Chapter Nineteen
My skin pebbles as his hands work over my breasts, fingers gently teasing over my nipples. It has my stomach tightening and my blood singing.
I’ve never been intimate while on my period, it’s never really interested me and while it is only his hands sliding across my skin, it feels like it could be enough to have me falling apart.
It’s the whisper of his fingers on my nipples, the slight sting as he pinches them.
It sounds impossible to my brain, but then it’s Noah, and well…
Noah has a way of playing my body like it’s an instrument only he knows how to play.
He’s mastered it, knows every string and key.
“Noah,” his name is moaned on a whisper. One hand remains playing with my nipple, the other slips down my sternum, the tips of his fingers so soft against my skin, but I’m so sensitive, my muscles jump wherever he passes.
“So fucking pretty, Sid,” he says the words with reverence, like I am the altar at which he worships.
Just pretend. Pretend that this is us and this is what we have always done.
But I don’t want to pretend.
I want this to be real.
His hand slips closer to my pussy, but he never dips between my legs. I’m not sure I want him to, but he also doesn’t need to with the way he knows me.
My body tightens when he pinches my nipple between his fingers; my breasts are already sensitive as it is, and the first tingles of a climax work down my spine.
My knees wobble a little, and I force my eyes open, making sure this isn’t a dream.
I’m met with a slight, knowing smirk, Noah watching my every move, every flicker on my face.
“You’re close,” he growls, “So responsive for me. So fucking greedy. I love it.”
“Fuck,” I stutter out as my stomach tightens, and he leans forward, sucking my nipple into his mouth.
I come undone immediately; the warm flick of his tongue against the sensitive tip of my nipple has me unraveling with a moan. He slides his hand around to my spine, pressing it flat to keep me in place while his teeth tease and his tongue licks it better.
I clench, the feeling foreign but not unpleasant, the orgasm different to what I’m used to. Going limp in his hold, he tightens his arms, keeping me upright as he kisses up my chest, to my throat and then my jaw before he rests his forehead against mine, letting me catch my breath.
“Let’s get your hair washed out,” he kisses the corner of my mouth, making me even more weak in the damn knees.
His hands feel like heaven as he runs them through my hair, washing out the conditioner, and then he guides me from the shower and wraps a warm towel around me, passing me another so I can wrap up my hair.
I leave him to finish his own shower, stopping in the second bathroom to sort myself out before I go in search of a pair of boxers and clean shorts, rifling through his drawers until I find the biggest and comfiest pair.
I have my own clothes here, but why would I wear them when I can wear his?
I locate my brush and a hair tie so I can quickly braid my hair and then pad through his penthouse, listening to him in the shower. Today has been better than perfect. It was simple and cozy, and relaxing, and I hadn’t realized just how badly I needed it.
When Noah is done with his shower, he cooks us both some food, forcing me to take a couple more pain pills to keep the cramps at bay before he refills my hot water bottle when we’re done eating.
It’s domestic, the way we relax into each other, how his fingers knead into the soft spots around my ankles where I lay my feet in his lap, old reruns of Gilmore Girls playing on his obnoxiously large TV. The day has bled away, night now falling on the city we call home.
And even though this is something we have done time and time again, this feels different. Like something has shifted under our feet, and I have to wonder if he feels it too.
Flicking my eyes to him subtly, I take in his side profile, his strong nose and stern brow, and how a tendril of hair has fallen down over his forehead where he hasn’t groomed it back in the usual way he does.
He’s remained topless, sitting in just a pair of gray sweats slung low on his hips, his stomach creased over the top of his abs.
I’m not sure what’s sexy about that, but it is.
Or maybe it’s just because it’s Noah and everything he does, every part of him is attractive to me.
“I can feel you staring,” One side of his mouth kicks up in a smirk, a single dimple sinking into his cheek.
“You’re beautiful, you know that?” I turn my full attention to him now, not hiding the fact that I was admiring him.
He turns to me, his eyebrows lifting while his mouth turns up into a full smile, “What?”
“You have a nice face,” I tell him honestly.
“A nice face…” he repeats with a chuckle.
“A really nice face,” I shuffle over to him and run my finger down the slope of his nose and then to his cheeks, following the hard, cut line of his cheekbones and then the sharp jaw hidden beneath his beard.
My finger bumps over his Adam’s apple, his skin smooth to touch before I stop at his clavicles.
“You’re like the perfect specimen for a sculpture. ”
“Is this your way of telling me you think I’m hot?” He teases. “Want me to pose naked for you and get you some clay?”
I laugh, “Trust you to hear one thing and run with it,” I drop my hands into my lap.
His face turns slightly serious, and then he reaches for my wrist, putting my hand back on his face and covering it with his own before he leans into the touch, “Are we still pretending?” He asks.
My heart thuds inside my chest before it picks up speed. “We can.”
“Then I guess I can tell you how much I enjoy your touch,” his stormy gray eyes hold mine, never wavering. “How I crave to feel your fingers on my skin whenever I can.”
My lips part, the conviction of his words settling down into my marrow.
When several seconds pass of my silence, he releases my hand and reaches for the remote, switching off the TV.
“Come on, cricket,” he sighs, pushing to his feet to stretch and then reaches for me. “Back to normal tomorrow. Let’s go to bed.”
I still say nothing; I just follow him through the penthouse and into his bedroom where fresh sheets are now on, the bed made and neat.
He guides me to my side and yanks back the sheets, gently coaxing me onto the mattress.
When I do, he leaves the room only to return a few moments later with some pain pills and some water.
“Just in case you wake up in the night,” he places them on the bedside table, “Do you want me to refill your hot water bottle?”
“I’m okay,” I whisper, heart in my throat.
I feel him climb into bed after he switches off the lights, plunging the room into darkness.
“We’re pretending,” he whispers as I stiffen when his arms come around me.
Pretending.
That word hurts.
My sister’s words come back to haunt me. She warned me this would happen. That I would want more, chase for more, but in the end, I won’t get what I truly want.
And as I lay there, feeling his chest moving with his steady breathing, his heart a strong pulse beating against my back, I can see us.
I can see us as more than friends. I see us living together, a child that’s a mix of us both running through the halls, laughter and music and joy.
I see nights spent curled up on the couch and mornings bathed in sunlight.
We would be us, but so much more. He is the future I have been dreaming about since I was a teenager. He is what I have based everything on.
I think I’ve always known that, but a part of me didn’t want to admit it, too afraid of the pain that could come with admitting just how much I am in love with my best friend.
Noah rolls onto his back with a sigh, but I remain facing the windows, keeping my breathing and body steady.
“Do you look at me the way I look at you?” He whispers the question, seeming so far away right now I wonder if he’s even talking to me. We’ve been led in silence for at least an hour, neither of us moving or saying a word.
“Do you dream about things with us that right up until now have seemed out of reach?”
I roll my lips inwards, holding my breath as I listen to the rasp in his voice.
“I have been so terrified of telling you the truth, and even now, I can only do it because you can’t hear me and won’t ever know, but I need to tell you I haven’t been pretending.
It has never been fake. I have wanted this for so long, and now I have it, it’s with a time limit.
This will end, and I’m desperate to keep hold of you, but you’ll slip through my fingers and we will go back to how we were.
You’re my best friend, Sidney, but I want you to be so much more.
How do I tell you this when I am so terrified of fucking up and losing you? ”
I can feel my heart pounding in my throat and my eyes burn where tears are building along my waterline.
“How do I tell you that I am so deeply and irrevocably in love with you that the idea of losing you feels like I’m being held over a burning pyre? How do I tell you that my heart, body, and soul belong entirely to you?”
A tear slips out the corner of my eye as I turn onto my back and tilt my face toward him, seeing the shape of my heart in the shape of him.
“You just did.”