5. Queenie
CHAPTER FIVE
QUEENIE
RECOMMENDED LISTENING ‘NEVER BE THE SAME’ BY CAMILA CABELLO
We watch the titles. I giggle when I see the little baby ape on the screen. “This is a reboot of the Planet of the Apes franchise! I have seen this one.”
“Oh yeah? I haven’t.”
“Dude. This movie was everywhere.” I nudge his shoulder. “How come you haven’t watched it? Were you studying hard in college?”
He shakes his head. “I’ve never been to college, if you must know.”
“Oh.” I don’t know how else to respond.
“It’s no tragedy, Queenie. I was…busy…working. So, it’s all good.” He bumps me back.
I nod enthusiastically and he turns into two Noahs again. I stop nodding.
Okay! I have to stop drinking now. This is the most I have ever imbibed, and I clearly cannot handle it.
“I thought you’d be the studious type,” Noah muses. “Not be into popular things.”
I shrug. “I try to have fun too. I’m not a total bore.”
“I don’t think you could be boring if you tried, Miss Madhavan.”
I grab his arm. And point at the screen. “Shut up and see this, okay? This scene is important.”
Noah turns his head away from me, but I can feel the heated warmth of his gaze on my cheeks. After five minutes of watching a grown-up Draco Malfoy be terrible to monkeys, I turn around and look at him.
“What? Why are you staring at me?”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware…I’ll stop,” he says contritely.
“Dammit.” I mutter to myself.
“What?” He sounds so earnest and sexy when he flattens the question.
I make the decision on the spur of the moment. “Noah.”
“Yes, Queenie?”
I look him full in the eye. His nose is a sharp slash in the moonlight and his jaw is lean and sexy with the barest scruff. That damn jaw solidifies my decision. “I give you post-kiss consent, too.” Then I ruin my power moment by softly adding, “If you want it, that is. If not, then…”
“Are you saying this because you’re drunk?” He is so quiet. So thoughtful.
I shake my head. Then, I nod. “I am drunk. But I know what I want.”
He pauses for a suspenseful moment. “Queenie?”
“Yeah?”
“Come closer.” He’s inches away from me, and a lot closer than we were a second ago.
I get close, like two magnets drawn to each other. My eyes are already drifting shut. I fist my hand on my lap as the intent and heat from his dramatic words slide into my shoulders and spine. Settle in my womb. Resonating there like the chimes of a bell.
“Hey.” Noah brushes his luscious lips against mine in soft sips.
My eyes seal shut, lashes brushing against my sensitive skin. I try to open my mouth.
But he cups my cheek and holds me in place. His palm is rough and calloused, as if he does outdoors work. It sends prickles up and down my body, arousing it, inflaming it. I understand the chemicals involved in bringing about sexual arousal but experiencing it from a man’s hand on my cheek is…
I stop thinking because Noah kisses the corner of my lips.
I lean forward and fix my lips to his. He smiles against my mouth and then we kiss. Soft and sweet and slow.
I drag him closer, but I almost slide off the hood, so he boosts me farther up. I lie down and he comes half-down on me, still kissing me softly.
“Open up,” I mutter against the side of his lips.
“Yes, ma’am.” Noah lets me into his mouth.
I grip his head, digging my nails into his skull.
He sucks in an aroused breath. “Fuck, that’s hot.”
We kiss fast and hard deep then. I tongue him down and he pushes me against the hood of the car. The heat of the warm engine and the man I’m making out with is seductive. Uncontrollable. My legs twine with his and he settles fully on me.
Our kisses are fast and breathless. It’s all so good, I let myself float.
“Pretty Queenie with her prickly banter.” Noah touches the edges of my braid and cups the back of my neck.
Chills follow his touch; I move closer to him to steal his heat.
“Beautiful Noah with his flirty compliments,” I manage back, even though my pulse speeds up at the deep words.
The apes shout in terror, I seal my eyes shut when Noah opens his mouth and swallows me whole…
And my world goes dark.
The next morning 5 am
“ Hmmmm ….” I stretch a little. And dash against a hard bump.
I move and someone growls back. A hand comes around my waist and pulls me closer. A mouth nuzzles my neck. I am liquid from all the heat and sensations. I run my bare leg, over my dream man. He presses closer.
Oh, this is a hot dream with a hot, dream man.
I scratch my nails against his arm, dusted with hair. He tightens around my waist and I’m flush against a defined chest. I drop a kiss on the arm closest to me.
I hear his words in my dreamy mind. Lovely.
I like the compliment even more. I squeeze the wrist and play with the curls there.
His hot breaths feather over my skin, my shoulders, the place where my neck meets the shoulder. Intimate and caressing. His fingers inch over my naked waist.
This is a perfect dream .
I turn around and aggressively kiss him back. My lips eat at my dream man’s lips. He kisses me back, passionately. It’s all I can think of – passion. Because his heart is in sync with mine, and the way our lips mesh together…like he can’t stop kissing me… its passion.
My stomach drops because I’m not experienced in passion. It’s strange and alien and wonderful.
His tongue sneaks in.
I open up and let him in. It’s hot and sexy. The way he takes charge and just squeezes my tongue before playing with it and then gently kissing me.
I make a broken sound. He hauls me closer to his chest, his hands rough and demanding. Sure.
I’m undone by the surety.
We are so close, and I feel so good, so incredibly good I want to stay in this moment and keep kissing my dream man.
“Love,” he drawls. His accent is distinctly Australian. He cradles my jaw so we can kiss at a different angle.
My brain wakes up before I do…
…And I understand three things at once.
One , I’m not in a dream. This is real.
Two, his breaths smell of beer and burgers.
Three , the rough hand cupping my cheek is the same one from last night.
I open my eyes. And see Noah Calvin Dumaine’s pitch-black, irisless eyes looking at me as if he’s going to devour me. The stubble on his appealing jaw has grown. It’s his breaths on my unclothed back. His hand near my chest… my braless chest.
His hair is mussed, and his lips are parted in the prelude to a kiss.
I feel his morning breath again. It’s a mixture of beer and all the carbs we consumed last night.
I look down and the sight horrifies me. I am not naked. No…
But my You’re Excused t-shirt is on backwards, with the flipping bird cartoon on the front, stretched across my chest. I look further down, and my heart almost stops.
I am only wearing my panties. Nothing but my panties.
My chubby brown legs are entwined with Noah Dumaine’s hair-dusted longer legs. Like we’re eels in a pool.
I stop breathing as the realization hits me.
This is not a dream anymore. This is real. I’m half-naked with a complete fucking stranger who’s only wearing boxers!
A shockwave of images go through me. Mingling past and present in a terrifying mixture. A t-shirt on backwards, a girl’s bare legs…sobs so loud my ears are ringing from them.
Noah’s caresses my arm again, light and questing.
“Good morning,” he murmurs right in my fucking ear. Which is still echoing with sobs.
I shake my head. Once. Twice. To clear it. It doesn’t clear. It just gets more muddled as feelings join in the shockwave of images. Helplessness, anger, regret, guilt… shame.
Oh god. Oh god. What happened last night? Oh god, what did I do last night? Oh god, did I…did we…Was I stupid enough to do something so stupid and not remember it?!
Noah blinks, concern sliding into his aroused eyes. “Are you okay?”
I open my mouth but what comes out is a soundless scream.
He sits up with wild eyes, a confused expression on his scruffy face.
I scramble away from him and hit the wheels of my car. The rough, grating surface makes everything ten times worse.
My brain races at the speed of light.
Oh my god. Oh my god.
I remember the events of last night. Piling one on top of the other, a train wreck in slow motion. The kiss. The smile. The banter. His smile. The dinner. The drive to the drive-in theater. Him calling me Pretty Queenie. His kiss swallowing me whole… I am a gullible, stupid fool.
Oh. My. God!
I put my hand over my mouth and scream again. Soundlessly.
Noah tentatively touches my shoulder. “It’s okay, Queenie. Nothing happened. I promise.”
I look around wildly and try to make sense of everything. Anything. I cannot.
But I see something else that chills me to my bones.
A crowd of people, Veronica’s mean girl minions, are gathered just over the sand dunes on the other end of the beach, backlit by the rising sun, in an orange-pink glow. They’re now walking toward Noah and me.
A half-naked Noah and braless me!
Oh no!
I consider screaming again but I don’t have time for it. I give an incredibly confused and cautiously afraid Noah one grim look.
“This never happened. Whatever this is, it never happened, okay? I can’t afford another scandal!” I spy his clothes against the sandy front. And throw his pants at him. “Cover yourself, Dumaine.”
His eyes widen again at my words. And he tries to touch my shoulder.
I whip the blanket under us, over myself, covering myself as modestly as I can, and crab walk on the palms of my hands toward my car. I fling open the passenger door.
“Listen to me…” He says loudly.
I climb into the car; the blanket slides off me and pools on the sand.
Noah catches it and wraps it around his midriff as he peers down at me. “Queenie, please.” His damn accent almost melts my dread and resolve. Almost.
But I dive over the gear shift and somehow slither into the driver’s seat.
Noah puts a hand on the window.
I shoot him a venomous glance. “Stay back and stay away from me!” I hiss out. My heart is beating its way out of my ribcage. I slide into first, determined to not look at Noah’s confused, hurt, PGSOFS face.
I’d feel bad for him. But he doesn’t know Veronica or how small towns work. He doesn’t know why I dropped out of school in the first place. How the rumors were so terrible and the judgment so horrible, I just had to leave or lose my mind. He doesn’t know what would happen if Veronica found me half-naked with him .
He doesn’t know anything about me.
Tears blind my eyes as I almost jump into the car and drive away, spinning gravel on the perfectly great specimen of facial structure who just might be my downfall after all.