Smart and Sexy Page 10

  It took only a second to get them inside the nearly completed spa, and another to find what he’d been looking for. The employee entrance, which thank you God, led directly to its own set of stairs. With his penlight, he lit the way and pulled her along with him. He made her run the entire four flights without stopping, and when they’d exited out into the night, they were on the far side of the parking lot, squinting into the snowflakes falling big as dinner plates. “Get ready.”

  “For what?”

  “To run.” Flattening them both back against the building, he searched the area and saw no one. Not that he could see far with the white, fluffy snow. He looked up. There were lights flickering in the…he counted…fifth and ninth floors.

  That was the good news. They hadn’t figured out that they’d been on the fourth floor yet, much less that they’d left the building entirely. One thing in their favor tonight.

  The bad news? They still had to get out of the lot without being detected. “Now.”

  He pulled her with him as he ran toward the Jeep through the snow, holding her against his side with one arm, the other digging into his pocket for the key. He took her to the driver’s side, unlocked the door, shoved her in, and then followed, nearly sitting on her when she didn’t scoot in fast enough.

  As it was, her scent got caught up in his nose again, and her hair, her wild, glorious hair tangled in his watch, where he spent a few precious seconds bent over the thing trying to get her free, their faces close enough to share air.

  She was panting to draw it into her lungs and shaking hard enough to break bones. Her lip gloss had long been chewed off, and the rest of her makeup was gone. She had a smudge of it beneath her eyes, making her look even more fragile, more vulnerable.

  Christ, she was a mess. A heart-stopping, beautiful mess. And he wanted her, wanted so badly he was shaking. Starting the engine, he shoved the Jeep into gear and took them the hell out of the parking lot.

  “I n-need to get to—”

  “We’re not going anywhere tonight. I’m way too tired to fly.”

  “But I—”

  “Later.” He drove them down the windy, icy roads at speeds not exactly legal, especially in the snow, but he wanted to get as far ahead of the goons as possible. His eyes were gritty, grainy from exhaustion and adrenaline. Yeah, flying out of here tonight would be suicidal.

  So he took them to their only other option—the house Maddie had reserved for him. It was secluded, and better yet, empty.

  And no one would think to look for Bailey Sinclair there.

  He hoped.

  “W-where are we going?”

  “Where I meant to go all along.”

  “Wh-what if they find us—”

  “Not tonight, they won’t.” It took only ten minutes to get there, during which time he aimed all the heater vents on Bailey and hoped she didn’t freeze before he could get her warm. When he pulled up—bless Maddie—the driveway had been cleared, and the house porch lights blazed through the falling snow in welcome. The house was a two-story cabin-style, with snow a foot thick on the roof.

  He pulled into the attached garage. “Now,” he said, turning in the driver’s seat to face his soggy, wet, cold passenger. “We need to talk. And when I say we, I really mean you.”

  Bailey’s pulse was thundering, her body shuddering from cold and who knew what else.

  And Noah wanted to talk.

  “I think I deserve to know what’s going on,” he said into her silence.

  He did, she knew it. “It…it begins with Alan.”

  In reality, it began far before that, with her father, but she didn’t want to sound so pathetic as to have been screwed over by the only two men in her life.

  “Alan’s dead,” Noah said bluntly. “He died months ago. An accidental shooting during hunting season.”

  “Actually, that’s not quite true.” She knew she had to tell him something. He did deserve to know. “He died months ago, yes,” she agreed. “During a hunting trip. But not from an accidental gunshot.” With a shaky hand, she pushed her wet hair from her face.

  Noah caught her hand in his. “What did he die of?”

  “He was shot, but it had nothing to do with an accident.”

  Noah was quiet a moment. Considering. She couldn’t tell if he believed her or not, and was surprised by how much she wanted him to. “Interesting how that missed the news.”

  “I know.” She chewed on her lower lip, pulling it between her teeth, wetting it with a nervous tongue. “But it’s true.”

  Noah’s gaze was locked on her mouth. “More,” he said, and when she shivered, he ran a warm hand up her arm. Never mind that she knew he was doing it to give her some badly needed body heat, it felt like more. “Alan had a little gambling problem,” she admitted.

  His gaze held hers for an interminably long moment, and once again time seemed to do a little song and dance and then stop completely.

  Her own gaze didn’t hold steady through that beat. It couldn’t, not with his hand on her, the heat from it seeping into her like a soothing balm.

  “Is that how he went through his trust fund?”

  “Yes. But he went through it a long time before I ever knew it.”

  “How long?”

  “Before he married me. My father…” She shook her head. Here was the hard part of the confession. “My father screwed him out of a bunch of money. He never recovered from that.”

  “So what, your father gave him you?”

  At that humiliating truth laid out bare, she closed her eyes. But there was no more hiding what her life had been. He’d seen the proof in her eyes. “You could say so, yes,” she said, remembering the feeling of betrayal when she’d found out the truth.

  But now she felt as if the cold night had gotten inside her bones and was going to rip her apart. She heard Noah swear, the rough sound from deep in his throat only making her shiver yet again. She turned her head to the window and stared into the black, stormy night.

  She felt stripped bare, and more vulnerable than she’d ever been in her life.

  “Bailey,” he said very quietly, reaching out for her hand, rubbing his fingers over hers, clearly trying to infuse her with his heat.

  Helpless against the pull of his voice, she looked at him.

  “There’s more.”

  Yeah, there was more, lots more, including the answers he wanted. It was just that she didn’t have as many as he might have liked, and she didn’t intend to give them to him in any case. “Alan owed people big. And when he couldn’t pay, they killed him.”

  “And now they’re after you. Which makes sense if they’d killed you, but they didn’t.”

  She just looked at him, warring with her own serious trust issues. Luckily for her, he seemed to take this all in with a grim composure that was somehow, shockingly, like a calming balm on her panic.

  “They want something from you,” he said, watching her very carefully. “Whatever it is, they want it badly.”

  “Yes.”

  “And they’re not going to give up until you deliver.”

  True enough.

  He looked resigned. “So where are you headed next?”

  “To either of the two remaining resorts in Alan’s name.”

  She watched him absorb that, then slowly shake his head. “You’re still hiding.”

  “Yes, because if they catch me—”

  “No, from me. You’re still hiding from me.”

  What could she say to that? To the utter truth? “It’s nothing personal,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah, it’s personal. It’s very personal.” And he got out of the Jeep.

  Frustrated, uncharacteristically uptight, and the capper…inexplicably aroused, Noah came around the Jeep for Bailey, leading her through the garage to the inside of the house.

  He had no idea what it was about her, either that fierce pride in her eyes that said she’d rather not have needed his help, or the way he felt when she laid those eyes
on him, or maybe it was more base than that; maybe it was simply her mouth-watering body.

  He had no idea, but he tried to put it, and her, out of his head.

  He’d stayed here before, many times, and was already familiar with the house. He cranked up the heat, all while holding on to the soggy, still shivering woman.

  The people who owned the house were incredibly wealthy but not showy. As usual, the place was clean, warm, and cozy. Just as he liked it. The living room opened into the kitchen, and on the counter was a basket filled with his favorite junk snacks: cookies, donuts, and chips. Maddie had had it stocked for him. “Hungry?”

  Bailey looked at the offering and shook her head.

  “Don’t tell me. Health food nut.”

  “Good food never hurt anyone.”

  He, not nearly so picky, grabbed a large chocolate chip cookie, and munching, found her an apple in the refrigerator, which she took with a wild shiver.

  “Come on.” He led her through the house and up to the master bedroom, where he would have pulled her into the bathroom, thinking a hot shower was what she needed, but she dug her heels into the carpet and shook her head more violently than the rest of her was shaking, which was really saying something.

  “You need to get warm,” he said.

  “I’m fine.”

  Bullshit, she was fine. The car ride might have begun to warm her up, but it hadn’t fully done the job, and he needed to do something. Clearly she was pulling the shy card, but it was too late for that.

  “N—no need for a shower,” she said through chattering teeth.

  “You have to get warm.” He lifted his hands to his own shirt, which he unbuttoned.

  Her eyes widened. “Um—what—”

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m just about done with being cold and wet.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Hurry.”

  Her gaze locked on his chest. “H—hurry to what?”

  “Strip.”

  Chapter 10

  Bailey could not have possibly heard him right. Strip? Strip? Was he insane? Suddenly being too scared to think and too frozen solid to imagine ever being warm again took a backseat to this new and entirely disconcerting situation.

  She was alone in a house with a man she hardly knew, a big, strong, tough man who knew his way around trouble, who looked like sin on a stick, oh, and he’d unbuttoned his shirt.

  Strip…

  How was it even possible she wanted to do just that? She’d seen men naked before, so she had no idea why the sight of Noah undoing his shirt, revealing a wedge of bare torso, made her mouth suddenly dry, but she wasn’t sticking around to find out. “Noah—”

  He took a step forward, and she took one back, which had the high mattress hitting her in the butt.

  As if that had been his plan all along, his hands went to either side of her hips, resting on the thick bedding, his body close enough to share some of that heat he had radiating off of him, not to mention the sheer, hard strength of him pressing against her.

  Strip…

  She wanted to, she really did, and it had nothing to do with impending hypothermia and everything to do with how he made her feel when he looked at her, touched her.

  Kissed her.

  God. She was really losing it here, as surely as the room was beginning to warm from the hot air coming out of the heater vents, enclosing them in an intimacy she wasn’t sure she could face. He couldn’t really want her, could he? Not after what she’d done, dragging him here.

  Putting his life in danger.

  That last thought made her breath catch, made her hug herself and close her eyes until he lifted her chin. He was close enough that his broad shoulders blocked out the light. “Just want to warm you up, Bailey.”

  She was cold, beyond cold, and shaking so hard she could feel her brain cells rattling together.

  And still, she could think.

  And what she thought was that things were worse than ever. She hadn’t found the money. One resort down, two more to check. And now that Noah had helped her lose the men on her tail, she should go immediately. That meant going back out there….

  Closing her eyes again, she weaved in exhaustion, then felt his hands on her arms again. “Hey,” he said, bending a little to peer into her face. “Hey, it’s going to be okay.”

  “Really? How?” She didn’t pull away. She no longer had the energy; the cold had sapped it right out of her. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I have to go. I need to call a cab, or—”

  “No. Hell, no.” With that he dropped his shirt to the floor and pulled her into the heat of his body. “No one’s going anywhere, not tonight.”

  She resisted—barely—the urge to bury her nose against him and inhale him up like a forbidden treat. But she couldn’t resist the heat of him. “I have to—”

  “Stay,” he commanded quietly. “You have to stay. Tomorrow is soon enough to figure it all out.”

  At the thought of turning it off for the night, she nearly melted. She was helpless against the pull of him, and couldn’t help but lift her arms and wrap them around his waist.

  When she did, he sucked in a harsh breath. “Your hands are frozen.”

  Yes. Yes they were, and to prove it, she ran them up and down his back, gliding them against sleek, smooth skin and sinew, thinking, Yum.

  “Christ, woman.”

  At his tortured tone, she laughed. Laughed. She couldn’t believe she’d managed to find anything funny about this night, hell, about her life, but he’d made her laugh.

  But then he wrapped his fist in her hair and gently tugged her head back to meet his gaze. His eyes weren’t laughing, but oh, so serious, and her smile slowly faded.

  He just looked at her, a look that brought a whole new meaning to anticipation, and she shivered, a bone-deep quiver that had him letting out a low sound filled with regret, concern.

  And arousal.

  It brought her own to the surface, and then suddenly he was even closer, running his nose along her jaw, pressing his cheek to hers, and then finally, finally, kissing her.

  There was nothing, nothing in the entire world, like kissing Noah Fisher. His mouth touched hers at the corner, and then his tongue, and she opened for him, opened and dove in, and lost herself. The night had been so monumentally bad, a nightmare. The only thing holding her together was him: his heat, his strength, his unbelievable wit and ease in any situation.

  Only when air was necessary did they break to breathe, and again he lifted her face to his, gaze serious. “Back to that whole stripping thing.” He stroked a finger ever so lightly over her jaw, then down her throat, her shoulder…nudging her sweater off as he went.

  Oh, God. She’d never toggled back and forth between fear and arousal before, but she’d been doing just that since she’d stepped onto his plane, watching him pilot without knowing he had an audience.

  He was looking into her eyes, and whatever went through his mind, his jaw went tight, and he moved into the bathroom and cranked on the hot water in the shower.

  “Kick off your boots,” he said, coming back to her.

  “Um—”

  His eyes held…things, lots of things, and that was when she realized. She wasn’t so much in danger from the bad guys at the moment, but from within her own self.