Flirting With the Forbidden (13 page)

‘Dammit, Riley, you are like my—’

Morgan put her hand against her mouth to stifle her laughter as Riley, obviously naked beneath a silky short robe, plastered her mouth against James’s and slapped her hands on his butt. She kissed him thoroughly and with some skill, Morgan noticed, and when they came up for air James looked shell-shocked.

‘You didn’t say that when you were moaning my name in the throes of passion last night.’

‘Ri—okay. But—’

‘I am not your sister or your friend. And I’m done pining away for you. You have ten seconds to decide if you want to explore this heat we have always had or whether you are walking away for good. But you should know that if you walk that’s it. You don’t get a second chance.’

‘Riley, I—’

‘Ten seconds, nine, eight, seven—’

‘It’s not that easy.’

Yes, it is, you ass!
Morgan wanted to shout.
She’s the best thing that ever happened to you!

‘Six, five, four, three...’

Morgan bit her lip as her best friend counted down and her stupid brother just stared at her with miserable eyes. Morgan closed her own eyes at the immense pain she saw in Riley’s before the door closed in James’s face.

Morgan fought the urge to step into the passage and slap some sense into James. She knew it wouldn’t help. James was as stubborn as she was—maybe more. She couldn’t help him see what was right in front of his face; couldn’t force him to feel love when he didn’t.

Morgan watched him walk down the passage and then glanced to Riley’s closed door. To knock or not to knock? Normally she would just barge in there and offer comfort, curse her brother just to make Riley smile. But she suspected that this went too deep, meant too much, and her gut instinct was to leave Riley alone. She would reach out when she could and when she was ready to.

In the meantime she had her own six-foot-three man to find.

* * *

Morgan, dressed in a very brief pair of faded denim shorts, flip-flops and a tank top—early autumn in South Africa still spiked the temperatures to boiling—took the cup of coffee Mariah poured her and with a muffin in her hand walked out through the back door of the house. Mariah had said that she’d seen Noah walk in the direction of the southside vines and the dam, and that was nearly an hour ago.

Morgan, munching on her cheese and spinach muffin and sipping her coffee, tipped her face to the sun and pulled in deep breaths of fresh mountain air. She wished that they weren’t flying out later tonight, that she and Noah could hang out here a bit longer. There was no security threat, no pollution, no crazy traffic, no boring functions to attend, no ball to organise. It was impossible, but it was a lovely dream to indulge in as she looked for her lover-slash-bodyguard.

Morgan dusted her hands against the seat of her pants to get rid of the crumbs and waved to some labourers working the vines.

And there he was, Morgan thought, sitting on the edge of the dam, his arms loosely linked around his knees, his dark hair glinting in the sun. He hadn’t shaved and his stubble gave him a rugged look that had her mouth watering. Warmth pooled between her legs as she remembered the feel of those back muscles that red T-shirt covered, the hard butt underneath his cotton shorts. He was beautiful: masculine grace wrapping a fantastically loyal spirit and a sharp brain.

Morgan approached him quietly, covered his eyes with her hands and whispered in his ear. ‘Guess who?’

Noah didn’t say anything. He just pulled her hands down and held her arms so that she was plastered against his back, her head next to his, her breasts mashed into his chest.

‘You okay, Noah?’ she asked quietly. ‘What’s going on in that head of yours, soldier?’

A part of him—a big part of him—wished he could open up, just release all this churned-up emotion inside him. He wanted to tell her that he couldn’t decide whether he regretted sleeping with her or not...that being with her had been everything he’d dreamt of and more and also, on the other hand, his biggest nightmare. He’d lost himself in her body, had adored every minute of her, and he mourned his lack of self-control as he’d lost himself in her. He wanted to tell her that when she’d drifted off in the early hours of this morning he’d just lain next to her and watched her breathe.

She’d decimated him with her soft lips, her whispered moans, her delicate hands on his not-so-delicate body. She’d touched his heart with her murmurs of delight, her whispers of gratitude at the way he made her feel, and his heart had swelled when he’d heard his name on her lips as he tipped her over into orgasm time and time again.

But on the flipside of the coin he hadn’t even started to think what effect sleeping with her would have on his job, on his ability to keep her safe. They’d caught four more kidnappers but another gang could be contracted tomorrow. Until the situation in Colombia was definitively resolved she wouldn’t be completely safe, so he would remain in place as her bodyguard. Would thoughts of what they did to and with each other distract him if something else happened? Would he be less sharp, less aware, less able to say no to her when she wanted to do something or be somewhere that could place her in danger?

Morgan pulled her hands out of his grasp and sat down beside him on the grassy bank, staring at the water. Now and again the water rippled as a trout broke the surface to look for food. In another life he could imagine being here with Morgan, casting a fly while she lazed on the bank, a glass of wine in her hand.

Noah leaned back on his hands and looked past the dam to the vines in their perfect rows, and from there to the purple-blue mountain looming over the farm. ‘It’s such a stunning place, Morgs. I can’t understand why you’re in New York when you can be here.’

‘Clients, mostly. But I should take more time to come back here.’ Morgan pushed her hair behind her ears. Then she placed her palm on Noah’s thigh, gently squeezed and lifted it again. ‘Please don’t regret what happened between us, Noah. It was too good for regrets.’

‘It’s so complicated, Morgan,’ he said in a gruff voice.

‘I think you make it a great deal more complicated than it is,’ Morgan replied. ‘We’re friends who have shared our bodies. We had a great deal of fun, and if we do it again we’ll have fun again.’

Noah frowned. ‘So, you’re not looking forward? Expecting anything from me?’

Morgan crossed her legs, picked a blade of grass and ran it through her fingers. ‘I was talking to Riley about this a little while ago, and spending more time with you has just reinforced my opinion that I’m not cut out to be with someone long-term.’

Noah frowned, utterly confused. ‘Why not?’

‘I’ve shielded you from my dyslexia—shielded you from what I go through on a daily basis. I shield everyone. I never read the news; I watch it. I try to avoid writing anything down because my handwriting looks like a chicken’s scrawl and I can’t spell. At all. I don’t drive unless I know exactly where I am and the route I’m travelling, and I never drive in New York or any other city.’

‘Okay.’

‘On the few occasions I do write something on the computer I call Riley to check the spelling.’

‘Um...spellcheck?’ Noah volunteered.

‘It doesn’t help if you don’t recognise the word, Noah.’

Oh, flip.
He hadn’t thought of that.

‘Look, I’ve done tons of research on dyslexia and there are a couple of things I can’t wrap my head around. Both of them involve a steady relationship. One is that if I get involved then I can’t do it halfway. I’d want the whole bang-shoot. Marriage, kids...everything. Having kids is a risk, because dyslexia is hereditary and I couldn’t bear it if my husband blamed me for his child struggling at school. The other is that one day, as hard as I will try to prevent it, my partner will feel frustrated with me and then disappointed. Quickly followed by him thinking that, despite how hard we’ve tried, something is lacking. In me.’

Noah stared at her profile for a long, long time before pulling in a deep breath. He looked for the right words but only two hovered on his tongue. ‘Horse crap, Morgan.’

‘Excuse me?’ she gasped, shocked.

‘That is the biggest load of self-indulgent horse crap I’ve ever heard—’ Noah cursed as his mobile disturbed the country silence of the morning. He pulled out his mobile, checked the display and frowned. ‘Sorry, it’s my father’s carer. I need to take this.’

As the feminine Scottish lilt travelled across the miles, giving him news he didn’t want to hear, Noah felt the world shift under his feet. He dropped the phone to the grass and bent his head as he struggled to make sense of her words.

Fell out of his wheelchair. Hit his head. Bleeding on the brain. Dead...

‘Noah?’

He felt Morgan’s cool hand on his cheek.

‘Hon, what’s happened?’

‘He’s dead. He’s finally dead.’ Noah heard the words but his brain had no connection to the words his tongue was speaking. ‘I thought I’d be happier.’

‘Who’s dead, Noah?’

‘My father.’ He ran his hand over his face. ‘I have to go to Scotland. I have to tell my brothers. Man, can’t we just go back to our conversation? I want to tell you why I thought you were talking rubbish. It doesn’t have to be like that...’

The trees were dancing and the water in the dam was rising and falling. What was happening to him?

Morgan gripped his hands. ‘Just breathe, Noah. In and out.’

‘So many times I wished he was dead, and now he is and I don’t know what to feel.’ Noah stared at the sky. ‘I need to go, Morgan. I need to tell my brothers.’

He heard his irrational gabbling and felt embarrassed. He never gabbled...wasn’t irrational.

‘You will tell them, Noah. Just breathe for now, take in the news, stop thinking and let yourself feel.’

Noah shook his head and jumped to his feet.
Hell, no!
The last thing he wanted or needed to do was feel.

Morgan followed him up, placed her hands on his chest and looked up into his ravaged face. ‘Noah, stop. Listen to me—no, don’t push past me! You’re as white as a sheet.
Listen
to me!’

Noah forced himself to concentrate on her words.

‘I’m going to walk away and you are going to sit down and take it in. Take a deep breath and look around. You’ve just heard that your father is dead. Take a moment. Feel. Cry. Do what you need to do. There’s going to be a time when you need to be strong, and the next fifteen minutes, half an hour—the rest of the day if that’s what you need—isn’t that time.’ Morgan touched his cheek with her fingers. ‘Take the time, Noah. Please.’

Noah saw the sympathy in her eyes and bit his lip, fighting the emotion that was threatening to crash over him. If she had let him walk, do what he needed to do, he could have pushed it away, but if he had to stay here then he didn’t want her seeing the mess he would probably dissolve into. The anger, the regret, the swamping, swamping guilt.

‘Go.’ Noah muttered the word, shoving his hand into his hair. ‘Go now.’

Morgan nodded once, then bent down, quickly scooped up his mobile and tucked it into her pocket. He watched her walk away and it was only when she was out of sight that he allowed the first hot, angry, guilty wave of emotion to crash over him.

ELEVEN

Morgan walked
from the galley area of the jet and sat down next to Noah, who was staring out at the solid black expanse that was the African continent below them. She pressed a whisky into his hand and put her temple on his shoulder. ‘How are you doing, soldier?’

Noah took a sip, shuddered, and gestured to the window. ‘I never realised how dark Africa really is. You hardly ever see lights.’

So, not ready to talk, then.

‘Just miles and miles of nothingness,’ Morgan agreed, tucking her feet up under her. She’d shed her shoes earlier and she reached for the soft blanket that she’d put on the chairs opposite them and pulled it over her knees.

‘Cold?’ Noah asked, slipping his arm around her and pulling her closer.

‘A little.’

Noah kissed her hair before taking another sip of his whisky. ‘I never expected you to commandeer the family jet to take me to London, Morgan.’

‘It was James’s suggestion, Noah. I’m sorry we couldn’t leave earlier, but they were doing some maintenance on it.’ Morgan replied.

James had been quick to offer the use of the plane, saying that the jet could turn around in London and come back to pick them up. So they’d return to New York a day later? The world wouldn’t stop. Morgan knew that there was a reason why she adored her brother. It made it hard to remain annoyed with him over the hurting-Riley issue.

‘It’s an expensive exercise, Morgan. I could’ve just caught a normal flight. And I didn’t expect you to come with me. I was going to send another operative to guard you while I was away.’

‘I don’t want to train someone else,’ Morgan joked, and then sighed at his worried eyes and his serious face. ‘Noah, relax. We’re hugely rich and we can afford to send the jet anywhere we want, whenever we want. We wanted to get you to London in the quickest, most comfortable way possible. I wanted to be with you because I don’t think that anybody should be alone at a time like this.’

Noah kissed her head again. ‘I’m not used to people doing stuff for me.’

‘Yeah, I realised that. Talking of which, James contacted Chris and gave him a heads-up. He’ll meet you at the airport with another guard for me and I’ll let you do what you need to do. I’d like to stay with you, but that might not be what you want.’

Noah was silent for a long time and Morgan subdued her pang of disappointment. Of course he didn’t want to have to worry about her at a time like this... Yeah, they had slept together, but that didn’t mean he wanted her to invade his emotional space.

‘When you’re done—when the funeral is over—the jet will take us back to New York. That’s if you’re coming back with me.’

Noah rubbed his eyes. ‘It’s so difficult to think. To decide what to do next.’

Morgan placed her hand on his thigh and left it there. ‘I know... Well, I don’t know, but I can imagine.’

‘My brothers—’

Morgan remembered the comment he’d made at the art exhibition. ‘As much as you want to, you can’t shield them from this, Noah.’

‘Yeah.’ Noah turned his head to look out of the window again into the black nothingness.

She’d never known anyone who needed someone to release what was obviously years of pent-up emotion more than he did. She knew that there was a huge and possibly tragic story here—that Noah was dealing with far more than just—
just!—
the death of his dad. Morgan wished she could shake it out of him, but she also suspected that she was the last person he’d allow to peek into his soul.

He saw himself as the protector, the guardian, but he didn’t realise that in order to give you had to be able to receive. That you had to be strong enough—physically, mentally,
emotionally
—to do that. She worried about him...worried that as soon as the plane landed he would be all business in a ‘let’s-get-this-done-and-sorted’ mode. She didn’t know much about death but she knew that he had to grieve, had to mourn. He couldn’t keep tamping down his emotion because one day he would erupt and splatter.

But this wasn’t her party and she couldn’t make him cry if she wanted him to. All she could do was to be here, offering her unconditional support.

‘We were raised in a bad area of Glasgow,’ Noah said, his accent broad and his voice low.

He was still staring out of the window and Morgan didn’t move a muscle, scared that he’d stop talking if she reacted at all. ‘My father was frequently out of work. He had few skills and no desire to get any more. He lived off the dole and drank most of it away. My mum took whatever work she could find and kept him under control—mostly. He was an angry man and liked being that way.’

Morgan pushed her shoulder into his, pushed her fingers into his hand and kept her silence.

‘My mum wanted to move out; she could get a job in her brother’s inn in Kelso. He didn’t want to move but she finally persuaded him to visit with her. They borrowed a car and my brothers and I stayed behind—I can’t remember why. My father wasn’t an experienced driver and it was wet and they spun off the road. Mum was killed instantly. Michael was paralysed from the waist down.’

Michael, he called his father Michael. Not Dad—just Michael.

‘Long story short: he became our worst nightmare. Anger turned to rage, rage to violence, and if you think a man can’t be physically violent confined to a wheelchair then you should’ve seen him. I watched my brothers become walking robots, scared to move—to breathe—and I called Social Services, They arranged for them to go and live with my aunt—my mum’s sister.’

‘And you?’

‘Somebody had to stay and look after him. I lasted three years,’ Noah said. ‘I was nineteen when I joined up.’

‘What happened that made you leave?’ Morgan asked, because she knew that something major had happened. Noah, being Noah, with his unquestionable loyalty, would have had to have an excellent reason to walk away.

Still looking out of the window, he said, ‘I said he was abusive and he was. Verbally, physically... But that day had been a quiet day—no drama from him. He’d actually been behaving himself. I walked past him and saw this cold look in his eye, and then his fist flew out and he punched me in my...you know...’

Morgan’s eyes widened but she kept her voice even. ‘Groin?’

‘Yeah. I just reacted. We were in the kitchen and...I don’t know what happened but I lost time. When I came back I was holding a knife to his throat and he was begging me not to kill him. I wanted to; it would’ve been so easy.’

‘But you didn’t.’

‘No, I walked away, made arrangements for his care and joined the army. I left him alone.’

Morgan turned to face him, lifted up her hand and touched his chin, forcing him to look at her. ‘You spent three years in a horrid situation with an abusive father. You earned the right to walk away, Noah. Knowing you, you’ve probably supported him financially all this time.’

‘Yes, I have—but you don’t understand!’ Noah sounded agitated. ‘I nearly
killed
him, Morgan!’

Morgan raised her eyebrows. ‘But you
didn’t
, Noah! He was an abusive father who inflicted violence on you. He sucker-punched you—in a man’s most vulnerable place!—and it was the straw that broke your back. I’m surprised that you
didn’t
kill him, Noah.’

‘You don’t understand! I lost control! Like I nearly did the other day.’

‘Oh, Noah, millions of men would think that you showed immense control by
not
killing him! And you were nowhere near losing control last week.’

Noah looked at her with wide shocked eyes and she could see him trying to process her words. ‘Have you ever spoken to anyone about this? Chris? Your brothers? A psychologist?’

Noah shook his head.

She was the only person that knew his secret? How could that be? ‘Maybe you should. Maybe they can convince you that you were just a boy, trying to survive and doing the best you could in a dreadful situation.’

Noah closed his eyes and rested his head on hers. ‘I’m so tired, Morgs.’

Morgan pushed his hair off his forehead. ‘Then why don’t you rest awhile? Push the seat back and try and sleep, okay?’ Morgan pulled the lever on his seat and watched as he stretched out. She passed him a pillow, pulled another blanket over him, before flipping her seat back and lying so that she faced him. Holding his hand, she watched as he drifted off to sleep.

‘Morgs?’

‘Yes?’

He yawned and his voice was thick with sleep when he spoke again. ‘Stay with me, okay? I’d like you there...at the funeral and when I tell my brothers.’

‘I’ll be there,’ Morgan whispered, and watched him while he slept.

* * *

Noah was as jittery as a crack addict desperate for a fix. He stood in front of one of the many houses in the grimy brick block and placed his hand on the incongruous red railing—and quickly lifted it when he felt the sticky gunge on his skin. Wiping his palm on his jeans, he played with the keys in his hand.

He hadn’t been back to the house he’d been raised in in nearly fifteen years and he didn’t want to go inside now. He just wanted to put this entire nightmare behind him. But before he could he had to bury his father tomorrow and clean out his house today. Postponing wasn’t an option, because his brothers were flying in later and would insist on helping him. Their aunt’s house was their real home, and he didn’t want them to see the reality of how their parents had lived.

He didn’t want Morgan seeing it either, but she wouldn’t be dissuaded from accompanying him. He’d pleaded for her to stay in the hotel room, had offered another bodyguard for the day so that she could spend the day sightseeing, but she’d refused.

She was coming with him and he’d have to deal with it, she’d stated, calmly and resolutely. Nobody should have to clear out their parents’ house alone.

He wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or to strangle her. He looked over to her, dressed as he was in old jeans and a casual sweater. But she still looked out of place in this place of dank and dark buildings covered in grime and graffiti.

Over the past day or so Morgan’s presence had kept him centred, grounded, able to go through the steps of organising the funeral, notifying the few relatives they had left, and that hard conversation with his brothers, who’d taken the news rather prosaically. He couldn’t judge them for their lack of grief; they’d had minimal contact with Michael for most of their lives and didn’t have a personal relationship with him. He also knew that their offer to come to the funeral was more to support him than to say goodbye to their father.

Yesterday, after a long, cold, tough day, he’d lost himself in Morgan’s body, stepping away from the memories of the past and the reality of his father’s passing and losing himself in her smooth skin, her frantic gasps, her warm, wet heat. And when guilt had welled up and threatened to consume him whole, when he’d felt like punching a fist through a wall, her words, spoken quietly but with such truth, drifted through his head.

‘
Millions of men would think that you showed immense control by
not
killing him. You were just a boy, trying to survive and doing the best you could in a dreadful situation.’

Morgan. She was becoming as necessary to him as breathing and he either wanted to beg her never to leave him or he wanted to run as far and as fast away from her as possible.

Noah saw movement across the road and caught the eye of the obvious leader of a gang of teens across the road. He gave them a don’t-mess-with-me stare. They ducked their heads and moved off and Noah sighed.
There but for the grace of God go I
, he’d thought, on more than one occasion.

‘Let’s go in, Noah, it’s cold out here,’ Morgan suggested, her hand on his back.

Noah shook himself out of his trance and walked up the cracked steps into the mouldy building. He shuddered as he breathed in the smell of decaying food and despair.

He automatically turned to the door on the left and his hand shook as he tried to place the key in the lock. He didn’t know why they bothered with locking up; he knew that one solid kick would have the door flying open. When he couldn’t make the connection between key and lock he considered it a viable option.

Morgan took the key from his hand, jabbed it in the lock and pushed open the door. She stepped inside and Noah wanted to warn her not to...that his father was unstable, volatile, capricious.

No, his father was dead.
Noah bit his bottom lip, looked around and swore. Nothing had changed; the old blue couch was just paler and grubbier, the furniture that much more battered. And, man, it was messy. His father had always been a slob but Noah had paid for a cleaner, for someone to look after him.

‘How did he live like this?’ Noah whispered. ‘If the carer didn’t clean, then did she feed him, look after him?’

Guilt threatened to buckle his knees, sink him to the floor.

Morgan tossed him a glance and immediately went to the old fridge, yanked it open. She pulled back at the smell but pointed out the milk, the cheese. Slamming the door shut, she pulled open the freezer section and nodded.

‘There are quite a few homemade meals in here, Noah, and lots of dirty dishes in the sink. He was eating. And, look, there’s a note on the fridge, saying that the carer was going on holiday. She got back the day he died. I think.’

‘Thank you.’ Noah looked down as he kicked a half-empty bottle of whisky at his feet. So the drinking hadn’t stopped.

He couldn’t do this with her here... Couldn’t handle seeing his classy NYC girl in a smelly flat filled with dirty dishes and soiled clothes and windows covered with soot and grime. Couldn’t handle the pity he thought he saw in her eyes. He wanted to cry but he couldn’t do that with her—couldn’t let her see him at his weakest.

‘Morgan, please leave.’

Morgan looked at him with huge eyes. ‘I don’t want to. I don’t want you to do this on your own. Let me stay, please.’

Noah dropped his head and felt the walls of the room closing in on him. He desperately wanted to be alone, wanted some time to himself, to sort through the emotion to find the truth of what he was feeling. He knew it was time to pull away from her now, to find some distance. He wanted to take back his life, his mind, his control. He wanted to stand alone, as he always had. He needed to know that he could, that he didn’t need that gorgeous blonde in his life, standing in his corner.