The Cinnamon Bun Book Store (Dream Harbor, #2)(62)

‘This is a clever space,’ she said when he’d pulled her close again.

‘Yeah it’s not bad.’

‘So you stayed down here during all your adventures?’

‘For a lot of them, yeah.’

‘What’s the craziest thing you ever saw?’

She had a leg draped over his hip, his hands on her ass tugged her closer. ‘Um...’

He thought about it but his eyes were dark, his cheeks flushed like he wanted to think about other things. Do things other than chat.

‘I was up in Maine once, camping out and I swear I saw a werewolf.’

Hazel laughed. ‘No you didn’t.’

‘You calling me a liar, Hazel Kelly?’ He nuzzled against her neck, teeth scraping skin.

She sucked in a breath. ‘Werewolves aren’t real.’

‘Maybe not. But I saw one.’

‘How do you know it wasn’t a regular wolf?’

‘He was huge.’ Noah’s hands roamed freely over her body, his mouth, too. ‘With glowing eyes.’

Hazel huffed but she couldn’t concentrate well enough to argue, not with Noah’s fingers tracing paths across her stomach, grazing the underside of her breasts. He groaned against her lips.

‘Well, I’m glad you lived to tell the tale.’

‘Mmm ... me too,’ he rumbled, low and deep as he cupped her breast with one hand and squeezed her ass with the other. His erection was pressed hard against her center where she already ached for him. If the storm still raged outside, she was no longer aware of it.

‘This body, Haze.’ He groaned. ‘It does things to me.’

Her laugh was breathy, stuttering out of her as his thumb brushed across her nipple. Back and forth until all sensation was distilled down to that one point. She still could barely believe it, that her body did things to this man, but she did believe it. She believed him.

‘Does this boat come equipped with condoms?’ she asked and Noah stilled.

‘Haze,’ his voice was gruff, thick with want. ‘We don’t have to ... I mean, I know you don’t usually...’

‘I don’t usually what?’

He pulled back far enough so that they were face to face, his hand slipping from her breast to safer territory on her stomach.

‘From what you’ve told me, I know you don’t usually do casual sex and I know you’re trying to do new things here, but this is more than a little fun and I know we’re not actually ... I mean, we’re not...’

Hazel’s heart sank as Noah fumbled with his words. It was too painful, too embarrassing. She wouldn’t make him say it, wouldn’t make him admit out loud that they weren’t anything serious, that this thing between them wasn’t anything real.

She silenced him with a kiss. ‘It’s okay,’ she said, even though it wasn’t. ‘I know what this is. Casual, fun. But I want this with you, for now.’

Noah was watching her, studying her face. And if they weren’t so close, if she hadn’t gotten to know him so well over the past month she might not have noticed the trace of disappointment on his face. But she did. It was there and then gone before she could catch it, quickly replaced with a sexy smirk.

‘Great, yeah, me too. For now.’

‘Right. Good.’

He held her gaze a moment longer before he kissed her. He kissed her until she forgot why she was disappointed, until she didn’t care why he was kissing her only that he was.

It was the last week of her twenties, damn it, and she was going to enjoy it.

She could deal with her broken heart the day after her birthday.

Today, she’d survived a storm at sea and was currently tucked into bed with the sexiest man she’d ever had the privilege of touching.

Recklessness won the day.





Hazel’s warm body was wrapped around his, plush and beautiful, but all Noah could think about was the look on her face when he’d said they didn’t have to have sex ... that they weren’t anything.

It was a lie.

Hazel was everything.

Hazel was getting lost-in-your-favorite-book good, sun-on-your-face good, the-perfect-cup-of–coffee good. If Noah thought helping her these past two months, spending time with her, tasting her, touching her, was going to get her out of his system, he was a bigger idiot than even he realized.

His crush on the sexy bookseller had only blossomed into his favorite friendship and his sexual obsession all rolled into one.

He didn’t just have the hots for Hazel Kelly anymore, he was completely and inconveniently in love with her.

And for a minute he thought she felt it, too. That maybe that little look of disappointment on her face meant she wanted more, too.

But then she’d said casual fun and she might as well have tossed him overboard.

‘You okay?’ she murmured, her lips coasting down his neck.

‘Yeah. More than okay.’ Get your head in the game, Noah. This is what you’re good at. He would not let his over-the-top feelings for this woman ruin this moment with her. He’d had more than one fantasy that starred Hazel right here in this bed and he wasn’t about to let that go.

If this was the way he got to be with her then he’d take it every time she offered it.

And maybe that made him an idiot, but it made him an idiot with a nearly naked Hazel in his arms. Which was perfectly fine with him.