Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
The way my heart skitters in my chest cannot be healthy, but my body’s ridiculous response to him feels ratcheted up by everything that’s different now.
The time we’ve spent apart, the lack of sensual contact.
Even the nights spent curled up against his chest, where I could actually feel his response to me, though he’d apparently developed the chastity of a nun.
Though my legs shake, I hike up the thin sweater dress I’m wearing and do exactly as he says, his direction repeating like a hymn in my head. God, I missed the way he talked to me. Like all of his restraint hinged on being able to get his hands on my body as fast as possible.
Still, the slight fear of impending rejection takes a seat in the back of my head, watching. Judging.
You’re dirty. He’ll be able to tell you’ve been used.
“Ah,” he tuts, sauntering to the edge of the desk so that his body skims my legs, invading every sense I have with him.
Large hands curl around my thighs, pressing them apart to give him space to fit even closer.
Looking down at me, he taps my temple softly.
“That voice in your head? Strangle the bitch, Emma. I can see you tensing like you’re waiting for me to hurt you. ”
I swallow, losing myself momentarily in the cool, confident air rolling off of him. “I don’t think you’ll hurt me.”
His hands haven’t left my thighs and it’s hard to focus on anything else.
“Maybe not physically. But you think I’m going to abandon you, right? It’s why you keep trying to put space between us, to soften the blow.”
His hands tighten, gripping the soft skin and tugging me forward so that there’s nothing between us at all. His chest meets mine and I squirm under his possessive touch, under the look he gives me that always seems to read what thoughts I’m hiding from him.
“If you haven’t noticed, Angel,” he coos, releasing one leg to wind his hand up my back and into my hair, pulling lightly. “You aren’t going anywhere. And neither am I.”
But then he releases me, studying my face, my reactions. Constantly gauging everything about me in that way he does. I don’t want that separation right now, I need to feel he’s still here. That we are still the same, that we still fit.
“Prove it,” I say, voice quiet. There’s no playfulness in my words, it’s a broken challenge. Words won’t quiet this voice in my head, whispering self-hatred into me until it starts to feel real. “Make me feel that nothing’s different. That you love me. That you want me.”
The composure snaps and I thank god for it. There’s a lot to be said for the genius of Noah’s detached and calculating mind but I live for when he loses control. When the way I make him feel corrupts him enough to bring out the frantic, needy Noah that can’t get enough. Of me, of us.
His hands grip my face, tilting my head back and stealing my mouth in a devastating kiss. This isn’t romance, and I’m happy for it. It’s possession and need and something that hurts, all at once.
“You think I don’t fucking want you?” he grits in-between breaths, nipping my bottom lip and licking the sting away.
He grips my thigh and tugs it around his waist, dropping his hand to my lower back to press me against the roll of his hips.
“Does that prove it, Emma?” He steals my breath away with another clashing kiss that feels more like punishment than anything remotely sweet.
“Don’t let your fucking head take this away from us. ”
A fraying moan works its way up my throat and he growls as it emerges, consuming it and and then me. My hips have a mind of their own, rolling against the thigh he’s placed there for me to work myself against.
“Fuck, Em,” he groans, mouth sliding lower to my jaw, tilting my head back to suck a lovely chain of bruises across my neck. His mop of hair is a mess from my hands and our hearts pound in tandem against each other’s heaving chests.
He shudders and takes a step back, the cold returning in a moment as I startle, curling inward. “Wha-what’s wrong?”
Hands flexing, his brow furrows, hands going to my knees as he pauses to catch his breath. Then he sinks into the office chair, glancing up at me. “Give me a minute, I was—I’m losing control.”
My fingers grip the edge of the desk, trying like hell to focus on his obvious erection as proof that he needs me. He isn’t pausing because he doesn’t want me. It’s not because of me. It’s not because of—
“No,” he says, voice stern and my eyes flash back to his.
He leans forward in the chair, pushing my legs back open so that his eyes land on the scrap of underwear I decided on for this moment.
Curling a finger, he grazes it slowly up till it presses against my clit.
His eyes burn into mine when I jolt, hands gripping the desk.
“When I tell you I need you it’s the truth.
You can be wary of anyone else in this world and I’ll stand behind you each time, but you don’t get to do that with me. ”
His teasing finger curls under the seam of my underwear and he pauses to fixate on my parted lips—the sharp pants from my mouth that should be embarrassing but I can’t seem to stop—then pull them to the side.
Only then do his eyes drop, forcing me to let him see the mess he makes of me.
There’s no hiding how he affects my body, and the look he gives me says he loves it.
“All this for me?” He gives me a cruel smile, dipping his thumb into my wetness and spreading it back up to my clit.
My body gives a tiny jerk and I shut my eyes against the complete vulnerability of being this open to him.
My heart and my head, even my body, hide nothing from him. They’re all his for the taking.
A puff of warm breath skates over my inner thigh and I tense, another moan sighing into the room as I peek down at the man between my legs.
Tousled hair brushes my skin as he heats my center with his teasing breaths.
“Please,” I beg. Shame is nowhere to be found as my hips start their greedy rolling once more.
“Tell me you’re mine,” he says quietly, thumb dipping back down again to my entrance, pressing lightly. Teeth nip at my underwear, pulling back so that the strap tightens against my skin.
“I’m yours, I’m yours,” I whine, needing more. Needing everything.
Nudging my sweater up further, he grips my ass and pulls me forward so that I fall back onto my elbows.
“That’s right, baby,” he says, pulling my underwear under me and down my legs, watching my face as he pulls each foot out and tosses them to the floor.
“Now tell me how pretty you are like this. Tell me how fucking beautiful you are ,” he says, adjusting me so that my legs rest on his shoulders.
He leans forward, hands curled around the tops of my thighs to keep my shaking legs in place as he nuzzles the spot where my thigh creases, biting it gently. I nearly choke on the effort to hold my moan inside my body and his fingers tighten. “Say, it Emma.”
Nails scratch at the wood as his tongue flicks out, teasing my clit with a shock. The pause afterward has me scrambling, desperate. “I’m pretty like this,” I repeat, ignoring how awful the words feel. How much my brain resists them. But if it makes him keep going, I don’t care.
“Good girl,” he praises, rewarding me with a gentle suck and that teasing thumb dipping the slightest amount inside me. “Now if you stop saying those words, I’ll stop making you feel good. Okay?”
I groan, frustrated with him, but I need this. “This is stupid” I grit. “I’m beautiful.”
He drags his tongue upward, swirling at the top as his thumb presses inside me. “Again,” he says, working me over with his mouth.
I hate it, but I keep going, because nobody has ever made me feel the way he does.
Like my pleasure is paramount and my body is a beautiful puzzle to be put together rather than the wasteland it feels like now.
True to his word, when I falter at complimenting myself, he stops until the words bubble forth again.
And, after a little while, they stop sounding so horrible. It doesn’t feel so stilted, dishonest.
My core tightens around his finger as it presses all the way inside me, grazing the sensitive spot he finds every time.
My voice breaks on the whine that it causes, hips using Noah’s face for friction like he doesn’t need to breathe anymore.
He simply slips another finger inside me and curls his hand tightly around my leg, holding me in place as he devours me.
His eyes are heavy on my face, his dark lashes fringing the hunger inside them.
When he looks at me like that, I lose what little restraint I have left.
My body shakes, betraying me as my head falls back to the desk.
I feel the hum of his dark laughter against my core, and I thread my fingers in his hair, grinding against his mouth until my legs tighten and my back bows.
He strokes inside me until my orgasm is torn from my body, drowning him in my pleasure.
“There’s my girl,” he smiles as I cry out, his wicked lips glinting with my arousal.
It’s me and my taste in his mouth that has his eyes hooded like he’s just as lost in this lusty haze as I am.
“My pretty little Angel, don’t you ever doubt how much I fucking need you.
” He leans in closer, standing out of the chair and looming over my sweat slick body.
His mouth a breath from mine, and hair tickling the side of my face. “You do not doubt me. Understand?”
I nod, breathless. “Okay, Noah.”
He kisses me, stealing the air I’m struggling to take in ruthlessly and pulls away, standing tall and roving the image of me across his desk. “Let’s get you something to eat.”
“Wait—” Brow furrowing in confusion, I grab his sleeve. “No, please, I want you. I’m not done.”
Sighing, he pulls my hand from his shirt and lifts it to his mouth, kissing the palm. “Em, this isn’t the time, okay?”