by Lauren Layne
He freezes for a second before a smile slowly crosses his face. “So you have been thinking of that.”
I nod.
“Me too,” he whispers huskily.
I hold his gaze, pleading, but he won’t let me off the hook. “What do you want, Jenny?”
I close my eyes and leap. “Lick me.”
“Good girl,” he says with a quiet chuckle as he lowers himself to the mattress once more, supporting his weight on his elbows as his broad shoulders nudge my thighs apart and I let them fall open.
I don’t know what I’m expecting, but it’s not for him to slide his hands under my butt, lifting me up so I’m like a feast to be devoured.
“You want me to stop at any time, say the word, Jenny Dawson.”
And then he lowers his mouth to me, his tongue stroking up the center, licking me with a thoroughness that makes us both groan.
We both know I’m never going to want him to stop. Not ever.
Noah destroys me. His tongue and lips are everywhere, his big hands holding me immobile as he explores every inch of my sensitive flesh, his tongue moving in hot, wet strokes.
Time disappears. The room disappears. There’s nothing but his mouth, his tongue, his fingers, and yet I’m aware that there’s something more. Something I can’t quite…
Noah’s lips move up, and he sucks my clit. There it is.
“Yes,” I whisper, my hands finding his hair. “Yes, yes, yes.”
He groans against me, his tongue moving faster, sucking harder until I’m nothing but screaming, bucking orgasm beneath his mouth.
To his credit, he doesn’t gloat when it’s over. He merely rests his head against my stomach, letting me catch my breath before planting a gentle kiss right below my belly button. It’s so reverent, so lovely, that I realize I haven’t thought once about the damn belly pooch.
I feel beautiful.
Noah makes me feel beautiful.
He moves up my body, and I spread my legs, expecting him to enter me, but to my surprise he rolls onto his back and takes me with him so I’m on top with my knees on either side of his hips.
“Here’s your other lesson,” he says gruffly, palms sliding over the globes of my ass.
“Actually, I’ve done it this way before,” I admit. “My first boyfriend said it was the most comfortable position for virgins, so…” I shrug.
He lifts his eyebrows. “And how was it?”
I lift my hand and wiggle it. So-so.
“Well then,” he says, hands sliding to my waist and lifting me up. “We can do better than that.”
I gasp in shock as he pulls me down hard onto him, and I see from the glint in his eyes that’s exactly what he had in mind. I realize with glee that whatever Noah and I may be turning into, we’re still those two competitive enemies determined to outdo each other in matters of seduction.
Tonight he’s winning, and he knows it.
Time to turn the tables.
Channeling the sexy, wanton creature who zip-tied Noah to the bed, I narrow my eyes right back at him and slide my hands up to his shoulders, leaning slightly to find the right position.
And then I move.
I lift up slowly, teasingly, before thrusting down hard. My way. Not his.
He gasps, his eyes shuddering closed as his grip tightens. “Wait.”
Hell no.
My nails dig into his shoulders as I lift again and again, thrusting down on him, using him as my own sexual plaything.
Eventually I figure out that circling my hips slightly is best for both of us, and I grind on him, alternating between slow and languorous and fast and frantic.
“Jenny.” His hands are on my breasts now, as though he can’t decide whether to hold on for dear life or torment me. “Jenny.”
I lean forward farther, dangling my nipple above his mouth, and I cry out when he takes the bait, sucking me into his mouth as I move more quickly, my hips circling faster and faster, sensing that he’s close, knowing that he needs…
Noah’s yell is low and hoarse as he bucks up beneath me, spilling warmth inside me as he clenches helplessly at my back.
My face drops to his shoulder, and I feel a little wound up, the experiment in riding Noah Maxwell riling my lady parts all over again, but mostly deeply satisfied that he came to completion.
That I did that. Me.
For him. On him. To him.
His hand smooths over my back, and I don’t think I’m imagining that it’s shaking just a little bit. “The things you do to me…”
I lift my head and give him a slow smile. “Yeah?”
His eyes are surprisingly serious as he lifts a hand, resting a palm to my cheek. “Yeah.”
Noah’s eyes are on my lips, and I know he wants to kiss me. I can feel it. Please.
His head moves slightly downward and my breath catches, but at the last minute he freezes.
Then with a movement so fast, so confident that I think maybe I imagined the moment before, I’m on my back again, my arms pinned on either side of my head as he gives me a wicked smile.
“Now, princess, got any more of those zip ties?”
—
A long time later, my wrists are just sore enough to give me pleasant memories of the thoroughly depraved things he did to my body, Noah’s arm is wrapped low on my waist, and the dogs are doing their best to zap all the romance out of the moment, Ranger lying on his back on the other side of Noah, Dolly curled in a tiny ball between our two heads on the pillow.
The moment is perfect.
Almost perfect.
But as I lie there staring at the ceiling, I can’t help but lift my fingers to my lips, wondering why he won’t kiss me.
Wondering if he ever will.
Noah
If you’d told me a month ago I’d be taking Jenny Dawson on a date to a swanky Italian restaurant in Baton Rouge, I’d have laughed in your face.
I’d have told you that guys like me don’t date girls like her. I’d have told you that I don’t want to date a girl like her.
Hell, I’m not even sure it is a date.
But as she sits across from me, relentlessly asking the waiter a thousand questions about the wine list, I’m struck not only by the realization that it feels like a date, but by the realization that I want it to be one.
Fuck this girl and her addictive everything.
“Jenny,” I interrupt when she opens her mouth to ask what exactly “smoky” means as it pertains to red wine. “Get the Montepulciano.”
Her nose wrinkles. “The what?”
“Excellent choice, sir,” the server says in relief. “And for you?”
“I’ll have the same.”
She leans forward. “What did you just order me?”
“It’s good. If you don’t like it, you can send it back. But I needed to save that poor waiter from your inquisition.”
Her eyes narrow as she reaches toward the breadbasket. “How do you know so much about wine, anyway?”
“I don’t.” It’s a lie. I know plenty about wine, and she’s obviously caught on to that.
Alarm bells go off in my head.
“You know a lot more than a guy who grew up in a trailer park and spends his days doing carpentry and woodworking is likely to know. And yes, I know I’m stereotyping, but you just ordered for me like I was the little woman, so let’s go with it and say we’re even.”
I lift my water glass and don’t quite meet her eyes. “My father was…uppity.”
She doesn’t even pause in her chewing except to drag the bread through the saucer of seasoned olive oil in the middle of the table. “Go on.”
I hesitate, wondering how much I can tell her without giving myself away. Without revealing that I may have told a not-so-insignificant lie about my identity. Without revealing that I’m Preston Walcott and that I’m her landlord, and oh, by the way, I’ve been lying to you for over a month.
“He was married to someone else when he met my mother,” I say, reaching
for a piece of bread, even though talking about my father tends to make me lose my appetite. “She did a part-time stint as a housekeeper. His housekeeper. Couldn’t have been more of a cliché if she was the nanny, although I found out later he slept with the nanny too.”
“Your nanny?”
I snort. “No. I was fourteen before I even knew my dad existed.”
“Oh,” she said quietly. “Your brother’s nanny.”
I nod. “Far as I can tell, Caleb was my dad and Andi’s—that’s my father’s ex—everything. He was some sort of musical prodigy. He got sick when he was in junior high. A rare cancer that just destroyed his body. And my father.”
“When did you come into the picture?” she asks quietly.
I wait until our server sets the wineglasses in front of us before answering. “I was the stand-in.”
She shakes her head, not understanding.
“Other than child support payments, my father only came into my life after Caleb died. The heir was gone, so…” I spread my hands to the side. “The spare.”
“Wow. Wow. That must have been jarring.”
You have no idea.
I pick up my wine. “I got by.”
Jenny rolls her eyes. “I get it. You’re a big tough man. But it had to be an adjustment.”
I take a drink of wine and relent just a little. Hard to deny those big blue eyes anything, especially when she’s wearing a little black dress and fuck-me heels. Even with the ugly orange wig, she’s hot as hell.
“It was jarring,” I admit. “Like I said, my mom and I had a tiny trailer. It was small for the two of us, even smaller when she had a boyfriend, which was mostly always. My dad’s house, by comparison, was huge. Andi was gone by that point—Caleb’s death tore their already shaky marriage apart at the seams.”
She sips her own wine, her eyes never leaving mine. “Wait, so you went from living at your mom’s trailer park to…a mansion?”
“Sort of,” I say with a forced smile. “My father was insistent I attend prep school, and it was the one thing he and my mom ever agreed on. So weekdays were spent with my dad, weekends with my mom. Standard child-of-divorce fare, except…”
“Except your dad was a stranger,” she finishes for me.
I shrug. “Yeah. That.”
“Was it terrible?” she asks.
I smile, this time for real, because I love that she doesn’t beat around the bush, just blurts everything out, honest and earnest. “Not so much. I had a friend back in the trailer park who was there for me no matter what.”
“Finn,” she says, understanding immediately.
I nod.
“What about at the prep school? Did you have friends there?”
I blow out a breath, debating whether it’s better to tell her sort of the truth or avoid the topic altogether. I go with the first option.
“I was lucky enough to find another friend there. The lifelong kind.”
I watch her face as understanding settles in. “Ohhhhh. That’s how you got connected with the Walcotts.”
Noah, you fucking ass. Tell her.
But I can’t. Not when she’s looking at me all trusting and pretty, not when I’m so close to being happy, truly happy, for the first time in so long.
I let myself be selfish.
One more night, I promise myself.
She’ll be gone in a week anyway. I’ve been trying for days not to think of it. Not when we wake up and have coffee in bed together, not when I listen to the soft hum of her voice while I work all day, not when we cook together, or laugh together, or sleep together.
But the thought’s lodged in my head now, and I have to know.
“Are you still going to that movie premiere?” I blurt out.
She pauses in the process of ripping a piece of bread in half before slowly placing it back on her plate. To her credit, Jenny looks me right in the eye when she tells me. “Yes.”
I manage to withhold my wince, but there’s nothing to stop the sharp falling feeling in my stomach. I’m not surprised. I don’t blame her. It’s just a very real reminder of what I’ve known all along:
We’re from two different worlds.
The world Jenny lives in is exactly the one I walked away from Yvonne to avoid. Pretense and black tie and posing for cameras.
No, it’s that tenfold.
Jenny’s music is good. It’s exceptional. She’s going to be nominated for Grammy and CMA Awards for a long time to come. Hell, who knows, she could become one of those Hollywood crossovers, and this premiere could be far from her last.
“Okay,” she says, rubbing her palms together nervously. “I want to ask you something. I mean, I was going to get you drunk first, but then I remembered you’re driving. Anyway, there’s no time like the present. But you have to promise not to freak out, and I swear I won’t hold it against you, and—”
“Princess. Spit it out.”
She takes a deep breath. “I want you to come to the movie premiere with me.”
I freeze with the wineglass at my lips. I put the glass down clumsily, the base of it catching on the bread plate; I barely manage to right it in time. “Sorry?”
“It wouldn’t cost you a penny,” she rushes to say. “I could pay for everything. Your plane ticket. Your transportation to the airport. Your transportation from the airport, your tux, your food, everything.”
I can only stare at her. “You can’t be fucking serious.”
Her eyes cloud at my sharp tone. “I know it’s sudden, and weird.”
“Weird doesn’t begin to explain it. I’ve known you for two fucking months.”
She blinks. “Yes, but—”
“No but,” I snap. “Jenny, where exactly did we cross wires? I’ve been telling you since the very beginning that we can’t be a thing.”
“Yes, but that was before—”
My shock is making me mean, but the brief moment of temptation I felt when she asked makes me meaner. I can’t afford to be led by my cock down a path I don’t want. Not again.
“Before what?” I say, leaning forward. “I haven’t even kissed you. Not really.”
Her shoulders jerk a little at that, and I see her swallow. “I know that. Trust me. I know that.”
You’re an ass. You’re a fucking ass.
“Then what did you think? That I’d want to get on a plane, fly across the country, and be your dress-up doll for the evening?”
“Noah, stop. You can just say no—you don’t have to make it ugly.”
She’s right. She’s absolutely right.
But come on, what the hell is she thinking? I’ve worked so damn hard to keep us on the same page, to make sure neither of us gets attached to something that’s not going to last, and—
She’s crying, and the truth is right there all over her gorgeous, heartbroken face.
I failed. She’s already attached. Jenny Dawson doesn’t just want me as a plaything for this movie premiere. She wants me as her boyfriend for all the premieres.
I take a gulp of wine as I try to figure out how I feel about that.
I can’t figure it out. My chest is tight, my throat is tight, I want to—
“Preston?”
I freeze.
Holy. Shit.
I turn around slowly, willing the voice to belong to someone else. Anyone else.
Anyone other than my ex-fiancée.
Who’s staring—no, glaring—at Jenny.
“What is this?” Yvonne asks. “Preston, who is this?”
“Preston?” Jenny asks, giving me a bewildered look. There’s no accusation there, which makes me realize she thinks Yvonne is the one who’s mistaken. I feel my heart crack in two at her blind trust.
Trust I don’t deserve.
“I’m Jen,” Jenny says with a little smile, clearly wanting to smooth things over with a riled-looking Yvonne. She starts to lift a hand to her wig before catching herself and extending it to Yvonne. “And you are…?”
“His fiancée,�
�� Yvonne snaps, ignoring Jenny’s outstretched hand.
Jenny recoils as though someone’s struck her. Then her gaze slowly drops to Yvonne’s left hand, where my ex is still wearing the ring I gave her.
Jenny’s eyes drift slowly to me, and I know the second she meets my eyes that she’s figured out the truth. Or at least enough of the truth to leave me truly, utterly fucked.
Deservedly so.
“Preston?” Jenny whispers again, her tone different this time, as the truth settles around her.
“I see you’ve picked a real brainiac as your revenge plan, sweetie,” Yvonne says, placing a hand on my shoulder. I brush it off, but it’s too late. Jenny’s eyes are boring a hole into the spot where Yvonne’s hand rested.
“I’ll explain,” Yvonne coos in a saccharine voice worthy of Hollywood’s nastiest villains. “The guy you’ve been screwing is my fiancé, Noah Preston Maxwell Walcott Jr. He goes by Preston, except when he’s slumming it.”
Yvonne’s gaze rakes over Jenny, and the slur is clear.
“That’s enough,” I say, slamming my fist on the table, long past caring about causing a scene. I stand, grabbing for Yvonne’s elbow, but she flits away, eyes still on Jenny.
“I made a mistake,” Yvonne says. “I had a little indiscretion, and Preston here wanted his revenge. Guess you’re it.”
Yvonne keeps yapping, something about having the wedding invitation to prove it, but Jenny’s stopped listening, as have I.
We stare at each other, her in righteous anger, me in mute misery.
“Jenny—”
“Don’t.” She holds up a hand. “Just don’t. You’re the one I emailed all those weeks ago asking to rent the house?”
I nod.
“And that guy…the other Preston?”
“My friend. Edward Vaughn.”
She lets out a little laugh. “That’s your friend from prep school.”
I can only nod.
She glances at Yvonne, who has finally quieted down, although she looks highly peeved now that she’s no longer the star of the show.
“And you’re engaged,” Jenny says, looking back at me. “I’ve been sleeping with an engaged guy.”
“No,” I say, stepping toward her and reaching out a hand. “The rest of it’s true, and I’m a shit and a liar. But I’m not engaged. I ended it with Yvonne.”