Reaching over, Kit touched Becca’s hand. “It’s different this time, trust me.” Noah remained the same man, but he was no longer using his defenses to block her out, sabotage their relationship. This was the Noah she’d come to know in their hotel room conversations—the sensitive, complicated, talented man who’d written a heartbreaking song about a sparrow with broken wings.

She understood that song now, knew how deeply personal it was, though to anyone who didn’t know his past, it would simply be a sweet, sad, beautiful song.

“Hey,” Becca said with a wry smile. “Boys come and go, but girlfriends are forever, right? I’m not going to mess with our friendship by dissing Noah when you love him.”

“I want you two to like each other—give him a shot, okay?” Kit knew this “boy” wouldn’t be going anywhere. He made her heart sing.

“Just for you.” Becca poked her cake fork at Kit. “Are you two coming to my birthday dinner? Crap, I think I forgot to e-mail you. It’s tomorrow night.”

“I feel wounded! Forgotten already.” Kit slapped a hand over her heart. “What time? Where?”

“Nothing fancy. My place. We’ll do takeout, and since I forgot to order a cake, we’ll eat random cakes I pick up from the grocery store. Seven p.m. to probably around ten thirty as a whole bunch of us have to be on set by eight the next day.”

“I’ll be there.” Kit crossed her fingers that Becca and Noah would hit it off. “And I’m going to make sure you have a proper birthday cake—chocolate-frosted vanilla, right?”

Becca’s smile was so sweet it belied the tough attitude she so often put on. “Thanks, Kit. I should’ve known I could count on you.”

Noah gave Kit a dubious look when she told him her hope that he and Becca would find common ground. “Becca is never going to like me, Kit. It’s in the girl code or something.”

“Just be nice to her,” Kit said, picking up her phone to call a caterer friend who owed her a favor—and who happened to have a baker on staff.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He was actually nice to Becca, to the point that the makeup artist seemed to be thawing a little. Kit actually saw the two of them in conversation not long after Becca cut the dual-layer cake Kit’s caterer friend had managed on short notice, and Becca had a genuine smile on her face. Relieved she wouldn’t have to run interference between her man and one of her closest friends, Kit had a great time at the party.

Returning home with Noah around eleven that night, she stretched in the hallway. “That was a good night.”

The only awkward moment had come when Terrence turned up.

“Oh, shit,” Becca had mouthed from across the room. Later, when she’d had Kit alone, she’d been so apologetic. “I totally forgot you two had a thing before you got together with Noah. Do you want me to ask him to leave?”

Kit had assured her friend that it was fine, but the situation had been strained. Terrence had barely spoken to her, and it made her sad that he was still so angry with her—though she did think he was taking things a bit hard when they’d only been on three actual dates. They’d been friends for years before that; surely he understood that she hadn’t meant to hurt him?

His behavior seemed unusually possessive, but Kit couldn’t bring herself to believe Terrence was her stalker. Still, she’d be extra careful around him, especially since Jade was still excited about Kit doing the project with the two of them. Kit had expected Terrence to veto it, but according to Jade, he wanted Kit for the role.

Not that she’d know it from his personal treatment of her.

 “Hey.” Noah rubbed the lines between her eyebrows. “Why the frown?”

Kit shook her head, not wanting to bring up Terrence. She’d sensed the animosity between Noah and the writer, figured they must’ve run into each other when she wasn’t around. “I’m glad you and Becca are getting along.”

Taking her hand, he tugged her to her bedroom and leaned in the doorway while she slipped off her heels. “Yeah, dodged that bullet. Phew.” He pretended to wipe his brow. “Any guy worth his salt knows you’re toast if you get on the wrong side of the girlfriends.”

Kit laughed. “How did you do it?”

“Told her I was crazy about you.” Smiling lips, dead serious eyes.

Her heart squeezed so hard she could barely breathe. “I have to change,” she said, the words coming out husky.

Stepping inside the room, he braced his back on the wall by the door. “Can I watch?”

Kit’s breath froze in her throat at the unexpected question, the heat in Noah’s gaze searing. “I… Okay.” Gripping her nerves in a tight fist, she walked over to him and, turning to give him her back, swept her hair over one shoulder. “Unzip me. Please.”

A rough breath, his lips brushing her nape before he began to tug down the zipper slow and easy. He touched her nowhere else, but by the time he’d finished, she had goose bumps all over her body. Keeping her back to him, she returned to her original position beside the bed and slid off the long sleeves of the midthigh-length black dress.

A single push at the hips and the soft fabric fell to pool at her feet.

He groaned. “You’re wearing a garter belt with thigh-high stockings.”

Yes, she was. Not simply because she liked the way they felt on her body, but because Noah had once let it drop that he found the look hot. It had been a passing comment while they’d been watching a movie, but she remembered everything when it came to him.

“These old things?” she said and, stepping out of the dress, bent down to pick it up. She was hotly conscious of Noah’s eyes on her ass as she walked into the wardrobe and hung the dress in the section where she put clothes that needed dry-cleaning.

A deep inhale while she was hidden from him, a slow exhale, her pulse a drumbeat.

Going back to the bed using the same unhurried stride, she put one foot on the mattress and unclipped the stocking from the garter belt. The stocking was baby fine and, to be honest, not really necessary in LA. But again, it was all about playing to Noah’s fantasies.

She rolled down the stocking with care, inch by inch. Tugging it off her foot, she dropped it to the floor and started on the second. No rushing, no visible self-consciousness, just a woman slowly, sensuously teasing her lover as she undressed for him.

Though Noah hadn’t moved from his position by the door, his thumbs hooked into the front pockets of his jeans, his breathing was audible. Her own heart thumped hard as stone against her ribs. It was so loud by the time she finished taking off the second stocking that she couldn’t hear Noah anymore. Dropping the ball of airy material to the carpet, she put both feet back on that carpet and went to undo the tiny hooks that fastened the lace of the garter belt around her hips.

It was erotic black, the same color as her panties and the demi-cup bra she wore on top. All a matched set.

Her hands trembled as she removed the lace and dropped it on the bed.

She’d just lifted her arms back to unhook her bra when Noah moved. She saw it out of the corner of her eye, stumbled when his weight hit her, but he had his hands tight on her hips, kept her upright.

“Noah,” she gasped, feeling the hard push of his cock against her lace-covered butt.

“Now, Kit,” he said harshly. “Now, while I only have you in my head.”

Kit didn’t argue. If Noah thought now was the time, now it would be. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t burning up for him. “Yes,” she said.

He turned her to the wall, pushed her forward. It was rough but controlled, Noah’s hands holding on to her until she’d braced her palms against the wall. Her chest heaved, her breasts swelling against the cups of her bra. She made a low, needy sound in her throat when he pulled down the scrap of her panties… and then they just tore, the ribbon ties on either side snapping like they were made of paper.