Chapter 14 Honor
Honor
There’s nothing for a moment, only stillness, and cicadas, and the scent of him mingling with the scent of France.
Then the shift of his weight on the bed, and soft rustling noises that tell me he’s pulling the daybed’s curtains closed around us. At least he’s a gentleman on some level.
He lies back down. When he speaks again, his mouth is closer to my ear than before.
‘You’re missing this. Anticipation. The fun of wondering about all the magical possibilities that await you.’
His hand slides onto my stomach and I narrowly escape gasping, because the heat of it through my dress is nothing compared to the heat that pools inside me when I feel that hand, slowly, gently stroking my stomach back and forth.
‘Right now, you’ve got a lot of shit going down. Your Mum, all this stuff with your husband… you’re also a mother—an amazing mother, from what I can see—and you run a huge empire. I’m sure you have a very glamorous, exciting life, but a lot of it’s responsibility? Right? Duty?
‘What if that existence also included the certain knowledge that you have a man—a very adoring man—on hand, who spends an unhealthy part of his time thinking about what to do for you? How to make sure you feel as beautiful and sexy as you truly are, all the time?’
His hand changes direction, starts stroking up and down. Up to my ribcage, down to the top of my thong. His mouth comes closer to my ear.
‘What if you had a man who was in danger of neglecting his job because he was too busy dreaming up new and wonderful ways to make you come?’
My eyes fly open as his fingers tighten on my stomach. His face is right next to mine, and he grins at my reaction, which must be absolutely priceless. Jackson talks dirty to me, but it’s Jackson, and it’s all part of his never-ending banter.
This is different. This is Noah, the mild-mannered (until this evening), good-natured doctor who I’ve been pining for these past few weeks, and lusting after shamefully.
This is a side of him I could never have predicted, and I’m so turned on just by his hand on my stomach and his voice in my ear that I can’t quite believe it.
He nods at me. ‘Close your eyes.’ His voice is soft. ‘I’m just getting started.’
Oh, God. I smirk at him and turn my head away and settle on my back.
Closing my eyes. Inhaling him. Willing him to keep going.
Loving the fact that I have no idea where he’s taking this.
Loving even more the fact that presumably that’s precisely his plan: to demonstrate this.
The wonder. The anticipation. The delicious anticipation.
‘I’m sure my proposal needs more specifics for you to consider it.
Well, let’s take this morning, when I came across you in the butler’s kitchen, making coffee.
I was checking you out. I know you noticed.
Damn right I was checking you out, in that little backless swimming costume and those tiny hot pants. ’
‘I checked you out, too.’ I whisper it.
‘I know you did, gorgeous. But if we were involved, I wouldn’t have had to leave it there.’
His lips graze my ear; his voice gets quieter and deeper.
‘I would have come up behind you, and slipped those little straps down off your shoulders, and slid down the top of your swimming costume, and I would have pulled and sucked on those beautiful nipples of yours while the others were outside, waiting for you to bring their refills. Oblivious. And I think you like the idea of that, because they’re hardening right now. ’
My head is spinning with the visual he’s given me.
I can see it, clear as day: him, pressing up behind me in the pantry and pulling down my swimming costume and putting his hands and tongue on my breasts.
His fingers fiddle with the shoestring strap of my dress, and for an endless, tortuous moment, I’m not sure if he’ll show me, like I’ve asked him to. I lie there, frozen.
Okay. He may be onto something with this anticipation business.
He slides the strap down my shoulder and runs a fingertip over the fabric covering my nipple.
I buck.
He does it again, rubbing in a circle. The fine metallic knit of the dress against my nipple adds to the heavenly friction, and I moan, softly.
‘Oh, God.’ His lips are still by my ear. ‘That sound. I can’t tell you what you do to me, Honor.’
He pulls the other shoulder strap down and tugs the neckline of the dress below my breasts. His sharp inhale matches mine. I can’t believe I’m letting him do this. I can’t believe how much I want it.
‘Jesus.’ He shifts beside me. ‘You are so fucking beautiful.’ And then his mouth is on the nipple nearest him and he’s licking and sucking and teasing it with the very edges of his teeth.
I’m really moaning now, but I can’t help it, because not only is the sensation unbearably wonderful, but this is right up there with the hottest moments of my life. And he hasn’t even kissed me yet.
‘Noah.’ I put my hand on the back of his head. ‘Please. I need you.’
A little growl from him. ‘When you say my name like that…’
His mouth comes up to meet mine and I pull him in as close as I can, and there should really be a symphony playing right now to match the immense relief of our mouths clashing together.
Lips against lips. The soft slide. Tongues testing and tasting and curling.
Teeth nipping, breath hot. His hand in my hair, fingers splayed on the back of my head before they trace down my back.
The linen of his shirt perfectly rough against my bare breasts.
The hard ridge of his erection against my hip.
He pulls his mouth away and holds me, forehead to forehead, nose to nose, as we attempt to catch our breath. Then, his hand at the back of my head, he lowers me back down onto the cushion, hovers over me.
‘Impressive pitch.’ I try for casual, but the way he’s looking at me, with rapt, dreamy eyes, makes casual difficult. ‘I think I’m sold.’
‘You think?’
His face is amused as he swings a leg over and straddles me.
‘Oh, baby, I’m not finished yet.’
‘No?’
His hands move in my hair. Smoothing it off my face. Combing it out. He leans forward and kisses me on the lips. Mouth open. Tongue gently teasing mine. Sits back up.
‘Nope. Close your eyes. I haven’t told you yet what I’d do to you in the pool if we were having an affair.’
Oh, Jesus. I close my eyes and squirm in anticipation. He mentioned certain knowledge, didn’t he? It appears the good doctor knows exactly what he’s talking about. The wonder of not knowing what he’ll do next, combined with the certain knowledge that it will be off-the-charts good, is hot as hell.
His palms make contact with my nipples.
Just a soft swipe, and then nothing. I try to arch my back but he has me pinned beneath him. The top half of my dress is around my middle.
He makes contact again.
And again.
He’s palming my breasts in a circular motion and applying more and more pressure before he switches to his fingertips, pinching and rolling and pulling.
The ache he’s creating is building and building and going straight between my legs, where I’ve already soaked through my totally ineffectual thong.
He speaks again, the struggle he’s having with his self-control evident from the raspiness of his voice. His fingers continue their torture.
‘If we were in the pool, and the others were around, I’d lead you over to the near side, so it looked as though we were having a nice chat.’
He lifts off me and edges my dress downwards. Oh, God. I raise my hips to let him. I half expect him to pull my thong down too, but he leaves it. When he’s got rid of the dress, he’s back on top of me, his erection hard against my pelvic bone.
‘You’d be more dressed than this. You’d be in that swimming costume, or that little white bikini you wore on your first day here.’
His hands glide up over my hips, my stomach, my breasts. And back down. Up. And down.
His breathing is harder, and I can’t resist the urge to open my eyes and enjoy the effect I’m having on him.
He shakes his head in mock disapproval.
‘You are… a sight for sore fucking eyes. I can’t tell you what I want to do to you. I want to do everything. Be everywhere. Taste everywhere. Now, close your eyes, please, baby, because I’m running out of self-control.’
He runs his tongue over his lower lip and I’m struck by the fact that I haven’t experienced real, red hot desire for a long time.
Not like this. Not like the burn I feel all over my body when I see Noah on top of me, his face a study in intent, his ice cream-coloured shorts bulging and his unruly hair falling over his eyes.
And the fact that he’s still fully dressed and I’m pretty much naked is even hotter.
The contrast seems to be doing it for him too.
I close my eyes again, for him, but mainly for myself. It makes my other senses sing; it makes the tension and the expectation churning inside me all the more potent.
‘I’m having a hard time staying on track.’ His laugh is a shudder. ‘As I was saying.’
A fingertip glides down between my breasts, over my belly-button, and teases the top of my thong.
He takes his weight off me and edges my legs apart with the other hand.
Further apart. Further. I let him, gladly, sliding my feet upwards so my legs are slightly bent.
He kneels back between them, his fingers brushing my inner thighs.
‘If we were having a friendly chat in the pool, I’d have to be very careful. But you’d have to be more careful not to react when I did this.’
One hand reaches the top, and he grazes my soaking thong and the surrounding flesh with his knuckles. The tickle is too much, and I gasp and jolt and push into his hand.
‘That’s definitely what I would call a reaction, baby. But we’re only practising, so I’ll let you off. Besides, you wanting me to touch you is the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.’
He pushes the thin fabric of my thong aside and his fingers stroke, stroke, stroke. They dip inside me and begin a leisurely wander around my wetness, avoiding the one spot I’m desperate for him to touch. It’s clear that’s by design, and it’s infuriating. I grind into his fingers.
‘I’d make you come like this, with my hand inside your bikini bottoms.’ His finger finally moves north and I begin the heady process of unravelling before he pulls it away.
‘But I don’t think you’re going to be capable of being very discreet.
So instead’—he rears up again and pulls off my thong, before settling back between my legs—‘I’d have to wait till we had the pool to ourselves.
Like, at this time of night. And I’d sit you up on the side and I’d spread your beautiful legs as far open as I could, and I’d make you come like this. ’
His hands move my knees further apart, and I let them fall to the sides.
And finally, finally, he delivers the killer part of the pitch.
His tongue on me, taut and circling with deadly focus, exactly where I need it.
A couple of fingers from one hand inside me as I push against him.
His thumb massaging just south of his tongue.
And his other hand stroking up my stomach to find my breast, and rubbing, rolling, squeezing, tweaking.
And I’m good for nothing. Nothing. My hands find his hair and claw at it, my back arches, and my mouth opens into an O at the relentless build of heat and pressure under his tongue and fingers.
‘Harder.’ I moan the word. ‘Harder—please, Noah.’
He ramps everything up. Fingers squeezing.
Tongue pushing. And I explode around him, shuddering and convulsing and thrashing my head from side to side until I’m too sensitive to bear any more of his ministrations, and I tug him up to me.
Pulling him into my arms. Tasting myself on his mouth.
Sighing into him and listening to the words that stream out of his mouth and into mine.
Telling me I’m so beautiful. He’s never tasted anything better. He’s addicted. I’m his addiction.
And as waves of post-orgasmic bliss wash over me, I know: I’m pretty addicted too.