26. Dash
TWENTY-SIX
DASH
Everything worked out as far as the press release for Moretti and Claudia’s engagement. Fairfax Media purchased the rights to all the videos taken during the event and its aftermath. Contracts were signed, videos were deleted, and if they appear anywhere, Fairfax had legal rights to sue.
Moretti praised my sister for speaking up for his girls, even asking if she had a summer job. Because they might need a nanny. Sofie spoke up, saying a little birdie told her Briar was interested in an internship. That little birdy was Noelle.
Sofie told her it wouldn’t be easy, and she needed to prove she wanted it through her grades.
If that all checked out, Sofie would put her on the short list. Celeste piped up that she was free this summer and she’d show Claudia and Moretti her grades and that she had taken CPR and first-aid.
Paul freaking Bronski, the GOAT, told him that she could assist him until she got the swing of it.
Not gonna lie, I was a little jealous of Celeste getting to spend more time with Paul than me.
But that lasted all of ten minutes before I realized I needed to be searching for a house, because Noelle told Briar that she could stay with her if she got the internship, and I’m not cool with not having a space for all the fuckery I know we’ll be getting up to, but also, yeah, I loved Noelle offering her, then Celeste, and yeah, Mom, too, a place with us.
There was no fucking that night, but there was cuddling. I love that shit, too. And Noelle admitted she needed it. She was sore, but didn’t say shit because it was “the good kind of sore.”
I also love the cuddle talks and secrets we share with each other in the dark. I want to know her every thought, every feeling.
We talked about bunnies, of course, and I reiterated that she’s it for me.
She divulged her past experiences. I wouldn’t care if she’d been with a dozen guys.
Honestly, who am I to judge? But what she told me fucking changed something in me so deeply I cannot yet figure out what to do with the pain, and rage, and …
justice I want for anyone who has gone through that.
She told me that since that happened to her, since that monster …
did that, she shut down. She tried to date, even had a few hookups with people she knew would never hurt her.
But I was the first man she had been with since then, that she didn’t “check out” and feel like she had to basically exit her body to get through what is supposed to be a pleasurable time.
That didn’t make me feel like fuck yeah, I’m good .
It made me lie awake most of the night because I get it.
I get being hurt, beaten, bruised, by a person who gets off on inflicting pain, but bruises and cuts heal, breaks become whole again, but that …
that kind of assault doesn’t heal in four to six weeks.
My dick isn’t magic. Although, I mean, it’s good. But what healed Noelle is reading other stories of people who got through their trauma, books about love, and was able to see what it is supposed to look like. Writing happy ending after happy ending until she remembered she, too, deserves one.
But that’s not all she said that had me lying awake.
She talked about how she also wouldn’t have ever gotten to a place where she could accept love, if she didn’t stop wanting to be where love wasn’t given, where it couldn’t grow, where villains who weren’t rapists and murderers, but people who take pleasure in slowly bleeding you dry, feed off your hurt, to fuel their own sick need.
“Friends in sheep’s clothing,” like Lauren and those bitches at the wedding.
Noelle found her people, and now she can fix the things she feels responsible for when she pushed away her family.
I don’t think that’s abnormal. You go to college and focus on building a better future.
You graduate; you focus on your career. I see it as part of life, but it’s okay she sees it different.
I’m just glad to be by her side as she goes through it and hope to see a time when that little bit of cloud in her otherwise blue sky drifts away.
Yesterday, my family and hers hung out at the bookstore and saw some of Noelle’s favorite places while I was at the arena. We shared a meal before I headed back for the game, and they were all in the box together, watching the Bears.
I was exhausted during the game, but we still won. Noelle and I still hit Icehouse, while the rest of them headed to Harrington.
We followed suit.
When we get to the stop where you can take a left toward the harbor, pass the town, and head toward where Noelle’s family home is, I can’t help but look right.
Noelle squeezes my hand. “You good?”
I nod right. “Harrington Hill, the crown of the town, where the oldest and wealthiest families live. That stone estate at the top.” I point, and she nods.
“Surrounded by a wall, there’s a guard shed at a wrought-iron gate that leads to a driveway long enough to hide the house from the road.
Stunning home with all white columns, manicured gardens, and a ballroom that used to smell like old wood polish and money.
The Sterling family crest over the fireplace, oil portraits of old, asshole ancestors in the hall. ”
I shake my head. “There is a bench I had to sit at when Dad visited. I was never asked in. Got to sit there and stare at the photos of a bunch of assholes I swore I would never be like.”
“A man of your word,” she says sweetly.
“Also said I’d buy that place one day and sit in every room in that place, toss the pictures in the fireplace, and watch them burn.” I force a laugh. “Might have wanted to drop a bomb on it, too.”
“I mean, that’s probably not a good idea.”
I turn and look at her. “Which part?”
She lifts a shoulder. “I don’t know. Wasn’t my childhood fantasy; it’s yours.”
“Let me guess, yours was owning a bookstore or writing books.”
She shakes her head. “I sat solid in wanting to be a unicorn until like eight years old.”
I chuckle. “You’re my unicorn.”
“You’re mine, too.”
I must stare too long because she squeezes my hand again, “Go drive by it. No one can stop you from doing that.”
So we do, and not one thing has changed.
“How do you feel?” she asks as we come back down the hill.
“Still kind of want to bomb it.” I laugh.
When we get to her family’s house, our moms are at the table, drinking tea.
I walk in and give my mom a hug and a kiss. Noelle does the same to hers.
“Tea?” Maryanne asks, standing.
I hitch my duffel bag over my shoulder. “How about I leave you ladies to do whatever tea drinking ladies do at midnight?”
“That’s code for Dash is exhausted.” Mom smiles. “Go.”
I kiss Noelle’s forehead. “Hang out. I’m good.”
She nods.
As soon as I hit her bed, I am done.
I feel her eyes on me as I wake, and when I open them, I love that I’m not imagining it.
“Happy Thanksgiving.” She grins from the chair next to her window in her bedroom, laptop perched upon her thighs.
I stretch out. “Did you sleep at all?”
“Yep. Right here beside you,” she tells me, setting the computer aside and sauntering over to me. I shift over, and she slips into bed.
“Get some writing done?”
“Hmm?” she murmurs, resting her head on my chest.
“Hmm?” I ask back.
“Emmett changed—bigger, stronger, full of muscles. He leaves the shop to hit the gym.” She smiles as her fingers trace the contours of my chest, exploring every ridge. “I fear I have entered my hockey era.”
I chuckle. “Yeah?”
She nods. “You should apologize.”
“I’m not sorry, though.” Flipping us over, I hover above her. “Just like I’m sure you’re not going to be sorry that I’m in my ‘I wanna make my girl come everywhere, including her parents’ house era.”
Her grin widens, and she slides her hands down my torso, fingers tracing each muscle until they reach my hardening cock. “You have to be quiet.”
“Me?” I joke, and she rolls her eyes.
I run a hand up and down her inner thigh before slipping it beneath her panties. Her breath hitches, and she bites her lip as my fingers make contact with her pussy.
Our gazes lock on each other’s as her hands find their way down. She takes a firm, possessive hold of me and begins to stroke me slowly.
“Feels fucking good, sweets.” I curl a finger inside her.
“So good,” she whimpers as she positions my dick at her entrance.
“Word for better than good?” I groan.
“Don’t know,” she gasps as I push inside her slowly.
“Noelle.”
“Dash,” she pants.
I laugh. “No, Noelle is the word that’s better than—” I stop when she rolls her hips, taking me further inside her hot, wet pussy.
“Fucking now, word games later.” Her voice is tight with hunger.
I don’t even hesitate; I push inside her, hard, all the way, burying myself so deep I feel her clench around me in a fierce, involuntary grip.
The friction, the heat, the wet … she’s already gone so soft and slick for me, and the sound she makes—half-gasp, half-throaty challenge—tells me she’s been waiting for me to wake up.
Her nails dig into my shoulders, not to leave a mark, but out of raw need, and I respond in kind, slamming my hips against her as the pressure rises.
My balls tightening, her insides clenching, until it finally cracks wide open.
She arches her back and bites at my neck. I fucking love that. My rhythm finds its own violence, urgent, punishing, and she drags her legs higher around my waist, like she can’t get enough of me. Love that, too.
Each thrust is met as she clenches her teeth, holding back sounds that I want to hear, but yeah, parents’ house. She bites into my shoulder, my neck, my arm to stop them every time I bottom out.
We’re both holding back, each of us too stubborn to give in first, but I know exactly which angle to hit.
She trembles then shudders, and her walls clamp down on me so hard I nearly lose it.
She lets out a hoarse, open-mouthed, silent cry, and I follow right after, the coil in my gut finally snapping, and my cock, doesn’t twitch; it pounds against her with every burning hot burst of my cum.
We collapse together, breathing like we just ran a marathon, her fingers still laced in my hair and mine digging red crescents into the curve of her ass.
I roll off her, sticky and satisfied, but she moves with me, presses in close, nose tucked against my neck, limbs tangled with mine.
“Happy Thanksgiving, sweets.”
“Mmhmm.” She smiles when her hand finds my chest, tracing lazy, idle circles around my nipple. “Thankful, grateful, blessed.”