Chapter Twenty Four
My phone is ringing.
Ringing. Ringing.
I squeeze my eyes shut to try and will it away.
Even with the blanket over my ears it doesn't cease. If anything, it appears to be getting louder. More annoying. I squeeze my features tighter, a groan falling from my lips.
"What?"
My eyes shoot open.
Noah's icy voice slices through the sheets beneath me, practically tearing them to shreds. It douses me in cold water and announces a sudden splitting headache I wasn't aware I had.
Despite his hostile wake up call I welcome the soft hand that appears at my back, nails gently moving up and down in rhythmic lines. I push my foot back to press it against his leg and try to welcome sleep once more.
"No."
I hear it then, the mumbling from the other end of a phone. A man's voice - something about work. Noah doesn't say anything for a while, just lets him go on and on.
Then, "I'm not even fucking listening to you, Matt."
My eyes open once more.
I squint at the light pouring into the room, reflecting off the milky cream walls and bouncing across every piece of furniture littered along the walls. It's surprisingly warm despite the house being so big, as if the heating has been on for endless days.
It registers in my head that Noah, who is in bed next to me whilst I'm naked, is on the phone to my brother. My brother who is currently in this house somewhere, awake and alert and unaware of two of us sleeping in the same bed.
"I literally don't care," he grumbles. "Fuck off."
I crumple myself into the sheets.
When I'm finally folded and tucked in every which way, Noah appears behind me, pressed against my back. Matt's tinny voice echoes from the phone against his ear as Noah's lips press to the back of my head.
His arm stretches around me, pulling me into him.
I shuffle back so that every part of us touches.
"-morning she tried to fuckin' suck me off before I'd even gone for a piss, mate. There was lipstick all over her teeth and her breath was," Matt makes a faux vomit sound. "Ugh - uck. Gross. If she thinks I'm going to cancel my fuckbuddy date with Jeanette tonight she can fucking do one."
Noah sighs against the back of my head.
If I ever hear my brother talk to his friends like this again it'll be too soon.
"Seriously, I don't fucking care."
His hand travels from my navel to my breast in one swift motion, squeezing gently. I let out a shaky breath and tilt my head back towards him. He kisses the top of my head.
"Are you getting ready?" Matt asks through the phone. "I need to go to work."
"Call out sick."
"Are you being serious right now?"
"Uh huh."
He presses his hips into me, arm tightening so that I melt into the shape of his body.
"Noah-" Matt again, cutting through the two of us.
"I'm too hungover. Call out sick or walk."
He must end the call because I hear his phone clatter onto the bedside table. I expect it to ring again, deafening the two of us; especially because I know from personal experience how annoying Matt can be when he wants something. We always had to share. Anything I had he wanted.
(I guess we're still sharing now, he just doesn't know it.)
My eyes flicker.
I breathe in the scent of Noah behind me, struggle to press us closer together in my drowsy state, and push the side of my face into the pillow.
The sun continues to pour into the room around us, bright behind my closed eyelids.
It feels as if I'm on holiday and the rest of the world doesn't exist beyond this room. Later we'll fall out of bed onto beach front and swim in the sea, drink at an open bar and party until the early hours of the morning at some dingy club we'll never be able to find again.
But today is Wednesday.
Shit. It's Wednesday and I have work.
My eyes snap open once more.
I blindly reach over to the bedside table, hand slapping the surface until I feel the familiar cold screen of my cell brush against my fingers. I simultaneously lift my head and tilt it towards myself, groaning at the 8.07am that stares back at me.
An unread message from Chelsea reads:
I snort. It happened before she left. My phone clatters on the bedside table as I drop it, turning into Noah's arms and looking up at his closed eyes. His eyelashes are definitely longer than mine, they're darker too. No wonder I'm half speechless whenever he looks at me for too long.
"Sleep," he murmurs.
"How the hell do you do that?"
The sides of his mouth turn up.
For a second I pretend I can go back to sleep. It's a Saturday and we're together together, in a house we own. There's a dog curled at our feet that's so big our toes have gone numb underneath him.
I met him first in this scenario. Matt and he are acquaintance who were awkwardly introduced to each other when I brought Noah home for a family dinner one day, proudly stating that we'd met at a coffee shop and been inseparable since.
My mother loves him a bit too much, thinks he's sweeter than honey.
Fucking hell, I'm tragic.
"I have work," I mutter, moreso to the room than to the man lying next to me.
"Call out."
My body quivers. "I could never."
Noah's eyes flicker, opening slowly as if they were glued together overnight. He smiles at me, crows feet crinkles surrounding fluttering lashes. Dimples pop into his cheeks, his hair falls over his face. He looks like a walking dream; suddenly calling in sick doesn't sound so bad.
"You've never called out sick before?"
"No," I blush, hoping I look as good as he does first thing in the morning. "I actually like going to work. And why do you say it like that? Call out sick. It's call in sick."
"Not where I'm from."
I narrow my eyes at his easy response. He rolls his eyes and tries not to laugh, tightening his grip around me so I'm pulled into him once more. His cock is hard, brushes against my leg and settles against my thigh, but he doesn't seem to blink at the action.
Overthinking spirals, and I wonder if yesterday was the only time. If once is enough for Noah Laurier like it is for Matt - if his words were just in the moment and completely empty of any promise.
Then he shifts, pushing his erection against my abdomen.
"Should I feel guilty about wanting to fuck you again right now?"
I mumble in return, "probably."
A small gasp escapes when he positions himself between my legs, once again boxers the only thing separating us.
"Is this okay?"
Can I marry you?
"Yeah," I whisper instead of getting down on one knee and promising him the rest of my life. "Yes, please."
"So polite of you," he teases. In a swift movement I almost miss he pushes his boxers down his legs and returns, one hand slipping between where the two of us meet.
He touches me as if I'd drawn him a map of how to get me off. Fingers moving with practiced ease like it's every day for him, like he's confident in his knowledge of the female anatomy enough to do it blindfolded. Maybe I should test that theory at some point in the future.
His mouth is on my neck, on my breasts, tongue drawing a line from my chest to my naval, on my - Jesus Christ.
No teasing there then. Straight to business, undoing me like a tightly strewn knot of string.
I can't think while he kitten licks here, sucks there, fingers - fuck, fuck, fuck.
My phone is ringing.
Ringing. Ringing.
For a second I worry that I'm waking up all over again. That Noah between my legs is some sort of twisted dream - maybe we didn't have sex in the wardrobe at all. How embarrassing it would be to wake up at my desk, or worse, in his car, after a dream like that.
But his tongue is still there. His fingers are still pushing into me, curling up into that spot that'll send me into a headless whir. I push my hands into his hair and ignore my phone buzzing against the bedside table, desperate for my attention.
His hair is curlier than usual and knotted around my fingers. I pull his head closer to me, feel stubble grazing against my thighs. His tongue pushes between his own fingers, hands holding my hips down when I jolt towards his mouth and moan.
"Knew you'd taste this good," he mutters, fingers still deep inside of me. My eyes flicker, my lips part ready to respond but no sound leaves my mouth but more gentle moans. "Typical."
"Stop saying sexy things."
Tongue still out against my clit, he looks up at me through his hair. His eyes twinkle - maybe it's because the sun pours into the room or maybe he truly has been sent to Earth to torture me.
I throw my head back to the pillow behind it, "oh my God."
My phone begins to ring again.
"I have work," I gasp.
"Let me get you off first."
I screw my hands into the sheets and let it ring. I don't think I've ever been late to work in my life - I've never even taken a day off.
Noah's hand presses down on my inner thigh, pinning me to the bed, and continues pressing his tongue down onto me.
I close my eyes to enjoy the feeling. Let my head rest against the satin pillow cases and smell sweet flowers in the air around us. The rays of sun lighting us up continue to warm my skin, allowing me to melt into the bedding beneath my body.
This time it isn't fireworks. I'm a piece of art.
Noah's using my body like a canvas to create a masterpiece.
He's painting in long strokes, short smudges, blending the edges until I'm no longer a blank canvas but a watercolour showpiece of a thousand different flowers, bursting open, exploding with pollen that asks for bees to come.
He draws me back to Earth with a single flick of the tongue.
My phone rings again.
For a second I believe it's turning its own volume up.
Noah's head drops with a groan.
"Agh, I'm sorry."
I start reaching for my phone, grasping at it and craning my neck up to see who's been calling me.
"Don't be sorry - they should be fucking sorry." The muscles in his shoulders are bunched up. His hair is still just as unruly. There's an annoyed tick in his jaw that's the sexiest thing I've ever seen.
He raises an eyebrow as if asking who it is.
I wish I didn't have to tell him.
"Matt," I practically whisper, tilting my phone so he can see his best friends face flashing across the screen.
He groans once more, covering his eyes like it'll make my brother drop off the face of the Earth.
Suddenly the morning doesn't feel so incredibly alluring anymore. Somewhere in the depths of this house my brother is awake, moving around, looking to get in contact with me. Maybe he's making a coffee, or avoiding an awkward morning with Skye, just a few mere seconds away from the two of us.
The covers pull away from my feet as Noah sits up straight, his muscles pulling taut in front of my eyes. I watch the sun hit his chest and curl around each divot of his body.
The two of us look at each other in complete silence.
I draw my legs together slowly to regain at least a shred of modesty, imagining the knots in my hair and the sleep in my eyes and the morning crust around my lips. My own breath feels loud.
He leans forward, using one strong arm to support his weight. A thumping between us almost distracts me - but it's my own heart, beating so loudly it seems to fill the space. His lips are wet and ready, perfectly shaped as always and just as inviting as ever.
Our foreheads touch. His breath fans over my lips.
I close my eyes and try to breath him in.
Ringing. It jolts us apart. In the haste I jolt and reach for my phone, automatically clicking the green phone instead of the red. Noah leaps out of the bed as if scorned, dragging one of the blankets with him as he walks towards a mirror at the other side of the room.
I pull the rest of the duvet up over myself automatically.
"What, brother?"
I have never called Matt brother in my life. My voice is tense, strained.
"Brother?" He echoes. "Do none of you people care about your jobs?"
"What?"
"Noah isn't taking us to work. Nobody is going to work in this fucking house - mansion - castle or whatever. Where are you?"
"In a bedroom. Sleeping."
"Are you calling in sick?"
I eye Noah, now staring at me from the furthest corner of the room. The blanket he's holding around himself makes him look younger, like a teenager who doesn't quite know what he's supposed to be doing.
A flashing image of him between my legs sends a shiver down my body.
"Yeah-"
Matt's immediate groan cuts me off. Before I can respond the dial tone echoes through the speaker, signalling the end of the call. I roll my eyes at his entitlement to hang up as soon as I don't tell him what he wants to hear.
"Your friend is annoying."
"He's your brother," Noah snorts. A crackle of awkward silence passes between us. He looks down to my covered chest and back to my eyes. I glance down at my collarbones, peeking out above the duvet. "We should get dressed."
"Definitely."
"We probably shouldn't have shared a room."
I eye him. "Definitely."
"We probably shouldn't have..."
He gives me another once over, smirking up at the ceiling afterwards.
"No," I agree. "We probably shouldn't have."
"I'm not sorry," he states. "Unless you think I should be?"
I eye him.
"I'm not sorry either."
The air between us is so thick I feel like I'm about to choke on it.
I've seen Noah in the mornings at our house but never like this. Never almost-naked, wrapped up in a blanket, sleepy and soft in the eyes. He's all hard edges usually, sex appeal that walks around with tight gym apparel on, always put together without seemingly putting in any effort.
His mouth opens.
"I'm staring?" I ask, feeling the curl of my lips as his own mouth closes again.
I make him turn around as I dress.
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I twist my hands together once more, threading my left fingers through my right, squeezing, scratching, digging my nails into my palms. A bead of sweat threatens to escape from my hairline.
I've never been good with things like this. The things that come along with being a woman. Buying tampons, getting blood off jeans, asking for contraceptives. Getting the morning after pill.
The man stood behind the counter is likely in his mid fifties.
He's holding onto a surprising amount of hair, however greying.
His skin is unusually tight; he's obviously had botox at one time in his life, but the skin around the treatment seems to want to start drooping.
He barely holds eye contact with the current woman at the front of the line, rolling his eyes when she asks if he'll check the price of her prescription once more.
I teeter on my feet, my nails painfully continuing to press into my hands.
There's a teenage boy behind me holding condoms. I wish I could be that brazen about it, considering I'm usually good at faux confidence in the bedroom. It's just the preparation before or after that sets of bouts of anxiety I don't usually experience.
A small gasp leaves my mouth, a jolt striking though my body, as Noah's body appears next to mine once more. He's holding a protein bar in his hand, pulling out his phone to scroll through twitter.
He turns and raises an eyebrow at my reaction.
I swallow the liquid in my mouth.
He leans into my body, cheek brushing mine as he begins to whisper next to me.
I'm drawn back to the tension we've shared all morning, overshadowing my nervousness at standing in this pharmacy line, and considering once more how I'll act natural in front of everyone when all I really want is to rip Noah's clothes off and feel him pressed into me again.
"What's up?"
"I hate this part."
"This part?"
"The telling-people-I've-done-it part."
"Sex?"
"Shh!" I hiss, feeling my cheeks begin to burn under the gaze of what I feel is everybody in the room. The boy behind us. The two women in line in front of us. The counter man, preoccupied and looking like someone's annoyed father. I'll soon be the one getting that look. "Yes."
"Madelaine," he whispers, almost sultry. "We're adults."
I look up at him through my eyelashes. He places an arm around my shoulder and pulls me into his side.
"We're never going to see these people again," he murmurs, stepping forward in sync with me as one women leaves the line with the prescription she inevitably had to pay full price for. The other women in front of us begins her transaction.
I eye the man behind the counter warily.
"Do you do this often enough that you're scared he'll recognise you?"
My neck practically snaps with the head turn towards his stupidly smug face. Then comes the killer grin - because of course it does, Noah knows exactly when to pull it out so that I'm jelly in his presence.
"No," I mutter.
The lady in front of us is saying thank you. My eyes widen and Noah laughs, grabbing my hand as we walk towards the counter. I take a deep breath, open my mouth, and-
"This please," Noah throws the protein bar onto the counter. "And the morning after pill too, thanks."
The man raises an eyebrow at me, only causing my own eyes to widen to a comical extent. Noah squeezes my hand. He scans the protein bar and huffs before going into the back where they keep all the stock.
"See? Easy."
"It's not easy - he knows we've..." I argue quietly. "He probably got kids our age."
"So he knows what sex is then?" Noah snorts. So does the teenager behind us.
I turn and glare at him. Finally he blushes, holding the packet of condoms behind his back like I didn't already clock them the second he stepped into the line.
The middle-aged man returns and places a box labelled 'EllaOne' on the counter between us, scanning it through the system. He wordlessly holds out a card machine and Noah presses his card onto it, smiling at the man who apparently cannot smile.
"She loves when I buy her presents."
"Oh my God," I squeak, hitting his stomach as the teenager behind us starts laughing. Even the counter man seems amused by his comment, but lets him grab his products without responding, shooing us away.
I try to hide behind him as I notice how long the queue still is behind us, each person probably noticing how red my face is.
"You're an asshole," I practically cry, glad we're walking towards the exit of the pharmacy.
He laughs but squeezes my hand. I stuff the pill package into the pocket of my trousers and push the thought of it to the back of my mind. Noah breaks away from me as we leave the shop, sliding easily into the drivers seat of his own car.
Matt rolls his head towards me from the passenger seat as I get into the back.
"Get anything fun?"
"They didn't have anything I wanted."
"At a pharmacy? I can't say I'm surprised, Maddie."
He rubs his fingers into his temples as the car purrs to life. Noah looks at me through the rear-view mirror. My cheeks still beet red, I attempt to smile at him.
His eyes seem to gloss over in a way. I don't miss the way his lip pulls into his mouth, fingers tightening around the steering wheel.
Matt unknowingly interrupts, "fucking go man, my head is banging."
We begin to drive.
It seems longer than it is. Matt complains the entire time - about his hangover, about Skye, about not going into work. I try to tone him out as usual, focusing instead on how to act now that yesterday happened. It happened. That which shall not be named.
I think about it for so long that I don't even realise that we've pulled up onto the driveway.
Matt mutters about his hangover once more, announcing that he's going to bed and that we should be 'fucking quiet' or there'll be 'hell to pay'. He's always thought of himself as more intimidating than he is.
I traipse into the house after him and collapse onto the sofa, wondering what my colleagues are getting up to right now. Maybe they'll be having an early lunch, or gossiping about why I'm off.
Matt's bedroom door slams upstairs.
Noah throws a bag onto the kitchen counter and leans against it, facing me.
I hum, motioning for him to say whatever is on his mind.
"Didn't think you were so shy."
It's a teasing attitude; one that's dangerous considering my brother is now in close proximity to us, only separated by a ceiling and thin walls. Probably not yet even in bed.
"I'm not." I cross my arms, as if to emphasise the point.
"You're not?"
"No."
"So you weren't embarrassed buying the morning after pill just now?"
The blood immediately rushes to my face.
"You're infuriating."
He laughs. "So are you - in a different way."
Heat all over my body. Up my arms. Down my legs. To the very core of my chest.
He pushes himself from the counter and walks slowly over to me, kicking a fallen couch cushion out of the way. His scent invades my personal space before he does.
His mouth is mere inches from my own.
"Getting shy again?"
"You think I'm so shy, Noah?" I ask just as quietly. He hums, eyes still on my lips. I drift forwards as he does, pulling away just as quickly - jumping up from the sofa and storming back towards the hallway. "I'll show you shy."
"What does that mean?" His amused cocky voice echoes behind me.
I ignore him and stomp my way upstairs.
When I return ten minutes later he's sat on one of the bar stools against the island, flicking through a cookbook.
He glances to me.
My work clothes are now a t-shirt and a short skirt, one that I grew out of long ago but didn't throw away. It's short enough that I almost fall out of it at the back, the clasp is half-broken, and one of the pleats has to be manually folded back in after each wash because of an ironing incident.
But it sits against my body like a second skin, displaying my thighs like antique rarities that deserve to be put into a glass container.
The tank top I've tucked into it is white - I took the liberty of splashing it with a bit of water so it sticks to my breasts and makes my nipples the main attraction. I smooth out one of my blankets over the couch and take a seat.
His eyes don't leave me.
I flick through channels on the TV.
Shy. Shy.
Seriously. I wasn't shy when I suggested we take off our clothes in that wardrobe. I wasn't shy when I was fifteen and I made the first move on the popular boy in school. I wasn't shy in University when I dramatically - and successfully, I might add - seduced my own housemate.
It's not a word associated with me.
I lean forward and continue flicking through channels I don't care about.
"So you're incredibly fucking hot," he breathes. "That doesn't make you any more outgoing."
I lean back into the couch.
My skirt rides up my thighs and his dark eyes drop down between my legs. No underwear. No boundaries. No fucking shame.
Certainly nothing resembling shyness.
"Didn't you say you'd bend me over this couch?"
He visibly swallows, fingers twitching by his sides.
"I think it's about time you made good on your word."
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