Page 32 of The Forever Formula
“Did anything ever happen ... romantically between you and any of my brothers?” I arched an eyebrow and held my breath.
Please say no. Please say no.
“Why are you asking?” she asked, which left an uneasy feeling in my stomach.
I shrugged. “It would have made sense, I guess. You and Austen were in the same grade. I know both he and Jameson had a crush on you. The pretty girl next door.”
“Well ...” She let out a breath, pausing way longer than I felt was completely necessary. “I wouldn’t really classify this entirely as a romantic encounter.”
When she took another long inhale, I wanted to shout for her to spit it out. Jealousy should have a time limit, but apparently mine didn’t. I shouldn’t care so much. It was ancient history. Still, I wanted to know.
Her gaze dropped to the floor. “Jameson was my first kiss. I was fourteen,” she said with a laugh, “and he was sixteen at the time. But that’s as far as it went. One kiss. And no, nothing ever happened between me and Austen. He was more like an annoying brother to me.”
“Is that what I was too?” I shouldn’t have asked, but I did anyway, because apparently I needed to torture myself.
Rachel’s eyes met mine then, her chin dropping as if the answer were obvious. “I mean, yes, for years. But then I saw something different in you. Something more.”
“That you never saw in Austen,” I muttered, the petty part of my brain confirmed.
She guffawed. “Are you kidding? Look at how he treated me today. That’s how he always was. Thinking of himself first. And yet I still loved him dearly, despite his cocky know-it-all attitude.”
Her words made me smile. “I always wondered.”
I just wasn’t brave enough to ask that back then. Or maybe I didn’t want to feel like I had to compete with my own brothers. I knew they were shocked when out of all of us, I seemed to be the one to get Rachel, at least for a little while.
“Can I tell you something?” I asked, stepping closer to her.
She sucked in her bottom lip, her eyes wide, and gave me a little smile in answer.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I told her in a low voice as I stepped in and brushed the strand of hair that fell into her face.
When I tucked it behind her ear, she leaned into my touch. Then I closed the gap between us altogether.
Where our kiss this morning was fast and hungry and eager, this kiss was slow and careful and deep. This kiss said all the things I was thinking deep in the back of my mind, but didn’t yet have the conviction to tell her.
13
DRAMA
Rachel
Noah was kissing me in his house. Alarm bells rang like crazy in my head.
I didn’t know what had happened earlier today. One minute, I was being torn down by Austen, and the next minute, Noah was there. I wanted to direct all my anger at him, but I couldn’t. I wanted to doubt his words, but I couldn’t manage that either. Noah had always been honest with me. And apparently he was still my kryptonite.
Even though I wondered whether Noah really hoped I would stick around town long term, or whether he hoped he might get a little action and then buy me out of my property, I wasn’t completely sure. I didn’t know what his life here was really like anymore.
Who were his friends? What did he like to do for fun? He mostly seemed like the same Noah I remembered, but then thinking about the house he’d built and designed himself, it was a stark reminder that a lot of life had been lived since we last parted.
I wasn’t thinking about that in the moment, though, because Noah’s large firm body was pressed against mine, and his hot mouth was giving me sweet, slow, expert kisses. When his tongue stroked mine, I gladly accepted the invitation.
He tilted his head to deepen our kiss. I had to stand on my tippy-toes, and he had to lean over me to make it work.
Soon his hand started roaming, tentatively this time. The feel of his steady hand caressing my back, dipping down slowly, reaching around to cup my waist and pulling me impossibly close ... it was heavenly. I inhaled the scent of him—a woodsy cologne—and it was so uniquely him.
I could have cried under different circumstances, being kissed like this. Like I mattered more than anything in the world to him. Noah was either the best actor, an ultimately smooth player, or there were still feelings for me buried somewhere deep inside him.
The very idea of that was intoxicating. For years, Noah Hart was the measuring stick by which I’d evaluated all other men.
