25. Chapter 25
Noah
The car is waiting when we finally escape.
I give the driver the address and raise the partition before the door closes. The tinted glass slides up, sealing us into the dark, leather-scented quiet of the back seat.
"Well, we got through it," she says.
"You got us through it. I couldn't have done it without you."
She laughs, and the sound is loose, unguarded, nothing like the polished voice she uses when she's working a room. I turn toward her, and my hand finds the slit in her dress.
The fabric parts under my fingers, revealing the smooth skin of her thigh. She tenses, then relaxes, her legs shifting apart just enough.
"I've been thinking about this all night," I say, leaning close to her ear, pressing a kiss just below it. "Every time you crossed your legs. Every time that slit moved and I caught a glimpse of your thigh."
My fingers trace higher, along the inside of her leg, and her breath stutters. My teeth scrape against the delicate skin of her neck. I’m probably leaving a mark, but I can’t make myself stop.
"Noah—"
"I thought about putting my hand right here during the toast." I say against her throat, still pressing kisses there.
I reach the edge of her underwear — lace, damp already, the fabric thin enough that I can feel the heat of her through it.
"I thought about making you come while the room was still clapping. "
She whimpers, her hips tilting toward my hand.
I pull the lace aside and stroke her slit. She's slick, swollen, and my fingers glide easily through her wetness, finding her entrance and circling it, teasing.
"Fuck. You're already so wet." I push one finger inside her, and she gasps, her hand gripping my forearm. "Is this what the proposal did to you?"
She shakes her head, then nods, then shakes it again, her body contradicting itself as I curl my finger and find the spot that makes her spine arch.
"Words, Julia."
"Both," she manages. "You — the ring — the things you said—"
I add a second finger, and her sentence breaks apart into a moan. My thumb finds her clit, and I stroke in rhythm, my fingers thrusting deep and then withdrawing, my thumb circling the swollen bud with just enough pressure to make her squirm.
The car takes a turn, and the motion pushes her harder against my hand. Her thighs tremble, her grip on my arm tightening.
"Noah, I'm—"
"I know." I speed up, my fingers curling inside her, pressing against the spot that makes her breath come in sharp, shallow gasps. "Come for me."
She does. Her whole body goes rigid, her thighs clamping around my hand as the orgasm rolls through her. She bites her lip to keep from crying out, but a sound escapes anyway — half my name, half a sob — and I feel her clench around my fingers, wet and pulsing.
I stroke her through it, slowing gradually, until her breathing evens out and her grip on my arm loosens. I withdraw my fingers, and she makes a small sound of protest that dissolves into a shaky laugh.
"That was—"
"We're just getting started."
The car stops. The driver's voice comes through the intercom, muffled, announcing our arrival. I straighten Julia's dress with deliberate slowness, smoothing the fabric over her thighs, and she watches me with half-lidded eyes, her lips swollen from biting them.
The elevator is private, keyed to the penthouse. The doors close, and I push her against the wall.
My hands find the zipper at the back of her dress and pull it down in one smooth motion. The fabric pools at her waist. She's not wearing a bra — the dress doesn't allow for it. Her nipples are tight and pebbled and I can see goosebumps raising on her arms.
"You're so fucking beautiful." I lower my head and take one of her nipples in my mouth.
She gasps, her hands flying to my hair. I suck her nipple, my tongue circling the tight peak, then scrape my teeth across it.
She arches toward me, and I switch to the other breast, giving it the same attention — sucking, licking, biting gently until she's whimpering and her hips are grinding against nothing.
The elevator chimes. The doors open.
I scoop her up, one arm under her knees, the other behind her back, and carry her across the penthouse. Her arms loop around my neck, and she presses kisses to my jaw, my throat, the corner of my mouth.
The bedroom is dark, the city lights casting pale rectangles across the sheets. I set her on the bed, and she reaches for my tie, but I catch her wrists.
"Not yet. Strip."
While she shimmies the rest of the way out of her dress and slides out of the scrap of lace she calls underwear, I take off my jacket and roll up my sleeves, then climb onto the bed and lie back against the pillows. "Come here."
She crawls toward me, and I guide her up, positioning her with her knees on either side of my head. She hesitates, hovering above me, and I grip her hips and pull her down to my mouth.
The first taste of her floods my senses — salt and musk and something sweeter underneath, the flavor of her arousal mixing with the lingering champagne on my tongue. I lick a long stripe up her slit, and she moans, her hands bracing against the headboard.
"Noah—"
"Stay."
I explore her with my mouth, my tongue tracing the folds of her pussy, dipping inside her entrance, then dragging upward to her clit. I circle it slowly, teasing, and her thighs tremble on either side of my head.
"More," she breathes.
I give her more. I seal my lips around her clit and suck, and she cries out, her hips bucking. I hold her steady, my grip firm on her hips, and I work her with my tongue — flicking, circling, sucking — until she's writhing above me, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
The second orgasm builds slowly. I can feel it in the way her muscles tense, in the way her sounds pitch higher, in the way her wetness increases against my chin. I slide two fingers inside her and curl them, and she shatters.
Her whole body shakes, and she grinds against my mouth, riding the wave as I keep licking, keep sucking, keep my fingers moving inside her. She's loud now — no more biting her lip, no more holding back — and the sound of her pleasure fills the room.
I don't stop.
I flip her, quick and controlled, rolling her onto her back without withdrawing my fingers or my mouth. She gasps at the shift, at the new angle, and I settle between her thighs and keep going.
"Noah, I can't — it's too much—"
"You can."
My tongue finds her clit again, and I stroke it in tight, fast circles while my fingers thrust inside her. She's sensitive, trembling, her hands clutching the sheets, and I know she's close again already.
"Please—" Her voice breaks. "Please, I need—"
"What do you need?"
"You. Inside me. Please, I need your cock."
"You'll have it. But first, come for me."
She does. The sound she makes this time is halfway between a scream and a sob, her hips grinding up into my face, and I work her through every last wave of it.
I lift my head, and she makes a sound of protest that cuts off when I reach for my belt. I undo it quickly, unzip my trousers, and push them down just enough to free myself. I'm hard, aching, and I've been fighting it since the elevator.
I settle between her legs and position myself at her entrance. She's wet, swollen, still trembling from the last orgasm, and I push inside her in one slow, deep thrust.
We both groan. She's tight, hot, and the sensation of her around me is almost too much after holding back for so long. I pause, buried to the hilt, and look down at her.
Her eyes are wide, glassy, her cheeks flushed. The ring on her finger glints as she reaches up and touches my face.
"I love you," she whispers.
"I love you, too. So fucking much."
I kiss her, and I start to move.
The rhythm is slow at first — deep, deliberate strokes that make her gasp with each thrust. I keep my weight on my forearms, my forehead pressed to hers, and I watch her face as I move inside her.
She wraps her legs around my waist, pulling me deeper, and the angle shifts. I hit the spot inside her that makes her cry out, and I thrust into it again and again, building speed, building pressure.
"Harder," she begs, and I give it to her.
The headboard hits the wall. The sounds of our bodies fill the room — skin on skin, wetness, the rhythm of flesh meeting flesh. She meets every thrust, her hips rising to mine, her nails digging into my back.
I can feel her getting close again, the way her walls tighten around me, the way her breath comes in short, sharp bursts. I reach between us and stroke her clit, and she breaks.
Her orgasm triggers mine. I bury myself deep inside her and let go, the release crashing through me in waves, and I spill into her with a groan that sounds like her name.
We lie still afterward, our breathing gradually slowing. I roll to the side, taking her with me, and she curls against my chest, her fingers tracing idle patterns on my skin.
At two in the morning we are on the rooftop garden.
Julia is wrapped in my jacket against the November cold, a pair of my sweats covering her legs, rolled several times, so she doesn’t trip over them.
I am at the planter shelf, and she is looking at the cracked pot in the corner — the empty one, the one that has been up here since before she arrived in my life, the one I have never felt the need to replace with something less fractured.
And then she looks at the orchid on the console table I moved up here tonight, which is in a clean white ceramic, and I see her do the math.
"When did you repot it?" she says.
I look at her in the dark. The city is very quiet at this hour. The orchid is pale and steady in the ambient light from the building below.
"The day after our first session," I say.
She turns to look at me. What is in her face in the dark, in the two AM quiet of the rooftop garden, is something I have been waiting six weeks to see — not the professional composure, not the warmth she deploys, not the expression that costs her something to show.
Just her, looking at me, without any of the management.
I stay where I am. I let the silence exist.
She learned that from me, she said once. But we both know where it started.