But dawn kept getting closer. The nearer it got, the more intense his feelings became. His AVP started revving in random, intermittent spurts. The damn data scroll was bugging him, making him restless and distracted. He didn’t want to share the screen of his vision with the fucking processor display when Caro was on it.
Sometimes kung fu workouts helped chill the AVP. Worth a try. He reluctantly disentangled himself from her slender limbs. She murmured, rolling onto her side, but didn’t wake. He pulled on his sweat pants and padded noiselessly to the practice room.
It was a big glassed-in veranda with tatami mats and a floor to ceiling view of the lake. Cold. He stood in the middle of the room. Observed his body. Stilled his mind.
Time to begin.
He usually spent two or three hours a night in here. The night was so fucking long when you didn’t sleep. Not tonight. He’d do just enough to take the edge off his AVP buzz and then it was back to bed to wrap himself around that amazing, mysterious woman. Be ready to serve her when she woke up. In any capacity she wanted.
Though a guy could hope for his favorites.
*
Caro snapped awake out of a nasty dream. A standard nightmare mix of dread, violence, pursuit. For a moment she looked wildly around the room, disoriented.
It rushed back. Noah. That incredible night.
She was alone in the rumpled bed. She slid out from between the sheets and retrieved Noah’s fleece robe from where it had been tossed on the bathroom floor.
She padded around the house in search of him, then saw the glass veranda through another window, and the shadowy flash of movement.
When she found the door to the veranda, it was slightly ajar. She pushed it a little further open, and gazed at him, awestruck.
He was naked to the waist, doing a martial art form. His rapid, fluid moves were so beautiful. Sweeping and precise. Full of explosive energy.
He sank down into a deep, wide-legged crouch . . . and sprang upward in a sudden flurry of whip-quick kicks, so fast they seemed like a blur.
He turned to her, put his hands together and bowed slowly.
“I didn’t know you saw me,” she said. “Didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
“I was finished,” he said. She could barely make out his face in the dimness. He seemed to be smiling.
Caro stepped into the room, which was cold. “That was beautiful,” she said. “What is it?”
“A grab bag of disciplines,” he said. “Mostly kung fu. It’s my favorite.”
“Wish I’d studied that, instead of dance,” she said, meaning it with all her heart.
He grinned. “I love the way you dance. But it’s never too late to start learning. I’ll teach you, if you want. Stick around.”
Right. As if she could. She shivered as she gazed out the window. “Do you work out at this hour all the time?”
“Whenever I can’t sleep, if I don’t feel like carving wood or staring at screens. I was just about to come back to bed.”
She imagined it so vividly, she could feel the sensations. That long, strong beautiful man sliding into bed with her, making the mattress dip under his weight. The excited delight rippling through her at the contact with his skin as he rolled onto her. His hands, his lips, his smoldering eyes, his big hard cock. Everything.
There was just enough light to admire the lines and curves and cuts of his naked torso. She wanted to run her hands over him, slowly memorizing him by feel. To slide her hand in the front of those low-slung sweat pants and cup him in her hand, stroking until he was stiff and hard and ready.
She could tell by the quality of his energy that he read her thoughts and would be eager to oblige her. But dawn was almost breaking. The deeper she went into this, the harder it was going to be to drag herself away.
She forced herself to turn around and march back to the bedroom.
*
Noah followed her, a pace behind, not allowing himself to touch her. She was too tense. Again, after that sensual flare of colors he’d seen back in his practice room. So near, yet so far. Oh, well. Maybe he could cuddle her in bed until she relaxed again.
But once there, she looked at the clock. “I have to go, Noah.”
Another flare of irrational rage activated the AVP again and he was right back where he’d started an hour before. He walked a tightrope of self-control to keep his voice even and mild as he responded. “Sun’s not up. Have to go where?”
She gave him a stern look. “That’s my business.” She perched on the edge of the bed. “I can’t believe I slept so long.”
“You could use more of that,” he said. Weeks of it. Right here. In this bed. With me holding you the whole time.
“Maybe so.” She smiled, but it faded quickly. “But not here.”
Another AVP surge, stronger than before. The data feed started to scroll. Shit.
“Why?” he demanded, his voice harsh. “Stay with me. I’ll drive you where you want to go. Unless you were planning to walk.”
“No, but—”
“So I’ll drive and I’ll wait. Then I’ll bring you back here for breakfast.”
She frowned. “A cab’s fine.”
“No. Just no,” he told her, exasperated. “Like you could even get one this early in the morning. Listen, Caro—”