Noah stopped dead in his tracks at the door and turned around. “What?” I asked when he gave no indication of what he was up to.

He walked to the bedside table, opened the drawer and then reached inside. With a disapproving scowl he held up the vibrator he’d given me, which we’d nicknamed the “Crawford bullet.” “Forgot something, didn’t you?”

“Well, I didn’t think I’d need it,” I answered, confused.

He smirked and stuffed it into my bag. “Oh, you’ll need it all right.”

He was happy, and I was reminded that I did that for him. The Cooch reminded me she had a little something to do with that also, which was probably true, but I mentally reminded her that it wasn’t just about sex between Noah and me anymore. Not that I was demanding she hang up her hooker heels or donate the Super Cooch outfit to Goodwill or anything. They’d come in handy someday soon. Of that I was positive.

Once my bag was loaded in the trunk of the car and Noah and I were settled in the backseat, we were off. I watched the house disappear from sight. Sensing my sadness, Noah wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into his side so that I could rest my head on his shoulder.

He kissed the top of my head. “It’ll be nothing but a vast waste of space until you return, and then it’ll feel like home again.”

I felt the same way. Home was wherever Noah was, whether it was in an enormous mansion surrounded by Edward Scissorhands sculptures or a cardboard box in an alley. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was whether or not he was with me.

I fell asleep sometime during the long drive to Hillsboro. All I remembered was Noah petting my hair lovingly and then encouraging me to put my head in his lap. At first I thought it was his way of hinting for a blow job, and so did the Cooch, but it turned out he just wanted to get cuddly. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice, but I felt like he was holding back a part of him, the domineering, forceful side that made the Cooch go all fangirl for the bad boy. Maybe it was because he thought it was what he was supposed to do since we’d gotten all sticky sweet with our declarations and all. I would’ve protested against his insistence that I get some rest—or been a little more assertive with my offering of the blow job—but truth be known, he’d worn my ass out the night before and I really could have used a little more sleep. I guess my tired brain won the battle after the Cooch threw down the gauntlet, because before I knew it, I was out like a light.

Noah woke me up quite a while later. He complained that having my face in his lap had given him a major hard-on, and his balls just couldn’t take it anymore. Served him right. He adjusted himself in his jeans while I looked around to see where we were. We were on the outskirts of Hillsboro—I recognized the surroundings because I’d traveled that road with my folks so many times. When I was a kid, I used to stare out the window and make up all these different stories about the landscape. My favorite was pretending I was a poor maiden who had been locked up in a little cottage, forced to pass the days alone while waiting for my Prince Charming to ride up on his white stallion and sweep me off my feet.

I snorted at myself internally. What little girl didn’t have that fantasy?

That memory was so vivid in my mind that I still remembered most of the details. In fact, just around the bend there would be a …

“Stop the car!” I yelled, and then started pounding on the glass divider that separated us from Samuel.

“Why? What’s wrong?” Noah asked in a panic.

“We have to stop! Please, Noah, we have to!” I said, a little louder than was necessary since he was sitting right beside me. Even though he winced at my shrieking, he got the urgency.

Noah pushed a button and the window rolled down. “Samuel, pull over.” He was all business, and normally that would kind of turn me on while simultaneously pissing me off, but now was not the time.

Once the car rolled to a stop on the shoulder of the road, I fumbled with the door handle until I finally pushed it open and jumped out.

“Lanie!” Noah called out from behind as he followed me out. “Why are you running away from me?”

I couldn’t stop to answer him. It was there, the little country cottage that I’d always pretended was mine. It had a stone chimney, flower boxes filled with hyacinths under the arched windows, and a door of knotty wood, and it was sitting in the middle of a meadow to boot. The grass was tall and green, littered with little purple, white, and yellow flowers, and the air smelled crisp and clean. It was perfect—and, as I’d just noticed, it was for sale.

I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. I had to touch it, to know that it was real and not merely a part of my imagination. The wind blew through my hair, and I suddenly felt like that little girl again, alight with childlike joy. Seriously, my cheeks hurt from smiling so hard.

I felt Noah’s fingertips when he reached out and barely skimmed the skin on my arm, but I kept running, giggling like a fool. I turned to look over my shoulder at him and with another giggle called out, “Come on, Noah. Catch me!”

Just as I reached the porch of the cottage, his arms hooked around my waist and he pulled me to him. I laughed—oh God, I laughed. Everything was perfect. I was standing in front of the little cottage, and I was wrapped in the arms of my very own knight in shining armor.

My knight smiled down at me. “Just where do you think you’re going, kitten?”

His head, with its fantastic sex hair, blocked out the sun in the sky behind him, creating a halo effect and casting a soft shadow across his face. He was beautiful. I reached up and softly ran my fingers through his hair, my heart swelling with everything that was good and right in the world. “Kiss me, Noah.”

His eyes widened and his body stiffened. “Whoa … déjà vu.” His voice was barely a whisper, and the expression on his face was weird.

“What?”

Noah shook his head slightly. “Nothing.” He leaned down and brushed his lips across mine.

Usually our kisses were full of fire and passion, hungry. But this one? This one was sweet and delicate, controlled. And it made me horny as hell.

“Mmm,” I sighed in perfect contentment, and then opened my eyes to see him staring down at me with this look I’d never seen before. I’d always heard the eyes were the doorway to the soul, and right then I believed it.

“What are you thinking?” I asked him.

Noah smiled and shook his head. “About mud and blooming flowers. Let’s just leave it at that.”




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