by Marie Force
“I’m involved in numerous businesses in Boston and elsewhere.”
“What kind of businesses?”
“Restaurants, hotels, a marina, a boatyard, to name a few. I’m also a city councilman in Boston.”
“That’s a lot.”
“It keeps me busy and out of trouble.”
“I need to do something about my schedule.” That had been her most significant concern since she realized the extent of her injuries. “I’m booked solid for the next year, starting next month. I suppose I need to start notifying people that I won’t be available.” She hated to do that. Over the last decade, she’d built her business from a hobby to a viable living doing the thing she loved most. “The downside of being a sole proprietor is there’s no backup plan for sickness or injuries.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Do you feel like sending a few texts for me?” The bulky cast on her left arm made it impossible for her to manage her phone.
“Of course.” Cabot got the phone off the charger and took a seat next to Izzy’s bed.
Over the next hour, while she dictated, he sent texts to her upcoming clients, notifying them of her accident and inability to keep her immediate commitments.
Responses flooded in, which Cabot read and then responded for her.
“Nothing but good wishes for a speedy recovery,” he said.
“That’s a relief. All these years to build a business, and all it takes is one accident to mess it up.”
“Listen to what this lady said: ‘You’re Isabella Coleman. You’re worth the wait!’ I couldn’t agree more with her. Your photographs are breathtaking. They’d be crazy not to wait for you.”
“Thanks. I’m glad you like them.”
“I love them. I ordered your book after you told me about it. I look at it all the time.”
Izzy was more confused than ever. He was acting like a man who was seriously interested in her, and yet he’d not done a thing about that until she was injured. Now he’d offered to disrupt his entire life to help care for her when she went home from the hospital. At some point, they were going to have to talk about that and what it all meant.
Not now. But soon.
Noah followed Brianna into her house, happier than he probably should’ve been to get to spend more time with her.
“Drink?” she asked.
“What’ve you got?”
“Vodka, soda, water, coffee, hot chocolate.”
“How about a vodka and soda, then?”
“I can do that.”
Noah didn’t usually drink vodka, but he was okay with making an exception if it meant hanging out with her. And when, exactly, had hanging out with her become such a big priority to him?
You know precisely when. Noah thought of their night at the Pig’s Belly when she’d gone from being an annoying stranger to someone he wanted to know better.
She brought their drinks, each topped by a slice of lemon, to the sofa and sat next to him. “I’d offer to make a fire, but I haven’t figured that out yet.” A stack of wood sat next to a white brick fireplace.
“You want one? I’ll do it for you.”
“Sure, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.” He took a sip of the surprisingly refreshing drink, put it on the coffee table and got up to build her a fire. “This is one thing I remember learning from my dad. He told us if we were going to live in Vermont, we needed to learn how to build fires to stay warm in the winter. We kept a woodstove going six months a year in those days.”
“You didn’t have regular heat, too?”
“Nope, just the stove. It mostly heated the whole house. On the frigid nights, we ‘camped’ in the living room.”
“I can’t imagine living here in the winter without real heat.”
“That was real heat. When it’s all you’ve got, you make it work.”
“I suppose so.”
“I was splitting wood when I was eight. It’s just a way of life around here.” In a matter of minutes, he had a fire going and sat back to make sure it was going to take. Leaning in, he blew on the flames and watched them grow. Over his shoulder, he looked back at her. “Want me to show you how?”
“Yes, please.” She got up and went to kneel next to him on the rug in front of the hearth.
Noah walked her through the steps, from opening and priming the flue to building a fire. “You want to start with kindling on the bottom and the larger logs on top. Tuck newspaper under the logs or get fire starters at the grocery store to make it easier. Once you have it going, blow on it until it starts to catch, and you should be good to go.”
“You make it seem so easy. I’m always afraid of forgetting a step and burning the house down.”
“You won’t burn the house down, but you can smoke yourself out if you don’t open the flue. My sisters used to forget that step sometimes.”
“What did you do when that happened?”
“Opened windows. In the winter. In Vermont. It only happened a few times.” Noah sat on the rug and wrapped his arms around his knees as he watched the flames dance. “Want to hear a secret?”
“Um, yeah…”
“I’ve always been a little obsessed with fire. I love to make fires and watch the flames and the way the fire devours the wood. I was a little pyromaniac when I was a kid, forever setting fires in places I shouldn’t have. I got lucky that nothing ever got out of control, and no one got hurt. Me and fire, we go way back.”
“Interesting that you’re currently rebuilding an inn gutted by a fire.”
“The irony isn’t lost on me.”
Brianna laughed as she settled on the rug next to him. “You’re not some crazy fire-starting criminal, though, right?”
“Nah, my fire starting is contained to woodstoves and fireplaces these days.”
“That’s good. I’d hate to replace a sociopath with a pyromaniac.”
Noah rested his chin on his forearm and looked at her. “Is that what you’re doing? Replacing him with me?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing. I was joking about replacing one deficiency with another.”
“You have nothing to worry about where I’m concerned.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” He couldn’t resist the need to reach out and touch her, to let one of her long curls wrap around his finger. “You’ve been fed a steady diet of bullshit in the past, so how are you supposed to know whether I mean what I say?”
“Something like that, but I know you’re nothing like him. I know that for sure, Noah.”
“I hope you do. If it’s any consolation to you, I’d love nothing more than ten minutes alone in a room with your ex-husband so I can show him what happens to bullies who prey on sweet women and break their hearts.”
“You’d do that for me?”
“I’d love to do that for you.”
“I’d do it for you, too. I’d slap your ex right across the face and tell her how stupid she was to let such a good man get away.”
He couldn’t stop the smile that stretched across his face. “You really are cute when you’re fierce.”
“I’m not kidding! She’s a fool.”
“So was he.” He scooted closer to her, put his arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “We’ve probably given them enough of our mental energy, especially when we have much better things to talk about than them.”
“Like what?”
He raised her chin up to receive his kiss. “Like that.” Tipping his head, he kissed her again, leaving his lips to linger for a moment this time. “And that.”
“I like this conversation much better than the other one.”
“Thought you might.”
She placed her hand on his face and drew him into another kiss that quickly had them both straining to get closer to each other. Her mouth opened, and her tongue dabbed against his bottom lip, making Noah groan.
They ended up stretched out on the floor in front of the fire, arms and legs intertwined, li
ps pressed together, kissing as if they had nothing but time to spend alone together. The real world would interfere soon enough, but for now, nothing was stopping them from having this.
In the back of his mind, the lingering concern about what she’d said the night before nagged at him. She’d said she wasn’t ready for this, but it was happening anyway. In the past, he might’ve told that lingering concern to shut the fuck up and leave him alone to enjoy being with her.
In his postmarital meltdown present, he couldn’t let it go.
Chapter Nineteen
“Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
—Marilyn Monroe
Noah withdrew slowly from the kiss but kept her tucked in tight against his aroused body.
“What’s wrong?”
“Not a thing is wrong.”
“Why’d you stop?”
Let it go, Noah. I can’t. I want to, but I can’t. “Last night, you said this wasn’t what you wanted. I don’t want to push you into something you’re not ready for.”
“I’m a mess, Noah. I’m a terrible bet.”
He shook his head. “You’re neither of those things.”
“No, I am.”
Kissing her, he whispered, “Not,” against her lips. “You’re so much stronger than you give yourself credit for.”
“I’m not strong at all.”
“Yes, you are. You’re strong and ballsy and funny and sexy and smart. Don’t you ever let anyone make you feel that you’re not all those things and so much more.”
“You think I’m all those things?”
“Hell yes. You come into the inn wearing that sexy white hard hat and have every guy in the place waiting to hear what you have to say because you’re the boss, and we all work for you.”
“They can’t stand me because I’m a woman.”
“That’s not true. The workers respect you because you know what you’re doing and because you’re nice to everyone.”
“Except you,” she said with a bit of a smile that made her eyes twinkle.
“Except me, but I deserved your fury. I was pushing your buttons.” He kissed along her jaw and down her neck, making her shiver. “You want to know why I pushed your buttons so much?”
“Yes, I want to know.”
He shifted so he was on top of her and could press his erection against the V of her legs. “Because this happened every time I laid eyes on you from the second I first saw you.”
“That’s not true!”
“It is true, and it irritated the fuck out of me. I’m a contractor, Brianna. Architects are the bane of my existence. I couldn’t be attracted to the architect.”
Her snort of laughter was the cutest thing he’d ever heard. “You’re gonna get drummed out of the contractor club when they hear about this.”
“You can’t tell anyone. You’ll ruin me.”
“How much is my silence worth to you?”
“A whole lot.” He ensured her silence by kissing her with deep thrusts of his tongue into the heat of her mouth.
She tasted like lemons and honey and everything sweet.
Noah could’ve kissed her for hours and not wanted for anything more—until her hands worked their way under his multiple layers of clothes and landed on his back, sparking a desperate need to feel more of her skin against his. “Tell me to stop.”
“No.”
“This isn’t what you want.”
She curled her legs around his hips and pressed against his hard cock. “It is what I want.”
“Just this or more?”
“Just this for now. The rest? I don’t know.”
Noah knew he ought to stop while he still could. At some point in the last few days, she had become a big deal to him. If they kept this up, he’d end up crushed—again—when she left. But damned if he could bring himself to do what he knew he should. Wrapped up in her, steeped in the delicious scent of her and with her lips still damp from his kisses, protecting himself was the least of his concerns.
He slid a hand under her sweater and lifted himself enough to slide it up and over her head. “I cannot believe you’re wearing that under your Carhartt.”
“This old thing?” She placed her hands on either side of her bra and pushed her breasts together.
“I’ll be sporting wood every second we’re at work knowing what you’ve got on under your work clothes.”
“Wait until you see the bottom part.”
“Yes, please.” It was all he could do not to pant like a dog in heat as he pulled back to get the rest of her clothes off, nearly swallowing his tongue when he uncovered a scrap of fabric that left very little to the imagination.
Thankfully, his imagination was super fertile where she was concerned. He bent over her, pressing his lips to her core through the thin fabric and breathing in the rich, feminine scent of her desire.
“Noah.”
“Yes, Brianna?” He pressed his tongue against her clit.
“I, uh… Ummmm.”
“You were saying?”
“I don’t know what I was saying.”
Laughing, he pulled her panties down her legs and then went back to what he’d been doing, now with nothing between his tongue and her. God, she was so sweet and responsive and sexy. He could spend hours pleasuring her and never get tired of how she reacted to everything he did. But he desperately wanted to be inside her, to be joined with her.
And then he remembered he didn’t have condoms. “Son of a bitch.”
His harsh words startled her. “What’s wrong?”
“No condoms.”
“We don’t need them.”
“What?”
“I’m on long-term birth control, and I’m clean. I haven’t been with anyone but you since my husband, and after that, I had all the tests.”
“I’m clean, too. I got tested recently.”
“Then we’re good to go.”
“Sex with you? Without a condom? I hope you’re ready for this to be fast.”
Her joyful giggle made him ache in the place where his heart had once lived before betrayal had caused it to shrivel up and die. But here with her, he felt it coming alive again. He teetered on the precipice of something new and vital. After what he’d been through, that ought to scare the shit out of him.
But he wasn’t scared of her. He was thrilled, even if he understood that the highest highs could lead to the lowest lows. As much as he’d loved his wife—and he’d truly loved her—he’d always felt a little off-balance with her, as if it could all go wrong at any second. He hadn’t had the sense of connection to her that he did with Brianna. And wasn’t it ironic that the connection had come from their shared experience with betrayal?
Having her arms around him as he made love to her felt better than anything had in, well, forever. He’d never felt this good with any woman, even the one he’d married.
Brianna drew him into a kiss that cleared his mind of every thought but one: I want to be with this woman, no matter what it takes.
At lunchtime the next day, Noah left the inn and drove to Gray’s house, hoping to catch his brother between clients. Gray answered the door holding a sandwich and gestured for him to come in.
“Hungry?”
“I was going to grab something on the way back to work.”
“I made tenderloin last night. It melts in your mouth. Want a sandwich?”
“Uh, yeah.”
Gray laughed as he made the sandwich. “The secret is in the au jus.”
“I’m officially drooling.”
“I almost like the sandwich the next day better than the initial meal.” He put Noah’s plate in the microwave for thirty seconds, ground some pepper on top and delivered it to him at the table along with a Coke and a bag of chips.
“Thanks. I wasn’t expecting you to feed me.”
“Happy to see you twice in two days. That has to be a record.”
Noah felt guilty for being so absent the last few ye
ars and making his family worry about him. “Sorry about that.” He took a bite of the sandwich and moaned. “Holy hell, that’s fantastic.”
“Right?” Gray took another bite and chased it with a drink of water. “You seem good. I can’t help but wonder if your pretty architect friend might be the reason.”
“She is,” Noah said, taking his brother by surprise. It wasn’t like him to be forthcoming about anything, especially his private life. “I like her a lot.”
“I can see why. Although, the shit with Brianna’s ex is a lot to take on.”
“It’s much worse than the shit I went through with mine, but that was pretty bad, too.”
“Is that so?”
Noah nodded and forced himself to tell his brother why he’d come. “I caught her in bed with Miguel.”
Gray’s eyes widened, and his face froze with shock. “Miguel, as in your foreman Miguel, who was also one of your closest friends?”
“The one and only.”
“Oh my God, Noah. I knew he left around the same time she did, but I never put that together.”
“Neither did I. They made a total fool of me.”
“And you caught them?”
Noah nodded. “After a night out with the search-and-rescue team. They were asleep in our bed.”
“Ugh, Noah. I’m so sorry.”
Noah shrugged off the predictable blast of pain that resurfaced any time he recalled that dreadful day.
“What’d you do?”
“I punched him in the face and fired him. And I told her to get the fuck out of my house and not to come back.”
“I don’t even know what to say to you. No wonder you’ve gone deep underground the last few years.”
“It was what I needed to do to get past it. I focused on work and just said fuck it to everything else.”
“I don’t blame you, but I do wonder why you’re telling me this now.”
“I never got divorced, and suddenly that seems like something I need to do.”
“Ah, shit, well, we can get that done. Do you know where she is?”
“No idea. I hoped you might have an investigator who could find her and get her out of my life.”
“I’ve got someone I can put on it.”