be the one to change that by shooting her mouth off. Not even to the people closest to her.
“Okay.” Holly rubbed her hands together. “Time for plan B.”
“Do I want to know what that is?” Noelle asked.
“You may have to wait to find out Mr. MVP’s intentions, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use your absence to make his heart grow a little fonder.” Holly turned to Ivy, the expression on her face somewhere between gleeful and gloating. “You said something about boudoir photos?”
Ivy high-fived her older sister. “Hell, yeah.”
“Hell, no.” Noelle crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I’m not an exhibitionist.”
“I promise they’ll be tasteful,” Ivy assured her. “High-end lingerie. No nudity. For Jace’s eyes only.”
Okay, Noelle was tempted. Racy pictures would be a big hit with Jace. And she owed him for the care package he’d sent her, which had arrived just before she left Arizona—the entire Evil Dead series on DVD, the soundtrack from A Nightmare on Elm Street, a collection of Stephen King short stories and a pair of plastic vampire teeth. But the risk of photos accidentally falling into the wrong hands was too great. Unless...
“No lingerie,” she said after a long moment’s consideration. “But I saw a website once of this photographer who specialized in recreating old pinup shots. You know, vintage clothing. Period hair and makeup. Think you can do something like that?”
Ivy’s eyes sparked at the challenge. “We’d have to put together a wardrobe for you. But I don’t see why not. Sounds like fun.”
“Great.” Noelle clapped her hands and eyed the door. “When can we get started?”
16
JACE TURNED THE key in his lock for the first time in over a month and pushed the door open, relieved to be greeted by the smell of lemon Pledge and not musty gym socks, courtesy of his cleaning service. He tossed his keys on the kitchen counter, noting the neat piles of mail stacked according to type—bills, catalogs, letters, junk mail. Why didn’t he have his agent handle this crap?
Oh, well. He’d have to deal with it sooner or later, and he had an hour or so to kill while his dad was at Gamblers Anonymous. More than enough time to at least weed through and grab the important stuff to read later.
He opened the fridge, hoping to find some decent beer to make the drudgery of going through mail slightly more bearable. He’d left town so fast he couldn’t remember what state his refrigerator was in. Who was he kidding? He was a single guy. His fridge only had two states: empty and nothing but beer. He had a fifty-fifty shot of getting lucky.
Jackpot.
He snagged an IPA from the top shelf, opened it and took a deep chug before pulling up a stool and confronting the mail. Most of it he was able to chuck in the circular file. The rest he stuffed in a grocery bag to go through later with the exception of two things that caught his eye, one that looked to be a card and the other a thick overnight envelope, both with unfamiliar return addresses.
He tore the card open first. The front had a picture of a stick figure in a backward ball cap and the words “You rock, bro.” Jace flipped it open, his eyes immediately going to the signature at the bottom. Dylan Young. It took a second for the name to register, and when it did he felt as worthless as dog shit on the bottom of a shoe.
Dylan. The kid at rehab. Jace had left so fast he hadn’t even had a chance to stay goodbye. Something that hadn’t even occurred to him until now. Making him a selfish bastard six times over, no matter how bad the situation with his dad had been.
He suppressed the desire to slam his good hand on the counter and instead read the note Dylan had written inside the card.
Dear Mr. Morgan,
I mean Jace LOL. Noelle told me you had to check out of Spaulding early because of a family emergency. I hope everything is okay. And I hope it’s okay that she gave me your address. I just wanted to say thanks for giving me all that stuff about Jim Abbott and Pete Gray. I don’t know if I’ll ever be as good as them, but at least now I know I can try. I’m going home tomorrow, but my email and phone number are at the bottom of this card. My mom says if you’re ever in Flagstaff she’ll cook you the best meal of your life.
Peace out,
Dylan Young
P.S. Thank Reid and Cooper for all the great Storm gear, especially the signed jersey.
P.P.S. She means it about the meal. My mom is mad awesome in the kitchen.
Jace chuckled as he folded the card and put it in his back pocket. The kid might be minus an arm, but with that attitude he was going to go places. Jace made a mental note to call him as soon as he got his dad back home.
Next up: the overnight envelope. He pulled the tab across the top, opening the seal, and reached in to slide out...
Hell fucking yeah. Photo after photo of Noelle in an array of outfits that didn’t reveal much in the way of skin but were still sexy as all get-out. Form-fitting, cropped jeans with a Daisy Duke style halter top and cherry red do-me heels. A 1950s inspired dress with some sort of Hawaiian flower tucked behind one ear. What looked like mechanic’s coveralls, unzipped enough to show a yellow-and-white checked bikini top.
And that wasn’t even the half of it. Each photo seemed to get hotter than the last. She was the perfect pinup girl, with her ruby lips and her hair in loose, full curls that fell to her shoulders. He stared at the pictures for a good five minutes with his mouth open and his dick straining against his fly before coherent thought returned.
He fished his cell phone out of his pocket with the other and headed for his bedroom, dialing Noelle’s number as he went.
“Hey,” a tired voice greeted him. “I just got home. I was going to call you after I had some dinner.”
He sat on the bed and glanced at the clock on his nightstand. Four-thirty in the afternoon, which meant seven-thirty at night in New York. “Right, the time difference. Want to call me back when you’re done?”
“No.” She sighed, long and deep, vibrating across the airwaves and ending in a sexy moan that had his dick practically popping out of his pants. “I’m glad you called. I needed to hear your voice right about now.”
He adjusted his zipper and tried to focus on what she was saying and not his raging hard-on. “Bad day?”
“That’s an understatement.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Later.” She sighed again and he could see her, head back, eyes closed, phone in one hand and the other rubbing her feet, stiff and sore from hours of dancing. In his mind’s eye, his hands replaced hers, soothing away all her aches and pains. When she was totally relaxed, they’d order in some Thai food, maybe binge-watch Arrow on Netflix and eventually make their way to the bedroom where they’d...
“First I want to hear about your day.” Her voice snapped him out of his fantasy. Just when it was getting good. Damn shame.
He shook his head to bring him fully back to the present and stretched out on the bed. “Nothing special until I opened my mail a few minutes ago.”
“Oh?” The single word was loaded
with uncertainty, which only made him want her more.
“I got some...interesting photos.” He fanned them out on the bed next to him, his fingers itching with the need to touch the real her, not an ink-and-paper facsimile. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“Interesting, huh?” He could almost hear her biting her lip like she did when she was nervous. “Good interesting or bad interesting?”
“Definitely good. Very, very good.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d like them. Ivy said guys are into that kind of stuff but...”
“If I liked them any more I’d have shot my load in my tighty whities.” He massaged his aching dick through his jeans, an idea forming in his one-track mind. “What are you wearing now?”
“Nothing like in the pictures. Baggy shorts. Tank top. A Band-Aid on every toe.”
He smiled. “I can work with that.”
“Did I mention that the shorts have a rip on the butt? And the top’s soaked through with sweat.”
“Even better.”
“Very funny.”
“I’m totally serious. You could be in a burlap sack and I’d be turned on.”
“Maybe I should have worn that for the photo shoot. It would have been cheaper. And more comfortable.”
“Next time.” He unzipped his jeans and lifted his hips to shove them—and his underwear—down far enough to free his throbbing cock. He wrapped his hand around the base and gave it a slow, measured stroke, needing to pace himself. They might be miles apart, but he’d make damned sure they came together. “Right now I want you to do something for me.”
“What?” She sounded breathless, like she knew what he was about to ask.
“Touch yourself.”
“Where?”
“Wherever it feels good.” He stroked himself again, faster this time. “Are you doing it?”
“Yes.”
He could hear rustling and pictured her opening her legs and slipping her free hand under the waistband of her shorts, gliding it over the soft, pale skin of her belly to her sex. “Tell me.”
“I...can’t.”
“It’s just you and me,” he reassured her. “Pretend I’m there with you, like in the pool.” Or the car. Or the shower. Or any of the other creative places they’d managed to get it on.