Love On The Line (11 page)

“Oh, God, so is that.” Violet barely bit back a needful sigh as Noah cradled her through the fabric, his kisses trailing toward the edge where it gave way to the swell of her breasts. For one long, excruciating minute, he stopped, hot breath on even hotter skin, and then he lifted her shirt over her head with one fluid pull. It floated to the floorboards only a breath before his button-down, leaving just a thin cotton T-shirt on the tightly muscled expanse of his chest and a swath of lilac satin over her breasts.

“I want to feel every part of you, but not in the hallway.” Noah returned his kisses to her mouth, slowing his cadence but not his intensity as he maneuvered her through the well-
shadowed doorway to his bed. He sat on the edge, eyes glinting in the strains of light spilling in from the hall, and Violet lifted the long sway of her skirt to seat herself firmly in his lap.

Noah fisted the fabric pooling around her hips, his teeth flashing a wicked grin in the near-darkness. “This skirt has been driving me crazy all night.”

Surprise made her pull back to look at him. “It goes all the way down to my ankles.”

He let go of the fabric, sliding his hands to her bare thighs beneath. “That just makes me even hungrier for what’s under it.”

She rocked against his erection, suddenly wishing the skirt would disappear along with every other barrier between them, and his palms went tight over her thighs as he thrust back. Hot tension uncurled in Violet’s belly, spiraling down to redouble its efforts in her core, and Noah dipped his tongue to the hollow of her throat before lowering his attention to her breasts. Not wanting to lose the intoxicating pressure of his hands on her thighs, she reached between her shoulder blades, popping the closure on her strapless bra in one twist.

His murmur of approval lasted only a second before his mouth met her skin, treating her body to the same languid kisses he’d put on her lips. Without staying the rhythm of his hips against hers, Noah drew one tightly-beaded nipple into his mouth, and the soft friction nearly sent Violet over the edge. He
laved her with gentle movements, barely-there flicks of his tongue that bolted straight to her core, and oh God, she couldn’t wait.

She reached low for the hem of his T-shirt, but Noah replaced her hands with his own, moving slowly. The bandage on his arm had been reduced to a rectangular patch, barely visible in the low light of the room, but her pulse gave a hard jump anyway as he dropped his shirt to the floor.

“Noah.” She lifted her fingers, letting them hover over the bandage just below his shoulder, but he reached up to touch her face, stealing her focus.

“I want you, Violet.” He coasted his thumb over her bottom lip, grounding her back in the moment. “No matter what else is outside that door, right now, tonight. I just want you.”

She nodded, unable to deny the truth. “I want you, too.”

Noah undressed her with quick yet reverent motions before discarding the rest of his clothes, and not even the warmth of his body pressed hard to hers could quell the shiver working through her. Just as he’d promised, he touched every part of her, exploring even the most benign places with passionate attention, and when his fingers finally dipped between her aching thighs, Violet arched up to meet him with a keening sigh. Driven by pure sensation, she canted her hips to Noah’s touch once, then twice before reaching out to wrap her fingers around his erection.

His body went bowstring-taut under her hands, but she didn’t slow her ministrations, and his voice broke over a curse. “You’re…God, that’s…you have to stop.”

“No.”

Noah’s eyes flashed open, but rather than argue, he slid his hand back over her throbbing folds, lingering on just the right spot to make her cry out, and everything else fell away but the need building from her inside out.

“I don’t want to stop, Noah. I want you right now. Just you.”

He slipped from beside her just long enough to produce a condom from a bedside drawer, and Violet took it from his fingers, pushing him back to the bed. Straddling his muscular thighs, she rolled the condom into place before covering the angle of his hips with her heat. The friction of his cock so close to where she wanted it sent sparks under Violet’s skin, and with one tip of her body, she lowered as he pressed up to fill her.

“Oh,” she breathed, the only thing she could manage past the shock of undiluted pleasure flooding her body. Lifting just slightly, she leaned forward to brace herself over Noah’s chest as his palms found her waist, guiding her so they could learn each other, inch by inch. Each slow thrust brought the tension in Violet’s body closer to a tightly-wound tipping point, and when he skimmed one hand from her waist to the aching spot just above where their bodies joined, she tumbled right past it and into the bright reaches of release.

Noah held her close, his movements ebbing as she thrummed with overwhelming sensitivity. Without leaving her body, he shifted her beneath him, bracing his weight on his right arm as he settled into the cradle of her hips.

“You are gorgeous,” he whispered, cresting into her until no space remained. “I want to make you come over and over just to see the look on your face.”

Desire ribboned through her, riding a streak of surprise at how quickly it had returned, and Violet arched up, locking their bodies together with provocative heat. Noah made love to her with dark intensity, kissing her deeply, tunneling his hands through her hair, touching her everywhere. He dared her back over the edge with the rhythm of his movements, whispering her name as he finally followed on a shudder.

They lay together, tangled in their breathlessness, and a thin line of fear edged past Violet’s bliss at the hitch in Noah’s breath as he repositioned his body next to hers, clearly favoring his right side. But then he captured her mouth in a slow, sweet kiss, and all of a sudden, tomorrow— and everything that went with it— seemed very far away.  

CHAPTER NINE

Noah stared at the clock on his bedside table even though he’d tracked the progress of the numbers for the past hour straight. His apartment whispered the near-silent noises of three-thirty in the morning, all of them completely familiar to his ears save one.

Violet lay curled among the bed sheets, her breath rising and falling in a quiet rhythm from the spot where she’d drifted to sleep a few hours ago, and holy hell, she was gorgeous even in her sleep.

Using his stealth as an asset, Noah slipped from the bed, grabbing his T-shirt and a pair of sweats before padding soundlessly into the hallway. A few achy tremors rippled through his arm as he wrangled the shirt over his head, but it wasn’t nearly as painful as the look on Violet’s face when she saw the damned bandage in the first place. Christ, as if the gaping hole in his memory wasn’t enough, the wound on his arm was a stark reminder why he needed his memory back ASAP. Someone on the street had tried to turn him into Swiss fucking cheese, and if he didn’t man up and make a statement to nail the guy, that person was going to get away with shooting cops.

Not on Noah’s watch. Not ever.

And yet as much as he wanted to regain his memory and get back to the business of being a cop, there was something else he wanted, too, and hell if he didn’t have the slightest clue how to handle it. But being around Violet, with all that unrestricted emotion and truth about how she felt bubbling right out of her, made him feel like maybe he didn’t have to stuff it all down. Like maybe if he said things out loud, the stark fear that he might not
ever
remember enough to catch this guy wouldn’t be so bad.

As quietly as possible, he moved to the kitchen and clicked on the small light over the sink, blinking back the burn of sudden brightness in the shadows. A quick inventory of his fridge turned up a small plastic container, nestled in with the ingredients Violet had brought for dinner. Curiosity sparking, Noah popped the lid, his mouth going to an immediate water at the wedge of chocolate-drizzled cheesecake tucked inside. The fluffy top layer sat in a fat triangle on top of a thick, velvet-brown crust, and Noah broke into a grin as he turned to scoop up a fork.

“Hey.”

The softly spoken word went off like a cannon in the quiet kitchen, and he jumped back in a rush as he swung toward the sound. Violet stood, unmoving in the entryway, wearing his button-down shirt and a tentative, sleep-rumpled smile, and the sight of her sent unexpected relief spiraling all the way through him.

“Sorry.” She gestured to his obvious surprise, biting her lip in that maddeningly attractive way that broadcast her feelings right down to the equal mix of her sincerity and chagrin. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you, but I was hungry.” She took a deep breath, the curve of her breasts just barely visible beneath all that cotton, and yeah. He totally had a new favorite shirt.

“It’s okay. Did you make this?” Noah asked, holding up the container, and Violet’s bare feet skimmed the linoleum as she peered at the container in his hands.

“Oh, yeah.” Her smile grew brighter, and she slid a fork from the drawer at her hip. “One of my clients is on a baking binge, and the brownies you made the other day gave me the idea for the crust. I always do a test run or two on new recipes before sharing them with my clients, so I thought you might like to try it out.”

The ease of the story—and the wide-open kindness that went with it— made him hungry as hell, but not for anything in the cupboard or containers.

He wanted Violet. Plain and simple.

“Come here.” On nothing but instinct, Noah set the container aside and gathered her in, his body responding in an instant to her soft-in-all-the-right-places curves. He kissed her gently at first, but all too soon, he was starving for her. And while he might not know how to mold it into fine details or fancy words, it was time to put what he felt on the line.

“Stay with me, Violet. After the sun comes up, I want you to stay.”

Vulnerability and surprise colored her expression, but not enough to keep her words from sliding out over him. “And what about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow I’m going to want you too,” he said, and damn, the words tasted as daring and good as the certainty that backed them up. “We can figure it out when we get there. But for now, we have a couple hours until daybreak. And I want to spend them with you.”

#

Violet shifted her weight against her chair in the Brentsville Physical Therapy Center’s waiting room, staring at the glossy pages of the food magazine in front of her without seeing a thing. What had started out as a couple hours until daybreak had lasted for two weeks, and between the blissed-out happiness of Noah’s kitchen and the mind-blowing orgasms in his bedroom, Violet couldn’t deny the obvious.

She was falling for Noah Blackwell. And when she landed, it was going to hurt.

As if she’d conjured him from nothing more than longing and lusty thoughts, Noah appeared in the doorway, zipping up his dark gray hoodie with an even darker smile. “Getting ideas for your next great lesson?”

             
She raised an eyebrow in an approximation of a cool glance, despite her heart having gone from zero to yes-I-want-that in about four seconds flat. “Haven’t we already had this conversation? If I tell you all my secrets, it won’t turn out well for you.” Violet gave in to the smile pulling at the edges of her lips, nodding to the door behind him as she stood. “How’d you do?”

             
“Great.” The woman behind the reception desk passed Noah a sheaf of papers, and he tucked them under his arm with a polite thank you before ushering Violet to the hallway. “Except…” He notched his voice to a sexy rumble, carefully hidden from anyone in the lobby of the busy medical center. “Now I need a shower. Care to assist?”

             
“Mmm.” Her cheeks flushed at the mental image of Noah in the shower, hot and wet and in need of a nice, thorough scrub down, but the temptation fizzled hard at the thought of her afternoon plans. “As nice as that sounds, I’m afraid you’re on your own. I’m meeting Jason in half an hour for a late lunch at Mac’s Diner. We eat there every Wednesday, and I’ve learned the hard way that if I blow him off, he
will
come looking for me.”

Noah made a gruff sound that might’ve passed for a laugh, and they crossed through the medical center’s exit to the city street. “
Oooookay, forget the shower. For now anyway.” He threaded his fingers through hers, and they fell into step together.

“What are you doing?” Violet asked, sending a glance over her shoulder toward Noah’s parking spot on the street. “Your car is that way.”

“Yeah, but you’re not meeting Jason for thirty minutes, and the diner’s only three blocks from here. So I’m walking you.”

             
Violet did her best to tuck her smile between her lips, but it escaped anyway. “You do know we’re in the nicest part of Brentsville, and I carry pepper spray in my purse, right?”

             
“You do know crime can happen anywhere, and that I carry a Glock, right?”

             
Her smile became laughter in a blink. “And here I thought you were happy to see me.”

Noah dropped her hand in favor of wrapping an arm around her, and oh God, he felt so warm and strong and just plain good, Violet nearly stumbled on the pavement.