by Amy Olle
“You weren’t a terrible person,” he said. “And if anyone is going to judge you based on high school, they’re complete fools.”
Himself included.
A fragile hope peeked through her misery. “Really?”
“Once they get to know you, they’re going to love you.” He wiped a splatter of mud from one curved cheek. “How could they not?”
Her eyes grew wide, and he was so relieved to supplant that wounded look from her face he didn’t even care he might’ve revealed too much.
He stroked the soft hollow below her ear and let his fingers trail down the side of her neck. Her pulse leapt beneath his touch.
Her tongue slipped out to lick her lips, and his gaze riveted to her over-plump mouth.
His cock jumped.
“Noah?”
“What is it, sweetheart?”
“A-are you still mad at me about Drew?”
“I was never mad at you,” he said gently.
“But—”
“I was disappointed.”
Hurt twisted her features and she moved as if to pull away.
He gripped a handful of her shirt over her stomach and dragged her back to him.
“Disappointed that I know so little about you.” He slipped one hand beneath the curtain of her hair.
He lowered his head and brushed his mouth over hers. She opened for him, easily. Eagerly.
Triumph roared through him, with want and need. He licked inside. At the small of her back, he clenched fistfuls of her shirt and held her against his body.
She was fire in his arms, fierce and bright. Dangerous and essential, and he wanted her more than his next breath.
He hadn’t flown home and charged to her house for sex. There were reasons—good reasons—he shouldn’t fall into her bed. He had a few pointed questions about her relationship with Drew Alexander, for one, and there was something about secrets and entanglements, but at the moment, he couldn’t recall exactly what those things were or why they mattered.
Mostly, she was vulnerable and hurting, and he’d be the lowest kind of pervert to exploit that to his advantage.
Despite the many reasons he shouldn’t sleep with her, a calming sense of rightness washed over him at the thought.
Her warm mouth tasted like home. The brush of her fingertips on his face soothed the wild, restless part of him that’d trekked across three continents and North Africa.
She broke away.
Heart pounding, cock straining, he had to stop himself from following her light through the darkness. She clasped his hand in hers.
Dread twisted through his gut with the certainty that she was going to ask him to leave. Send him away with gentle words and shy smiles, as was her way.
She took a small step back and tugged. The invitation, shyly delivered, pierced him. A welcome arrow through the heart.
There was no way in hell he was going to deny her.
Chapter Eighteen
He let her lead him to the carriage house, and together they tripped up the stairs. Her hands trembled as she fumbled for the key in her pocket. He watched, horrorstruck, as it slipped through her fingers, clattered to the floorboards at her feet, and disappeared through a gap in the wood planks.
His frustrated growl drowned out her gasp of dismay. She dropped to her knees as if to follow the key down, but he caught her elbow and hauled her to her feet. “Leave it.”
He pressed her back against the door and took her mouth, swallowing her throaty moan while his fingers worked the buttons of her shirt. At the last fastening, he pushed the fabric past her shoulders and let the garment fall to the porch floor.
Their sharp breaths turned to fog, mingling in the space between them. The tantalizing swells of her breasts strained against the binding of her bra, and with shaking hands, Noah sent the garment to the porch floor.
Exposed to the cool air, her nipples beaded. He cupped her and scraped his thumb over one protruding nipple. A curse slipped from his lips as the weight and feel of her heavy roundness sent a jolt straight to his groin.
Noah lowered his head and lapped his tongue across the pink tip. Mina moaned, and her head fell back against the door in surrender.
She tore at the hem of his T-shirt, and he reached behind his head to grasp a handful of the cotton and yank it off. Small hands rushed over the heated skin of his chest and torso. They found the fly of his jeans and quickly worked the fastenings.
She gripped him and a sharp intake of breath hissed between his teeth. Then she pumped him, once, twice, and again until he caught her wrist and pulled her hand away.
“Enough,” he croaked.
“Tell me what to do.” Her voice shook with urgency. “I want to please you, too, this time.”
He couldn’t speak past the frog that suddenly lodged in his throat, so he trailed the tips of his fingers along the waistband of her jeans and popped the button free.
He lowered the zipper. “All I want is you.”
With a rush of movement, she wriggled out of her jeans, a seductive display of artless sensuality that left her standing before him, bathed in the warm glow of fading sunlight and clad only in white cotton panties.
Fists clenched at his sides, he took his fill of her, drinking in every abundant curve. Her body was a reflection of the woman herself, generous and soft, and so fucking sweet. Emotions he could not name snatched his breath.
He dragged his gaze back to her face to find her watching him with grave, lucid eyes, as uncertain as a doe. She crossed her arms to cover her breasts.
The twinge in his chest was a physical ache. “Wait. Let me look at you.”
Her ivory skin flushed with arousal. He dipped his head and pressed his lips to the smooth peaches-and-cream skin of her bare shoulder. Her ragged breaths rushed past his ear.
He straightened and peered down into her face. “Don’t hide from me.”
Her struggle with his words played on her features, but then she let her hands fall away.
His heart swelled, along with his erection.
Unnerved, he gripped her hips and moved to stand behind her. He toyed with one pebbled nipple while his other hand skimmed down her body to the edge of her panties. He stroked her through the thin fabric, and her head dropped back to lie on his shoulder.
He rubbed her, and she arched toward his touch, her breasts rising and falling with each hungry breath she drew.
He slipped a hand beneath the elastic band and pushed through her moist curls. A groan rumbled deep in the back of his throat when he found her body open for his touch.
He played with her, caressing her with long, even strokes until her hips began to rock in time to the rhythm he set. She lifted the heel of one foot and he stroked deeper. When he brushed against a particularly sensitive spot, she gasped and moisture drenched his fingers.
He hadn’t even gotten inside her yet.
Though hidden among the treetops, Noah was aware anyone could see them. They were on full display, his hand tucked inside her underwear and moving with obvious purpose. It was carnal and thrilling, and he was harder and hotter than he could ever remember being in his life.
His blood roared with the impulse to spread her thighs where they stood and drive himself home. Just barely, he conquered it.
With a silky moan, Mina pitched forward and grabbed on to the porch railing in front of her. She threw her head back and ground against his hand. Her body clenched around his fingers.
But Noah was nowhere near ready for this to end. He wanted more.
He withdrew from her body. On a whimper, she spun, and he took her face in his hands. He nipped at her lower lip and licked the swollen spot.
Mina fumbled with his jeans, and soon he stood naked before her, her eyes eating him up. His cock jumped.
He didn’t know what was happening. Sex with Mina wasn’t what he’d expected. He rubbed his bare chest, at the warmth settling there to fill the hole that’d opened up the day his mom had died and his world had fall
en apart.
His thoughts scattered when she touched his cheek. “Noah?”
He gripped her waist with both hands and dropped to his knees before her. She threaded her fingers through his hair. He hooked a finger in the band of her panties and pulled down. His lips brushed over the skin revealed to him, and he breathed in her sweet, heady scent. Slowly, cruelly, he eased the cotton over her ample hips and down.
Until she was fully exposed to him.
He pressed a kiss to her stomach. The intoxicating musk of her arousal reached his nostrils. He teased her some more with his fingers and nuzzled closer. For one tiny taste.
She gasped his name.
He smoothed his palms up her thighs and licked along her heated core. Her grip tightened in his hair, and her hips moved as she took pleasure from his mouth. The sound of the turbulent lake tried to drown out her greedy moans.
Her legs started to tremble. “Please, Noah. I n-need you. Inside me.”
He filched a condom from the wallet in his discarded jeans as he rose to his feet. She plucked it from his hand and tore open the package. With gentle pressure, she squeezed him and, rolling the condom down his hard length, cupped his balls.
Desire spilled over, consuming him, and he seized her hips. When he plunked her down hard on a rickety wooden table, a small potted plant crashed to the floorboards.
She hadn’t yet regained her balance when he stepped between her legs and guided his erection to her damp slit. Blue eyes flashing, she gripped his shoulders to steady herself and lifted her knees to spread her thighs for him.
A rusty laugh escaped him. How did he get so lucky to be in this moment with this woman?
The head of his penis poised at her entrance, her tight sheath clutched at him, and he trembled with the effort to keep from slamming into her, hard and deep.
He pushed a fraction inside her, then pulled back to tease at her opening with his glistening tip.
She rocked against him.
Too soon, the first ripples of his release began. “Tell me what you want.”
Large, guileless eyes undid him. “I want you to fuck me.”
With one long, smooth thrust, he pushed all the way inside, his passage made easy by her slickness.
Beneath his feet, the world shifted, and his awareness narrowed to that one single, blessedly glorious point of contact. Her body clamped around him, tight and hot. The torture was exquisite.
Though he had not yet come, he felt completion.
He forced himself to take it slow and set a languid rhythm. Over and over, he slid all the way in and pulled all the way out, savoring every inch of contact with her luscious body. Colors swirled behind his eyelids.
Mina raised her hands above her head and grasped the porch pillar at her back. She met each of his thrusts with eager abandon.
His soul sang.
He increased their pace. The table rocked beneath them, so he slipped his arms under her raised knees, gripped the table’s edge, and drove into her with urgent, savage thrusts.
The sounds of their joining filled the tiny porch enclosure. The rush of ragged breath. The soft spank of skin slapping skin. The slippery wetness of mutual arousal.
Still, it wasn’t enough. He needed more.
With her knees hooked over his elbows, her legs pressed wide, Noah seized her hips and pounded into her. Her large breasts swayed and bounced before him, and he sucked a puckered pink nipple between his teeth. Mina cried out.
More. Faster. Deeper.
He was about to come.
And still, he wanted. He wanted to go deeper, until he became a part of her. He wanted to take her pleasure and give her his in return.
He claimed her mouth; she seared him with a soul-stirring, ball-busting kiss. Sweat glistened on their skin as their bodies collided, relentless in desperation and greed.
He couldn’t last much longer, so he reached between them and brushed his thumb over her swollen sex.
A guttural cry broke from her and her sweet pussy quivered around his cock. He continued pumping as her climax played out and she went weak beneath him.
He took a soft nip at her sweet mouth and brushed an auburn curl from her forehead. Her brow puckered and cheeks flushed pink.
She caught him watching her, and the little wanton tilted her hips.
He roared over the edge. With a growl against her throat, he plunged into her, giving her everything he had and finding his own release in her wet, hot heat. The world went dark around him as her body milked his for all it was worth, mining the very last drop from him in a long, hard orgasm that left him unsteady on his feet.
Tremors continued to roll through him for many moments afterwards.
He stayed inside Mina as long as he could while his breathing slowed and his skin cooled. He listened to her breathing, until it, too, slowed and found a normal rhythm.
The last remnants of sunlight faded, shrouding them in darkness and infusing a chill into the night air around them. The first stars poked through the night sky.
Noah pressed his face to the side of her neck and inhaled. Usually, he was satiated after sex. Relaxed. But now, the gnawing hunger remained. Along with a troubling need to fulfill something other than his lust.
He’d agreed to only sex between them, but suddenly, he knew it wouldn’t remain that way.
He wouldn’t let it.
He ran a hand up her back. “I’m afraid you’re going to be picking splinters out o’ your back for a week.”
She slipped out from under him and silently began collecting the pieces of her clothing scattered about the porch.
She wouldn’t meet his gaze. Straightening, she clutched her rumpled clothes to her chest like a shield.
Noah pulled his jeans over his hips. “You’re not having post-orgasm regret, are you?”
She shook her head and slipped into the oversized man’s dress shirt. “Of course not.”
He detected the rigid set of her shoulders and the shimmer of disquiet in her dark eyes. Damn it all, she was going to shut him out again. Even after—
Then she tugged on the sleeve of her shirt in that self-conscious way of hers, and it hit him. She wasn’t running from him. She was running from herself.
With slow, careful movements, he angled closer.
Large, round eyes flew to his face.
He wound his hand through her hair and gently pulled her to him. His lips brushed hers. He nibbled the downturned corners of her mouth until she relaxed into his touch. His hand slipped to the small of her waist. When he lifted his other hand, the backs of his fingers brushed across a beaded nipple and then continued upward to stroke the curve of her cheek.
“Good.” He stepped back and zipped his jeans. “Because you’re not kicking me out this time.”
Her stilted laugh died away midstream. “I should get some work—”
He pressed a finger to her lips. “I’m staying.”
“But—”
“I warned you, Mina. This isn’t high school. Things are different now.”
In the moonlight, she appeared pale.
He traced the line of her mouth. “I’m staying.”
Chapter Nineteen
A fifteen-minute search in the underbrush beneath the porch finally turned up the missing key to Mina’s loft. Her shaking hands made the task of fitting the key into the lock more difficult, as did the distinct ember of concern burning in Noah’s dark eyes.
She burst into the carriage house, tossed the keys on the table, and, without breaking stride, shot across the living room toward her bedroom at the back of the apartment.
“I’m going to grab a quick shower.” At the bedroom door, she glanced back at him over her shoulder.
His features impassive, he rounded the table. “You sure everything’s all right?”
She had difficulty swallowing, as if a hand had closed around her throat. “I have mud in my hair.”
“I’ll be here.”
She barricaded herself in the small
bathroom.
The shower nozzle creaked when she cranked it. She stripped out of her clothes and stepped under the warm spray. Water rushed over her skin, a pleasant burn that soothed her aching muscles.
What had just happened? One minute she was lost in the misery of humiliation and failure, and the next she was naked.
With Noah.
Having sex.
With Noah.
On her front porch.
She pressed her forehead against the shower wall.
She’d never done anything like that before. Never been so bold and reckless. So lost in the moment.
Tell me what you want.
That’s what had sent her hurtling into his arms without a thought to consequences or even the circumstance of their surroundings.
He’d asked. He’d sought not only her pleasure but also her permission.
No man she’d ever slept with had been so deliberate and protective. That Noah had, fed her arousal. It caused her heart to pound painfully in her chest and the blood to whir in her ears.
In all the years since the night she and Noah had indulged in clandestine sex in the woods, she’d rarely been tempted by any other men. The ones she had chosen to go to bed with had never affected her the way Noah just had, wringing everything out of her, until she had nothing left to give.
It horrified her to realize that was because none of them had been him.
It’d always been him.
Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.
Worse yet, when he’d appeared out of nowhere and asked her about her worries, the deep timbre of his lilting voice had smoothed over her like a salve, and the words had poured out of her.
In that moment, she might have told him every secret she carried, every burden. She’d have revealed every scar and imperfection if he’d asked her to.
The water ran cold and she twisted the faucet to stop the flow. Wrapped in an oversized towel, she wiped the fog from the mirror. She refused to look too closely at the rumpled, overwrought woman staring back at her.
When she emerged from the bedroom, Noah stood behind the kitchen counter, pouring a glass of milk. He glanced up when he heard her.
