It Takes Two

by Jenny Holiday

  It just wasn’t worth it, to his mind. Wasn’t worth the risk, the loss of control.

  But he did okay. He dated. He’d had several girlfriends over the years. His relationships usually followed the same progression—he would meet someone he was attracted to, indulge in a little flirtation, go on some dates, and before he knew it, he had a girlfriend.

  It worked for him not least because in his opinion, the most attractive part of a woman was her mind. What could he say? He went for smarts, and you couldn’t always get a sense of a person in one night. He wasn’t immune to beauty, but he liked his beauty to come with brains.

  The only problem with his tendency toward serial monogamy was that at some point, it had to end. Like with Clarissa wanting to move in together. It had made sense on paper, but he just…couldn’t do it.

  He never could.

  He shook his head as he entered the gift shop in the casino. No need to stroll back over his entire romantic history. It wasn’t relevant to what was about to happen.

  Which was that he was going to have casual sex with Wendy.

  Wendy certainly wasn’t going to demand a commitment from him. She had made that abundantly clear by inventing that weird New York loophole. So in a way, it was the perfect arrangement. It was like a one-night stand, but not. Because he knew Wendy. She was undeniably gorgeous, but she was also smart as hell. Thinking about the gentle slope of her breasts—and about her goddamned collarbones, for fuck’s sake—got him hard. But so did thinking of her demolishing a witness in court. Pushing the tolerance of a judge with objections that skirted the edge of reasonableness.

  “Will that be all?” the woman at the cash register asked, barely looking up from her phone as she scanned the box.

  “Yes.” There was a display of random items on one corner of the counter, a mixture of essentials like Advil and travel toiletries, but also silly things like souvenir shot glasses and…His eye snagged on something. “Actually, no.” He impulsively grabbed the item in question. “This, too, please.”

  Five minutes later, he paused outside Wendy’s door. Last time he’d been outside a hotel room containing Wendy, he’d been consumed with anger, ready to blow. But then there she’d been, in a towel, equally angry, lashing out at him, a worthy adversary.

  And then she’d dropped that towel and demolished him.

  He had no idea what to expect this time. Wendy was clearly an assertive woman. She did what she wanted. He liked that. A lot. So he wouldn’t be surprised to find her in the bath again. Or in a towel. Or totally naked.

  The latch was propping the door open, so he knocked lightly, then slipped into the dark room.

  His fantasies had gotten away from him, because she was standing at the window fully clothed.

  She turned at the sound of him entering, and his heart did a strange thump. The room was dark, but the curtains were open, so she was bathed in the ambient light of Sin City.

  He knew with his mind that Wendy was tough. That her size belied her strength.

  She was a small, self-contained, self-sufficient universe of one.

  But from this vantage point, she looked young. He imagined she looked sad, though of course that was ridiculous. It was too dark to see anything that would have suggested that. Still, he could sense her. He knew truths about her, somehow, without having to see them with his eyes.

  She was cold. She was vulnerable.

  “Noah.”

  Her voice, strong and sure across the darkness, jarred him. He must have been mistaken about that last thing, because there was nothing vulnerable in the way she said his name.

  He dropped his purchases on the desk and moved toward her, stopping short, unsure how to proceed. Last time, he had been fueled by anger, which had, at the sight of her dropping her towel, ignited into lust. There had been no premeditation, no second-guessing, just pure, mindless instinct. There hadn’t been room for anything else.

  This time, there was room.

  There was still lust. He was pretty sure he was now conditioned for life, like Pavlov’s dog, to salivate at the sight of Wendy. But there was also all this…space that needed to be crossed to get to her. A whole gaping chasm, in fact, that had the potential to flood with awkwardness, nerves, second thoughts. There was room for cooler heads to prevail, for one or both of them to think too hard, or worse, to verbalize why this was a big mistake.

  “Stop thinking, Noah.”

  He almost laughed but managed to hold it at a grin as she took a step toward him, eyebrows raised. It was such a funny juxtaposition. Here he was all tied up in knots over what was about to happen. Wendy, by contrast, did not seem to be having that problem.

  “You know what?” she said. “Most people enjoy this. You could, too, if you lightened up a little.”

  What was it about everyone telling him to lighten up all of a sudden?

  But she was right, at least about the situation immediately at hand. So, taking her directive literally, he moved toward the desk lamp. He wanted to see her. If they had to be in a fake New York-within-Las Vegas fantasyland to make it okay to sleep together—which he wasn’t questioning, because they pretty much did—he wanted to see everything.

  So, yeah, enough with the introspection bullshit.

  He switched on the light.

  She smiled. “Take off your clothes.”

  So he did what the lady told him to: he took off his clothes.

  He paused, shirtless, to relish the slight intake of breath that resulted. But she tamped that shit right down, pressing her mouth into a thin line like an elementary school teacher about to lose her temper, and let her gaze flicker down his body. It was a “get on with it” gaze, and he wasn’t about to disobey.

  It wasn’t lost on him, as he kicked off his pants, that her command flipped their positions from last night. When she’d dropped her towel, she’d been naked, and he’d been fully clothed. But he was, strangely and inexplicably, cool with their current situation. The weird thing about Wendy was that there was no script. With all those girlfriends from his past, they had settled quickly into established roles. Someone initiated. Someone called the shots. Usually him, which was fine. Sexy, generally. And that’s how things had played out last night with Wendy. He’d been obsessed with going down on her, because he remembered her assertion from New York—the real New York—that no guy would do that the first time, and had been determined to prove her wrong. So he’d gotten bossy.

  But maybe this whole giving up control thing had something to recommend it, because fuck, right now he had no earthly idea what was going to happen and he was amazingly okay with that.

  She stalked over to him, pressed her palms against his chest, and walked him back toward the bed. She shoved him, hard, and he fell back, bouncing a bit on the mattress as he landed, but the rebound was absorbed by her body as she climbed up him.

  And oh, God, the uncertainty, the ceding control, had been more than worth it. They stared at each other for a long moment, and, when he couldn’t stand it anymore, when he feared his heart might jackhammer out of his chest, he threaded his hands through her hair, pulled her head down, and kissed her.

  She made a noise that started out desperate but then slid into something closer to relief. She sounded like a woman who had been waiting a very long time and was finally getting what she needed. He loved that. His dick loved that. He pressed the pads of his fingers harder against her scalp and swept his tongue through her mouth, which was soft and hot as it moved against his. She undulated her hips, grinding herself against his erection. The silky material of her dress was slippery, too smooth. Not what he wanted, not even close. So, leaving one hand on her head and continuing to work over her mouth, he used his other hand to tug the fabric up. But then, fuck, she was wearing tights, and they were in the way.

  Skin. He needed skin. “Who wears tights in the summer in Vegas?”

  “It’s cold in these stupid hotels,” she shot back, and he loved that even now, she was arguing with him.
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br />   “Get these off,” he growled, burrowing his hand under the waistband and grabbing her ass, which, he knew with the sliver of rationality that remained in his mind, probably made it harder for her to do what he’d asked.

  But she managed, squirming and swearing, to work the tights to her knees, and then to free one leg completely. He was impatient, and one leg was enough. Growling, he flipped them and bent to kiss her again, her mouth swallowing the groan that ripped from his throat when she wrapped her legs around him. She’d done that last night, too, and last month, in the real New York, and he fucking loved it. He wanted her to climb all over him, to cling to him like ivy choking a building. And when she rocked her hips against him—hard—he had to press his mouth against her bare shoulder and bite down to keep from blowing his load right then and there.

  He didn’t bite hard, just rested his teeth, really, but she moaned so loudly, he did it again.

  “You like that, do you?” he said, and did it again, actually biting a little this time.

  She bucked wildly against him. “Where are the goddamned condoms, Noah?” she gasped, her voice raspy and needy.

  “On the desk,” he managed, grunting as he moved off her to retrieve them. But somehow, she was out from under him so fast that she beat him to the desk and was ripping the packet open by the time he reached her.

  He’d assumed they’d get the condom and go back to the bed, but he’d thought wrong. She positioned the condom at the tip of his dick, her breath growing shallow. Her hand slid down his length as she unrolled it, and he hissed at the contact. He let his head fall back momentarily, needing to stare at the ceiling to reset himself, to rein in his lust.

  Which was why, when he righted his head, he was totally, utterly gobsmacked by the sight of her bent over the desk.

  “What are you doing, Wendy?” he said, though of course he knew what she was doing. Shit. He squeezed the base of his dick and took a deep breath. His attempt to slow himself down was undone by the very sight of her, though. She’d positioned her hips right at the edge of the desk and her torso was pressed flat against its surface. Her feet didn’t hit the floor. Her legs dangled, one of them still entangled in her tights. The skirt of her dress was flipped up.

  Then she lifted herself up on her elbows, twisted around, and found his gaze. And, oh, fuck, those needy brown eyes imploring him, while her lower body was bare to him.

  “What are you waiting for?” she asked again.

  “Nothing,” he said, because that was the correct answer, the answer they both wanted.

  He took a step forward and sent a hand down to check that she was ready. “Oh God,” he bit out, shoving the skirt of her dress up as high as it would go. Wendy was so wet, his hand came away coated. And he fucking loved it. It made him want to roar.

  She reached around and grabbed his retracting arm and pulled on it while she glanced meaningfully at his dick, clearly communicating her desire that he get on with things.

  She wasn’t strong enough to halt his retreat, though, unless he chose to follow her cue.

  He would—of course he would—but not quite yet. Because although it took every ounce of his strength to hold back from burying himself in her, he was beginning to understand that part of what made the attraction between them so explosive was the fact that it was tinged with confrontation. It had been there from the start—arguing in the park in New York, and then, later, outright war.

  At this moment, it turned out that not giving Wendy exactly what she wanted was pretty much the sexiest thing in the universe.

  So he moved toward her, covering her back with his body and nestling his dick against her ass, but that was all he did. She thrust her hips back and moaned in frustration, but he did not oblige her. Instead, he repeated his motion of earlier, dragging the fingers of one hand through her hot, slick folds, eliciting another aggrieved moan.

  There was a mirror above the desk. He could see his reflection in it, but not hers, because she was lying flat on the desk, below the bottom edge of the mirror. He used his other arm on her shoulder to lever her torso up enough that she could see them, too. Once he’d established eye contact in the mirror, he stuck the fingers that had been inside her into his mouth.

  “Mmmm,” he groaned, and when he had licked them clean, added, “you taste so fucking good.”

  And it was true.

  That was the funny thing about them together. There was only truth between them, always had been. They had often been at odds, both as kids and more recently, but he had never lied to her.

  Which was why when he said, with the taste of her still on his lips, “You are gorgeous,” he meant it. Fuck, she looked like his every fantasy come to life, with her long black hair messed up from his hands tangling in it, mascara smudges bracketing eyes heavy with desire.

  So he finally gave her what she wanted, using one hand to guide himself inside her. He gave himself what he wanted, too, which was to see her collarbones. He used a finger from his other hand to work into the mesh panel of her dress. Once he’d made a sufficient hole, he yanked.

  When it worked, when the mesh tore, leaving those perfect, symmetrical collarbones bared to his gaze, he felt like the fucking champion of the world.

  And when she said his name in a desperate whisper that was half entreaty, half affirmation, he was undone. He pressed one palm, open as wide as it could go, loosely over her neck so that he could feel the ridges of her collarbones—his collarbones, they felt like—and slammed into her again and again, relishing the slap of flesh on flesh.

  Her torso started sinking, unable to remain upright against the force of his thrusting. The desk moved, too, with every stroke, banging against the wall in time with the grunts that were coming from somewhere deep in his chest. The room service menu fell to the floor, and the phone’s receiver clattered off its cradle.

  He used his last sliver of control, to slide his free hand around and cup it over her sex. He angled the base of his palm over her clit. His arm hurt as he kept up the punishing pace, trapped as it was between her body and the edge of the desk, but if that was the price of her pleasure, he welcomed the pain.

  As he barreled toward the cliff, he began to fear that he was going to get there before she did. “What do you need?” he said, not letting up.

  She shook her head like she couldn’t find the words and ground herself harder on his hand. “Just don’t stop.”

  “I’m not going to stop,” he said gruffly, pressing his fingertips harder on her collarbones. He was close, though. He could feel the storm in his body concentrating, coalescing. But they didn’t lie to each other, so he added, “I’m going to come harder than I ever have, inside you. But I’m not going to stop with this”—he ground his palm harder over her sex—“until you’re screaming.”

  And then she did just that. It was followed by the spasming of her inner muscles around him, and he gave a few more ruthless thrusts, banging the desk so hard against the wall that the mirror shook, and then he detonated.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Holy fuck.

  This had been a mistake.

  Wendy stayed where she was, draped over the desk with Noah draped over her while she pondered what she’d done.

  She’d thought she could compartmentalize. That she could have sex with Noah in the present, and not let all the emotion attached to teenage Noah infect things.

  She had been wrong. She felt…off. Shaken up. But, okay, she wasn’t past the point of no return here. It wasn’t like she was in love with him. She could fix this.

  They stayed like that for a long time, panting in the silent, brightly lit room, Noah still inside Wendy’s body.

  When Noah heaved a sated sigh and pulled out, she wanted to scream from the injustice of it, like a kid who doesn’t want her birthday party to end.

  But it had to end.

  She allowed herself an extra moment while she listened to him dealing with the condom, heaving a deep sigh even as she remained prostrate on the surfac
e of the desk. Eventually, she was going to have to get up and face what came next. And there was no way that what came next wasn’t going to be at least a little awkward. If there was a protocol for having the best sex of your life with the only man who’d ever broken your heart and then somehow getting him speedily and smoothly out of your hotel room, she was not privy to it.

  Procrastinating, she stretched, letting her arms slide out in front of her and fanning them to the sides, like she was making a snow angel from on her belly instead of her back.

  One hand closed around something hard. “What is this?” Still not quite able to muster the strength to heave her body off the table, she remained prone as she retracted her hand, object enclosed in it, bringing her eye to eye with…

  Pez Elvis.

  She bolted upright as if the table were made of fire.

  “Oh, I saw that in the store where I bought the condoms, and I wanted to…give you something,” Noah said, like it was no big deal. He chuckled in a way that might have bordered on self-deprecating. “Something besides condoms.”

  Oh, shit. She was past the point of no return.

  She burst into tears.

  Which of course brought him to her side in a flash.

  Damn him. Damn him to hell. Why did he have to be so fucking thoughtful all the time?

  Because he was a thoughtful, kind person. That was the terrible truth. He always had been, and he was now. The part in the middle, where he stood her up at the dance? It had been an aberration.

  Fuck.

  She loved him.

  But he could never love her back. He couldn’t all those years ago, and he couldn’t today.

  The truth was like an awful, clawing beast inside her, fighting to get out. All she could do was cry, and let it. Then maybe she’d be able to get up, to put herself back together. To become smooth and un-hurtable again.

  “Oh, shit, Wendy, I’m sorry.” Noah’s voice was heavy with regret. He laid his hands gently on her back, so terribly gently. “That was too much.” Then the hands disappeared, and she cried even harder, their loss the final burden, the one that made the collective weight she was carrying heavier than she could bear. Instinctively, she took a step toward him, her body wanting those hands back regardless of what a bad idea it was.