Curiosity had sent him to her apartment complex. Finding her was as simple as looking her up on the internet, courtesy of the Flawless card he’d pocketed.
Carly fuckin’ Harrington-Reese! A real honest-to-god nasty girl. He’d seen the pictures to prove it. Sure, they said it was fashion. But, fuck that! She was naked. That was nothing but high-class porn.
Sitting in his truck in her parking lot, he hadn’t expected she would appear on one of the top-floor balconies. Picking up the binoculars he kept for fire watching, he’d watched her while he chafed with an itch he hadn’t scratched in weeks.
That was because Darlene hadn’t let him back in after he’d slapped her around for burning the pizza she was reheating.
He would have forgiven her tonight. If she’d opened her door. Instead, she’d threatened to call the police. So, he’d driven on. And ended up at the Reese woman’s location. When she went back inside, he’d almost finished jacking off to the fantasy she’d evoked. Deprived of the sight of her, he’d slowed down and made the pleasure last.
Then she’d suddenly appeared in the parking lot. He thought he’d been made. Panic made him fumble his glasses as he ducked behind the steering wheel. And, fuck, wouldn’t you know it? One lens had struck his gearshift and cracked. By the time he’d looked up, she was getting in her car. He followed her.
Here—to Flawless.
Christ! It was like she knew he was there, waiting for a chance to get her alone. His hands were slick on the steering wheel. The bulge in his jeans harder than before the handjob.
Good thing he’d had the presence of mind to circle the block and park a ways beyond. She’d barely entered through the back door when Glover appeared.
Watching the store now, knowing they were inside together, he had half a mind to finish what he’d started. They were probably in there fucking, while he hid in the bushes like a pussy.
The searing unfairness of it all made his heart pound and his eyes burn. The urge to do something made his hand shake as he reached for one of the incendiary devices he’d pocketed before leaving his truck.
It wouldn’t be neat, or solve all his problems. It would, however, ease the tension coursing through his veins like corrosive acid.
But instead, he swerved his hand at the last second to his Ka-Bar at his ankle. He withdrew and pulled it across his palm. He stared at the blood pooling, letting the sting of the wound remind him that he had made mistakes lately. He couldn’t afford for rage to control his actions.
Whatever was going on inside, he would wait and use it to his advantage. When he was calm and ready.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Carly blinked when Noah shut his flashlight off. Then he reached out and did the same with hers. She could no longer see him. But every one of her other senses intensified to make her aware of his presence.
They weren’t quite touching. Even so, she could feel the heat from his body, judge the expanse of his body from it. A moment before he touched her, she sensed the raising of his hands. She met him halfway, her arms lifting to rest on his chest as his hands found her shoulders and pulled her close.
When his lips found hers in the darkness, she sighed in relief.
It was the moment they had been building toward all day, perhaps even since the night before. It didn’t make sense. Desire never really does. That hunger for another person doesn’t consider anything but its own needs. And right now, her desire was running the show.
She felt his hands sliding over her, one moving up to cup the back of her head while the other moved down low on her hips. Without breaking the kiss, he pressed into her, bone and muscle, molding her perfectly to his harder frame. Somehow her hands found their way inside his jacket and then around to his back until she was clutching his shoulders from behind. He was hard and sinewy beneath the soft cotton of his shirt. He tasted of peanuts and coffee, and some subtle indefinable essence that was his alone. She even liked the drag of his whisker-roughened jaw along hers. In every way, this tough guy seemed to have the answer to a question she wasn’t sure she’d asked.
She heard him moan low a moment before he released the kiss. Shaken to her core by a simple kiss, she was no longer certain of anything.
When he dropped his hands from her body, she knew she should do the same. They weren’t a couple, or anything close. Not even friends. Clinging was definitely not part of the scenario, whatever the hell the scenario was.
Her hands came away slowly, sliding down the firm contours of his back before falling free from beneath his jacket. And then she retreated, back into the shell she had developed years before, when too many men thought “model” equaled “sex object” and were more interested in what she was than who she was.