And right now, AJ wasn’t certain about anything.
A week ago she would have killed to impress Em Tyner, and tonight she’d walked out on him. A month ago, she had sworn off acting for good, and now she was slated to be the lead in a network drama. She had no idea if she wanted kids. It wasn’t something she actively thoughtabout, but she wasn’t at all prepared to give up the option. Suddenly, AJ felt very tired.
Noah sensed the shift in her but wasn’t surprised by it. After a moment he said, “I don’t think I need to tell you that this stays between us. You’re the only one who knows, apart from my doctors and Eudora.”
AJ opened her mouth to thank him for telling her, but then closed it for the shame of having forced him to do so. He gave her a worn smile. Then he stood.
Her heart clanged in alarm. “Where are you going?”
“I’ve had a lot more time to process this than you,” he said kindly. “I think it’s for the best that I go. But at least now you can see why?”
AJ felt herself nod.
Noah looked at her intently. “I want you to have a full life,” he said. “You deserve a normal life.”
AJ wanted to stop him, she wanted to tell him to stay. But instead, she sat amazed as he crossed the room, drew back the door, and stepped out into the night.
She remained like a sentry, watching his shadow recede. She waited for herself to start crying, but she just continued to stare and stare at the place where he had been.
Sometime later, AJ awoketo find that she had passed out in her clothes. The music up the hill had stopped. The clock read 2:16a.m.
Then it all came rushing back: the crale and Ian and Toni and Em and Noah.
AJ’s mind was alight. She knew Noah had been right to leave, that she was still reeling. She had heard every word he’d said. He loved her, but he could never be with her.
And yet as AJ got to her feet, she found her body was still where it had been hours before, when she had been getting ready, when she had been sure something was about to happen.
Trust your body,Ezell had written inLaughter & Death.The mind thinks, but the body knows.
AJ got in the shower and rinsed herself off. Then she threw on the shapeless white maxi shift she had packed in case of a beach day and nothing else. She turned out her light.
There was no one in the courtyard as she crossed to Noah’s room, only the faint whisper of the automatic torches. Noah’s curtain was drawn, but AJ could make out the soft glow of his bedside lamp. Tentatively, she opened his door.
As she stepped through, Bud looked up from a pile of Noah’s laundry in the closet and let out a single bark. Then she tucked her head back into one of Noah’s shirts.
Noah was reclining in bed, reading. He wore nothing but glasses and a pair of boxer briefs. AJ had never seen him without his clothes, and her breath caught as she took in the smooth skin of his chest, the long lines of his arms, his abs, his legs. Thesizeof him. She knew his height, his power, but seeing him like this, undressed and reposed, sent every thought from her head.
He looked at her then, surprised perhaps, but not unhappy. He opened his mouth to speak, but AJ gently raised her hand,wait,and he closed it. For a moment, the air filled with the things they might say to each other.
I heard everything you said.
Then why are you here?
But they didn’t need it. The rest of the world had fallen away, and AJ was back outside that glass dome, and he was letting her inside. There was room for one more memory.
Noah knew he’d gotten through to her, that she wasn’t here to fight him. He knew that her grief hadn’t even begun, that in this brief window before it hit, what she needed was to feel. He knew exactly why she’d come. He swallowed, his eyes black in the low light. He closed his book.
AJ watched him sit up, watched his feet land on the floor, right then left, and she knew that it had taken the last of his self-control to walk out of her room. That his careful movements were an attempt to mask a need for her so intense he feared he might frighten her. That she was going to have to be the one to touch him first.
AJ took a step forward, and then another, and switched off his bedside lamp with a click. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she reached up to remove his glasses, and he let her, shivering as her fingertips brushed his cheek. She folded the lenses with care and placed them on the nightstand beside his book.
She stood before him and touched his cheek again, taking the weight of his head in her hand. His fingers encircled her wrist, his eyelids sinking closed.
The skirt of her dress rode up as she slid onto the bed to straddle his lap. He got very still as she ran her fingers through his hair, touseled and silken and so at odds with the visceral strength of his body. AJ tipped his head back, back, until he was looking up at her, helpless, desire pooling in his eyes.
She was dissolving as his hands traveled up her calves and thighs to palm her ass, pulling her into him. He was as hard as he’d been the day before, and AJ arched against his cock as she’d wanted to then, andoh,she was liquid now, her hands slipping down his neck, over the sculpted muscles of his shoulder blades. His skin was warm and supple. She let her lips graze up the column of his neck to the base of his scalp and inhaled deeply.God, his scent.Noah shuddered in response.
What happened next was lightning—erratic, electric. Ancient tension on its fastest path to release. Noah tugged off her shift, his teeth scraping the underside of her breasts as she reached into his boxer briefs, and ohGod.She couldn’t help it. She slid against his cock in one lush movement, soft and spilling. Noahthrobbed.Wait,he warned, biting down on her nipple. Then those hands,hishands, grasped her hips, guiding her over him, closer, closer, until—AJ gasped. Such exquisite pressure as he filled her. Noah grunted, eyes slamming shut in concentration, and AJ shouldnotbe so close yet, not from just this, butoh,his lips were on her neck now, his breath hot and jagged, andfuck,she wasn’t going to last at all. As she clenched, a pathetic, needy noise escaped her, and Noah’s eyes shot open. One look at her and his restraint blew. He grabbed her jaw, pulling her to him, and as their lips met, they both started to come, so hard they both groaned, which only made them come faster.
