Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“I have nothing to give but this heart so full and these empty hands. They’re not empty now.” ~Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
G ravel popped, like her dreams, as she drove onto the driveway of the Little Red Barn. Putting the vehicle into park, she yanked out the keys and leaned back against the headrest. Hot tears trickled from her eyes, and she let the last twenty minutes crash over her. Duncan was an asshole. Noah kissed her. Then looked at her with regret.
“Nope. You’re not going to cry over Noah Wilson. Not anymore.” She dashed away the tears.
Her gaze flicked out the window. Across the property, Elle and Clayton were loading suitcases into the bed of his truck.
She looked in the mirror and wiped her face. Thank the goddess she didn’t wear mascara. There’d be no raccoon eyes to take care of. No evidence of her sadness.
“Natster!” Clayton shouted from across the property, waving his hand at her when she hopped out of her vehicle.
“Clay Pot!” she called, walking toward him.
His expression scrunched up from her use of the nickname. As a child, she’d bestowed many, many nicknames on him.
To him, though, she’d always be Natster. The endearment both warmed and chilled her heart with lukewarm understanding. How could Noah look at her with anything but regret? She was the little sister of his best friend. Nothing more. Even if, for just a few moments today, she’d hoped that was no longer true.
“Clay Pot?” Elle gaped, her hands on her hips.
A smile curled on Nat’s lips. “I also called him Clay Pigeon, and then there was the unfortunate Clay Aikens period. He did not appreciate that one.”
“He was so overrated. Not to mention that ‘Invisible Man’ song was the national anthem for stalkers,” he chuckled, hoisting a suitcase into the trunk.
Lizzie and Fitz barked and danced at their feet. Lowered to her haunches, Nat gave both pups ear scratches. The plump pug snorted while the brown and white pit bull licked her face. No matter what ailed the heart, puppy love was almost always the best cure.
With one last belly scratch for Lizzie, she straightened. “You two are off for your romantic weekend?”
“Yup.” The giant grins perched on their faces were blinding.
To celebrate their one-year anniversary, they rented a cabin on Lake George. For the next week, they and the puppies would enjoy lakeside strolls, campfires, and a lot of something that Nat didn’t want to think about her brother doing.
“We’ll have cell service if you need anything. I’ve asked Noah to stop by to check in on you, and, of course, there’s Mom and Dad,” Clayton said.
Hard pass! The last thing she wanted was Noah stopping by.
She rolled her eyes. “You realize I am almost thirty, and I used to live in Boston. Perry isn’t exactly Dorchester.”
“If it makes you feel better, Noah pops by to say hello”—Elle made air quotes—“when your brother is at the clinic, and we have bad weather. It’s so obvious Clayton sent him to check in on me.” She nudged his ribs.
“I worry about my girls.” He flung both arms around his fiancée and sister, tucking both close to his chest.
“You’re such an overprotective softy,” Elle cooed.
Alone in the sanctuary of the Little Red Barn, Nat sat on the kitchen floor, its linoleum cool against her legs. The temperature and today’s events coated her body in a salty gloss of perspiration. The day had been so, so much. Almost too much, and she just wanted to put it behind her. The confrontation with Duncan, that scorching hot kiss with Noah…the agonizing rejection at the end of that encounter.
She needed her glue gun and a craft project…stat! But first, she texted Summer. No doubt, she worried about Nat after all that happened.
Me: Sorry about earlier. I’m okay, but I need time to craft this out. Can we do dinner Monday night?
Summer: Of course. One question, though. Is Duncan in the picture still?
Me: GODDESS NO!
There may have been an excessive use of exclamation marks and a GIF of a man being kneed in the balls that accompanied her message. If only she had kneed Duncan in his balls.
How had she wasted her time with him? There were so many warning signs, present and past, that he wasn’t for her. That he wasn’t a good guy.
Hell, within seconds of meeting him again, Summer had assessed him as an asshole. The glower in her gaze when her brown eyes studied Duncan in the bakery telegraphed her instant dislike.
Summer: I’ll cancel the hitman then.
Me: Where’d you find a hitman in Perry?
Summer: The Penny Saver. It was right next to the ad looking for a new milker at Rice Farms.
Gratitude and humor gentled the ire that still lurked from dealing with Duncan. For so many reasons, she was lucky to have Summer as a friend. This woman had a way of reading people quickly, discovering who they truly were. She saw things that Nat missed or, perhaps, ignored.
“There were signs,” she mumbled to herself, rising from the floor.
How had she missed them? In the midday light filtering in from the large kitchen window, the unseen potholes of Duncan’s personality were illuminated. Not just who he was now but who he’d been then. The things she ignored. Traits she’d pretended weren’t what they really were.
Shuffling to the table, she pulled out her crafting supplies. Creating occupied her hands and her brain. It allowed her to focus on something else, which in turn provided clarity. With each delicious cut of blue cardstock, her mind drifted to Noah’s oceanic eyes.
Get out of my head, Noah! She gnawed her lower lip and pushed into decorating the bridal shower scrapbook she was making for Elle and Clayton. The rip of paper drowned out the thoughts of he who shall not be named because he already occupied way too much real estate in her head…and heart.
A gentle rap at the door barged into her crafty Zen headspace. Barefoot, she padded across the hardwood floor.
Opening the front door, she almost gasped. “Noah?”
“I don’t regret you,” he rasped, reaching out and pulling her into his arms. “I only regret waiting this long to do this.”
Nat’s breath sprinted out of her.
His warm, full lips pressed to hers in an unapologetic kiss. Raising to tiptoes, she encircled his neck. His hands moved to her hips, hoisting her into the air, and her short legs wrapped around his middle like there was no place they’d rather be. The heat of his kisses glided down her jawline to the column of her throat.
Gripping her tight, he strode into the Little Red Barn. His heel connected with the door, and it slammed behind them.
Need and reason wrestled inside her. A conversation needed to happen… But hadn’t they done enough talking? They’d had a lifetime of talking and only a moment of kissing. Couldn’t she just enjoy the kissing?
“Wait,” she whined, pulling her face from his. Some days she hated her sense of reason! “We should talk,” she breathed, annoyed with herself.
His kiss-swollen lips hung open. “O…kay.”
Nat remained in his arms. Heat pulsed in the scant inches between them. Each breath seemed to protest the talking. Legs around him and his hands gripping her ass, she understood the hesitation. It would be far easier to just let her body have control, but her heart and brain were too strong.
If they were going to speak, she needed to dismount Noah. “You should put me down for this convo.”
He lowered her to the floor. “Who should start?”
Tugging down her shorts that had ridden up from wrapping around him like a horny Rally Monkey at a baseball game, she mumbled, “Probably me since I suggested it.”
He gestured to the couch. Noah sat on one side, body angled toward Nat, who sat with her legs crossed on the other end.
Clutching a green checkered pillow to her middle, she exhaled. “So, you kissed me.”
“And you kissed me back.” A flirty lilt shaded his tone.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you since I was ten.” She cringed.
Was she saying this aloud? To Noah?
Girl, he had his tongue in your mouth. You can tell him this.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you since you were eighteen.”
Her heart galloped like a racing greyhound.
“What you saw in my eyes the night of Evan’s funeral wasn’t regret for you. It was disgust for my actions. You were eighteen. You were grieving. I should have been comforting you, but instead, I almost made a move on you. I was twenty-eight. I should have known better,” he confessed.
Nat squeezed the pillow closer to her chest. “But you did comfort me. You didn’t do anything wrong. You never crossed a line.”
“But I had. That entire week I watched you…” He looked away. “It wasn’t appropriate.”
“Because I’m Clayton’s little sister.”
“For me, you stopped being Clayton’s little sister a long time ago.”
She shifted on the couch, folding her legs beneath her.
“I hadn’t seen you in person since you were twelve. Between being stationed overseas and my second deployment, I still saw you as that little girl at the other end of those letters and care packages. Five and a half years later, after I got injured in that IED blast, you were the soft voice at the other end of the phone, calling me weekly to check in while I was recovering. A soft voice that no longer sounded like the little girl I remembered. When I came back to Perry after Evan died, you’d become a woman who steadied her family during one of the toughest moments of their lives.”
Noah’s words from last week echoed. I see you.
She could see herself through his eyes. To Noah, she wasn’t Chris and Heidi Owen’s youngest daughter. She wasn’t Evan and Clayton’s little sister. She was just Nat . His Nat.
Throwing the pillow aside, she crawled onto his lap. His arms looped around her, pressing her close to his chest. The quiet thump of his heart lulled her in the moment.
“Nat,” he murmured, kissing her temple. “I know how strong you are. I know you don’t need anyone to protect you…but I want to. Not because of Clayton but because of you.”
“Forget talking. Just kiss me.”
As bemusement punctuated his grin, he pressed his smile to hers. Nibbling open her mouth, the slick heat of his tongue found hers. His focused kisses drank in every last drop of her. His hands slid down her body, grazing her bare thighs. Liquid desire pooled in her belly and dripped across her bloodstream. Adjusting her position, she straddled him.
“Noah,” she giggled with his squeeze of her behind.
“It’s such a nice ass.” Those dimples popped with the quirk of his lips.
Like an animal in heat, she rubbed her hips against him, feeling his stiffness grow beneath her. It was intoxicating to experience his slow unraveling. The tightened grip on her ass. The deepening kisses. The hungry groans. The press of his hardness against her.
She should slow down. There should be batted eyes and coy comments.
Fuck that! She’d waited long enough to bathe herself in this moment. To have his unbridled kisses and exploring hands set her on fire.
“Noah, take me upstairs,” she panted, breaking their kiss.
“Hold on.” He held her tight, lifting them off the couch and turning to take the ten steps to the sleeping loft.
“How strong are you?” She mused as he effortlessly carried her up the stairs.
“It helps that you’re tiny, Tink,” he chuckled.
“ Tink ?”
“You’re like Tinkerbelle. Pixie-small but full of spunk.”
That big smile on her face would never come off.
Reaching the loft, he placed her on the cream-colored bedspread and then fell atop her. Settled between her legs, his hands skated up her thighs, over the worn denim of her shorts, stopping at the button. A wickedness sparked in his expression as he popped the button and pulled the shorts down.
“I could prolong this, but I think we’ve waited long enough.” The low rumble of his voice scorched her already heated skin.
Noah’s fingers were warm as they dipped under the waistband of her cotton boyshorts and yanked them off. Nat, of course, complied. The pads of his fingers crisscrossed up and down her legs, tingling awake every nerve ending in mini explosions of need and desire.
The pulse at her core ached. “Noah, please.”
“Do you want me to touch you”—his fingers parted her wet folds—“or kiss you.” His tongue flicked over her clit.
Grasping at the silky comforter, she moaned, “Kiss.”
Taking her hips, he dragged her to the edge of the bed. Reminiscent of a subject ready to praise their queen, he knelt on the floor and gazed up at her from beneath hooded eyes.
Spreading her wide, he rubbed his nose against that throbbing nub and inhaled deep. “Do you taste as sweet as you smell?”
He licked down her center. Pleasure zinged up her spine.
Eyes dark, he peered up at her with a devilish grin. “A taste of you will never be enough.”
Oh, goddess. Her breath hitched.
Gripping her thighs, he raised her to meet his mouth. His playful and indulgent tongue flicks against her clit teased promised pleasure. With a sexy hum, he sucked the sensitive bud between his lips. Like it was a game to see how close to the edge he could get her without tipping over, he alternated between languid licks and hardening sucks. The pressure twined tighter and tighter like thread wrapped around a spindle.
“So close,” she moaned, writhing against his working tongue. Reminiscent of a pinata being smashed, spraying candy everywhere, the pleasure built at her core and then…erupted. “Noah!”
“God, you taste so fucking good.” His tongue lapped her up, and then he slipped a finger inside her.
He’s not done? Perhaps. She was orgasm tipsy. None of her past sexual partners kept going once—or if—she came. If she did come, it somehow computed as time to stop or for them to push inside her. Noah continued to chase her pleasure, not his.
He pushed a second finger inside her.
“Oh…my…” The delicious full feeling stole her ability to speak.
His thick fingers pumped inside her while working her clit with his mouth. That coiled pressure returned. Adjusting and crooking his fingers, he hit something that… Oh my fucking goddess …engulfed her in an explosion of ecstasy.
“Fuck!” she cried, squeezing her legs around his head.
The climax rioted through her. Her legs quaked violently. She placed her hand on her sweaty brow, trying to come back to reality. Had that just happened?
She lifted her head, spotting the boyish smile curved into his wickedly proud grin. Yeah, that happened.
He stood up, kicked off his shoes, and crawled in on the other side. With a sweet gentleness, he pulled her trembling body into his arms. Tucking her into his nook, he folded the blanket over them.
“You gave me two orgasms,” she panted, still trying to steady her breath.
“Yep.”
“You found my G-spot.”
“Yep.”
“You read my notes during Ms. ChaNUT’s workshop, didn’t you?”
“Yup.” Devilment glinted in his expression.
“Now, you’re snuggling me.” Sleepiness weighed down her eyes, forcing them shut.
“Yep.”
“Am I dreaming?” A small yawn escaped.
“Nope.” He tightened his hold. “Neither am I.”