Reid
N oelle lingers by her front door, fiddling with her coat sleeves. Traffic rumbles past in the street, and even here in the city, snow has covered the buildings and sidewalks like icing.
It’s late afternoon, the sky is pink, and the wind whistles through my clothes. I stand three steps down from Noelle, hands in my pockets and my heart in my throat.
Invite me in.
Invite me in.
I won’t say it out loud, but by god I’m thinking it. Beaming it to her via brainwaves.
Noelle still wants me—that’s what she said in the car. Even after my many awkward missteps, even knowing that my own family couldn’t get rid of me fast enough, my dream woman still wants me.
Fucking hell, please invite me in.
“Do you, um.” Noelle fishes for her door keys, her mittens slipping around the metal. “Do you want to come up?”
Thank you, universe.
“No pressure,” she adds, with a nervous laugh. “I know you must be sick of me by now.”
I’m at the top of the steps before she can blink, plucking the keys out of her useless mitten. “Never.” My heart thumps as the key slides home and turns.
In all my years of walking Noelle home, I’ve never been inside her building. Have never seen past the red brick facade with its climbing ivy and sloping roof, a metal fire escape clinging to the side. I don’t even mind the holly wreath on the front door as I push it open, because somehow I know, instinctively, that Noelle hung it there.
Her apartment is probably a real life Santa’s workshop. An explosion of tinsel and string lights and cheer. Already there are decorations all over the lobby, and a Christmas tree twinkles by the window.
Noelle must be thinking the same thing, because she follows me to the elevator slowly, tugging on the back of my coat. “Um. ?”
“Mm?”
Someone’s baking on this floor. Chocolate brownies, judging by the smell. My stomach growls, and I resolve to order us both food once we’re done ravishing each other. It may be some time.
“You know how you hate holiday stuff…”
I fight a smile. “Yes?” The elevator doors rumble closed, and the ground swooshes up beneath us.
Noelle chews on her lip. “Maybe I should go in first and, you know. Tidy up.”
“No.”
“But I’ve…” Her voice drops, like she’s confessing a terrible secret. “I’ve decorated. ”
“Good,” I say simply. “You like Christmas.”
“Well yeah, but—”
“Then I like Christmas too. If it makes you happy, I like it.”
And it’s so much easier already, moving through the world like this. Not grumping and groaning and resenting small things. After the last twenty four hours, I have a new metric: How does Noelle feel about it?
If she’s a fan, I’m a fan too. Easy.
Don’t get me wrong, I still have my own preferences. I won’t sentence Noelle to dating a man with all the personality of a houseplant. But I’m not going to wait in the hall while my girlfriend scurries around in her apartment, hiding all the decorations she painstakingly put up. Hell no.
But Noelle isn’t so sure, and she shifts her feet. “I still think you might prefer—”
“What I’d prefer is going straight inside and bending you over the nearest flat surface.” I brush a stray snowflake off my sleeve. “If you’re amenable.”
Noelle goldfishes for a second, both in the mirror and by my side. The elevator shudders to a halt, the doors creaking open, and I tug her gently out into the hall. She’s so adorable when she’s flustered.
“I’m amenable,” she says at last, stumbling toward a door with yet another holly wreath dangling from the painted wood. “Holy crap, I’m amenable. Let me just—god, these stupid mittens.”
Noelle tugs one off with her teeth, shoving the key roughly into the lock, and my belly warms at how eager she is. How desperate to get inside and get back to each other.
The door swings open and Noelle strides across the room, flicks on a table lamp, then wrenches her coat off her shoulders. Mine joins hers in a heap on the floor, the door slamming shut behind me, and the mystery apartment is already a blur as the two of us rush together, colliding with two soft oofs.
Our kiss is biting. Hungry . Sparks ripple down my spine, and I catch Noelle’s face between my palms and tilt her head back. Taking control.
An answering shiver wracks my assistant’s perfect body, and I smile against her mouth before kissing her harder. She likes me bossy, even now. Especially now.
A glance over her shoulder finds a bookcase, with a kitschy Christmas ornament on top. A glittery painted ceramic of a snowman.
“Put your hands there.” She’s so easy to spin around, so pliant. Noelle gasps and braces her hands against the bookcase, leaning forward and jutting out her hips. She looks back at me over her shoulder with those hooded eyes, those swollen lips, waiting obediently for me to take what I want from her.
Fuck.
What I want is everything, and it’s so close now. Within my grasp. My chest burns as I flip up the back of Noelle’s dress and tug down her leggings and panties, baring her sweet little ass to the air.
She whimpers and wriggles. Grips the bookcase so hard the wood creaks.
“You’re going to be mine, Noelle.” Her skin is soft under my palm, warm and smooth. I stroke her ass cheek with reverence, then slip my fingers between her legs, rumbling with approval at how wet she is already. How needy. “Mine forever.”
She chokes out a laugh, shaking her head like I’m crazy. “I already am.”
Her clit is swollen, hard, and I gather wetness from her center then slick teasing circles around that bud. She makes the best noises I’ve ever heard, high and breathless. “I mean I’m going to marry you.”
Noelle’s ass nudges back at me, chasing my feather-light touch. “Challenge accepted.”
My heartbeat booms in my ears. Did she just agree? Holy shit.
“I want babies with you,” I say, pushing for more. Trying to show her, even if it risks everything, how serious I am about the two of us. How gone I am for her, irrevocably ruined for any other woman. No one else can compare. “If you want them, anyway. Awkward babies that we’ll love even if they’re cranky little shits.”
Noelle slumps over the bookcase with a blissful sigh, resting her forehead on her hands—and I’d be worried if it weren’t for the way she’s rubbing against my hand, riding my touch, coaxing me toward her center. When I press a finger inside, she sucks me in, so hot and tight. “Good. I want that too.”
My chest has never felt so full. “You do?”
“Uh-huh.”
Horrifyingly, my eyes brim. Blinking that moisture away, I glare around Noelle’s small living room, bedecked in string lights, with its squashy sofa and knitted throw. Adding a second finger, I crook them inside her.
“ .”
“I’m here. I’ve got you, sweetheart.”
And I may not be the easiest man to live with, I may be on my own wavelength, but Noelle has always understood me. We’ve had a kinship from the start. Like now, as she sobs into her hands and thrusts back against my fingers, her whole body shivering with desire—I know what she needs. And I know how she needs it.