After the Storm (12 page)

“No, that’s okay, I’ll be fine.”

“I’ve got great shoulders for you to cry on.”

“Yes, you do. I’ll keep that in mind.”

He sat up in bed. “Wait. Did you just say I’ve got great shoulders? What else? Tell me more!”

“No, Mr. Ego. It’s time to watch the movie.” She turned slightly to turn off the bedside lamp when she felt him lean over her. He was so close to her without touching. She swore she felt the electricity along with his heat. With her arm still poised in the air, she turned to look at him. His face was inches from hers. She stared into the magnetic green of his eyes and cleared her throat. “Can I help you?”

It took him a moment to respond “I was just… wondering what you kept on your nightstand.”

“You’re not looking at my nightstand.” They never broke eye contact.

“No, I’m not. I am getting totally and completely lost in the most beautifully expressive eyes I have ever seen. No matter how famous or rich I am, all it really comes down to is that I am just a man completely humbled by an amazing woman. I would spend decades getting to know every nuance of her, trying to be the man she deserves, making her every dream come true.”

After a few moments she looked down, feeling helpless. “I don’t know what to say.” Did she dare hope he was saying what she thought he was?

“All I’m asking of you right now is to give me a chance. Let’s see where this goes. Let me prove to you how much you mean to me. How much just knowing you has changed me. It’s like I’ve been living my life with my eyes closed all these years. It’s all new. My priorities have changed. If you were to walk out of my life, I don’t know how I could survive the deep dark pit.”

Keeping her eyes down, she tried to catch her breath after hearing the sweet words. “I can’t think with you this close.”

“Then don’t think, just feel.”

“Noah.”

“For once, my mind isn’t in the gutter, love. Just tell me what I make you feel? Do we have a chance?”

She closed her eyes, trying to get her thoughts in order.

He lifted her chin. “No, please don’t close them. You could ask anything of me with those eyes.”

She opened her eyes and stared into his. “Noah, I’ve never felt like this before. Everything in my past is a pale comparison to what I feel for you. And it scares me. It scares me so much and I feel this is so huge that I can’t rush into anything. But I am willing to see where it takes us. Slowly.”

A huge grin spreads across his face.

“Slowly, Noah.”

“I can do slowly, even if it kills me.”

Laughing she laid a hand on his chest “You can move back to your side of the bed now.”

“Yes ma’am.”

She started the movie as the opening scene started Noah sat up straight in bed and looked at her. “Better off Dead? It’s a classic! I want my two dollars.”

“Yes, I know, which is why I am watching it.” She said slowly as if explaining to a small child.

“Just another amazing facet to you. This is so awesome. Now stop talking so I can watch the movie. You’re such a chatterbox!”

She laughed and hit him in the chest with a pillow. “Come here, before this gets out of hand, love.” He opened his arms wide for her.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“No really, I just want to hold you while we watch the movie.”

She moved over and snuggled into him with a sigh. “This is nice.”

He kissed the top of her head and said, “Yes, yes it is. Now pass the popcorn.”

~*~

She woke up feeling secure and happy, wrapped in strong arms.

Wait a minute, this isn’t right. He was supposed to leave
.

She stiffened.

“Stop it,” he mumbled in her ear.

“Stop what?”

“Stop thinking so much.”

“Who says I’m thinking?”

“Love, you were born to overthink things. And before you start arguing on this beautiful morning just take a moment to relax and enjoy the moment.”

“But…”

“Hush. Enjoy. Please. This is the first morning we’ve woken up together. It’s something special. Now just hush and enjoy it.”

“Fine.”

“That’s my girl.”

She relaxed into him. It was quite nice feeling his warmth and heat behind her. She could get used to this. But was that really wise? Their lives were so different. How could they even begin to make it work?

“You’re doing it again,” he mumbled as he nuzzled the back of her neck.

“I know. I can’t seem to turn off my brain.”

“I’m sure there is something I could do to help you with that.” He moved her hair and started to kiss down her neck.

“I’m sure you could, but we won’t.” She closed her eyes and enjoyed the sensation of him.

He sighed. “How do you know what I’m thinking?”

“I can feel what you are thinking, and it’s not going to happen.”

Oh my sweet Lord I’ve got to stop thinking about the hardness pressed up against me
.

“Can’t help that, it’s what you do to me. But what I was actually thinking, before your mind went into the gutter, was I could make you breakfast.”

“You can cook? Why haven’t you said anything earlier?”

“I’m a man of many surprises and talents. Do what you want to do, but when I come back we are having breakfast in bed, love, so deal with it.” He kissed her lightly on the nose and jumped up out of bed.

She laid there for a moment with a smile on her face, thinking about the night before. Besides some wonderful make-out sessions, they stayed up late and watched eighties movies together. Who knew they would share a love of them? After
Better off Dead
, they’d watched
Top Gun
. He’d sung softly in her ear along to
Take My Breath Away
,which gave her goosebumps. They hadn’t gotten that far into
The Princess Bride
before she’d fallen asleep. She vaguely remembered saying something about how she wished he could stay, to which he’d replied, “As you wish.”

~*~

“WHORE!” He screamed from the boat as he threw the binoculars down. “The bitch is mine.” After everything he’d heard last night, his rage built and built, wanting to explode. There was no way that bastard was going to have her. She was his.

He picked up the binoculars to watch them laugh and feed each other food in her bed.

He sat on the floor of the boat and pounded his fists on the seat in front of him, imagining it was her. When that didn’t calm him, he laid back and stared at the sky. He replayed the last time he was with her. He remembered everything as his cock grew hard. He didn’t touch himself this time. He wanted the frustration of not having a release. He sat up. All was not lost. He just had to modify the plan.

He started the boat and returned to shore, the whole time planning what he was going to do. He was going to make sure that after everything was said and done that bastard was going to spend the rest of his life suffering without her.

Their days were spent with Noah writing music and Lexi catching up on her reading. A lot of her favorite authors had new books out, which was good because Noah didn’t want her going anywhere alone. She wasn’t too happy about it, but she decided it wasn’t worth the fight. Sometimes it was nice to just relax on the beach and read to hide from the rest of the world. Even though Noah had Sam and Martha checking up on her all the time, she decided it would just be easier to spend her days at Noah’s house or in his gardens or the beach in front of his house.

She took the time to call and update Evie on what was going on. She’d spent a considerable amount of time talking her out of coming up to stay with her. Finally after telling her for the tenth time about the alarm and that her and Noah spent the nights together, she was satisfied.

The phone call to her parents was a little more difficult. Naturally, they were upset that she hadn’t told them what was going on until now. They had a million and one questions about Noah. She answered the best she could. Noah had walked in while she was still on the phone and ended up spending an hour talking to them, going as far as to walk into a different room so she couldn’t hear what he was saying to them.

The best part of the week was falling asleep in Noah’s arms and then waking in them every morning. Something about him made her sleep better. She started to dream about the future. She was still conflicted, but in the moment, everything was perfect.

The worst part of the week was longing for more. More of Noah, she wanted him. There were times when they kissed when she wanted to throw all her insecurities away and take him into her. He’d been so patient with her, not pushing for anything more than kissing. She didn’t know if she could be that strong if the situation was reversed. The more time she spent with him, the more she knew she was falling in love.

She was also stressed out about the talent show the next day, having still not decided what song to sing, plus there was the Troublesome Trio. Who knew what they were going to do. She’d been making daily telephone calls to them and everyone else, making sure everything would go according to plan, though she knew the ladies would end up derailing it. She shuddered at the thought.

Then there was the trip to L.A. with Noah that had begun to worry her. When he’d asked her to go with him a couple of days ago, she’d agreed easily. She knew it was important to him.
Last Stand
had recorded the music for a movie premiering next week and they would be performing the title song at a party after the premier. Noah wanted her to meet the rest of the band and their wives and children. She didn’t know what she would have in common with them. What could they possibly talk about?

She tried to push it out of her mind since she still had a couple of days before they would have to leave.

~*~

Noah was excited about the new music he’d been writing. He’d sent some off to his agent and he thought he could easily find other artists to record the songs. Noah wasn’t sure if the idea would work when it first popped into his head, but the more he thought about it and wrote, the more everything fell into place.

His nights were filled with Lexi. He couldn’t get enough of her. They were connected in a way he’d never been with anyone else. He loved the life they’d started to build. It was a dream he’d never seriously thought of dreaming. But now that he was living it, he didn’t want it to ever end.

He looked out of the window to see Lexi playing with Pepper on the beach. Bruno had gotten him all the paperwork including the police report and trial transcripts from what happened to Lexi. Reading everything in black and white, knowing that it had happened to her, was horrific. This Anthony Maldono was a piece of shit. Bruno dug into his past and learned there were other strange disappearances and deaths of women in and around where Anthony had visited or lived over the years, going back to college. They didn’t have any proof right now, only suspicions based on what Noah and Lexi had seen. Once they had more, they’d go to the police and put him away for life so that he could never terrorize Lexi again.

With all of the strange things that were happening, Bruno had gone to La Jolla and was actually able to meet with Anthony. It made Noah’s skin crawl to think of being in the same room as that bastard and not killing him. Anthony agreed to give Bruno a DNA sample to match with what was taken from him when he was first arrested after Lexi was attacked. They were waiting for the results.

Bruno checked into anyone Anthony Maldono had contact with for the past six years, especially since he’d been out. So far nothing, but if there was something, Bruno would find it.

~*~

After dinner they swayed back and forth on the porch swing and listened to her iPod on shuffle while a light rain came down. Lexi was curled up into Noah’s side, content.

“Do you know what I was thinking about?” Noah asked.

“I can only imagine,” Lexi said as she snuggled closer.

“I was thinking about one of our first kisses. It was raining that night, too.”

Lexi chuckled. “Yes, it was. Was that a hint?”

“Well, it has been awhile and we are pretty good at it.”

“So let me get this straight, in Noah time ‘awhile’ translates to forty-five minutes?”

“Yeah, when it comes to kissing you, five minutes is too long to go without.” He laughed.

The song changed. Noah stood up and held his hand out to her. “Dance with me, love.”

She was powerless to deny him. She stood and wrapped her arms around his neck. He gently started to sway as he sung the words to
I Cross My Heart
by George Strait in her ear. He lifted her up and went down the stairs where he continued to dance with her in the sand, the gentle rain falling on them.

Their gazes held and he stopped dancing. “I love you, Alexia. More than I ever knew was possible,” he whispered.

Her heart skipped a beat. This was the first time he’d said those words to her. Saying it out loud was a big step, a step she was ready to take. “I love you, too, Noah.”

He smiled the sweetest smile she had ever seen. Those dimples flashed, he hugged her close and spun her around. She threw her head back and laughed. She felt so free and happy. They had said the words. It was like the clouds had lifted and the sun was shining through the rain.

They tumbled onto the soft sand, laughing, Lexi on top of him. It only took a moment for the laughter to stop and the passion to sweep over them.

“My sweet, sweet, Lexi-love. Every part of my being comes alive when you are with me.” He brushed her hair back behind her ear. “You amaze me every day.”

“I thought I was happy, content with my life. Then you walked into it and nothing will ever be the same. Any darkness that was in my past is gone now. Replaced by your light.” Said Lexi.

Slowly leaning down, Lexi kissed him with all the love and tenderness she felt in her heart while Noah put his hands on either side of her face and matched her kiss for kiss. He ran his hands up and down her back while her hands fisted in his hair. The kiss deepened, becoming more frantic as they each wanted more, wanted to be closer. He moved his hands under her shirt, feeling skin. She moved her hands over his chest and her hips against him.

He sat up and she wrapped her legs around his waist. They broke the kiss for a moment as she lifted his shirt up and over his head, then dove back into each other. He moved his hand around to cup her breasts. She tilted her head back at the sensation of his touch and he leaned forward to nibble on her neck while gently pinching her nipples through her bra. Lexi shivered, her fingers clawing into his bare skin. Her head came back down and captured his mouth with her own.

They sprang apart as Pepper started barking. “Shhh, Pepper, it’s okay.” Pepper came up and lay down next to them, growling at the cliff behind them. “What is it, girl?” With one last woof, she laid her head down but still kept her eyes open, watching the rocks.

“Well, that was great timing. I guess it’s a good thing we stopped, right?”

Lexi sighed. “Right now, I’m not so sure.”

Noah sat up. “We can take this inside. I can have us naked, upstairs in your room, in under two minutes.”

“Well, golly Noah, the romance just oozes out of you.”

He nudged her down, her back flat in the sand. “We can wait, Lexi. I just want to hold you for another moment.”

“We do have a big day tomorrow, and somehow I think that when we finally make love, we might just go at it all night long.”

“When you say things like that to me, it’s hard not to throw you over my shoulder and take you somewhere, caveman-style.”

“Like you haven’t done that before. Come on, big boy, it’s time for bed.”

“To sleep right?”

“Yes Noah, to sleep.”

“Damn.”

“I know, I know.”

He stood up and offered his hand to help her. They walked back to the house, but he stopped and pulled her toward him, embracing her as she fell into his chest. “I love you, Lexi.”

She sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder “I love you, too, Noah. You have no idea what it means to me that you’re doing this for me.”

“Lexi-love, it isn’t just for you. It’s for me, too. You mean too much to me to be careless. When we finally make love, I want it to be so special that poets would weep at the beauty of it.”

She shivered uncontrollably, not sure how much longer she was going to be able to resist.