Chapter 20 Nellie Today #7
There’s so much going on with me that I can no longer differentiate between the emotions—longing, anxiety, hope, regret, fear, want, a compulsion for cute design. I’m sure it’s all printed in black and white across my face.
I have to escape.
“Tomorrow is fine!” I say with a forced smile. Oh so casual. I shake my head. I take a step toward the bedroom. But Noah stops me, reaching out and gently resting a hand on my shoulder—which I realize in that moment hasn’t bothered me all day.
“Hey,” he says, and I turn back around to look up at his stupid handsome face.
That face I’ve thought about for all these years, that I fell in love with when I was just a kid, that has been, at times, both my favorite and least favorite face.
His expression is inscrutable. At least to me, in my current fugue state.
“I just want to say because I didn’t get to before,” he says, “about the hot tub: For the record, I didn’t panic. ”
This is unexpected. And also, I suspect, untrue. “You did panic, actually.”
“Fine. But not about being with you.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Was there someone else there? Hiding in the cold plunge?”
“Nope,” he says. “It was just me and you. Alone.” There’s a meaningful pause. “Just like now.”
And those words send shivers of possibility through me that I can’t shake off.
“What was the panic about then, if not me getting the wrong idea?”
He looks down at the ground, then seems to steel himself, exhaling a rush of breath. He looks back up, his eyes boring into mine. “About losing you again.”
The silence takes on weight as our eyes lock.
I try to speak, but all that comes out is the quietest sigh. Like a whistle.
“Anyway,” he says, an almost apologetic smile playing on his full lips. “I just wanted to say—I liked that things got out of hand. And I wouldn’t mind if that happened again. As soon as possible.”
I am heated up like a brick oven. No, I am on fire. And I know Noah can tell.
Because when I don’t move, he does. He reaches out and takes hold of my elbow, runs his palm down my forearm, stopping to encircle my wrist. Like when he examined me that first morning. Only this time it’s different. He leaves trails in his wake.
He yanks me lightly toward him. And I am gone.
I look up into those hazel eyes, the ones I know and don’t, flecked with doubt and reason and need. And I realize I want more. And I don’t care about the fallout.
He can examine me all night long.
“Maybe oysters are aphrodisiacs,” I say, like I don’t know I’m speaking out loud.
“Maybe,” he says. “Or maybe I just want you.”
Noah pulls me closer to him, firmly, like he’s taking the reins. He’s towering over me, so that I’m suddenly extra aware of how much bigger a human he is than I am. By how much I want him to subsume me.
He brings a warm hand to my cheek. I lean into it.
I can’t take it anymore. I am in.
And, as soon as I am, I don’t feel hesitant anymore.
I am on a mission.
Now, I take a step closer, so that my body is brushing up against his, my breasts—through my thin tee—brushing against his chest. I look up into his face, let my eyes drop to his lips.
My breath is shallow. His is ragged.
“I swear to God, if you stop this time…” I start.
He shuts that down. “I’m not going to stop.”
As proof, he reaches down and pulls my T-shirt over my head in one quick movement. Tosses it—like the baseball player he is—behind us and out of sight.
So, I do the same to him. Tit for tat.
I watch—and feel—his eyes rake down me, as I cock my head sideways and smirk up at him.
He bites his bottom lip.
In the plunge pool, I felt his body against mine, but the froth hid most of him from view. Now, he’s all laid out in front of me.
And it’s all fucking mine.
The scars from years of playing, roughhousing, skateboarding—the boy I knew.
And the definition, smooth planes, and rough edges of now.
I place my palm on the side of his sculpted neck with purpose now, watch him swallow hard as he tries to remain still, like he’s afraid he might frighten me away.
Then I drag my hand slowly down the terrain of his chest, past his collarbone, pecs, the hard ridges of his abs—tracing the V that leads down.
He inhales a shuddered breath.
I slip my fingers into the very top of his sweatpants, and let them hang, teasing, from the elastic band. The tension between us—years in the making and intensified with every barb, glance, and not-so-accidental touch today—is now nuclear.
And we are about to blow.
What choice do we have but to save the world from our combustion?
Which is why Noah takes action. His darkened eyes still glued to mine, he grabs me roughly by the hips and backs me toward the wall, until I’m pinned against it. Then he leans down and, pausing just centimeters from my lips so I can feel his breath on my face, says, “Thank fucking God.”
And then he kisses me. And it’s not slow and patient; it’s urgent like the time is now. Like we both needed this yesterday.
Like it might not happen again.
We crash together. His lips snag mine, his stubble delightfully rough against my face. His grip tightens around my hips, his large hands flexing, as I tip my chin up for him to go deeper. He tastes like that cider and toothpaste, smells like our rainy day by the sea.
And I am all in.
My hands are everywhere I can reach. In his hair, behind his neck, at his broad back. His skin is warm and hard as I pull him toward me, so that we’re flush against each other. So that I am a Noah-and-wall sandwich.
And that’s when he scrapes his hands down to my ass and lifts me up, propping me against the wall as he steps between my legs.
And we’re grinding against each other—dry humping as the kids used to call it—like it’s still those days.
Like we’re still teenagers, impulsive, hungry, hormones coursing through us and blurring our choices.
And it’s like a release. Of expectations. Of demands. Of hangups.
I bite his lip. It’s my turn now. He pulls back slightly to look me in the face, his expression amused, like it’s a dare. Like this is a warning.
And then he dives back toward me, his tongue slipping into my mouth, as I feel him get so hard between my legs. I press myself into him.
I can’t get enough.
And it’s a time warp, back and forth. Now and then. Yesterday and today.
I think of all the times we were desperate for each other as teens, but there was nowhere private to go. Frustration, need. The closets we hid in amid rain jackets and dust. The cold porcelain of restroom walls. The dark house-party bedrooms with mountains of coats.
My breath is coming faster now, shallow and heated, as he presses into me, our twin sweatpants the only barrier. And I am no longer a solid. I am liquid mercury—shapeshifting and shiny.
I need more.
And he must have the same thought because suddenly he is carrying me, never breaking contact, then setting me down on the stairs. He kneels on the step in front of me and wraps his fingers around the elastic band of my bottoms just like I did to him, hesitates for a beat, messing with me.
Like this is the moment where there is no turning back.
But that train has already left the station.
Even in the dim light, his hazel eyes sparkle with a badness that ramps up my heart rate.
“You feeling okay?” he whispers, leaning over me, his lips parted.
“Pretty good actually,” I say, my voice a rasp. “Right now.”
“Right,” he says. “But I should make sure—don’t you think? That you’re okay?”
I’m about to protest because, is he going to pause hooking up to check out my arm? But then he slips his hand inside my pants and between my legs.
His fingers roam so gently I might scream.
Instead, I gasp. At least I think it’s me. And he groans. My hand squeezes the banister as he presses his fingers inside me. Because, if I haven’t already, surely I’m about to fall—hard.
I am dead. Or I don’t care if I am. If this is it, I’m okay with that.
Time is no longer a thing. Space is what I don’t want between us.
My body is trembling, pulsing—like we’re back in that club where we first saw each other and I am the bass. I reach for him too. Try ineffectually to pull at his pants, but he’s tied the drawstring tight.
Who ties the drawstring?
And that’s when Noah pauses for a second, despite my protests, leaning hot and heavy against me, and says, “Condom?”
I shake my head. “I’m on the pill. You?”
“I should be good—all clear and no one since Avery.”
“Clean bill of health for me too,” I say.
He narrows his eyes and cocks his head. “We’ll see about that.”
The doctor is in.