Chapter Five Noah #2
“Complete fabrication,” I instantly shoot back, looking at her with a wrinkled forehead.
“I’ve never brought another woman here, let alone rolled the dice subjecting someone to him.
” I shift back to the humor in my best friend’s face.
“If this woman stops talking to me, I’m going to burn your place down. ”
Goldie’s laughing at us again as I shove the paper with his number back at him. He faces her, ignoring me as I walk around the table. He takes her hand and kisses the top in dramatic fashion before talking more shit.
“Listen, go easy on Noah. I might be lying, but I’m trying to help because he’s ugly, and girls never like him. Not everyone can have my personality.” She grins wider at his baloney. “Knock me a little kiss right here,” he says, turning his cheek to her.
She does, and he makes a point of overexaggeratedly biting his lips like he’s enjoying it. My hands find her waist, turning her away before I lead her far from my degenerate friend.
“It was nice meeting you, Goldie.”
“You too, Chase,” she calls out before I grab our coats at the front, hearing him at our backs.
“Feel free to exaggerate my good looks when you talk to your sister. 617-374—”
I can’t help but laugh as I push through the door. The moment we get outside, I can feel her staring at me.
“What?” I breathe, turning my head to look at her.
Man, she’s pretty.
“Nothing. You two are great together. How long have you been dating?”
My shoulders shake with amusement.
“No, but seriously, you two seem like family. How long have you known each other?”
I slip my hand into hers as we stroll down the sidewalk. Opening up isn’t easy for me, but my life in Boston is the exception to that. It’s the here and the now. And that’s the part I like.
“It feels like I’ve known him forever. Like we grew up together, but I met him out front of my junior college.
He was drunk, in only his underwear, out on the lawn.
Campus security was trying to figure out what to do with him.
He lied elaborately and told them he knew me.
” I laugh, remembering. “I was just passing by, but he was convincing. Or maybe they didn’t want the hassle, so they let him go. We’ve been best friends ever since.”
She seems entertained, wrapping her other palm around my bicep, and our hands stay joined. “Was he in school with you?”
“No, he was an unpredictable rock star in culinary school. His family has money. They’re from Wellesley, which is how I eventually got into Boston College.
A good word from someone who has the school of business named after them helped get me to the top of the pile.
I think it was their way of saying thanks for keeping Chase on the straight and narrow.
Little did they know, I’ve always been kind of a hell-raiser. ”
She chuckles as some guys pass. “Were you a bad kid?”
Before she can try and coax an answer from me, a voice booms from behind us.
“Hey, man . . . hey”—my eyes are on hers until I feel an insistent hand on my shoulder, stopping me—“I know you. How’ve you been?”
I turn, Goldie letting go as I tuck her behind me. Some guy in a Mets jacket smiles back at me, but I look around, confused. “Sorry, man, we’ve never met. You’ve got the wrong guy.”
He shakes his head, slightly slurring when he speaks. “No, it’s me, Peter . . . Ronnie’s cousin. You’re, umm . . .” He snaps his fingers. “Davis, right?”
Goldie’s face presses against my shoulder, and I can feel her smile. “He’s a Noah, not a Davis.”
The dude frowns, his eyes locked with mine as he works out whatever thought he’s having. But my eyes go to the hand still on my shoulder, and he takes it away.
“Wow. I could’ve sworn . . . my apologies.” He gives us a salute before adding, “You look so much like a friend of my cousin’s. I used to visit him every summer in Darkwater Bay until I was, like, sixteen for the sailing regatta. I live in New York now.”
Goldie giggles quietly, whispering up behind my back, “And that’s his whole life story.”
I shrug, smiling. “Yeah, what can I say? It’s like the lady said, I’m Noah.”
He nods and gives us an embarrassed wave, then apologizes again before stumbling back to rejoin his friends, and we continue our stroll. I only glance back once.
“That was weird,” she breathes out before grinning wider, turning her body toward mine as she teases, “Okay, come clean. Are you running from the law and you haven’t told me .
. . Davis?” She emphasizes the name, making me laugh.
“And what happened in Darkwater Bay? Don’t make me call the FBI.
A girl has a right to know who her boyfriend is. ”
“Very funny,” I laugh and spin her around into the shadows of a convenient alley, her body trapped between me and the brick. I look down, my hand on the wall beside her.
“Boyfriend, huh? You sure?” Our eyes stay connected, the silence growing before she bites her lip. I smirk. “Because I am.”
She nods. “Me too.”
“Then I guess I should come clean. I’m an upstanding citizen originally from Hempstead. But I do have one confession—”
Her eyes are locked on mine as her chin juts up in a challenge.
“I’d really like to kiss the fuck outta my girlfriend.”
“So what’s stopping you?”
Damn. I’m on her in an instant. The feel of her mouth on mine makes me want to lose my mind. This kiss isn’t like our first, slow and savoring. No, we’re already messy and fevered, armed with an urgency.
A need.
My fingers thrust between the strands of her hair as her own curl into my waist before they greedily ascend up my back. It makes me hum my approval because her body molds to mine as she does it.
We’re rough breaths and teasing tongues doing something we shouldn’t.
I nip at the tender flesh of her bottom lip, almost shuddering as she whines. The sound tastes as potent as my desire feels. My other hand engulfs her neck as my thumb runs up and down her throat.
Fuck, I want her. Under me, on top of me. All over.
I’ve never wanted to hear a woman moan my name more in my life. My heart’s beating out of my chest as we kiss and kiss, losing ourselves in the moment, the whole world growing more and more hazy.
I pull back, feeling too wild. Needing to control myself, but not really wanting to, only hearing her ragged breath as our lips remain hovered.
She swallows, and even in the shadow, I can see the flush on her skin.
I want to kiss her again.
Goldie must be thinking the same thing because she lifts her chin and gives me a singular chaste peck before repeating it over and over, until she’s forcing her bottom lip between mine, coaxing me back to her.
“Fuck me,” I whisper, giving in.
I can’t stop myself. I’m back for more, tasting her tongue and feeling its warmth against my own. Her arms crowd between us but only to raise her fingers to my jaw, cradling my face, as we fuse together, sealed so tight that it’s unseemly.
We’re raw, unadulterated lust. Two kids in an alley about to do the kind of shit reserved for dark rooms. But now that the Pandora’s box of sex-filled energy is open, we’re slaves to the consequences.
She wraps her arms around my neck, and my thoughts go from kissing her lips to kissing every damn piece of her. To laying her open and fucking her until we’re sweaty and spent, breathless and sated.
I tear my mouth away, my head dizzy, mind afloat.
We’re near panting as I smile down at her, pushing against the wall to create a sanctity of space between us.
“You’re a killer . . . a black widow, for sure. Go on, kiss me to death.”
She tries to laugh, but it’s airy and woven between short exhales. Her fingers lift to her swollen lips, wiping the shine away as she shyly turns her head toward the street. I bite my lip before dipping my head to kiss her jawline softly.
What is it about her? She’s fucking mouthwatering.
“Oh my god,” she whispers.
“Mm-hmm,” I hum, lost in the softness of her skin.
“No,” she quietly laughs. “We have an audience.”
My lips begrudgingly leave her as my head whips up, my narrowed eyes following her line of sight to a group of people crossing the street. They’re laughing, all their heads taking turns to look back over their shoulders in our direction.
I smile and feel Goldie’s embarrassment as she hides her face in my chest before she whispers to me, so I cover the back of her head with one hand, shielding her with my arm.
Whatever she says vibrates through my shirt, and I wish I could say I hear her, but I don’t. Because my eyes are still locked in place.
Across the street, about twenty yards past the people, is a silhouette. One just outside the spotlight of a streetlamp. An unmoving statue.
Watching.
The smile I’m wearing slowly fades until it’s gone because my blood runs cold.
A car passes, its tires echoing off the tension I feel, but the statue moves only to tilt their head.
It’s unnerving when you can feel someone looking at you, like ice down the spine. I’ve said it before: Men are always on guard. But it’s not men. It’s me.
And I don’t know if it’s my simmering paranoia or if I’m truly feeling what I’m feeling.
But rage, palpable and thick, winds itself closer, dredging along the cracked asphalt, aimed directly at us.
My eyes narrow, piercing the space, my pulse jumping up a notch as adrenaline begins coursing through my veins.
Maybe it’s fight or flight? No, it’s always fight.
As if to prove myself right, my jaw tenses, and I take a firm step toward the outside of the alley, but Goldie holds me in place, kissing my chest from the outside of my shirt, her cool hands beginning to roam my stomach just underneath it.
It makes me blink a few times rapidly, before I let out a harsh breath as my abs contract under her touch.
Moreover, it serves to break my momentum and makes me glance down at her.
“Hey, we should get out of here,” she purrs, oblivious to my reaction.
“Not until . . .” I begin to say, looking back across the street, but it’s empty.
Like a hallucination sent to sabotage what’s real and right in front of me. I volley between her and the street only twice, with Goldie winning the war.
Focus on the now, Noah.
“Not until what?” she prods as I look back to her, a deep V forming between my eyebrows.
But I shake it off and smile. “Not until you promise you won’t regret becoming my girlfriend. You know, now that you’ve met the puppy.”
She pushes me away and begins walking backward out of the alley, dragging me along by my shirt.
“Well, that’s an easy answer, but why don’t you ask me again in the morning.”