Chapter 24

24

Nora

“ T ake off all your clothes. Now.”

We’d made it back to Nick’s apartment and he pushed me into his bedroom like we were still running from my dad.

“I don’t know, Nick. We have a lot to talk about,” I teased him, even as I started to pull off my hoodie.

“We will. After I fuck you stupid.” He pulled me into his arms like he was never going to let me go.

His head dropped and his mouth took mine. It was the only way to describe it. An all-consuming kiss. With lips and tongue and teeth and air.

“Fuck, Nora,” he panted. “It’s like I never knew how to kiss before you. How to fuck before you. Why does it all feel so different?”

He’d already unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans and was pushing them down my legs. He was doing it again. Getting me naked while he remained fully clothed. I had no idea why I found this so hot, but I did.

I reached for his jeans, but he pushed my hand away. “Get on the bed.”

“You think you can push me around when we’re in your bedroom?” I plopped my naked ass on his bed.

Because this had always been my dream. To be here, with him, both of us smiling and vulnerable. I wanted it so badly and for so long, that when I’d believed it was never going to happen, I’d had to suffocate this tiny piece of my soul so the Nick noise wouldn’t be so loud in my head.

Now that noise was back and it was giving me a high like a drug.

It wasn’t just the orgasm I knew he was good for, it was the way he wanted me – needed me – right back. Nothing reserved. Nothing held back.

He pulled out his heavy erection with one hand and reached for my ankle with the other. Slowly, he dragged me to the edge of the bed, like a marauder who was ready to reap the spoils of his victory.

“What? No foreplay?” With my free foot, I pushed against his chest as if trying to resist him.

He growled, all sex beast. My teenage fantasies of what sex with Nick would be like were so anemic compared to the reality. So tame and PG. In fact, all the sex I’d had, had been anemic and PG.

Nick was fully X-rated. The things he wanted from me were shameless and rough. I had no idea I could feel this way, but I was so glad. So lucky.

He fell to his knees at the edge of the bed and kissed the foot pressed against his chest before putting it over his shoulder. He pulled me closer to the edge of the bed until both my thighs were draped over his body, his hands holding my ass exactly where he wanted me.

Face to face with my very wet pussy.

“I don’t think you need all that much foreplay,” he said, his breath tickling over my sensitive flesh.

“Okay, you’re right,” I said, reaching for him. “Let’s fuck.”

“Nah. You wanted to play, so we’re going to play. For a while.”

His mouth went to work on me without any urgency. No rush. It was all slick licks, light touches. He inserted a finger and I groaned, trying to hold onto the pressure, but he pulled it away.

“You’re an asshole,” I said, and he leaned back, popping his finger in his mouth.

“And you’re delicious.” He stroked himself, gazing down at my desperate body.

“Nick!” I squirmed, trying to mash my hips up against his face. “Please. Do that thing.”

“This?” he whispered, and licked me, over my hole to my clit and back down.

“No!”

“This?” He worked my clit, which was good. Excellent even. But not enough.

“You know,” I cried, clutching his head to me, in fear he’d pull away again. “Touch me where only you’ve touched me.”

He growled against me and slid a finger into my pussy. So deep it made my eyes roll back into my head. He touched that spot. Stroked it. Pressed it. “Yes!” I moaned.

And then the asshole pulled his finger away.

“Nick!” I shouted. “What the fuck?”

He leaned over the bed, caging me between his arms, and sucked a hard nipple into his mouth. I arched my back and tried to connect my pussy with his thigh, but he was having none of it. The only part of him that touched me was his mouth on my breast.

“Here,” he said after a nip on the underside of my breast. He pulled a pillow from his headboard and put it on my chest. “You can scream into this if you need to.”

Then he slid back down between my legs.

“Nick,” I moaned. “You have to make me come. You have to.”

“And I will,” he said, with a look in his eye I’d never seen. “When I’m ready.”

I pushed the pillow up against my face and screamed bloody murder. He laughed against my skin and went right back to teasing me.

When he finally let me come, it was like nothing I’d ever felt before. I exploded into a million messy pieces and he put me together again, only to pull me apart one more time. Eventually, my thighs trembling on either side of his face, he gave me mercy and climbed up on the bed.

My inner thighs scraped the material of his jeans and I moaned at the sensation. I was a liquid puddle of feeling. He could do anything he wanted to me.

He laid down against me, keeping his weight off my body with his elbows by my head.

“You okay?” He asked, kissing me gently. His lips were puffy and wet from my juices. I moaned, words absolutely beyond me. “Look at you,” he breathed across my mouth. “I could do anything to you right now. Anything I wanted.”

I whimpered, arching against him. It was all I could do. All the permission I could give him. Without breaking eye contact, and with one single thrust, he planted his cock deep inside me.

I came so hard fireworks exploded behind my eyes. And it kept rolling and rolling throughout my body. I wasn’t sure if I was having a second orgasm or just the longest fucking orgasm of my life.

“Nick!”

“Yes, baby, squeeze my dick. Just like that. Now don’t pass out on me, it’s my turn to take you for a ride.”

He withdrew his heavy cock only to thrust deep inside over and over. All I could do was wrap my arms around his thick shoulders and hold on for dear life while he pummeled me into yet another orgasm.

“Fuck, so good,” he grunted. “You’re mine, aren’t you? All mine. This pussy. These tits. Your mouth. Yeah?”

He had me. He had all of me. Body and soul. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream how much I loved him. How I had always loved him. And maybe I did. Maybe the words came out of me because he buried his face in my neck and his thrusts became erratic, uncontrolled. He groaned into my ear like a man being tortured and I loved it. I squeezed my whole body around him, all my inner muscles clenching down hard on his cock as he finally came inside me.

Our hearts pounded against each other and it felt like we were alone in the world.

“Mine,” I whispered into his ear. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“You ready?” Nick asked the next morning. I’d spent the night at Nick’s and we’d decided to get coffee at Common Grounds together.

I put down my phone and took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure how I could be ready for this. The video was deleted, but it didn’t matter. I was getting texts from everyone I knew asking me if it was real, if Nick and I were a couple. Aunt Lola said some teenagers from Portland had come into Pappas and asked if An American In Paris was really here. Some of the old publicists I used to work with had reached out, asking me if I was back at work.

I had no idea how to answer them.

“We don’t have to go,” Nick said, squeezing my hand. “I am more than happy to go back to bed.”

“We can’t hide out here forever,” I said.

“I don’t know, I think we’ve got a few months in us at least.”

I laughed and kissed him. “I need coffee,” I said against his swollen lips. I knew mine were worse. My neck was covered in beard burn. My legs and butt hurt. I wasn’t going to be able to sit down on a hard chair for at least a day, and Nick, well, Nick had a hickey on his neck and he wasn’t even embarrassed.

“Then let’s get you coffee,” he said.

He opened his apartment door and I stepped out onto the landing. It was crazy, but I had this odd feeling that I was being watched. I’m sure it was just my paranoia from the video, but it was hard to shake.

When we got to the bottom of the steps, I was suddenly super self-conscious. My fingers twisted together.

“What?” Nick asked, when I didn’t start walking toward the town square.

“This feels like a lot of pressure. It’s one thing if it’s just us. Or just our parents, but news that we’re a couple is going to spread all around town by tonight.”

He took my hand. “We went viral, babe. Even the cats of Calico Cove know we’re a thing. Let’s do this.”

I scrunched up my face at him. “I can’t believe you, of all people, are being easy-going about this.”

“Wait? Are you freaking out now?”

I bit my bottom lip. “I’m not freaking out about my feelings. Just all the pressure from the town.”

“Fuck the town.”

I glared at him. “You sound like Dad.”

“That’s a compliment. But…” Nick’s voice trailed off.

“What?”

“What if you’re nervous about something else?”

“Like what?”

He stopped walking then and looked down at me. “You’ve…thought about this before. You and me, right?”

“Uh, only since puberty, Nick.”

He closed his eyes and did that nose pinching move. I wanted to ask him if it ever worked.

“Can we please never discuss you and puberty again?”

“Fair enough.”

“My point is, you’ve built up…I don’t know, maybe a lot of fantasies about me.”

“Which you’ve exceeded in bed, thank you very much.”

“No, I mean fantasies about what I might be like as a boyfriend.”

I blinked. “Yeah, I guess I probably have.”

“I’m going to exceed those too,” he said. “Prepare yourself.”

I laughed, so relieved he was trying to distract me. “I think I’m prepared for you, Nick.”

“You can’t possibly be,” he said, pushing us forward. It was nice to let him take charge. To let him be the one to manage this step. “I know you so well and I’m going to use all that information to my advantage.”

We stepped over the curb and onto the sidewalk.

“Yeah, what do you know?”

“I know you like those caramel drinks on the weekends. But coffee on weekday mornings. I know you like herbal tea in the afternoon and you let yourself have one Diet Coke a week. You like cheeseburgers with extra ketchup and no mustard, which is ridiculous, by the way. I know you like to sleep in a cold room so you can have lots of blankets. Fall is your favorite season. You like peonies and hate carnations. You want five kids. You like cats, not dogs, which we’re probably going to have to compromise on. Hey…” he wiped away my tears with his thumbs.

“You’ve been paying attention this whole time,” I said.

“I know you by heart.”

I kissed him and someone driving by honked. “Well,” he said against my lips. “We’re not a secret anymore.”

I kissed him again and again until finally he stepped back and shook his head. “Do you want coffee, woman, or not?”

“Coffee!” I laughed and he put his arm around my shoulders.

“Now you do me,” he said.

“Oh,” I laughed. “I did you. I did you a whole bunch. Took you down to pound town.”

“First, stop saying that. In fact, don’t ever say that again. No,” he said. “You…” he licked his lips. “You tell me what you’ve noticed about me.”

Oh, this man, this man who’d felt so unloved for so long. The scars were deep and it didn’t matter how much Birdie and Antony loved him, he was always going to feel a little unsure. A little unseen.

I cupped his face in my hands, right there in the middle of town. In front of the gazebo.

“I know you get grumpy when you get hungry. I know you don’t process dairy as well as you think you do. I know that feelings are hard for you, but your loyalty to those you care about is bottomless. I know you’re dying to really spank me, which, I’m not against. I know, despite your grumbling, you’re going to let your brothers become part of your life. I know you hate the fact that Birdie still lets Madame Za drive, and I also know you drive by her place every Thursday to take her to her sister’s house to play cards. I know you like pork chops better than steak, and your favorite season is summer because that’s when Antony and Birdie found you. I know you love the ocean first thing in the morning and you want kids. A whole bunch of them. But that’s pretty new and possibly I’m projecting. And I know…” his eyes were damp. My big, tough, strong Nick. “You know, don’t you? You’re my home.”

He pressed his forehead to mine, right there in the middle of the town square.

“I process dairy just fine,” he grumbled.

I laughed because that’s what he wanted me to do. For the first time in six years, I felt like I was right where I was supposed to be.

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