best friends on a Friday or Saturday night, still enjoys a good beer buzz.
He’s still bad, but he’s also good, and when it comes to me, he’s very bad in all the right ways.
The car door opens, Noah drops into the driver’s seat and he immediately turns on the car. The air conditioner blasts from the vents and a lock of my red curly hair blows in front of my face. Noah reaches over and with the most exquisite and soul-hugging care, he hooks the rebellious lock around his finger, gives it a slight tug, then tucks it behind my ear.
I suck in a breath as his touch creates a burning path along my cheek and I lick my lips as he tips my chin. Kissing Noah Hutchins is the closest I have been to heaven. With a simple brush of his lips to mine, he transports me to another time, another world, another place, where only the two of us belong.
He leans in; his breath is warm, and his mouth on mine causes me to melt. It’s a soft press of his lips followed by a gentle and teasing nip. Every individual cell in my body begins to vibrate and Noah cups my face with one hand while his other hand tunnels into my hair. I love the sensation of his strong fingers against my face. It makes me feel small, fragile, yet loved and in control. The exchange is too short, too sweet, too enticing for this to be it.
Noah pulls away and his dark brown eyes bore into mine. “Back to the hotel?”
“I thought you wanted to go swimming,” I say with a tease.
“Still the plan.” The way he’s currently undressing me with his eyes says he honestly has different ideas for future events.
“Are you sure about that?”
Noah straightens, puts on his seat belt and places the car into Drive. “The way I see it, if we’re swimming, we’re going to have to change.”
“Is that so?”
“That’s so. And if we’re going to have to change, I’m just saying we don’t have to rush. In case you forgot, there is a bed in our room.”
Noah Hutchins is and will forever be so much trouble. “Wow, I guess I did forget.”
“It’d be a damn shame to waste it,” he says. “Damn shame.”
I giggle at the implied memory of how he said those same words to me in a hospital room long ago to help me relax. “You’re relentless.”
“Yes, I am.” Noah rests his hand on my thigh and squeezes. “But being so landed me you.”
Can’t argue with that.
Chapter 2
Noah
Wind rushes in through the open sliding glass door of the balcony overlooking the ocean, and the breeze brings in the scent of salt and sand. The white curtain billows out and the sound of seagulls fills the hotel room. Don’t want to know how much this hotel room costs. Kills my pride to let Echo pay for it. When she told me about this trip and how it was a gift for my birthday, I nearly declined.
But then, like only Echo can do, she flashed me that siren smile, brushed her fingernails along my back as she tucked herself tight to me and I belonged to her. Agreeing to whatever words she sang in that soft Southern drawl.
“I sold a painting,” she whispered in my ear. Then she kissed my neck and I didn’t hear words. I only heard my pulse whooshing in my temples and felt the heat seeping into my blood. “I have enough to cover the room. Let me do this. For you. For me. For us.”
Somewhere between my shirt on my body, then off, I agreed.
Echo Emerson owns me. I should go ahead and have those exact words tattooed across my chest. Hell, they’re already branded on my soul.
I lean my shoulder against the wall near the bathroom and watch Echo. This is one of my favorite simple, silent moments, besides when she’s painting: when Echo’s getting ready and is lost in her own head.
After moving out of the apartment I shared with Isaiah to save money, I drew the lucky straw and ended up in a single-person dorm room. Echo has spent plenty of nights there; I’ve spent nights with her in her room, which means we’ve spent plenty of mornings together, too.
After my parents died when I was fourteen, I spent too many years living in a constant state of noise and chaos, but then she entered my life and she smoothed out all