Special Delivery

by Reagan Shaw

  Her lips tried forming words, but no sound came out.

  I halted in front of her, leaned in, placing my palms over hers on the desk. “I took pictures of you. I pasted them in my closet like some lovesick puppy dog. I worried about you. I followed you home on days you missed the bus to make sure you were safe. I stayed over at Marc’s house, your house, just to make sure that you were there, that you were fine. I was fucking obsessed, until one day, I moved away, and I put you behind me.”

  “Behind you?”

  “Yes,” I grunted. “Until the wedding. Until you came back into my life in that silver fucking dress, on that hotel bed, and then I knew I could have you. That you wanted me too, and it all came back. I wanted nothing but to make sure you were fine, happy, healthy. So, when your brother told me you’d moved to New York…”

  “You stalked me?”

  “No, goddammit,” I said, pressing my forehead to hers. “Do you see any recent pictures? Huh? It’s just the old ones that I took of you, and the ones from the wedding.”

  “I don’t understand,” Erika whispered, her lips quivering as her gaze darted down to mine. The tip of her pink tongue poked out as she wet her bottom lip, hesitantly.

  “If I can’t have you, if I can’t make you mine, at least I can look out for you,” I said, and it sounded pathetic to me. It was the first time I’d said it out loud, or even admitted it to myself. The obsession I had for her had run too deep for too long.

  “Noah,” Erika whispered. “I don’t need protection. I’m OK.”

  “Are you?” I asked. “Are you, Erika? You look like you’re ready to break. The last time we were together, you fell apart in my arms.”

  “I don’t need you to pick up the pieces,” she lied, but inched closer to me, pressing her breasts against my chest. “I just need—I need—”

  “What?” I asked. “What do you need?”

  “I need… I need to stop wanting you. To stop thinking about you. To stop—to stop fantasizing—”

  I claimed her mouth before she got the word out properly, kissed her so thoroughly she slipped against the desk. I caught her around the waist, lifted her and forced her back. “I’ll give you something to fantasize about,” I growled, between wet, warm kisses. “I’ll give you something to fucking dream about.”

  My fingers worked underneath the straps of her camisole. I ripped them down, then took the bottom hem of the shirt and ripped it up and over her head, releasing her breasts, admiring their bounce. I sucked one of her nipples into my mouth.

  Erika slapped her palm down in the center of my back and scratched a line down my spine. “Oh my god. Oh, Noah.”

  “That’s right.” I pressed her breasts together, then suckled on both her nipples at once, working her flesh, nibbling and tasting. She was so goddamn tasty. “This is what you came for, Erika. This is why you’re here. To be with me.”

  “Noah, I—”

  I cut her off by reaching for her jeans, unbuttoning them, then ripping them all the way down to her ankles. She wore plain cotton briefs underneath—my kryptonite. Nothing turned me on more than a pair of white cotton panties.

  I played with the waistband, dipped my fingers inside, past the tiny patch of hair on her pussy and to the lips. I slipped one finger over her already-pulsing clit and drew a moan from her lips.

  “I can’t—take—it,” she managed. “Noah, it’s too good.”

  My resolve had already snapped, but this only made it more difficult for me. Couldn’t control the desire bubbling through me. My cock ached against my pj pants, and I tore them down and freed it, then ripped the panties from her, down her legs, threw them aside.

  “Wrap your legs around me,” I grunted, and gripped her by the back of her neck. “Lean back, baby, that’s it. Just like that. Hands on the desk.”

  Erika followed every command, placing her hands further back on my desk, wrapping her legs around my hips, even going so far as to press her tits outward, challenging me with her stare. Fuck, I loved that about her. The challenge, never backing down when faced with me. Others would cower, but not my Erika.

  “Play with your clit, Erika,” I said, and angled my dick at her entrance, positioned myself in front of her dripping hole. She was so swollen, so ready for a fucking pounding from me. “Now.”

  She reached down, balancing on one hand now, and circled her clit, gasping and rocking with every stroke of her fingertip.

  “That’s right. Fuck, I’m going to own you. I’m going to show you exactly how you’ve made me feel since the day we met.”

  She whimpered and quickened her pace.

  I entered her slowly, pressing in an inch, then halting, then another, stopped again, until she keened and fucking begged for it. “Noah, please.”

  “Beg for it.”

  “Please! I want it. I need you, please give it to me. I’ll do anything for that dick.”

  That was all I needed to hear. One swift stroke, and I was inside her, buried to the hilt and throbbing.

  She howled and threw her head back, working her clit, her thigh muscles twitching and shaking around me. “I’m so close, Noah. I’m so close.”

  “Come for me.” I pumped into her, each thrust a desperate attempt to claim more and more of this woman. The woman I’d never allowed myself to have, to want, or at least to admit that I wanted her. Each moment was a paradise, living in my fantasies. “I want to feel your pussy clench, baby.”

  She worked that clit, maintaining her rhythm, and her eyes glazed over, eyelashes fluttered. Her legs trembled out of control, and her ass tried to lift from the desk. I held her in place. “Slow or fast?” I asked.

  “Slow. So slow. So slow.”

  I slowed my pace, taking my time with each thrust, pressing in so she’d feel every ridge, every fucking vein. Her silky warmth embraced me, and she gasped, shuddered, and peaked. Again and again, her walls closed around me, massaging me, and I couldn’t hold back a fucking second longer.

  It was too much to ask, holding back when she was like this.

  “Noah,” she moaned. “Oh fuck, Noah, you’re so good. You’re so good. You’re so good.” She repeated it over and over again with every pulse of her orgasm.

  “Coming,” I grunted and shot over the edge with such force my eyes rolled back in my head. Pleasure streaked through me, and I pulled her into a kiss, my lips messy, my tongue seeking. We collided, kissing and coming, as one.

  The extreme pleasure filtered away, replaced by satisfaction, and she collapsed backward onto the table, lying flat across my paperwork and desk pad. She spread her arms, breathing hard, still speared on my slowly softening cock.

  “So good,” she whispered, and covered her eyes. “And so bad. Noah—we just—”

  “No,” I said, “Erika, we’re not doing this now. For one fucking night, I want to enjoy this. Enjoy you.” I pulled out of her slowly, then closed her legs, and hooked one arm under the backs of her knees. “Come here.” I lifted her off the desk and carried her out of my study and down the hall, past the living room and its Christmas tree, half-decorated, the smells of that fantastic dinner still lingering in the air.

  This could be your life. This could be it—you and her, living together, eating together each night, fucking, loving. No. I couldn’t do that and never would. It wasn’t me, and it was too damn risky, but, for now, I’d enjoy what we had and leave it at that.

  “Tired?” I asked and kissed her forehead, as she drifted in and out of sleep in my arms.

  “Mm-hmm,” she replied, as I entered the master bedroom. I walked her over to my bed, the sheets still in disarray from when I’d leaped out earlier at the sound of her talking about me down the hall.

  I laid her down then crawled in beside her and covered us both with a sheet. I curled her against my chest, acting as the big spoon, and kissed her shoulder, up and down, to the crook of her neck and back.

  Finally, I drifted off, the sleep coming with a dream of what I’d never allow myself to have. />
  More than this.

  Erika

  I opened my eyes in the dark and stared dead ahead at the sliver of light which crept through Noah’s open door and into the bedroom, dancing across the carpet. It was light from the living room.

  The red digits from the alarm clock on his bedside table blared 03:00 at me. It was that late, and I was tucked against his chest, his muscly arm lying across my waist, holding me tight to his chest.

  God, what have we done?

  Sex. Obviously. But it was more than that. Noah had taken pictures of me without my knowledge, and he’d revealed that this wasn’t the first time. Was it crazy that it appealed to me that he’d do that? That he actually cared enough to worry?

  Yes, that is fucking crazy.

  Was I really going to encourage this type of behavior?

  Noah slept quietly, his breaths brushing across the back of my neck, his dick soft, but nestled against my ass, right in the crease. Already, I was tempted to press myself backward into him again, take more of him.

  Christ, it was like having an addiction, and judging by what he’d said earlier, he felt the exact same way. Was it really fair of me to judge him, when I’d cut his pictures out of the yearbook and pasted them into my journal as a teen? When I’d definitely, and ashamedly, Facebook-stalked the crap out of him a couple of times a year?

  Apparently, we were both kooky assholes who didn’t understand the importance of boundaries.

  He wanted me. He’d always wanted me, and that had to be why he’d pushed me away. To keep me from realizing it.

  But why? Because he didn’t believe in love? Was that it? If so, I could relate.

  I shifted in his arms, licking my lips and hankering for a glass of water. Or a tall glass of Noah. You have to stop. Because what did it all mean now? What would happen in the morning when we woke up and caught a ride together to work?

  What would it be like when we no longer lived together? What would it be like when this, whatever it was, was over, and Noah was with another woman? Someone pretty and sweet and totally unaware of who he’d been in the past?

  What then?

  I’d be the one left to pick up the pieces of myself again, and I’d be stuck working in the same hospital as him, maybe even asking him for help with patients if I had an emergency. And that would be fucking hell.

  Noah snorted in his sleep and shattered my thoughts. I chuckled slightly, and he moved behind me, his cock thickening against my ass so fast I stiffened.

  “There you are,” he said, softly, his voice still thick with sleep. “I was worried you’d run away.”

  “Why would I?”

  “You were always scared of me, Erika,” he whispered, and kissed my shoulder, then my neck. “Always worried of what I could do to you.”

  “What can you do to me?”

  “You sure you want me to show you?” he asked, his fingers traveling down my arm, skipping to my hip, then over and between my legs. “You’re ready again?”

  I was a little sore from earlier, but it was the kind of pain I relished. It meant Noah had been here. Noah had taken me. I arched my back and pressed my ass into his hard dick. “You tell me,” I said.

  Noah groaned, scooping up the wetness between my pussy lips with one finger, then spreading it over my clit. “I love it when you’re like this,” he said.

  Love it. Love it. No, no, no. “I love it when you touch me,” I said, my mouth moving before my brain could catch up. This was too close to home. Too close to what I wanted to avoid, but damn me if I didn’t want him inside me again. I wanted him now, tomorrow morning, all day long, whenever I could have him.

  He pressed a finger inside me, and I gasped, dug my fingernails into the muscles of the forearm that held me to him.

  “I love it when you do that,” he said. “When you scratch.” I bit his arm and he growled, tightening his grip. “And when you bite.”

  Noah slipped his fingers out of me. There was a pause, and then his dick sat at my entrance. He swept it between my lips, grinding his length up and down, gathering the wetness without entering me yet. Each movement took me higher.

  He was slow about it, almost loving, and I pressed back against him, flattened as much of my skin against his, absorbing his heat, his touch. “I love it,” I whispered.

  “Good.” He nipped my ear, then repositioned his cock, entered me as slow as he’d rubbed against me. Noah set a pace that matched both of us and drove the heat higher. It wasn’t hard or fast, wild, reckless, but slow and passionate.

  He kissed my shoulder, my neck, then pressed his nose into my ear and nuzzled it. “Turn your head, Erika. I want your lips.”

  I did as he’d asked, and he took me in that slow, delectable kiss. His lips soft, his tongue seeking, pressing, then softening against mine. He held my hip with his free hand, fingers digging into my flesh as he worked himself inside me.

  “You’re so wet, Erika.”

  “I’m wet for you,” I said. “I’m—it’s all you, Noah. I’ve never been like this before.”

  “Ditto, gorgeous.” He was breathless, sweating against me with restraint, rather than abandon. “Gonna come soon, baby.” Noah let go of my hip and focused his fingers on my clit instead. “Lift your leg so I can reach you.”

  I lifted it, and his fingers found me. He pinched my clit, tugged slightly, then set up a rhythm in time with each of his thrusts. It was a slow burn of pleasure, so intense I couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, couldn’t make a sound.

  My body rocked against him, taking every inch of his thickness, of his length.

  “Close,” I managed. “Noah.”

  “Come, baby, come. I’m going to.”

  I clenched around him, the release coming with so much force it shocked me. The orgasm roared through me, lit up every nerve ending, set me on fire from the inside out.

  Noah grew impossibly hard inside me and released again, and again. God, four, five times? He gave a half-laugh, half-growl as he came, then kept himself inside me, the wetness between us spreading slowly.

  “We’re going to have to shower,” I said, after the satisfaction from our orgasms had settled again. “I mean, that and change the sheets. This is ridiculous.”

  “Best kind of ridiculous,” he replied, and kissed my shoulder softly. He was still inside me and didn’t budge.

  I clenched around him—aftershock—and he stiffened. “Man, don’t start with me again,” he said. “I’ll be ready for you in five fucking seconds, Erika. It’s like I’m eighteen again when you’re around.”

  “Same.”

  Noah and I lay together, our bodies cooling, sweat drying, his arms still around me. After five minutes, he shifted and pulled out, popping free, though he wasn’t even a little bit hard. “You’re right,” he said. “We’ve got to shower. I’ll get it started up.”

  He climbed out of bed and made for the ensuite bathroom. The light clicked on, and he disappeared inside, the faucet turning and the patter of water following a second later.

  I sat up in the half-dark and looked around Noah’s bedroom. It was sparsely decorated. An armoire, a king-sized bed with plain gray sheets, and two bedside tables. Nothing more than that. No pictures, not even a painting. It was like he was empty, and the total opposite of me.

  The minute I’d moved into my room at Luna’s, I’d started putting up my paintings—abstract mostly—setting out my candles, a vase of flowers here or there. I liked my place to feel like home, not a hotel, but Noah… He was the opposite of me and always had been.

  I swallowed and pressed the heels of my palms to my eyes, barely controlling the wave of despair that washed over me. I wanted him so bad I couldn’t even see straight, but I was terrified of him at the same time. Terrified of the control he already had over my emotions. It wasn’t fucking fair.

  It hearkened back to those games he’d played with me in high school. The ones he now said hadn’t been games to start with, but just evidence of what he felt for me.

/>   I dropped my hands, then climbed out of bed, just as Noah appeared in the bathroom’s doorway, a dark silhouette, broad and strong enough to be a Greek god. “Are you coming, gorgeous?”

  “I already did,” I said, trying for a smile.

  I took Noah’s proffered hand, and he guided me into the bathroom and to his massive shower, big enough to fit five, let alone two. He opened the glass door, and we stepped through and under the perfectly temperate spray.

  “Oh man, that’s good,” I muttered and tipped my head back, wetting my hair. “Oh wow.”

  “Did I hurt you?” he asked, stroking my hips with his fingertips. There were a few bruises from his fingertips there.

  “No,” I replied, and shrugged. “Not that I felt. I’ve always bruised easily.”

  “So be gentle,” he started, and I pressed a finger to his lips.

  “Don’t start.”

  We both laughed, and Noah got the soap. We got sudsy together, him running his hands over my arms, my stomach, between my legs. He washed me, slowly, and I let him, enjoying every second, then regretting it. It was the best and worst shower of my life.

  No matter how much I wanted to dismiss the concerns that had taken seed in the back of my mind, I couldn’t. Noah was a red flashing light on my path toward a career-driven life, free of complication and pain, but I was drawn to that light like a brainless moth.

  He turned me in the shower and washed my back, sluicing the water off, then massaging lightly. “You’re tense, Erika.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Talk to me about it.”

  I shook my head and pulled away from him, opened the door, and stepped out of the shower. I grabbed a towel, wrapped it around myself, then skedaddled out of the bathroom and into his bedroom. The shower cut off behind me, but I didn’t stop.

  Instead, I made my way down the hall and to the guest bedroom. I dried quickly, then dressed in my silk pj’s, memories of him touching me, wanting me, returning at the sight of them. I stepped into a pair of slippers, just as the knock came on the open door.