Chapter 25 #3
“You’re always braced.”
“What?”
“Your stomach. Your shoulders.”
His hand moved over my ribs.
“Even while you sleep.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“No.”
There was enough certainty in the answer that I turned my head.
Noah’s eye was heavy from medication but clear.
“You wait for me to need something,” he said. “Even when you are unconscious.”
“I don’t know how to stop.”
“Start now.”
He lifted my hand and placed it against his chest.
“I’m okay.”
“For tonight.”
“For this minute.”
The distinction mattered.
I breathed.
His heart beat beneath my palm.
Not racing.
Not fading.
Here.
“You came for me,” he said.
“What?”
“In the memory.”
“I wasn’t there.”
“I thought you were.”
His fingers touched my jaw.
“That green light. I thought you had found me.”
Pain moved through me.
“I wish I had.”
“You were at the hospital when I woke.”
“Eventually.”
“You came when they called.”
“Yes.”
“You stayed.”
“Yes.”
“Then maybe I wasn’t wrong.”
His eye filled.
“Maybe some part of me knew you would find me.”
I kissed him.
The touch began softly.
It became deeper only because he followed.
Noah shifted closer. His mouth opened beneath mine, and his hand moved behind my neck.
Heat stirred between us, but the kiss asked for nothing.
It carried gratitude.
Grief.
The fear of the day transformed into contact we both understood.
When the length of his body pressed against mine, I paused.
“Head?”
“Two.”
“Tired?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to stop?”
“No.”
“What do you want?”
“You.”
The answer came without hesitation.
“Not everything.”
“All right.”
“Just close.”
I turned fully, careful of his hip, and wrapped my arms around him.
Noah kissed me again.
Slower.
His hand slipped beneath the hem of my sweatshirt and rested against the tired muscles of my back.
Warm skin.
Steady pressure.
I shuddered.
“Green?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“Do you want more?”
The reversal caught me off guard.
“I want this.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
I considered my answer.
“I want more. This is what I need.”
His gaze softened.
“Then this.”
We kissed until hunger became tenderness.
Until Noah’s movements slowed with fatigue.
Until my body stopped expecting the room to split open around us.
He rested his forehead against mine.
“I want to make you feel good.”
“You do.”
“Sexually.”
My pulse kicked hard.
“You are medicated and exhausted.”
“I know.”
“Today was traumatic.”
“I know.”
“This is not the night to prove anything.”
His mouth curved faintly.
“You occasionally listen to your own advice.”
“Rarely.”
“I’m not trying to prove something.”
“What are you asking?”
His gaze dropped between us.
“I want to touch you while you touch me.”
The clarity in his voice made me still.
“Clothes on?”
“No.”
I searched his face.
There was fatigue.
There was desire.
There was love.
No panic.
“Are you certain?”
“No.”
I started to speak.
He touched one finger to my mouth.
“But I want to choose one thing without waiting until certainty becomes perfect. I may never feel perfectly sure.”
“That cannot mean ignoring doubt.”
“It doesn’t.”
His finger traced my lower lip.
“I know the boundary. Hands. Nothing else.”
“Any pain and we stop.”
“Yes.”
“Any fear.”
“Yes.”
“Any change at all.”
“Yes.”
“You tell me immediately.”
“I will.”
The confidence in his voice sent desire through me so forcefully that I had to breathe before answering.
“All right.”
We went to the bedroom.
Not because the bed carried expectation.
Because the couch strained his hip and my back.
Noah showered first. He said the warm water would clear the last pressure from his head. I remained outside the bathroom until he told me, with increasing irritation, to stop guarding the door.
When he emerged, his hair was damp and his body bare.
He stopped.
We had seen each other naked several times since he came home.
This felt different.
Intent sharpened every detail.
The pale scars along his arm.
The healing line over his hip.
The mark near his temple.
The changed shape of muscles slowly rebuilding after weeks of enforced stillness.
My gaze traveled over him.
He noticed.
“Still green?”
“Yes.”
His shoulders lowered.
I removed my clothes.
Noah watched.
Not shy.
Not fully confident.
Present.
His gaze followed the movement of my shirt over my head, the lowering of my sweatpants, the way my body responded to being seen by him.
I stood naked before him.
Noah came closer.
His fingertips touched the compass tattoo across my ribs.
“I remember hating this.”
“You called it dramatic.”
“It is dramatic.”
He traced one black line.
“I remember kissing it anyway.”
“You did.”
“Like this?”
He bent and placed his mouth against my skin.
The kiss was warm, lingering.
Pleasure moved low through me.
“Like that,” I said.
Noah looked up.
There was a spark in his eye I knew from the past and the present.
He kissed the tattoo again, then moved his lips slowly along the edge of my ribs. His breath warmed my skin. His hand settled at my waist, steadying himself.
My fingers went into his damp hair.
I did not guide him.
I only held.
“Green?” he asked against my body.
“Yes.”
His tongue touched the ink once.
My breath caught.
Noah’s mouth curved against me.
“You like that.”
“Yes.”
He straightened.
Desire had begun to flush his chest.
He took my hand and led me to the bed.
We lay facing one another beneath the quilt, bare skin warmed by the dim room.
For several breaths, neither of us moved.
The green light from the hall touched the edge of Noah’s shoulder.
His gaze moved over my face.
Not my body.
My face.
“You can still say no,” I told him.
“So can you.”
“Yes.”
“Do you want this?”
“I want you. I want this. I want whatever you choose inside the boundary.”
His throat moved.
“I want it too.”
Noah took my wrist.
He guided my hand between us.
He was already hard.
The trust of the gesture hurt more beautifully than desire ever could.
I wrapped my fingers around him.
His breath caught.
“Green?”
“Yes.”
I held still.
“Movement?”
“Yes.”
I stroked him once.
Slowly.
Noah’s eye closed, then opened immediately.
“Again.”
I repeated the motion.
His hips shifted forward.
I kept the pace gentle, letting him feel every change.
“Head?”
“Quiet.”
“Hip?”
“Fine.”
“Fear?”
He thought.
“Not here.”
The answer went through me.
His hand moved between our bodies and closed around me.
My eyes shut before I could stop them.
Noah paused.
“Look at me.”
I opened my eyes.
He watched my face as his hand moved.
His grip was firmer than the first time. He remembered none of the years of practice, but curiosity had already become confidence.
I matched his pace.
There was no urgency at first.
Only discovery.
His thumb passed over the head of my cock.
Pleasure tightened low in my abdomen.
My hand moved over him in return, thumb tracing the same sensitive place.
His mouth opened on a quiet breath.
“Good?” I asked.
“Yes.”
He stroked me again.
“Good?”
“Very.”
His mouth curved.
“You are still trying to make this an interview.”
“I need to know.”
“Then ask fewer questions and pay attention.”
The words carried an echo of the man he had been without belonging to anyone but the man beside me.
I tightened my grip slightly.
Noah’s body arched.
A low sound escaped him.
“Again,” he whispered.
I did.
He answered by circling his thumb over me.
Pleasure broke my breath.
Noah smiled.
“You like that.”
“Yes.”
“Still?”
“Always.”
He leaned in and kissed me.
Harder than before.
His lips parted, tongue meeting mine while our hands moved between our bodies.