Noe
It was true. The bigger they were, the harder they fell.
Stark went from being broody, abrupt, and bossy to passed out face down on the couch in the living room of the vacant loft he’d insisted on moving me to. I told him over and over again I didn’t need to be under lock and key, but the man was stubborn and only heard what he wanted to hear. I also told him I wasn’t interested in taking the scary black gun he forced on me after I admitted I knew how to handle a firearm. I didn’t like guns. I resented the false confidence they gave the person who had their finger on the trigger. If you couldn’t win a fight fairly, then you shouldn’t be fighting in the first place. In the end, I took the stupid thing because he looked like he was about to break.
Those slate eyes of his were full of a brewing storm, one that was getting closer and closer to shore. For a guy who was supposed to be mechanical and methodical, he was all over the place when we were alone together. There was nothing measured or meticulous when he apologized to me, there wasn’t any restraint or reserve when his eyes roved over my naked body. There was nothing but heat and appreciation. He didn’t look at me like he wanted to figure me out. He looked at me like he wanted to take me apart with his hands and his mouth. He looked hungry.
At first, I was so surprised to see him that I couldn’t move, and then it was the gleam in those hard eyes that kept me rooted to the spot, unable to cover up. There was something addicting about having a guy who typically ran so cold and indifferent burn at the sight of you. Snowden Stark might be part machine, but even the Terminator melted when things got hot enough. I wanted to crank up the heat and see what Stark would do. I wanted to know what it would take to turn him liquid and malleable, because I knew, for me, it was nothing more than the quirk of his eyebrow over those glasses and the way he shifted his big body when he was nervous or uncomfortable. He looked like a fighter, not a thinker, and it totally got to me when he put both those things aside and was nothing more than a vulnerable man who didn’t have all the answers.
I peeked over the back of the couch and stared at him for a second careful not to make a sound. He went down so hard it was clear he needed the rest, and I didn’t want to wake him up even though I was dying to know his plan to take on Goddard. I knew he had to have one.
He was always the man with the plan.
He was also the man who, even in his sleep, looked way too serious and intent. Between his dark eyebrows, there was a deep V of concentration. His glasses were sitting on the coffee table so I could see his sinfully long lashes flutter as he dreamed. The scar on the side of his head looked jagged and rough up close and totally contrasted with the diamond studs that decorated his ears. The tattoo that crawled along the side of his neck appeared to be an intricate biomechanical design, meant to look like the skin had been peeled away and all his inner workings were gears and wires instead of blood and bone. That same design traveled all the way over his heavy shoulder, underneath his t-shirt, and down his arm. It even covered the back of his hand, and once again, I was reminded of the Terminator. He very well could have been sent from the future to save us all, or he could decide to use his knowledge to bring nothing but doom and destruction to those he deemed the enemy.
He mumbled something in his sleep and shifted so that he was lying on his back, one of his arms hanging over the edge of the couch and touching the floor while his long legs hung over the arm. He didn’t fit. I imagined that was a pretty common problem of his since he was so damn big. The thought sent a surprising shiver racing down my spine and my eyes widened at the thought of other places that might be a tight squeeze for him.
When I first left home and hit the streets, I’d gone a little wild. I was so ashamed and frustrated by everything Aaron and the Cartwrights had put me through, I needed some sort of outlet, some way to prove it was my choice who I gave my body to. I burned through boy after boy because I could, and sometimes because it meant I had a safe and warm place to sleep for the night. At the time, I thought it was liberating and redemptive, but when I got older and ended up back in that house of horrors, I realized I was sleeping around to devalue what sex meant all together. I was trying to prove to myself that it was insignificant, to lessen the impact of the way Aaron had forced it on me for so long. When I escaped the second time, I promised myself I would make better choices all around, including the men I picked to spend time with. I understood I was worth more, and that it mattered when I decided to share my body with someone. I very rarely did anymore.
Occasionally, there was an old flame who drifted through the Point on his way to somewhere better, and we would get together. It worked for me because they were familiar and on the move. There was no awkward conversation about how our time together was nothing more than scratching an itch. All I was after was a mutually satisfying encounter with someone I respected and liked, someone who felt the same about me, and didn’t mind when I walked away in the morning.
I’d never been attracted to a guy like Stark before. There was nothing easy or predictable about him, and I wasn’t sure I liked or respected him after that day he shut the door in my face. I mean, I was totally intrigued by the stories I’d heard about him and the things he’d done, but the reality was completely different. He wouldn’t let me or anyone else handle him and he had the kind of secrets that I tended to run from. I didn’t like surprises, and he was nothing but one unknown after another. I’d also never been the girl who swooned over muscles and tattoos, but it was impossible not to get caught up in how hot he was. Even if I wasn’t invested in his razor-sharp mind, I’d admit to being weak in the knees over the rest of him. I was secretly hoping I’d get a turn to check him out when he was as naked as I’d been. I had a feeling I’d lose my mind and throw myself at him. Just once, I wanted to be with someone who could control me without scaring or threatening me.
Part of me felt that Stark was the only man who could do that because despite everything, I trusted him.
I pushed back from my lurking position and was turning to go to the kitchen where I had left my (his) laptop, when he abruptly made a strangled noise and started babbling, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” over and over again. His head was thrashing from side-to-side and his massive chest started to rise and fall rapidly. His mouth was moving without sound and that furrow in his brow dug in deeper. He looked like he was in some serious distress, and I wasn’t sure if it was better to let him battle it out himself or if I should try and wake him up. The way he was apologizing over and over again made me think he was dreaming about me and the way he unceremoniously sent me on my way, but then his hands curled into fists and he screamed, “Savina!” It was ripped out of him with such force that I fell back a step and put a startled hand up to my throat.
Stark jack-knifed up into a sitting position, eyes unclear, and panic etched in every line of his face and body. His head swiveled around like he was looking for something, eyes squinting when he realized he couldn’t see clearly. He shoved his fingers through his short hair, swung his legs over the edge of the couch, and blindly reached for his glasses. When he got to his feet, tension was rolling off his massive frame in waves. He was clearly unsettled that I’d been watching him and witnessed his memories ripping him apart in his sleep.
“I need some air. I’m gonna step out for a minute. Lock the door behind me.” He didn’t give me a chance to respond or ask what the hell had happened. He prowled to the door, every line of his body rigid and stiff. He slammed the door shut with more force than was necessary, and when he was gone, it was like a vacuum sucked all the life out of the space. Everything felt vacant and empty. My curiosity was buzzing bright and hot, so I finished making the trip to my laptop and powered it on, making sure the screen was facing the open kitchen so that if Stark suddenly reappeared, he wouldn’t get an eyeful of what I was about to Google.
The name Savina wasn’t one you heard every day, so I started with that and tacked on the name of the city where the Point and the Hill were located. I blinked when I got pages and pages of results. Savina and Snowden Stark. Fraternal twins that looked hauntingly alike, born to a Conroy and Geneva Stark. Conroy was some kind of nuclear physicist and Geneva was a biochemical engineer; it was no surprise that their kids were almost immediately tagged as gifted and accelerated. Snowden was a mathematical wizard and wrote code when he was only six years old. They called him the second coming of guys like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. The word prodigy was thrown around liberally when talking about both twins. Savina was a savant. She played the piano and earned a coveted spot at Juilliard when she was only ten. There was article after article about the family’s accomplishments and achievements. Stark designed a program that was used to predict highly probable terrorist attack sites, which the government bought for an obscene amount of money when the program accurately predicted the bombings of the subway system in London and the sarin gas attacks in the Tokyo subways in 1995. Not only did it predict the location, but also the type of attack for which officials should be on alert. There were a lot of conspiracy theories that the software would have accurately warned the US government about the attacks on 9–11 if they had been utilizing it properly. He was only twelve when they bought it, and four years after that, he disappeared into a governmental black hole. Some said he went to federal prison, some said he’d been recruited by an unnamed branch of the government. Stark had entire chatrooms and forums dedicated to him; he was a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream.
His sister also had a lot of chatter on the internet. Her chatrooms and forums were incredibly unnerving.
The girl was just as stunning as her brother: tall, dark-haired, and she had the same blue-gray eyes that looked like they were constantly trying to figure out how the entire world worked. Where Stark looked like a younger version of the man he was now, minus all the ink and bulk, his sister looked frail and almost waifish. She looked like prey.
I sucked in a breath as I kept scrolling, each headline screaming something worse than the one before. Geneva Stark was killed in a horrific chemical explosion at the lab where she worked. There was a lot of speculation that the explosion happened from the inside to cover up some kind of top secret research and development program. Conroy Stark was arrested for treason when he was accused of trading information on the US’s nuclear program with a foreign intelligence officer. They called him a traitor and a spy. The man was still locked up, and to this day was screaming that he’d been set-up and falsely accused. He swore up one side and down the other he didn’t have anything to do with government secrets and claimed that US intelligence wanted his son, that they had killed his wife to get their hands on young Snowden. It sounded like the ravings of a lunatic, but considering how leery Stark was of any kind of government official, I wondered if there was more to it than the rantings of a guilty man.
The worst were the headlines about Savina. She had risen to fame in the orchestral world. She toured and played for the rich and famous. Somewhere along the line, she also picked up more than one stalker. There was all kinds of press about how scared she was, how she considered quitting performing to go into hiding. There were paparazzi shots of the girl looking terrified, her face covered and her body hunched over. In the background of all those pictures was a furious looking Stark. He was trying to shield her from the lights and from so much more.
I wasn’t surprised at all when I found an article that had her obituary, which made me put a hand to my chest and blink back a hot rush of moisture that pressed at the back of my eyes. She couldn’t take the pressure or the constant threats. She couldn’t handle the loss of her mother and her father going to jail. The media was even more in her face after that. The demands of fame and fortune broke her. She took her own life, and the final picture was one of Stark, dressed in a somber, black suit as he threw a handful of dirt into a freshly dug grave. He looked tortured and turned inside out. His pain was obvious in every pixel of the grainy black and white photo. I could feel it, and I hated that.
The door opened with a swoosh and he strode through it looking far more composed than he had when he walked out. I shut the computer and propped a hand on my fist as I watched him walk across the room. He still looked tired, but he was always quick. All it took was a glance at me and at my closed laptop for him to put two and two together. He sighed as he made his way over to where I was leaning against the counter, fingers tapping on the back of the computer.
“Whatever you think you know, you don’t.” His voice was scratchy and rough.
I lifted an eyebrow and cocked my head to the side. “Is that so?”
He sighed again and dipped his chin in a slight nod. “Google barely scratches the surface. Trust me, you don’t want the real story. You don’t want anything to weigh you down, and every single part that fills in the blanks is heavy as hell.”
I stared at him silently as I worked through the fact that I kind of wanted some of that weight. He was carrying it all, and that had to be exhausting, even with his broad shoulders and strong back. He saved me when he didn’t want to. The least I could do was take some of that burden off him if he wanted to hand it over.
“I let you see a lot of the baggage I carry around with me, Stark. I’m here if you ever decide you want to hand off some of yours.” I couldn’t believe I was offering to take him on, but I really wanted to. In more ways than one. Snowden Stark was the first person in forever who lingered. I was very good at shaking off anyone who seemed like they were trying to get their hooks into me. With this man, I was thoroughly caught and not doing a very good job of wiggling free.
He smirked at me and crossed his arms over his chest. I tried not to ogle the way his muscles bulged and stretched the fabric of his shirt. “I never expected you to be sweet, Noe Lee. Angry, defiant, feisty, and rude. Those I’m prepared for, but sweet is a nice surprise.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not. “You haven’t given me a lot of reason to be sweet, Snowden.”
He grunted and shifted his gaze away from mine. “You’re right. I’ll have to work on that. I’m not really a guy who brings out the best in others. I’m not exactly personable.”
I slid around the edge of the counter so I was standing directly in front of him. The heat from his body radiated into mine, and it made my breath shudder. The current that pulsed between us had a life of its own as it sparked and popped with electricity that I swore I could almost see and smell.
“You’re challenging, Stark. Nothing wrong with that. The things we have to work for are the things we appreciate the most. Nothing that’s handed over without some kind of fight is worth holding onto.” I’d learned that each time I’d had to make a new life for myself. Each time it had pulled me away from everything I’d ever known. The first time, I’d had to fight to get free from the life I’d been forced into. The second time, I’d had to fight to stay free of the life I’d known. Now, I was fighting for a life that meant something, one that had value and purpose. He was going to be all kinds of effort and exertion. Something told me he was worth every single second of the effort.
“Not everyone likes a challenge.” His tone was dry but his eyes were watchful and alert. The pulse at the base of his throat leapt under his tattooed skin because he was a man and not a machine, no matter how hard he tried to fight it and cover it up.
I had to stand on my tiptoes to reach that throbbing vein. I put my fingers over the tender spot and felt his heart race as I leaned closer, eyes locked on his. He could crush me, literally and figuratively, but I trusted him not to. “I do. I thrive on tackling a challenge. The bigger, the better.”
His teeth flashed white and his eyes crinkled at the corners as he gave me the first real smile I’d ever seen on his harshly hewn face. It softened him, made him look younger and less world weary. His smile was irresistible and it sealed the deal for me. If he could smile like that when I was sweet, then I would make an effort to be sweet more often, and if I couldn’t stick to that plan, then I was just going to kiss the shit out of him every chance I got. I saw his smile brighten and his eyes widen as I threw my much smaller body into his. It was like hitting a wall. I felt the impact vibrate all the way down to my toes. I also felt my heart rate kick up and my nipples tighten as I pressed into the solid strength of his chest.
I had to stretch to get my arms around his neck, and we both gave a quiet groan as the move plastered my entire front to his. Nothing would move him if he didn’t want to be moved, but he lowered his head so I could reach his mouth. He tasted like coffee and sleepiness. His stubble was rough against my chin and fingertips, and I used a finger to trace his chiseled jaw line. I’d never been with anyone who was so overtly masculine before. I’d also never kissed anyone who wore glasses. The way they fogged up and tilted slightly to the side was fucking adorable and had me doing my best to shove my tongue down his throat even though he was taking things nice and easy.
There were no grabbing hands and aggressive teeth with Snowden Stark. The man kissed like he did everything else, deliberate, thorough, slow, and thoughtful. He was turning my head inside out as he traced the curve of my lips with the tip of his tongue, savoring every inch of my mouth. He lifted a hand so he could circle one of my wrists where it was propped up on his shoulder. His thumb gently moved in tiny circles over the abused skin and his simple caress turned my knees to water. I dug my fingers into the back of his neck, nails dragging through his short hair. I enjoyed the prickle of it against my fingertips and the brush of it against my palm.
His free hand smoothed over the curve of my hip and trailed to my backside so he could palm my ass. Everything about him was oversized. I’d never felt more feminine or breakable than I did under his hands. It made me shiver and kiss him even harder. He made a noise as I nipped at his lower lip with my teeth, but relented when I soothed the bite with a flick of my tongue that demanded he let me inside the warm cavern of his mouth. He complied with a soft chuckle that I felt between my legs. I shifted anxiously on my toes as my center throbbed and pressed involuntarily against the rigid length that was making itself known against my stomach. He was hot and huge. Like seriously, the thing was intimidating on its own without the rest of him that loomed in front of me.
Twining and twisting my tongue around the heat of his, I gasped into his mouth when I felt his other hand land on my ass. He used his hold to hoist me up as if I weighed nothing. I wrapped my legs around his lean waist and circled his neck in a death grip. I didn’t think he was going to drop me, but if he suddenly realized we were the worst two people in the world to be getting all tangled up in one another, he might. The boy was nothing if not logical, and eventually he was going to remember that we were a bad idea, nothing short of a bona fide disaster waiting to happen. For now, he kissed me back with as much enthusiasm as I had while I tried to devour him.
I knew what it was like to be hungry, so hungry you thought you might starve. When you finally got a bite, no matter how big or small it was, you inhaled it like you might never eat again. That’s what I was doing with Stark. I was taking as much as I could, since I didn’t know if I was ever going to get another taste.
I moaned and pressed my breasts into his chest when he used his hold on my hips to grind my soft, wet center against that straining erection that was like a steel pole between us. The friction made me squirm and had my thighs quivering. I couldn’t remember ever being this sensitive and this quick to turn liquid and ready before. That ever-present electrical current wrapped around every nerve pulsed with need. I could feel his heart pounding and the iron control he was exerting as he accepted what I gave but made no demands of his own. I wiggled in his hands, pressing closer, grinding down on his cock in frustration. I wanted the clothes between us to be gone, and I wanted him to want me with the same kind of uncontrolled fierceness I had for him. He made me reckless and it bothered me that he handled me so carefully.
I dragged my rough and uneven nails down the side of his neck and swallowed the moan that vibrated against my lips. I felt his fingers press into my backside and his chest rise and fall like he was struggling to breathe. He was on the edge and it wouldn’t take much to push him over. I pulled back a little bit so we were eye to eye, considering each other as we panted and pressed into one another. I was planning my attack. I wanted to push him. I wanted to prod him until he short-circuited like Booker warned me he would.
I never got the chance. As soon as we came up for air, his phone started to ring in his back pocket and he carefully set me down on my feet, hands lifting to my waist and setting me back a safe distance. He looked at his phone and told me he had to take the call, and although he didn’t tell me who had interrupted us, I saw Nassir’s face flash on the screen.
I rubbed my fingers over my swollen mouth and across the tender spots on my face where his whiskers had rubbed my skin raw. “I told you I could be sweet.” I smirked up at him and was surprised when he tossed back his head and let out a rusty, cracked laugh.
When he looked back at me, his eyes were glimmering with promise and so much potential for more unexpected moments of sweetness that it stole my breath.
“No one has ever been sweeter.”
He said it like he meant it and I knew I was in trouble. I didn’t have any room for him and his secrets, but somehow, I was already clearing space. Something told me I was going to have to get rid of everything that cluttered up my insides because Snowden Stark was about to fill up every nook and cranny. He would weigh me down more than any of the baggage from my past ever could. I knew that was going to be okay, that together we both would be okay.