Noah’s hand tangled in her hair, and he could have sworn she let out the tiniest moan. The sound sent shockwaves through his body, and his muscles tensed in reply. Their legs were beginning to intertwine as Chelsie moved in closer – as if there was anywhere else to go. She was already pressed fully against him, impossibly and dangerously close.
She was looking at him. She tipped her head until their eyes locked. Their noses were almost touching.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Her breath caressed his lips like a forbidden kiss. “For what?”
“Everything. For making me feel.”
Noah swallowed. “For making you feel what?”
“Everything,” she repeated.
Everything. Noah didn’t know what to make of that answer. Pain? Fear? Confusion? Passion? Friendship? Affection? The collection of adjectives he could come up with were endless and could easily drive him crazy. He chose not to read into it. She was tipsy. She was rattled. She was more than likely traumatized. She was also cocooned against his torso, warming him up from the inside out. Chelsie was shameless in her proximity – almost every inch of her body blanketed him in some way. From her forehead, to her toes, to her wildly beating heart. He felt it rumble through his veins like a ticking time bomb, reminding him this moment was fleeting. She was not his. She never would be.
“You’re drunk.” It needed to be said. Maybe he needed the reminder more than she did.
Chelsie chewed on her bottom lip, her eyes dancing across his face. “Is that all this is?”
“You tell me.”
Noah had given her the opportunity to indulge him earlier that day.
“I like us the way we are.”
That had settled it. He had made a conscious effort in that moment to move on.
And yet, here she was.
Chelsie hesitated and lowered her eyes. “What if I don’t know?”
“You know,” he said.
The air between them was charged. If a match were lit, they would both go up in flames.
Or had they already done that?
Chelsie glanced back up at him. “Noah…”
“You don’t have to say anything. We can talk more tom –”
His words were cut short by the feel of her mouth against his. Chelsie’s mouth. She was kissing him.
She was kissing him.
Noah felt like he was in junior high again, unsure of what to do or where to put his hands. Fuck. Chelsie was kissing him. His brain kicked back on, and he grabbed her face between his hands and instantly deepened the kiss. She went limp in his arms as she succumbed to something bigger than them both. Her hands were clinging to his t-shirt and tiny groans escaped her as his tongue dipped into her mouth. Her legs continued to entwine with his and she raised her left leg to wrap around his waist. Her fingers moved to tangle in his hair, while her tongue danced with his.
Goddamn, she tasted fucking magical. Like taffy apples at the fair. His entire body was on fire. He moaned into her mouth when she pressed herself harder against the bulge in his jeans. Noah lowered his hands to her neck, and she flinched in response.
Shit. Her bruises. Noah pulled back, breathless and in a daze. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“It’s okay. Kiss me.”
She leaned into him again, but Noah resisted. Somehow, he found an ounce of strength and common sense and ducked his head. “Chelsie.” His pants were growing more restrictive by the second. “We shouldn’t.”
Chelsie touched her forehead to his, her hand behind his neck. She tilted her chin upwards and placed a kiss on his lips. “I need you.”
Noah’s eyes fluttered closed and he felt his willpower waning. She was intoxicating. “Chelsie, we can’t. Not like this.”
She finally pulled away. Her eyes were wounded.
“You know we can’t,” he said gently. “You’re drunk and still in shock. You’ll hate me in the morning.”
“I could never hate you.”
Noah massaged his thumb against her cheek. “I would hate me.”
Chelsie seemed to come down from her high and inched backwards. “God, I’m sorry… I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Don’t you dare apologize. He didn’t want her regret or her shame. He just wanted her to understand. “Don’t be sorry, Combs. We can talk in the morning when you’re feeling more yourself. Right now, you need sleep.”
She nodded and rolled over, facing away from him. Noah thought that was the end of their evocative rendezvous. He tried to get comfortable on his own side of the bed, but she turned onto her back and cocked her head to gaze at him. “Can you still hold me?”
Noah felt a tugging at his heartstrings – strings he thought had been tied into unbreakable knots by Ruby. “Of course,” he said, echoing his answer from earlier. He would never say no to holding her. She was one of the few good things in his life. He couldn’t let go of something like that. Noah moved across the bed and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. Her skin was warm, like a languid day at the beach. He could almost smell the saltwater and seashells in her hair. It was winter in New York, but she would always be summer.
“Goodnight,” she whispered into the crook of his arm. Chelsie fell asleep in an instant. Noah could tell by the way her breathing slowed to placid, heavy breaths. He counted them for a while as if they were sheep. Perfect, brilliant sheep.
One. Two. Three. In and out. In and out.
He started timing them. Eight seconds per breath. If they slept for, say, six hours, that would be 2,700 breaths she would take in his arms.
Noah tried to quiet his brain. At this rate, he would never sleep. How could he, though? Chelsie Combs was passed out his bed, curled up against him like a fervent lover. They had kissed. They had tasted one another. He knew the curve of her tongue and the way she arched her back when he gently tugged at her hair. He knew the sounds she made when her bottom lip caught between his teeth.
He wanted to know more. He wanted to know everything.
Noah sighed and nuzzled his face against her hair, giving her a tender squeeze. Despite his efforts to savor as many seconds as possible, sleep had overcome him, and his breaths settled in time with hers.
***
Chelsie could have sworn she was woken by the sound of giggles. Giggles from a person of small and child-like stature. She felt tiny fingers playing with her hair, singing the theme to ‘Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood’. Chelsie tried to open her eyes, but the light was blinding. It was as if a thousand suns had been strategically placed into the room and their sole purpose was to burn out her retinas. She pressed a hand against her forehead, trying in vain to cease the incessant pounding.
This is called a hangover, Chels. This isn’t your first day at the rodeo.
She remembered there was a child beside her.
“Sam?”
Was that her voice? She sounded haggard. Feeble.
This did not seem to faze the young boy bouncing to her right. “Good morning, Miss Chelsie! You had a sleepover again.”
Chelsie blinked about eight times before Sam came into focus. He was kneeling between her and… Noah.
Noah.
Shit, shit, shit.
“Daddy was cuddling wif you like he cuddles wif me!”
Shit.
Noah finally shifted on the bed. Her eyes grazed his face and she swallowed.
It hurt like hell to swallow.
She touched the bruised flesh on her throat, and all the prior day’s events came rushing back like a violent windstorm.
“Can we make pancakes?” Sam inquired.
Noah was staring at the ceiling with his hands behind his head. Chelsie used what little energy she had to push herself up into a sitting position.
“Pancakes sound great,” she said. Her voice sounded like she had smoked a pack a day for the last twenty years. “You know how to make them, right?”
Sam stared at her with wide eyes and messy hair. “No, silly! I’m just a ki
d.”
Chelsie cracked a smile and she noticed Noah was also not immune to his son’s charms.
“Why don’t you go brush your teeth, okay, buddy? We’ll be up in a minute,” Noah said.
“Okay!” He crawled off the bed on all fours and flew out the door, leaving Chelsie and Noah alone with their inevitable morning chat.
Noah turned to face her. She pulled the covers up to her chin, as if she were trying to hide from him – as if she were trying to hide away her indiscretions.
“Before you say anything,” she began. “I owe you a huge apology.” Chelsie refused to look at him, though she could almost see his brow contorting into a furrowed state. She could almost see his lips draw into a thin line.
“For what?” he asked. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
She forced her eyes in his direction. It hurt to look at him. It pained her to gaze upon the man she’d crossed a line with. Her friend. Chelsie’s belly ached and her insides twisted. “I did everything wrong,” she said.
How did he not see that? How was he looking at her with anything other than disgust? She felt like she had cheated on Devon… on his friend. Sure, Devon had dumped her, but he was coked up and not thinking clearly. They hadn’t even discussed things yet.
Noah was not looking at her with disgust. He was looking at her, sure – he was staring at her with such an impassioned gaze, Chelsie had to pull the covers up until they were tickling her nose. But there was no disgust. No regret or animosity. There was something else.
“You remember what happened?” Noah wondered. There was a mild trepidation in his voice. Chelsie wasn’t sure what he wanted her answer to be.
“Yes,” she replied. Oh, she remembered. Memories flashed through her mind of forbidden kisses, caresses, and entangled limbs. She remembered wanting more. She had wanted all of Noah Hayes. “I was drunk and lonely.”
Noah’s expression changed. He looked… wounded. Like she’d stolen something of value from him.
“I’m glad I could be of service,” he snapped. His features hardened and his jaw tensed. The familiar sparkle had left his emerald eyes.
Chelsie could sense the cynicism in his tone. Every syllable was laced with bitterness. “Noah, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I dragged you into my drama.”
“You didn’t drag me into anything. You really think you could force me to do something I didn’t want to do?”
Chelsie swallowed again. It still hurt. “You probably felt obligated to help me. I get it.”
Noah laughed. It wasn’t a happy laugh. It was a contemptuous laugh and it sent a chill up Chelsie’s spine. He sat up and leaned against the bed frame. “Obligated,” he repeated, as if it was the most abhorrent word she could have uttered. It sliced through the air like a crude cut.
“I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was completely out of my head.”
“Just stop,” he said.
Chelsie could feel the anxiety begin to bubble in the pit of her stomach. “What?”
“Stop talking.” Noah pulled the covers off and threw his legs over the opposite side of the bed. His head was down, and his shoulders were taut. “I don’t want your excuses or justifications.”
She clenched her fists around the blanket. It was the only thing sheltering her from his hostility. He was facing away from her. Chelsie watched as the muscles in his back flexed with indignation beneath the constraints of his white t-shirt. “They aren’t excuses, Noah. It’s the truth. Why are you punishing me for apologizing?”
He was silent. His hands gripped the side of the bed.
“Noah…”
“Go home, Chelsie.”
Hot tears clouded her vision. She felt her face flush with chagrin at his dismissal. “Why are you being like this?”
Noah finally stood up and faced her with a look that could only be described as audacity. “What the hell do you want from me, Combs?”
Chelsie’s knees were pulled up to her chest and the tears began to fall. His tone was full of exasperation, as if he’d reached the end of some invisible rope. But Chelsie didn’t know there was a rope. She wanted to give him more reign, but she didn’t know how. She couldn’t conjure up the words he needed. And even if she could, how would she be able to format them into proper sentences? There needed to be structure, and grammar, and punctuation. There needed to be adjectives, and verbs, and the perfect inflection of perfect words. There was so much involved. “I don’t know.”
She knew she had failed. She had pulled the rope right out of his hands.
“Go home.”
Chelsie inched toward the edge of the bed. She hesitated when her bare feet touched the cool surface of the floor. “What do you want from me?” she countered. Her back was turned away from Noah, but she could envision his slow blink of frustration.
“Chelsie…”
Resignation. Weariness.
Resentment?
She stood up and turned to look at him. She needed to see his face.
“I can’t give you that answer. Not because I don’t know,” he said. “But because there’s no point.”
Chelsie chewed on her lower lip and wrapped her arms around herself like a security blanket.
“I can’t be what you need,” he finished.
She felt panic rising in her chest. “What are you saying? We can’t be friends?”
“I’m saying there is no ‘we’.”
The sting of his words hit her hard. The slow burn of dissolution and guilt rattled her. Chelsie rubbed her hands over her upper arms. Her chin was quivering. Only a king-sized bed stood between them, but it felt like a million miles.
Chelsie knew there was nothing more she could say. How could she possibly convey what he meant to her?
What did he mean to her?
“I’ll call myself an Uber,” she said, turning to exit the room. Chelsie passed by Sam’s bedroom before she reached the staircase and she paused. He was sitting on the floor, playing with cars and trucks. He was talking to himself as he pushed the tiny vehicles around the carpet. There were clothes popping out of his chest of drawers – an assortment of blues and oranges and yellows peeked out the tops. Chelsie closed her eyes for just a moment, etching this image into her memory. She envisioned Sam’s room with the navy walls and plush, white carpet. A dinosaur border displayed along the edges of the room, accenting all four walls. The ceiling fan circling swiftly around and around, sending the green and white striped drapes fluttering back and forth.
She sighed. She continued her descent down the staircase, running her hand purposefully along the rail. It was cool beneath her fingertips. Chelsie eyed the framed photos as she stepped down. She noticed the family photo with Ruby had been removed.
When Chelsie scooped up her purse, she pulled out her phone and checked the notifications. There was an alarming amount from Lisa, Julia, and Devon.
Lisa: “Are you okay?”
Julia: “I just saw you on the news!”
Devon: “Where are you?”
Lisa: “Did they catch him?”
Devon: “Call me!”
Chelsie shut off her phone and stuck it back into her purse. Surely, Noah was going to follow her down the stairs and tell her not to leave. Then he was going to make his way into the kitchen to cook banana pancakes, and sausage, and scrambled eggs, while Sam helped crack the yolks and set the table. Chelsie would help him wash the dishes as they exchanged their familiar banter and discussed plans for the week.
None of that happened. She heard the shower turn on upstairs and Chelsie resigned herself to the fact that Noah was not going to pursue her. This time, she was on her own.
She reached back into her purse to pull out her phone when there was a persistent knock at the front door. Chelsie lifted her head. She knew exactly who it was.
She opened the door, revealing a sickly-looking Devon. His eyes were bloodshot. His face looked gaunt and his skin was lackluster – almost gray in color. “Devon,” she said.
“Shit, Chelsie
.”
Devon charged through the entryway and wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug. Her arms did not instinctively raise to return the embrace. They remained by her side, limp and apathetic. “I needed you.”
Chelsie was angry. He wasn’t there for her when she was being strangled. He hadn’t been there to fight off her attacker when Ian had tried to murder her in cold blood on his living room floor. Devon wasn’t there. And not because he had run to the grocery store, or to pick up Chinese take-out at their favorite place on Cedar Street – no, he was coked out somewhere, oblivious to the world around him. He had deliberately turned off his phone to cut off communication with her. He chose to remain camouflaged in his seedy world of drugs and darkness.
Chelsie was also angry with herself. She had kissed Noah. Sure, they had separated. Sure, she had been intoxicated and not thinking straight. Sure, Devon was on a bender and treating her like trash. But she was loyal – fiercely loyal. It felt like a betrayal to herself and Devon.
“Fuck,” Devon whispered into the crook of her neck. “I’ve been blowing up your phone worried sick. Did they catch that motherfucker yet?”
Chelsie pushed her palms against his chest, pulling away. She inched the sleeves of her sweater over her hands and brushed a defiant strand of hair from off her face. “I kissed Noah last night.” The words escaped her lips with rebellion and defiance. She had not planned on confessing her sins to Devon – not yet, anyway. Not here in Noah’s house with Sam playing with his Hot Wheels directly above them. A wave of nausea unraveled in her stomach and she studied Devon’s face for some sort of reaction.
Devon flinched at her words. It was brief and subtle. If Chelsie had blinked, she may have missed it. “I figured,” he replied, his tone exuding nothing at all. Even ‘indifference’ sounded like too bold of a reaction. “I figured it enough to come here and look for you.”
“I was drunk and scared,” Chelsie continued. “He was there for me.”
Devon shuffled his feet and looked down at his shoelaces. “I’m glad he was.”
Chelsie was surprised by his response. He didn’t seem wrathful or vengeful. Why wasn’t he mad? Why didn’t he hate her? The moment they had separated, she ran into the arms of another man – just as Devon had suspected she would. “I’m sorry, Devon.”
Aria (Duet Series Book 1) Page 20