13. Nia
13
NIA
Ella and Lyla leave five minutes before Josh knocks on my front door for our date.
I barely have time to breathe, let alone get ready. As soon as the door closes behind them, I’m a whirlwind of activity, darting into the bathroom to quickly shave my armpits and legs. Once I’m nice and smooth, I race to rummage through my closet for something that strikes the right balance between casual and ‘I put in some effort for you.’
“Hi.” I hold the door open for him, smiling when he walks in with two massive bags of food from the Chinese place in town. “That’s a lot of food.”
Josh doesn’t even look the slightest bit ashamed. “I eat a lot, and you said that you like everything from there, so I got two of all the things I like and whatever you don’t eat won’t go to waste.”
I lead the way into the dining room and leave him there while I go into the kitchen to get plates and forks.
“You don’t eat in the living room?” Josh looks at me with a strange smile on his face, and I stop in my tracks, holding the dinnerware like a weirdo.
“What?” I ask, my voice a little higher than I intended, as a sudden wave of self-consciousness washes over me. I glance down at myself, irrationally worried that I might have forgotten to put on pants or that there’s something else glaringly wrong. But no, I’m dressed the same as I was right before I opened the door. I’m not living in one of my worst nightmares, being caught naked in a social situation.
The way Josh is looking at me, though, makes me feel like there’s something more he’s seeing, something beneath the surface that he’s analyzing me over. It’s disarming, and I’m not entirely sure how to respond.
Josh motions to the table, where he is pulling out containers of food. “You’re using your dining room. I think you’re the only person besides my mom who actually uses their dining room.”
I flush under the scrutiny. “I’m gonna be honest, Josh. I usually eat on the couch. But I want to get to know you, especially if we’re going to be doing dirty things and working together. If we eat in the living room, we won’t be getting to know each other. Well, I mean, we won’t be getting to know each other outside of physical things.” If it was possible for me to turn any redder in that moment, I’d be a tomato.
“What you’re saying is that you don’t trust yourself around me if we’re on the couch.” Josh sits at the table, smiling the entire time. “I think I can relate. When I saw you at Lucy’s that night, it took every bit of my determination not to kiss you right there. And maybe flip you over my shoulder and take you to my place.” He chuckles. “Although, it’s a hell of a lot harder to keep my hands to myself when we’re working together.”
“Zip it,” I say, trying to sound stern, but the smirk that tugs at my lips betrays me. Because the truth is, I’ve had the exact same problem. Every time I see him, all the common sense I’ve spent years cultivating seems to evaporate into thin air. It’s like he’s a magnet, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t help but be drawn to him. The way he looks at me, it’s like I’m the only person in the room. It’s intoxicating. And maybe that’s why I’m so nervous, why I feel like I need to keep some distance, even though all I want to do is close the gap between us. I’ve got a shitty track record, and I can’t fuck this up. Not with him.
“Tell me about you,” I say once I have a plate of crab rangoons and fried rice in front of me. “I want to know all the things that you don’t like to share with other people. Who you are and what you like to do. The reason you stopped being a cop.”
He pauses, a fried dumpling halfway to his mouth. “So, what? You want me to tell you everything about me, but you don’t want to tell me about yourself?”
“I’m nothing special,” I tell him, the honesty almost choking me as I say it.
“Liar.” Josh eats the dumpling before saying anything else. “I’ll tell you what,” he goes on like he hasn’t just taken three minutes to eat the damn thing. “Why don’t we play twenty questions. Anything you ask me, you have to answer about yourself.”
When I don’t say anything, he pulls a six-pack of hard apple cider out of another bag.
“To make it interesting?”
He nods. “So, let’s see. You wanted to know why I stopped being a cop. That’s a heavy question. Are you sure you want to open with that one?” He raises an eyebrow and pops the lid on one of the ciders. “Turnabout means that you have to tell me why you don’t date cops.”
I cringe at his very blatant poke at the first night we spent together. “Okay, maybe let’s not start there.”
Josh takes a short pull of his drink and then pops the lid on a second cider, which he offers to me.
“Thanks.” I spin it around between my hands. “Okay, I’ll go first. I meant what I said. There’s nothing special about me. I like to read, and I was going to be a doctor. Until there was a car accident my senior year of college. The paramedics who saved my friend’s life entranced me. Watching them move with all the speed and grace and surety of someone who knew exactly what they were doing in an emergency was the best drug. The rest is history.” That is safe. An easy question, with a simple answer.
“My brother is a doctor,” Josh tells me. “He used to live near Portland and had a house in Sebago. Until his wife went crazy and he wanted to start over.”
I file that bit of information away for later. My mom knows everything about everyone at the hospital, and she’ll give me all the juicy details. “My favorite color is purple.” I sip my drink.
“Green,” Josh copies me.
“I like you,” I blurt, unable to help myself. “And I’m worried I’m going to screw it up, and it’s not like I can just ghost you. Again. We work together. If I fuck this up.” I wave a hand between us. “You’re still going to have to see me.”
In an instant, the drink is forgotten, and Josh has me in his arms, my ass pressed against the side of the table.
“You didn’t want to eat in the living room because we’d end up just like this, didn’t you?” His mouth finds its way against my throat, and his breath sends fire licking down my spine.
“I mean, we can do it right here, too.” I lick my lips and wrap my legs around his hips.
When his hard length presses against my core, I feel him grow even as the friction makes me wetter, ready for him.
“Here?” He nips my earlobe. “Or your bed?”
In that moment, Josh gives me the power in our relationship. He doesn’t force the issue or try to take me on the table without explicit permission, no. That one question gives me everything I’ve ever wanted in a relationship.
“The bed.”
I kiss him on the cheek, press my lips against his skin, and let my legs unwrap from his body so that I can lead the way.
Reluctantly, he lets me go. “Let’s put away the food first.” He scrambles to put things away. “Once I get you in bed, I don’t want to let you out again until tomorrow morning. Or afternoon.”
“Or never.” I pick up the dishes and the silverware while he packs the leftovers away. “Do you know what the most attractive thing about you is?” I bite my bottom lip. “It’s that you didn’t just insist on us leaving the food out. If you could stop being perfect sometime soon, I’d really appreciate it.”
“Nia.” Josh takes my hand and pulls me into his arms. “You really have no idea. I’m nowhere near perfect, and we both know I’m gonna drive you crazy. But the idea of having you in my arms again is too good to ever pass up.”
Before I do something stupid, like kiss him again and insist he take me on the kitchen counter, I step away.
“Follow me.”
My bedroom is on the second floor of the townhouse, and Josh is right behind me the entire way. His hands find my hips and as soon as we step through the doorway into my room, I’m in his arms. His lips press against mine, and our bodies fight for control.
I could pretend that I struggle against him or that I don’t want him to take command of the situation, but that would be a lie. I want him, just as much as I did the first night. And even more than I’ve wanted him in the nights between but was too chicken to admit.
So, when one of his hands slides under my shirt, I moan with the pleasure of having his fingers touch the sensitive bud there.
His lips brush mine one more time before he moves down to my neck and then lifts my shirt up and off my body.
“Bra, too,” I rasp.
He is too happy to comply, unsnapping the front clasp of my bra and letting it slip from my shoulders and off my arms.
“Next time,” he promises with a secret smile. “I’m going to tie you up, and you’re going to like it.”
My core clenches, and I most definitely am not in control anymore. Not when he is voicing the fantasies that I haven’t ever put words to.
“Tonight is about learning your body again. For marking you. Making you mine the way you and I both know you are. It’s about reminding us both why this is a good idea even if it’s going to bring us both to the brink of regret.”
The threat, the dark promise in his words, send a rush of adrenaline through my veins.
“I want everything,” I finally say. “I want all of it.”
When Josh pulls at my leggings, I immediately lift my hips and let him pull them off my body. Then I lean back and watch as he slips out of his shirt using one hand. Instead of waiting for him, I shift forward and unsnap the buttons on his jeans before he can stop me. If he even wants to stop me.
But the smile on his face tells me he doesn’t want me to stop, and the bulge I pull his pants down over announces his arousal to the world.
“I want you,” he groans when I wrap my hand around his member. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my entire life.”
“What are you waiting for?” I hear the throaty tone of a seductress and can’t understand how it is coming from me. But there is no one else there with us, and I don’t want to wait any longer than I have.
“Tell me a lie,” he orders, wrapping his hand around my throat and guiding me back so that my head comes to rest gently on the pillows.
He doesn’t squeeze, doesn’t hurt me. Just keeps me from rising up off the bed.
“What?” I’ll tell him anything he wants me to if it means that I will get relief from the throbbing need of my body. “What lie?”
“Lie to me, Nia. Tell me there hasn’t been anyone since the night we were together.” His whispered demand may as well have been a shout. “Tell me that no one’s come close to satisfying you the way I want to. That you’ve spent every night aching for me the way I’ve done for you.”
My heart races and my chest heaves with the power of that statement.
“Josh.” I bring my hands up, cupping his cheeks even though it is weird with the fact that he still has a hand wrapped around my throat. “I haven’t even thought about another man in the same way. Even while I was trying to forget the way you knew exactly what I wanted without trying, I couldn’t. My body wanted you. No one else. That’s not a lie.”
The hand leaves my throat, and then his mouth is on mine once more. His tongue brushes against the seam of my lips and I open to let him in while I bring my legs up and wrap them around his waist again.
“Now,” I moan against his mouth when he pauses to breathe. “I need you now.”
Reaching between our bodies, he is at my soaking wet entrance a moment later.
“Tell me to stop if you need to.”
Inch by agonizing inch, Josh pushes his massive cock inside my body, refusing to let me go, or go easy.
“ Ahh, ” I scream as I take him. Not in pain, but as the orgasm I’m not expecting tears through my body.
His finger is pressed against my clit, and his lips brush my neck before he bites down on my shoulder while he thrusts. Even as I contract around him, tightening against his intrusion, I want more. Need more than he’s given me so far.
Harder and deeper, every stroke seems to ignite parts of my body and psyche that I didn’t know existed a moment before. When his breath mingles with mine and we are both struggling for air, I take control, meeting every thrust with movement of my own until we are both on the brink of disaster.
“I’m ready,” I gasp, just about to topple over the edge of ecstasy.
Josh pulls almost all the way out of my body and I cry out in despair, only for him to slam all the way home.
We shatter together. I’ve always heard that seeing stars is a possibility. The blinking dots on the edge of my vision take over completely, making it impossible to do anything but feel the orgasm he rips from my very core.
“Amazing,” Josh whispers sometime later as he cleans my body with a wet washcloth. “I thought I was hallucinating, thinking it was that perfect between us.”
When he wraps his arms around me again, the same way he had the first time we were together, I don’t freeze. I don’t panic. I don’t wait for him to fall asleep so I can run away.
Even if every fiber of my being is telling me that it’s time to run.
“If you try to run,” Josh whispers against my forehead. “I’ll tie you to the bed with your bra until I find a pair of handcuffs.” It is like he’s read my mind, that freaking ninja.
“Ninja,” I tell him sleepily. “I’m not running.”
“Good.” He kisses me on the cheek. “I’m going to wake you up for more as soon as I catch my breath.”