22. Dash #2
I nod and change the subject, because there is not much I can say on the subject. I’m over my shit. Making the pros shut off the self-doubt that fucker had tried to plant in me. Noelle’s wounds, which she worked to heal, have now been reopened. I’m not going to make this shit about me.
“Thanks, man.” I nod toward the waiting SUV. “Headed that way now.”
I shoot her a text.
Me
Good to head your way? I want to take you out to dinner tonight.
Noelle
Just ending a meeting. Could use a meal.
I walk in and spot a handful of people tucked back in the little reading area, the same space I crashed in last night when I couldn’t bring myself to leave her.
They’re all perched on chairs, notebooks balanced on knees, a few balancing coffee cups, like this isn’t just a workplace but a gathering spot. Love that for her.
Noelle’s at the center, relaxed, not overly commanding, more like they’re her team.
Love that for her, too. She introduces them one by one—new Pembrooke books fam.
I catch names, trying to make sure they stick, because they are important to her.
When she wraps things up, they gather their bags, shuffle papers into folders, sling laptop cases over their shoulders, and file out with polite goodbyes, each tossing her a last grateful smile before disappearing.
The second the door closes behind the last of them, she exhales hard and sags back in her chair.
I head over and pop a kiss on her cheek. “Rough day?”
She smiles and shakes her head. “Just not used to delegating or wanting to disappoint them. They all need hours, very specific hours to match their school and home schedules. I think we’re going to open Sundays and Mondays just through the holidays. Makes sense.”
“Retail.” I nod as I sit across from her, too far away, but realize I can’t just pick her up and plop her on my lap like I want to. Not yet, anyway.
“They did amazing while I was gone.” She rubs the back of her neck. “I just don’t want to burn them out.”
“Or get burnt out yourself,” I add.
“Oh my God, yes. I mean, this is not anywhere close to being the size of Sofie’s media company, but her life is chaos, and I don’t want to ever live like that.”
“I need a team roster.” I chuckle. “Then I can try to help come up with a playbook.”
She grins. “Yeah?”
“Fuck yeah.”
She waves a hand. “Enough about this. How was practice?”
“Don’t you dismiss my girlfriend’s kick-ass place with a hand wave.”
She rolls her eyes.
“Practice was good. It will be good tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and … you get what I mean? My life is hectic, but I have a schedule, which means I don’t stress about it.
You’ll be the same.” I laugh. “Might have to maneuver when shit comes up unexpectedly, but you’re building your team.
When those growing pains are over, you’ll be able to relax.
Until then, put me in wherever you need, coach. When I’m with you, I’m with you.”
She nods as she stands and stretches, gray sweater raising just enough to expose some flesh. “Yeah, I know you gave me a color-coded Bears itinerary, but what does Dash Sterling do after practice on a Sunday?”
Eat. I fucking eat, and I want another taste of you .
“Whatever needs to be done.” And then I remember. “So … Moretti made an announcement at the end of practice.”
“What announcement?”
“He told the team he’s gonna propose … to Claudia.”
Her body jerks, and she flails her hands. “Wait. What?”
“Yeah.” I let a slight grin pull at my mouth. “Claudia. He said he’s asking her to marry him.”
Her eyes go wide, hand flying to her chest. “Oh my God.” She fumbles with her phone, screen lighting up with unread messages. “The group chat—I haven’t even looked since last night. I didn’t respond. What kind of friend am I? She’s one of my closest friends, and I don’t even?—”
“Hey.” I stand and cover her twitchy hand before she can doom-scroll herself into a hole. “You’re not a bad friend. You’ve just got a lot going on.”
“But she’s been there for me, Dash. Always. And I couldn’t even open one stupid message.” Her voice wobbles, guilt tugging at her features. “What if she thinks I don’t care?”
I squeeze her hand. “She knows you care. And when you call her, when she hears your voice? She’s gonna realize how blessed she is to have you in her circle.”
Her shoulders soften, though the panic still hums in her chest. “She’s really going to marry him?”
“I’m thinking, yeah.” I nod. “And judging by the look on his face, he’s not leaving practice without making it happen soon.” I release her hand. “Check in on your girls.”
She moves over and plops her fine ass on my knee, and I chuckle.
“What?”
“I fought myself from grabbing you up and sitting you in this very position.”
She starts to stand. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought?—”
I bring her back down, “Hell no. You wanna sit on my lap, you sit there. I just wanna make sure we sort through everything that needs to be sorted through so we don’t have anything from the past trip us up in ten fucking years.”
She nods. “I want to talk, but not about me, unless you need to. I should have asked how you were. How seeing Rick affected you and all that.”
I open my mouth to respond that I’m good, but she puts her little paw over it.
“And just so you know, Mom called me today, so I may know some things already, but I want to hear it from you.” She moves and presses her forehead to mine. “Don’t be mad at her, please.”
I kiss her forehead. “Not mad at all. Glad you’re talking to her. But that also reminds me of something that came up today. I mentioned my old man being abusive back when I first found out you were here in the city.”
“Icehouse?”
“Mmhmm.” I kiss her again. “In the getaway SUV.”
She moves to press her lips to mine. “The getaway car.”
I smile against her lips. “Said my old man was abusive. The old man isn’t my dad.
Ex-stepfather. A piece of shit coach who tricked Mom into marrying him and was controlling and abusive to her.
And when we left, he took her to court, got visitation, started his shit with me, threatened to do the same to my sisters if I said shit. ”
She springs back and takes my face in her hands. “He hurt you.”
“He left a few bruises and shit. But you and I, we’re too strong to let anyone hold power to continue letting them hurt us anymore.”
“He hurt you.” Her brows start to turn in.
“I used it to become stronger, better. When I made pro, I thought all he did, my past did, was buried, gone.” I take her face in my hands. “Remember English? Byron, Keats, those poets who wrote like they were bleeding out through their dicks and their pens? I used to mock the hell out of them.”
She laughs, her eyes lighting up, and I can’t get over how good it feels to make her laugh. “You absolutely did,” she says, brushing a thumb across my jaw like she’s erasing the old me.
“Yeah, well, they were idiots,” I say. “All that overblown suffering, all that star-crossed nonsense, and then they’d write some sonnet about being pillow’d on a girl’s breast. I thought it was pathetic.
But now I get it. They didn’t dare reach for what they wanted.
They were scared to get burned. But I’m not, not anymore.
I used to look at you and think, you don’t deserve her.
But now I want to burn. I want you to set me on fire. ”
Her lips twitch, and she clenches my shirt. “That’s … really intense,” she says, but she’s not pulling away; she’s pulling closer, her lips so close I can taste her words.
“I’m done letting all that shit—my past and poets—tell me I can’t love you,” I say, my voice going rough even to my own ears.
“Done letting it win. I want you to know that I can love you the way you truly deserve, and take care of you the way you deserve to be taken care of. I love you, Pembrooke. That makes me the perfect man for you.”
And then her lips crash into mine, hands clawing at my hair, and suddenly, I’m not sure whose teeth are in whose lip, but it doesn’t matter, because she’s up on her knees, straddling me, and the world is just us.
Her tongue against my teeth and the taste of her … alive. I am fucking ready for this—us.
I’d wanted to take this slow, show her I could be gentle, but the way she’s grinding against me says we’re way past slow.
She wants it like this, fast and desperate, and fuck if I don’t want it exactly the same way.
I remember that fantasy she shared even after the shit that went down last night—being fucked against the bookshelves in her own bookstore.
I’d call it opportunistic, but honestly, it feels more like fate.
Her legs locked around my waist and her hands tearing at the hem of my shirt.
I don’t even notice standing up, but her arms are suddenly clamped around my neck and her thighs are squeezing my ribcage, and one of her hands is already up under my shirt, nails digging lines into my shoulder blades.
The other hand is yanking my shirt up from the back, and the desperate, whimpering noises in her throat are making me lose track of gravity, of everything but her.
We crash into the bookshelves, hard enough to set the paperbacks shivering, and she laughs against my mouth, a throaty, delirious sound that makes my knees go weak.
I wedge us between two shelves. I don’t know what genre we’re about to scandalize, but it’s about to be my favorite.
I let her pull my shirt off over my head.
She bites my shoulder, hard, and I grunt, but it’s the good kind of hurt, the kind that makes you want to earn more.
I want to see her like this, wild, and gorgeous, and hungry for me, and I want to know every inch of her skin with my teeth and tongue.
Most of all, I want her to lose herself in this.
I’m shaking as I pull her sweater over her head. She’s in this ridiculous little tank top underneath, no bra, nipples hard through the thin fabric.
“Fucking love your tits, Noelle.”
I run my hands up her sides slowly, just to hear the gasp, and she arches into me, fucking shivering, and I lose my last thread of self-restraint.
“God, you smell like heat and old paperbacks,” she says, and I laugh because I’m pretty sure I just smell like sweat, adrenaline, and terror, but I wrap her tighter anyway, set her ass on the edge of the empty returns cart, and kiss her until she’s moaning into my mouth.
She tugs my head back by my hair and looks at me, pupils fucking blown, eyes sharp and hungry. “You waited years to give me what you knew was mine,” she says. “Don’t you dare stop now.”
So I don’t. I dig my hands into her hair and kiss her like she’s the only oxygen left in the building, and maybe that’s true, because every other thought is gone.
Her legs are still locked around my waist, and she’s grinding on me like she wants to fuse us together. When she tugs my head down to her neck, I bite, not gently, and she gasps, shuddering. For a second, I’m worried I’ve gone too far.
But then she moans, “I love you,” and claws her nails down my back. “Sorry.”
“I hope that leaves a mark. I want to have that tattooed on my fucking back.”
We’re both shaking, frantic, giddy, stripping each other between kisses and bites—her tank top first, then her sweats and …
“Fuck yes,” I groan when I see the boxers.
Then she’s naked, and I’m almost there, so hard it almost hurts. She’s not shy, not hesitant; she wants it messy, honest, and now. Her hands are everywhere, her mouth everywhere else.
I want to ask her if she’s sure, but she’s already pulling my track pants down with an impatient growl, so I let the words die on my tongue and kiss her instead, softer this time, the kind of kiss that says thank you, and please, and don’t you fucking stop.
She’s wet. Like, so wet I wonder if I’m dreaming.
I run my fingers over her, watching her face, and she whimpers, clutching at my wrist, guiding me in with no hesitation.
She’s so tight I have to grit my teeth, just like last time, but she doesn’t stop, just rocks against me, greedy for all of it, and I give her everything.
The friction of it, the heat, the impossibility of being this close and not just dissolving into her—every sensation is dialed up, every nerve ending screaming.
She clings to me, nails in my back, mouth at my ear. “Don’t you dare slow down.”
I don’t. I can’t. I pump my fingers faster, harder, deeper. When she comes, it’s not quiet at all. She throws her head back, shouts my name, and it’s the most beautiful fucking thing I’ve ever heard.
Panting, she pushes her hand down my boxers and grabs my dick, her brown, lust-hazed eyes widening, and she snaps to attention. “Your?—”
She says, “huge,” and I say, “pierced,” at the same time.
Her eyes widen even further as she strokes her thumb across my head, and my fucking knees buckle.
While already a few inches lower, I grab my track pants and pull out a condom. “You on birth control?”
She nods, but she’s not looking at me—she’s looking at my cock.
“Never gone without, but at some point, would love to feel you with nothing?—”
She looks up now, thumb still stroking my tip. Then she takes the condom and throws it. “All right then.”
She hitches her leg and drags my dick across her opening, and I nearly fucking lose it.
I lift her up, and she digs her heels into me.
“Don’t you …” Her eyes roll, and I press into her hot little opening and pause, revering this moment, the seconds before I’m finally inside her. “Don’t hold back.”
Her heels dig into me, driving us together, and I thrust hard enough to rattle the shelves.
A whole row of hardcovers crashes to the floor, and we both freeze, and then laugh, waiting for what?
I don’t know. More to fall? They don’t. It’s just us, suspended in the wreckage of every book I never read but will, with her, and every poem I ever made fun of.
She kisses me again, messier now, biting my lip, and we move together in this wild, uncoordinated rhythm, like two people who don’t care about anything else but each other’s needs.
I don’t last as long as I’d like, but I get her there first, of course, and then I follow her. The rush of it is almost painful, and for a second, I can’t breathe, can’t think, just cling to her like she’s everything. Reality is, she’s that and more.