Flirting With Disaster (15 page)

* * * *

Beck wanted to kiss the hell out of her and then throw her over his knee and spank her for her smart mouth. This wasn’t going as planned. He was baring his goddamned heart, and she was supposed to have fallen into his arms by now.

“I love you,” he barked.

“I’m needy.”

“I need you.”

“You don’t want to need me. You can have any woman you want. You’re in search of peace inside a stress-free world of loneliness and repentance. That’s an imaginary landscape that doesn’t exist. You gotta have faith you are strong enough to deal.” She sighed. Dark circles framed her eyes. “And you don’t love me, Beck.”

He ran his scarred hand through his hair. “I changed my mind!”

“You can’t do that. Not where love is concerned. It’s only expedient when choosing paint colors, picking out a tie, or ordering sushi if the fish doesn’t look fresh.”

In her yoga pants and an oversized MIT sweatshirt, her hair tied back in some flouncy ponytail and a set of black-rimmed glasses propped on her nose, she was beautiful. All her dignity…fighting against the small glimpse of vulnerability…

He wanted her with every breath in his body, with every aching pain from his past. A need so elemental he couldn’t ignore it.

He was ready to forgive himself…for her.

“Listen to me!” He grabbed her and stopped her narrow escape. “I was scared. A coward, like you said. I didn’t figure it out until after I got done being out of my fucking mind over almost losing you.”

She waited, her big cat eyes staring at him like he was full of shit. “I’m more than capable of being responsible for my own life and death.”

He sighed. “I went to the castle to regroup, to re-evaluate my life after rehab. And there you were. This gnawing, irresistible temptation that threw my peace and solitude into a state of chaos. And chaos means stress to me. I like to self-medicate when I’m under stress.”

“Give it up, Slader. Truth is, you live on adrenaline. I am not adrenaline-producing material. You’re addicted to being addicted, so you don’t have to try living and possibly fail. I’m boring. Not addictive at all.”

He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. Hope flickered in her eyes, and he smiled. “I’ve found a new addiction. One that makes me a better person. One where I’m at peace within the chaos. You are my new addiction, Jude Duffy.”
  

“That’s only my oral sex skills luring you in. What if I die in your care?”

“I’ll just have to jump into the grave with you.” Beck grabbed her face in his hands. His heart swelled, but the battle wasn’t over yet. “I love you, Jude. I want to be with you. No matter how long we have together.”

She pulled her face from his hold and stared at the ground as she scuffed her small sneaker over the compact earth. “I’ll have to think about it.”

His heart plunged in his chest. “What’s there to think about?” He didn’t want her thinking. He only wanted her feeling. A thinking Jude meant trouble.

Her green gaze lifted to his. “What’s in it for me?”

Insecurity settled over him. “Me?”

She snorted and stepped toward his right, circling him. “What else?”

“Anything you want.” He turned, keeping her in sight.

She stepped closer. “A pool? A house with a pool?”

“Am I living with you?” He matched her approach, craving her touch, her scent.

She glanced away. “Maybe.”

He reached for her hand, needing the connection. “Then yes, it’s yours.”

Her eyes slowly returned to him, a hint of mischief in their depths. “What about porn? Can I have my porn magazines back? I’d like to continue my research.”

“If you research only with me.”

“Money. Can I have all your money?”

“It’s yours.”

She scrunched her nose. “Don’t need it. Sex toys?”

“Don’t need them. You got me.” His fingers linked with hers.

“Almond Joys?”

“All you want,” he whispered.

“Here’s a tough one.” She moved an inch closer, their chests almost touching. “What about a kid? Would you let me have a child?”

He smiled. “I can’t imagine you without one. Mini Jude Duffys are needed in this world. Are we good now?”

She tilted that little red head of hers, examining him, evaluating him. “I suppose I’ll take you back. But only under one more condition.”

“Anything.”

“I’ll need help with a little research.”

“What kind?”

“The kind that says I have to pee on this stick.” She held up the pregnancy test she’d purchased at the drugstore on the way to her walk. “So, if you’re gonna love me, Gabriel Beckette Slauter, love me like you mean it. If not, kiss me like I’m leaving.”

“I’ll do better than that.”

Beck handed her an Almond Joy, picked her up and kissed the hell out of the one woman smart enough to save him from himself.

Take a sneak peek at Naima Simone’s
Flirting with Sin
, the next novella in The Noble Pass Affaire series.

Flirting with Sin

A Noble Pass Affaire Novella

“H
ere we go.” The concierge swung the door to the hotel suite open and Neveah rolled her eyes. Jesus Christ, he was so damn happy he practically chirped.

She followed him in and halted just inside the luxuriously appointed suite. Shock and pleasure rooted her feet to the floor, the same as it had outside the resort and in the lobby. Was there anything about this place not screaming history, wealth, and beauty? In the common area of the room, two large, high-back arm chairs and a wide, long sofa gathered around a huge fireplace, and mounted flat-screen television big enough to satisfy the manliest of man caves. An oak dining room table flanked by matching chairs decorated the other side of the open floor plan, while a surprisingly roomy kitchen occupied the farthest end of the room. A quartet of floor-to-ceiling windows granted a breath-stealing view of Lake Noble, mountains and the small village of Noble Pass in the distance.
Gorgeous
, she breathed.
Just gorgeous
.

“Here’s your living and dining room combination. Of course, you have full access to the main dining room with all of your meals covered by the hotel. But, just in case you decide to eat in, you have a fully appointed kitchen. You have a tower suite, so there are two balconies. That door there,” he pointed to a door she’d mistaken for a window, “leads to one, and there’s another in the second bedroom.” He waved a hand toward the closed door on the left side of the suite.

The closed door slowly creaked open, revealing the man she would be roomies with for the next seven days.

The rest of the concierge’s spiel fell on deaf ears. She couldn’t catch anything beyond the dull roar reverberating in her head like noise in an empty, vast cave.

Tattoos.

Lots of them.

They swirled in vivid tones of red, blue, purple and black from his wrists, up muscular arms to disappear under a dark, vintage AC/DC T-shirt. More stark lines crept from under his collar and up the strong column of his neck. Most people would’ve probably called his skin “olive,” but that would’ve been a misnomer. It was golden. As if God Himself had trapped liquid sunshine in His hand and created this man out of it.

Tearing her gaze from the strange allure of his throat, she dragged her study down his wide shoulders to his narrow hips and long legs encased in loose denim. He was tall, lean but with a whipcord power not unlike a very large predator.

Sleek, beautiful, controlled…
dangerous
.

She retraced her visual journey, eager to glimpse the face accompanying this body and rivaling the view outside the bank of windows. Jesus, he managed to pilfer her breath just standing there fully clothed. Naked, he would send a woman into a lust-induced cardiac arrest.

Now there was one for the medical journals…

Oh. Shit
.

A sinful, carnal mouth was emphasized by a dusting of dark-brown facial hair above his top lip and along his chin and jaw…and the small, black hoop piercing one corner of his slightly plumper bottom lip.

A black baseball cap shielded his eyes, but she didn’t need to see them to know they would be a startling shade of gold and green, exotic, unique. No, she didn’t need to see them because the mouth was enough.

She could never mistake it. Hell, she’d stared at and fantasized about those sensual curves since she was eighteen.

“Hello, Mr. Riley.” The hotel employee beamed, wielding his perpetual cheeriness on the tatted, pierced, brooding newcomer like a sledge hammer. “Your suite mate has arrived. I’d like you to meet Neveah Morgan.”

Mr. Riley
?

Suite mate
.

Her heart pummeled her chest wall and the thunder in her ears grew louder, but for a different reason. Not nerves. But a very feminine fear and excitement.

And confusion.

Either the staff here was incredibly discreet or they didn’t get out much. Or watch television. Or listened to the radio.

Because the last name of the man standing several feet away from her, shoulders squared, arms crossed and feet spread in a don’t-fuck-with-me stance, wasn’t Riley. It was Sincero.

She closed her eyes, ordered herself to breathe and not run screaming out the door and hotel and down the mountain like a lunatic. Hysterics wouldn’t serve to accomplish anything but a severe case of hypothermia. And with her return ticket home scheduled for next Monday—a week from now—and predicted snow possibly shutting down the mountain road, she was good and stuck.

Yup.

Thanks to her sister, it looked like she would be spending her vacation with a rock star.

Coming Soon from Josie Matthews

Crazy For Loving You

I
t’s not every day a girl down on her luck gets to clandestinely watch her unrequited man-crush of fifteen years have animal sex on the kitchen island of his childhood mansion—a heck of a lot more entertaining than watching CSI reruns with her alcoholic, freeloading daddy in their doublewide. This must be Joley Rawlings’ lucky day.

Then again, maybe not, since twelve hours later she almost got arrested for tasering his ass in the women’s bathroom at the Love Bites Saloon.

Dylan Creed isn’t going to be happy. But hey, it was worth it. And so is unexpectedly inheriting his father’s minor league baseball franchise right out from under him.

So what if she doesn’t know a Baltimore Chop from a pork chop. She’ll figure it out, like she always does.

She has no choice.

About the Author

Josie Matthews

As a kid, Josie Matthews wanted to be Batman, but when she discovered his powers weren’t real, she upped the ante for the DNA-enhanced Superman. It’s a shame the tights were too small. Now, Wife Extraordinaire (snort) to a very patient husband and Mother
From Hell
of the Year (cough, cough) to two very appreciative boys, Josie lives, plays, and pays huge taxes in gorgeous upstate New York. Settling for college degrees (instead of the prohibitive tights) in computer science, then nursing, add a little side dabbling in art and landscaping for the last thirty years, and she is finally zeroing in on what she wants to be when she grows up. Life is starting to get interesting and she’s finally devoting time to her true passion—“Writing, will you please take fifteen steps forward.”

Visit Josie at
www.JosieMatthews.com
or on Facebook or Twitter @JosieKMatthews any time to see what’s cooking.

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Series Titles and Other Books by Josie Matthews