28. Nora
CHAPTER 28
NORA
When West finally drives through the gates of Fairhaven, I’m an ember. I’ve been burning for hours. I play with the silky straps of the pink bag in my lap. Afterglow emblazoned on the side, and inside, the two vibrators I bought.
We bought.
“You’re about to drop me off at home,” I say. “If this was a real date… and if this was a good date… maybe I’d invite you inside.”
He’s quiet. Looks straight ahead at the driveway. “And has it been a good date, trouble?”
“I think it’s been a good date.” My fingers find the pendant around my neck, smoothing over the gold plate. “Do you?”
He pulls the car up outside the front steps and turns off the engine. Behind us, the security team is meeting up with the others that patrol the grounds. Our targets are back home safe after visiting a sex shop , I imagine them saying. No suspicious activity.
“Stay where you are,” he says. It’s not an answer, and I wait while he walks around the car and opens the door for me.
“You’re going to spoil me with that, you know,” I tell him. “Most guys don’t do that.”
“A man who’s worthy of you should.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
He shuts the door behind me. His eyes drift down, rest on the gold against my neck. “I had a good time. Hard not to, when I’m with you.”
He’s acting. I know he’s acting, but still… “Thanks for tonight,” I say. “I had a really good time too.”
He puts a hand on my low back. “Let me walk you inside.”
Once inside, we pause in the large foyer. Somewhere, an old clock ticks. Generations of Calloways line the top walls along the double staircases. West’s ancestors, looking down on us.
“I want to go out with you again.” He’s standing closer than usual. We’ve done this before, and still my heart starts to race. “Let me take you out, Nora.”
“Maybe,” I say.
“Maybe?”
“Mhm. It depends on what you do now.” I’m two glasses of wine in and high on the night. “On how well you kiss me.”
He brushes his hand over my cheek. Just like he did earlier in the sex shop. “I have to earn another date with you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s it,” he murmurs, and the inches between us close. “You’re so pretty when you ask for what you want.”
He smells like himself, like warmth and wine, and he tips my head back so he can fit himself against my lips. He kisses me slowly, leisurely, like I told him I liked.
It’s wet against wet, a hot slide, and I’m lost to it. A labyrinth I don’t want to escape from. Kissing West seems to do that.
It rearranges my world every time.
He lifts his head from mine, hovers just a few inches away. I sway into him, lean forward, but he keeps his lips just out of reach.
He’s holding back.
My hand finds the collar of his shirt. “More,” I tell him. “Do better.”
His chuckle is hoarse, and he finds my waist with his free hand. “That’s my girl. Tongue?”
“Yes.” I’m too hot, too close, have been for hours. “You’re holding back.”
“No. I’m not.”
I shake my head once. He is. I can feel it in the tense curve of his body, in the tightly leashed energy beneath the starched fabric. “Kiss me properly . Like I’m… like I’m a woman you would actually want to date.”
His eyes narrow, and the curve to his lip disappears. He looks at me like he’s not sure I can take it.
I’m so tired of being underestimated, and coddled, and scared, and anxious.
I don’t want any of it from him.
“Please,” I whisper.
He swallows hard, and his thumb brushes a circle down to my bottom lip. His darkened eyes track the movement. “Like a woman I would date.”
“Yes. Like this is real .”
A muscle flexes in his jaw. “Like this is real ,” he repeats, and his hand pushes back and tangles in my hair. He’s never held me like that before.
The space between us shrinks, and he brushes his lips over mine like I did to him the other day. “So pretty,” he mutters. “Will you be good and let me kiss you properly?”
I nod. Please.
He tugs me forward, fits my lips against his. He kisses me with strong, insistent strokes that send my thoughts scattering like wisps of smoke.
And when his tongue moves against my lower lip, I open for him.
He groans. His tongue is hot inside my mouth, and he’s the only thing I can feel, the only thing I can think of. It’s gone in the next instant, a teasing touch, replaced by his lips capturing my bottom one.
He’s firm against me, wide chest and hard hips, and there’s something there, something against my stomach, and is that… is he…?
I never knew curiosity could be this aching, painful feeling.
His hand runs in a rough caress over my hip, down to the curve of my butt. He’s touching me like he’s wanted this forever; like I’ve finally given him permission and he’s not going to waste a single second of it.
I’m not planning on wasting it either. Not now that I’m finally here, when I’m finally feeling this hot, twisted feeling inside of wanting to get closer and closer still. Not when it’s him touching me like this. Like I’m the best thing he’s ever held in his arms.
His hand skims my ribs and brushes over my left breast. His thumb slides across my hard nipple, through the fabric of my clothes.
A live wire goes off inside me.
My hands turn into claws against his neck. Wow. I break off from his mouth to take a shaky breath.
West is breathing just as hard. Like I’ve finally knocked him off-kilter, made his controlled teacher role crash and burn. “Are you okay?”
I arch into him again. “Yeah. It’s just that no one’s ever touched me there.”
“What?”
“It’s fine,” I say, rising up on my tiptoes. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to?—”
“Don’t apologize.” West’s hands drop from my body. “You should never apologize to me. But Nora…”
I shake my head again, like this is all just one large misunderstanding. He can’t know. “West?—”
“Tell me you haven’t hidden this.”
“Hidden what?”
“Your inexperience with men.” He looks at me like I’ve destroyed him. Like he’s coming apart at the seams. “You told me you’d had sex before. You told me… and now… that wasn’t true. Was it? You’ve never let anyone that close.”
My face is hot. I can taste my own fear. “West, it’s fine. It’s all good. We don’t?—”
“It’s not fine.” His expression is slack. “You’re a virgin.”
The word lands in the space between us like a curse. It feels ugly. Something I’ve been working against for years. Not something I want to be, not something I crave or value. It feels like a testament to my own failure with men, with relationships, with love.
A testament to my own fear.
“This doesn’t change anything,” I say.
“Fuck.” His eyes close for a second, and there’s color along the tops of his cheekbones. His hair is mussed from my hands, and he’s so handsome it hurts. “How could you have lied about this?”
“It doesn’t change anything.” Embarrassment makes my eyes water. The word lie feels ugly too, tossed out between us. Tears at the truce we’ve built and the trust that’s been developing so slowly, so quietly, that I didn’t notice it until right this moment.
He’s Rafe’s friend.
And somehow he’s also become mine.
West’s face twists with horror. “It changes everything . If you’re a virgin…” He shakes his head. “Fuck. Fuck .”
I can’t look at him. Can’t see that expression of disbelief, disgust. Of anger. He’s deciding, right now, what I am and what I need. Changing his perception of me and all of this , all these lessons, the practicing… it’ll be over.
I can see the decision forming in his eyes.
So I turn from him and rush out between the double staircases, needing out and away. The French doors open easily into the night air and the terraced Fairhaven gardens. I leave the pink bag behind and take sight of the boathouse in the distance, with the light that winks at the end of the dock.
I messed it all up.