My eyes welled with tears, and I blinked rapidly to push them back.
"And there's nothing I can say that would change that for him," Rick said sadly. "He has to figure that out for himself." He paused and glanced at me again. "I just pray he doesn't ..." He stopped and exhaled heavily. "Shit, I don't know."
"What?"
Rick pierced me with a serious look. "I pray he doesn't hurt someone amazing in the process."
My mouth fell open.
He knew.
"Rick," I whispered.
He held up a hand. "Just the rambles of a man who's seen a lot. Okay? That's all it is."
Even though my heart was thrashing in my chest, I nodded slowly.
His words flipped and turned and tumbled in my head for the rest of the day. I made it a point to stay behind Marty because I was so afraid of what he might catch on my face if that camera turned in my direction.
I was quiet through dinner, another delicious carb and meat heavy affair that was made with obvious love. Noah kept glancing in my direction, but I kept my eyes off him because I was afraid it would be written all over my face.
I could fall in love with you so easily.
And you would break my heart if you couldn't love me back in the way I deserve.
Because Rick was right.
It wasn't my job to fix Noah's priorities. It wasn't my job to show him that he could have it both ways. He could have a life filled with love and family and be the best at his job while he was fortunate enough to do it.
I pretended to read a book while the guys played a card game with Noah's grandma and everyone slowly marched off to bed.
Before Marty went upstairs, I said good night and kept my face even as I clicked the door shut behind me. One single tear slipped out as I washed my face, and I turned the faucet to ice cold to snap myself out of it.
About an hour later, as I stared mindlessly at the screen of my phone where I was huddled under the covers, I heard Noah approach the door. I held my breath, and when he knocked softly, I climbed out from under the blanket and opened it for him.
His eyes searched my face as he walked in. "Are you okay? You were so quiet today."
If one word escaped my lips about how I was feeling, I'd coat the walls with my messy emotional state. So I nodded, my hands reaching for the hem of his shirt to tug it up over his head. He complied but looked concerned as he tossed it to the ground.
"Molly," he said, sliding his hands around my waist. "It's clear something is wrong. Talk to me."
I took a deep breath. "We have one night, Noah. Do you want to spend it talking? Because I don't."
Indecision warred in the handsome, chiseled features of his face. "I do if there's something important on your mind."
With a self-control I didn't know I possessed, I slid my hands up my chest and pulled his face down to mine. A groan came from his lungs when I tugged on his lip with my teeth. Goose bumps broke out over my skin at the sound of it.
I pushed down everything except the way he felt under my wandering fingertips, every worry, every doubt, every instinct that told me that this one last time would only make it harder for me when we got back to Seattle.
But I wouldn't ignore the opportunity when it was given to me.
Making this choice felt important.
I leaned up on my tiptoes and kissed him, digging my hands into his lush, silky hair and tugging. He changed the angle of the kiss, and I felt the moment when his brain switched off and his desire took over.
For the rest of the night, that impulse reigned over us, and we allowed it with every touch and kiss and whispered plea into each other's skin.
When he wanted to see all of me, I straddled his hips and rose above him, hands braced on his chest, for a slow, sweet round that left my body gleaming with sweat from delayed satisfaction.
When I wanted him to unleash every ounce of his strength, he turned me over onto my stomach where the pillows muffled my sobs of gratification when it finally broke wide open.
And when we knew he should've been leaving the room, we allowed ourselves one last time. Not a single word passed between us, but he touched me everywhere, tasted me everywhere, and I did the same. He moved so slowly and with so much purpose, letting the desire grow and grow and grow until I swallowed a scream when we finished at the same time. A tear rolled down my temple as I lay under him, trying desperately to catch my breath, and he caught it with his lips.
I watched silently as Noah pulled on his shorts and T-shirt, his face an unreadable mask.
The blinders were going back on.
So were mine.
He stood over the bed and looked down at me, and when I thought he'd turn to leave, I scrambled out of bed. He caught me, wrapping his arms tight around me and taking my mouth in a searching, searing kiss.
It came down slowly until he did nothing more than hold me while I breathed him in.
"I know this is the right thing to do," he said into the crown of my head.
My eyes fluttered shut as I snuggled my face into his chest. "I do too."
I didn't, though. I wasn't entirely sure I believed that. Right. Wrong. They were so subjective based on who you were asking, weren't they?
Maybe the statement that I could agree to was that this was the smart thing to do instead. The most likely to allow him the success he was still chasing after with both hands and give me the same result.
"But I'll think about this," he admitted in a rough voice. "I'll think about you, Molly, and I want you to know that."
I had to roll my lips together to keep from telling him that I was falling in love with him. Because he had no space for something like this in his life, and I had no room for that kind of complication in mine. So all I could do, knowing we were leaving the next day, back into a world where we'd pretend this hadn't happened, was give him another soft kiss and lie about what he meant to me.
"I'll think about you too, Noah."
He pulled away from my embrace, and in a few strides of his long legs, he was gone.
Chapter Twenty-One
Molly
The strangest part of returning to Seattle was the fact that no one seemed to notice that anything was different. When I got home, Isabel greeted me with a smile, wanting to know how the weekend went.
When Paige stopped over a couple of hours later because Emmett wanted to show us something, there were no curious, lingering looks at my face, and no one asked if something had happened.
And as protective as I felt over those two nights and what happened in that big bed, I was relieved.
For the first time since I could remember, something happened in my life that I didn't want to share with my family. My sisters were my best friends, and Paige as close as a mother to me, but I didn’t want to confide or discuss or pick apart anything about my time in South Dakota.
Normally, we would.
But the rest of my Sunday back in Seattle was just ... normal.
I arrived at work, feeling rejuvenated after a good night of sleep, something I didn't have at all in South Dakota due to one Noah Griffin. And the lack of sleep from that weekend was nothing that couldn't be hidden by a good concealer, which I applied liberally when getting ready that morning.
My office was quiet and tidy when I let myself in, and I'd barely gotten through the items waiting in my inbox before a message popped up from Beatrice on my phone.
Beatrice: Would love to hear how the weekend went. I'm free after lunch.