Also, on that list- she was kind. Compassionate. She was extra cute when she blushed and when her nose crinkled up. Her laugh could sustain him for days. She unlocked real, actual feeling in him. She liked pizza. She looked fucking incredible in his t-shirt. She had nice breasts. A great ass. Perky nipples. A body that he’d kill anyone if they thought they were going to get to see it naked. He’d cut off a person’s hands if they thought they could touch her. She was loyal. Obviously loved her family. Didn’t seem to care about money, even though her daddy was rich. Wasn’t one of those spoiled bratty, empty headed, cruel women.
He could sum her up with one word. Not perfection, though he did think about it. Dangerous.
She was dangerous.
He remembered his mom saying, when she knew she was dying, that she was worried about his dad. She’d said she wanted him to remarry, but she knew he never would. That he’d never be happy again because for him, she was it, just like he was it for her. They’d promised each other forever and she would have given him a hundred years if she could have, but she couldn’t, and she knew he wasn’t going to be alright without her. That she’d break him, just like he would have destroyed her had it been the other way around.
Of course, being basically just a kid, though he’d grown up fast after his mom died, he hadn’t understood what she meant. Not really. She’d been right, but he hadn’t got it.
He’d never fully got it.
Until Noemi.
It was like walking into a brick wall dick first. Painful as shit. World ending. Mind numbing. Nut wrenching. Gut wrenching.
“Cason? Long silence after I said I’d come back tomorrow isn’t the most reassuring thing…”
He gave himself a shake. He also didn’t do that. Drift off into the middle of no man’s land or cyberspace or wherever he’d just been. He didn’t examine his feelings. Ever. It was best not to have any in the first place. It was much less trouble and far less mess.
“Sorry. I was fanaticizing about a few things of my own. I think I’ve discovered a few more uses for whipped cream other than as a topper for good.”
Noemi colored again, like he knew she would. She distracted herself by fiddling with his t-shirt and he took the moment to reach for the remote, hoping like hell the TV was easy to use. If not, he’d have to break the damn thing in some subtle manner to save his ass.
Cason. She called him Cason.
Maybe he should stop worrying about the remote and figure out how the ever-living hell he was supposed to come up with a subtle way to tell her he’d lied to her about everything.
CHAPTER 10
Noemi
A heaving ship, tossing about the in waves. On deck. Struggling to get below. Swaying and tossing in the stairs. Hitting the wall. Righting herself only to be tossed forward. Wet. Why was she wet? She was soaking, her hair damp and plastered to her face, her clothes drenched in sea water, the salt already making her skin itch. She faltered on, taking a few more hesitant steps, her hand on the wall for support. Finally, she was at her door. The door to her cabin. To safety. She tried the handle, but it was locked, and the ship tossed again, sending her flat onto her ass. It groaned and let out a shudder that could only mean disaster and she wasn’t entirely startled to find that the stranger whimpering echoing off the lonely hallway, was her own.
Noemi woke with a start.
She’d been on a cruise once, with both her parents when she was young. Eleven. A storm came up and tossed even that huge boat about, so that the water in the pools on deck splashed violently and the very cabin they were standing in seemed like it was adrift, tossing in the salty waves. She’d been afraid. Her dad had been ill, but her mom was like a rock through it all. She remembered clinging to her mom’s waist and crying, soaking her shirt with tears like the storm lashing on the outside of their cabin. Her mom rubbed her back and assured her it would all be fine, and in a few hours, it had been.
She turned her head side to side when the fog of sleep finally cleared off. Still, the room wasn’t right. It took her a minute of blinking sleepy eyes to realize that of course it wasn’t right. She was in her hotel. She realized, a few seconds later, that she wasn’t there either. She was in a house. With one end table, not two beside the bed. There was no shadow on her side, denoting furniture.