Page 58 of Purchase Power
“Ooh, look who’s hip with discourse!”
“I don’t know what that means.” Noah leaned against the back of the tub, his arms bowing over the edge and face meeting the ceiling. Steam rose in impressive amounts. “I’ll take your word on it.”
Lucy was silent, but she was far from still. Water dripped through her fingers as she created small whirlpools with her index and pinky fingers. That youthful wonder she espoused every time her fingers dipped into the water both captivated Noah once again and reminded him of someone else. Someone who would probably love to have gold glitter in her tub.
“So… no kissing. Like Julia Roberts.”
“You’re comparing me to Julia Roberts?”
“That makes me Richard Gere, I guess.”
“Except I’m the rich man,” Noah said, “and you’re the…”
“Watch it.”
Noah allowed one smile to cross his face. “Wasn’t going to say anything.” He truly meant that, too. Anything he had to say? Was relegated to the annals of his head, where memories lurked and bad feelings waited.God give me the strength…Noah had been telling the truth when he said he didn’t like kissing women he wasn’t in love with, although he may not have been so descriptive to Lucy. Intimacy was not his strong suit. He knew how to embrace. Have sex. Even cuddle. Kissing was on another level, though. It completely opened up his heart – and his heart wasn’t always ready for the swell of emotions prepared to wash him out to sea.
He wasn’t a good swimmer.
I’ve only kissed a handful of women in my life.A couple of them he even thought he loved, although that turned out to be a half-truth later on. Noah didn’t know love. Not the kind of romantic love that was supposed to overwhelm him. Every time he thought he had fallen in love, he was reminded that it was simply his dick talking. Never his heart.
He only had room in his heart to care about one woman, and that position was already filled. Hell, it had been dominated since he was a little boy.
Stacey…
She would love these “bath bombs” or whatever they were called. Did they come in bright, aqua blue? That was her favorite color. Had been since she was old enough to toddle after him on the playground. One of Noah’s school friends had an aqua blue backpack that Stacey liked to steal when the boys left them on the edge of the playground. They would catch her running laps around the park, bag on her back and a story on her lips.
Was that when it started?Noah always wondered that.Or did it come later? Was her innocence being destroyed while I played with my friends in the park?
Noah didn’t remember innocence. As far back as his mind went, he recalled a stubborn intuition that always told him when evil was afoot. It had served him well throughout life. Had guarded his precious heart.
Until it couldn’t anymore.
I can’t tell her about Stacey…Surely, Lucy had figured out another woman lived at Gabriel Manor. Whether she knew much about Stacey’s emotional intellect was another matter. And the fact that Lucy had a sister namedLacey…That was so strange. Noah had heard of ridiculous coincidences, but that took the cake.She wouldn’t believe me. She would laugh. She’d think we were sick.In the end, Noah didn’t care what an escort thought about his personal life. These women were paid to care about what he could give them in the moment – let alone whattheycould givehim.Lucy wasn’t the first. She probably wouldn’t be the last, although Noah became a little more disenchanted every time.
Like he was enchanted now, when Lucy leaned forward to stretch her arms, the length of her bare back on full display to him.
She feels like home.He didn’t know how else to describe it. This woman – with her unfounded optimism and ability to see right through his bullshit – hadn’t known him for more than a week. Yet whenever he held her, held her down beneath him…enteredher… Noah swore he was entering another world. A familiar place that had once allowed him to fall asleep without recourse. No need to have nightmares. No need to awaken, startled, a hot sheet of sweat covering his body while a scream rattled through his bedroom wall.
I slept in her room. That used to be my room. I could hear screams in the room where she sits with her laptop.
How many people had looked away? How many pretended to be deaf, because their pockets were lined with riches beyond their meager paychecks?
My mother…
“What’s wrong?” Lucy glanced at him over her shoulder. “You’re tense. Even for you.”
He shrugged. “Nothing. Nothing that matters to you.”
“Now, who are you to say what matters to me or not?” Her indignation would have been adorable in any other situation. With those memories coming for Noah, however, he couldn’t find much cute in the world. Lucy treaded a dangerous line. She was about to cross a boundary she had no business sniffing, let alone tipping along with her precious toes.She doesn’t need to know. Not only to save my sanity, but to save hers, too.
Noah should order her suite cleaned once again. It could never be too clean. Maybe completely replace the carpet. Again.Would only be the fifth time in the past few years.
Never clean.
“Just thinking about family matters. They would bore you.” Did he sound convincing enough when he said that? Or would he only further pique her insatiable curiosity?
“You have family, huh? Like who?”
