New York, New York #14
Noah nodded again. “Okay.”
And he meant it. AJ felt the vacuum slow and stop, the dome fluctuate then vanish.
“Okay,” said AJ, forcing her legs to remain upright as relief overtook her. It wasn’t over yet. She felt the urge to formalize this accord in some way. She looked down at the white box.
“Here,” she said, walking toward him. “You read it first.” She placed the script on the desk. She could feel him watching her but kept her eyes down, like a shy student handing in an assignment. She just had to get out of this room, then she could go back upstairs and cry. She turned to go.
“AJ.”
AJ kept walking. God fucking damn it, she was getting out of this room.
“Age.” Noah’s voice was pleading, but AJ would not turn back.
Her hand was on the doorknob when he caught up with her. With one deft movement, he pressed the door closed, preventing her exit. AJ felt herself starting to cry. She refused to look at him as his body hovered beside hers.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, fighting back tears. “I’m so sorry about all of this.”
AJ was in so much pain she couldn’t breathe. “I know,” she said almost inaudibly.
“Look at me,” he said, touching her shoulder.
AJ shrugged him off, shaking her head.
“Look at me,” he said more forcefully.
His hand closed around her upper arm, and AJ was so startled she did look up. As their eyes connected, she found heat in his, and indignation broke through her like a dry wind. She shook her head and reached for the doorknob. Again, he shut the door.
“Noah,” she warned.
His hands were on her hips now, pinning her back against the door. AJ didn’t have time to react before his tongue was in her mouth.
Fuck. You.
AJ pushed him off. But then the kiss caught up to her. They eyed each other for a moment.
Then he was on her again, his mouth forcing her neck back, his hands like a vise on her ribs, then her ass. He was hard. From the way he groaned, he’d been hard for a while, and the knowledge hit AJ’s bloodstream like a drug.
She pushed him into the room, and he let her back him down onto the couch. She held his hands above his head, grinding against him until they were both panting.
He shucked off Libby’s dress, and she undid his pants and slid onto him. She kissed him, not with affection, but because she knew his lips would make her come, and they did. A terrible, unwanted pleasure forked through her, and she gasped.
And then, before he could so much as thrust, she pulled off him, glaring. AJ wiped her mouth. She had never been so mad. His eyes were raw as she held his gaze.
Fuck. You.
She could feel his stare cutting into the base of her spine as she headed for the door. She was halfway across the room when he spoke, his voice soft, the command in his tone unmistakable.
“Get on the rug.”
And AJ found she could not disobey. With each step, her legs grew heavier, until she collapsed onto her knees atop the bearskin. Slowly she bent forward on all fours, the heels of her hands digging into the pelt.
She didn’t look at Noah, she just waited.
She saw his feet standing before her and felt a thrum of anticipation. Then he knelt down. His hands were on her hips now, yanking her toward him, and she felt one of his knees slide between her own, his other lunging out beside her.
She was nothing in his hands, he could easily move her where he pleased. She felt his fingers on her shoulder blades, smoothing over her back, his dick still wet as it pulsed between her legs.
Then he shoved into her, and AJ had never been fucked like this, not even by Noah. This wasn’t sex; it was an exorcism. He was going to fuck them both right out of this hell.
His hands, his fucking hands on her hips, the pressure of him, the friction.
AJ couldn’t see his face, but she felt his fury as he took her, so hard, so fast, she couldn’t breathe.
She was gripping the fur now, sweaty tufts between her fingers.
She was crying now, but she told him not to stop.
The channel between them was ripped wide, unstable, overpowering, and as he made her come, AJ was—
Noah.
He didn’t want to come, he just wanted to bury himself here.
But she felt so good, nothing felt like her, and he wasn’t going to cry, he was just going to dig and dig and dig, and God, she was beautiful, and this wouldn’t be the last time.
He needed to go deeper. He was pushing her down now, more weight, his nose in her hair, and fuck, her scent.
He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to go on without this creature who was turning her sweet face toward his, her teeth bared, her eyes frantic because she was him and he was her, and fuck this solid flesh, he did not want to come, he just wanted to stay buried in this girl, his girl, his, fuck, oh fuck take it, take this lifeless fucking river.
God, this girl. They were dirt, they were clay, they were nothing but silt.
After, they lay side by side looking at the engraved tin tiles in Errol’s twelve-foot-high ceiling.
AJ felt a lazy tear in the corner of her eye. “I think they call that a death kink,” she mused.
Noah’s fingers brushed hers. “You’re just saying that because the only woman I’ve ever loved is literally named Age and Death.”
AJ’s eyes shot open.
“Age shall not wither her,” Noah continued contemplatively. “Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man. It’s very Shakespearean.”
AJ was horrified. “Wow,” she said. “So this is how I finally end up going by Ashlee Jayde.”
Noah chuckled. “I can see it now on the marquee.”
“Hmm?”
“For our show,” he said quietly.
Our show. The words hung in the air, a promise and a threat.
Fire they flooded the entire hilltop where F and W lived in Molten Ice, suspending it from the ravages of time. There, the two companions could reside indefinitely, so long as they never left.
What happened from there was a matter of improvisation.
The play’s title hearkened to a speech F gave W midway through the opening act.
Lay down your work and sit a while. I wish you wouldn’t struggle so. Even art cannot stop time. Bend it, sure, manipulate it, yes. But stop it? Fire cannot breathe inside of water. There is no thirteenth hour in a day. Every story has its end. I cannot live forever, nor would I wish to.
The next day, Noah put the kitchen renovation on hold and drove to Kinko’s to photocopy the script. He and AJ read through it on the patio while Bud snoozed on the grass nearby.
Ezell had written the show as an outlet for his and Eudora’s grief over his terminal cancer, and AJ immediately identified with Eudora’s role.
“I should be W,” she declared. If Noah’s master plan was for her to wander these halls the way Eudora had after Ezell died, he could at least give her the part.
Noah smiled, then informed her that they would each be playing both parts.
“We’ll alternate every night,” he said firmly. “That way, we both get a chance to initiate the unscripted section.”
“Wait, so we have to memorize the whole thing?”
Noah’s eyes lit. “You’d end up memorizing it anyway. I’m just asking you to do it on purpose.”
AJ grumbled, but in the end she did as she was told. He was the director; this was what she had agreed to. Frankly, learning the lines was a trifle compared to acting them out across from Noah.
It had been easy this summer, ensconced with grill-dad-country-squire Noah, to forget that he was also Academy Award–winner Noah Drew. And looking on Noah’s true form was blinding.
His abilities were self-evident and breathtaking. AJ hadn’t experienced his focus, his seriousness, or his breadth since they had been thrown together on Into the Blue, and nothing but sheer desperation could have compelled her to stand before him now, once again utterly outmatched.
The result was debilitating attraction.
“The staging will be spare,” said Noah. “Like, black backdrop and two chairs.”
They were back on the patio, the August sun raging overhead, and AJ could not concentrate. Every time Noah stressed a point, his forearms flexed in this way that made her dizzy.
They were halfway through the first scene when Noah noticed. He casually grabbed her shoulders to move her to her mark, and when he let go, she drifted after him as if caught by static electricity. He looked up, and his face softened as he took in her desire. AJ couldn’t hide it.
“Hey,” he said softly. He set the script down and led her by the hand up to the gray bedroom.
AJ wasn’t one to use the term “making love.” But there was no other way to describe how Noah was with her that afternoon. He knew her now, knew where to go and what to do, and he was doing it because she needed it and because he wanted her to have what she needed.
He removed her garments one by one and laid her gently down, appraising her form in the afternoon light. The way his hands touched her skin made AJ feel lacy and love-worn and dear, like a passage he knew by heart but would endlessly revisit in search of new meaning.
It’s still me, he was telling her. You know me.
His beauty was astonishing. The apple of his shoulders, the tendons in his neck, the delicate wristbones that married fragility and strength. Oh, the look of him as he bent toward her, his body scythed, his eyes half closed, unaware of whether he was falling or flying.