15. Chapter 15
Chapter fifteen
Ashley
I stare at the naked man in the shower, rippling muscles licked by droplets of water, and for a moment, I can’t breathe. He’s perfect. He’s deadly. He’s Noah, not Aaron, and this man will never be Aaron to me, no matter how many times I use that name.
He’s alive.
We’re alive.
We’re together.
I launch myself toward him, and the minute I’m at the edge of the tub, he grabs me, lifts me, and pulls me into it. “I thought you were dead,” I whisper. “I thought—”
His mouth slants over mine, and oh God, he tastes like him, like Noah, like the man I love in every possible way: earthy, raw, and yes, lethal. I realize now that he was always lethal, that I always knew this, that it turned me on, that it called to me. “Noah,” I whisper against his lips.
He doesn’t even try to correct me. “Yeah, baby,” he whispers, “I’m right here.” He turns me and presses me against the wall. “Which I thought you knew two days ago. Obviously, your concussion was worse than I knew.”
“Two days?”
“Two days,” he says, the thick line of his cock pressed to my hip. “And if you don’t remember that, I haven’t fucked you as perfectly as I should have.” And just that fast, he’s kissing me again, has me refusing to ask another question. He’s going to fuck me perfectly. Yes. Please .
I reach down and wrap my hand around his shaft and say just that. “Yes. Please. Make me remember.”
A low growl escapes his throat, and he goes from devouring me with another kiss to dragging my shirt off of me and dropping it in the puddle of water at our feet. It’s barely gone, and he’s turning me to face the wall as his hands cover my breasts.
“Noah,” I plead.
“That’s right, baby,” he says, his fingers playing with my nipples and pinching them to the point of erotic pain. “Noah, and you’re the only one who knows that.” He teases my nipples again, pinching and repeating the deliciously painful action over and over until I can’t take it any longer.
“Why are you not inside me?” I demand.
“You’re going to remember this time,” he promises. “You don’t get to forget me ever.” He unsnaps my jeans and pulls them off. “Understand?”
“Why would I need to? Why would I want to?”
“Remember you said that,” he says, turning me around and backing me up against the shower wall with him caging me in, my sex clenching with the idea that he will soon be inside me.
Yes.
Please.
I could say those words, think those words, a hundred times with this man with no regret. I have no regrets with him. I’m tired of pretending otherwise. He was almost gone again. He was almost dead this time, and now he’s standing in front of me again. I wrap my arms around him and hug him, pressing my breasts to his chest and offering him my mouth, my trust, my heart.
He cups my head, claims my mouth, and in that kiss, there is possession, heat, need. We need. He needs. God, I need. Take me. Fuck me. Own me. Love me . Those are the things I try to tell him with every lick of my tongue and then he’s inside me; I don’t even know how it happens, but he’s inside me, stretching me, filling me, in all those ways that I need to be filled.
“Damn it, woman, you undo me,” he whispers, and my back hits the wall again, his hands on my breasts, fingers plucking at my nipples, his kiss devouring me. Then, I’m no longer on the ground. I’m no longer against the wall. He’s lifted me while my legs have found his waist. And just that fast, he’s pumping into me, thrusting, and I’m not sure if he’s pulling me down on top of him, or if I’m pushing against him. I’m not even sure how I lean back, but I don’t fear falling. I know he has me. I think I’ve always known that he has me. As if promising that to be true, his arm wraps around my waist, his big, beautiful, powerful body holding all of my weight.
His eyes meet mine, lowering to rake hotly over my naked, bouncing breasts, and I am all about this moment. About showing him trust. About taking what he offers and that is him, that is pleasure and with that decision is freedom to just be here, live this, take him as he is. I push into him, groan with how hard and thick he is. For me. He is hard and thick for me, and I want him to want me. We are wild, and I watch his face, the hard lines, his perfect lips that I know can be deliciously punishing, and for reasons I can’t explain, just the idea of that mouth is what undoes me.
I shatter into orgasm, and it’s not just any orgasm.
It ripples through me with such sudden force that my body stiffens and clenches, my sex clamping down on his shaft. He groans low and deep, and his reaction, his pleasure, is everything to me. He is everything to me, and I can feel the warm, hot heat of his release, I can see the pleasure ripple over his features, and that is almost enough to make me orgasm all over again. He is masculinity personified, a perfect man to me, and it’s that thought that seems to wrap us up and drug me in the final moments of his release.
He molds me close and holds me, his face pressed to my face, and for longs moments, a full minute, I think, he doesn’t put me down. He doesn’t move. He just stands there, seeming to inhale me, to drink us in, and I do the same. I don’t want to return to the rest of the world. I don’t want to fight for our lives and fight for a world where we can be together. I just want this moment to last forever.
Slowly, he slides me to my feet and strokes my cheek. “Don’t forget me ever again.”
“Don’t give me the chance,” I order. “I thought—I thought you were dead.”
He cuts his stare, his gaze lifting skyward, his jaw clenching, and when he looks at me, his expression is all hard lines and torment. “I know,” is all he says, and then he’s releasing me, stepping out of the shower.
He grabs a towel and hands it to me and then wraps another one around his waist. There’s something going on that I don’t know, which is really a stupid thought. There’s a lot going on that I don’t know, but right now, what I care about is whatever it is that just made Noah pull away from me.
I wrap the towel around myself, and by the time I’m out of the shower, Noah has both hands pressed to the sink, his chin on his chest. Whatever is wrong is big. Whatever it is, he doesn’t want to tell me. Dread fills me. His silence stretches out, and all those thoughts I had about trust and us and no longer denying how much I love him seem to mock me.
“Noah,” I whisper. “Talk to me. I need you to talk to me.”
He pushes off the counter and turns to face me. “I’m not Noah. You need to figure that out and do it now.” And with that contradiction to what he just said in the shower, he walks out of the bathroom. Angry. He’s angry with me, and now I’m angry. I pursue him; I’m done with secrets and lies. It all ends here and now.