“They did this morning.”
He sighed. “Your lips are blue.” So was her skin, blue and mottled.
“We’re not…doing anything.”
Other than getting naked. That would probably be enough for him, after six months. “I know.”
“Good. Because it’s been so long, I’ve forgotten how.”
He stared at her, his brain whirling from the quick subject change, not to mention the subject itself. “How long?”
“Really long.”
“Really long,” he repeated, a little dumbfounded, still holding on to her sweater. He could feel her smooth skin beneath his fingers. Just from that, he got hard.
“He lost interest,” she whispered.
Jesus, how was that even possible? “Don’t take this the wrong way, Bailey, but Alan was a complete idiot.”
She lifted a shoulder, and he vowed right then and there to somehow make sure she knew that there was nothing wrong with her, to prove exactly how desirable she was, but right now, he had another mission.
Get her warm. Make her feel safe. Without letting her think on it too long, he tightened his fingers over the hem of the fuzzy soft material that had been clinging to her breasts for the past hour-not that he’d noticed.
Shit, he was such a liar. He’d so noticed.
He’d noticed and had found himself nearly poleaxed by the way her nipples, two tight peaks, pressed against the thin, wet, soft material.
Alan had lost interest? Noah would have to lose his head. Both of them. The hot, brain-cell-melting kisses they’d shared hadn’t helped. No, those hadn’t done anything but make him want more.
Then her eyes met his, wide and half wild, and he tempered down on himself and his ridiculous thoughts. This was about getting her warm.
Not about the fact that he was hard from just looking at her.
Nope, his needs had no place here, no place at all. Repeating that like a mantra inside his head, he lifted up on her sweater, forcing her arms up over her head.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
She said nothing to that, which sent a foreboding down his spine. If someone had laid his hands on her…well, he didn’t want to think about it. He’d spent his entire life hating violence, and yet it was pouring through his veins now.
“I just don’t want to be dead,” she whispered. “I want to stay alive.”
He stared into her eyes, seeing all sorts of things there, things that somehow soothed the beast roaring within him, things that made him incredibly aware of his fingers resting on her sides, spread wide so as to touch as much of her as he possibly could. “Alive is excellent.” His thumbs were just beneath her breasts. If he moved them, he’d be able to feel those curves, take the weight of them in his palms and-
And she was breathing erratically again, so he swallowed his own emotions, his arousal, and kept going.
He pulled the sweater off over her head.
Her bra…it was a barely there number, a pale, pale pink thing that just skimmed her nipples with satin and lace, like in his fantasies. Her breasts were two perfect pale curves plumping out of the bra, tipped with small, tight nipples poking at the satin, and her quickened breathing didn’t help any.
Truth was, he was breathing as wildly and as loudly as she was. He could hear them both over the water hitting the tiles in the shower.
Bailey stared at his throat while he took in the button and zipper on her jeans. Since she didn’t reach for either, he sucked in a breath and did it himself, trying to ignore the way her belly fluttered when he touched her skin.
Pop went the button, and with a hard swallow he reached for the tab of her zipper.
The rasp of the metal sounded incredibly loud in the room.
Then he dropped his gaze to look down at what he’d exposed, and what he’d exposed was a wedge of soft, creamy, pale skin that he wanted to put his mouth to so badly he was shaking for it.
For her.
Yeah, way to keep your distance.
Tightening his mouth, he hunkered down before her and pushed her jeans to her thighs, trying not to notice that he was at eye level with the most beautiful, erotic sight he’d ever seen-a pair of absolutely heart destroying pale blue string bikini panties with a satin ribbon over each hip and a little triangle that barely covered her mound. Trying not to stare, he shoved the denim farther, to her knees.
Looking at her perfect body, it was a moment before he was able to speak. He wanted to hold her. God, he wanted that so much he ached. Surging to his feet, he looked into her eyes and felt his heart engage.
Hard.
Which was some pretty damn bad timing.
With the slow, exaggerated movements of someone either sick, drugged, or exhausted beyond all sense, she kicked free of her boots.
And then stepped out of her jeans.
His heart stopped, then kicked back into action, going from zero to sixty in two-point-one seconds. Maybe less.
Oblivious to his reaction, she turned her back and afforded him a front-row-seat view of a world-class ass.
Weaving, she grabbed the shower door. He lurched to help, but she held up a hand to hold him off, and he forced himself to stand very still rather than put his hands all over her.
“I’ll be quick,” she promised, glancing at him over her shoulder as she gripped the shower door. “So you can warm up, too.”
Before he could do anything stupid, like suggest they conserve water and shower together, or better yet just get down on his knees and beg to worship at the temple of her body, she stepped into the water and shut the glass door.
“Okay, then,” he said, and backed to the bathroom doorway, running into it like an idiot. “I’ll just be out here if you need anything.” Please need something.
Me.
She didn’t answer, so he stepped outside the bathroom. Paused. Waited. She still said nothing, so with no choice left, he shut the door. Leaning back on it, he surveyed the master suite and let out a slow, deliberate breath.
Because he wasn’t seeing the huge bed, piled high with luxurious bedding. He wasn’t seeing the gorgeous oak furniture, or the huge picture window revealing the dark, dark night.
He could see only Bailey, and how she’d just looked beneath the streaming, steaming hot water running in rivulets down her body-
He thunked his head back against the door, but the image didn’t dispel. It seemed like days ago since he’d gotten onto the Piper to come here. Days since he’d first looked into Bailey’s eyes and been drawn in…
Since that thought brought him back to her naked and wet and gleaming, he tightened his jaw and stalked out of the bedroom, making his way through the house, checking each door and window lock.
The shower was still running.
In the kitchen, he put water on to boil, got out a mug and found some tea. When he had it steeping, he picked it up and headed back to the bedroom. He looked at the bathroom door. She’d been in there long enough to broil herself. “Bailey?” He knocked twice.
Nothing. Just the water hitting the tiles.
And suddenly, he got worried. Or more worried. “Bailey? You okay?”
Again with the no-answer thing.
The hell with preserving her privacy, he thought, and helped himself to the door.
Chapter 11
