Sugarbaby (9 page)

I hadn't wanted Joseph to die to give me my freedom, though, and when it'd happened, I'd felt guilty, like I'd wished for it or something. That wasn't true, but I couldn't stop thinking it.

I sensed that Noah had been watching me the whole time, and I looked away. He laughed a little, but maybe it wasn't actually a laugh, just a reaction that signaled he wasn't going to ask me why I'd been looking so blue.

“Why is it,” he finally said in a light tone, “that every time I see you, it's around good food, even if I haven't even had much appetite for it lately?”

I could understand why not. “I guess you're right. The café, the Club, the lake this afternoon . . .” I was trying so hard to accept his gifts with grace, but I hadn't quite gotten there yet. “And who can forget the gourmet meals you sent over?”

There. It was my best try.

“Did you eat any of them yet?” He seemed so invested in knowing if I'd enjoyed the baked Camembert, the confit de canard, the ratatouille. I knew what every dish was, too, because someone had labeled the containers.

“Not yet,” I said, being honest.

As a light died a little in his eyes, I was quick to finish.

“I was so full from the food at the lake. And the brownie batter.” Not knowing what else to do with myself, I wrapped my arms over my midriff. My tummy was swirling from being this close to him. “But I'm looking forward to eating your meals. And I'm looking forward to wearing that dress, even though Aidan Falls doesn't have a place fancy enough to wear it to.”

“That's why you have a ticket out of town, Jadyn.”

Oh, I loved how he said my name.

As the night hummed around us, I had to finally know why I was getting all this attention from him. This had gone beyond curiosity about the girl who'd sexted him.

As if he could anticipate me, he shoved his hands in his pockets again, wandering toward the edge of the porch, toward the view. “You're wondering why I'm sending you things.”

“It's a little crazy, you have to admit.”

He slightly turned his head toward me, but then his shoulders relaxed. “It's not so crazy, even if most areas of my life are.”

He'd added that last part in a tone I could barely hear. Had I said something out of line?

“I can't imagine being you,” I said. “That's why it's hard for me to understand all the gifts. I could've probably spent a year's wages on what you gave me today. It seemed—”

“Over the top?” He chuffed, facing away again, toward those lights below. “God knows I can afford to give. It's nice knowing I've made someone happy, even in a small way. In the only way I've ever known. Currency is different where I live—you bake brownies, but I send truffles.”

“Plus champagne and an entire princess wardrobe and first-class plane fare.”

“But you liked all that, right?” He looked over his shoulder. “Admit it, Jadyn.”

I hesitated, just to see if he would turn all the way around again so I could see his face.

As he did, my heart chopped me in a million places, especially when I saw how his eyebrow was raised in amused bewilderment. I liked his raw expressions, his joie de vivre . . . him.

I liked him.

“Yes,” I said. “I really liked your gifts, Noah.”

He barely smiled at the use of his first name. “And I like lifting your day up like you lifted mine when you sent that first text. That day was . . .”

He didn't finish. He only shook his head, shook off whatever he was going to say.

It struck me that this man needed something more than just the ability to make some random girl happy. He needed something other than the investments he was living off of or the properties he owned.

Peace. That's what might've been missing from a person who used to have everything. I didn't know why I intuited that—maybe because it was easy to puzzle his story together, the tragedy of his father dying, the sadness of his mother suffering from exhaustion. All of it obviously weighed on him so heavily, even if he had been attempting to fight his way out from under it with all that clubbing and gifting and smiling.

He watched me with a lowered stare. I watched him. Something vibrated between us, a cord that'd been plucked so hard that it made a low sound that filled the atmosphere. And the cord was pulling me toward him, urging me to touch him as I'd been yearning to do all along . . .

When the front door opened, I stepped back, almost as if I'd been caught thinking about stealing something I had no right to.

Simmons stood in the doorway, backlit by the dim light. He was holding a phone.

“Noah,” he said in a dead serious tone, “you've got a call.”

“It can wait.”

“No, it can't.”

They exchanged a look that was loaded with meaning, and Noah's shoulders tensed. He peered down at me as if the last thing he wanted to do was leave me standing here during his private call.

I decided to make this easy on him. The least I could do was give him a little of the peace he needed.

“Thank you again,” I said, already taking the steps back to my car.

After I was inside, I told myself not to glance at Noah one last time as I drove away, because the more I glanced, the harder it would be to forget him.

***

When I got back home, I headed for bed, promising myself that I would study tomorrow. I had no Friday classes and wouldn't have to go into the Angel's Seat until the dinner shift. Besides, I wanted to get my head together now, and sometimes I did my best thinking staring at the ceiling from the mattress.

I put on a neon-checkered pair of cotton PJs, washed up, and slid under the blankets.

Yup, there was the ceiling, and it didn't have any answers on it. It was as blank as my head. Or maybe as cluttered, with the white paint running all together.

Why me?
I kept wondering. There were so many girls Noah could've plucked out of thin air, ones who were far less difficult than I was. Or maybe that was a turn-on for him?

If he needed peace, then I certainly wasn't the one to bring it.

I rolled to my side, trying to get comfortable, but my mattress felt lumpy for the first time ever.

I rolled to my other side. Uh-uh.

I tried to make do with my first side again, and I must've fallen asleep there because the next thing I knew, a buzzing sound was shaking me awake.

I sat up, my heart feeling like a zipper that was being pulled down the center of my chest.
Zzzzzp.
The adrenalized vibrations filled me as the buzzing sound came again.

Was it my phone?

I groped at my night table and brought the phone in front of my bleary eyes. My sight adjusted, my blood banging.

555-8465:

You up?

Now the banging had taken over the veins in my throat. Slick ice filled my chest, making it hard to breathe.

Jadyn:

Yes, I'm up because I'm a vampire and I sleep only by day.

555-8465:

Excellent. Then you won't mind if I'm standing at your door, returning your empty brownie plate.

Didn't this guy need sleep like normal people? What was wrong with him?

Since I wouldn't put anything past Noah, I darted out of bed on a stream of panic. Why did he always surprise me and bring on the freak-outs? It didn't matter. All that mattered was diving into my bathroom to quickly use mouthwash and to fuss with my hair. No good—my curls were a rat's nest, so I banded them into a wild ponytail.

When I heard my doorbell ring, I jumped. Damn Noah. He seemed to thrive on doing the unexpected. Was this how he conducted business, too, keeping everyone on their toes so he could best them?

Well, if he wanted to see me in my PJs and no makeup, then that was what he was going to get. With a screw-it attitude, I made my way to the door, bumping into Uncle Joseph's recliner on my way since I didn't bother to turn on any lights.

The better
not
to see me, my dear.

That peephole was getting a workout today, and I almost expected to see Simmons waiting for me again, flanked by Vegas showgirls or a circus troupe. But there indeed was Noah—blond, green-eyed Noah—and he didn't even have bags under his eyes, the jerk. No fair.

When I opened the door, fighting the urge to peek around it and shield my PJs, the coming dawn stitched together the sky behind him. He was dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, just as if he'd been studying life here on planet Aidan Falls. In one hand, he was holding my empty brownie plate, in the other a . . .

Fishing pole?

Please tell me this isn't about to happen
.

“Great wardrobe,” he said. “Very fashion-forward.”

“You'd know.” I eyed his outdoor wear. Dang it, he looked good whether he was dressed all in white, a sports jacket, or in this getup. In fact, I liked
this
a whole lot, seeing as the flannel made his shoulders look even broader—and I'd seen those wonderful shoulders in all their bare glory, too. His jeans molded to long legs, his boots making him a little rugged, his hair tumbled and thick.

When I met his gaze, he had on that slight smile, but this time, it was as if he noticed me noticing every little detail about him.

“As much as I like the loud checkers on those pajamas,” he said in that low voice, “you're going to need to change, Jadyn. You'll scare all the fish away.”

“I'm not going fishing.”

His devil-angel smile told me that I'd be changing my mind—and my PJs—very soon.

Noah didn't quite win with the fishing.

Okay, maybe he sort of won, but at least I could claim half the victory, because we didn't actually go fishing. I had patience for a lot of things, but that sport had never been one of them. Uncle Joseph could've testified to that, because whenever he'd tried to drag me out of bed when I was little, wheedling me into spending a Saturday morning with a pole in hand and waiting for some squiggly old thing to snag onto it, I'd buried my head under the pillow and let him go alone.

Uh-uh, instead of fishing, I'd talked Noah into just driving around Aidan Falls as the sun rose, putting on the radio in his new used Chevy pickup so that we could barely hear the music under the whir of tires on blacktop. We didn't even talk much until I directed him to the old feed mill, which I considered probably the most peaceful place around town.

He needed some peace? This would be way better than fishing.

All in all, though, I wasn't sure why he didn't just deposit me back home since I'd destroyed his plans, but I got the feeling this hadn't been about fishing at all.

It's about being with me
, I thought, still finding it hard to believe. But maybe he'd hooked me out of the house during the early morning when no one else was out and about because he was still laying low, out of the public's gaze. Or maybe he didn't want to be seen with a girl who could cause the blogs and paparazzi to go nuts.

I had no idea, but the sun was hovering slightly above the horizon as he pulled into the waving weeds and grass near the mill's timeworn, paint-crisped buildings, which were boxy things that piled up on one another, presided over by a grain elevator. There were other abandoned buildings on the fringes of Aidan Falls besides this one—a grain warehouse, the Elrond mansion, a log cabin by the railroad tracks, the old high school—but I liked it here the most.

I'd told that to Noah, and he'd been interested enough to see why. I was beginning to think he had an explorer's heart.

“Don't tell me,” he said after cutting the engine, getting out, and opening my door. He was holding out his hand to help me to the ground. “You've brought men out here before, haven't you?”

I fought off an emerging blush, even though it wouldn't show on my skin. “Not hardly. This is my place. I like to come here when I need extra quiet and some room to think.”

I slipped my fingers over his palm, my skin tingling against his. If I thought he'd have soft, businessman hands, I was wrong. They were just rough enough to make me think he didn't sit at desks all day tapping away on computer keyboards or standing in front of windows with city views, a Bluetooth device on his ear, barking commands at his minions.

As I stepped to the ground, he kept hold of me for a moment more than was necessary. Heat swamped me again, and I nervously pulled my hand away, making a show of how I needed it to straighten my skirt.

He didn't seem to mind my awkwardness. “What do you think about when you're here?”

Gravel crunched under my boots as we walked side by side on dirt tracks that'd been here for ages, probably even before the mill closed in the '90s. “I think about the future, the past.”

“How about the present?” He sent a grin to me.

I have no idea what to make of the present
, I thought.

The rising sun warmed his skin, giving his light hair fine streaks of red, like hidden licks of fire. The illumination made the scar on his neck stand out all the more, because it was as white as a patch of snow that wouldn't melt, no matter how intense the heat got.

He spoke. “I remember reading on the Hellfire Club boards that there was once an underground sex club here in the seventies.”

“That's not why I brought you.” Flustered. First the shower sext, now this. I was a movin', groovin' set of contradictions as I kept a polite space between us that was a contradiction, too. He'd closed that space a couple of times before, and I wanted more than anything for it to disappear now.

But when he gazed at me, it was a caress. Of course, I was too shy to meet it this time. Here, out in the middle of nowhere with the morning so hushed and still, I felt more vulnerable than ever. Yet why should I when this guy had already proven that he wasn't out to hurt me?

We kept walking, and he paused a moment in the middle of the field, taking measure of the sun. Then, as if he wanted to put a bit of business behind him, he fetched his phone from his pocket, sent a text, and shoved the phone back where it belonged.

Without any explanation—why start now?—we resumed our stride.

“So about this underground sex club,” he said. “Isn't Aidan Falls too uptight for that kind of thing?”

“That might be true of some people in town, but not everyone's uptight here. Just most of the population.”

He laughed, his walk smooth, marked with all the power I'd noticed in the tent yesterday. He was in his element out here, able to move free. He almost reminded me of something that quietly stalked among the grass, pacing me.

“I'm not laughing because that was a quaint thing for you to say,” he told me. “It's just that I'm used to faster places than this town. Coming here is like experiencing the speed life
should
move at. Things go fast in the cities.”

The girls probably did, too. His comment made me keenly aware of how he didn't fully fit in, even if he looked just right in those Wranglers and boots. Heck, the
pickup
he was driving didn't blend, either, even if it seemed like a hundred others in Aidan Falls. How could it look right when he was the one driving it, not a regular old cowboy?

I led Noah toward the corner of the main building, toward a wall you couldn't see from the path we'd driven up on. “Anyway, I'm not the kind of girl who'd be drawn to disco sex clubs, but when I was younger, I couldn't help imagining what it must've been like with all those hippie cowboys and cowgirls meeting here to do what they did. It's kind of hilarious, really. I'll bet they had posters of that Burt Reynolds guy on the walls. My uncle used to be a fan of his movies, so that's pretty much all I know about the seventies.”

“Why is this mill worth a drive out here if it's not your thing?”

I slipped a look at him, then angled my head toward the wall as we rounded the corner.

Noah's steps slowed. Then, with an unguarded smile, he scanned the art someone had painted long ago, the washed-out vision of a sea goddess whose hair floated like water, whose body faded into the waves, whose eyes invited you to be a part of her world.

“I'm not sure,” I said, “but I think this might be Nyi Roro Kidul. She's a deity, a mermaid goddess who seduces people into the water.”

“How do you know who she is?”

“My friend Evie read my Tarot cards at the end of the summer, and Nyi Roro Kidul was part of the deck's artwork.” The sea goddess's particular card, Temptation, had kept coming up during my few readings, too, but I'd had no idea what it meant.

Not until I stood by this wall now, my gaze going from the mermaid to Noah.

Temptation.

No kidding.

My mouth started to run away with all the nerve-addled words suddenly coming out of it. “I'd ride my bike out here just to stare at her because she's so beautiful.”

“Yes,” Noah said, “she is.”

But he wasn't looking at Nyi Roro Kidul now. He was looking at me.

I'd been told I was pretty before—Rex and Micah had even said gorgeous—and I'd believed it once upon a time. But the girl who'd been looking back at me in the mirror with troubled hazel eyes these past few years had only seemed tired from the stress of worrying about Uncle Joseph, then from the Rex-Micah scandal and its fallout.

It was as if Noah could see past all that.

He must've realized that I wasn't normally a fast girl, that I'd put on the brakes lately so that I was practically at a standstill, because he went back to surveying the art. “Life is funny, isn't it? You discovered Nyi Roro Kidul long before she appeared in your cards.”

“I thought that, too, after Evie showed me the deck, but maybe whoever
this
artist was didn't know about the goddess. Maybe they were just drawing a mermaid.”

“Or maybe it was fate.”

He tossed a cockier grin my way, then leaned his back against the wall, propping his heel against it and inspecting me as closely as you would any piece of work in a museum. I shuffled my boots.

“And what tempts you, Jadyn Dandritch?” he asked.

As if I was going to answer that. “I see you've gotten around to learning my last name.”

“You're avoiding the question.”

Smart guy. “I have the same temptations as any girl in this town, I guess.”

“Such as you want to get out of here, make a bigger life for yourself?”

“Yes. I'm going to be a doctor who specializes in geriatric medicine. I was good with my uncle, so I'd be good in that particular area.” Didn't
I
sound sure of that? I wore the confidence well, even if it was a size too large on me.

“A doctor,” he said. “That's a noble pursuit.”

Was he poking fun at me? I crossed my arms over my chest.

“I'm serious,” he said. “It might sound like I'm teasing you because we're not used to outright honesty these days. We live in a cynical society where snark rules.”

“You don't do snark?”

“Oh, I have my moments.”

He traced a finger on the wall beside him, sketching the lines of a washed-out wave. I felt the brush of that finger over my skin, as if he was mapping the inside of my arm, and I shivered.

I wasn't about to ask what tempted
him
, because I thought I already knew. Was he imagining that the wave was me, just like I was fantasizing?

He stopped touching the wave, instead flattening his palm to the wall, almost as if he could stop the movement of the sea. And before he'd been forced out of his business world, he probably could.

“What made you want to be a doctor?” he asked.

That was simple. “Uncle Joseph always said I was a nurturer and a bookworm, so the two go pretty well hand in hand. I'm trying to secure some kind of internship, though. I'm already behind on getting a head start when I transfer to an actual university instead of community college.”

“The medical profession can be a hard life. Just the amount of education you have to get, and those endless shifts . . .”

Was he familiar with medical schedules?

I couldn't stop myself from glancing at that scar on his neck or from remembering what I'd learned about his dad and mom. He'd probably spent some time in hospitals because of them, but what about for himself?
Had
he checked out of life for more reasons than what I knew?

“I can handle the hard work,” I said.

He nodded, watching me again. “I get the feeling you can handle a hell of a lot. It must've been tough to take care of your uncle. You're young, and you must've missed out on parties, dates, fun.”

“Not really.” I shirked off the comment because I didn't want any of the guilt right now. I'd been Uncle Joseph's person. I'd been the only family member who'd given enough of a damn to be with him during his last years. I had nothing to feel bad about.

“Jadyn,” Noah said, moving away from the wall, “don't look so sad. That's not why I pulled you out of bed this morning, to be sad.”

I forced a smile. “I'm not.”

To prove it, I wandered closer to Nyi Roro Kidul, as if I'd never peered at every detail of her before, as if I'd never seen her this close. I just wanted to be nearer to Noah, only I didn't know how to go about it.

“Hey,” he said in a low whisper.

In spite of my wariness, I glanced up at him.

He tweaked my chin, right under the slight cleft I had there. “Do you know what I promised myself last night after you left?”

After his urgent phone call. “I can't possibly guess.”

“I told myself that today you were going to start opening up to me.”

A whisk of fear beat through me. I was afraid I'd already opened up more than I should, because what would happen after Noah got tired of this rich-man's escapade out in the country? What would he leave behind in me—a heart-hurt mess?

I was already too used to that.

I couldn't stand to have him getting this deep, so the random words began to trickle out of me again, unstoppable. Words were a buffer, and I'd learned to use them well.

“Supposedly, this mermaid goddess takes the spirit of anyone she wants, usually good-looking younger men.” Like Noah. I hadn't meant to point that out. “So it makes perfect sense that the Temptation card signifies obsessions you can't control. That's only part of it, though, and Evie said—”

It all happened in a whirlwind of motion—his hand cupped under my jaw, turning my face toward him, his other hand slipping to the small of my back, pulling me to his body, his mouth claiming mine as all the air in my lungs suspended.

His smell—clean and musky. His taste—a faint trace of mint. His lips—softer than I'd fantasized, damp and warm, sipping at me as I clutched his shirt and leaned back, bending with a breathless force of desire that split me from the middle up.

Somehow I had the strength to be pulling him to me, too, feeling the hardness of his body, his muscled chest, his strong arms. The burn of his morning stubble heated my face, but that only added to the flames flickering inside of me, rising, nearly bursting as the pressure of his mouth on mine let up.

His words pulsed against my lips as he spoke.

“You don't take hints very well, Jadyn, so I had to come out with it.”

“You—”

“Wanted to kiss you? Hell, yes. I've been wanting to do it since I saw you across the café, trying to avoid my table.”