Chapter 27
Twenty Seven
Andie
Dave cracks another joke that has me throwing my head back in a laugh.
Is he funny? Sure.
Is he funny enough that I should laugh like a hyena? Absolutely not.
Yet, I’m still doing exactly that. Why? Because I’m petty, and with the way Noah’s gaze is searing into the back of my skull, I’m pretty sure I’m succeeding in my childish attempt to annoy him with my disinterest in him.
He may not be jealous of Dave, with his dark and cute smile, who’s sitting in front of me, clearly buttering me up and hoping to take me home tonight. But Noah is a man, and men rarely like being tossed aside with little to no regard, especially when they’re as famous and hot as he is.
I doubt Noah even cares that I’m already moving on with someone else. It might just be my presence that is dampening his win in tonight’s game, annoying him enough to drill holes into my back.
And that annoyance wafting off of him is enough to let a sliver of satisfaction slither into me.
I’m not usually petty, but after he pushed me away, I need to let him know that it has been weeks, and I’m not wallowing in my misery, sipping on my red wine, or looking for distractions that would help me forget how good he looks with his mouth between my thighs and how good he feels with his length filling me up.
Even if all of that is exactly what I’ve been doing.
“Andie?” Dave’s voice, which feels a little too wrong falling onto my ears, jarrs me out of my thoughts of a certain grumpy goalie.
“Yes, I’m sorry. You were saying?” I clear my throat and look at him with a tight smile.
God, I hate myself for using Dave, but no matter how much I try, I can’t focus for more than five minutes on what he has to say about his photography skills, and how that has pushed him to new adventures time and time again.
His eyes roam over my face, his lips lifting into a defeated smile. His gaze darts back to the drink in his hand, his figure hunched over the counter as he puts most of his weight on it.
“You’re not really here, are you? There’s someone else,” he points out, with no judgment in his tone, only silent understanding.
His words have me taking stock of the man once again, willing myself to find that spark that lights up in my body, anything to indicate that there’s chemistry between us.
Objectively, Dave is a perfect guy to date.
He’s a photographer with a charming air about him, a lopsided smile that perfectly showcases his pearly white teeth.
He’s tall, lean, and handsome. A perfect gentleman, too.
But it’s all wrong. He’s all wrong.
Nothing about him is making my heart flip—not his eyes, not his smile, not his subtle advances.
Whereas I can feel my body heat up, my thighs clenching just thinking about the man who has been glaring at us for well over an hour now. Just the knowledge of him is enough to make my heart race.
And I hate it. I hate that the only man who can make my heart race is the one who broke it not long after sleeping with me.
Even if he didn’t technically do anything wrong, the bruise on my heart is still too fresh to excuse his actions or words.
When nothing reduces the ache between my legs due to Noah’s fixed gaze on me, I’m glad the group has scattered, with the guys finding someone to go home with, and my brother, who left a few minutes ago, with his girlfriend.
I was about to leave with Aurelia when she got wasted, but Sebastian intervened and offered to take her to the hotel she’s staying at with Jackson.
I get the sense that there’s something going on between them, and it worries me because she has a boyfriend, even if I think dating a goat would be better than dating him.
I sometimes think she hides something about her relationship with Jackson, but I know better than to poke around when I myself have secrets that are best kept hidden. If she ever wanted to talk, she knows she has me. At least I hope she does.
I’m almost done with the night, too, and I plan to make a neat exit when I feel Noah walk out the back entrance of The Tap with hurried steps, like a bull charging at a red flag.
While I’m staring at his retreating figure, a tissue paper flies over the counter to me. With scrunched brows, I pick it up. The words on it make my blood run cold.
‘I’m watching you.’
I look around the bar, searching for the one it belongs to because it certainly can’t be for me. When I don’t find anyone, I shrug and leave the tissue on the counter.
I apologize to Dave and grab my purse to go back home, wishing him the best night and forgetting about the bizarre thing entirely. I head over to the back entrance even though I know better than to do that.
Not that I’m going after Noah. He might’ve already left, seeing that he has no reason to stick around.
Shoving the back door open, I let the gentle breeze cool down my body, sliding through my phone to get an Uber.
“What are you doing here?”
Noah’s voice has me squealing like a pig with wide eyes as I swivel on my heels to look at him, to find him leaning against a wall. “You scared me,” I breathe with my hand on my chest, trying to calm down my suddenly racing heart.
His angry eyes glare at me as he repeats, “What are you doing here, Andie?”
I roll my eyes at him, knowing that he hates it.
His eyes flare at the action, his jaw clenching as he holds his words back.
“Waiting for an Uber. It’s easier to get them on the back of the bar,” I lie through my teeth, cringing internally, because even the animals know it’s easier to hail one at the front of the bar.
“That’s bullshit,” he growls, taking a step closer, his hands in a fist beside him as the air makes his wavy hair fall over his forehead.
My chest burns with indignation. I know that! But he doesn’t get to act all high and mighty when he’s the one who pushed me away. I get that we’re not dating. But I would’ve thought that we were at least friends with the way we had been spending time in and outside the bedroom.
I take a step forward, my hands crossed beneath my breasts. His eyes drop to them before getting back at me, and if I didn’t know it was anger in his gaze, I’d have thought it was heat.
“Why don’t you mind your own business, Noah?
And leave mine to me?” I spit, tilting my head and narrowing my eyes at him in false bravado.
“After all, that’s what you said, didn’t you?
I have no right to pry into your life, and you don’t get to ask me questions. ” I point my index finger at my chest.
“Oh, were you here, hoping that your date would follow you?” he taunts, his muscles ready to tear through his shirt with the way they’re flexing. He says date like it’s a curse.
He has no idea the hell this week has been for me. How much I have missed him, even if I resented every second of it, even if he hurt me.
So, him saying that I was hoping to get some action with some random guy I met today has my heart dropping low in my stomach.
That hurt soon turns to anger. And I embrace it.
“So, what if I did, huh? What if I let Dave take me home tonight? I was waiting here for him anyway,” I shrug my shoulders, letting my anger take the reins and spout utterly false nonsense.
A deep grumble emanates from his chest, and he charges at me. He hauls me by my shoulders and twirls me, pressing my back against the hard concrete as the length of his body touches with the entire length of mine.
Arousal skates down my spine as an honest-to-God gasp falls out of my mouth, my hands finding purchase on his very warm and very muscled chest that flexes under my touch—the chest that brushes against my piercings, sending a sensitive shiver through me.
I tilt my head up to look at him. “What are you doing?” I seethe, despite the way my heart hammers in my chest, hoping he won’t be able to tell.
“Punishing you!” he growls, his eyes turned into slits at me as if I have personally offended him and not the other way around.
“What do you me—” Before I can complete my question, he interrupts me in a rather caveman way.
Because oh my holy canoly in pan!
Noah slaps the inside of my thigh, causing goosebumps to erupt on my skin when he palms my thick thighs, with his other hand caging me against the wall. My eyes widen in horror—or pleasant surprise, as my libido would say—as I peer up at him through my lashes.
The night sky making him look like a devil in disguise with that bulky frame and days-old stubble on his face.
God, even in anger, I can’t deny how gorgeous this man is. And that does nothing to tamp down my arousal as I feel wetness pool between my legs.
Noah’s hand languidly travels upward, my heart beating wildly in anticipation. The moment he reaches my apex, he cups it viciously, causing my breath to hitch.
His own breath stutters as his head falls in the crook of my neck. “Fuck Rainbow, you’re not wearing panties? Again?”
“This dress is too short for that,” I exhale, reasoning as if that makes it any better.
“That…doesn’t make it better, Andie,” he struggles to say as his palm tightens, making me rise on my toes.
“It d…doesn’t?” I somehow manage to ask, my hands fisting his shirt.
“No,” he growls, pulling back as his dark eyes peer into mine. “Knowing you wore a short dress with no panties underneath for a man who’s not me? No, Rainbow, that only makes it worse,” he rasps, his voice filled with tension and lust.
Loving pushing him over the edge, I lean closer and lick the outer shell of his ear, racking a shiver in his body. “I can do whoever I want, Noah. You were the one who pushed me away. Remember?” I whisper.
With a rumble in his chest that I feel right in my nipples, his hand curls around my throat as he pushes me to the wall, the coarse surface digging in my back. But the sardonic smile doesn’t leave my lips.
And I get exactly what I wanted because he pushes three fingers inside of me with a brutal shove without warning. A loud moan threatens to slip past me, and I bite my tongue until I taste blood to keep it in.
“Look at you? Sucking my fingers so deeply inside of you as if you’ve been dying for them to fill this greedy cunt up,” his hoarse voice and dirty words cause my belly to flip as I bite back on another moan, his hand on my throat a reminder of who holds the power.
Him.
“No. I found something else to fill me up in your absence,” I say with all the smugness I can, while his fingers slowly move inside of me.
Liar, Liar, pants on fire.
Wrath like I’ve never seen before rolls off him in waves, threatening to drown me. His body goes deathly still, his finger stopping inside of me.
“Tell me that’s a lie.” He demands. It is, but I’m not telling him that. “Tell me it’s a fucking lie, Rainbow,” he repeats, his hand around my throat tightening, almost enough to cut off the oxygen to my lungs.
Even light-headed, I don’t miss the gentle caress of his thumb on a vein on my neck. Why does he do that?
Makes me fall deeper with his innate nature to care for others even when he isn’t himself.
“No,” I squeak, my hand wrapping around his to loosen it, but wrapping around it instead. God, I love how powerful and manly his hands feel—big, rough, with protruding veins.
He bares his teeth, feral with my non-compliance. “Tell me, no one touched this pussy,” he seethes, thrusting his fingers right up to his knuckles.
“Tell me, no one tasted what my pussy tastes like, Rainbow,” he lays a claim that should’ve appalled me, but only makes me wetter.
Rest in peace, feminism and all those who fought for it.
“Tell me, baby, that no man has had the privilege of tearing through this pussy but me,” he growls, primal in his demand, yet causing the knot in my belly to get tighter with every dirty word whispered.
While he continues his ministration, thrusting so deep within me that I can see stars even when I close my eyes, all I can do is take what he’s giving me and moan like a wanton in the night.
It’s like he can read my mind. “Louder, baby, louder. Let the world hear who owns this pussy.” A dark chuckle escapes his full lips, eyes gleaming in the dark. “You do love the idea of being caught after all.”
My folds clench around his thick digits, loving the depraved idea more than I ever thought was possible.
The heat of his body, fingers inside of me, hand wrapped around my throat, and words leaving his mouth are enough to take me to my high.
And the second I feel the knot in my belly begin to break, taking me over the edge as my features scrunch in the anticipation of the impending pleasure, his fingers stop.
He stops.
Impeding my metaphorical jump over the cliff.
My eyes widen in horror, glaring at him for daring to do something outrageous like denying me my climax. “What are you doing?” I grind between my teeth, fingers digging into him.
And if I thought he’d be apologetic, I was sorely mistaken, because he gives me a smug and dark smile, and dear Lord if that doesn’t just make me wetter.
“Punishing you.”