Beautiful Storm (8 page)

He lets go of my neck, but instead of moving away, both hands come to rest at my shoulders. Soft kisses rain down on my shoulders and exposed back. It’s a tender gesture I wasn’t expecting.

“Do you want that coffee now, or do you want me to carry you upstairs to continue this?” I feel him smile against my skin.

“You want more?” I pant out.

He said he would, but I never thought he’d follow through.

“Lizzie… I want much fucking more.”

I gasp when he slides out of me, and my body protests against the loss. He pulls me up from the table and around to face him. One of his large hands tangle into the loose hair at my nape and he pulls me in to kiss me, long and hard. The other, he uses to deal with the condom. Nipping my lower lip with his teeth, he pulls away. “Well?”

“Upstairs.”

He laughs and sweeps me up in his strong arms. “No need to tell me twice, angel.”

My body’s sore and exhausted, but my mind’s gone into overdrive. I don’t feel guilty. I should. But I don’t.

Noah’s steady breaths brush over my shoulders, while his arms encase me, holding me close. The whole night’s been a whirlwind of lust and desire, but now, lying in his arms, it feels… right.

This is all I’ll get, this one night. My heart pinches a little at the thought, but I know it has no right to be involved. He warned me. He told me he could offer nothing more, so it’s not like I went in blind. It was just his arousal talking when he mentioned
one day
.

The half-light of day illuminates his bedroom, increasing the pent-up anguish which swirls in my stomach. I need to leave, now. Because I already know I won’t want to go if he wakes. I’ll turn into one of those stupid women who go into a one-night stand expecting something more to come of it. He’s already admitted he’s not that man.

I gently squirm out of his arms and collect my clothes from his floor. He shifts and groans, and his arm flails for a second searching for something. I place a pillow under it and he pulls it closer, settling him down.

In his sleep, he looks younger. His beautiful but rugged features relax, almost as if every pressure he has ever felt has lifted from him. I take in his entire sculpted upper half and curse the fact his sheet covers the bottom. He’s magnificent.

Quietly, I leave the room. Fumbling with my clothes, I manage to get dressed on the landing before going downstairs to the kitchen. I wonder what the rest of his house looks like, but I don’t have time to investigate.

My cheeks heat and a rash of tingles cover my body when the smashed bowl on the floor catches my attention. I pick up the pieces and place them in the bin. My bag still sits on the floor by the kitchen door. I grab it, placing it back on the table, and then sift through for my phone.

There’re a couple of messages from Alex checking to see if I’m okay, and none from Mac. It doesn’t surprise me. He’s probably high somewhere, getting sucked off by a groupie. I pause over the thought. It had never occurred to me to question his fidelity until tonight. I’m stupid. We haven’t had sex in ages, where did I think he was getting it? Sadly, it doesn’t even bother me. It does make me think of getting checked out though, just in case my thoughts are true.

I sigh and type out a text to Alex asking him to pick me up. It’s unfair to wake him because of my stupidity but Boo left the club with a man too, so she may not want to be pulled away.

The screen lights up with a message. He’ll be here in a few minutes. I put my phone away, locate my shoes and put them back on. The balls of my feet burn and I curse the amount of dancing I did last night. Making sure I have everything I arrived with, I walk out into the hallway.

Noah’s sitting on the stairs, elbows resting on his knees. “Leaving?” His voice is sleep ridden and sexy as sin, much like the half-naked torso I can’t tear my eyes away from. We’d barely been asleep an hour before I left his bed and I thank my lucky stars I don’t appear a complete mess and didn’t have time to get morning breath.

“I thought it was best.”

He stands up and stalks towards me. “Well, you’re wrong.”

My heart rate picks up as he approaches. When he reaches me, his hands cup both sides of my face and he still smells incredible. “I need your number.” He speaks softly.

I shake my head out of his grasp. “There’s no need to pretend this is more than what it is.”

“I’m not.” His penetrative gaze burns into mine. “If you think last night was enough to appease my hunger for your body, you’re very much mistaken.”

And I’m wet again. “Oh.”

He laughs deep and throaty. “There you go with ‘oh’ again.” He grazes my cheekbone with his thumb. “Can I have your number?
Please
.”

Outside, crunching gravel and the sound of an engine signal Alex’s arrival. “Do you have some paper and a pen?”

“On the table.” He gestures to one in the hallway. I rush over and quickly scribble down my number. “I’ve got to go.”

“Come here.” He pulls me against him and his erection digs into me, sending anticipation flooding through me. “You feel that?”

“Yes.” My voice comes out as husky as his.

“Good.” He kisses me hard on the lips. “See you soon.” He releases me, leaving me breathless and burning for him.

I take in a shaky breath before responding. “Bye, Noah.”

He passes by me and opens the door, giving me a lopsided smile. “I’ll be in touch.”

“Okay.” I scoot out the front door to the safety of Alex’s car. I don’t regret the night and I don’t regret giving him my number, but with the way he makes me feel, I fear for my heart.

Noah pauses at his front door, his brows pinch together and his smile fades a little.

“Good night?” Alex grins at me from the driver’s seat drawing my attention from the magnificent nakedness I can’t help but drool over.

The heat of embarrassment burns my cheeks. He shouldn’t be dealing with me doing this sort of thing. I look away from him and out the windscreen. “Yes.” Noah’s gone.

Alex must pick up on how uncomfortable I am and remains quiet. My phone sounds with a text alert. I fish it out of my bag and see a message from a number I don’t recognise, but I know it’s Noah.

Unknown
:
You were wonderful.

Unable to control the rush of pleasure I feel with his words, I smile at my phone. I save his number and quickly return it to my bag. But the text makes something bother me. I turn to Alex. “How did you know how to find me?” I hadn’t texted him the address. I couldn’t, because I don’t know it.

He looks a little unsettled for a second. His jaw tics and he grips his fingers around the steering wheel.

“I followed you here last night. It’s my job to keep an eye on you.”

If anybody else had done the same, it would be creepy. But with Mac on tour, Alex is my bodyguard—not that I need one when Mac’s gone. I eye him a little longer but decide to let it go. While looking at him, it dawns on me there’s something very different about him.

“The baseball cap suits you.”

He rubs the back of his neck and shrugs. “Bed hair.”

Eight Months Later

L
IZZIE LIES IN
my arms, and her steady breath tickles over the skin on my chest. Eight months we’ve been doing this and it’s not getting old, far from it. We’ve spent the whole day watching black and white films, apart from when we ordered pizza, and fucked. I’ll never be tired of that. I slide my hand around her waist to find her hand, entwining it with mine.

“Noah, are you awake?” Lizzie whispers, her voice breathy.

Her daft question makes me smile. I just moved. “Yeah.” I tighten my arms around her and lean in to kiss her temple.

“I love being here with you. Being cocooned in your arms. Held like you fear I might vanish at any second.”

“You planning on disappearing on me?” I ask. My voice’s gruff and my heart squeezes at the thought. But I do hold her like that.

“Never,” she answers confidently. And I feel her smile against my chest.

I let out a relieved breath I didn’t even realise I was holding as she continues.

“I thought I understood what love was, but the dream became battered and broken. I always believed love was a safe place, like here.” She traces the tattoos on my chest. “But did you know love could be twisted and painful? I know it’s really stupid, but I never realised it could hurt, not without betrayal.”

I can’t figure out where she’s going with this so I let her continue, but my chest gets tighter with each word.

“I’m worried because I love us. This.” She peers up at me through her lashes. “But I’m frightened by what I feel for you. It’s stronger than anything I’ve ever felt before, and it could crush me if I let it.” She moves her hand down to rub circles on the forearm wrapped around her waist, her gaze follows it.

Without exact words she just told me she loves me and I want desperately to tell her something she wants to hear, but I can’t.

“I don’t know what to say, angel. I could beg you to let me in, to trust me, and I could promise that I’ll never be that man, that I’ll never hurt you. But—” I shift so I can look into her eyes. “It’s probably likely. I’ve never done anything like this. Never wanted to.”

I keep to myself the reasons why and continue. “You distorted my world, made me view things a little differently. You made we want things I’ve never thought about before. Made me think about a future. But I can’t promise you I won’t mess up, and I can’t promise you a happy ending.”

The warning needs to be out there, no matter what feelings swirl around in me. I’m not relationship material and if we continue down the path we’ve taken she may get hurt, fuck, she will get hurt.

She turns in my arms and sleepily nods into my chest. “This makes me happy.”

Those few little words make me fucking ecstatic. Instead of telling her, I pull her a little tighter against me.

Her fingers work over my abs and down over my tattooed brand. “Why
Underdog
?”

My insides clench and I hope she can’t hear the missed heartbeat. She’s never questioned it before. “Because I’ve always been one.”

Her face moves against my chest as she snuggles in further. “I doubt that.”

“Shh, angel. Go to sleep.”

I place a kiss on her forehead and breathe in her scent as she drifts off. Her breaths even out as I stare down at her beautiful face. My chest swells with a foreign emotion watching her engulfed in my arms. This thing between us has grown, turned into something I never expected, wanted, or dared believe I could have. But she doesn’t know the whole me. And that small fact holds me back.