“Now, O’Sullivan!” she shouted. “Run for the deck; I’ve got you covered.”
Noah turned and ran, Sampson in hot pursuit, but a few more carefully aimed apples and oranges kept Sampson out of pecking distance. Thankfully, just as she ran out of fruit basket, the stairs slowed the rooster down, giving her and Noah time to escape into the kitchen.
“Jesus,” he said, breath coming in harsh gasps. “That’s it. We’re moving to the other side of town. I looked at a ranch house with ten acres today. Already fully fenced, but we can add an electrified option. I’m not going to spend my life running from a rooster.”
Sampson, who had arrived on the deck, pecked the glass window at the bottom of the door in response.
Yasmin burst into giddy, relieved laughter. Noah tried to hold out, but soon he was laughing as hard as she was until they were both leaning against the kitchen table for help remaining upright.
“You should have seen your face,” she said, panting for breath. “You were so serious. Like you were facing down a wild bull.”
“You should have seen your face,” he countered. “You looked like you’d seen a ghost.”
“He’s scarier than a ghost. Ghosts don’t have beaks or claws.”
“Or the heart of a killer,” Noah said, making her break out into giggles all over again.
“Stone cold,” she gasped. “Stone cold killer. If he were bigger, we’d both be dead right now.”
“So dead,” he concurred, pulling her into his arms until their laughter-sore bellies were pressed tight together and suddenly Yasmin wasn’t in the mood to laugh anymore.
“Thank you.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “For being my hero.”
“Anytime, baby,” he said, eyes glittering with humor and something hotter that made her insides feel soft and gooey. “Anytime.”
And then he kissed her, and she knew the moment their lips touched that this time they wouldn’t be parting until they’d gotten as close as two people could get. They stumbled into the living room, doing their best to devour each other from the mouth down as their hands roamed freely and their pulses sped and magic filled the little farmhouse at the end of the lane.
Yasmin’s dress floated over her head seemingly of its own accord and then Noah’s warm palms were on her breasts and she’d never been so glad she hadn’t bothered with a bra.
“Your hands should stay right there all the time,” she said as he cupped her in his hands, teasing her nipples until things low in her body spun tight.
“I agree,” he said, stripping his shirt off and coming back to her, his skin warm against hers as they fell onto the couch. “We should be naked together all the time. I can already tell it’s going to be my new favorite thing.”
“Mine too.” She sighed against his lips. “God, Noah, don’t ever stop touching me. Promise, you won’t.”
“I promise,” he said, kissing his way down her throat, pausing to count the beats of her heart against his lips before he moved lower. He kissed the center of her chest, running his tongue down to the hollow between her breasts before pulling one nipple and then the other into his talented mouth and showing her he knew exactly what to do to drive her wild.
By the time his jeans and boxer briefs joined the pile of clothes on the floor, she wasn’t thinking straight enough to worry about protection, but Noah pulled a condom seemingly from thin air and slid it on the long, thick length of him before he settled between her legs and pushed inside. Yasmin cried out in bliss, arching her back as he slid home, filling her in a way no lover ever had. He wasn’t too much or not enough. He was made for her, made to stretch her, own her, pleasure her with every movement of his body working inside of hers.
And as he made her gasp and cry out and eventually scream his name as she came hard enough to make stars explode behind her closed eyes, back in the kitchen a sharp, staccato rapping signaled that Sampson the Third didn’t approve of Yasmin having mind-blowing sexy times any more than he approved of her walking across the town square without her legs covered with peck marks.
But Yasmin was too lost in Noah’s arms, in his kiss, and in the bliss he sent flooding through her to notice.
Later, when she and Noah were bent over their bowls of Chinese-Texan beef noodles, laughing in the candlelight as they shared stories from their childhood and ideas about the crazy things they would do when they were old and gray and people made the mistake of assuming there wasn’t any trouble left in them, she would wonder aloud if the rooster was still outside prowling the perimeter. But her musing was just an excuse to keep Noah in her house, in her bed, holding her tight as they drifted off to sleep long after all self-respecting roosters had returned to the coop for the night.
Just before she went to sleep, Yasmin made a mental note to call her mother in the morning and cancel the background check. She had spent the night looking into Noah O’Sullivan’s heart, and she didn’t need any more proof that this man was good news all the way. Maybe the best news she’d ever heard.
She went right on thinking that until the phone rang at eight o’clock the next morning and she learned that even Mr. Right has a secret or two up his sleeve.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
Noah
Noah woketo the sound of a car peeling out of the driveway below him and for a moment couldn’t remember where he was. But then he glanced around the yellow room with the framed concert posters on the walls and it all came rushing back—dinner with Yasmin and deciding to sleep over and all the not-sleeping they’d done until well after midnight last night.
The memories made him want to smile, but a niggle of worry tugged at the back of his mind. There was the matter of that car peeling out below and the fact that he and Yasmin were, so far as he knew, the only people here.
He stood and hurried to the window in his bare feet, peeking through the gauzy white curtains in time to see Yasmin’s Jetta churning up dust as it barreled down the long driveway toward the road. Something in the way the tires spun, spraying gravel onto the rose bushes on the left side of the drive, told him she wasn’t just popping out for donuts and coffee.