Too bad the simple pleasure of it couldn’t last. His mind began to race as they finished clearing up, a rat on a wheel. What the hell was he going to do when it was time to sleep? He wasn’t about to take the pills, and his other “drug” of choice was now permanently off the menu. The only thing he could do was run, but he wasn’t going to leave Kit alone in the house when her stalker was back.

So do push-ups or sit-ups until you exhaust yourself enough to catch some shut-eye, he ordered himself. Do not screw this up.

“You know there’s a Dancing with the Stars special on tonight, right?”

He groaned, his worry about sleep momentarily erased. “You’re really going to make me watch?”

She bumped him with her shoulder. “I’m inviting. If you’d rather do something else, I don’t care.”

Laughing at her fake-insulted tone, he said, “Since when are you passive-aggressive?”

A wink as she grabbed a packet of frozen blueberries from the freezer and poured a handful into a bowl. “This is war.” She held up the bag. “You want some?”

The invitation made his breath get all hard and jagged inside him. He’d never eaten frozen blueberries before Kit introduced him to what was one of her favorite desserts. And now here he was again, being given a second chance. “No, I’m good.” Trying to breathe normally, he followed her to the lounge, sprawling beside her as she took a seat on the sofa with her legs curled under her.

Since she hadn’t told him to stop doing it, he stretched out his arm along the back of the sofa and played with her hair.

Reaching back, she tugged off her hair tie so that the fall of silken strands cascaded over his hand. “You sure you don’t want a blueberry or three?”

“You twisted my arm.” He twined her hair around his fingers. “Gimme.”

She popped a couple into his mouth. Their eyes connected.

The intro to the show came on a second later, breaking the incipient tension of the sweetly intimate moment.

Noah had never had so much fun watching random famous and semi-famous people try to dance. He had to admit he had a new and serious respect for a few of them for putting themselves out there, but mostly he was horrified. “Spandex? Wasn’t that made illegal like two decades ago?”

Elbowing him, Kit spluttered with laughter. “Stop it.”

“Fuck me, he’s wearing sequins.”

“Rock stars have been known to wear sequins.”

“No rock star in his right mind has ever worn sequins in that—” His mouth fell open. “Is that a codpiece? For real?” Snorting, he said, “No way except in his dreams is his dick that big. He’s probably got two bananas in there.”

Face going red as she tried to hold in laughter, Kit ended up against him. He curled his arm around her, realizing he didn’t have to fight his need. She’d said they could try, and he liked having Kit’s warm, laughing body next to his.

She stayed against him, and every so often when he made a particularly deplorable comment, she’d lightly hit his thigh and tell him to behave. Every other time a woman had touched his thigh, it had been about sex. The first couple of times Kit did it, he tensed, but then it was okay. It was Kit and they were watching a silly show on television that she inexplicably liked. It was normal.

He hadn’t been normal for a long time.

Chapter 27

Kit worried about Noah when they headed to bed, but she didn’t want to push him on the sleep issue after the disaster with the pills. Not to mention she didn’t want to end his first day here with a fight. Smiling good night, she spent an hour awake and worrying before finally drifting off—only to wake three hours later. It took her sleep-muddled brain a minute to realize what had woken her: noises from Noah’s room.

Getting up, she pulled on her blue robe and went out to look for him. His door was open, but there was no Noah inside. A whisper of wind along the hallway told her where he’d gone. She padded to the door that led out into the garden, found him sitting on the outdoor bench in his boxer briefs, his head between his hands and his elbows on his thighs. She could see his face in the soft light from the solar-powered paper lanterns she’d hung out there.

The naked anguish in his expression threatened to break her.

Pulling back before he saw her, she pressed her spine against the wall, swallowing repeatedly and blinking in an attempt to get the burning in her eyes under control. Only when she was no longer in danger of breaking down did she step out. “Can’t sleep?”

His head jerked up. “Shit. I woke you.”

“Want to go for a run?”

He stared at her. “It’s two thirty in the morning.”

“So?” Turning to go back into the house, she said, “I’m getting changed.”

“You hate running.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t do it.”

He knocked on her bedroom door half a minute after she’d closed it. “Kit, it’s fine.”

Having already pulled out her running shorts, she opened the door. “Noah, we’re in this together. You watched Dancing with the Stars with me. I’ll go running with you. Now go get changed.” She shut the door in his face.

“Kit.”

“I’m awake now and I’m going running. Your choice if you want to join me.”

An infuriated sound came through the door, but she heard him moving to his room, and when she stepped out in her running clothes, her hair corralled into a ponytail, he was there. “We can run around inside your property,” he said, holding up a hand when she would’ve objected. “This stalker guy watches you. We can’t take the risk that he’s out there and he has a gun.”

She threw up her hands. “I don’t think he can run that fast, but whatever.” At least this mortgaged-to-the-hilt estate had enough land to make for a good lap.

Noah put his hands on his hips, eyes narrowed. Kit never said things like “whatever” in that tone of voice. “What’s wrong with you?”

A growling sound. “When did I say I was a morning person?” With that, she turned and headed out. “Pull the door shut and set the alarm.”

Glad she was thinking smart and not relying blindly on her security guys, he input the code to arm the security system, then pulled the door shut. It locked automatically behind them. Kit was in front of him, warming up. Noah never warmed up—he just ran until the nightmares couldn’t keep up, but today he stretched to keep Kit company. When they began to run, it was to head down a pathway that wove through the trees on her property.

It took him a minute to figure out the right pace. Kit was fit, but his stride was longer and he ran far more than she did. Running was hands down her least favorite form of exercise. It should’ve irritated him that he had to slow down for her, but he liked having her beside him, liked that he wasn’t alone in the dark. The fact that she chose to be with him even when she didn’t like running?

Yeah, that did all kinds of things inside him.

“You going to build a pool?” That, he knew, had been a significant downside to this property, but she’d bought it anyway because she’d been in a hurry. Not content with ejaculating on her bed, her disturbed stalker had slipped love notes under the town house door. She’d had to get out.

“When I have the money,” Kit replied.

“I have the money.”

“I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.”

The night wind rippling through his hair, he set his jaw. “If we’re going to live together, I get to contribute.” He wanted to contribute, to do things that turned this from her place to theirs, entangling them together on another level.