CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Cat hurried down the sidewalk as quietly as she could. It was nearly midnight, and snow flurries were dancing on the night air. Filming had given way to two conference calls, a quick sit-down with the story editor, and then rewriting the call sheets for tomorrow. She and Drake were going to have to sit-down for another round of one-on-ones to round out the Hai episode. She’d barely made a dent in her miles-long social media notifications, but she wanted Noah. Wanted his arms around her. Wanted to hear that slow, dependable beat of his heart.
She’d texted him, booty called him if she was being honest, which Cat always tried to be with herself. Of course, booty calls weren’t supposed to spend the night wrapped up in each other like lovers. It was just how they ended up after… It was how she hoped they’d end up tonight. She loved waking up and feeling his heart beat. Trying to wriggle away only to have his grip tighten on her. Even in his sleep he wanted to keep her close. It made her feel… treasured.
They were sneaking around like teenagers. And Cat loved it. Just yesterday, she’d ducked into her trailer for a snack and a nap and found Noah on his lunch break waiting for her. Naked. They were both late getting back to work, and Cat couldn’t seem to wipe the smug smile off her face for the rest of the day.
Two days before that, a chance run-in at the grocery store led to some heavy petting in the parking lot. They’d had to duck down beneath the windows of Cat’s truck, giggling, when Velma Murdock wandered by consulting her shopping list. Every night that Noah spent in her trailer, he arrived under the cover of darkness and crept out before dawn. And when Sara was with Mellody, Cat sprawled, sated and smiling, across Noah’s big bed.
No one was any the wiser, at least not that they’d let on. And in a town of Merry’s size, if there was news, everyone knew it by lunchtime. They were careful to remain professional around others. But alone? There were no rules, no barriers, no strings.
They’d seemed to settle into a limbo of relying entirely on the present, never discussing the future.
It was just the way Cat liked it. She’d be leaving soon enough and didn’t want anything complicating that. She couldn’t imagine moving on to the next project while her heart was still with the last. It wasn’t how she worked, how she lived. Newer was better, more exciting. There was always another adventure around the next corner. She just needed to keep turning corners to find them.
As her days in Merry ticked down, she had to admit there was a pull here. The town, the people, Noah. Cat couldn’t remember feeling more at home anywhere else besides her grandmother’s kitchen.
A dog barked from a second-floor apartment over the drycleaners, and Cat pulled the wool cap lower. She was a spy, a ninja of the night. Meeting her secret lover for a midnight tryst. The image made her smile.
She was two blocks from Noah’s house. Noah’s warm, childless house. With his comfortable couch, his big screen TV, his rumpled bed, his warm, capable hands…
She was daydreaming. That’s why she didn’t see it coming, the arm that snaked out from the alleyway, hooking around her waist and pulling her into the dark.
She didn’t need to see his face. Her body recognized Noah’s, even under all the layers.
“Are you mugging me?” she asked, slyly pressing her cold face to his neck.
“I’m walking you home.” The words came out in a silvery cloud, and she could feel the heat of his breath against her face.
What was it about the man that made her feel… happy? A warm Sunday kind of happiness. Soft glowing embers and meaningful smiles. He was her warm, safe place. Temporarily, of course.
“I know where you live,” Cat teased.
“We’re secret lovers,” Noah insisted. “You need my help sneaking over the fence in the backyard so no one sees us.”
“Why don’t we just go in the front door?” Cat asked.
“I saw Mrs. Appleby’s blinds twitching since nine tonight. I think she’s watching, waiting.”
Cat laughed, and they started down the alley. “Well, we can’t get caught. I never got caught. It would ruin my perfect streak.”
“You snuck out when you were a kid?”
Cat slipped her arm through Noah’s in the privacy of the dark night. “I was very stealthy.”
“Did you meet boyfriends after curfew?” Noah asked.
“On occasion.” Rules of good conduct held no allure for Cat, not now and not when she was a teenager.
“I want to be impressed, but all I can imagine is the fresh hell I’ll be living with Sara in a few years.”
Cat rested her head on his shoulder as they walked. “She’s a good kid and comes from two great parents. I think you’ll all survive.”
“I appreciate your vote of confidence.”
“Do you wish you’d grown up differently?” Cat asked.
Noah scanned the night quietly. She could hear his wheels turning, weighing his answer.
“If I could go back and have two parents that came to my baseball games and cheered. A dad who took me fishing. Food on the table every night. Heat in the winter. Clothes when they were needed. If I could have all that and still end up right here, right now, I would wish it.”
Cat rubbed his arm with her hand. “But since you can’t?”
He looked down at her. His eyes sparkling in the light of the lone streetlamp. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be. Except maybe in my bed with you.”
“I hate that you had to grow up that way, Noah.” The pain of knowing that he’d suffered, that he’d been scared and unprotected, welled up in her unexpectedly. “You deserved better.”
He stopped, pulled her around to face him. “I wouldn’t change anything, Cat. Not since it brought me right here.”
Using the thumb of his glove, he brushed snowflakes off her eyelashes.
“Do me a favor, Noah?” Cat breathed.
“Anything.”
“Kiss me right here, right now.” She wanted to remember this. The feeling that it was just the two of them in the whole world under a sky of stars and snowflakes.
Understanding what she was asking, he lowered his lips to her gently, softly. They melted, melded like metal. Warm and sweet. Noah’s lips moved over hers until she opened to him. Cat fisted her mittened hands on to the lapels of his jacket for life as he brazenly, tenderly left a mark on her heart.
There was something about this man, this night, this town that had worked its way under her skin to swim through her veins.
Tenderly, he tasted her as if he had all the time in the world to sample and tease.
She breathed him in, his air, his scent, his flavor. Inhaling Noah.
It was a mistake. She shouldn’t have asked for this. Should have kept it light. But the kiss was the light, a new kind of illumination that warmed her and guided her.