Noah reached for her hand and—much as he’d done the night before on his deck—pulled her toward him. Only tonight he didn’t stop at merely bringing her near; she ended up on the swing between his legs with her back to his chest.
He wrapped one arm around her and with his other hand, he held her head to his shoulder. And while she wasn’t sure if it was the smartest thing she’d ever done, she brought her own denim-encased legs up onto the seat and hooked her hands around his forearm, resting there as comfortably as if it was something she’d done hundreds of times, feeling surprisingly natural there, like that, with him…
“I thought you might not be too happy that I told your grandmother the baby is mine,” he said then.
“Oh, that…No, I’m not mad. How could I be when I’d just blurted out that I’m pregnant and upset her more than she’d been in the first place?”
“So much for waiting for the right moment, huh?”
“It just seemed like it might help if she knew nothing serious was happening. But clearly that was not the wisest choice. And since telling her the baby is yours helped mellow her out, it’s probably good that you did it.”
“But you aren’t thrilled.”
“It’s okay. I would have rather told my brothers first. But you never know with Gram, she might not even remember it tomorrow. Look what happened when I told her I was pregnant—she confused the past with the present, herself and me, and she threw Hector into the mix on top of it.”
Noah paused a beat before he said, “Yeah, what do you think about all that?”
Marti shrugged and it felt so good to rub against him that, even through the scoopneck taupe T-shirt she was wearing, it turned her on.
Not that she wanted to be turned on.
We’re talking about Gram, forget everything else, she commanded herself.
“I know the things she said could be delusional—all or just part of it,” Marti answered his question. “There’s always that possibility. Sometimes she watches a movie or a television show and the next day she thinks it happened to her. But this…I don’t know, it seemed real.”
“Especially when you consider what Emmalina told us,” Noah pointed out.
“I know. Then it really does seem as if Gram just confirmed what we’ve suspected—that she did have an affair with Hector Tyson, that she got pregnant, that she had the baby and that Hector took it from her after it was born and made her leave town.”
“Right,” Noah agreed, dropping his chin to the top of her head.
“There are still so many questions, though,” Marti said, trying not to snuggle into him. And failing a little. “Did the affair go on right under Hector’s wife’s nose? I think Gram had feelings for Hector—whether they were real or it was just a crush—but what about Hector? Did he love her? Or is he so much of a jerk that he just pretended he did to seduce her and get his hands on her land? And what about the baby?”
“I wonder if we could find out and maybe get Theresa together with her long-lost kid.”
Marti glanced up at Noah, at his chiseled features gilded by the porch light. “You meant that promise to her?”
“Did you think I was lying?”
“I guess at that point I thought you might say anything to get things under control.”
“I don’t make any promises I don’t intend to keep. Although I’ll leave it to you and your brothers to tell me what I can do to help.”
“I want to talk to Hector again, that’s for sure,” Marti decreed.
“And I don’t want you anywhere near him alone, so I’ll definitely be going with you.”
Marti smiled and let herself bask for a moment in that bit of protectiveness, appreciating it. But then, there had been a lot of things she’d appreciated about him tonight.
“You really have redeemed yourself and become a good guy, haven’t you?” she said.
He dipped his chin to gaze down at her. “I’m doing my damnedest,” he said with just enough mischief in his tone to wash away any notion that he was too good.
“What about you?” he asked then, as if he didn’t want to dwell too long on himself. “How do you feel?”
“I am okay. The dizziness comes and goes, and when it goes, it’s gone—it’s back to business as usual.”
But despite that reassurance, Noah said in a deep, solemn voice, “I don’t like to see you sick.”
Marti smiled. “It could be worse—I had a friend who threw up day and night for the whole nine months. That was sick.”
“I still don’t like it.”
“Then tell your kid to cut it out,” she suggested with a laugh.
He took his hand from caressing her head to lay his palm on her stomach, surprising her.
“Cut it out, kid,” he said as the warmth of that big hand infused her.
She’d managed to keep her arousal at bay until that. But the weight of his hand set it off with a vengeance.
It didn’t seem to be only her, though. There was suddenly something passing between them, something that didn’t have anything to do with what they’d been talking about. With her grandmother, or even with the baby. Something that was only about the two of them.
Marti turned slightly in his arms and tipped her head farther back to get a better look at him.
He peered down at her, his dark eyes reflecting the same pure, raw desire that was running through her body, that had been awakened in her the night before.
“Are you gonna kiss me or what?” Marti whispered when he just went on searching her face and it seemed as if he might not.
Noah smiled and dropped his head to capture her mouth with a kiss that was smooth and sexy right from the start.
Marti pressed a hand to the solid wall of his chest but that wasn’t the only thing she felt as that kiss deepened and their mouths opened wider. Near her hip there was another hardness that told her for sure that she wasn’t the only one who’d been left on simmer since last night…
But Noah pulled away. “I better get out of here. I want you so damn bad, Marti, that if I don’t go right now…”
He didn’t finish that. And he didn’t move.
And neither did she.
Because she wanted him so damn bad, too…
She sat up and kissed him again, knowing she shouldn’t, that she was only making matters worse for them both. But she just couldn’t help herself.
And that was when the wheels of her mind began to spin. When she realized that what had stopped her the previous evening had been the thought that nothing connected them except the baby.
But maybe this was more a need for connecting than connection. For satisfying an intense and abiding desire to be with this man as closely and as intimately as she possibly could be. And maybe that purely elemental drive was all she had to consider right now.
Certainly that was all that seemed to matter to her.
So why couldn’t she give in to it?
She couldn’t think of a reason why she couldn’t. Not when she wanted to. When she wanted to so much…
It was Marti who ended that second kiss. “I don’t want you to go at all tonight.”
Noah’s eyebrows arched toward his hairline. “No?”
“No,” she confirmed.
“Oka-ay…But shouldn’t we go back to my place or something?”
She shook her head. She couldn’t wait that long. And she knew that he was fully aware that she’d turned the downstairs den into her room because he’d moved her double bed there first thing that morning.
“No one upstairs can hear anything. That’s why I moved into the den—so I wouldn’t disturb Gram or Mary Pat when I’m up late.”
“And tonight you’re not afraid of doing this?” he asked, echoing what she’d said when she’d stopped this same thing on his deck the night before.
She really wasn’t, though. She’d spent last night frustrated and unconvinced that she’d done something that had to be done by not making love with him. She’d spent hours thinking, What
real harm would there have been…
And she hadn’t come up with an answer then, any more than she had just now. Tonight she just wanted him and nothing about that seemed wrong.
“The only thing I’m afraid of is not getting behind closed doors,” she joked.
He grinned. “Then by all means…”
He swung them off the seat, taking her hand to lead her into the house as if it were his.
Since he was remodeling the place, he knew it as well as Marti did. He locked the front door behind them and took her to the den, where he closed that door behind them, too. He didn’t turn the light on, though—only moonglow lit the way as he crossed to her bed and stopped at the foot of it to pull her into his arms again and kiss her.
Not that Marti had any complaints. She was as eager, as demanding, as hungry for him as he was for her.
Hungrier, maybe, because her hands went instantly to the buttons of his shirt, unfastening them so she could pull the tails of it from his jeans and get it off of him.
Marti told herself not to rush, just to enjoy. Slowing herself down, she pressed her hands to his now-naked chest, reveling in the feel of sleek flesh over toned muscle, pleased by the response of his nipples to her teasing fingers.
His tongue staked a claim and left no doubt who was boss while Marti went on trailing her fingers over his broad shoulders, biceps and that Herculean back.
His hands dropped away from her then—away from her face, away from her breasts—and came together at the waistband of her jeans. But still he didn’t undo the button. Instead he just held on—the backs of his fingers dipping inside her pants and panties only slightly—while he kicked off his shoes.
Marti was only wearing sandals and she’d already stepped out of them, but she liked the idea of her hands in his jeans, too, so she slipped them to the small of his back, hooked her thumbs in his waistband and came around.
He didn’t have quite so much leeway at the front of his, though, since he was nearly burgeoning out of them.
Delighted by that proof, she undid his button and the zipper opened with very little help. That was when she dished out a little torturous restraint of her own and let her hands drift back up his washboard abs to his pecs again.
Nothing was lost on Noah, who chuckled in the midst of kissing her. But things sped up from there.
His mouth abandoned hers just as he unhooked her bra from outside of her T-shirt so he could pull shirt and bra up and off together and fling them aside. Down went her jeans and panties in unison, too, leaving Marti suddenly naked before him.
Then he turned her to face the bed, dropping his mouth to the slope of her neck and onto her shoulder to kiss and nibble and flick the tip of his tongue there while he divested himself of the rest of his clothes. When he had, his arms came around her to lay both of his palms on her belly, bringing every nerve ending to the surface of her skin, shivering, leaving her wilted against him, the evidence of how much he wanted her standing long and hard between them.
Up went both his hands to her breasts then, cupping them, caressing them, molding them gently in a firm grip that made Marti breathe in a whole new way, that made her head fall back against him, her eyes close, her mouth go slack…
But just when she was lost to that tender exploration, Noah was gone, then back again to lift her as if she weighed nothing and set her on the bed. He joined her so that the front of his body ran the length of her side.
His mouth reclaimed hers as his hand reached her bare, engorged breasts once more, satisfying her renewed craving for his touch.
Stroking, kneading, massaging—he was a maestro, orchestrating a symphony of pleasures with his fingertips. His lightest touch sent her into a near frenzy.
But as spectacular and arousing as it was, when his mouth again left hers and replaced his hand, spectacular didn’t describe it. Her spine arched off the quilt that covered her bed and a tiny involuntary groan escaped her throat as his magic fingers slid down her stomach and between her legs.
Marti nearly came completely off the bed as Noah found every sweet spot there was to be found and awakened them all at once.
She turned to her side, letting her leg go over his hip and finding that steely staff with her own hand to encourage him into the same kind of frantic need he was building in her.
Urgency mounted. Noah drew his fingers out of her with exquisite slowness and then coursed around to her rear, pulling her into the perfect position for him to ease into her.
How she could ever have lost any portion of any memory of how fantastic that felt, Marti didn’t know. But Denver was nothing—tonight was fresh and new and more exciting than she could ever have imagined. In that instant she was lost to the act, to the man, to each divine movement he initiated and guided all the while his hands explored every inch of her flesh so erotically he nearly drove her out of her mind.
Slowly at first, he rocked them together, into her and out, rhythmically, skillfully increasing the speed, the intensity, being cautious until caution wasn’t possible. Until passion and need took control.
Faster then, harder, deeper. Marti clung to him, moved with him, held him to her, clutching him, her fingers digging into his broad, powerful back.
And when she reached the pinnacle of it all it was an explosion of ecstasy that suspended her in the circle of his arms, against the magnificence of his body, merging more than physically with him as he also found his peak and pushed so deeply within her they seemed to fuse together.
They were both breathing hard. Marti’s heart was beating fast and she could feel that Noah’s was, too. And for a moment there was only the two of them winding down from what had been nothing less than profound.
They held each other as closely as possible, and that was how they stayed even as Noah rolled to his back and took her with him to lie on top of him as if she were hugging a big body pillow, her head resting on his chest, him still inside of her.
“Are you okay?” he asked then, his voice passion-ragged but sounding a little alarmed. “I meant to be more careful but—”
“I’m fine,” Marti assured him. “Not even dizzy.”
He laughed, a low rumble beneath her. “Then maybe I didn’t do my job.”
“This was work?”
“Ooh, only the best kind…” he moaned, making her laugh as well.
Then he said, “You really are all right? I didn’t hurt anything?”
“I really am all right.”
He sighed, relieved. “Good.”
Sooo good…
“Do you want me out of here?” he asked.
It took her a moment to realize he was talking about the house, not her.
“No. Do you want out of here?” she countered.
“Never,” he said, pulsing inside of her as if he might have meant her after all. “But what about your roommates?”
“They’ll be asleep for hours and hours and hours,” Marti said wearily as an overwhelming fatigue suddenly washed through her.
“Then can I stay until just before we might get caught?”
“I think you’re going to have to…I don’t think I can move…” she said softly, her words slow, her voice heavy.
She felt Noah crane forward a little for a look at her before he settled back again and said, “Hey, it’s supposed to be the guy who can’t stay awake at this point.”
But his comment was only a joke because he laughed again, rubbing her back and only making it more difficult for her not to drift off.
“Mmm,” was all Marti could manage in answer and in response to that backrub.
Noah reached to the side, grabbed what he could of the quilt and brought it over her.
“Sleep, then,” he said. “I’m sorry I wore you out.”
Marti wanted to welcome him to wear her out again in a little while.
But she was just too comfortable and too, too tired to do anything but give in to the pull of slumber in his arms.
Chapter Twelve
S un
day’s sun was just rising over the horizon after the third time Noah made love to Marti. She had again fallen asleep almost immediately and even though Noah was in the same exhausted state by then, he knew he couldn’t give in to it. He had to leave before Theresa or Mary Pat woke up.
So he forced himself to ease his arms from around the snoozing Marti and got up.
He dressed in no time and then went to sit on the edge of the bed beside her.
“I’m gonna go,” he said in a quiet voice.
“Mmm…Wish you didn’t have to,” Marti responded thickly without opening her eyes.
“I’ll come back later, okay?”
“Good.”
And she was gone again.
Noah stayed where he was, though, watching her sleep, stroking the side of her face with the backs of his fingertips.
God, she was beautiful.
Her honey-and-cream-colored hair fanned out against the pillow. Her red lips were slightly parted, as if she were about to blow a kiss. Her long, thick lashes rested against pale, flawless skin, and it was all he could do not to lie down beside her again, take her back into his arms and never leave.
He sighed heavily as that thought went through his mind, as that potent feeling took hold of him.
He didn’t ever want to leave Marti. Or their baby.
Something else flashed through his mind just that quick—an image of himself and Marti genuinely together, as a couple, as a family with their baby, and in one moment of absolute clarity he knew without a doubt that that was what he wanted.
What he didn’t know was if Marti would want the same thing.
He knew she wanted the baby. And through the night she’d wanted him, too. But what about from here on?
She wasn’t completely unplugged from her past, from her first love, and Noah knew it. And it was a formidable past for him to be up against.
But just how much was he up against? Did she still love the other guy so much there wasn’t room for anyone else? Would she ever be completely over the other guy? Could she be? Or would he always be runner-up even if she did let him into her life the way he wanted to be?
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