Rebecca York - More Than a Man

“Like I said, he was grieving. He just needed someone to point out that he has responsibilities back home.”

“But you didn’t say that the accident in the sub was his brother’s fault.”

Noah stiffened. “What makes you think it was?”

“I saw the way you reacted. You were itching to tell him what really happened, but you didn’t.”

He sighed. “What Eddie Carlson did isn’t important now. The fundamental point is that I provided the money that got three guys killed.”

“You were taking your chances underwater with them.”

His hand on her arm tightened. “I really did have an advantage over them.”

“So it was true—about that special training.”

“Why do you think it wasn’t?”

“Something…”

He looked around, as though he’d just realized they were standing in a public space, embracing and discussing a very private incident from his life.

After a few seconds’ hesitation, he said, “Here’s an interesting choice. Do you want to come to my room—or get as far away from me as you can get?”

“Why would I do that?”

“This is the second time somebody’s attacked me in the past few days.”

She caught her breath. “You’re kidding.”

“I wish I were.”

“Do you attract trouble?”

He answered with a harsh laugh. “Not usually with such alarming regularity. I hope the planets aren’t in some horrible alignment.”

“You believe in astrology?”

“I’ve studied it. It’s interesting. A way for men—” He stopped and shook his head. “A way for people to make some sense of their lives before modern science offered better explanations.”

“A lot of times, modern science wars with superstition. I still cringe when I break a mirror.”

He laughed. “You and most other people. Because we’re still tied to our roots—to the prehistoric cave dwellers huddled around their fires, warding off the monsters in the darkness.”

“Are you an anthropologist?”

“No, it’s just another one of my hobbies.”

She nodded, fascinated with him and at the same time thinking that walking away from him would be the smart thing to do. But she knew she wasn’t going to be smart. Not tonight.

Instead, she walked with him to his room.

It was actually a luxury suite with a plush living room, a well-stocked bar and a bedroom beyond.

When he closed the door, she saw him let out a deep sigh, and she was pretty sure he was more shaken by his encounter with Mr. Carlson than he’d let on. As she looked at him, she wanted to make the hurt go away.

Reaching around him, she snapped the security lock and set down her purse on the long table beside the door. The purse contained a cell phone she was supposed to use to call Pearson just by pressing a button. However, if she didn’t use it, he wouldn’t even know where she was.

Yet her nerves were still jumping.

Noah Fielding had held her just a few minutes earlier, but that had been outside after the attack. This was in his private suite, where everything was different. Intimate.

Or had the feeling of intimacy come from the shared danger?

He must have understood that she needed a little time to sort out her emotions because he walked to the entertainment unit at the side of the room, put the gun in a drawer and turned on an audio channel of soft, slow music.

The sophisticated arrangement appealed to her. So did the man. When he turned, she gave him a small smile, then walked back into his arms.

They were almost the same height, which made him the perfect dance partner for her.

For just a moment, that made her sad. She would never dance again professionally because her leg no longer had the stamina. But she could dance for fun and she would get through her trouble and make her life over again.

He didn’t pull her tightly against his body as he led her around the room in time to the music. His rhythm was flawless. He must be a natural dancer, she thought.

They didn’t speak. She just let herself enjoy being with him. Enjoy his subtle scent. His firm touch. His masculinity.

And enjoy the dancing. She hadn’t done it in a long time and she knew she’d have trouble with a complicated routine—even in ballroom dancing. But this was relaxed.

By degrees, both of them moved closer together until finally he held her tightly against his body, pressing her breasts against his chest.

Until then she’d felt a slow buildup of sensations. Now they gathered into a jolt of arousal.

She hadn’t expected it. No, that was a lie. Noah Fielding was a very sexy man. She would have been surprised if she hadn’t reacted so strongly.

With one of his large hands, he pushed back her hair and stroked his lips against her cheek, waiting for her to make the next move. All she had to do was turn her head and her lips would meet his.

It was her choice.

If she kissed him, nothing in her life would ever be the same. But how could that be? She didn’t even know if she would see him again after tonight.

Still, something real had flared between them. Something more than sexual.

She sensed that he held his breath, silently waiting for her to make a decision about the two of them. She stayed where she was, her lips slightly parted.

Finally, because it was what she wanted, she turned her face, cupped the back of his head and brought his lips to hers.

The first mouth-to-mouth contact was undemanding, yet it was electric and rich with promise.

She heard herself make a small needy sound. Accepting her invitation, he increased the pressure of his lips on hers, then tipped his head first one way and then the other, changing the angle, changing the pressure and charging the moment with his powerful sexuality.

As the heat of the kiss flared hotter, he slid one hand down her body, pulling her hips against his erection.

The potency she sensed made her moan. When she found it impossible to hold still, she moved against him.

It had been a long time since she’d been with a man this way. A man who turned on every one of her senses. Long before her accident, actually. When she’d first come to Vegas, she’d enjoyed the attention men gave a woman they’d seen up on stage. Then she’d realized it was nothing personal. They wanted to seduce one of the glittering women who were hired for their looks and talent.

The woman would stay in Vegas, and they’d come home feeling like a conquering hero.

This was different. This man didn’t see her as a trophy. His focus on her was very personal. She knew it from the delicate way his hands stroked her hips and from the way his mouth moved over hers.

As her insides turned liquid, she pictured the two of them naked on the bed in the next room. Him on top of her, their bodies intimately joined in the age-old dance of love.

The explicit image shocked her. She had met this man less than an hour earlier, yet she was ready to make love with him.

Breaking the kiss, she looked at him, seeing the dazed look in his eyes, and knowing he was affected as deeply as she was herself.

The knowledge should have been reassuring. Instead, to her utter horror, she burst into tears.

Olivia felt Noah stiffen. Leaning back, he stared down at her.

“Sorry. I’m so sorry,” she managed to get out between sobs.

She wasn’t any kind of delicate little doll a man could easily pick up, but he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the sofa, where he sat down, still cradling her against him.

“I thought…”

“My fault,” she said between sobs.

Cradling her tenderly in his arms, he let her cry.

JARRED Bainbridge had learned to trust his hunches. Still, the first report on Noah Fielding startled him.

As far as he could tell, the man didn’t exist.

Well, he’d been on that experimental sub. A whole bunch of people had seen him, interacted with him. He’d financed the expedition, and he’d been staying at a bed-and-breakfast in George Town.

But within hours of being pulled from the sub, he’d left the island on a small, private jet. The plane had refueled in Chicago, then gone on to L.A. And that was the last anyone knew of Noah Fielding.

He’d vanished into thin air.

Had he gotten off in Chicago? Or had he gone on to the West Coast? Nobody knew.

Which meant the man had gone to considerable trouble to hide his whereabouts in a day and age when most people’s movements were a matter of record.

If Fielding had his methods, so did Jarred Bainbridge. He picked up the phone and made a call to the security service he used. “I want to know where to find Noah Fielding. And I want to know it now.”

NOAH cradled Olivia in his arms, rocking her gently. He’d been right; she was in some kind of trouble. He could tell she’d been holding herself together by strength of will. But she’d been through too much tonight to maintain her composure. That encounter with Carlson had scared her spitless. And her roiling emotions had sent her crashing into Noah’s arms.

Well, maybe that wasn’t fair. He had felt the powerful attraction between them right from the first, and he’d worried that he was taking advantage of her after the attack. Then he’d let his pleasure of holding her and kissing her take over.

The taste of her had been sweet and heady. So had her response to him. That was the most powerful aphrodisiac of all. He’d thought they were headed for a very stimulating session in the bedroom, until her emotions had taken another wild swing.

He bent to stroke his lips against her beautiful golden hair. He’d been intimate with thousands of women, yet this one stirred him as few of them had.

Once again he thought of how much she reminded him of Ramona, although the two of them looked nothing alike. But there was some innate facet of her personality that was the perfect foil for his own dark view of life. She might be in trouble now, but she would always try to find the good in every situation and every person.

He and Olivia Stapler could mean something important to each other—if he dared to let it happen. And if they did, he would lose her and it would take him years to recover from the loss. That was the risk he faced at this moment.

’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Alfred Lord Tennyson had said that in 1850, in a poem called “In Memoriam.” Noah wasn’t sure it was true. Tennyson had lived a normal life span. How many times had the poet known the pain of lost love?

OLIVIA struggled to conquer the flood of emotions that had swooped down on her without warning. Finally she was able to stifle the tears.

Noah shifted her weight so that he could reach into his pocket and bring out a handkerchief, which he handed to her.

She stared at the folded square of white linen. “What kind of man carries a handkerchief?”

He laughed softly. “It’s an old habit.”

She blew her nose. “I guess chivalry isn’t dead.”

He shook his head. “One man can’t keep it alive.”

“But you try.”

“It’s too much of a responsibility.” The way he said it made her wonder if he wasn’t half serious. Before she could work her way through that, he asked, “Better?”

“Yes. Thanks.”

She tipped her head to the side, studying him. “You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“You know it’s good.”

He shrugged. “Few people have the insight to see the impact they make on others.”

She laughed. “I did. When I was working as a dancer. I was talented, but it was pretty obvious men saw me as a sex object.”