Chapter 18
18
Nora
J ulie’s wedding and reception were at The Boat House. It was an old boat factory turned into a popular wedding and party venue. Fairy lights were wrapped around the pillars and strung up along the ceiling and white and pink roses burst from the centerpieces of every table.
It was romantic and magical.
My fingers itched to take my phone and film all of it. To point the camera in my face and remind everyone that weddings were still important. Because sometimes it wasn’t enough to just be in love, you had to show it. You had to announce it. You needed rings and words and first kisses as husband and wife so that everyone you loved could share your joy.
I hadn’t seen Julie in years, but I was so happy to celebrate her love.
We were sitting at our table, about three tables back from the dance floor, watching Julie and her new husband have their first dance. Nick stretched his arm across the back of my chair so he could whisper in my ear.
“You should take a video,” he said, reading my mind. His breath and the timber of his voice sent shivers across my whole body.
For one brief second, I imagined what would have happened if he hadn’t rejected me six years ago, if he, instead, saw me then as he was beginning to see me now, how different my life would have been.
There wouldn’t have been Rene. But there also wouldn’t have been Paris and a million followers…
“What did you say?” I asked, lost in my thoughts.
“I said you should take a video. This would have been totally something you would have made a video about.”
I turned and he was so close our noses bumped. I expected him to jerk away, look around to make sure no one saw us, but he only smiled and leaned forward to boop my nose with his again.
Who was this man? I wondered, delighted by this side of him.
“Wait? You watched my videos?” I asked. I’d been inside his app every day this week, but I didn’t go digging into his saved videos. That was private, and, I imagined, full of car repair videos.
“You were everywhere, Nora. Hard to miss,” he shrugged and reached for his bottle of beer on the table. He scanned the dance floor like he was looking for someone.
Or like he was hiding from me.
“Phone. Now, mister.”
“I don’t have to if I don’t want to.”
“I’ll tell my dad you’re having dirty thoughts about me.”
“I’ll tell your dad you showed up at my apartment and offered your virginity to me.”
“I’ll tell my dad you get a boner every time I walk into a room wearing a dress.”
Our gazes collided. Challenge on. He held out his phone and I took it. I went to the app and tapped the saved videos button.
I don’t know what I expected. Maybe one or two of mine when I was being funny. Or the time I got the tour of the Eiffel Tower from the engineer, and it had gotten really specific about the mechanics of it. I’d thought of Nick the entire time I chatted with the engineer, knowing he would love it. I almost sent it to him directly, but managed to talk myself out of it.
But no. He’d saved everything. All my content. From the stupid videos I made in my dorm room, to all the videos I made in Paris. The first day I arrived. My first croissant. All the thrift stores and markets and my sun-splashed apartment learning how to cook. Years. Thousands of videos. All of me. Only of me.
“There were times you felt so far away,” he said quietly. “The videos…they helped.”
I jerked my gaze away from the phone and looked at him. I’d been right. All those years ago, I’d been right.
Nick was my person.
And he hurt me, but I hurt him too. He rejected me, but I spent years rejecting him right back. Maybe he needed that time to understand what I meant to him. But I also needed that time. To grow up. Mature.
He coughed into his fist, like he couldn’t quite handle me staring into his soul.
“Anyway, you have a knack for that shit. Making the mundane seem like fantasy. It’s great you’re doing the videos for the garage. It’s fun, but it’s not what you should be doing. Look at that cake they just brought out. You totally want to do a breakdown of that cake.”
It was on a large buffet table. Three layers of smooth white buttercream, with piped green vines and lush red roses. Yeah, that cake was totally something I would have broken down in great detail.
But there was something else I wanted to video instead.
I got up from my seat and sat down in his lap, surprising him, but he didn’t push me away. No. His hand came up around my hip, holding me.
“Nora, what are you…”
I hit the plus button and flipped the camera so it was on both of us. I wouldn’t need to add sound, because the background music would serve as a track. I leaned back against him, my head on his shoulder, our cheeks pressed together.
“This is Nick, everyone. He’s going to take me back to his apartment right now and do dirty, dirty things to me.”
“Nora!” He laughed. “What are you doing?”
“Telling the truth,” I said. “I’m not pretending anymore.” I looked into his beautiful eyes. “It feels good. You should try it. So, am I right? Are you going to do dirty things to me?”
His tilted his face toward me, his nose brushing mine. There was no smile, no teasing sarcasm. Just my Nicky.
“Yeah. I fucking am.”
I stepped into his apartment and took a deep nervous breath. Six years delayed, but my plan that night was finally in motion. I was going to have sex with Nick. And I was pretty sure it was going to be awesome.
We could basically read each other’s minds. We knew each other’s souls.
How could that not translate into awesome sex?
Not that I’d had a lot of sex, awesome or otherwise. The truth was, I’d mostly been disappointed by it all. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy sex, it was just that growing up I’d had such expectations.
Mom would tell me I’d read too many romance novels. But shouldn’t the books be right? Shouldn’t two people who were in love be better at sex? Make it more meaningful, more passionate?
Maybe my problem was that I’d never been in love.
Or maybe, in my heart of hearts, I’d always known I was doing it with the wrong person.
Now I was going to do it with Nick and everything was going to change. One way or another. He locked the door behind us and I stood in the center of his living room. There was a couch to my left and beyond the kitchen was his bedroom. Should I go back there? Just…walk into his bedroom? Or should I sit on the couch? Were we going to have sex on the couch? The floor? I looked down at my silver shoes on his blue and beige rug. When was the last time he vacuumed?
“I need a drink,” I blurted out.
Silent, he took off his suit coat and tossed it over the back of the couch. He walked to the kitchen and I heard the clink of ice cubes against glasses.
“How come you haven’t bought a house yet?” I called out.
He came back with two glasses half-filled with brown liquor.
“That looks like a double shot,” I said, pointing at the glass.
“We’re about to see each other naked,” he reminded me. “And you’re freaking out.”
I was. How very Nick of him to notice.
I downed the shot in two large gulps and felt the fire all the way down to my stomach.
“I like the commute,” he said. I stared at him blankly. “You asked why I haven’t bought a house?”
“You have scads of money. I know, because I do your books. You could buy a mansion if you wanted.”
“What the fuck would I do with a mansion?”
Fill it. With lots and lots of family.
“Have you ever thought about getting married?” I asked him. His eyes immediately got wide. “Calm down, buddy. I don’t mean me or now. I just mean in general. Is that how you saw your life going?”
He sat down on the couch, and put his drink in front of him on an ugly but serviceable table. He unbuttoned the buttons at his wrist and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.
I nearly gasped. That quickly, and with such little provocation, I was wet between my legs. Apparently, watching Nick roll up his sleeves was better than pornography. It was better than most of the sex I’d ever had. And I’d seen his arms a million times.
“You like this?” he asked, watching me from under his lashes. That was hot too. He rolled up his other sleeve, a flame tattoo covered his right forearm.
“I remember when you got that,” I said, breathless.
“Birdie gave me so much shit.”
“Why flames?” I asked. “You never told me.”
He shrugged and leaned back on the couch, his arms stretched wide. “You really want to talk about my tattoo?” That cocky half smile that sent flames through my blood.
I shook my head no.
“You want to talk to me about marriage?”
Another no.
I mean, I did. I really did. I’ve wanted to talk to him about those things forever. But his sitting there like some kind of mob boss and me so wet between my legs, I didn’t want to talk about anything.
“What do you want?” he asked me. I shook my head. I’d made myself so clear. I’d orchestrated every moment between us, if anyone in this room needed to be reassured, it was me.
“What do you want?” I shot back.
I wanted to burn from his brain every reservation he had. I wanted to chase away his doubt and misgivings. I wanted to be a woman to him. Fully-grown and realized and sexual. I wanted to shock him. Own him. Ruin him for any other woman.
“I want you,” he said quietly. “I don’t know when or how that changed, but I can’t deny it anymore. I think about you…all the fucking time.”
“Nick,” I whispered, overcome. These were words I’d dreamed he’d say to me and it had taken six long years, but it was happening. We were happening.
I stepped out of the silver sandals that Fiona said would go perfectly with my dress. She’d been right. Once they were gone, I returned to my normal height and wondered if I should have left them on. Would that be sexier? I couldn’t put them back on. That would be ridiculous.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
I turned and offered him my back.
“The zipper,” I said. “But not all the way. Just to where I can reach.”
His finger brushed the skin in the center of my back. I heard the sound of the zipper slowly coming undone, I had to hold onto the bodice of the dress to keep it from gaping open.
He groaned. Low in his throat and I ducked my head, flushed with pride and desire and so much happiness I was scared I’d blow it.
I turned, caught him staring glassy-eyed at my breasts. I slid the zipper all the way down, then reached up and slipped a finger under each strap.
“Nora,” he groaned.
As turned on as I’d been by his sleeve pornography, I knew that’s how turned on he was right now. It was heady being the object of his clenched-fist desire. It made me bold. I paused for dramatic effect, to torture him for as long as I could, and finally dropped the straps off my shoulders and the dress fell into a pool at my feet. I stood before him in a siren red lace thong and nothing else.
“Fuck me,” he groaned. “You’re so fucking…I can’t even think straight.”
I bent over him, my hands splayed out on his thighs. He reached out to cup my breast, but I moved his hand away. “No touching. Not yet.”
“I can’t play games with you,” he growled. “I’m about to fucking come in my pants just looking at you.”
“We can’t have that,” I said. I reached for the couch cushion he wasn’t leaning against and dropped it onto the floor between his legs. Slowly, I knelt, watching as he realized what I was doing. His face tautened, but his eyes…his eyes were so soft. So loving.
I reached for his buckle and undid it. Then the hook holding his pants together. He shifted for me, but only so I could fit my hand inside his briefs to take hold of his dick.
He was so hot and so hard. Nothing I’d ever experienced before. I pulled him completely free of his briefs and could see how big he was. Blood surged in the veins under my hand and his cock went deep red. Like a monster that had been trapped for so long and was finally free and bent on the worst revenge.
This was Nick. My Nicky. And his head was kicked back against the couch like he was praying for something while I stroked him until precum coated the top of his cock. I licked it off.
“Oh my God, Nora,” he moaned, watching me through narrowed eyes. His cheeks were red too. His neck. Every bit of him tense and on edge like he was barely in control.
I hummed and licked around the head of his cock. I dropped open mouthed kisses on his length, brushing him with my tongue, never taking him directly into my mouth.
His hips shifted, pumped up toward my face a few times, but I wanted to hear the words. I wanted him to say what he needed from me.
“Goddamnit, Nora! Fucking suck me already.”
“Yes, Nick.” I lowered my head and took him deep into my mouth to the back of my throat.
“Holy shit, holy shit.” I felt his hand gripping the back of my head. The pull of my hair stung, but the pain didn’t change the power I felt bringing him to my mercy. “Again, fucking again. All the way. To the back of your throat.”
I pulled on his cock with deep sucks, letting my spit ease the way. When I leaned back for a breath, his cock was shiny from his cum and my mouth. With his free hand, he gripped his cock, hard, and using his other hand he guided me back down, urging me to suck him more.
He was helpless against his desire and I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever been so turned on. My nipples were tight. My panties were already soaked.
“I’m going to come so hard in your fucking dirty little mouth. Then you’re going to sit on my face while I eat you out until you scream so loud you don’t remember who you even are. Yeah?”
I was too busy swallowing his cock, moving my mouth faster and faster on him, tonguing the rim just under the head of his dick, until I could feel his hips pumping out of control as he fucked my mouth. His grip on my head tightened. His powerful thighs on either side of my head grew taut. I could feel the first pulse of his cum before he said anything.
“I’m coming,” he grunted. “So hard. Swallow it, baby. Swallow all of it.”
When he was done, I let him slide from my mouth. Some of his cum leaked out over my lips, onto my chin, but he wiped it away with his finger, only to push that finger back into my mouth.
“Every drop,” he muttered, although I wasn’t sure if he even knew what he was saying. “Stand up.”
I did and I could feel myself shaking. My whole body trembling with a need I’d never felt before.
“Take your panties off and leave them on the table. They’re mine now.”
I looked at Nick, my Nick, but in some ways the man I knew was gone. This was a version of him I’d never seen. Dark, demanding, fully aroused. So filthy. So awesomely filthy. His cock, still half erect, lay against his thighs. I was naked except for a soaking wet thong and he was still dressed. I wanted to ease my hand between my legs, take some of this pressure off, but I wanted him to do it more.
His eyes were pinned to my tits, and then, as I slid my panties down my thighs, to my pussy.
“God,” he whispered. “You’re so pretty,” he said, brushing a finger over the lips of my pussy. “Now, stand on this couch and brace your hands against the wall behind me. That’s it, that’s it.”
Oh fuck. My naked pussy was directly in front of his face and I couldn’t even be embarrassed by the intimacy. It felt right. Like he should see every part of me. Do whatever he wanted with me.
He grabbed my ass cheeks with both of his hands and squeezed them hard. Then he slid his tongue between the lips of my sex and I was done. Deep hard licks right up to my clit, that he circled with his tongue. Endlessly, it felt like.
“I can’t stand, Nick. My knees are shaking too hard.”
He stopped kneading my ass cheeks to slap the right one hard instead. “You’ll stand like this until you come.”
He didn’t understand. I usually needed more pressure than just someone’s tongue to come. But he kept licking and sucking. Holy shit, was he using his teeth? I felt a finger slide into my soaked pussy from behind. Then two. Then three.
He pulled his face back. “Good? You like to be finger fucked while I suck on that sweet little clit? What about your ass, baby? Will you take a finger deep in your ass?”
He was doing it before I could give him an answer. One of his cream covered fingers was slowly eased into my ass, while he continued to hold me against his mouth, to torture me with his tongue.
It was too much sensation. Too much stimulation. Then he pushed the flat of his tongue hard against my clit, and I exploded.
“Nick!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, mashing my hips against his lips, his tongue, trying to draw out the orgasm as much as I could until I collapsed into his lap, straddling his thighs, my face pressed against his chest. I could feel his erection, now fully hard again, pressed against my stomach. I was panting. I was gone.