24. Noa #2
“Hooray,” I muster as we exit the elevator into the parking lot, desperately darting my eyes around to remember where I parked Ringo so I can make a speedy escape before I break down.
I’m so disappointed in myself right now.
Today should be ending on a high note–we finally kissed, Aarti loves our footage, and Gretchen’s newfound support is yielding what’s clearly a huge PR win for the show.
Yet all I can do is selfishly spiral over my dumb, embarrassing insecurities, which are reaching peak intensity at the prospect of shooting a magazine cover tomorrow with no time to fix everything that’s wrong with me.
The moment I spot my car, I speedwalk toward it.
“Hey,” Aarti catches my arm. “What’s going on? Want to take a walk? We could–”
“No.” The word comes out harsher than I intend. “I need to go home. Today’s just been… a lot.”
I see the flash of hurt in her eyes before she masks it. “Noa, talk to me. Was it the freezer? Should I not have–”
“No, god, no, it’s not–it’s not obvious?”
She shakes her head innocently. I laugh, but it sounds hysterical even to my ears.
“ I’m going to be on the cover of Variety. Me. A weirdo ice cream PhD who looks like I’m being held at gunpoint in my driver’s license photo.”
“You’re not–”
“I am, I’m weird, Aarti. I make weird ice cream and wear weird clothes and I have zero control over my hair.
” I gesture at my frizz. “I have dessert every day, and you can tell when you see me in a climbing harness. I’m not a covergirl.
I’m not what people want to see. I’m going to make you look bad.
You should just do the shoot by yourself. ”
“Noa–”
My voice cracks. The tears I’ve been holding back prick at my eyes.
“I’m not built for this,” I whisper. “You’re like this toned, leggy, confident Indian Barbie and I’m just… me.”
“Hey.” Aarti steps closer, but I back toward my car.
“I need to go,” I manage, fumbling for my keys. The first tear escapes and I turn away, mortified. “I need to go home. I’ll… see you in the morning.”
“ Hey .” Her voice is firm enough to turn me back around. I peek up into her eyes, which are big and kind and filled with concern. “Please don’t leave like this. Whatever’s going through your head, I can handle it, okay? Don’t run away right now.”
She brushes a tear from my cheek, and I shiver at her touch. She looks around the empty lot to check that we’re alone. There’s no one in sight, but she sighs nevertheless.
“Will you come back up to the editing bays with me? Just us, no Sheena. We can talk in one of the rooms, total privacy.”
I nod shakily, unable to refuse her when she looks so pained on my behalf.
She leads me back through the lobby, past the security guard who barely glances up from his crossword. We make our way back to the editing bay and Aarti beeps us into one of the other rooms.
“Sit,” she says softly, gesturing to a worn couch.
I perch on the edge, still ready to bolt. She settles beside me, close but not touching.
“Talk to me,” she says. “Not about the magazine or the cameras or any of that. When do you feel most like yourself? Most… real?”
The question catches me off guard. “I dunno…”
She tucks one leg under herself. “When are you the most confident version of yourself?”
I think about deflecting, making a joke, but her expression stops me. She’s not asking to fix me or reassure me. She genuinely wants to know.
“In the lab,” I admit. “When I’m creating flavors, experimenting with temperatures and textures. When it’s just me and the ice cream and no one watching.”
“Why?”
“Because I know what I’m doing there. I’m good at it. Really good at it.” The words come easier now. “No one can tell me I’m wrong about how marigold extract pairs with orange blossom, or that my curls are too much, or that my body is–” I stop, swallowing hard.
“Your body is what?” Her voice is gentle but insistent.
“Wrong. Too much. Not enough. Both somehow.” I laugh bitterly. “The camera adds ten pounds, sure, but it also adds every insecurity I’ve literally ever had. Seeing myself on screen today…”
“Noa.” She shifts closer, and I can feel the heat from her body. “Can I tell you what I saw?”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
“I saw someone brilliant. Passionate. The way you explained your process, how your whole face lit up when you talked about the candy…” She reaches out, fingers ghosting over my hand. “I couldn’t stop watching you.”
“That’s different–”
“Is it?” She leans closer. “When you’re in your element, when you forget to be self-conscious, you’re magnetic. And your body?” Her voice drops. “Noa, do you have any idea what you do to me?”
Heat floods through me. “Aarti…”
“In that harness during the touch shoot. The way your shorts fit. How you moved when you finally started climbing.” She’s close enough now that I can feel her breath on my cheek. “I had to remember we were surrounded by cameras because all I wanted was to…”
“What?” My voice is husky. “What did you want?”
Instead of answering, she cups my face, thumbs stroking over my cheekbones. “You’re beautiful. Every single part of you. And tomorrow, I’m going to make sure you see it too.”
“How?”
“Trust me?”
Looking into her eyes, I realize I do. Completely.
“Yes,” I breathe.
“I could also… show you right now.”
I nod, not sure if she means what I think she means, but hoping for it all the same.
Aarti leans into me, her nose brushing my cheek. Her lips hover at the corner of mine, waiting for me to meet them. I close my eyes…
“Wait,” she whispers.
She pulls back and goes to the computer, pulling up a music app. The speakers flood with the sounds of Fiona Apple. “Slow Like Honey.”
I swoon. If this isn’t sexy-time music, I don’t know what is.
She walks to the dimmer by the door, adjusting it.
“The light has to be just right,” she says, admiring me on the couch. “Too bright, kills the mood. Too dark… I can’t see the show.”
She nods as she perfects the lighting, then walks back to me, slowly, taking me in like a painting, inspecting every inch.
She tilts my chin up to her. “My screening this week was all clean.”
“Mine, too. The last one, I mean,” I say, hardly believing it's happening.
And finally, finally , her lips meet mine.
This kiss is different from the freezer. Slower, deeper, like she’s trying to prove something with her mouth that words can’t convey. I melt into her, letting her guide me back against the couch cushions as she swings one leg over me to straddle my hips.
“Let me show you,” she murmurs against my lips. “Let me show you how beautiful you are.”
Aarti wastes no time. Her fingers work the buttons of my blouse with practiced ease while she trails soft, deliberate kisses down the column of my neck, each one sending heat spiraling through me.
“Noa Hart,” she murmurs against my skin as she takes in my retro balconette bra. Her fingertips trace the delicate trim on top, just above my nipples. “You’ve had me completely fooled.”
She hooks a finger beneath the underwire, teasing the underside of my breast. “Walking around looking so innocent when you’re wearing something like this underneath.”
She tugs down the left cup and takes my nipple between her lips, tongue flicking against the sensitive peak. The sensation shoots straight through me and I can’t hold back the moan that escapes. I clap a hand over my mouth to muffle the noise, but she immediately reaches up to take it away.
“You can be as loud as you want here. These walls are soundproof.”
The wicked promise in her voice makes me shiver, and this time I let my moan fill the air between us.
“Mmm, much better,” she praises, looking up at me through her dark lashes, sultry eyes holding mine captive. Her tongue returns to my nipple, teasing it in slow, deliberate circles.
She sits back for a moment to unhook the front closure on my bra, freeing my breasts with a contented sigh. She palms them, her thumbs rubbing across my taut nipples.
“So perfect.”
I wantonly press my tits back up toward her, silently begging to have her mouth back on me. She obliges, alternating between gentle suction and warm strokes of her tongue.
My hips are already writhing beneath her. She quirks a smile at my desperation.
“Are you ready for more?”
All I can do is nod, eyes half-lidded with lust. “Please,” I breathe.
Her lips trail down my stomach as her fingers pop the button of my khakis.
“These fucking low-rise pants,” she mutters, nipping at my hip bone. “Your perfect ass teasing me as you flounced around that lab like I wasn’t dying to lick you right there in the freezer.”
“L-lick me?” I stutter hazily, warmth pooling between my legs in an instant.
“You’d like that, huh?” Aarti slides my pants the rest of the way off, laughing under her breath when she sees my MONDAY thong. “Oh, sweet Noa. I hate to break it to you, but… today’s Wednesday.”
Before I can feel embarrassed, she’s pulling the offending underwear down my legs, too, exposing my pussy with an admiring gaze. “Much, much better. Besides,” she says, settling between my thighs, “time is a construct.”
Nothing could have prepared me for the first touch of her tongue.
She starts soft, exploratory–kissing the crease of my thigh, working her way inward with a patience that’s both torturous and perfect.
When she finally reaches my center, she takes a tentative lick, all the way from my dripping entrance up to my swollen, sensitive clit.
“Ahhh,” I groan, unable to hold it in.
Aarti looks up at me, the flat of her tongue extended across my pussy, eyes swirling with hunger. She trains her gaze on me as she begins to lap, slowly at first, then quicker, the tantalizing, wet, rhythmic sound making my entire body buzz with electricity.
My hips writhe in her grasp, and she uses her strong arms to press my ass into the couch, holding me steady as she devours me, licking and sucking and diligently mapping my pleasure.
She takes her time learning what makes my breath hitch, what makes my body arch up toward her mouth of its own accord.
Each sound I make seems to encourage her, and she responds by shifting slightly, adjusting her angle until finally, digging her tongue deep inside of me, she finds the spot that makes my thighs shake around her head.
“Mmm,” she hums, the vibration of her voice adding another layer of sensation.
“Oh god–” The words tear from my throat as she thrusts her tongue deeper and deeper.
“Good girl,” she says, barely taking her mouth off of me. She sucks and licks and, just as I’m nearing climax–
“I want to watch you come,” she says, and like the lesbian superhero she is, Aarti removes her own pants in one swift movement and flips me from my back to atop her thigh. She looks up at me, pulling at my mouth with her thumb.
“Much better. Now.” She leans back into the couch, a smug smile painting her lips. “Come for me, Noa.”
She’s unlocked something in me, wild and uninhibited, so I don’t even question what’s next.
I grind on her thigh as she holds down my hips, making each thrust hit just right.
She moves one hand to cup my tits, bouncing wildly before her.
And then, oh my god, then… she bites her lip as she stares up into my eyes with an expression of pure want . No. Need.
I unravel on top of her. She pulls my shaking body closer to hers and I breathe in that same scent, now mixed with all of me.
She unwraps her arms from around me and I fall dramatically onto the couch.
“I really hope no one else has any dailies to watch here,” I laugh.
“No,” she says, tracing her finger down my stomach. With the other hand, she taps her temple. “But fortunately, I’ve got some mind-dailies I’m going to have to go over tonight.”
She kisses me again, and I can tell we’re both about to clock some serious overtime.