“ ‘Accident,’ ” Juliet scoffed. “That dog takes his attitude cue from his owner.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “And just in case you think I’m mean—I happen to love dogs.”
Noah had had more than one run-in with that unruly canine himself. “I know you’re not mean, Juliet. You don’t have a mean bone in your body.”
Body. See, he shouldn’t have said that word, because it put her body in his mind, and he was pretty sure he was wirelessly broadcasting those fantasies he’d been suppressing for longer than he cared to remember. Those fantasies that had come roaring to life along with his hard-on the instant he’d touched his tongue to her bottom lip and felt her mouth opening for him.
Here came a few now…Juliet, dressed only in a swim-suit, on that armless chaise lounge beside the pool, her long legs parting to wrap around his hips as he came down over her.
Juliet, wearing those jeans she had on now and nothing else, walking toward where he was sitting on the edge of a bed, the hard nipples of her pale breasts at the perfect height for his mouth.
Juliet, in a hot shower, her naked body obscured by the wavy glass door, then only covered by steam as he opened it to step inside.
In the fantasy, her eyes widened. In the now, they widened, too, and Noah curled his fingers into fists again, trying to keep himself in check. Yeah. He was definitely broadcasting, and it was hard to determine what she thought of the waves he was sending out because though there was a pink flush riding the edge of her cheekbones, she was clutching that book in front of her like a shield.
“Maybe…” She cleared her throat. “Maybe that’s just what I need.”
“What?” His voice cracked like an adolescent’s. He cleared his throat, too. Damn. Was she saying that she needed a little flesh-on-flesh time? “What is it you need?”
She blinked at him. “A dog.” The “What did you think I meant?” went unspoken, but it was there all the same.
Kee-rist. She was talking about a dog, which meant the person who needed to get something was him. He needed a life. New fantasies. A woman in his bed. Juliet was right, it had been a monastery around his place for too, too long.
“I’ve gotta go,” he said, before he made a further fool of himself. He was at the door when her voice caught him.
“Noah. Are you all right?”
He paused, wrapping his hand around the doorjamb. His gaze took in the pool, and didn’t sweep around to her, because he didn’t want to tempt himself again. The woman had just received copies of her dead darling’s autobiography—She was everything fresh and fine this jaded soldier had forgotten about the world—and now wasn’t the time for another man to be coming on to her. Still, he had to find out what was going through her mind.
“That should be my question,” he said. “I took something that wasn’t exactly offered. Are you okay about that?”
“I’m okay.”
He hesitated still. Were they talking about the same thing? Because putting himself in her place, he could see that she might be feeling bad, guilty or something, and he hated the idea.
“Look, I have to ask. About what happened, about our, uh, hug. I hope you don’t feel, didn’t feel…” He still couldn’t make himself turn around and face her. But he heard her just fine anyway.
“Hmm,” she said. Her voice was threaded with gentle amusement. “You’re sure you want to know the truth?”
“Sure, I’m sure,” he answered, because he suspected he might need to soothe her spirits.
She let a second go by and then she slayed him. “The truth is, Noah, what I felt when I kissed you was horny.”
Five
The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
—MOTHER TERESA
The truth is, Noah, what I felt when I kissed you was horny.
Juliet had said those words, trying to make light of that impromptu embrace in the kitchen. She hadn’t wanted Noah to worry that she’d taken it too seriously. But it wasn’t possible for her to entirely understand how he’d taken it because after her half-laughing remark, he’d made tracks for the guesthouse across the pool.
She’d even wondered if he might not make it back to her place for dinner the following night, but he did, entering through her open back door just as she heard commotion coming from the direction of the front one.
There, she pulled on the doorknob in time to see a man stride around the curve of her walkway, carrying a laughing woman. It was Nikki, and, presumably, her fiancé. Her arms were thrown around his neck, and to go along with his good looks the guy wore a grin that declared all was right with his world.