Sapphire Falls: Going Rate for Mr. Right (Kindle Worlds Novella) Read online

  “But can my dark secrets wait until after we’ve eaten?” Noah asked, breaking into her sentimental thoughts. “We’re almost to Mason and Adrienne’s secret picnic spot and my stomach is going to start growling loud enough for you to hear it before long.”

  “Yes.” She sniffed and pretended it was allergies not emotion making her eyes water. “Dark secrets can wait. I think dark secrets always go best with dessert, anyway.”

  “Like dark chocolate,” Noah said, nodding seriously. “Makes sense.”

  “A spoonful of sugar helps the dark secret go down,” she quipped, heart fluttering when he laughed and put an arm around her shoulders.

  “Come on, there’s a trail behind these bushes,” he said. “If we find it fast, I can be popping the top on a beer for you in less than five minutes.”

  “Sounds perfect.” She followed him around the shrubs and up a hidden dirt trail leading farther into the wilds surrounding town. She might not trust her own intuition, but she trusted Noah Riley. It didn’t make sense—if you combined every hour they’d spent together, it would barely make up the length of a Lord of the Rings movie—yet she couldn’t deny it.

  After her recent history, she should be too scared to trust the voice deep in her bones insisting that this man was one in a million, the one she could trust more than every other man she’d dated combined. But Noah’s arm around her felt too damned good and that voice was coming from a place Clint had never touched, a secret, primal place that insisted that in a world full of frogs and much, much worse, she’d finally found herself a prince.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Noah

  The picnic spot appeared around the next curve in the bend, a grassy place between two shade trees with a hammock big enough for two stretched between the trunks, but Noah only spared it a glance before his attention returned to the woman by his side. He couldn’t stop thinking about her last romantic relationship and the fact that it could have so easily been her last. If things had played out a little differently, he might never have met Yasmin North because a monster would have stolen her bright light away from the world.

  The thought made his chest ache and his arms long to pull her in for a long, hard hug.

  But they weren’t at that point in their relationship yet, and they might never be if he couldn’t find a way to convince her that he was worth putting her justifiably fearful heart back on the line. Because he wanted a chance at her heart, not just her stunning body or her clever mind.

  Sometime during the walk up Klein hill, he’d stopped fighting the crazy certainty that they were meant to be something important to each other. He couldn’t fight himself and fight for her at the same time. Well, he supposed he could, but he didn’t believe in dividing his energies. Once he decided to go for something—whether it was a patent on new software or funding to supply his latest educational outreach effort—Noah threw his entire self into the battle, body and soul.

  So when they were finished eating and were lounging on the quilt side by side, watching the sun sink behind the hills with their second round of cold beer bottles sweating gently in their hands, he didn’t pull any punches.

  “You read my medical records, so you know I had a bout with cancer, right?” he asked, taking a pull on his beer.

  She nodded seriously. “Yes. And that you lost your dad to the same cancer. I’m so sorry. That must have been hard.”

  “It was,” he said. “But the hardest thing about it wasn’t the diagnosis or the treatment; it was the way it changed the way I looked at the world. For the first few months, all I could think about was all the people who should have cancer instead of me. All the lazy, mean, lying, hurting, warring wastes of human flesh who deserved to suffer and die in my place. If I could have, I would have passed my cancer on to one of them in a heartbeat.”

  Unexpectedly, Yasmin smiled. “Is that your deep dark secret?”

  “One of them,” he said, brows drawing together. “It’s an ugly time in my life that I’m not proud of.”

  She put a hand on his thigh. Her fingers were cool from holding her beer, but her touch still sent heat pulsing across his skin. “We all have thoughts like that. Or at least, most of us do. We know that the world isn’t fair—that good people get cancer, and bad people make millions running corporations that are destroying our planet—but that doesn’t mean we can’t wish it were different. That doesn’t make you ugly inside, that makes you human.”

  He grunted softly. “Maybe. But I was still ashamed of myself.” He spun his beer between his fingers. “And I was a little surprised that someone would want my sample, honestly, knowing that I had a history of cancer in my family.”

  “Every sample I looked at had a genetic downside in one area or another,” she said. “And you beat cancer. You took it to the mat and came back healed and whole. To me, that was the sign of a fighter, someone strong enough to take the blows life deals out and come back swinging.” She looked up, studying him in the fading light. “And now that I’ve met you, I know that I was right.”

  His lips curved, wondering what she would think if she knew she was what he was most interested in fighting for at the moment.

  “What?” Her lips curved in an uncertain smile as she brushed a finger down either side of her pretty mouth. “Do I have food on my face?”

  He shook his head. “No, you have beautiful on your face.”

  Her cheeks flushed, but she didn’t look away. “Thank you. You’ve got some of that on yours, too. But don’t think you’re going to wiggle out of secret time that easily. I want a dark secret, Riley. Something that will make my eyebrows lift at least a little bit.”

  He sighed, shaking his head. “Okay, but I expect quid pro quo after this one.”

  She nodded. “Done.”

  “So, when I was in undergrad, there was this girl I really liked. Kimmy Smith,” he said, the skin at the back of his neck prickling with shame. “But she was dating one of my fraternity brothers. A guy named Rick who had a habit of bringing girls who weren’t Kimmy back to his room on weekends when she went to visit her grandparents in Santa Barbara.”

  “Rat,” Yasmin said, wrinkling her nose. “And she had no idea?”

  He shook his head. “None. He was her first love, and she assumed they were in it for the long haul. I think he thought so, too. He’d given her a promise ring, and they talked about where they were going to live after graduation, but I couldn’t stand the thought of her building a life with a man who had been cheating on her for years.” He sighed. “So one weekend I set up a camera in Rick’s room. I edited out the more graphic stuff before I sent Kimmy a copy of the footage, but she still saw way more than she wanted to see of her boyfriend and another naked girl. She broke up with him as soon as she got back on campus from her weekend away.”

  “Good for her!” Yasmin nodded firmly. “No less than the jerk deserved.”

  “Yeah, well…maybe. But Kimmy didn’t deserve to have it shoved in her face like that. She wasn’t the kind of person who could handle ugly things.” He set his beer down in the grass beside the quilt, watching a drop of condensation dribble down the amber glass. “She tried to kill herself that night. Slit her wrists. If her roommate hadn’t forced her way into the bathroom and called 911, Kimmy wouldn’t have lived through her first heartbreak.”

  Yasmin’s breath rushed out. “Damn. That poor kid.”

  “Yeah,” Noah said, propping his elbows on his bent knees. “So that’s my deepest, darkest secret.”

  Her arm went around his shoulders, comforting and sweet. “You didn’t know she would react that way, Noah. And she shouldn’t have. I mean, I remember how overwhelming that first heartbreak can be, but most of us know it’s not worth dying over. She clearly had issues that went deeper than having a scumbag cheater boyfriend.”

  “So what about you?” he said, not ready to be absolved of his guilt just yet. Sometimes guilt was a good thing. It kept you from making the same dumb mistakes twice. “What’s your deep
dark secret?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I mean it, Noah. That wasn’t your fault. You shouldn’t carry the weight of that on your soul. It happened so long ago, and your heart was in a good place.” She rubbed a hand in soothing circles on his back. “Even your deep dark secrets are very knight in faded blue jeans.”

  “You’re sweet.” He brushed the hair from her temple with two fingers. “Do people tell you that a lot?”

  Her lips twisted. “No. They don’t. I usually do a good job of hiding the sweet beneath my feisty outer shell.”

  “I guess I just see through you.” He held her gaze, feeling the air between them grow thick with possibilities.

  “Maybe you do,” she said softly. “But if that’s true, then you know that I haven’t given up on getting what I want from you. That’s probably my deepest, darkest secret right now, Noah. I like you, and I want to be your friend, maybe even more than your friend, but I also want my baby. My baby, with no baby daddy strings attached.”

  He smiled. “Is that your way of telling me you aren’t interested in getting into the hammock with me and seeing what happens?”

  “The hammock?” she asked, lips curving wickedly. “An acrobatic choice, Mr. Riley. Sounds dangerous if you ask me.”

  “We could stay on the quilt, but I think you enjoy a little danger, Miss North.”

  A light sparked in her eyes. “You’re not serious.”

  He shrugged, the casual gesture at odds with the pounding of his heart. “Probably not. I shouldn’t be; I know that. Just like I shouldn’t tell you that from the moment I met you something in my gut has been shouting that I can’t let you walk away. Not until I find out where this could go between us.”

  She shook her head even as her face drifted closer to his. “That’s crazy, Noah. We barely know each other. And you live in San Francisco and I live here, and—”

  “And this conversation should wait,” he said, reaching up to capture her chin lightly in his fingers. “Until I tell you one more deep, dark secret.”

  “What’s that?” she whispered.

  “That I lay awake all night last night dreaming about doing this.” He bent his head, capturing her warm, firm lips with his own. The moment his skin brushed hers, sending electricity streaking across his nerve endings, setting his already pounding heart to racing, he knew this wasn’t a mistake.

  Nothing that felt this good, this right, could be wrong.

  He deepened the kiss, his tongue slipping between her lips, tasting barbecue and beer and a light, mysterious taste that was this fascinating woman. She tasted like clear mountain spring water and secrets hidden beneath the snow, waiting for the thaw, and when she threaded her fingers through his hair and began to return the kiss in earnest, he knew he would do whatever it took to discover every part of her. Every secret, every wish. He wanted to memorize the landscape of her soul and then make all her dreams come true.

  The kiss soon grew deeper, hotter, their tongues dancing as their breath came faster. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders through his tee shirt, and his fingers pressed into her full hips through her dress and his cock swelled until it threatened to rip a hole through his jeans. And when they rolled onto the quilt, his body covering hers, he knew he’d never been anywhere as perfect as the valley between her thighs.

  “Damn, Riley,” she whispered into his mouth, breath catching as he rocked gently against her through their clothes. “It isn’t fair.”

  “What isn’t fair?” He smoothed a hand from her waist to her ribs, stopping short of her breast, not wanting to rush a moment of this.

  “That you’re gorgeous, a genius, a nice guy, and can kiss like this.”

  He smiled against her lips. “You’re not too shabby yourself, beautiful.”

  “Not too shabby? I’m an amazing kisser,” she said, rolling her hips, nudging his cock through his jeans, swiftly making his head feel too light for his body. “Admit it. You can’t remember the last time you had a first kiss this good.”

  “I’ve never had a first kiss like this,” he said, the words out before he could think about playing it cool.

  But then, he’d never been cool. He was a nerd from way back and proud of it, which was why he had to put a stop to this before things went any further. No matter how much he was tempted to make love to her on this quilt and think about the ramifications later, he was a thinker. It was in his DNA.

  “But as much as I would like to stay here and kiss you, we should probably start back,” he said, catching her wrists in his hands and pinning them to the quilt above her head. “It will be dark before too long.”

  “Not for another hour at least,” she said, tongue slipping out to wet her irresistible lips. “We could get into a lot more trouble before then.”

  “I know we could,” he said. “But I think we have a few things to sort out before we get into any more trouble. Don’t you? Just to make sure no one gets hurt?”

  “I suppose so.” She sighed, and her thighs relaxed their grip around his waist. “Should I be offended that you can think straight while lying on top of me with a spectacular hard-on?”

  He smiled as he rolled to one side and sat up, ignoring the unhappy twitching of his cock. “You know how to flatter a man. But no, you shouldn’t be offended. Thinking straight is both my gift and my curse.”

  She remained flat on her back, wrinkling her nose. “If you say so.”

  He braced one hand on the quilt and leaned his face close to hers. “I do say so. And I mean it. It’s not easy to pull away from you, but I don’t want any regrets between us. When I make love to you for the first time, I want to know that we’re both all in.”

  Her eyes widened. “All right. But please make an effort not to get any sexier, okay? I’m not sure how much more I can resist.”

  “Ditto,” he said, pressing a kiss to the tip of her nose. “So when can I see you again?”

  She sat up, reaching for the sandals she’d kicked off when they’d settled in for dinner. “Um, I don’t know. I’m pretty free this week. Just virtual assistant stuff in the mornings and helping my mom with the petting zoo in the afternoons. But I can skip out on the petting zoo whenever. Mom’s used to managing without me.”

  He nodded. “Then how about tomorrow night? I got drafted into helping set up the mud run obstacle course tomorrow afternoon, but—”

  “Oh my God!” She turned, grabbing his wrist. “Really? You’re so lucky! I’ve been dying to get on that crew for years.”

  “Really?” he asked, laughing. “You enjoy getting up to your elbows in mud?”

  “Absolutely,” she said, surprising him. “I love obstacle courses. But Spark and Steve never let girls on the Mud Run course creation crew.”

  “Ridiculous. And sexist,” he said, grinning when she huffed in agreement. “So why don’t you come work with me tomorrow? Help dig around in the mud and then we can go get ice cream or something?”

  “That sounds amazing.” She stood with an easy grace before turning back to him with a wink. “And we’re not likely to get into any trouble if we’re busy getting muddy.”

  He gazed up at her, admiring the elegant curves of her body, highlighted by the setting sun. “I don’t know about that. I bet you’ll look pretty sexy muddy.”

  Her grin faded as she crossed her arms at her chest. “So when do we sort things out? My appointment is this coming Monday. The doctor said I could cancel as late as the morning of, but…”

  “I’m set to fly out Sunday afternoon,” Noah said, sobering at the reminder of just how serious she was about moving forward with her plans. “Why don’t we enjoy the next few days and agree to come to final decisions on Saturday. Sound good?”

  She cocked her head to one side. “Not really, but I can tolerate a few days of uncertainty as long as I know you’re still seriously considering things.”

  He stood, taking her hand in his. “I’m seriously considering everything about you. All I ask is that you do the same.”

&
nbsp; “And what would you like me to consider?” she asked.

  “Putting the baby plans on hold and giving this thing between us a shot. I can move up my plans to relocate to Sapphire Falls, and we can date like normal people with no sperm sample hovering over our heads.”

  She sighed, but she didn’t call him crazy again, which he decided to take as a good sign. “All right,” she finally whispered. “I’ll consider it, but that’s all I can promise. My past is still my past, Noah. No matter how much I would like to erase it, it’s a part of who I am and it’s changed me. I don’t know if I can believe in this kind of thing anymore. Especially, that it can be easy.”

  He moved closer, pulling her into his arms. “Then I’ll just have to do my best to change your mind.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Yasmin

  By the time Yasmin got home Wednesday night, it was too late for phone calls to Texas, but bright and early Thursday morning, she settled into her breakfast nook with a cup of coffee to call her friend Layla. If anyone could give her advice on how to move on after an ugly relationship, it was Layla Lawson. Layla might be living happily ever after with a red hot cowboy now, but not long ago she was in a marriage that gave new meaning to the word nightmare.

  But she’d gotten out, learned to trust her own heart again, and moved on with the man of her dreams.

  Yasmin hadn’t wanted to bother Layla with her questions before—she knew Layla had her hands full with her new baby—but now she didn’t see any other way forward. She needed advice, and she needed it now before she did something she would live to regret.

  “Good morning,” Layla said, delight clear in her tone. “Your ears must have been burning. I was just talking about you.”

  “Really?” Yasmin smiled. “Good things I hope.”