Awake At Dawn (Wildflower Series Book 2)

“NOAH!” SULLY’S VOICE cut through the tension in the room. “Stop hogging our guest and get your ass up here for dinner!”

Gemma’s pretty face flushed before she got up and headed toward the door. Either she was really eager to eat dinner with my family or desperate to get away from me.

“You remember what I said about my brothers, right?” I called after her.

She looked over her shoulder, pausing at the bottom of the steps. “Not to listen to a word they say.”

“Good girl.”

Her cheeks grew even rosier before she abruptly turned and jogged up the stairs, which didn’t help. Watching Gemma’s ass bounce directly in my line of sight really didn’t help.

This dinner was going to be torture.

And sure enough, it was.

Theo, Sully, and Blake all fought for Gemma’s attention while my mom attempted to play referee as we ate. Gemma volleyed their questions expertly and with a smile, nonetheless. She had smart little answers for everything they asked, playing them like fucking fiddles. My mom loved it. My mom loved her; I could tell. Which was something I hadn’t been prepared for.

Letting my mom get attached to Gemma was a really fucking bad idea.

“Okay,” I finally said after watching my family pass the wine around the table one too many times. I’d been sitting back while they all vied for Gemma’s attention for hours and wasn’t sure I could take it any longer. “Some of us have important shit to do tomorrow and should probably go to bed.”

“Alright.” Theo lifted his beer. “Night, Noah.”

Sully turned to Gemma. “Want another non-alcoholic beverage?”

I scowled at him, and he grinned back.

“What?” he countered. “She doesn’t have important shit to do tomorrow.”

“Grandma,” Chloe hissed across the table. “I think I should get their dessert because they’re swearing at the dinner table.”

“I think so, too, honey,” my mom whispered back.

“Thank you for the offer,” Gemma said, smiling gently at Sully. So fucking polite when she didn’t need to be. “But I’m actually feeling pretty tired, too.”

“Mhm,” Blake murmured as he slowly sipped his red wine—the one he’d carefully selected to pair with tonight’s steak because he liked to pretend he was a pretentious asshole now that he’d become the second doctor in the family.

Pink colored in the spaces around Gemma’s freckles as she blinked at Blake.

“Come on.” I grabbed her wrist, giving a slight tug to have her follow me down the stairs. Luckily, she did, which allowed me to whisk her back into her room and shut the door before any of my brothers could follow us.

Gemma laughed to herself as she dropped onto the bed.

“What?”

She shrugged. “I like your family.”

“They like you,” I said with a heavy sigh. “Maybe a little too much.”

“Oh, stop.” Gemma kicked me lightly on the ankle as I walked by her to look out the window. The moon was reflecting across the lake. “I kinda feel like I’m intruding on your family reunion.”

“You’re not intruding,” I said as I turned back to her. “You saved the day by bringing Chloe, and I’m⁠—”

And I’m really glad you’re here with me, I wanted to say. Even if I had to share her with my family. But I didn’t need Gemma to know that I hated leaving her at home on travel days. We didn’t need to go down a road that would just be a dead end.

“I’m excited to have you come to the game tomorrow,” I finished weakly.

It wasn’t a lie, but it only skimmed the truth.

“I’m excited, too,” she said softly before standing. “I’m going to get ready for bed.”

Bed.

Right.

After taking a steadying breath, I gave Gemma a quick rundown of where she could find things in the en suite bathroom, and then she dragged her entire suitcase with her, shutting herself inside.

Meanwhile, I went to my room. It was basically a replica of the room Gemma was staying in, except the color scheme boasted navy instead of baby blue. I tossed off my shirt and threw on sweatpants before twiddling my thumbs, waiting for Gemma to finish in the bathroom. A few minutes later, she popped her head out of it.

“I’m done if you need to use the bathroom,” she said before flashing me a crooked smile. “Make sure you clean up your nose trimmings.”

Goddamnit, Sully.

“Thanks for the reminder,” I said dryly.

She laughed, and then her teasing expression turned shy. “Good night, Noah.”

“Night, Em.”

She lingered for just a moment longer before disappearing. I heard the door on the opposite side of the bathroom close and waited a few minutes before I went to brush my teeth. When I heard the slight creaks of the bed as Gemma lay down next door, I turned on the faucet to drown it out.

Christ, we’d lived together for weeks now. Why did this arrangement feel so much more intimate?

Maybe it was just me. Maybe it was simply because this was my mom’s house, and I never had girls at my mom’s house. That was probably it, which made me feel better because hopefully, Gemma didn’t feel the same way I did. Hopefully, she’d fall right to sleep and stay that way all through the night.

My hopes for a peaceful night vanished when I startled from my half-sleeping state a few hours later to hear noises in the bathroom.

Noises that sounded an awful lot like Gemma getting sick.

Shit.

Sure enough, I peeked inside the bathroom in time to see Gemma wipe her chin off with her pajama top, making a disgusted face before she flushed the toilet. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and exhaustion riddled her expression. I’d learned that Gemma almost always cried when she threw up, which made it that much harder for me to watch.

She caught sight of me in the doorway before I was able to say anything.

“I’m sorry,” she groaned, wiping at her face. “God, I thought for sure I was done with this. I didn’t think the nausea was supposed to last this long.”

It hurt so bad to watch her suffer like this.

“You’re almost in your second trimester, so it might get better soon,” I said, trying to be positive, even though I knew there was no guarantee of that. “Here, hang on.”

Not wanting her to have to sit there in vomit-stained pajamas, I grabbed a spare shirt from my bag and brought it back to the bathroom. Gemma had her head in her hands when I crouched down to give her the shirt, and I ran a hand down her back, only to be surprised by how goddamn cold she was.

“Christ, Gemma.”

Her head shot up, and I regretted the way I said her name. But holy shit, she was a fucking popsicle. And not only that but I could feel how her body shook with waves of shivers.

I put my hand to her forehead, suddenly worried she was sick.

But no, her forehead was just as icy as the rest of her.

“That heater in my room doesn’t work,” she said, tucking her knees into her chest and wrapping her arms around them to stay warm.

“Oh my fucking God.” I checked my watch to see that it was nearly 2:00 a.m., and we’d said good night around eleven. “So you’ve just been sitting over there freezing for the past three hours?”

She shook her head. “I fell asleep for a little bit.”

I frowned. “You can have the heater from my room.”

Lifting her head, she matched my frown. “But then you’ll be an ice cube. What if your fingers freeze off? We’ve already talked about this, Noah. You need those. I just need a couple more blankets, and I’ll be fine.”

“Nope.” No way. “I’m not having you and your unborn child freeze to death in my mom’s basement, Em.”

“Well, now I think you’re being just a touch dramatic,” she muttered. “It’s not that cold.”

I ignored her and pointed to the shirt I brought her. “Put that on, and then get your ass in my bed.”

“Noah—”

“Your ass in my bed, Gemma Briggs,” I reiterated and then left the bathroom before she could argue with me about it.

Heater aside, this just felt…right.

Also torturous, but that was beside the point.

I didn’t like waking up to find Gemma suffering. I’d rather be there for all of it. So if that meant that we were going to share a bed, then we were going to share a fucking bed.

I crawled back under my covers and then sat there, impatiently and awkwardly waiting for Gemma. I tapped my fingers on the bedspread while I stared at the bathroom door.

Goddamnit. I was acting like a prepubescent teen who’d never had a girl in his bedroom before.

At least Gemma was changing, so I wouldn’t have to suffer seeing her in those pajamas with the little hearts on them. Or, more crucially, that top with the buttons that came undone so easily.

Yeah, a T-shirt would definitely be bet⁠—

Gemma opened the bathroom door and immediately proved me wrong.

“Do you need shorts?” I blurted because she walked into the room looking like she was wearing my shirt and nothing else.

This was not better than her normal pajamas. No way in hell. She was entirely too tall for that shirt. I mean, sure, it covered her ass. But barely. And she looked so fucking good in my Knights apparel that I had to stifle a groan.

Her wearing my clothes made me feel like she was mine, and she wasn’t even close to being that.

“No, no,” Gemma protested, making a dash toward the bed as though everything would be okay once she got beneath the covers and I couldn’t see how goddamn short the shirt was. “Some of the you-know-what got onto my shorts, too.” I rolled my eyes at her aversion to saying the word “vomit,” considering how many times I’d seen her do it. “But I don’t need anything else. It’s fine.”

It was not fine.

Gemma slipped into bed, and my body immediately tightened with the awareness of hers. It didn’t matter that it was a king-sized bed. Every slight movement she made sent a jolt of heat through me, undeniable and intense.

Gemma, on the other hand, seemed unaffected. She flopped onto her back, pulling the covers over her with a contented sigh.

I wanted to make her sigh like that.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

I was not sure.

“Are you?” I tossed back.

“It’s much warmer in here,” she said, and I could hear the gratitude in her voice. “Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me for not letting you freeze when you’re the one who flew all the way to Minnesota so my niece could come to my football game.”

“Well, I’m glad I came. But…I do miss Winnie,” she murmured, filling me with guilt because she was over there thinking about my dog while I’d been fantasizing about doing dirty things to her a minute ago.

I missed Winnie, too. It hadn’t been easy to entrust Matt to care for her when I’d been so used to having Gemma do it.

But I’d lived next to him for over a year, and he was fine. He had some kind of high-level corporate job and said he could work from home when he wanted to. I liked the idea that Winnie would have plenty of company. And even though I could tell he was looking around my apartment for Gemma when he came over to talk Winnie logistics, I could also tell he did, actually, seem genuine in his offer to take care of her for a few nights.

“I miss her, too,” I agreed, sliding down to lie flat. “But I’m sure she’s okay.”

Gemma seemed like she needed to hear that last part, even if I couldn’t help but worry a little bit, too.

“You said your mom works for a pet rescue. Did you have dogs growing up?” Gemma asked, peeking over at me. “Is that why you wanted to get Winnie?”Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

I turned my head sideways on the pillow to look back at her. “Yeah, we always had dogs. Some were fosters, some were adopted. Mom always insisted on adopting the old dogs that no one else would take in. That was sometimes hard as a kid, to only have them for a short time. But I understood why she did it.”

Gemma blinked, her expression softening as moonlight leaked through the window and hit her face. “Is that why you wanted a puppy? So you could have her longer?”

I shrugged, trying to act casual despite how hard that question hit me. “Yeah, I guess so. My mom likes to send me photos of rescue dogs available at this one organization she knows of in Boston. They rarely have puppies available, and I usually talk myself out of adopting any of the older dogs because of my football schedule. I just send in a monthly donation instead. But then I saw Winnie on their website one day, and I just…I don’t know. I had to adopt her, even if it didn’t make sense.”

Gemma’s lips curved, making the room feel lighter despite it being dark. “I bet your mom was so happy that you did.”

I smiled at the memory of telling her. “Oh, she was.”

“Momma’s boy,” Gemma teased before a shiver racked her body.

“Still cold?” I asked with a ghost of a smirk.

Gemma pulled the covers up to her chin, burrowing deeper into the bed. “I’m much better already.”

She didn’t answer my question, and she was hoping I wouldn’t notice. But of course I did.

I sighed, knowing what I was about to do would not do me any favors.

“Let me warm you up.”

She stared, eyes round as they connected with mine. Maybe it was just the darkness of the room, but her pupils looked dilated, lacking their usual brightness. Something else swam in their depths.

I cleared my throat. “Come here, Em. I don’t want you to freeze. Besides, I make a damn good big spoon.”

A breathy laugh caught in her throat as she relented, inching my way. Meanwhile, my pulse sped up as the space between us vanished, and Gemma’s back collided with my bare chest. I wrapped an arm around her waist, tugging her closer until our bodies fit together like two perfect puzzle pieces.

Goose bumps prickled over her skin, and I desperately wanted to give her more of them. I could feel her shirt—my shirt—riding up between us, and the knowledge that her ass was probably bare as it wiggled against my crotch nearly did me in.

I shoved my hand beneath her rib cage, trapping it between her body and the mattress so it wouldn’t start moving like it desperately wanted to. The urge to touch her was like nothing I’d ever known.

Gemma, on the other hand, hadn’t stopped moving.

“Are you trying to give my cock a rub down with your ass, Em?” I rasped. “Because it sure feels like it, and there are consequences for that.”

“Sorry.” She laughed like this was fucking funny. “I was just trying to get comfortable. It takes me longer these days because of the pregnancy. But I’m not opposed to lending a hand if you need one.”

Goddamn her.

“Can you not offer to give me a hand job in the same way you might offer a cup of sugar to a fucking neighbor?”

Another laugh burst through her lips, and I scowled at the back of her head.

“If it makes you feel better, I would never offer Matt something like that.”

“You fucking better not,” I grunted before realizing how jealous that sounded. But fuck it, the idea did make me jealous. And she could know it; I wasn’t sure I cared anymore.

“I won’t.” Her voice was softer now. Sinfully soft, putting my body on high alert. As if I didn’t already feel like I was about to explode. “Truthfully, hand jobs are not exactly my forte,” she added.

“Oh, so are you rescinding your offer?”

That was probably for the best.

“No,” she murmured huskily. “Just saying…I’m better with my mouth.”

“Fuck, Gemma,” I groaned.

Pictures flew through my brain, ones that I only let myself imagine when I was alone. Images of Gemma’s pretty mouth wrapped around my cock, sucking me so beautifully.

“Was that a better delivery?” she asked, sounding breathy and…aroused?

Glad it wasn’t just me. But at the same time, that made this so much harder.

Literally.

“I think that was actually too good,” I choked.

Gemma snuggled backward as though she wanted to feel for herself how good she’d teased the fuck out of me. Her ass brushed the length of my painfully hard dick, and I tightened my arm around her, urging her to stop moving.

“Gemma, please.”

She froze, making me feel guilty for my tone, which was probably too harsh. But she was killing me.

I let my hand drift lower, smoothing over her tiny bump, resting my hand there. I moved my thumb in small circles, a gentle caress. Gemma slowly melted in my arms, which had been my hope. All her tense muscles relaxed, and I tried not to think of the other ways I could make her body respond to my touch. Instead, I focused on the little life growing beneath my hand, stirring a different kind of reaction inside me, one I felt in my chest.

“When’s the next appointment?” I whispered, hating how strained my voice still sounded. “You didn’t put it in your calendar.”

She cleared her throat. “I’m not sure it will work for you to make it.”

“If it doesn’t work, I’ll move things around.”

“I was worried you’d say that.”

“Is that why it’s not on your calendar?”

She nodded, her hair tickling my nose. My stomach dropped, and it took me a second to find words.

“Do you really not want me to come?”

She shook her head. “No, Noah. That’s not it at all. I…I liked having you come last time.”

Relief spread through my body, making it tingle. “Then put it on the calendar, and I’ll make it work.”

She sighed, her whole body inflating in my arms before losing air like a popped balloon.

“Noah…”

“What?”

Gemma didn’t say anything for a long time. I wished I could see her face. I heard her taking deep breaths, interrupted only by one of my brothers laughing upstairs and a loon call from the lake.

“I think I’m warm enough now,” she finally said, followed by a forced-sounding laugh. “You’re like a furnace.”

She was telling me I could let go, but I didn’t want to.

I really didn’t want to, and that terrified me.

She’s Julian’s sister, Noah.

That reminder was the only reason I allowed Gemma to slip from my arms and scoot to the other side of the bed.

I couldn’t find the words to say anything else. Not even when I realized how cold I was without her.

But cold was good.

My body needed it.

My body also needed her.

But I had a feeling that was a battle I’d be fighting for a long time.