Chapter Twenty-Three
Harriet
I’m quite pleased with myself.
I’ve never inspired a man to create new weather patterns before, but I suppose I’ve never been with a man like Nolan. His skin. His taste. The sounds he made. The way he moved, desperate and needy. For me. My touch.
I felt powerful. Intoxicated. Desired.
Nolan rolls his head against the pillows, looking at me through lazy, half-lidded eyes. Snowflakes are still drifting from the ceiling, catching in his hair before they melt. He lifts his hand and rubs his thumb at the corner of my mouth.
“I like this look on you,” he rumbles, voice impossibly deep.
I duck my head against his shoulder. “I like this look on you,” I tell him.
I rest my chin against his arm and peer at his face.
“You look—” He’s still wearing the remnants of his arousal—rosy cheeks, messy hair, a satisfied laziness in his intent expression.
He’s the most relaxed I’ve ever seen him, and it makes me feel like I should be wearing a medal around my neck.
“Exalted?” He blinks sleepily. His hand sifts through my hair so he can touch my neck. His favorite place. “Incandescent?”
A laugh tumbles out of me. The snowflakes pause midair and tremble, then pick up speed once more, swirling in a new pattern. “Something like that.”
He grins at me, wide and beaming, so unrestrained it makes my breath catch. Nolan is so controlled with his reactions—so reserved with his affections—that this sort of smile makes me feel like I’ve been handed something precious. One of the treasures I keep at my store.
I reach out and gently touch one of the dimples in his cheek.
He turns his head to brush a kiss against my fingers, and something warm and molten twists low in my belly. “You should have orgasms more often if this is your reaction.”
He laughs, a rumbling sound that skitters over my skin like the snowflakes that are still falling from the ceiling. “You’re incredible.”
Heat climbs my cheeks. I just had my mouth wrapped around him in my teddy bear–printed sheets, and his flattery is the thing that makes me blush. Unbelievable. “Again, I think that might be the orgasm talking.”
His smile flickers. “Why can’t you hear praise without brushing it away?”
“Because,” I say, keeping my eyes on his neck instead of his face. “I just ended a century-long dry spell for you. I’m sure those endorphins are having a field day.”
“Do you know what I think?”
I give him a look. “You’ve never once hesitated to tell me.”
He gently pinches my chin, holding my attention firmly on him. “I think you don’t know how to take a compliment.”
“That is …” I consider denying it. “Probably true,” I answer on a sigh instead.
His forehead creases. I don’t think he expected my easy agreement. He watches me for a moment, then dips his face closer to mine, gaze focused on my mouth. “That’s something we should work on, Harriet.”
“Sure,” I tell him, my breath hitching as his hand continues its slow descent.
He spreads his fingers wide across my chest and pushes, insistent until I fall back into the pillows next to him.
I land with an oof and Nolan props himself up on his elbow above me, his hand still lightly collared against the base of my throat, holding me still.
“We’re going to start right now,” he says. “With compliments.”
“What?” I laugh. “We don’t—”
“These pajamas,” he says over me. “They drive me mental.”
“That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
He toys with one of the thin straps draped over my shoulder. “They’ve driven me to distraction since the very first night I saw them.”
“Well, you’re the one who put them on me last night. So, take that up with yourself, buddy.”
“I don’t think I will,” he rumbles. He twists the strap he’s investigating, guiding it over the slope of my shoulder and down to the crease of my elbow.
The top of my shirt tugs down slightly, catching on the curve of my breasts.
He licks his bottom lip and repeats the process on the other side, until my barely-there top is barely clinging to me.
“Your skin looks like you’re glowing when you wear this color.” His eyes trail over my newly exposed skin, the straps in my elbows, my hair on the pillow. “You always look like you’re glowing,” he adds.
I certainly feel like I could be when he looks at me like that. I wiggle in the sheets beneath him, my breath shallow.
His eyes snap to mine and hold. “You’re supposed to say thank you.”
“What?”
I shift, fighting the urge to cover myself.
I’ve never been particularly comfortable with my body.
The men I’ve been with haven’t held effusive praise for my small breasts or the heavy flare of my hips.
The awkward length of my long limbs or the unruly nature of my hair.
The act of revealing myself has always been practical.
The first step in a process that ultimately ended in lukewarm satisfaction.
But Nolan is unwrapping me like one of the colorful treats I keep in a jar on my kitchen table, heat flaring in his eyes with every new inch exposed.
“When someone gives you a compliment,” he says slowly. “You’re supposed to say thank you.”
“Oh.” I wet my lips and blink up at him. “Thank you.” He clicks his tongue. “Doesn’t sound like you mean it.”
“I do. I mean it.”
“You’ll need to be more convincing.” He ducks down and presses a wet, sucking kiss to my neck. His fingers catch in my hair against the pillow. “Let’s try another.”
I close my eyes as he works his mouth against my skin, impatient scrapes of his teeth and short, rough sounds.
It’s intoxicating, feeling the way he’s holding himself back from me.
I want to push that meticulous control of his.
I want him to forget whatever game he’s playing and move his mouth to my breasts instead.
But he’s a man on a mission, focused entirely on the thrumming press of my pulse and the spot beneath my ear that makes my legs twitch wider in the sheets.
I’m hollow and hot and absolutely aching, but Nolan stays with his mouth against my neck like he’s in no particular rush.
How nice for him.
“Your skin is so soft,” he says an indeterminate time later, when it feels like I might climb out of my skin. My neck has never been so sensitive in my life.
“Oh,” I breathe. “I use, um, lotion.”
He presses another slow kiss to the delicate skin just below my pulse. “It’s not the lotion that makes you soft, Harriet.” His teeth catch my skin and bite. “And remember to say thank you.”
“Th-thank you,” I stutter, my heart giving one heavy thump. I reach for him, my palms sliding over warm skin, his shoulder blades flexing as he moves over me. He rumbles out an appreciative sound, then I dig my nails in the small of his back and some of his endless patience snaps.
His hand finds the front of my camisole, but this time he doesn’t bother with the light, teasing touches. He tugs until the silky material pools around my waist, my nipples tightening as snowflakes land against my bare skin. Nolan pushes himself up above me so he can study his handiwork.
“Look at you,” he whispers. “Beautiful.”
He cups my breasts in his big hands, his thumbs finding my nipples. My back arches and he tugs my body fully beneath his.
“Say thank you, Harriet.”
My lips quirk up. “Thank you, Harriet.”
His eyes flick up briefly in a half-hearted eye roll, then he bends down to press a kiss right between my breasts, exactly where my heart is trying to pound its way out of my chest. He lets his forehead rest there for a moment, nuzzling, and a warm, hazy feeling cuts through the sharp burn of arousal.
“Your heart,” he says against my skin. “This foolish, beautiful thing. It’s been bruised, hasn’t it?”
My fingers climb the ladder of his rib cage, feeling the way his chest expands and contracts with every breath. Pressure builds behind my eyes. I nod.
“But you still let it tug you forward, yeah?” He settles himself over me, one of his legs between mine. “What a gift that is. To still wish and dream and want. To find the good. To wear it on your sleeve.”
“It doesn’t feel like a gift.” A single tear slips out of the corner of my eye, mixing with the snow that drifts around us. Nolan reaches up and wipes it away. “It feels like a curse. Like I haven’t learned my lesson. Like I’m setting myself up for disappointment.”
Like I’m being silly and naive, hoping things might be different. That if I’m as shiny and positive as possible, some of that might rub off on the people around me. That I can fix whatever it is inside of me that makes it so easy for me to be tossed aside. Disregarded.
Nolan shakes his head. “I don’t think you understand me, Harriet. This isn’t a discussion.” His voice is gentle, a laugh in there somewhere. “Compliments, remember? I don’t want to hear an argument. I want to hear a thank you.”
I swallow hard at the lilting command whispering along the edges of his voice and something in me softens and breaks. It’s a relief to hand over control. To have my role laid out so easily. To know exactly what to do.
The knot in my middle unravels, liquid heat spilling out.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Thank you.”
“That’s right.” His eyes trip a shade darker—so blue they’re almost black. Still waters that run deep. “I’ve lived longer than any man has a right to. I don’t dabble in false sincerity. Surely you know that by now.”
He plucks at my nipple, twisting lightly. It occurs to me in a startling moment of clarity that if Nolan hasn’t been touched in almost a century, then he hasn’t done any touching either. What an honor it is to be laid out beneath him like this, bare skin and wild hair.
I relax deeper against the pillows, offering more of myself.
“Shall we try another?”
“Yes,” I breathe immediately.