Chapter 32 Uno Reverse
While I was worried about coming to work this morning and dodging questions from coworkers who are too nosey for their own good, drowning in real estate listings and catching our team up to the changes for our timeline is making for a busy day—and very little time for daydreaming about Noah. Very little, but not none.
It’s after four by the time he stops by my cubicle, knocking softly. I spin in my chair and his eyes dart towards my neighbor’s cubicle, confirming Ben is still here.
“Are you ready to go see that listing, Charlotte?”
“Yes,” I say, spinning to grab my coat and giddy about the cover story we concocted via text message earlier today. “I am at your service, Mr. Graves.”
I actively avoid making eye contact, but savor the way I’m sure my pointed response is affecting him. As I expect, he clears his throat and follows me towards the elevators—at a respectable distance of course.
We barely make it through the parking garage and into his car before his hands are all over me, in my hair, skirting over my breasts, gripping my jaw as I shove my tongue down his throat.
It’s only been a little over twenty-four hours, but there is a sense of urgency in our embrace.
When we finally break, sitting back against our respective seats, a laugh breaks out of my chest.
“I’ve wanted to be touching you all day,” he admits.
“It has been hard pretending the other way. At least with the Barkers, we could be a little handsy.”
Then, as if he can’t handle not being in contact with some part of me, he keeps his hand on my thigh and he backs out of the spot.
“Laura sent us some decent listings today. We should probably see some of them tomorrow. Or maybe Friday?”
He nods as he checks his mirrors and pulls out onto the street into the flow of rush hour traffic.
“Set them up as soon as she’s able to make it happen.”
Despite us not having a second alone, I’ve felt the anxiety rolling off his shoulders all day. I’m tempted to ask him about how he’s feeling, or if he’s reached out to his dad at all, but I don’t want to pile on. If he thought going to his dad was an option he would have done it.
“I’ll email her right now.”
“How was your reunion with Kara?”
“After she got over the fact we didn’t hook up, it was fine.
I’m going to dissolve the bet, though. I feel too guilty letting her pay, given .
. .” I trail off, looking down at his hand and he squeezes my thigh in response.
“And she was all too happy to not have to pay my half. Although she surprised me by having Nan at the house when I got back and she saw right through my lies.”
Noah laughs. “I think I’d like to meet Nan one of these days. I have a feeling we’d get along.”
I’m reminded of the party I’m supposed to be inviting him too, and for a moment consider asking him now. I’m almost certain he’d say yes, and that’s what stops me. I want to be sure Nan was right about him not running away in a week’s time.
Noah has pizza waiting for us at the front desk of his building when we get back to his apartment, but it is abandoned on the counter as soon as we step through his door. The thrill of this early evening rendezvous, a secret we’re keeping from everyone else, pools in heated want between my legs.
We waste no time slipping back into the potent cloud of sex, stumbling towards his bedroom as our hands roam and we’re attached by the mouth.
We’re half naked by the time we get there and I press myself against his chest, already familiar with the firm warmth I find.
His tongue dances along my lower lip before probing further and brushing with mine while I tug the unbuttoned shirt down and off his arms. I’m lost to the feeling of it, trying desperately to focus on getting naked, but also wanting to take my time and enjoy his touch.
He unclasps my bra, letting it fall to the floor before he traces a hand down from my jaw and cups the underside of my breast, his thumb running light against my nipple and teasing it hard.
Those damn fingers. I want them everywhere all at once, tickling and tracing, carving his own sort of invisible mark into my skin; a secret trail known only by the two of us.
Needing to feel him as he explores, my hands are in his hair and then smoothing the goose bumps on his neck, down his shoulder and then back up. We fall onto the bed, groping each other like we’re afraid of the other disappearing, like we’re discovering and memorizing all at once.
Too soon, and yet not fast enough, his hand trails down further, his fingers brushing the top of my thong and then ever so lightly between my legs. I’m already damp with arousal, but it blooms deeper and warmer, almost aching, as his fingers tread light brush strokes.
“Somebody’s eager, and already very wet,” he muses, his lips falling to my chest, his tongue carving another kind of trail. “Have you missed our olympic games?”
“It’s been a long day.”
I press myself harder against his hand, desperate to have him inside me. He chuckles, his finger slipping around the silk and pressing into me just enough to send a shock of electric need into my toes. It disappears too soon, a swell of vexation at his tease rising in my chest.
“The opening ceremony sets the stage, Lottie. Besides, we’ve got nowhere to be for hours.”
The oddity of our continued metaphor lasts only as long as it takes me to inhale and meet his hungry kiss, his hand slipping back up and into my hair, where he tugs lightly, the pinch of it tickling another kind of arousal and reminding me of the dominant hand he played on the plane.
I shiver in response and he grows harder against my thigh.
Up until now, everything with Noah has been a balance between toe curling desire and trepidation as we figure our way through this muddle of our own making.
But now, emboldened by the set expectation of taking it one step at a time, I want more and I’m not about to let him win this game of give and take.
I track back up his neck and curl my own fingers into his locks, tugging harder than he did and pulling a sharp gasp from him. He pauses his barrage on my neck and nips at the skin lightly, testing my challenge. I answer with a quick kiss and a sharp bite on the tender skin beneath his earlobe.
For not having actually fucked yet, this is bursting with more heat than any of our other encounters. The unspoken exchange of testing boundaries with each other, wrapped in the cocoon of our new agreement, is intoxicating.
Aiming to pool everything I can’t seem to form words around into this moment, I trace my teeth along his neck, my tongue licking back up to soothe the sharpness.
This time he shivers, his hand dropping to my nipple again where he twists it briskly before pressing down with his palm, heat exploding across my chest. The instant switch from pain to pressure arches my back and he smiles.
His cock is against me now, the tip teasing the line of my now drenched silk thong. His hips roll to press a little closer and I pull back, enjoying the game too much.
“There’s the spirit,” he says, shifting and pulling himself lower, his face now even with my chest, his breath hot on my skin.
I open my mouth to throw back some line about being quick to learn, but his teeth sink into my breast—scraping before his mouth presses closed, his tongue swirling soft and warm around the nipple.
“Fuck,” I breathe, the edge of discomfort making everything else far more enjoyable.
I’ve been with a handful of people who enjoyed the occasional kinky, pain meets pleasure romp—the last was a bartender I met shortly after Axel.
Our affair was short lived; her desire to see me subdued and controlled, even if it was only in the confines of the bedroom, didn’t align particularly well with my newfound freedom.
But here with Noah I know this boundary isn’t about control.
Not really. It’s about pleasure and pushing the edge of how much we can elicit from each other.
The teasing and restraint leading to something even more freeing.
Noah’s slow descent is settling lower and lower, his tongue following the light back and forth of his teeth.
He snags the edge of my thong with his mouth and I lift my hips to help him peel it off.
But, just when I think I’m going to get some relief, he pauses.
He has my heel cradled in one hand, his fingertips trailing along the lines of my serpent tattoo; up my foot, along my calf and then back down again.
“Tell me about this one,” he says.
It’s not a question, so much as a demand and I quirk my head, confused at his change in course. Without breaking my gaze, he leans down and kisses the top of my foot and then my ankle, before stopping. “Tell me about them and I’ll keep going.”
Oh. Oh.
The swirling ink on my legs, four pieces on the one he’s holding, stretches from ankle to hip bone, an illustrated map for him to follow.
“A birthday gift to myself when I turned twenty-one. Artist out of Denver.”
His fingers trace up a little higher, his lips coming down to border along the floral piece just above the snake. “And this one?”
I gasp, my back arching. His hand trails higher, up around my knee and then stops cold. He’s not kidding. I have to focus long enough to recall and explain the details or he’s going to leave me writhing. I narrow my eyes at him.
“Three years ago, the tattoo convention at the Portland Expo. I won a raffle.”
He nods and leans back down to bite my inner thigh, his hand trailing along the spine of the snarling tiger that wraps most of my upper leg. My mind goes blank, as his fingers trace each stripe—back and forth up the spine. “I’m waiting, Lottie.”
The anticipation is agonizing, the lack of stimulation somehow harder to endure than direct contact.
“Uh.” I hesitate, licking my lips. My brain is a puddle. “Um.”
“It would be a shame to stop here,” he says, letting his hand brush along the apex of my thigh—so soft it’s almost not even a touch. My nipples tingle, a direct line of energy titillating up from my pelvis. Fuck.
“Two years ago. Kara and I flew to Vegas for her birthday. I waited months to get in with the guy.”
He drops my foot and settles in between my legs, his stubbled chin scraping along the last piece of art.
A delicate lady fern frond that curls from my lower back and along my hip and then inward the tip of it right under Noah’s lips.
His breath is enough to set me over, whispering between my legs as he speaks. “Last one.”
“Some asshole out in Gresham,” I practically moan. “Charged me double his shop minimum.”
“Very good,” he says, his tongue tracing the already very wet seam. “Mmmm. Very good.”
I can’t take it anymore. I lift my hips and cry out as Noah plunges his face in and drives his tongue up and down, swirling and sucking. Less like the gentleman who savored me before, and more like the firm hand he was on the plane. Overcome with lust, his movements sharp and direct.
He involves his teeth this time, letting them scrape and carve just as they had everywhere else. My body is on fire beneath him, his arms reaching up and around my hips as I buck away from the pleasure; not because it isn’t good, but because it’s too good.
“Fuck, Noah.”
The sounds I’m making are little more than desperate pleas, my body building towards that all consuming arch.
And then, just when I think he’s pulled out all the stops, when I think it can’t get any better, his arms curl around to my front, his hands crushing my breasts in brutal fists.
The softness of him drinking me in below combined with the bruise inflicting curl of his fingertips twisting my nipples and scratching at the soft skin sets me over.
My muscles clench and release as every ounce of energy that’s been building rattles out.
I can’t contain the almost scream as I fall into the beautiful, frantic expanse of bliss.
I’m floating, the weight of my body settling in slow as Noah lifts his face and lets out a soft puff of air.
Everything chills, from the top of my head through my toes, the sensation sublime.
Pleased with himself, Noah rolls up to put on a condom and then nuzzles into my neck. I hum my approval and turn so we are face to face. Swinging my leg over his hip, I press close and he pushes inside, leaning over to cover my mouth with his own.
The kiss turns fevered as he rolls his hips, never leaving me completely, but pushing in deeper and deeper. We’re hot and impatient, silently consuming each other with barely a breath between us.
Determined, and aching for a lick of control as I reel with too many unfamiliar emotions, I push him on his back and roll up on top.
His hands find my breasts and I lean down as I rock my hips so he can suck them as we move.
A few more fevered thrusts and his head falls back as his orgasm pulses through me, a deep, guttural moan crawling up from his chest.
I fall limp and slip to his side, keeping my arm wrapped around his torso, my cheek pressed against him as we pant together.
“Gold medals all around,” I say, caught up in the moment and nuzzling tighter against him.
He chuckles and squeezes me tight. “Gold medals, indeed.”
We lie here, wrapped around each other and, for the first time in far too long, I let myself give into the comfort of having someone to hold.