“You just seem a little off today. Little nervous, little edgy, little…something.” He brushed his fingers through the loose strands of her hair. “Do you need to talk?”
Her gaze slowly lowered, skimming his lips, his chin, holding on his chest. “Well…” She pulled a breath and met his eyes again, her gaze guarded, but soft. “This morning—”
A roar of shock erupted from the living room, followed by raucous laughter. “Dude, no way!” Finn yelled. “Noah, you gotta see this.”
Julia smiled, but Noah wanted to bean the guys. He was hoping she was going to open the door to dialogue about their relationship.
She reached up and stroked his cheek, then skimmed his lip with her thumb and pushed up on her toes to kiss him lightly. “We’ll talk later.”
Noah ran a hand over her soft hair. He was absolutely ready to have that talk—the one he’d spent his entire lifetime avoiding. “Definitely.”
Once the other guys arrived, they traded the video game for the World Ski Championships, and Julia disappeared into the kitchen.
On the television, an animated view of the Vail course was being mapped out for viewers. “Dude,” Jake said, glancing at Noah. “That’s the run where you tried a cab 270 to switch, half-cab on back 540 off flat down and biffed big-time because you were totally under the fly. Remember?”Noah grinned and was about to remind his friend just how hard he’d hit a tree ass-first while he’d been laughing at Noah, when Julia walked in with a food tray.
A collective groan rounded the room, all except for Noah. He’d grown to love Julia’s cooking and had to admit the improved eating habits had made him feel ten years younger.
Julia paused on the top step, tray held too high for anyone to see what was on it. “Oh really.” She drew out the word in her faux-snooty voice. “Well, if that’s how you feel about it, I’ll take my homemade chips and gourmet dip right back to the—”
“Whoa, hold on.” Mercer stood and sauntered toward Julia. He peered over the edge of the tray, inhaled, and closed his eyes with a look of pleasure. “Score.” He leaned closer to Julia and murmured, “If I sew all their mouths shut, can I have this for myself?”
That kicked off a flurry of laughter, bickering, and bartering with Julia in the big middle of it all. Noah watched her joke with his friends as if she’d been part of their group since the beginning, and his certainty that she needed to become a permanent member of this motley crew only deepened.
But the chips and dip vanished within minutes, and Julia collected the tray and disappeared into the kitchen again.
“Dude,” Jake said from his seat in the opposite corner of the sofa, his voice quiet. “What’s up with the cooking and serving? How’d you get her collar on so tight?”
The insinuation that he had Julia under his controlling thumb hit Noah wrong. He was just about to set Jake straight—probably in an inappropriate way—when Mercer said, “It’s not about control, dumbshit, it’s about treating them right. If you’d date a decent girl for a change, you’d figure it out. I keep telling you, do them right in bed, they’ll do you right out of bed. You’re too d
amn dense to catch on.”
Noah closed his eyes, rubbed his lids, and sighed. Normally, he would not only have laughed with the guys but spurred the lousy innuendo along. Now, he didn’t know how to deal with this protective sensation toward Julia. And he couldn’t exactly come out with she’s mine, back off, because while they’d all assumed he and Julia were sleeping together, he hadn’t even hinted at the reality.
And even in reality, she wasn’t his. Not indefinitely.
“Nix the gutter, guys,” Noah said. “She’s treating us like kings.”
Julia chose that moment to enter the room again with two more trays of food. Jake popped off the couch and took one from her, like he was suddenly Prince-fucking-Charming. She thanked him, then bent to set the other tray on the table. Her shirt fell open, exposing the soft cleavage between her perfect breasts. And while she was fidgeting with the tray, she lifted her gaze to Noah’s without moving her head. There was heat there, like she knew what she was doing to him. A secret, or at least a semisecret, between them among all the other guys.
Lust speared through him, as hard and fast as a crack of lightning. He dug his fingers into the leather sofa cushion. Without breaking his gaze, Julia lifted something from the tray and brought it to him.
She glanced over her shoulder at the guys where they swarmed around the food like ants on a sugar cube, then sat on the arm of the sofa. “I have a treat especially for you. Open.”
Noah parted his lips. He didn’t know or care what she put in his mouth. He’d take anything she gave him. With her own tongue sliding slowly over her lower lip, she slid something inside his mouth, purposely grazing his teeth with her finger, dragging it across his lip on the way out.
Noah couldn’t drag his gaze from hers—not until flavor burst in his mouth. The cinnamon hit him first—spicy and warm—then the apple, tangy and familiar, then the sugar. So damn good he wanted to roll his eyes back in his head and groan.
“Oh my God,” he murmured instead, glancing past Julia to look at the tray. It was covered in little squares topped with whipped cream. He chewed, and the familiar flavor of pastry, fruit, and sugar hammered his taste buds. “Did you find my Apple Strudel Pop-Tarts?”
“Not the boxed kind,” she said, tilting her head, her gaze stroking his lips as if she could barely resist licking them. “My own, healthier, version.”
When he met her gaze again, his mind whirling with the sweet gesture, Julia looked hot and hungry. She reached out and wiped something from his lip with her thumb. She lifted her dark eyes to his, and a dirty little grin played at the edge of her mouth. “I’d wear a collar for you,” she said quietly. “If, I mean, that turned you on.”
Noah had barely registered the comment when she pushed off the sofa and returned to the kitchen, leaving him there to burn a hole in the cushion.
For the next hour, Noah couldn’t think about anything but Julia in a collar. A collar and heels. A collar and heels and nothing else. Red leather. Diamond studs. High on her throat. One with a metal ring to attach a chain or a rope…
A collective gasp yanked Noah out of the fantasy—one that didn’t really get any further because he’d never been into the sexual-control gig. Didn’t even know what BDSM stood for, just that it involved whips and chains and all sorts of things that didn’t interest him.