Jill Shalvis - Smart And Sexy

“I said I’d fly you there, and I meant it. Just come home with me for tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll take you where you need to go, I promise.”

He was tense, braced for battle, but even she wasn’t that selfish. He’d done everything she’d asked and more, so much more. It was her turn. She nodded, and going up on tiptoe, pressed her mouth to his jaw. “Thank you,” she whispered against his skin. “Thank you for doing this.”

With a low sound, he banded his arms around her and squeezed tight, burying his face in her hair. “Cabo,” she heard him whisper, and then shudder. “Jesus, it figures.”

She lifted her head to look into his eyes. “What do you mean?”

He stared at her for a long moment, then shook his head. “Nothing. Let’s go.”

He made a quick stop at a local pizza joint for a large pizza and a six-pack of sodas, and when she looked at him, he sighed and added a salad as well.

Not used to having her mind read, or having someone even care what she thought for that matter, she found herself smiling.

He didn’t smile back, but took her hand. He drove about ten minutes into the Burbank Hills, up a winding road where at the apex of every turn she caught a breathtaking view of the city below. Finally, he pulled into a long driveway and stopped outside a house with more of the breathtaking view.

He turned off the engine, let out a breath.

“Pretty house,” she said.

“I rent it.” He looked at the place as if still half surprised to find himself living there. “I’ve never lived in a house before.”

“Never? Not growing up?”

“Definitely not while growing up. When I came to the States, I got shuffled around a lot. That kind of stuck with me, and I did the same once I was on my own. Shayne and Brody were my home base in LA, and when I was in town, I always just stayed with one of them.”

“What changed?”

He lifted a shoulder. “We started earning money, and decided we were too old for the whole frat thing.” He turned to her. “Ready?”

“Noah, you don’t have to put me up tonight. I-”

He grabbed the food, got out of the car, and shut his door.

Okay, he definitely wasn’t big on conversations that weren’t going his way. Coming around, he opened her door, and they walked up to the house. On the porch, he put his hands on her hips and pulled her close. “Let’s be clear on this one thing at least. I want you here.”

She’d held him up at pen-point. She’d dragged him all over California. And what had he done? He’d protected her with his life.

She owed him. Whether he wanted to believe it or not, she did. She owed him everything, but at the very least, she owed him more of the truth. “Noah.” He was close, so very close. She’d never done the trust thing while staring someone in the eyes from inches away. “The men…they’re cohorts of Alan’s. They…they know me. I’m sorry if I didn’t tell you before, but they said if I told anyone, they’d kill my students and Kenny, and then me.”

“Bailey.” His voice was terrifyingly gentle. He pressed his forehead to hers. “They’re not going to kill you until they get their money.”

“But you-”

“They’re not going to get a chance at me either.” He tightened his grip on her. “Or you. I’m not going to let it happen.”

It took her a moment to speak. “Still, taking me to Cabo is above and beyond the call of duty.”

He just looked at her, and again she sensed something within him, something that didn’t have to do with her. “Excluding what we’ve been through,” she said carefully, “I just get the feeling something’s wrong.”

He let out a harsh laugh and covered his eyes, and her curiosity changed into alarm. “Noah?”

He dropped his hand and looked at her. “It’s nothing.”

“Now who’s not trusting?”

“We’re not talking about this.”

“Now there’s a male statement I’ve heard many times before.”

His jaw tightened. “Don’t lump me in with the other men in your life.” His eyes were fathomless, his big body tense, yet loose. Battle ready.

Something was wrong, she could feel it. Something he didn’t want her to know. He was tough as hell, she knew this firsthand, but she couldn’t help but wonder, Who did he go to when he needed someone?

Shocking, how much she wished it could be her.

But he’d been on his own for far too long. Maybe he let Shayne and Brody close, but they’d been together forever, and she’d bet her last dollar, if she’d had one, that he didn’t easily open up with anyone else.

Still, she wished…“I can’t lump you into the same category as the other men in my life.” Going on was one of the hardest things she’d ever done, but he had to know this much about her. “They’ve all been clean-cut, soft-spoken, overly educated-” She let out a laugh. “The kind of man a mother dreams of for her daughter, you know? In fact, it was that whole fantasy thing that sucked me into Alan’s orbit.”

“Yeah. And I’m not exactly the clean-cut, soft-spoken, overly educated kind of man your mother would have wanted for you.” Noah leaned back against the door and crossed his arms. His hair fell into his eyes, but even if it hadn’t, those eyes were shuttered from her for the first time since she’d stabbed him in the shoulder with her pen. “I get that.”

“I’m trying to explain,” she said.

“You’re trying to tell me that I’m not your type. Got it loud and clear, Princess, believe me.” He unlocked the door. “Unfortunately, your type or not, you need my help, which means you’re stuck with me until we finish this thing.” Movements just a little jerky with temper, he gestured her inside.

But he’d so thoroughly misunderstood, she just stared at him, not moving inside. He actually thought she was rejecting him. She wished she could tell him that was the last thing she’d ever do, but those words, here and now, weren’t fair, because they weren’t going anywhere with this.

They couldn’t.

And given all she’d put him through, why would he even want to?

But he pulled her inside, and with one last searching look into the night, shut the door.

She knew they hadn’t been followed; he’d never have allowed her to stand outside if they had been. But on the other hand, she’d not expected Stephen to tail her as closely as he’d managed for days, and that in itself was more than a little unsettling. “Noah-”

“Look, let’s just eat.” He headed toward the kitchen with the pizza. “Afterward, I’ll show you to the spare bedroom.”

“Noah.”

He just kept walking away from her.

He’d known, hadn’t he, Noah reminded himself. He’d known he wasn’t her type. What the hell had he been thinking to put himself out there, telling her how he’d crashed, how he hadn’t had sex in all that time…

Why didn’t he just rip out his heart and put it on the highway to be run over? Might have been less painful-

“Noah, please.”

He kept walking. For sanity’s sake-if there was even any left-he had to. He was going to feed her, get her to the spare bedroom, say good night, and walk away.

Walking away was the key here.

“Noah.”

Probably he’d been a pity fuck. Yeah, that sucked. Or maybe she’d been just trying to thank him. After all, she was extremely polite, even while hijacking him with a pen, she’d been extremely polite.

That sucked even worse.

Grabbing his arm, she pulled him back around with surprising strength for a little thing, and then stared up at him, hands on his arms. He could have moved away; hell, he should move away, but there was something so damn compelling about those baby blues he’d once thought he could happily drown in.

His mistake. “Eat,” he said, and because he knew she wouldn’t unless he did, he pulled out a plate and opened the pizza box. He dumped a piece on the plate. Then when she just looked at it, probably calculating the carbs and fat content in her head, he sighed and loaded it with salad as well. “There’s ranch dressing.”

She slid onto one of his barstools. “No thanks.”

He thought of his refrigerator, which probably had beer, maybe a few apples and some questionable leftover Thai. “I don’t have any other kinds.”

“Plain is fine.” She picked up a piece of lettuce and stuck it in her mouth. “I like it this way.”

He shook his head, and forgoing a plate for himself, he grabbed a piece of pizza and took a large bite, watching her as he, against his better judgment, sat on the barstool right next to her.

She took a knife from his counter, and cut a bite from her pizza. And then ate it with the fork.

Pizza with a fork.

But then she pushed around the next bite, and he sighed. “What’s the matter?”

“I was trying to talk to you.”

Yeah. To tell him he wasn’t her type. “And we have to talk before you eat?”

“Yes.”

With another sigh, he took a plate after all and set down his pizza. Fine. She could rip his heart out now, and he’d eat afterward. “If we talk, then you’ll eat?”

“Everything on my plate,” she promised. “Girl Scout’s honor.”

“You were a Girl Scout?”

Her slight amusement vanished. “No. I was a daddy’s girl.”

And look how well that had turned out for her.

“Look, I really do promise to eat,” she said. “Believe me, contrary to popular belief-” Her voice came a little tight now. “I’m not a silly socialite. I know I need my strength for Mexico. Where you’re not taking me, by the way.”

They’d see about that. Pushing back from the counter, he gestured her to go ahead, talk.

While he braced himself for the invisible blows that would hurt a hell of a lot more than anything in recent memory, because he’d alway closed himself off to hurt.

Too bad he’d been too stupid to keep himself closed off, or this, too, could have been avoided. In fact, if he’d just listened to Shayne and gone out with him instead of heading to Mammoth, none of this would have happened. He’d be just fine.

Of course, Bailey wouldn’t be fine. She’d have faced off with the goons that she now claimed to actually know, and would be more hurt than she already was.

Or worse.

His gut twisted good at that. Ah, hell. He was here for a reason, because he wanted to help. For that matter, she was here for a reason, too. And she’d wanted him to be the one. That would have to be enough for him. No matter what happened, he intended to see this through.

To see her safe.

“Go ahead,” he said, leaning back, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m listening.”

“Well…” She brushed some crumbs from her fingers. Imaginary crumbs, he was certain, because her fingers hadn’t touched her pizza. “Before you got all grumpy and irritated, I was trying to-”

“Grumpy?” he asked incredulously. “Irritated?”

“Yes.”

“I did not get grumpy and irritated.”

“Okay, then you were pouting.”

He felt his eyes widen. He should have started with a beer. “Pouting?”

“That’s right.”

He laughed, but she didn’t. She just looked at him with those big, gorgeous eyes, earnest now.

“You thought you knew what I was going to say before I said it,” she said. “Which, actually, was presumptuous, and not very nice.”

He stared at her. “I’m not nice. You should know that by now.”

“But you are.” She reached for his hand, slipping her much smaller, and damn it, chilled one in his. “You’re one of the nicest men I’ve ever met.”

He laughed again, utterly without humor. If she thought that, then she’d-

She’d been with worse men.

All her life.

His smile faded. “Bailey.”

“You thought I was saying you weren’t my type,” she said. “You really thought, after all we’ve been through over the past few days, that I would look you in the eyes and say that.”

Hell. Yeah, he’d thought that. Silently admitting it, he lifted a shoulder.

“I was trying to say that I’ve never been with a man like you. It’d never occurred to me, and that’s my shame. Because a man like you…well, you’re real. I can’t explain it better than that. I was trying to thank you, and I wanted do that with no reflection on what we’ve been through personally. But you made me see something. I can’t leave the personal part out of it, because it is personal. Very personal.”

Christ, her eyes were so soft they could break his heart without even trying.

“I mean, it feels so inadequate to say, but you have to know how much I appreciate everything you’ve done-”

“It’s fine,” he said, cutting her off. He didn’t want her thanks. She wasn’t trying to rip his heart out, or compare him to the other assholes in her life.

She was trying to thank him. Jesus. That was the last thing he wanted. But what he did want was a can of worms he intended to never open.

“Tell me about Cabo,” she whispered.