Chapter 10 Lily
Day one passes slower than I expect. Noah keeps his word about not pushing me, which somehow makes it worse.
He brings me tea instead of coffee once he notices I don’t touch his brand, shows me which cabinet has actual snacks instead of the protein bars he apparently survives on, and disappears out to the garage for hours at a stretch, only to reappear at the door checking on me like he can’t quite convince himself I’m still here.
I spend the day curled on his couch with one of the paperbacks he left for me, half reading, half listening for his truck in the drive.
By dinner, we’ve fallen into something that feels dangerously close to a routine.
He cooks. I set the table because sitting there doing nothing makes my skin crawl.
We don’t talk about my mother, or the men, or why my feet were shredded when I showed up on his porch.
We talk about nothing. His grandparents’ land.
The books he read a hundred times growing up in this house during summers as a kid.
The fact that I’ve never once beaten him at cards, not that we’ve had time to play more than one round.
By the second day, the fear that’s lived in my chest since the alley has quieted to something duller, something I can almost ignore.
Noah still won’t let me near the front windows, still checks the tree line every time he comes back inside, but he’s stopped asking if I’m ready to talk.
I catch him watching me across the kitchen more than once, like he’s counting down the hours same as I am, though for entirely different reasons.
A man I haven’t met shows up around noon, broad shouldered and quiet in a way that makes the hair on my arms stand up before he’s even said a word.
Noah meets him on the porch instead of inviting him in, their conversation too low for me to catch through the window, but I see the folder the man hands over, see Noah’s jaw tighten as he flips through whatever’s inside.
“Who was that?” I ask when he comes back in, tucking the folder into a drawer I’ve already learned not to open.
“Matteo,” he says, like that’s supposed to mean something to me. “He helps me with things.”
“What kind of things?”
Something flickers behind his eyes, gone almost as fast as it appears. “The kind we’ll talk about when you’re ready to hear the answer. Not today.”
I don’t push, mostly because some instinct deep in my gut tells me I’m not entirely sure I want the answer yet either.
The man who visited leaves the way he came, quiet as smoke, and Noah doesn’t mention him again for the rest of the evening.
I catch myself watching the driveway anyway, some new instinct already forming, cataloguing cars and timing and the particular hush that falls over the house whenever business finds its way to our door.
I wonder how long it takes to learn that language fluently. I wonder if I even want to.
Although I’m not sure if this man is ever calm and collected or if he just lets me think he is.
The copious muscles of his shoulders are bunched, his jaw in a permanent flex as I pass him on my way to the room I sleep in or rather his room.
I have to stop myself from rubbing up against him, purring like a kitten.
My skin is fevered under his rapt attention.
It feels like I’m caught in a web. The food was delicious, although I was uncomfortable throughout the meal as my sex was so slick with my juices.
Entering my room turn around to bid him a goodnight, but my head bumps against his hard as steel chest. His arms hold me steady.
He looks into my eyes and then they travel down to my bottom lip which I’m already worrying.
My eyes trace his lips too, wanting to kiss them, to know what they feel like.
He lowers his head until our lips are mere inches from touching.
His breath fanning my lips, making them ache for the touch of his tongue sweeping over them.
Soon his lips graze mine. Lips sweeping over my bottom lip faintly.
I moan. The sound making his body jerk. He moves away from me. His hands ruffling his hair.
“Goodnight Lily” he lingers. His eyes draw to my lips once more. The hungry look in his eyes is more pronounced. He swallows, his jaw ticking, his breath coming out faster.
“Noah” I breathe, my body automatically draws closer to him, but he moves farther away.
My lips tingles, my body hungry for his touch but he gives me no reprieve. I shut the door when he turns around and leaves.
There’s a connection between us, making me aware of every twitch of his fingers.
If he exhales too roughly, every part of my body stands at attention.
What has Noah woken up inside of me? My body aches, wanting his touch but knowing that I won’t get any more of his touch tonight.
Wanting to touch myself to relieve the ache, but I find that I have no release whatsoever without Noah’s touch.
Soon I fall asleep in sexual frustration.
But morning comes all too soon reminding my body what it longs to have.
Last night, I tittered wildly between outrage and sexual frustration. It’s never been this bad before. But maybe it’s because I’m now so close to him. Touching him in small ways. Something I couldn’t do before.
He manhandled me and yet gave me respect as a lady.
I should be confused or terrified of all the extremes, but I’m not. Instead they excite me. How will he be incited next? What is he thinking? What would it take to soothe the beast inside of him? Surrender? Making me his in every way possible?
A shiver races up my arms and Noah glances at me sharply.
I don’t realize until I’ve taken a few steps to get close to him. I twirl to face away from Noah. To hide the fact that I was seeking him out.
My steps falter and Noah’s chest meets my back, his breath stirring the hair at my temple. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” I say quickly.
A beat passes. “You wanted me near.” Before I can correct him, he circles around to the front of me and raises my chin, his fingers like a caress. “You’re safe with me. If there is anything bothering you do not hesitate to tell me.”
He’s attracted to me. So much.
That ever present madness in his eyes is making that clear.
Between my legs, the strip of my thong grows damp, my pulse thickening.
Muscles sore from the previous night clamp down, seeking him inside me, and I have to swallow a gasp.
The fact that I can see his need for me reflecting in his eyes is having me wanting to jump his bones and grind myself on him.
“Understand?” he prompts me.
“Yes,” I breathe.
What if he never loves me? I’m just fresh meat to him.
I worry silently as he guides me to the couch.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I set down the bunch of books I’m holding.
He gave them to me last night to keep me occupied if needed.
“I’m just thinking about my mother. That’s all.
” I give him my best smile. I can’t tell him that I have been thinking about him.
Thinking of him dominating me, pleasure only he can give me.
“If you say so.” He gives me a lopsided smile and my breath catches. “I’ve never seen you smile.” His smile is beautiful, dazzling, making me weak in the knees.
“I guess we’ve solved that now right?” I nod, giving him a lazy smile.
That seems to please him. He runs his gaze down the front of my pink dress, his jaw ticking.
“You definitely spend more time with me and soon in my bed taking my fat cock into that little pussy.” His eyes take on a glint.
“Didn’t your mom ever tell you not to trust men? ”
My breasts turn achy, my nipples in stiff, little points.
He watches them harden knowingly. His satisfaction was evident.
“Would you like breakfast now?”
“Yes. I’m very hungry this morning” he smirks, then proceeds to cook us breakfast. I only just have to sit and watch him move around the kitchen like a pro.
When breakfast is done we sit across from each other at the table and he dishes out the food on our plates, digging into it with forks. I moan around my first bite, a rush of savory taste rushing to my brain. “Oh my god, that’s so good.”
He’s stopped chewing to watch me. “I’m glad you like it,” he says gruffly. “There is more where that came from”
“Okay.” I look around. “How long have you lived out here? I didn’t know you lived here, I thought you lived above your garage.
“Less than a year. I inherited it from my grandparents when they died a year ago.”
I try not to show too much sympathy. “What about your parents?”
“My parents died in a car crash ten years ago” He clears his throat.
“I actually run a construction and real estate company that I inherited from my parents. The company practically runs itself, so I don’t have to be there every day.
I then decided to take a whole year off.
“ He blows out a breath. “So here I am.”
It doesn’t feel right keeping my secret from Noah anymore so hopefully he wouldn’t look at me differently.
He’s told me about his parents and grandparents. He’s so lonely.
What have I given him? Nothing?
Swallowing, I put my fork back in my plate and set aside the delicious food.
I walk toward him slowly and feel awareness flow through his rugged body.
His nostrils flare the closer I come, his eyes watching me from beneath heavy lids.
He’s so big and strong, but I climb on his lap anyway, using his broad shoulders for balance, snuggling down on his erection, savoring his hiss of breath.
His mouth finds mine, but he doesn’t kiss me. Just bares his teeth against it. Says, “What are you doing little girl?”
“Getting a feel of you,” I whisper.
Hope transforms his harshly masculine face. “Really?”
“Yeah do you want it?”
“Fuck yeah.”
I order the butterflies in my stomach to stop their party. “I haven’t done this before” I state, voice quivering. “Is that a deal breaker?
“No.” He frowns, shaking his head. “No, it’s not. That’s the best news I have heard in a long time.”
“I’ll take care of you,” he rasps, stroking the sides of my face. “God, princess, you don’t know how much I want you right now.”
“I want you too.” My hips move on his grinding my pussy right on top of his cock. Feeling the heat from it.
He makes an anguished sound, kissing my mouth hard. Princess you have had me long before this. Since the first time seeing you in my garage you had me.
That makes me giggle. “You’re already mine? Does that make me yours too? I’m eighteen” I say as he stands and walks to the couch.
“Thank fuck. Yeah you’re mine.” He lowers me down onto my back, settling his weight on top of me.
“I’m going to give you so much pleasure starting with my tongue.
” Sitting back on his heels, he reaches up beneath the dress shirt he gave me and drags my little cotton panties down my thighs, over my knees and past my ankles.
“And not only that, I’ll fuck you with my cock until you scream down this house, moaning my name.
” He kisses each of my knees. “Give me the signal, little girl, and I’ll start giving you the pleasure you deserve. ”
I don’t need to think about it. I nod, breath already unsteady, and that’s all the signal he needs.
Everything after that goes slow and overwhelming and a little dizzying, his voice low in my ear the whole time, checking in, gentling me through every new thing my body doesn’t have a script for yet.
By the time we’re both spent and tangled together on the couch, the careful, guarded version of myself I usually wear like armor has gone somewhere else entirely, and I don’t much feel like calling her back tonight.
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