Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Alicia
“Completely failing.”
Something in my chest loosens. He’s been thinking about me too. Struggling the same way I have. I’m not alone in this.
His hand is still on my waist, solid and sure, and I let myself lean into him for just a second—let myself feel the relief of mutual want before my brain kicks back in with all its careful calculations.
I reach into my bag and pull out the small box. Set it on the console table. The sound of cardboard against wood is absurdly loud in the quiet space—final, irrevocable.
His eyes drop to the box. Back to me.
Something dark and hungry flashes across his face, and I watch his throat work as he swallows. When he speaks, his voice is rougher than before. “You went shopping.”
“I did.”
“For this?”
“For us.” I meet his gaze directly, refusing to be embarrassed. “We have a couple of hours.”
For a beat, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Just looks at me with an intensity that makes my pulse skip.
I may have miscalculated this. Maybe he’s already decided this is a mistake. Maybe the reality of premeditated sex feels different than the spontaneous heat of Sunday night.
“If you don’t want—”
“I want.” He closes the distance between us in one stride. “God, Alicia, I want.”
Relief and desire flood through me in equal measure. Suddenly he’s there—close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him, smell the faint scent of soap.
I reach up, fingers curling into the front of his shirt. “Stop making me wait.”
His hands find my waist, but he doesn’t pull me closer. Doesn’t kiss me. Just looks at me with an intensity I feel everywhere.
“I absolutely want this. But you’re sure?”
“I know what I’m doing.” I tug him toward the den, toward the sectional sofa bathed in the gray light filtering through the high windows. No one can see in. We’re completely alone. “I want this. I need this.”
What I don’t say: I need to stop obsessing. I need to get this out of my system so I can focus on the hundred other things demanding my attention. And all I’ve been able to think about in every quiet moment is what he’d feel like inside me, how he’d stretch me.
His mouth crashes onto mine. His hands tighten on my waist, pulling me flush against him, and all those careful rationalizations of how this is to get it out of my system scatter.
This isn’t about putting something behind me. This is about want. Pure and simple.
I break the kiss long enough to pull his shirt over his head, my hands immediately finding the warm, solid planes of his chest. He’s beautiful—and I let myself look, because I planned this and I’m not going to be coy about it now.
Lean muscle, bronze skin, a body built by discipline rather than vanity.
A scar bisects his left ribs—thin, old, faded to silver—and I trace it without thinking, feeling the way his breath catches when my fingers drag lower.
He’s warm everywhere. Warmer than I expected.
I press my palm flat against his sternum and feel his heart hammering.
Good. I’m not alone in this.
“You’re overdressed,” he murmurs against my mouth, fingers already working the buttons of my blouse.
“Then do something about it.”
His laugh is low and sinful, and then my blouse is sliding off my shoulders, pooling at my feet.
His hands span my waist, thumbs brushing the underside of my ribs, and I shiver despite the warmth of the room.
I stand long enough to step out of my pants, and the way his eyes track down my body is worth every second of lost contact.
“Fuck—when I close my eyes, this is what I see,” he says, fingers tracing skin, lips close behind.
I reach for his belt, fingers steady despite the urgent need building. “I’m in charge today.”
Not because I want to dominate him—but because I don’t want to feel unmoored.
Something flares in his eyes—surprise, maybe, or approval—and he lets me push him back onto the sofa. I follow him down, straddling his lap, and the feel of him hard beneath me sends a jolt of pure want through my system.
“Alicia—” He breathes my name, hands finding my hips, steadying me, pressing me hard against him exactly where I need friction.
I kiss him again, deeper this time, and when I rock against him, the groan he makes is the most satisfying sound I’ve ever heard.
This. This is what I needed. Not control. Not strategy. Just feeling.
His mouth finds the curve of my neck, and I arch into the touch, head falling back as his lips trace a path down my sternum. When his hand slides up my back to unclasp my bra, I don’t stop him. When the fabric falls away and his mouth closes over my breast, I cry out—sharp and unrestrained.
“I’ve been thinking about this,” he murmurs against my skin. “About you. Every goddamn minute.” His mouth drags along my collarbone. “I kept thinking about what you’d feel like.” His voice is rough, almost reluctant. “Whether I could make you lose that control you hold onto so tight.”
I should feel powerful, being the object of his desire. Instead, I feel wanted—and that’s somehow more intoxicating.
I reach between us, freeing him from his jeans, and when I wrap my hand around him, his hips jerk involuntarily. He’s hard and hot in my palm, and the sound he makes when I stroke him is pure desperation.
“Condom,” I manage, voice ragged. “Now.”
He reaches for the box I set down—already here, already within reach because I planned this, engineered this—and tears a condom open with shaking hands. I watch as he rolls it on, and the sight of him—hard, ready, because of me—makes me ache.
His hands find my hips, drawing me over him. I brace against his shoulders, and for a moment we just stay there—poised, hovering—his eyes on mine in the gray light. His jaw is tight with the effort of waiting. Letting me set the pace. Giving me the control I came down here needing.
I line myself up and hold his gaze as I take him in—slow, deliberate, one inch at a time, because I want to feel every second of this.
The stretch is—God. It’s exactly what I imagined and nothing like it. The fullness is almost too much, and I stop halfway, breathing through it, adjusting, while his jaw goes tight and his hands grip my hips hard enough to bruise. He holds perfectly still, giving me the control I said I needed.
I take the rest of him in one slow sink and we both go still.
I’ve forgotten what this feels like, being joined with someone, and with Noah it’s somehow more intense than I remember.
“Okay?” he asks through gritted teeth, hands gripping my hips like he’s fighting for control.
“Perfect,” I breathe, and then I move.
The rhythm comes without negotiation—my hips rolling, his hands at my waist tightening, guiding, pressing me down as I rise.
I set the pace, and he lets me, and for a while that’s enough: the slow drag of him inside me, the friction building with each roll of my hips, the sounds I’m making that I’d be embarrassed about if I had any capacity left for embarrassment.
He watches me with dark, heated eyes that see too much. That’s the part I didn’t account for. I planned for the physical. I didn’t plan for being seen while it was happening.
I kiss him just to have somewhere to put that feeling.
I wanted control. I wanted to dictate the terms, keep this physical, manageable.
But my body doesn’t recognize those rules. It only recognizes him.
When his thumb finds the sensitive bundle of nerves between us—when he starts moving in counterpoint to my rhythm—control becomes irrelevant.
“Noah—” His name breaks on my lips, and I’m not in charge anymore. I’m just a woman chasing sensation, chasing release, chasing something I can’t name.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, one hand sliding up to cup the back of my neck, bringing my forehead to his as his hips thrust upward, hitting a spot that has me gasping.
“There—”
The sofa creaks. My muscles tighten. Even my toes curl so tight pain laces ecstasy.
“That’s it. Let go.”
The world narrows to friction and breath and the relentless press of him inside me.
When I shatter, there’s no graceful way to describe it.
My thighs clamp against his hips, my back arches, and the sound I make is nothing I’d ever willingly produce in front of another person—sharp and raw and entirely beyond my control.
His name breaks off somewhere in the middle of it.
Every muscle in my body seizes and then releases in waves, pleasure so acute it tips briefly into pain before it dissolves into something I have no word for.
He follows moments later, his grip tightening, hips stuttering as he groans my name into my hair—like it’s the only word he knows, like he’s using it to anchor himself.
Afterward, we stay tangled together—my head on his shoulder, his arms wrapped around me, both of us breathing hard. The basement is cool, but his body is warm and solid. Grounding.
I should move. Should say something light and dismissive, establish boundaries, remind us both that this was just physical release.
Instead, I close my eyes and let myself stay right here.
His fingers trace lazy patterns on my back, and I feel the rumble of his voice when he finally speaks. “You okay?”
“Mmm.” It’s not an answer, but it’s all I can manage.
He shifts slightly, and I feel him slip free. The loss makes me want to protest, but he just reaches for the throw blanket draped over the sofa back and wraps it around my shoulders.
The gesture—so careful, so considerate—tightens my throat in a way sex never does.
“Alicia.” He tips my chin up, forcing me to meet his eyes. “That was…”
“Necessary,” I finish, cutting him off. Trying to rebuild walls even though we’re still pressed together, his heart still racing against mine. The response may have been instinctive, but it felt unnecessarily harsh. “I needed... I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About you.”
The admission isn’t shared easily, and I see him register it—see the way his expression shifts from disappointment to something softer.
“So this was you focusing?” His thumb traces my collarbone, and I shiver.
“This was me giving up on trying to focus.” The truth slips out without any editing. “I told myself I could compartmentalize. Apparently I was wrong.”
“Right. Of course.”
Except it doesn’t feel right. It feels like a lie.
But I’m good at lies, at compartmentalizing, at building walls around the things that scare me. And whatever this is with Noah—whatever’s happening between us—unnerves me more than any threat Dorian’s conjured.
“Stella will be home in a couple hours,” I say, standing on unsteady legs and gathering my scattered clothes. “I should shower. Get dinner started.”
“Alicia—”
“Thank you,” I interrupt, not looking at him. If I look at him, I’ll lose my nerve. “For...this. It helped.”
The silence that follows is uncomfortable, weighted with everything I’m not saying.
When I finally glance back, he’s watching me with an expression I can’t quite read—hurt, maybe, or understanding. Possibly both.
“Anytime,” he says quietly, but there’s a slowness to the word, like he doesn’t mean it.
I gather the rest of my things and head for the stairs, acutely aware of his gaze following me. At the bottom step, I pause.
“Noah?”
“Yeah?”
I should say something meaningful. Something honest. Instead, I chicken out. “Put away the condoms. We don’t need Stella finding those.”
His laugh is soft, lacking its usual warmth. “Copy that.”
I climb the stairs, and with each step, the weight of what just happened settles more heavily on my shoulders.
I told myself this would help me focus. That satisfying this craving would sate the unfinished between us and nip this in the bud.
But as I step into my bedroom and catch sight of my reflection—flushed cheeks, swollen lips, eyes too bright—I know the truth.
This didn’t help at all.
If anything, I’m more distracted than ever.
Because now I know exactly what I’m trying not to think about. And Noah Bennett—patient, careful, devastatingly thorough Noah Bennett—is all I can see when I close my eyes.
Worse, he’s what I feel when I open them.
I step into the shower and let the hot water wash away the evidence of what we’ve done.
But it can’t wash away the feeling.
I should’ve known better.