Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Vanessa
Nolen had been working nonstop since his teammates came over earlier in the day. He didn't even bother to stop when Lex came in to let him know he had finished with the installation. Nolen had merely waved him off and gone back to doing whatever he was doing on the laptop.
I could see the toll it was taking on him, so I walked up behind where he sat on the couch and wrapped my arms around his neck.
"Why don't you give it a break for a little bit and come have dinner with me?"
"There's no time for breaks. I need to figure out who is behind all this." Nolen didn't take his eyes off the screen when he spoke, and I made the decision, right then, that if he wasn't going to take care of himself, I would do it for him.
I reached for the back of the laptop and slammed it shut. Thankfully Nolen was smart enough to move his hands at the very last second.
"Hey!" He whipped his head around to look at me. "What did you do that for?"
"You need to take a break. You missed out on lunch, and I'll be damned if you skip dinner as well."
"I'm not hungry." He practically pouted.
"Too bad. I am, and I want someone to sit with me and eat."
That seemed to do the trick. Even though Nolen sighed, he still put the laptop on the coffee table and got up from the couch to follow me into the kitchen.
"What smells good?"
Well, at least he wasn't grumpy anymore. It would seem that food was indeed the way to a man's heart.
"Tacos. I decided to take it easy tonight and make something quick."
"I love tacos."
Who didn't, but I was glad to see my efforts weren't going to go to waste.
We worked side by side as we made our plates and sat across from each other at the small kitchen table. It was rare I used it, due to the fact that most of my meals were eaten either at the island or my couch. It was lonely to eat at a table by yourself.
I almost choked on my food when Nolen moaned around the first bite.
Once I was able to breathe again thanks to Nolen slapping me on the back, I gave him a stern look. "If I can't moan while I'm eating, neither can you."
The man had the nerve to chuckle at me. "Sorry about that, but these are so damn good."
I took the compliment with a blush on my cheeks. "You're just saying that because you skipped lunch."
"No, I'm serious. These are phenomenal. What the hell did you use to season the beef?"
That was an old family recipe, and one I wasn't willing to share. "If I told you, then I would have to kill you."
Nolen smirked at me. "I have my ways of getting you to talk."
I felt those words between my legs. Even if he hadn't meant it in a sexual way, I sure took it as if it were.
"You're blushing," Nolen teased. "Care to share with the class what's on your mind?"
Of course he would call me out on it, and why was that so sexy? This was supposed to just be dinner, and somehow it was being turned upside down.
"No, I don't want to share." I quickly took another bite of my taco, but now it didn't taste as good because I was too busy thinking about how other things would taste in my mouth.
Gah! What was wrong with me?
Oh that was right. Five years without sex.
"I think you do." Nolen smirked. "I think you're just too scared to."
Well, if that wasn't throwing down the gauntlet, I didn't know what was. Damn the man.
"Fine." I relented. "I was thinking about the ways you could torture it out of me. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
Nolen wiped his mouth with a napkin, propping his face up with his chin on his fist. "I'm going to need you to tell me, in great detail, exactly what you had in mind."
OH. MY. GOD.
There was no way I could tell him what I was thinking. I didn't even know if I could admit it to myself.
"I'm not sure I can do that."
"You absolutely can and will." Nolen sounded very confident in that regard.
"And why's that?"
"Because I want to make your every wish come true, and I can't do that if I don't know what's going on in your mind." His husky voice made me shiver. It also made me want to confess every desire I'd ever had.
I took a big gulp of air and hoped what I said next came out sexy and not the least bit weird.
"Well, I was thinking about you tying me to my bed with either your belt or maybe a scarf. Something I wouldn't be able to get out of easily."
"Are you naked in this scenario, or am I peeling you out of your panties with my teeth?"
Holy hotness.
"Definitely naked but I could be easily persuaded to your way of thinking."
"Excellent. Go on."
I cleared my throat. This was the part I was most unsure about.
"Then you would tease me by kissing your way down my stomach and along my legs until eventually you made it to my pussy where you would edge me until I told you everything you wanted to know.
" I rushed out the last of the sentence before dropping my head into my hands and hoped like hell the floor opened up and swallowed me whole.