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“Warren was my father’s best friend. They lost touch for a while after college, but they reconnected at my parents’ wedding. Dad gave him a job at the company and offered him a seat on the board. Eventually, he became the second majority shareholder—he owns 49 percent of La Carezza. He was there the day my father drowned. And the day my mother…” Shadows clouded her eyes. “I was seventeen and essentially an orphan. He stepped in, and the court agreed to appoint him my guardian.”
Tears filled her eyes, and Noah’s chest tightened painfully. He kissed her, then tried to comfort her in the most elemental way he knew. “I’m not wearing a condom, baby. Is that okay?”
Her breath shuddered out and her pupils dilated. A part of him experienced the tiniest twinge for using the blatantly powerful tool. But then her hands slid from his ribcage to his waist and her nails scraped over his skin, holding him closer. And just like that, he was drowning in her, desperate for her.
“Yes. God, yes please.”
He cradled her skull and slid slowly into her fist-tight heat. A wild shudder rolled over her and her nails clawed him. By sheer strength of will, he held himself still.
“Keep talking,” he grated out.
“He… he was there when I fell apart. He saw me through half a dozen therapists and a fortnight on a psyche ward.”
“Christ. I’m sorry, baby.”
She gripped him tight and blinked back fresh tears. “I was a mess, Noah. I still am.”
His fingers tightened in her hair. “Like hell you are. You’re a genius with innovative ideas that blow my mind. You’re beautiful and generous beyond words, and you sing like a fucking champ.”
Her watery smile turned into a gasp when, unable to help himself, he moved inside her. Heavens above, she felt like hot silk, binding him, squeezing him, fracturing his mind. But questions lingered, ones he wasn’t prepared to let go unanswered.
“Is there anything else I need to know about Snyder? Is he the reason you are reluctant to give us a chance in the real world?”
Her nostrils flared. “You’re the first man I’ve shown an interest in since… I’m scared of taking this thing out of this bubble.”
“Because you don’t think it’ll survive or you don’t want to disappoint him?” He hated himself for probing to see how important the other man was to her. But he was man enough to admit he was too far gone to pretend he didn’t care.
Leia Michaels belonged to him. Any threat to that reality needed to be identified and neutralized.
“God, Noah. You’re everything I’ve dreamed of and more. You make me… I feel like the most beautiful woman in the world when you’re with me like this,” she whispered. “The one thing I’d never be is worried that anyone would find you lacking. I know how you make me feel.”
His breath fractured. “But?”
“I’m scared too. I don’t know how to be in a relationship, casual or otherwise. The only meaningful relationship I’ve had recently is with Warren.”
For purely selfish reasons, he despised hearing that name on her lips. “Do me a favor, sweetheart. Don’t mention his namewhen I’m balls-deep inside you. I don’t care how important he is to you. It drives me a little nuts.”
“You wanted me to talk about him.”
He grimaced. “I know. I’m a fucking irrational idiot. As for the rest. You feel like a beautiful woman because you are. If I contribute even a little to elevating that feeling, then I consider it an honor. I’m glad you’re scared because I’m fucking terrified. Terrified that I turned your ass black and blue and you begged me for more. No one has owned me so totally by giving themselves so completely like you have, Leia. I can’t imagine tomorrow or next week without you. I will fight to the death to hang on to that. You’re too precious for me to lose. So live in the moment and leave the rest to me. I’ve got this. I’ve got us.”
Another full body shudder racked her and she shook her head. “God, Noah, I can’t… You don’t know what?—”
“Yes, I do. I feel it too.”
Grey eyes met his and grew dark with longing that echoed his. “Make love to me, Noah. Make the doubts go away.”
Noah wondered how he could be hard as steel inside her and yet feel like every other part, and mainly his heart, was melting all over her. He swallowed hard and slid one hand under her ass. “Ah, sweetheart,” he groaned around the lump in his throat. “I would slay monsters for you, all day, every day.”
31
I’ve got us.
Leia tried to stem the giddiness in her heart but failed completely. A full day and a half after Warren’s call and her conversation with Noah and her breath still caught each time she replayed those three little words.
She adjusted the off-the-shoulder diamante strap of the cream designer Grecian gown, which she’d bought in Cannes for the masked ball, and tried to stop the stupid smile from spreading across her face. After shattering her completely with slow, sizzling lovemaking yesterday, Noah had collapsed onto the bed and pulled her close. In the bathroom in Cannes, she’d been so busy absorbing the flood of sensation that came from breaking her sexual boundaries that she hadn’t taken the time to savor the pure bliss of Noah taking her skin-to-skin.
Yesterday had remedied that, had shown her the sublime beauty of feeling him within her without barrier. When he came inside her, she’d cried all over again. Noah’s face too had held a stunned wonder that echoed through her. The profound feeling had silenced them for a long time, until Noah had brushed his mouth across hers and pulled the sheets over them.