SOAR (The Indigo Lounge Series Book 4) (9 page)

NINE

“Did
you not hear what I just said? There’s no chance in hell of that happening.
Ever,” Leia snapped, but her pupils dilated before she stalked to the window.
After a handful of seconds, she turned. “Besides, didn’t you tell me last night
I’d never feel your cock inside me again?”

He
smiled grimly. “Yeah, I was
kinda
hoping you’d forget
that part. My cock certainly chewed me out for laying down that insane
gauntlet.”

“I
told you I don’t do angry sex. I especially don’t do angry sex with exes. So if
you don’t want to part friends, I…I hope at least you don’t hate me forever.”
Bruised eyes connected with his and held.

Shit.
She really fucking meant it.

Noah
sagged back onto the edge of his desk, his thoughts roiling.

“You
really want me to leave you alone?” His voice didn’t sound normal. And his
hands were growing numb from gripping his desk.

She
bit her lip and remained silent for so long, Noah’s heart soared.

“Yes,
I do,” she said.

The
words dropped like acid onto his skin. He swallowed and nodded. “Do two things
for me before you leave, would you?”

“W…what?”

“First
all of, promise me you won’t pay the fifty million until you hear from me. And
don’t worry, I’ll only contact you by phone if that’s what you want.”

“Umm…okay.
I promise,” she said softly, puzzlement in her eyes.

“Good.”

“And
the second thing?”

“I
want you to turn around and lift up your skirt.”

“What?
Noah…” she bit her lip, eyeing him warily at her slip.

But
while the sound of his name on her lips sent a bolt of longing through him, it
didn’t stop him from demanding what he needed. “Those are my terms. Do it, and
you’ll be free to go.
”

She
shook her head in bewilderment.

He
stared back at her.

Dropping
her bag on the floor, she slowly turned around, faced the door and grabbed the
hem of her skirt. The moment her lace-topped stockings ended and her naked
flesh was exposed, he stopped breathing.

The
garter belt was the same dark leather as the belt he’d branded her with last
night. “Is that one of your creations?” he croaked.

She
shook her head. “N…no.”

“Keep
going,” he instructed hoarsely.

The
skirt crept all the way up, and he bolted upright. “Tell me you haven’t been
walking around attending meetings with no fucking panties on?”

The
look she sent him held a mixture of defiance and embarrassment. “I couldn’t.
The welts were too painful even with a thong.”

His
gaze dropped to her ass. He let out a groan. Long red welts covered her from
lower back to the top of her thighs. He’d been excruciatingly careful not to
break her gorgeous skin, but some of the streaks were raw enough to make him
uncomfortable. Fuck, he hadn’t been careful enough. Regret coated his mouth. He
was about to apologize when he caught the look in her eyes.

Raw,
filthy, hunger.

“Jesus,
you love being fucking sore, don’t you?”

She
stared back unapologetically. “You woke something inside of me. I don’t see the
point in denying what this does to me.”

He
released his grip on the edge of his desk, reached blindly behind him until his
fingers closed over what he wanted. He fumbled with his phone until he found
the right app. At the sound of the camera clicking, she spun around, shock
widening her eyes.

“Oh
God, you took a photo of me?”

“Specifically
of your ass, yes.” He turned the camera and showed it to her.

She
stumbled toward him. “Noah, please delete it.”

“It
doesn’t show your face. No one would know it was—” His insides froze.
“Tell me you don’t think I’d ever violate your privacy like that asshole did.”

Her
eyes squeezed shut for a second and shook her head. “The way you feel about me
right now, I don’t know what you’ll do next. That’s my honest answer.”

Noah
forced himself to keep breathing until he had himself under control. “Come
here.”

He
made space between his legs, and she stopped a few inches from him. Having her
this close, her skirt around her waist and her sweet pussy within touching
distance, was fucking torture. But he resisted the urge to slide his fingers
between her thighs.

Shifting
his position, he adjusted the pressure on his cock and angled his phone toward
her. “For the last six months, I’ve been working with a couple of grad students
from MIT with a view to King’s Ransom backing them. Without going into technical
and confidential detail, they’ve developed hack-proof software that can be used
to store sensitive data.”

“No
software is hack-proof.”

“It
is if it’s developed by two of the world’s best hackers. It’s triple-password
protected and encrypted. No one will see this picture but me. But let me ask
you this - if you had a compromising picture of me, would I be able to trust
you with it?”

She
bit her lip. “Yes.”

He
nodded, then gave up trying to resist touching her. He slid his thumb over her
lips and nearly groaned when she parted them. “Do you want me to delete it?”

“Not
if you’re sure…no.”

He
stared at her, saw the unadulterated need in her face and quickly made up his
mind. Jesus, if she wanted him even half as much as he wanted her, surely they
could find a way? He slid one hand into her hair and the other gently over her
ass. “Does it hurt when I touch you?”

“A
little but…Noah—”

“
Shhh
, just let me soothe you for a minute.” For reasons he
hadn’t yet been able to fathom, she wanted him but was denying herself the
chance to be with him. He wasn’t ashamed to use sex to sway her. What they had
was too powerful, too potent, to let it go.

Sexy,
mewling sounds purred from her throat as he petted her. Her eyelids drooped and
she stepped closer.

He
leaned forward to kiss her…and cursed when a loud noise buzzed from his desk.

Letting
her go, he stabbed the intercom.

“Maddie,
I told you I didn’t want to be disturbed.”

“I
know, Mr. King, and I’m sorry, but your private line has been flashing for a
while and I answered it. It’s…it’s the specialist, confirming that he’s able to
see you and Miss Maitland first thing tomorrow for the DNA test? Shall I tell
him it’s okay?”

Jaw
clenching, he looked up and saw the pale horror on Leia’s face. He half
expected her to clamp her hands over her ears to block out the conversation.

Any
hope he’d been harboring about how she felt about him died a painful death.

Jerking
away from her, he spoke into the intercom. “Yes, confirm it.”

He
hung up and faced Leia. Her skirt was back in place, her handbag on her
shoulder. “Do you hate kids? Is that it?” he asked.

“Excuse
me?”

“I’m
trying hard to understand what’s going on in your head. You say you can’t be
with me, but less than a minute ago you were purring in my arms, a millimeter
away from being fucked. So it can’t be the sex. And I know it’s not Ashley
because you know damn well how I feel about her. So the game changer has to be
the kid.”

Her
mouth worked for several seconds. “No, I don’t hate kids.”

“Then
what the fuck is it?”

She
glanced past him to that damn window again. Collected herself and gave a shrug
so fake, he wanted to shake it off her.

“I’m
twenty-three years old. Is it so wrong to believe that I don’t want to be
saddled with a kid by proxy just yet?”

He
called himself ten kinds of fool for allowing the words to rip into him. When
the hell was he going to learn his lesson? Give up on her and move on?

Right
fucking now was good.

“Understood.
Goodbye, Leia.”

Bunching
his fists, he shoved them into his pockets and strode to the window. She barely
made a sound, but he knew the moment she left.

Ragged
breaths chased through his chest as he collapsed into his chair. Almost against
his will, he reached for the T-shirt and brought the cotton to his nose. He
caught the faint scent of her perfume and crushed the material into his face.

With
an angry curse, he yanked open his desk drawer but still he couldn’t let go.
Not until her words crashed into his head one more time…

I
don’t want to be saddled with a kid by proxy…

Promoting
his status to
three dozen
kinds of fool, he tossed the
T-shirt in the drawer and kicked it shut.

TEN

Right
up until he walked through the doors of The Sphere in South Beach, three nights
later, Noah contemplated cancelling on the guys. He would have, if he didn’t
hate the thought of being alone even more.

He
detested not being able to get Leia’s words out of his head. The worst thing
was - he didn’t believe her. But the more he tried to unravel what she wasn’t
saying, the crazier he got running circles around himself. His world had
descended into hell minutes after she’d walked out, starting with the realization
that all she seemed to be doing since they’d landed in Miami was walk away from
him.

His
seriously grey mood had turned pitch black this afternoon when Sam Ferranti had
called to deliver the good news. Ashley could be charged and prospectively sent
to jail for a long time.

Except
for the minor issue of her carrying Noah’s first born and therefore remaining
untouchable…

He’d
snapped
Maddie’s
head off for interrupting him
mid-thought. He’d calmed down enough to apologize and send her home early. Then
he’d toyed with calling it a day. But the idea of locking himself away in the
minimalistic, soulless suite upstairs had made his head throb. So he’d called
Hartford and arranged to meet him at the condos he’d shortlisted.

All
three were top of the line, with enough space, privacy and security to suit his
needs. But unable to settle on the one he wanted, he’d dismissed a puzzled
Hartford, returned to his office and indulged in a stiff whiskey.

When
Gabe’s reminder had popped up on his phone with an intuitive addendum that he
wasn’t allowed to cancel, he’d growled and knocked back another stiff drink.
Then endured a trip at the back of a cab with nothing but his thoughts to
occupy him.

Fucking.
Hell.

Walking
into the bar, he immediately spotted Mike waving him over.

Damon
had discovered The Sphere a couple of years ago by accident, when he’d stumbled
into the place after a disastrous night with a blind date who’d turned out to
be a call girl. He’d literally jumped out of a moving limo to avoid the hooker,
and called Mike. Mike had ribbed him mercilessly, then taken pity on him and
rescued him from a back booth in The Sphere hours later.

That
booth had become their personal drinking oasis ever since, reserved for their
exclusive use come rain or shine.

Noah
sprawled into the nearest seat, nodding thanks when their waitress set a
chilled beer in front of him.

Gabe
twirled his JD on rocks and eyed him. “You look like shit rolled up in crap, my
friend.”

Noah
raised his bottle to him. “Thanks. You look fresh as a fucking daisy.”

Gabe
cracked a haggard-faced smile and sipped his drink. Damon took a bite of the
huge club sandwich in front of him, his glance swinging between them.

“I
know you ladies like to play hard to get, but would you just fucking spit out
what the hell is going on with you two already? It’s getting to the point where
I think I’ll need a code breaker just to have a conversation with you.”

Gabe
shrugged. “Sure, princess. Just so you don’t hurt your pretty little head, I’ll
break it down for you. My sex life is going to hell in a shit basket. I haven’t
fucked my girlfriend in three long, excruciating weeks, and I’m pathetic enough
to admit I don’t want to fuck anyone else but her. Has she got me wrapped
around her pinky like some spineless fool? Fuck yes. Do I like it? Fuck no, I
detest it enough to contemplate hopping back on a plane to Bora Bora and
strangling the bitch. I’ve given myself more hand jobs than a milkmaid in
Texas, and I’m terrified one more jerking off will literally
jerk
my
dick off. So tonight, I intend to get triple shit-faced so I can forget I have
a dick, or a girlfriend. Is that succinct enough for you?”

Damon
had started choking halfway through Gabe’s diatribe and held out his hand in a
please
stop
sign when Mike went to thump him on the back a tenth time.

Gabe
downed his drink and held up his hand for another round. “Your turn,” he said
to Noah.

He
tried to find the right words to break the news. But two whiskeys and a quickly
downed beer, not to mention the brainpower he’d wasted trying to decipher
Leia’s words, had worn him down. He drained the dregs of his beer and slammed
the bottle on the table.

“Ashley
Maitland is pregnant. She claims the baby is mine.”

Silence.

Damon
made a dogged effort to chew and swallow the food in his mouth without choking
again. Mike stared at him as if he wasn’t sure whether to perform an exorcism
or hunt down a Hazmat suit.

As
for Gabriel…he just looked intensely disappointed. “All this time, you were
claiming not to know why she was trying to reach you…” he shook his head. “And
you were fucking her?” he condemned in a flat tone.

“What
the hell?” Noah frowned.

“Wait
a minute—”

They
both ignored Damon. “What did you just say to me?” Noah demanded from Gabe.

Gabe
pointed an accusing finger at him. “You claimed you had no idea why she was in
Miami. If you were stupid enough to fuck that psycho bitch, I’d have thought
you’d be man enough to admit it.”

“You
need to stop right now, before my fist says hello to that pretty boy jaw that
Playboy photographer’s been wanting to memorialize for over a decade.”

The
table lapsed into silence as their drinks were delivered. It didn’t stop his
best friends from glaring their anger and confusion at him though. Seeing as
they’d spent the better part of two years worrying that Ashley had fucked him
up for all eternity, he couldn’t blame them.

He
raked a hand through his hair and grabbed his second beer the moment it was placed
before him. The waitress looked around the table, rolled her eyes and muttered,
“I’m not even
gonna
ask,”
and walked away.

Noah
gulped down half his beer before he glared at Gabe. “If you’d have let me
finish, I would’ve told you the
psycho bitch
didn’t conceive my child by
conventional means, asshole.”

Gabe’s
glass froze halfway to his mouth and his eyebrows hit his hairline.

Mike
frowned. “Fuck, I’m beyond confused.”

Damon
just kept shaking his head.

Noah
relayed the story of the sperm and egg harvesting two years ago. “I never hid
the fact that I wanted a kid eventually. When she got ill, and the doctors
thought it might affect her ability to have kids, we thought what the hell,
might as well freeze mine too…just in case.”

“So
she used your soldiers to knock herself up without telling you?”
Damon’s face clenched in anger.
“Jesus. Fuck.”

“You
win the whole fucking world, my friend,” Mike muttered, his face frozen in
shell-shock mode.

Gabriel’s
mouth compressed into a white line, but his chest rose and fell in silent rage
as his eyes met Noah’s. Seeing the clear apology in his friend’s gaze, Noah
nodded his acceptance.

They
clinked glasses and sucked down more booze.

“How
far along is she?” Gabe asked, his tone calm but ice cold.

“She
claims two months. DNA tests happened yesterday. I get the results tomorrow.”

Gabe
nodded. “Lawyers involved? She can’t get away with this.”

“Ferranti’s
on the case. He has a list as long as my arm to charge her with. But…” Noah
stopped talking as a wave of helpless rage washed over him.

Gabe’s
glass hit the table. He shook his head as a few more pennies fell into place. “
But,
if the kid’s yours, then you can’t really touch her, can you? At least not
while she’s pregnant. Shit!”

“Yeah,
I can sue the pants off the clinic and everyone else involved in this, but I
can’t send Ashley to jail unless I want my first child to be born in prison.
Fucking ironic, isn’t it?”

“Seriously.
What. The. Fuck?” Damon’s ex had tried to trap him into early fatherhood a while
back so he was taking the news badly. “What is wrong with these gold-digging
whores?”

“We
don’t have eternity, buddy, so ask a simpler question,” Mike suggested.

“Where
is she now?” Gabe asked.

“She’s
living in my condo. I moved out. No, I’m not going to explain. Next question.”

Damon
rolled his shoulders and made a visible effort to get off the volatile subject
of Ashley’s pregnancy. “How did the Indigo Lounge trip go?”

Noah’s
jaw tightened. He remained quiet for so long another deathly silence descended
on the table. The waitress, Katie, if he remembered her name correctly, walked
past and kissed her teeth in irritation.

“Hell,
was it that bad?” Mike asked. “Because Sonja came across a clip on YouTube the
other day. She swears it was you playing the guitar and some hot chick groupie-
ing
on you like she wanted to have your babies.” He paled
immediately and then howled, probably from a kick under the table from one of
the guys. “Sorry, unfortunate choice of words. But seriously, I’d hate to think
I spent 250k to send you on a shitty trip…”

Noah
knew they would blame themselves if he didn’t answer. “No, your girlfriend was
right. That was me…us in Vienna. As for the trip, it was that good.” The
residue of beer turned bitter in his mouth. “Until it wasn’t.”

Gabe
raised an eyebrow. “
Us
? We need details, man.”

Noah
gave them the lowdown without going into details as to why he had to cut the
trip short. Again his friends stared at him, dumbfounded, then at each other.

“What’s
her name?” Damon asked eventually.

Noah
swallowed. “Leia Michaels.”

Mike’s
eyes narrowed. “That name rings a bell. Why?” His fingers drummed on the table.

“She
was in the news a while back. About five years ago,” Noah volunteered. It was
no use keeping that a secret. They were resourceful enough to acquire the info
in minutes.

Mike
blinked rapidly, then his mouth dropped open. “Holy shit. The murder/suicide?”

A
knife twisted in Noah’s gut. “Yeah.”

“So
you cut your trip short because she needed to come back to Miami, and you came
back with her?” Gabe asked, eyeing him in that incisive way that said his
friend was reading between the lines.

“Yeah.”

“But?”

Noah
shrugged. “But nothing. We met. We…got together. She…we went our separate
ways.”

Mike
shook his head. “Nah, from what I saw on that clip, she was seriously into you.
And you looked like…” he stopped and cleared his throat.

“Like
what?” Noah growled.

He
shrugged. “You looked like you’d died and fucking gone to heaven.”

The
memory of Leia in the parking lot last night flashed through his mind. He
gritted his teeth. “What’s your point? Friday night, she went to sleep clinging
to me like I was the last raft in her fucking tsunami. Saturday morning, she
changed her mind. Fuck if I’m going to lose any more sleep over that shit.”

“Women
aren’t that complicated—”

“Says
the guy who’s mainlining Jack D because he doesn’t know
why
he’s being
dumped.”

“Shut
the fuck up, Mike,” Gabe growled. “All I’m saying is there has to be a reason
for her doing a one-eighty on you.” He stopped and cursed. “Ashley? The baby?”

Acid
eroded his gut. “Yeah, she says doesn’t want to be saddled with a kid.”

“And
do you believe she means that?”

“What
the hell does it matter?”

“Maybe
nothing. But women - at least the ones who don’t set out to fuck with your head
- use excuses to stop themselves from getting hurt. Your girl might mean what
she says about not wanting to be saddled. Or there may be another reason why.
I’ve spent four ball-strangling days learning to read between the fucking lines
when it comes to women. No reason why you shouldn’t endure that torture for the
sake of getting that someone-just-killed-my-puppy
look
off your face.”

Noah
raised his beer in a mocking salute. “Crazy good pep talk, buddy. Thanks.”

Gabriel
slapped him on the shoulder, and turned to rile Damon about his cowardice
during the phone call to Noah the week before when he’d failed to mention
Ashley was in Miami. Damon hunched his shoulders and cursed under his breath.
The table erupted in laughter.

Noah
was about to raise his beer and drain it when the ten-ton
clanger
dropped.

Groupie-
ing
on you like she wanted to have your babies…

“Jesus!
Oh, fuck.” His head swam at the depths of his own stupidity.

His
friends exchanged looks. Mike rubbed his jaw. “You okay there, buddy?”