by C. M. Lally
The wind picks up as soon as we exit the truck and she inhales the clean, mountain air. “There’s a big storm coming,” she says, sounding as sure as the wind blowing through the parking lot. Her hair whips into her face, and she can’t see to walk any further, so she turns to face it head-on. The edges of her wildfire hair tickle my neck as it blows when we walk faster, seeking cover from the brutal wind.
“It’s the ozone. It rides the downdraft of a thunderstorm until it reaches nose level. We can’t normally smell it, but it’s pungent when a thunderstorm is rolling in.” We take our seats and at least I’ve learned my lesson; I go ahead and sit down to avoid a gentleman’s argument with her.
“Did you learn that in medical school?”
“No. My dad and I are nerds. I keep telling you this; you choose not to believe it. We watch a lot of Nat Geo documentaries.” Her phone buzzes and a very beautiful woman’s face appears on the screen. She swipes it left, ignoring the call and sending it to voicemail, but I swear I recognize that face. “I would come home from studying for my boards and he would have several queued up to binge watch. I mean, come on, who binge watches documentaries? Nerds, that’s who.”
She lets out a little snort as she laughs and then covers her mouth with her hand, embarrassed about her little display of unbridled joy. Her cheeks are tinged with a slight blush that causes her freckles to enhance the coloring that’s blooming on her face. Damn she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. She has this little upturn to her nose that is completely adorable when she smiles. It’s also pixie-ish.
The waitress approaches our table and I’ve not even begun to look at the menu. “Go ahead, Doc. I don’t know what I want yet.”
“Umm, I’ll just have a Caesar salad and a grilled cheese sandwich, if that’s okay?”
“And I’ll take a Bacon Cheeseburger and potato wedges.” I pick up her menu and hand both of them to the waitress. Her phone rings again and it’s the same face calling. She must really need to talk to her. “You can take that if you need too.” I swear I know that face.
“Nah. It’s my sister, and we have rules. No phones during dinner. She probably just wants to gossip.” She swipes across her face, sending the call to voicemail again.
“Ooh, Hollywood dirt. I could go for some of that.” Her smile fades, sending a chill across the table.
Shit, Braxton. Back off, you dumb ass.
Her phone rings again. This time she answers, letting her sister know she’s annoyed, “I’m at dinner. Can I call you back?” A high-pitched squeal of glee emits from the phone and it’s so loud, Noa holds the phone away from her ear. “Monty, yes. I get that you’re excited, but I’m eating. I promise I will call you back.” She rolls her eyes at whatever she is saying and eventually gets in one word “Good-bye” before ending the call.
Holy shit. Her sister is Montgomery Knight. That’s why her face is so familiar. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah. She received some great news and wanted to share. I’ll call her back later and get the dirt for you.”
“I was just kidding about that. I don’t know if my ears could handle all of that squealing. It sounded like a pod of Orca’s approaching. I don’t know how you understood one word she was saying.”
“A pod of Orcas? Who’s nerding now?” She laughs and throws her wadded up straw paper at me hitting me on the tip of my nose, perfect aim. There isn’t anyone more perfect than the one sitting in front of me now.
“I may or may not have watched a Nat Geo documentary about Orcas in my downtime.”
Heavy rain starts to pelt the roof of the restaurant and every face turns towards the windows. Big sheets of wind-driven rain pours down from the sky, battering the vehicles in the parking lot. I’m glad it’s not hail.
“Looks like we might be here for a while.” She bounces in her seat trying to get a better view of the rain, a worrisome look falling across her face. “I hate storms.”
“It might be a long night then.”
Chapter 8 – Braxton
THE LONGER WE SIT HERE in this restaurant listening to the heavy rain pound the roof and pavement, the more worked up Noa gets. She’s wringing her paper napkin in her hand now, practically shredding it. There are little bits of it on the table and clinging to her shirt.
She barely ate her salad and sandwich, leaving half of it on the plate that the waitress took away. I have no idea what to do with her, but she wasn’t lying when she said she hates storms. “Haha. You’d think a little rain storm wouldn’t bother me living through countless earthquakes. There’s something about storms though, the power of God and all that. They terrify me.” She jumps in her seat as an explosion of lightning lights up the night sky.
“I don’t know. I think I’d be more scared of the Earth cracking open and swallowing me whole than a little bit of rain, as you call it. This is more like a torrential downpour.” The rain is coming down so hard and heavy; you can barely see the halogen lamps glowing in the parking lot.
“I guess the earthquakes don’t bother me because I know the building codes in California can mostly withstand them. Plus my house is noise proof, so I don’t hear it when it does rain, which is almost never in Cali.” Thunder rolls across the valley, shaking the restaurant we’re sitting in, and she grabs for her tattered napkin again.
Normally, I’d wait this out in the camper because storms don’t bother me. I’m fascinated by them, but I can’t expect her to sit in that tin can and have an anxiety attack waiting for this weather to pass. There’s a small hotel adjoining this parking lot. I’ll get us a room, and pray the walls are more soundproof than here.
I look out the window and don’t see any signs of this letting up soon, so I make her an offer I hope she doesn’t refuse. “What do you say we get a hotel room for the night? We can’t drive in this, any signal reception is going to be horrible in the camper, and that tin can will not block out this noise.”
“Well, when you put it like that, let’s do it.”
I make arrangements with the manager to leave the camper parked in their back lot, and we head out. “Are you ready for this?” Excitement fills her eyes as she shakes her head. She reaches for my hand and a small thrill races up my arm, leaving goosebumps in its track. “1-2-3...” we push through the double glass doors and run through the pelting rain hand-in-hand.
As soon as we enter the hotel lobby, our sopping wet shoes hit the marble floor causing us to slip and fall, landing on top of each other in a laughing heap of bodies. Thank God we cushioned each other’s fall, or we’d both be hurt. “Are you alright?” we ask simultaneously, laughing again while trying to unravel our twisted bodies. Well, I’m laughing. She’s snorting in full force, making it even harder to get up.
I finally rise and help her to her feet as dripping water from our clothing puddles on the floor.
We both look up to see the front desk clerk coming at us with towels in hand. She hands us each one and throws a few on the floor. “My goodness, that storm just blew you in here. Are you alright?” She asks as she uses her feet to move the towels around to soak up the water on the pristine marble floor. “Do you need a room for the night or just temporary shelter?”
“We’d like a room.” I smile at her, hoping there’s a vacancy.
“Two rooms, please.” Noa’s voice squeaks out from behind me. She clears her throat, trying not to sound shy. Or it is nerves? Who knows; we’ve been sharing a camper for a few weeks now, so I’m confused.
“One moment, please,” I inform the clerk, turning to address Noa’s request and pulling her over to the side away from the clerk.
“We only need one room.” I look down at her fiddling with her wet T-shirt. Her fingers are twisted around in the bottom hem of the shirt. She looks up at me with dark, somber eyes. Their usual clear gray coloring is now a raging thunderstorm of anxiety.
“I can’t sleep with you.”
“Whoa, there. No one said anything about sleeping together. We’re just
sharing a room for the night to keep us safe from the storm. You never know, there could be tornadoes or something worse. We don’t want to be stuck in the camper with all that going on around us outside.”
“No, I mean I can’t sleep in the same room as you. No one sleeps with me. Ever. I’m...,” she hesitates, the burden of a horrible confession is on the tip of her tongue. “I’m not a quiet sleeper. Okay?”
“So you snore. Big deal.”
“I don’t snore. Or at least no one has ever told me that. I do other things.” Her face flushes bright red with embarrassment, and she hasn’t even told me her secret. It must be awful for that shade of red to light her up. She looks like a Christmas bow.
She lowers her eyes from mine before she confesses. “I have Catathrenia.”
“What the hell is that?” She immediately puts her finger to my lips to shush me. Her eyes dart to the left and right to see if anyone heard me.
“It’s a condition that causes me to moan intensely while I sleep. It’s disturbing, and I don’t want to keep you up all night. I’ll just get a separate room. You’ll thank me for it later.”
“Alright, if you say so. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” We slowly approach the front desk again. The clerk is furiously pecking away at the keys and isn’t smiling like she was before.
“We may have a problem.” She looks up with a worried twist of her lips. “It seems I only have one room available. We have some late-arriving guests scheduled and with considering them, we are booked solid.” She bites her lip nervously waiting for our response.
From the corner of my eye, I see Noa’s shoulders slump. I touch her arm, trying to reassure her that everything is going to be okay. Suddenly, the adventure is gone from the moment, and this feels like a bad idea.
“It will be fine. I promise.”
“No, it won’t, but it’s generous of you to think so. All I can say is that I told you so and wish you good luck.” The clerk clears her throat needing to interrupt our moment. Her cheerful smile is back.
“The great news is that it’s one of our handicap suits, so it’s a much more spacious room. The downside is that it only has one king-size bed.” Her bright smile is still plastered across her face while she delivers that news like that’s going to take the sting away.
“We’ll take it.” I hand her my credit card and driver’s license.
Noa turns and walks over to the small bar on the far side of the lobby and takes a seat. A bartender appears from around the corner and proceeds to pour her a drink. Maybe that’s exactly what she needs to take away some of her anxiety. I know I could go for a beer.
After a few moments, the clerk passes me the little envelope with our room keys, shows me where the ice and vending machines are on a map, and asks if I need help with our luggage. She’s a little perplexed when I explain that we don’t have any, but I don’t give a damn.
When I take a seat next to Noa, she’s already downed a few shots of some neon green drink from what I can see from her bar bill and the fancy bottle in front of her.
“What are you drinking?” I turn it to read the label. “Green Chartreuse. What the hell is that?”
“It’s a French liqueur.” She hiccups as an exclamation point to that fact.
I screw the lid off and take an unsuspecting whiff that curls my nose hair. “Damn that shit smells like a cough syrup my great-grandmother used to give me. Don’t drink any more of that or you’re gonna have a nasty hangover in the morning.”
Her head is propped up by the palm of her hand on her forehead, and she already looks like she’s regretting drinking it. Her head swivels toward me, and a bone-tired look crosses her face. Her mascara is smudged under the eyes, and her hair is matted into long, rain-soaked strands. “Our adventure has turned into a nightmare. I’m going to get drunk so we can sleep together.”
The makeshift bartender laughs under his breath, and when his eyes meet my dark scowl, he walks to the far side of the bar to wash a few glasses that are already clean from the looks of them. “C’mon, Doc. I know that’s not a backhanded compliment. You’d sleep with me without being drunk if I wanted you to. Let’s go.”
“Nope. We can’t leave yet. I’m not drunk enough.” She pours herself another shot and slams it down her throat like she’s a regular in a bar, but I know better. She pours herself another but leaves it sitting in front of her when her phone rings. She twists to pull it out of her soaked jean pocket.
She swipes right to answer the call, and without any warning to the caller of her status, she belches loudly. “Excuse me,” she slurs slightly before lifting the phone to her ear. “Hello, sister dear. Give me the dirt. My travel companion would like to hear the dirt.”
A high-pitched female voice squawks on the other end of the line. “You know. The dirt. THE Hollywood dirt that we Ritchie's keep tucked away in the dark corners of our closets. THAT dirt. Spill it.”
She sets the phone down on the bar top and places the call on speaker. While her sister gripes at her, Noa downs the drink she poured and listens intently to her sister complain about her leaving and how she can’t handle their mother without her. She begs her to come home now, saying some pretty nasty things about Noa leaving suddenly. She blames her for everything wrong in her life.
“Enough Monty. That’s enough. I’m not coming home. Take your millions and fix your life yourself,” she barks at her before punching the end button on her screen with her thumb. She continues pressing and twisting the end button like she’s smashing a bug into dust. The screen has long since cleared of the call, and Noa still has her thumb pressed down hard on the screen. Any more pressure and it’ll crack.
I grab it from her, watching her pitch forward to take it from me. She stumbles from the stool and braces herself to stand straight. “C’mon, Doc. Let’s go upstairs.” She sneers at me like a petulant child before turning to grab the bottle from the bar, gesturing to the barkeep that she’s taking it. He raises his hand in approval and lets her go without a word.
The elevator arrives immediately since no one else is going out and about in this crazy weather. Noa stumbles inside first and leans against the wall in the corner looking at me as I enter and press the eighth floor. She tosses her wild hair behind her shoulders and smiles at me like she’s got the devil whispering in her ear tonight.
“So you think I’d sleep with you without needing to get drunk, huh?” Her eyes are glassy from the drink, but they’re backlit by a fire brewing deep inside her soul. She is a temptress straight from the depths of a wicked mind.
“If I wanted to, yes.”
“If?” She laughs, and it echoes off the walls inside this mechanical box. The elevator comes to a sudden stop as it reaches our floor, throwing her off balance. I reach out and grab her, crushing her against my chest. Her face is so close to mine I can smell the spicy-sweet drink on her lips and the rain in her hair. “I want to.”
She closes the distance between our lips, pressing her lips to mine. Her long fingers wrap around my neck and play with the hair at the base of my neck, holding me to her. I know I shouldn’t return the kiss, but hell; she’s been a thorn in my side since I first opened the camper door to her. I can’t treat her like a sister anymore when her soft lips are begging for attention.
She grabs my shoulders and squeezes as she takes the kiss deeper. Our tongues are twining and dancing in the soft yellow haze of the elevator. The doors open and close behind us with nowhere to go. My arms wrap around her, pinning her in and dragging her up my body and into my arms. I carry her out into the hallway and through the corridor to our room.
She’s grinding against my visible hard-on and kissing my neck as I struggle to run the key-card through the little magnetic strip. The door finally beeps, and I kick it open, pressing her against the wall on the other side. I pull her t-shirt from the band of her jeans and push it up to expose the swell of her breasts.
My thumbs press against the front closure of her bra and her breasts spi
ll into the palms of my hands. I rub them, pushing the cups of the bra out of my way. The hard pebbles of her nipples pulse against the pads of my thumbs sending shock waves down my spine and harden my dick to a torturous ache.
I know I’m going to regret this, but it wouldn’t be my life without a little bit of regret nagging at me. I squeeze one of her soft mounds in my hand, puckering the nipple and directing it to my mouth before flicking it with my tongue and enclosing my lips around it. I savor it, drawing hard, pulling and teasing it with my lips before nipping it with my teeth and letting it go. A deep moan escapes her throat, as she throws her head back against the wall and pushes her pussy against me.
The bottle of Chartreuse is still in her hand. God only knows where the lid is as she tilts it upward taking a long swig of the thin liquid. She rides higher on the wall as I push her against it to steady her. The snap and zipper of her jeans are close to my eye level, and I can smell her arousal calling to me. I know her panties are soaked now if they weren’t before.
I pull on the snap, and the bronze-colored zipper peeks out from its hiding place to taunt me. My teeth clench onto it and pull, gliding it down until it stops. Freckles dapple her olive-colored skin and form a random pattern of delicious places to kiss, teasing her.
Her hands press down on my shoulders, wanting me to kiss her lower. She’s writhing in my arms, doing her best to push her jeans down with one hand. I take the now-empty bottle from her and toss it into the bathroom trash as I set her on the bathroom counter.
“This is where it gets real, Doc. Do you want this to happen or not?”
Chapter 9 – Noa
MY HEAD IS SPINNING from the drink and the warm feeling of his touch bombarding my senses right now. I’m twisted into a tight spiral, wanting him desperately, but not wanting to ruin what little bit of whatever it is we have.
