“Hey, hey,” Noah said, sitting up and trapping her between his rock-solid thighs. He cupped her cheek and stroked her skin gently with the pad of this thumb. For such a big man, he treated her like fragile porcelain and damn if that didn’t make her cry even more. “Shush. Come here. It’s okay.”
He drew her up off the floor and into his lap, rocking her slowly in his arms while she cried into his chest, his warm skin muffling her sobs so she didn’t wake the baby. While she got it out of her system, he murmured sweet nothings into her hair, rubbing soft circles on her back, making her feel cherished and protected and cared for all at once. It was too much. It would never be enough.
Not only had she been starved of freedom all these months, she’d been starved of basic human touch too. Yes, she’d had her sweet Gracie, but cuddling her baby didn’t make up for the fact that there was no one to make her feel cradled and cherished. She wanted to hold onto him, crawl inside him and never come out. She wanted to kiss him and stroke him like he was doing to her. Show him how much his actions meant to her.
Before she could stop herself, Serena raised her head and kissed his neck, nuzzled that sensitive spot at the base of his throat that she remembered drove him nuts and made him utter those low moans that drove her cravings higher. It worked just as well as it had before. Soon, she’d licked a path up to his strong jaw, then higher still until her lips met his.
This wasn’t about lust. It wasn’t about passion either, not entirely. This was about life.
She was alive and well and it was all because of Noah Wild, her saviour. She kissed him hard and long and deep, savoring the taste of him—salt from their soup dinner and a hint of mint from the toothpaste he’d used, and something uniquely Noah. For a moment, he seemed taken aback by her actions, but soon enough, he responded, one hand holding the back of her head in place, the other drifting down to grip her hip and rock her against the growing bulging of his cock beneath her.
She’d missed this. Missed him, even if she hadn’t known it until now.
Forgetting everything but him, she groaned and shifted to straddle him, grinding the heat between her legs against him, frantic to have more of him, before he disappeared again, before she was locked away and never found again, and…
Her chest seized and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. The small cabin seemed to grow smaller by the second. She felt hot and dizzy and completely disoriented.
OhGodOhGodOhGod.
“Serena? Hey, darling?” Noah had cupped her cheeks again, forcing to meet his blue, blue eyes. He was the only steady thing, the only rock in her shattered, flustered universe. She clung to his wrists, digging her nails into his skin. Some small part of her mind registered that she must be hurting him, but he didn’t even flinch. Just kept hold of her, kept focused on her, until his words slowly calmed the raging storm in her head. “Baby, darling? Just breathe. Just relax. I’m here and you’re safe. Gracie’s safe. Everything going to be okay. No one’s going to hurt you again. Never again. Not while I’m here.”
Time narrowed to just this man, just this moment, until finally the weight on her chest lifted and the pounding of her blood in her ears eased. All the fight went out of Serena and she slumped against him once more, boneless, weightless, breathing in his scent of soap and safety.
“Thank you,” she said, closing her eyes—not to sleep, just to rest in this sense of comfort and security she’d been missing for so long.
5
Noah sat there in the dark, holding Serena, for a long while after, his own mind racing despite his outward calm. Shit. That had been the mother of all panic attacks. He’d seen enough of them on the battlefield to know. He’d not really had much time to think about what her time in captivity had been like, but now he wondered.
Wondered and worried.
He slipped his fingers through the silky mass of her hair and sighed against her scalp. “Was it awful?”
“What?” she whispered through the shadows.
“Being held hostage,” he said at last, needing to know. “Did they hurt you? Torture you?”
She hesitated, then shook her head against his chest. “No. No one hurt me. Not physically. It was just hard, being alone so much, especially with the baby coming and me not knowing what to expect. I knew they wanted me dead, but I guess they wanted to wait until after the baby was born.” She gave a sad little snort. “Like that made it better somehow, what they were doing to me. Anyway, it was like slow torture. Waking up and wondering if today was the day I died.”
His arms tightened around her of their own volition. The thought of Serena by herself, pregnant with his child and scared, dug claws deep into his gut. She should have had all the good things for herself and their baby—pink nurseries and lots of baby showers and gifts. Instead, she’d had a gilded cage, solitary confinement, and suffocating fear. He wanted to punch something, namely the bastard who’d taken her. Instead, he just held her close and vowed to find the person responsible and make sure they never hurt anyone else again.
The longer they sat there together, the more questions arose in his mind and so he asked, a strange intimacy forming between them. “What about the delivery? Did you have a doctor?”
“A midwife,” she said, shifting slightly so she could look up at him.
