Chapter Twenty-Three #2
He grins at me, bright and boyish, and so delightfully young that I find myself smiling back. He plants both knees between my thighs and urges them wider, shifting down to tuck his hips to mine. The muscles in his arms bunch and flex, his beard scraping at my skin just before his teeth do.
“You feel—” He inhales deeply, trying to settle himself. “You feel so good. Better than any dream I’ve ever had.” His hand palms my hip, angling it up, our bodies connecting and retreating. “So warm.”
I hook my foot behind his knee, trying to pull him closer. “Thank you,” I breathe.
“Can I truly have you like this?” He settles more of his weight against me. “Is this not another dream?”
“It’s not a dream. I’m here, and you’re here, too, and I need—I need you to—”
He hushes me, digging his hips into mine, pressing me deeper into the bed. “I won’t be rushed, Harriet.”
I groan.
“I thought about doing this when you wore those red pajamas,” he tells me. “I thought about pulling those shorts to your ankles, going to my knees, and putting my mouth on you.”
My stomach twists. “I thought you hated those pajamas.”
“I do hate those pajamas,” he says. “Those pajamas make me stupid. Those pajamas make me wonder what other sorts of things you have in that wardrobe of yours. And that dress.” He makes a deep, rumbling sound. Something tortured with his teeth bared against me. “Fuck, that dress.”
“What dress?”
“You know the one.” He yanks my top down farther, a useless loop of silky fabric around my middle. “The dress I picked out for you. You were so lovely.”
I close my eyes with a sigh. Lovely. He’s called me that before. In a tiny dressing room with his warm breath against the back of my neck. It’s just as thrilling now as it was then.
Has anyone ever looked at me and seen anything other than someone falling woefully short of expectations?
Lovely is meant for other people. Those who are soft and glowing, held between careful hands.
“What are you supposed to say?” he rasps against my skin and the tension in my belly pulls tight, a pulse that echoes in time with my heartbeat, settling right between my spread thighs.
“Thank you,” I breathe, the words bursting out of me without hesitation.
“Good, Harriet,” he says and it’s almost better than his mouth against me, the electric feeling those words ignite. “See? It’s not so difficult, is it?”
I shake my head and he chuckles knowingly, one hand pressing between my thighs. He grinds there roughly, following the desperate motion of my hips. The sound that falls out of my mouth would be embarrassing if I wasn’t so relieved at the friction.
“Lovely,” he says again and I bite my lip against a whimper. “Is this what you need?”
I nod and try to spread my legs wider despite the tangle of blankets holding me immobile. My fingers release his body and tangle in my hair instead, pulling it off my sticky neck. I need something to hold on to. Something to keep from floating to the ceiling with the snowflakes.
More and more land against my skin, picking up speed as Nolan’s hand keeps the heavy rhythm, tiny white crystals that tickle at my bare breasts and the heaving hollow of my stomach.
The flare of my hips and my open, panting mouth.
Each one feels like a kiss. Like Nolan’s hands and lips are everywhere.
He tilts his head down, watching the way his hand works between us.
“More?” he asks.
“Please.”
He drags his hand up my thigh, slipping it beneath the loose hem of my shorts.
“You did need this.” He grunts. “Fuck. You’re wet.”
I should be embarrassed, but I’m not. Not with Nolan. He thinks I’m lovely.
“Yes,” I tell him.
“I made you this way, didn’t I? With these little touches.” He fixes me with a heavy, hot look. “With my cock in your mouth.”
“Yes.” I hiccup a moan as he presses one finger, then two, inside me. It’s like he’s too impatient to wait, all his restraint snapped like a string being pulled from both ends.
“Tell me.” He circles my clit with the pad of his thumb, leans down, and presses his mouth to mine in a hot, licking kiss. “Tell me how much you needed it,” he says, each word accompanied with another rough thrust of his fingers.
“I did. I needed it,” I babble immediately. He deserves to know. He’s exactly right. He did make me this way. “I’ve been thinking about this, about you. I needed you to touch me. I needed you to want me.”
The words spill out of my mouth, careless, twisted up in desire.
I flinch as they echo around the room, dancing between the snowflakes.
It’s too much. Too much of the secret I’ve been tucking close to my heart, only peeling back to examine in the stillness between sleep and awake when consequences feel far away and dreams are within reach.
My affection for Nolan has steadily been growing into something unmanageable.
A balloon in the middle of my chest that I’m afraid is going to pop and leave me scattered in pieces on the floor.
I close my eyes and hold my breath, my body stiffening beneath his. Nolan slows his touch and I tuck my arm across my naked chest, feeling exposed.
I always do this. I say too much. I make it into something it’s not supposed to be. I’ve mistaken Nolan’s affection for something more, when he’s made it perfectly clear from the very start that I’m an assignment. A means to an end. An end he’s been waiting a very, very long time for.
It’s not fair of me to lay the weight of my growing feelings across his shoulders.
“Harriet,” Nolan whispers, and I twist my face to the side, hiding in my pillow. I try to close my legs but his other hand settles over my knee, pressing it back to the bed, keeping me open for him. He moves over me, his nose pressed to my temple. “Harriet,” he says again, sharper this time.
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly, my voice higher than usual as I try desperately not to cry. I ruined it. We were having fun and I ruined it. “I didn’t mean—I’m just—”
I’m overwhelmed, I think. It’s never been like this for me. Magic and heat and desire so sharp I feel like I’m slicing myself against the edge of it.
“You didn’t mean it?” he asks. I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak. Maybe if we just get back to the pleasure, I’ll forget the way my admission burns at the inside of my chest. I try to rock my hips against his, but Nolan holds me still, a hiss tucked against my ear. “Look at me.”
I ignore him, biting my lip. Fingertips touch my chin, guiding my face to his. “Look at me,” he says again, softer this time. “You needed me to want you?”
I search his face, waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under me.
But there’s nowhere to hide when I’m caged beneath him like this, and I nod before I can convince myself not to.
Nolan might not have seen the worst of me yet, but he has seen more than most. The broken parts that I’ve done my best to patch up on my own.
“You needed me to want you,” he repeats, not a question this time, his voice cracking around that word.
I shrink beneath him, tucking my chin to my chest. Tears burn behind my eyes. I’m so embarrassed.
“It’s okay.” I press my palms to his shoulders. “We don’t have to—”
“Harriet.” He bites down around the edge of my name, his voice crisp. “You misunderstand me.”
“I don’t—”
“We bypassed wanting long ago.” He shakes his head.
“Your pajamas and your candy canes. Your smart mouth and your big heart. All of this hair.” He digs his fingers into it with his free hand, dull nails scratching against my scalp.
“How could you possibly think—even for a second—that I wouldn’t want you? ”
“I don’t know,” I say, sounding winded. I’m still trying so hard not to cry. “You yell at me a lot.”
He arches an eyebrow. “You tried to assault me the very first time you saw me.”
“You broke into my house.”
“I didn’t break—” The corners of his mouth twitch in amusement. “Is this really what you want to discuss right now?”
He traces a slow path against my skin, right below my belly button. His fingers are still wet from me, my desire banked but not forgotten.
“I don’t even really know what we’re talking about,” I breathe.
He dips his head closer to mine, his hand sliding back up my thigh. “Do I need to convince you?”
I squeeze my eyes shut tight. “No.”
Two fingers find the soft heat between my legs in a rough press before he lightens his touch again. Teasing. I make a choked sound in the back of my throat.
“Okay, maybe.”
I feel his grin against my jaw. “That’s good, Harriet, because I intend to.” He cups me fully and rolls his wrist, grinding right where I need him, the pressure delicious. I spread my legs wider and shift down in the bed, chasing his touch. “We’ll start like this.”
He finds the same pace without hesitation, working me right back up to the edge he had me balanced on.
Except this time he doesn’t stop, two fingers pressing back inside me with rough, heavy insistence.
I grip the arm bracketed by my head, then dig my nails into the muscles of his biceps when it all becomes too much.
“Nolan,” I whine, and a wild sound tears out of his chest. He grips my chin with his free hand and drags my lips to his, licking into my mouth.
“Next time I’ll be patient,” he says against my mouth when he pulls away, both of our chests heaving, his fingers still pinching my chin, making sure I can’t look anywhere else except right at him while he works me toward a frenzy.
His fingers move faster between my legs, like he needs it as much as I do.
“I’ll take my time, and I’ll prove my point, and I’ll hear you say my name like that over and over again.
Next time, I’ll take off these damned shorts and watch how well you take me.
” His teeth flash white as he clenches them, barely holding on to his own composure.
His hips bump up against the back of his hand as he moves against me.
Like he’s fucking me with more than his fingers.
“I’ll sink into you inch by inch and you’ll be so good for me,” he grinds out. “You’ll say thank you. Won’t you, Harriet?”
“Oh god,” I grit out, everything within me pulling tight as I tumble over the edge, the rest of the fantasy he’s weaving lost to the white noise in my head.
To the messy, unpracticed way he touches me.
It’s not the promise of more but the promise of again that has me trembling beneath him, grabbing on to whatever I can reach.
I haven’t ruined it. Not at all.
I’ve made it better.
Nolan works me through my orgasm with a low rumble of encouragement, his forehead pressed to my temple as I shiver and shake beneath him, his chest brushing against mine with every panted exhale.
I keep my eyes closed and let myself feel it.
How he mumbles things like good and beautiful and other words I’ve never, ever associated with myself.
But Nolan makes me think that maybe I could.
I smooth my palms over his shoulders, down to his wrists, and back up again as the pleasure ebbs out of me like a wave retreating from the shore. I’m suddenly exhausted, my body loose and warm.
Nolan huffs a laugh, collapsing at my side, his hand at my hip.
He squeezes once. I let my hands drift over his warm skin as I wait for the next part.
The part where he tells me he’s only here for a little bit.
That he can’t make any promises. That what we just did was a mistake, and we can’t do it again.
But all he does is drift his mouth along the shell of my ear, the snowflakes slowing until none remain.
“Do you believe me now?” he asks against my skin, not moving an inch. My hopeful heart leaps in my chest, even as I try to stomp down hard on it.
There’s still an hourglass hanging over our heads. There are still things Nolan doesn’t know. We can’t ever have anything beyond this, these fleeting moments we steal for ourselves.
But it’s hard to worry when Nolan rolls out of my bed, half-moons from my nails decorating the skin of his lower back, his hair standing on end. He peers at me over his shoulder and smiles at whatever look is on my face, his hand reaching out to cuff my ankle and squeeze.
“Yes,” I tell him. “I believe you.”