“I don’t want to talk about the past but about the future.”
He frowned. “Yeah, what?”
“The reason I haven’t touched you today is because I don’t want to screw up,” Kit said frankly. “You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, but the idea of you flinching from my touch hurts so much.”
His jawbones ached, he’d clenched his teeth with such strength. “I’m sor—”
“I didn’t say that to make you feel bad.” Moving with none of her usual grace, she went around to the other side of the bed and began to loosely fit in the bolts so he could do the final tightening. “I’m trying to be honest, and I need you to be too—neither one of us wants to hurt the other.” A look across the bed, a question in the amber of her eyes.
“Hell, Kit, hurting you makes me feel like a bastard.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to be that guy.” Never again wanted her to feel like an emotional punching bag. Even the thought of those words made nausea roil in his gut.
“And I don’t want to be the woman who makes you feel trapped or broken.” She shifted to slot in the bolts needed on the next part of the bed while he came around to tighten the ones she’d already fitted. “So we have to talk.”
Noah didn’t talk about stuff like this. Even before the incident with the gun, his father had never talked about feelings or any of that shit; Noah had always believed that to be the right way. Men were men and they shut up and dealt with things. Still, Kit was a woman, and women liked to talk. So maybe he could meet her halfway. “What do you want to know?”
“Does it weird you out if I admire your body?” Her cheeks pinked, her gaze brushing over his pecs.
He started to grin because hell, he was a man and the woman blushing while she surreptitiously scoped out his body was the seriously smokin’ Kit Devigny. “I like the way you look at me.”
That part was easy to say, but he had to force out the rest. “You’re a woman. You’re Kit.” Smile fading, he twisted the wrench. “I got a bit of a rep as a homophobe a few years ago because I punched a guy who hit on me, but I don’t give a fuck who anyone fucks or if they like to do a three-way every Thursday. I’m just—I can’t handle male attention if it’s directed at me.” The reaction was visceral and violent.
“I get it,” Kit said, her tone normal. No whispers, no tiptoeing. Just blissfully normal.
His shoulder muscles began to unknot. “So yeah, since you’re a hot chick, your lechery doesn’t weird me out.”
“A hot chick?” Laughter. “Smooth, St. John.”
“I try.” No longer nauseated, he found his grin again. “You do realize this is equal-opportunity leering? I get to check you out too.”
“Do your worst.” The final bolt sliding in at that blushing challenge, she went to the leftover pieces and said, “This is a canopy.”
He tightened the bolt. “Like to go over the top?”
“Yep.”
Grabbing the instructions, he read them through quickly, nodded. “Got it.” They spent the next couple of minutes unwrapping all the pieces and making sure nothing was missing. “So is that all you wanted to know?”
“No, the touch thing,” Kit said as she held up a piece so he could bolt it into place. “I need to know what’s always okay with you.”
“Shit, Kit, I don’t think about stuff like that.” Moving behind her, he went to put his hands on her hips, hesitated… then did it. He grabbed her hips tight, nuzzled a kiss to her neck.
She shivered. “Hey, no fair. I can’t move while I’m holding up this thing.”
“I know. Makes it more fun.” Running his jaw along her shoulder, he tugged playfully at her earlobe before breaking away to put the piece in place so she wouldn’t get tired arms. “You don’t”—he coughed—“mind if I touch you?”
If the ugliness in his past wasn’t enough, he’d covered himself in dirt over the years. He had no idea how many women he’d screwed, and he couldn’t remember the majority of their faces. No way to paint that into a pretty picture. “I’m clean,” he blurted out before she could reply. “That’s the one thing I didn’t mess up.”
Kit’s response was quiet. “I’m glad.”
A concrete block fell on his chest. “I should’ve kept my mouth shut, huh?”
“No.” Kit held up a bracing piece so he could lock it into place. “If I’m asking you to be honest, I have to be honest too.” She ran a hand through her hair, her other hand still holding up the piece. “I know those women didn’t mean anything to you, but I don’t like thinking about them.”
Noah thought of how he’d feel if he saw Kit fucking some other guy; his head pulsed red-hot with rage. “Yeah, I get it.” He wanted to push her on the touch question but couldn’t bring himself to repeat it.
“And I love your touch, Noah.” She went to pick up a small piece, came back. “You and I, we’re starting from scratch, from the moment we decided to be us.” Her eyes held his, beautiful and haunted. “I will walk anywhere with you, but the one thing I ask is fidelity. Don’t cheat on me. That’s my line in the sand.”
Stark and painfully honest, her words sank into his bones, branding him. “I won’t,” he vowed. “I’ve got plenty of other self-destructive behaviors I can indulge in instead.”
It was meant to be a joke. It fell flat.
“Don’t be flip.” Kit scowled. “And you didn’t answer my original question about what touches are always okay.”
He got another piece of the canopy into place. “I don’t know.” Shrugging, he went to elaborate before his brain kicked in and ordered him to keep his mouth shut.
“Just say it. I might not like hearing some of it, but I need to know.”
Fuck, she was killing him. “I didn’t really do much touching,” he admitted. “It was mostly slam my cock in, get off, and that was it.” Even with a blowjob, he’d rarely done more than just unzip his jeans. And the stupid-ass hotel-room stunt he’d engineered? He’d braced himself on his arms so he barely touched the woman anywhere else on her body. “No foreplay, no wasting time.”
“Wow, and women still kept flocking to you?”
“Go figure.” Noah had never called himself the greatest lover on the planet, but some groupies got off on the hard, cold fuck that was his specialty.
“What about kisses?”
“Romantic bullshit,” he muttered, then paused. “But you know, since you’re my girl and all, I guess I could get into it.”
Kit’s eyes were sparkling when she looked up, and he knew she’d forgiven him for the cruel mockery of their first kiss. “Be still my heart.”
“Smart-ass.” Grabbing her with an arm around her neck, he pulled her close. Her hands landed on his bare chest, and when he lowered his head, her lips were still parted in the beginnings of a laugh.
The kiss was romantic bullshit… and he found he liked it. Liked the way he could feel her smile, the way her fingers curled into his chest, the softness of her. Shifting until he’d backed her up against the house, he braced one arm over her head, put his other hand on her jaw, and kissed her. He knew he was probably not doing it right, but it felt good and Kit didn’t seem to mind his lack of skill.
When their lips parted, his heart was thumping and her pupils were dilated, her breathing shallow. “I vote for more romantic bullshit.”
He grinned at the husky comment. “Meet you on the couch after dinner.”
Pushing playfully at his chest, she said, “Let’s get this bed up first.”
They did finally complete the bed. Turned out Kit had bought some kind of fancy waterproof canopy cover that looked like fabric.
“Mostly we can keep it like this,” she said, tying off the curtains to each of the four poles. “On the rare occasions it rains, we can close the curtains.”
“What about the stars?” What was the point in sleeping outside if you couldn’t see the stars?
“The top peels back.” She showed him how, and suddenly, the bed had a direct view of the sky, that sky bordered by a frame of curlicued metal.