Chapter 12
Twelve
He stepped aside, let me in and closed the door.
“Before you do, I have to say something first.”
His eyes dropped to the book. Blinking, as if startled by it. He reached forward but stopped midway. “May I?”
It didn’t surprise me he asked. Nolan was one of the most thoughtful, and respectful, men I knew. It was why my parents loved him.
That’s why I loved him.
I nodded.
All the words that tumbled through my brain quieted. At first, I thought he might open it but Nolan put it on the entryway table.
“I shouldn’t have said those things.”
If he was apologizing, I had to stop him. It had been startling to have Nolan so mad at me, but he hadn’t created this mess.
“Nolan, you—”
“Were unnecessarily harsh. Did I mean every word? Yes. But it’s not your fault I’ve spent years wishing you’d see me as more than a friend.”
“How many years?” I whispered, curious.
Fittingly, it began to rain. And not just a little sprinkle, but a downpour that I shuddered to think of being caught in earlier.
“Do you remember the time on the bank where we used to fish when I counted your mosquito bites?”
I froze. Impossible. Of all the memories we had together …
“It was an excuse to touch you. Silly, I know.” He shrugged. “But you didn’t have over fifty bites either, so I got to prove a point.” At his slow smile, the world rightened again. Having him angry with me, turned out, was the worst feeling in the world.
“It was close,” I argued.
“There were twenty-three, if I recall. That’s less than half.”
That had been so long ago. “All this time, and you never even hinted at it.”
Rolling his eyes, Nolan chuckled. “Oh, there were hints. They just flew right over your head. Every time you talked about this or that book … one of the heroes from your stories … you made it hard to think I could ever measure up.”
I grabbed both of his hands without thinking. The warm, soft strength enveloped me.
“I saw you,” I insisted. “But I was too afraid to admit it. Even to myself.”
“Afraid of what?” he asked, his thumb tracing circles on my right palm.
“Messing up our friendship.” Riven popped into my brain. No more lies. “And maybe having you think poorly of me.”
He seemed genuinely perplexed. “How could I think such a thing? What does that even mean?”
“Like,” ohmygod, ohmygod, was I really going to say this? “Sex. Some things I fantasize about aren’t. . .” I swallowed hard. Attempted to conjure the words. “Soft.”
Just like that, something in him changed. A devilish look of satisfaction crossed his features.
“Baby, you’ve got to stop hiding the parts you think are too dark for me. I’m not afraid of the shadow,” he used our joined hands to pull me toward him. “I’m drawn to it.”
He was going to kiss me.
Nolan. My Nolan. Was going to kiss me.
Our chests touched, we were so close.
“This is a line, once crossed, it will be hard to step back from,” he warned.
I agreed, but didn’t care. “Cross it.”
Letting go of my hands, he grabbed my cheeks, held me steady, and just before Nolan’s head descended, our eyes locked. They were Riven’s eyes, not Rowan’s. A version of my best friend I never even knew existed.
All thoughts of “friend” Nolan evaporated the second our lips met. Before I knew it, my back was against the wall of his entranceway, my hands pinned above my head. Our tongues clashed, and Nolan’s strength answered every doubt as he pressed his body hard against mine.
“I had no idea,” I breathed as his fingers tightened against the rapid pulse in my wrists.
He lifted his head to look up at me. “Too much?”
Trust him. This is Nolan.
“Not enough.”
This chuckle was nothing like the last one. Devious and exhilarated, it also warned that I was about to get what I asked for.
One second, I was against the wall. The next, Nolan had lifted me from the ground and cradled me in his arms like a baby, as if I weighed nothing.
“Lena,” he said, striding toward the stairs. “I am going to make up for lost time by giving you the absolute ride of your life.”
Was he really carrying me to his bedroom? As I looked into his eyes, trusting him down to my very soul, I believed every word.
“Have you always been like this?”
“I’ve always had it in me,” he said, striding into his bedroom. “If that’s what you're asking.”
It wasn’t, exactly. But I probably didn’t want the answer to the question, anyway. None of it mattered.
“By the time I come out of my closet, you better be as naked as the day you were born.”
My jaw dropped as he strode toward the closet. With the rain pounding on his windows, the only light from a sole lamp beside his bed, I simply stared at the spot where he’d just been standing.
This was Nolan?
“I don’t hear you undressing, Lena.”
Holy shit. Heart racing, I tore off sneakers and did exactly what he’d told me to do but was only down to my bra and undies when he emerged.
With two neckties.
“Mmm,” he said, taking off his socks. “Not quite.”
His shirt followed.
“What are you planning to do with those?” I asked despite knowing the answer.
“Tying your wrists to the bedpost,” he said as if we were talking about fixing my roof. “And if you don’t take off those sexy as hell undergarments, I’m going to tear them from your body. And tie your ankles down too. Your choice.”
A vision of me sprawled on his bed with every limb immobile was almost enough to consider ignoring him. Especially as he’d taken off his sweatpants and stood before me, all six abs on full display, in a pair of navy boxers that left little to the imagination.
“I’ve never seen your dick before,” I blurted, my fingers fumbling with my bra straps.
He made an ‘oh yeah?’ sort of expression as my bra dropped to the floor.
“You’re about to.” With a sound of pleasure as he watched me undress, he pulled his boxers down.
“Figured you’d be huge.”
“Figured you’d look sexy as fuck with no clothes on. Now get in the bed.”
Shock at this version of Nolan mingled with excitement wondering what was next. Reaching the bedpost, he held out his hand. I offered mine, and he tied it to the post. Without a word, he did the same with my second hand.
By the time Nolan joined me on the bed, positioning himself between my legs and unceremoniously spreading them, I was already soaking wet.
“I can not fucking wait to learn every inch of that gorgeous body of yours.” His hands started at my calves and ran upward. “But first, I’m going to make you cum. Over. And over. And over. Until you decide to close the shop tomorrow because you are too exhausted to move.”
I would have responded, my fingers tightening into fists as he pushed my legs wide.
“Just fucking look at you. Perfection. Always, fucking perfection.”
I enjoyed ‘cursing Nolan.’ But I enjoyed ‘licking Nolan’ more, I decided, as he disappeared between my legs and made good on his promise.
Not being able to move my hands, grab his head or control him in any way made every swirl of his tongue more pronounced.
Shocked that I began to clench, in record time, I tried to hold back.
To prolong the pleasure.
Was I really going to come already?
Apparently not. He stopped. Looked up. Smiled.
“No.” I said, pulling on the firmly tied bonds. “No, you’re not.”
“Don’t tell me to read your romance books and then ask me not to learn from them.”
Was he serious right now?
“You read a book?”
“Multiple.”
Did I even know this man? “You learned about edging from one of my romance books?”
The almost climax was no longer.
“Knew about it, just not that it had a name. Shall we try again?”
Nolan did it not once, or twice, but three friggin’ times before he finally let me come. When I did, my core pulsing like never before, wrists still bound, I screamed his name. That apparently pleased him, because when Nolan finally lifted his head, he was clearly enjoying himself.
“Unbelievable.”
“Thank you,” he said, standing. His erection was, if possible, even harder than it had been before.
I didn’t bother telling him that’s not what I meant. He knew, anyway, and was being funny. Was being … Nolan.
Except, I was reminded, once my wrists were unbound, this wasn’t the Nolan I knew.
This was sex god Nolan, and as he straddled me, it was hard to reconcile the two. Might take some getting used to.
“I might not last all that long,” he said. “Your way too fucking hot, and I’ve been dreaming about this a long, long time.”
Reaching for him, I pulled Nolan down to me.
“Dreaming, huh?” I teased. “Did you have your dick in your hand during these … dreams?”
Reaching between us, Nolan slipped himself inside me. Trying to let go of the disbelief that this was truly happening and enjoy the moment, I laughed when Nolan nodded.
“I did.”
Apparently he was finished talking. At the same time he thrust inside me, Nolan descended to kiss me as he had in the hallway. The dual sensation, his timing the two to be perfectly in sync, was too much.
Especially when he reached between us again and circled my clit with his thumb. No one could accuse this man of not knowing his way around a woman, and with a searing flash of jealousy, I decided no one would be able to ever again.
He was mine. Had always been mine, I just didn’t know it.
Pulling away, Nolan lifted himself above me.
“I want to see your face,” he said, pumping me and circling so expertly I was afraid to ask how he could do that so well. “When I come inside you for the first time.”
There had been no discussion of protection, I just realized. But he already knew I was on the pill.
“Won’t be my first tonight,” I teased.
“Or last,” he said, somehow predicting at that exact moment another orgasm began. “Come on baby, give me another one.”
His voice was almost unrecognizable. Low and gravely, it was as much of a turn-on as the rest of him.
When I clenched once more, my ass cheeks squeezing together, he pulled himself out and then thrust harder than ever.
Once. Twice. And on the third time, we came together.
Seeing such a look of pleasure on his face prolonged it for me.
When Nolan pulled out, collapsing beside me, I understood what he meant earlier.
“Maybe I will close the shop tomorrow,” I said, turning my head toward him.
Lifting an errant strand of hair away from my face, Nolan tucked it behind my ear.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll take the day off too. Feels like we have a lot to talk about.”
I rolled onto my side. “Oh, we’re gonna talk? Maybe I’ll go in after all. I was promised another activity.”
Reaching over, Nolan lifted me from the bed and positioned me straddled above him.
“You’re right. No talk. Just sex.”
I wasn’t sure if he was serious or not, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the fact that I was right where I belonged.