32. Queenie
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
QUEENIE
RECOMMENDED LISTENING ‘LOVEFOOL’ BY THE CARDIGANS
I almost drag him to the dance floor.
“Why are you intimidating Teddy?” I whisper-shout, placing my hand on his shoulder.
“I don’t like the way he’s looking at you,” Noah answers, over my head.
I growl and step on his foot hard. He does not react. I get angrier. Hornier. “At least he’s looking at me,” I mutter.
He grips me around the waist. Tight. “What’s this fabric?” he asks quietly.
“What? It’s satin,” I answer impatiently. Then since he doesn’t move on the floor, I barrel on to give him a piece of my mind. “My back’s roasting inside it. But I wore it for this party that’s so important to you and your place at camp. But you can barely bring yourself to look at me so I might as well have worn my waitress’s uniform. Right?”
He starts moving. Still not saying anything.
I consider stamping his feet again. But I don’t. I don’t want to create a scene either.
I just step back from him. “I’m tired. And I’m going home. You can die for all I care.”
“I already am,” Noah mutters.
“What?” I ball my fists. “What did you just say?”
He jerks me back into his arms, his fingers biting into the satin. Creating imprints on my skin.
And he finally looks at me. My lips part shakily at what I see in his incendiary eyes. They’re molten. With desire. Want. And untrammeled lust.
“I said I’m already dead. I died the second I saw you in this outfit and your sunshine smile and your bloody hair…and now I’m in hell because this has to be suffering in the torments of hell ,” he finishes grimly.
“What has to be the torments of hell?” I move slowly. My heart pounds from a combination of stress and anger and my own inconvenient desire.
He looks so fierce, like a warrior out on the battlefield. All dark hair and brooding expression, stony-faced. Like how he is on the field. Ready to take on the opposition and win.
It’s unbearably hot.
“Watching you smile and hug every man here but me.” He sounds so forlorn and possessive at the same time I want to hit him.
My jaw drops. “I waited for you to say something to me,” I whisper fiercely at him. We still move slowly to the fast-paced song. Locked in our private rhythm. “I came here, dressed in your uniform colors, for you. And you said Right. When you saw me, Noah.”
Noah winces. “I?—”
“Shut up,” I glare at him. “And when Chachu asked me to sit with him you did not stop him.”
“He’s my coach,” he mutters.
“And now you’re looking like you want to murder Teddy just because he said something nice to me. No. Hell, no.” I shake my head. “That is not okay. I don’t care how messed up you are, you have to use your words and communicate with me.”
“That’s the problem,” he snarls. “I’m so messed up I can’t tell you how I feel. What I want.”
“Well, what do you want?” I snap at him.
“You,” he says so simply. “Anyway, I can get you. I want your kisses. And your moans. And the way you smile with your eyes right before you kiss me back and your lids close shut. I want to crawl into the bed in our room with you and not come out for three days.”
My knees go weak at his explicit words.
“I want to peel off this dress and then burn it because every man in here is thinking how incredibly fucking good you look in it. And this hair?” He clutches a handful of it, while still somehow dancing with me. “I want it over me. My chest, my shoulders when you ride me and take me to fucking heaven, Queenie. That’s what I fucking want more than I want to breathe. More than I can breathe.”
I stop breathing at his words.
He gives me the blackest look possible. All deathly obsidian and marble-faced. But his heart races, bouncing out of his ribcage and settling into mine.
It gives me the courage to tell him how I feel too.
“I thought you didn’t want to be seen with me,” I say in a small voice. I can’t even look at him. “That you changed your mind about…me.”
“Changed my mind?” Noah barks out a laugh. He tips my chin up, so he looms over me.
I have to crane my head to look at him. The first drop of rain falls on my nose.
“There’s a very good chance I’d stop playing cricket before I change my mind about you, Queenie. And I will never stop playing cricket.” Noah takes the rain off my face and holds it on the tip of his finger. “Does that answer your question?”
A breath expels out of me. Bringing our chests closer.
“I didn’t ask one.” I’m unable to stop looking at him.
The rain comes down in a patter around us.
He stops being so agitated. “You wore this dress for me?”
I nod, the tiniest bit. “Yes. I wanted to do something special for you. After the world record.”
“You could smile at me.” He sounds so genuinely pitiful. Like I never smile at him.
I smile shakily at him.
Noah sucks in a breath. And there’s so much feeling behind this lust driving him.
“You still shouldn’t have been rude to Teddy. It wasn’t nice.”
I’m quieter now. As if the rain has cooled my heated blood. Or maybe it is Noah’s proximity. Being in his arms, being near him, makes everything else matter less.
“Don’t talk about that wanker when you’re dancing with me.”
“You’re so possessive,” I grumble.
“About you? Yes,” he says baldly. “You’re mine. And I don’t share.”
I’m illogical and depraved because I love hearing that.
The rain comes down in earnest. I blink against it. “This is going to mess with the fireworks.”
“I thought we just made some,” Noah mumbles.
I laugh. And he smiles too. Shy and pleased.
“Next time, just say, Queenie you look like a goddess. Okay?” I link my arms behind his neck and go on my toes.
“Next time, get ready on bloody time so I’m not sucker punched with your entrance,” he says tartly.
But he caresses my waist and my blood turns into a river. An endless current borne by desire.
“We should go.” I look around. Most of the tables are empty and the servers are clearing the plates, scurrying about. I feel a twinge of camaraderie for them. I’d be doing the same too, if it wasn’t for this man who says the most incredible, swoony things.
“Everyone else is gone.”
“Good. Then I can do this.” Noah stops dancing. Cups my face in his hands and kisses the rain off my lips. “God, you’re better than the pie,” he whispers.
“You are crazy.” But I kiss him word for word.
“About you, yes,” he repeats his earlier words.
My tongue chases his and finds it and melds with his. He holds me on his toes, the satin drenched beyond repair. His cock pokes into me, through his dress pants. And I am wet from the inside out too.
I press closer to him, to lean against his solid chest. Loving the scrape of his beard against my cheek, my chin.
All of my anger has dissipated in the aftermath of his confession and the rain. Because I don’t want to stay mad at him anymore.
Rohit Chachu is right. When I’m with Noah, I stop thinking. Worrying. Pondering. I’m just present. I feel. It’s a rare and beautiful thing for me. I want to cherish it.
“Noah?” I say his name against his lips. Which are welded to mine.
“Yeah?”
Now I touch his jaw. Hold it against my wet palm. He nuzzles into my touch. It makes my next decision easier. “Let’s get home so you can peel this dress off me.”
Noah stops kissing me. “Are you sure, Queenie?” His stare is intent, yearning. “You don’t want more time?”
I gaze into his drownable eyes. His patrician nose is flared and heated. “There’s a good chance I’d stop loving the Indian cricket team before I stop being sure about you, Dumaine. And I’ll never stop loving the Indian cricket team.” I kiss the rain off his nose. “I’m sure. I don’t need any more time.”
Noah picks me up, the idiot, while I shriek and runs off the beach to the parking lot. At the parking lot, he finds Ares on his bike.
“Maybe we should take Lizzie,” I venture uncertainly.
Noah just shakes his head. I don’t argue.
“Get off. And fuck off,” he says to his best friend. He deposits me on the seat like I’m made of clouds. “Tell Fox to stay fucked off too. Maybe till Monday.” He looks at me. His eyes gleam devilishly, water dripping down his PGSOFS face. “Make that Tuesday,” he murmurs.
I laugh and bat at his restraining arms.
“He’s kidding, Ares.”
Ares hands Noah the keys. “Do not fuck this up. And take care of her,” he says simply. He gives me a one-armed hug and says, “Be happy, Queenie. You deserve it.”
The unexpectedly kind words bring tears to my eyes. I go to slide off the bike but Noah hands me the helmet. “Sit,” he commands. “Do not move. Until we get home.”
For once, I don’t argue with him.
I just hike the dress up my thighs. And straddle the pillion seat.
Noah fingers the single black garter peeking under the dress.
“I’m going to get speeding tickets,” he murmurs.