The Party Girl

by Tamara Morgan

  She gasped as he tugged at her clothes, an unmistakable tearing sound filling the air. He didn’t care about any of it—not her clothes, not his dignity. There was sense of frantic urgency as he ran his hands over the bare skin of her torso, slipping under her bra, pinching and desperate to have as much as her as he could.

  “It makes you mad, doesn’t it?” she asked breathlessly. Her own hands were moving faster than he thought possible, slipping off her pants, fumbling for his jeans. “You’re furious. Livid. Insane with fury. How dare I get in the way of you and your isolation? How dare I question your self-restraint?”

  He paused and cupped the side of her face, his fingers firm against her jawline. “Are you goading me right now?”

  “I might be.” A saucy grin lifted her lips. “What are you going to do about it?”

  There was no question in his mind. “I’m going to fuck you against this wall until you can’t stand on your own two feet anymore. I’m going to fuck you so hard you’ll need me to carry you to bed when I’m through.”

  “And will that make you feel better about our future together?”

  His grip tightened. “It’s worth a goddamned try.”

  It had never been one of his goals to screw a woman into a state of submission before, but damn it all if it wasn’t his top priority right now. Pausing only long enough to order Kendra to remain in place while he extracted a condom from her purse and rolled it on, he made good on his threat.

  He made no move to prepare her body for his entry, whispered nothing sweet in her ears, pinned her arms above her head and held her firm against the wall. And when his dick hit the sweet spot of entry, he let out a roar and plunged inside her, a thousand sensations of heat and pressure transforming him into an animal.

  All Kendra did in return was let out a moan and smirk, telling him to go ahead and do his worst. That was the end of any control he could lay claim to. In that moment, Noah lost himself to everything but his desire to rip a scream from out of her throat.

  It only took about one minute. Sixty seconds of fury and pounding. Sixty seconds of domination. Sixty seconds of taking his frustrations out on a woman who didn’t deserve it but begged him to deliver harder, faster, so fucking relentless she’d never feel whole again without him.

  And when she came, shuddering and screaming, shaking the walls with her cries, he still wasn’t done.

  “Think you can walk to the bed?” he asked, remaining hard inside her, feeling the tight clench of her body as she came down from her orgasm.

  She gave her toes a tentative wiggle and laughed, the sound so deeply a part of her he felt it twitch around his erection. “Everything seems to be in working order. Guess you’re not the angry, vicious man-beast I thought you were. Pity.”

  “I’m not fucking done,” he growled.

  Her eyes lit up as he lifted her off his dick and turned her around, her face and hands pressed up against the wall. Without waiting for her to provoke him further—which he had no doubt she would do if given the chance—he entered her once again, using the additional force of his hands on her hips to hold her firm.

  Kendra’s mewl of pleasure was all the assent he needed. He moved one hand up to grip the side of her neck, preventing her from moving in any direction but the one he wanted her to go. The position was an ideal one for enjoying the sight of her body—the tight waist and piercings in her lower back, the flare of her ass above his dick as he rode hard.

  Sweat dripped on his brow as he held himself back from his orgasm as long as possible, wanting to stretch this moment into infinity. It wasn’t so much that he was concerned about making her climax again, or that this was a tender moment he wanted to extend—nothing so noble as that. He was proving himself to be capable of control, of mastering at least one fucking thing in this relationship with Kendra. Her sweet perfume would always cloy his senses. Her radiant exterior would always dazzle his vision. Her professional success would always place her one step ahead of him in life. And her sexual energy—also sweet and dazzling and miles ahead of him—would always place him at her mercy.

  But goddammit, he could at least do this.

  “Oh, fuck, Noah.” Her voice rose, taking on a keening edge. “I can’t—Don’t stop—”

  He didn’t. He held on long enough for her body to stiffen under his again and for her satisfied cries to once again fill the air. Then, and only then, did he let go with a guttural roar, filling her body with his pumping release. His balls tightened painfully with the strength of his orgasm, but he welcomed the sensation of it as a kind of punishment. He’d taken more than he needed, wanted more than he should.

  Sex with Kendra was an ascetic’s worst nightmare.

  “How’re your feet now?” He dropped his grip and studied her, waiting for her reaction. Waiting for anything, really. Slick with sweat and loose with relaxation, her body was a marvel he was sure he didn’t deserve.

  She moaned softly and turned to face him. “I have feet?”

  Triumph and laughter filled his throat. Whisking Kendra up, he carried her to the bed. Where he promptly crawled in next to her and fell into a shattered, sated, arms-holding-her-tight sleep.

  * * *

  Kendra was disappointed to wake up alone.

  The buzzing of her alarm clock jolted her out of a tomblike sleep at five o’clock in the morning. Early mornings were not her favorite thing—a fact reinforced by heavy circles under her eyes and a bone-deep exhaustion that made even a lazy stretch too much to contemplate. Unfortunately, work waited for no woman, exhausted or not. She swung her feet over the side of her bed and prepared to meet her day head-on...and felt an even deeper twinge of saddle soreness.

  She smiled despite the pain. Now, that? Definitely one of her favorite things.

  It had been a long time since a man had ridden her so hard she felt the effects of it the next day. Even longer since she’d had to be physically carried to bed.

  Scratch that. No man had ever been forced to carry her to bed before—and done so with such strong, deft arms she’d been close to begging for one more round.

  She’d almost made it to the bathroom door when that same pair of strong, deft arms wrapped around her and squeezed tight. Noah’s arms hit at just the right spot, nestled under her breasts as his head dipped to nuzzle the sensitive curve of her neck. “You’re still here,” she said, pleased.

  “And you’re up alarmingly early.”

  She turned into his embrace, enjoying his body against hers but drawing the line at a good-morning kiss. It was one thing to let him hold her in the naked morning afterglow. It was another to foist naked morning breath on him. “Why do you think I sleep so late on weekends? It’s my recovery time. I have to be at the office to open at eight.”

  “But that’s three hours from now.”

  “Exactly. Just enough time for me to hit the gym, shower, blow dry my hair, put on my makeup and hopefully grab some coffee at my friend’s bakery. It’s not like my looks are left in a basket on the front porch for me to find every morning—though I’d adopt them in a hot second if they were.”

  He growled and ran his hands possessively over her body. “You don’t need to do a damn thing. You’re incredible just the way you are.”

  She pulled away, feeling the headache of a disagreement on repeat getting ready to force its way between them. She tried to play it off lightly. “Spoken like a man who’s only ever known me after ten years of thrice-weekly visits to the gym. Don’t let Nikki’s appearance fool you—my family runs to fat. I have a few aunties who would make you get on your knees and thank me for all my diligence to the treadmill gods.”

  “Kendra.” He said her name sternly, as only a man who’d been up for hours already could. “There’s so much more to you than what I see on the outside. I thought I made that very clear last night.”

  H
e couldn’t have been more aggravating had he made it his life’s purpose. “I’m not suffering from low self-esteem here, Noah, and I’m not fishing for compliments. I like looking put together. I like wearing clinging dresses and knowing my hair inspires envy in everyone I meet. I don’t spend three hours getting ready in the morning for your sake. I do it for mine.”

  Contrary to her expectations, he didn’t stiffen or get offended. “Is this the part where we get into another argument about how shiny and pretty I think you are? Because that ended really well for me yesterday.”

  She was powerless to resist that rumble in his voice. She tilted her head. “You know, I’ve heard it said that a half hour of sex is equal to a half an hour of running,” she lied. It was actually more of a three-to-one ratio, but she could always go for a walk on her lunch break later. “I might be willing to make an exception. Just this once.”

  “So shiny,” he said, practically purring as his hand trailed to cup her bare bottom. He squeezed. “So pretty.”

  Before she lost herself to the sensations of his hands all over her skin, she was struck with the thought that waking up to this man—in the comforts of her own home—was something she could definitely get used to.

  Too bad she was almost certain he’d been about to sneak out her front door at five o’clock in the morning. And without so much as a word of goodbye.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “You smell like a forest nymph.” Whitney stood watching Kendra as she opened a box of surgical supplies and stacked them on a storeroom shelf.

  Normally, this was a task Kendra would leave for the office staff to do—she hadn’t submerged so far into the pit of micromanagement that she had to physically oversee each duty—but the workday was over and everyone else had gone home. Since Kendra had to wait for Nikki to swing by with her car, Whitney offered to help—which didn’t fool Kendra for a second. Help was really code for sitting there and pumping her for information about her personal life.

  “I do not. I smell like that new herbal massage oil John is trying out.”

  “Nope. That’s not it.” Whitney inhaled deeply. “It’s definitely eau de forest nymph—a highly sexualized one I’d guess is getting it on with all the wood-dwelling peasants. Ooh, are those the new stainless steel cannulas I asked you to order?”

  Kendra smacked her friend’s hand. “Don’t start getting everything out tonight, Whit. You can play with your toys tomorrow. Let’s get this all put away first.”

  “Oh, fine.” Whitney hoisted one of the boxes to the top shelf. “But I’m serious about the odd smells. Do you and Noah just roll around in wood chips out there?”

  “Yes,” Kendra said dryly. “You wouldn’t believe the splinters in my ass.”

  Whitney bumped her with her hip. “It’s all fun and games right now, but just wait until you start coming to work smelling like chicken feed.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  Whitney snorted. “It’s a little bit funny. Every time I see you anymore, I want to start belting out the Green Acres theme song.”

  “It’s not like I have any other choice,” Kendra grumbled. Noah was a man who stuck to his resolutions. It was both the most attractive and the most aggravating thing about him. “I tried to get him to enjoy some more city time, but it didn’t work. My house makes him uncomfortable.”

  “In what way?” Whitney gave up the pretense of helping with the boxes and perched on the edge of a low shelf. “Is it all that magic light from the ee-lectricity, or the fact that he has to wash his hands after he pees?”

  “It’s easy for you to laugh it up, but the reality is that I don’t think he can handle my level of success. I remind him too much of a woman he used to know.” Danielle. Those two syllables had taken on an almost ominous tone as of late. Noah had yet to name her again, but she still hovered in the air whenever they met. “I’m not even allowed to bring my own towels to use at his house—did I tell you that? All that plush softness makes him feel like less of a man.”

  “Please. At the end of the day, plush softness is all they really want.”

  The sound of a knock stopped Kendra from responding, which was probably for the best. Any time she sat down and made a pros and cons list about dating Noah—which was happening several times a day now—the cons only multiplied in number. He disapproved of her frivolity. He hated change. He had no intention of leaving the world he’d created out there. He put up obstacles for no reason other than the fact that he liked having them around.

  Unfortunately, there was one persistent pro that made all the rest seem like nothing. She was falling in love with him.

  The knock sounded again. “That must be Nikki,” Kendra said. “We’re going to that new martini bar in Merton tonight. Did you want to tag along?”

  “Thanks, but I can’t.” They locked up the storage room and headed to the front door. “Matt and I are supposed to be doing something with Lincoln tonight. Apparently, he’s got big news.”

  “Big news?” Alarm zipped up Kendra’s spine. She flipped the lock to let Nikki inside. “What kind of big news?”

  Nikki heard her and let out a gust of relieved air. “Oh, you know already. Thank goodness. So you won’t mind if I blow you off tonight to hang with Lincoln? It’s going to take everything I’ve got to talk him down.”

  Alarm gave way to full-blown panic. She’d spent the past few nights at Noah’s house, much closer to chicken feed than she cared to admit to Whitney. Isolated, alone, wrapped up in the idylls of loud sex and no internet access—stepping away from the real world was wonderful. And life-affirming. And hot in so many ways she was pretty sure they were rewriting the Kama Sutra out there.

  But it also felt kind of like cheating. Within those dirt-insulated walls, it was all too easy to forget the fact that she had a sister she was supposed to be looking out for, an anxious mother on speed dial, a business she’d been spending less and less time worrying about. Noah considered the act of stepping away from her life to be a kind of self-cleansing ritual, like heading into a sweat lodge and finding her focus for the first time in her life.

  Kendra had her doubts. Lots of doubts. Wheelbarrows full of doubts.

  “I’ve been living in a hole.” Kendra looked back and forth between the two women. “Unless you want to know how many worms Noah dug up yesterday, my contribution to this conversation is useless. What happened?”

  “Don’t look at me.” Whitney raised her hands in self-defense. “All I know is that Matt wants us to meet out at his sister Hilly’s house. They’re having one of their family meetings. I still haven’t decided if it’s adorable or bizarre for them to continue upholding that tradition.”

  “It’s his work,” Nikki said. Of the three of them, she seemed to have the most information. It was a bizarre feeling. Baby sisters—even adult ones—weren’t supposed to be so efficiently competent. That was Kendra’s job. “Apparently, he left the police force for good today. He had to give up his gun and badge and everything.”

  “No way.” A genuinely concerned pucker lowered Whitney’s brow. “Is he okay?”

  “I think so,” Nikki said. “It’s weird. He sounded so calm about it on the phone.”

  “Lincoln? Calm?” That, in and of itself, was a cause for concern.

  They ignored her. “Since Kendra needs her car back, can I hitch a ride with you to Hilly’s house? I already ate dinner. Lincoln warned me about her cooking.”

  “Oh, good call.” Whitney took Nikki by the arm and led her toward the door. “I’ll grab a burger on the way and we can smuggle in some milkshakes for later. Whatever you do, don’t ever consume dairy products in that house.”

  Kendra listened, detached, as her sister and her best friend chatted about family dynamics and clandestine snacking and what Lincoln might possibly have done to have his badge taken away for good. It was
all so ordinary and reasonable and removed from her in a way that would have been a cause for celebration just a few short weeks ago.

  This was what she’d wanted for the whole past year—to mean nothing to Lincoln. To not be a part of his network of neediness. To exist in a world where they could act like the one-night stand they really were.

  And now that she’d gotten what she wanted, all she could feel was worried.

  * * *

  “I don’t understand how you can just sit there being so blasé about this.” Kendra paced back and forth across the hardwood floor, her heels leaving a trail of clicks behind her. “I thought you were all about comforting Lincoln in his time of need, sacrificing your needs to attend to his.”

  Noah crossed his arms in an attempt to stop himself from forcibly putting Kendra in a chair. The nonstop movement was making him nauseated, the pressure of his small house like a clown car closing in. “I’ve known Lincoln a lot longer than you. Trust me. If he wants my help, he’ll come out here and ask for it.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “What else is there?” Noah asked. “It sounds like he has his family there for financial support, and Nikki to take the edge off. I’d only be in the way.”

  Even though Kendra was clearly upset about Lincoln leaving the force—and also clearly expected Noah to do something about it—he wasn’t about to insert himself into the situation. The last thing any man wanted when his world started crumbling was another worried face, another I-told-you-so friend. He knew the feeling. He couldn’t count the number of people who had known all along about Danielle, their platform raised by the irrefutable wisdom of hindsight.

  Unfortunately, Kendra seemed to be having a hard time accepting that. “You know as well as I do that Nikki is a temporary fix. She’s out of here next week.”

  “Are you that eager to get her out of the way?”

  “I’m that eager for her to resume her life, yes. She’s got way too much going for her to toss it all aside because some guy she barely knows is in crisis. Especially since I can’t remember a time when Lincoln wasn’t in crisis.”