Keeping You: KJ Elite Inc. (22 page)

There. I mean, it’s close, right?

“Nice try. Let er’ rip!” She hollers.

“I want to…agh, I want to fuck Noah.” To my utter shock, I shouted the last four words whilst flinging my arms out.

Taylor’s jaw dropped. It’s somewhere around China, I think.

“You’re a horrible influence.” I accused, pointing at her.

Taylor closed her mouth and swallowed before grinning again. “You just skipped all those baby words and jumped right up to the boss, huh?”

“Don’t you always tell me ‘go big or go home’ in all those pep talks?”

She chuckled, “Yeah, I guess I do. Good for you. How long until I can get you to say another one?”

“I’m thinking I’m full up until about 4.7 years from now. That was a doozy.”

“You’re the whitest, most correct, bi-racial, New Yorker I’ve ever met.”

“It is what it is.” I reply, shrugging my shoulders.

“See. A straight enigma. So…you wanna fuck him, huh?” She bit her bottom lip.

“Ugh. You couldn’t just let it go?”

“Not really. Also, I should have mentioned that Luke is probably watching this. He has cameras in every room minus the bedrooms down below. If he isn’t at the command center, he’ll be watching us on his laptop with a headphone in one ear.” She pursed her lips and had the good grace to appear sorry.

“Oh Gosh.” I closed my eyes and grabbed my stomach.

“So, is he really pierced? I hear that sex with a guy who has a Prince Albert is double the fun.”

“Tay!” I exclaim.

“Well, Charlie said some of the girls at the bar were arguing about it. That has to really hurt. The needle through the...Ack!” She did a full body shiver.

“Don’t answer that.” A sexy as sin voice said from the doorway behind us. I could hear the smile in his silky, deep voice.

“Sweet Jesus!” Taylor hissed, jumping up and turning around.

I am just going to sit here and melt into a puddle of horror now. There’s no telling how long he was standing there because neither of us heard him come in.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” She yelled. “You could have gotten shot.”

I heard a muffled smack and an “oof”.

“Eh, you’re harmless. I just came to check my woman out.”

Noah chuckled and started for me.

I slipped down the cushions so I lay prone, face down on the couch. My hands were between my face and the warm cushion Taylor was just sitting on.

Please ground, open up and swallow me hole, now. I beg you.

Big hands scooped under my body to flip me over before he lifted me up to face him.

I stand at 5’10 without heels while Noah is around 6’1 and still manages to tower over me. His hands are wrapped completely around my teeny waist as he holds me off the floor to come face to face with him. My legs come up and wrap around his waist like a second nature and my arms follow around his neck. Still flustered beyond words, I hide my face in his neck and breathe him in.

His chuckle lifts my body with his rising chest and he holds me tighter.

“Check her out? What is she, a library card?” Taylor grumbles.

“Let’s go home?” He asks, already moving.

I simply nod.

When we reach the door I try to shimmy down his body which makes him stop.

“Where do you think you’re going, sugar?” Noah asks, grinning down at me.

I still can’t answer him so I push off his chest lightly and go to give to Taylor a huge hug.

“I’m going to kill yous.” I whisper in her ear.

She chortles and gives me a tight squeeze before we part.

Tommy is standing just outside of the room as are half of the people who just came out of the meeting room.

“Jamie.” Luke greets trying so desperately to keep a straight face.

Oddly enough, I
can
speak to
him.

“Creepy.” I said, pointing at him and narrowing my eyes.

“Security, babe.” His chest and shoulders were shaking uncontrollably.

“I very much dislike you right now.”

“Don’t worry.” He assured me, mimicking zipping his lips and tossing the key away. Then he winked and turned away.

Taylor jumped onto Tommy’s back and pointed for the door. “Home, boy!” She kicked like he was a horse.

“Goodnight, Jamie.” He said, kissing my cheek and giving my arm a light squeeze.

“Night.” I mumbled.

“You gonna tell me why Luke was losing his shit in the meeting?” Noah asks, his head tilted.

He was enjoying this. “Idiot fell over and off of his chair in fits of laughter.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.” I answered and turned away.

My whole backside heated and I knew he was practically on top of me.

“Noah!” Someone called down the hall. Little tingles danced down my spine.

His hand slipped under mine and pulled me back with him.

“This’ll only take a second, sugar then I plan on getting you home and doing very naughty things to you.”

Yes, please.

A guy around my age I’d presume is leaning in the doorway of an office marked “Bravo”. Initially I have no interest in even looking at his face, but an invisible string yanks my face up. With skin darker than mine and an unforgivingly rugged, handsome face he seems so familiar that my insides churn. There’s a scar that cuts through his left brow and when he holds out his hand to shake, I note the burn marks up his arm. A sinking feeling in my gut, I am staring at a ghost. Long dead and gone.

He has finally come to punish me. He is here to make sure I don’t forget the guilt, not for one minute. A single tear slides down my heated cheek.

“Hey Jamie. Name’s Paulie.” His accent oozed Brooklyn, a twin of mine.

“Holy.Shit.” It literally fell out of my mouth before I registered I was thinking it. Noah choked and I heard Taylor scream down the hall. Matt bent over beside us and wheezed.

He’s real. Living. Alive. Not dead.

“I take it you remember me?” He asks, a lopsided grin lifted favoring the right.

I ran into his chest and wrapped my arms and legs around him like a spider monkey.

“Paulie.” I cried into his firm chest. Under my cheek, he was warm and shaking with laughter; his heart beat at a frantic pace, meeting mine.

“Oh my Gosh, Paulie. What are you doing here?” I started bawling and I couldn’t stop.

“Hey, it’s alright.” He assured me, hugging tight.

When I pulled back after a minute, Noah wrapped his arm around my waist possessively.

“I take it he doesn’t know?” We both asked simultaneously. Our shared accent melded together, thickening.

Another shared laugh and I answered, “Not everything. Not about you.”

“I figured yall might have crossed paths when we ran your background check after bringin’ Jamie home.” Just like mine and Taylor’s, Noah’s accent was more pronounced when he felt any emotion intensely. My eyes scan over Paulie’s body once more, taking note of every inch.

When we were children, he was tall for his age but so lanky and undernourished. Now, he was handsome and tall but instead of lanky, he filled out to look thin and lean – not deadly as I expect he actually is.

“Paulie, are those from…” I choked and had to take a deep breath. My finger shook, pointing at his burnt arms.

“Hey, forget it. I’m just glad to know you got out.”

The tears were still flowing with no end in sight.

Noah kissed the crown of my head and pulled me further into him. I couldn’t be close enough if I was under his skin.

“I just wanted to say hi and maybe we can grab a drink sometime. What do you think? Can you handle starin’ at this ugly mug?”

I shook my head and looked at him disapprovingly.

“You’re handsome and you know it. I would love that. Maybe you can set it up with Noah and come by the house soon?”

“You got it, crackerjack.” He winked.

My old nickname he would call me. We learned one day that crackerjack meant something exceptional or someone especially special, beyond excellent. Ever since that day, he would call me crackerjack. Plus, I was part white so there was that, too.

A strangled laugh escaped my lips and I hugged him again. No one called me that since the day of the fire. Granted, no one but Paulie called me that, but still.

Noah led us home with me wrapped up tight in his arms from the truck to the bed.

Chapter 11

I really don’t like other men looking at Jamie, so it’s safe to say that I become violent when they get physical with her. I’d say I handled it relatively well when he called her crackerjack
and
when she launched herself at Paulie. He’ll be walking straight tomorrow and I didn’t throw so much as a sucker punch. Lucky bastard.

“You wanna talk about it?” I asked her.

“Honestly, there isn’t much to talk about. Paulie lived next door and his room was on the other side of mine. One time the sperm donor threw me against the wall and the flimsy thing broke straight through. Left a hole the size of my head. Ever since then I had a pillowcase covering it so he wouldn’t know I had a friend. Paulie would protect me and calm me down as much as he could. When we slept, he would stick his arm through and hold mine through the night. He was my only friend and I haven’t seen him since the last day I was there. I thought he had perished in the fire and it broke my heart. When I had a minute to myself, I got down on my knees and prayed for him to be let into Heaven.

“I picked coins up off of the street and bought a dying rose from the corner bodega. At night, I snuck out and went down to Central Park to say goodbye. I didn’t know anywhere more beautiful. Up until I was…just before that trip to Rome, I would go to that spot and just talk or sit and think. I didn’t give it a second thought to hire someone and make sure he died that day. I should have, but I didn’t know better. From the looks of it, he is doing pretty darn well for himself.”

I brushed the hair off of her face and kissed her cheek. We’re lying in bed still fully dressed face to face but cut off from the world with the canopy pulled shut. It’s a small reprieve from Luke’s all-seeing eye.

“I hate that he’s so important to you, but I’m damn glad he was there for you.”

“Why would you hate that?” She asked me, perplexed.

“Because I want to be the only one you feel so close to.” I admitted.

She stroked my cheek and placed a soft kiss to my lips then she slowly pulled back to look into my eyes.

I need her like I need my next breath so I grab her face and pull her back to me for another kiss on her soft lips. Her arm moves to my bicep so she can pull herself closer to me.

I dart my tongue out and sweep it across the seam of her lips begging for entrance. She gives it to me willingly, mixing her tongue with mine.

Without stopping, I grab her hips and pull her on top of me. Fuck, why is she dressed still? I’m so turned on, I can’t take it anymore.

“Do you trust me?” A simple enough question, but one I needed answered.

“Implicitly.” She says unquestioningly.

“Come on.” I sit up with her, her legs around my waist and slide slowly off the bed.

She doesn’t ask me one question but looks torn between excited and nervous.

“Luke!” I holler, moving down the hall to the stairs.

My cell rings immediately. Jamie tugs it out and puts it on speaker.

“Hello, you two.” He greets us smugly.

“Shut off the lights and any camera that even remotely catches the backyard.”

“Noah, this is so not a good idea.” He warns. At this point I’m so turned on by the feel of her heat against my waist, I don’t care whether he’s right or not.

“Do it.”

“Aye-aye.” The phone lights up and I know he’s gone.

“Toss that on the counter sugar, we won’t need it.” I tell her.

She complies but eyes me inquisitively.

Once out back I set her down and reach into my pocket for my key to unlock the pool cabinet.

“I keep one out here for night swimming. It helps as a form of therapy.” I tell her, retrieving another prosthetic for swimming.

She nods lightly and watches me sit down and make the switch, to my dismay. Once finished I pick her up and pin her against the side of the wall.

As I begin kissing down her neck she quietly murmurs, “It doesn’t bother me, you know?”

“What’s that?”

“Your leg.” She blushes and I can sense it, even in the dark. I can hear it rising. “Just thinking about you gets me excited. Everything about you is so sexy, Noah.”

My God, this woman is an angel.

She reaches down to strip my shirt off, long silky fingers leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake.