Take Me Forever (Billionaire's Beach Book 2) Page 4
Before he could answer, a woman’s voice drifted from a back hallway. “You’re amazing,” she said with a little laugh. “Who would have thought we could be together like this?”
A male grunt responded. “It’s because you’re following orders for once, just as I like it. Now rub.”
In the telltale silence that followed, Juliet’s face burned. The front door was open, they were here during regular shop hours, yet still it sounded as if she and Noah had walked in on something very private indeed.
“Rub harder.”
At the second low growl of command emanating from the hallway, Juliet shuffled in retreat, only to be stopped by the warm wall of Noah’s body. She wobbled, and his hard forearm clamped across her hips to steady her.
Oh, God, she thought, swamped by the sudden awareness of his heat, his height, the maleness of the muscles cradling her. It was happening to her again, just like it had been happening since she’d seen him naked in her pool. That deep, undeniable consciousness that she was a woman and he was a man.
A hard, virile man.
“Damn it, Cassandra, I said rub harder.”
Juliet jolted in Noah’s arms, trying to get away from her own response and the images the disembodied voices were painting in her head. With a hard swallow, she pulled free of the strong arm holding her.
“I think we should go,” she whispered, darting a quick look at him. “And come back later.” After a cold shower or something.
“What?” Noah’s eyebrows rose. “Why?”
Another “Rub harder,” echoed in the room, turning up the heat on her face.
Noah gave a sudden grin, as if now he could see the story playing out in her imagination. “Juliet Weston. Get your mind out of the gutter.” Still grinning, he returned to the front door, where he grasped the string of bells hanging from the handle. At his tug, they rang out.
From the hall, the woman’s voice instantly responded. “Be with you in half a second,” she called out.
“Thanks a lot.” The unseen man groused. “It might take a little longer than that.”
The woman laughed, and from his renewed place beside Juliet, Noah did, too. For her part, the situation seemed serious. Last night her shell had crumbled, freeing at least one thing she would rather have stayed safely under wraps. Before now, her mind had never wandered into the gutter!
Clearly she needed another focus in her life besides Noah.
On that thought, Cassandra came hurrying around a corner. “Juliet!” Her big blue eyes widening, she stopped short and her fall of rippling brown hair settled about her shoulders. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”
“We didn’t have anything else going on today,” Juliet said.
The other woman came closer. “And you wanted to make sure you hadn’t dreamed it all up?”
“Something like that.”
“I know I wondered,” Cassandra said. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a sleeveless cotton hoodie sweater that she had surely knit herself. “You can’t imagine the jump my heart gave when you walked in last night and I glimpsed another pair of Nikki’s eyes looking back at me.”
It had been a jolt for Juliet, too. But it had taken a naked Noah to bring her completely awake. She carefully kept her gaze away from him now. “We just saw Nikki at the fish place next door. They’re still the same blue and green as mine.”
Cassandra nodded, a smile playing around her full mouth. “The same. Though I think I see something of myself in you, too.”
“Yes? Well…” Juliet hesitated. “I hope we’re not interrupting.”
“No, no. Gabe and I are re-wallpapering the bathroom. It’s going to look so cute when we’re done.”
“Cute?” A dark-haired, dark-eyed man came around the corner. He was very lean and his hair was scruffy. It looked as if he hadn’t shaved in a few days and his whiskers only made his scowl appear fiercer. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
Cassandra lowered her voice and leaned toward Juliet and Noah. “I think he’s color-blind. I told him the pale blue and yellow stripes are black and silver—he’s a Raiders fan and it seemed to make him happy.”
Juliet didn’t think the whiskered man would ever be happy, even with a bathroom inspired by his favorite football team. Especially as his scowl was only turning more menacing as he stomped over to confront the other woman.
“Damn it, Cassandra. Cute is going to drive my property values down.”
“Nonsense,” she said calmly. “Your nasty temper does that all by itself.”
He sucked in a breath and stiffened with what looked like outrage.
Cassandra ignored that, too. Reaching out to balance herself on one of his heavy forearms, she came up on tip-toes to kiss his bristled cheek. “Just kidding.”
At the touch of her lips, he arched back, as if her mouth was fire. “I’m outta here,” he muttered. “The last strip is up and holding.”
Cassandra called to his retreating back. “That’s two dinners I owe you then.”
He waved without turning or even slowing his stride. “For your information, I see colors just fine. Which means if the rice is that brown crap, I’ll know it. I want red beef and white starchy stuff, Froot Loop.” Then he was out the door.
With a little sigh, Cassandra returned her attention to Juliet and Noah. “I hate that nickname. It’s a toss-up as to whether it’s his diet or me that will kill him first.” Then she reached out toward Noah. “I’m Cassandra Riley, by the way.”
He gripped her hand. “Noah Smith.”
Cassandra’s gaze shifted to Juliet’s face, and then to the hand that Noah had placed on her waist when Gabe had come marching into the room, trailing his black mood along with him. “Your boyfriend?” she asked Juliet.
She felt Noah’s hand drop, as if she was as fiery to him as Cassandra’s lips were to Gabe. “My friend.”
“And no boy,” Cassandra added. Then she lifted her arms to gesture around the shop. “Welcome to Malibu & Ewe.”
An awkward silence descended over the trio. Juliet’s stomach jittered, her nerves reminding her she’d made a promise to be cautious. She was here on an exploratory mission only, she told herself—not to forge any formal ties.
Cassandra broke the silence. “Why don’t you come sit on the couches where we can talk more comfortably.”
The cushions were comfortable, and Juliet darted a glance at Noah as he took a seat beside her. His chiseled face and calm expression didn’t betray a clue to his thoughts, even as Cassandra crossed to a big basket and drew from it needles, yarn, and a half-started swatch that she held out to Juliet. “Do you, um, knit?”
Obviously Juliet wasn’t the only one feeling nervous, and that settled her a little. “Not for a long time,” she said, taking hold of the big needles and the soft wool. “I think I learned in Girl Scouts.”
“It’ll come back to you.” Cassandra plopped down on the couch across from her and grabbed another piece from the basket. “It’s calming.”
Her needles started clacking away, but she could stitch without looking at them. Her gaze met Juliet’s. “Whatever you need to say, to ask, I’m here. Ready.”
With that, Juliet plunged ahead. “You said you began some Internet research a few months ago,” she said. “Why did you start then, if you’ve known all your life about the artificial insemination?”
The corners of Cassandra’s mouth lifted. “Wait until you meet my mother.” Then she quickly went on. “That is, if you want to meet my mother someday.”
“She discouraged you from finding out more about your roots?”
“Not quite that. While I was growing up she was adamant that we didn’t need anyone but the two of us—mother and daughter.”
Juliet let her needles and yarn fall to her lap because she couldn’t focus on them and Cassandra at the same time. “She’s changed her mind?”
Cassandra shook her head. “She’s changed continents. A two-year backpacking trip around the world. I got to feelin
g a little lonely…so I started looking into who else I came from. Does that make sense?”
As a widow, a little lonely was something Juliet knew a lot about. She leaned forward. “I—”
“Why didn’t you make a phone call to Juliet?” It was Noah, his voice not suspicious, exactly, but not warm and friendly either. “Or you could have sent her a letter with a few Internet links so she could have pursued the information herself if she was interested.”
The flush deepened on Cassandra’s face. Her needles stilled. “I chickened out. I couldn’t make myself directly contact a stranger out of the blue. So I sent invitations to both Nikki and Juliet, hoping to entice them into the shop where I could get a look before making my approach. Underhanded, I’ll admit.”
Noah folded his arms over his chest. “How did Nikki take it?”
Cassandra looked away. “Not as calmly as Juliet—but that was partly because I delayed telling her until after we were becoming friends. That’s why Nikki and I told Juliet right away when she came into the shop. Before I told her about her parentage, Nikki had never suspected the truth—”
“If what you say is the truth,” Noah interjected.
Juliet put her hand on his arm. “Noah, seeing Nikki, do you really have doubts?”
He hesitated, then shook his head. “I see you in her,” he nodded at Cassandra, “as well.”
The other woman—God, she truly was Juliet’s sister!—released an audible breath. “I can show you what I found on the Internet. I’d be happy to let you see the steps I took and how I linked we three—and it’s only we three, by the way—to our father. Donor 1714.”
Donor 1714. That sounded so sterile, Juliet thought. So without feeling. But she’d had a father. And a mother. Both had loved her and she’d yet to figure out what she thought about them keeping this from her. “Like Nikki’s, my parents never hinted at anything unusual about my conception—other than they’d waited a long time for it.”
“Most families of that era didn’t talk openly about infertility. Many donor-inseminated kids don’t come to find out their biological beginnings until they’re into adulthood, like you and Nikki.”
Nikki. Nikki and Cassandra. Two women that she knew so very little about.
“Tell me…” Everything. She hesitated—would the request signal a closeness she was unsure of pursuing?—but then gave into the urge. “Tell me about Nikki.”
Cassandra grinned. “Oh, stick around and be entertained. Our little sister is the prickly one. She’s a professional chef and she recently had knee surgery that’s going to allow her to do some great things in whatever kitchen she chooses. For now, she’s heating up the life of one of Malibu’s natives and its one-time über-bachelor Jay Buchanan. They’re engaged and would be married tomorrow if he had his way.”
“And you’re not?” Noah asked. Juliet could tell that he was trying to get a clearer picture of the situation. “Married, that is?”
“No.” Cassandra seemed perfectly comfortable with the idea. She eased back against the couch and raised her brows at him. “Never. How about you?”
Juliet froze, then darted a glance at Noah. God, she’d never thought…never considered, even though she knew he’d been in the army and it wasn’t uncommon for young soldiers to marry their girl before deploying to a battle zone. Had he ever…?
“Thought about it at twenty-one.” Noah’s expression was as noncommittal as before. “Then thought better of it.”
Juliet’s tight chest loosened, and wasn’t that just a warning in itself about the trouble a lonely widow could get into? What kind of person didn’t want the man living across the pool to have once fancied himself in love enough to marry?
She put the yarn and needles aside and got to her feet. “Maybe we should go.” New to this awake-and-in-the-world business, her emotional state was rocky, as these weird responses to Noah proved. She had her answers from Cassandra so it was time to leave.
“Good idea,” Noah said, rising. “But before we take off, Cassandra, I want to make something clear.”
Juliet’s donor sibling stood, too. “All right.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I have Juliet’s back.”
Juliet swallowed her groan. Great. Here they went. “Noah—”
“No matter where I am, no matter if it’s today, tomorrow, or ten years from now, I’m there,” he said over her protest. “Someone tries to take advantage of Juliet—whether it’s of her wallet or her heart—well, just understand I won’t stand by and let that happen. I’ll always be watching out for General Weston’s widow.”
General Weston’s widow. Good lord, did Cassandra even know that’s who she was? Juliet thought. But of course she did. There was the Internet. Not to mention all the media attention during the last year. Cassandra would know as well as Noah that Juliet was the object of derision and suspicion by some.
And pity by others. Is that what Noah felt toward her? Is that why he’d just made his declaration?
“I understand,” Cassandra said. “And I’m glad my sister has such a loyal champion.”
Out of nowhere, tears burned the corners of Juliet’s eyes and she blinked them back. She didn’t need a protector, damn it, and despite what Noah claimed, he was only her temporary “champion” anyway. He would move on to his own life, and soon, just as she’d told him at the restaurant.
She swallowed, feeling a desperate need for fresh air. “Good-bye,” she told the other woman, already moving toward the door. Noah had his fingertips at the small of her back, even as she looked over her shoulder. “I’ll… I’ll talk to you, um, soon.” Caution, remember? No need to be more specific than that.
Cassandra’s smile was bright. But her eyes were, too. Bright with unshed tears that matched the ones Juliet felt gathering once more.
Just like that, her resolve broke. “Come to dinner,” Juliet urged. “The day after tomorrow. You and Nikki. Ask her.” Without even looking, she felt Noah’s dismay at her rash words.
“Are you sure…” the other woman started.
“I’m sure.” Of course, Juliet wasn’t, but she couldn’t make herself take back the invitation.
“All right,” Cassandra replied. “I’ll call Nikki.”
Noah had Juliet’s fingers now and was towing her out the door toward his truck. Even though she sensed his concern, she couldn’t help but appreciate the secure warmth of his clasp.
So be careful about Noah, too, Juliet warned herself, trying to tug free of him. While it might be too soon with her sisters, it was too late to become attached to the man who held her hand.
Juliet surveyed the selection of cookbooks spread on the kitchen’s butcher-block island, and tried remembering her last impulsive action. If she didn’t count the act of inviting her sisters to dinner, before that there was…there was…
There was the night she’d decided to marry Wayne. When she was thirteen years old.
A rap on the glass of the French door behind her made Juliet spin around. Obscured by the mullions stood Noah, who had been repainting the flaking backyard gazebo for the past few hours. She gestured, and he swung open the door to step inside, bringing with him a blast of outdoor-scented air and the unsettling, electric presence of raw maleness.
Barefoot, Noah was dressed in a pair of ragged camouflage pants.
And nothing else.
So right there in the room with her were his uncovered powerful arms and shoulders, not to mention the rippling board of his abdomen. Above that, his naked chest, with all its muscular bends and fascinating dips. Pressing the small of her back against the edge of the island, she put more room between herself and his skin, though she couldn’t keep her gaze from inspecting every tanned inch. There was a streak of clay-colored paint under the curve of one pectoral, just three shades lighter than the hard-centered disc of his nipple.
She yanked her attention to his face, even as heated pinpricks washed from her nape to her heels. “What, um, what can I do for you?”
“Mmm. Yeah.” There was another scent in the air besides the green-and-fresh smell of the outdoors. She took it in, and then wished she hadn’t. The other olfactory note invading the kitchen was the toasty, soapy scent of a sun-drenched Noah and in a flash she saw herself putting her mouth to that smooth juncture of chest and shoulder and breathing him in, deep into her lungs. The tang of his sweat salty against her tongue.
“Ma’am?”
The polite prompt jarred her back to reality. Punishing herself by pushing back harder against the edge of the butcher block, she forced out a laugh. “ ‘Ma’am?’ You haven’t called me that since the first few weeks you came to work for Wayne.”
“I work for you, now,” he said. “Just trying to remind myself of that.”
“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, bunching his pectoral muscles. “You’d appreciate if I wouldn’t what?” Noah asked. “Remember that ours is purely a boss-employee relationship?”
Those prickles burned another path down her torso and then reversed direction to rush toward her face. “Of course it’s boss-employee,” she reassured him. “I could do without the ‘ma’am,’ that’s all. Makes me feel a hundred years old.”
One side of his mouth kicked up and she stared at his lips. He hadn’t shaved, and the contrast of dark stubble to smooth skin only made it harder to look away. “Ah. It’s the older woman thing again.”
No. She didn’t care that she was older than he. Wasn’t it she who had pointed it out, after all?
And right now she didn’t feel older. Right now she just felt…different. Female to his male. Uncertain to that knowing gleam she thought she detected in his eyes.
With a whirl, she turned to her open cookbooks again. “The mail’s there in a stack by the sink. I haven’t yet separated yours from mine.”
“Then my Playboy renewal form is free from your prying eyes.”
She ignored the teasing gibe and left it to him to sort through the pieces. After a moment, though, the rustling ceased and she registered an odd, suspicious silence. Curious, she glanced over her shoulder.