She sighed, leaning into my hand. “I doubt he’ll even care. He’ll find someone else who can play the part, and he’ll run for office just the same.”
“He’ll care,” I promised her. “Trust me. And he’ll regret it. There isn’t a man alive who could be loved by you and not kick himself every single day for fucking it up.”
A steady silence fell over us, her eyes on mine, those words between us.
“I don’t even know how to begin telling my mom,” she finally said, and those eyes watching mine welled up with tears again. “It’ll break her heart.”
“She’ll understand. She loves you.”
Ruby Grace shook her head, letting out a long, heavy breath. “Everyone is going to be talking about this, Noah. Everyone. Forever.”
“Let them talk. They don’t know you or the situation, and their judgment doesn’t affect who you are.” I held her gaze, running my thumb down the line of her jaw. “Do you hear me? What they think of you is not who you actually are. They do not have that power over you.” I smirked. “Plus, someone else will fuck up and give them a change of subject. I mean, just leave it to me and my brothers. We’ve been doing it all our lives.”
She chuckled, but it died quickly, sadness washing over her again. “I feel like a fool.”
“It’s him who’s the fool,” I assured her, searching her eyes with my own. “You are, without a doubt, the most caring, loving, passionate, intelligent, and classy woman I have ever met. You walk with a confidence unparalleled by anyone in this town, and you give without ever expecting anything in return, and you’re brave.” I shook my head. “You are so fucking brave.”
Her eyes softened, her voice just a whisper again. “You didn’t mention the way I look in any of those bullet points.”
“You’re beautiful,” I said easily. “But that’s not what makes you the woman I l—” I swallowed, throat constricting like her eyes held it in a vise grip. “That’s not what makes you the woman you are. You are more than your eyes, and your hair, and your strawberry smoothie lips and long, lean legs. You’re not meant to be a puppet in some man’s sideshow, Ruby Grace. You’re meant to be his entire world.”
Ruby Grace let her eyes wander over every inch of my face, as if she was just noticing me for the first time.
And maybe she was.
“I love the way you see me,” she whispered.
I swallowed, heart picking up speed as she leaned in closer, her hands fisted in my shirt, her eyes on my lips.
“I just see you with my eyes.”
“No,” she argued, her lips centimeters from mine, her sweet breath invading my senses. “No, you see me with your soul.” She swallowed, eyes flicking up to mine before they fell back to my mouth. “And I feel you with mine.”
Her lips touched mine tentatively at first — feather light, each of us releasing a shaky, anxious breath. I felt that tiny, almost non-existent touch in every inch of my body. A wave of chills rushed through me, our lips hovering, breaths hard and heavy with want.
With need.
Then, my hands slid into her hair, and I pulled her into me, claiming her mouth like it had never touched another man.
She moaned, melting into me as I deepened the kiss, my lips hard and hot on hers. Her hands twisted in my shirt before she let it go completely, sliding the warmth of her palms beneath the fabric and over my stomach. I shivered at the touch, groaning against her kiss and pulling her closer.
I felt stupid for ever thinking I could know, could fathom, what it would be like to kiss her, to have her in my arms like this.
Kissing Ruby Grace wasn’t like kissing a normal girl. It was like kissing royalty, like kissing a goddess, like being hand-picked by the heavens to surrender your heart forever in exchange for just one, tender, earth-shattering moment.
I surrendered to that moment, to that sacrifice, letting my hands wander her curves, my lips savoring the pressure of hers, my tongue tasting the sweet taste buds of her own. I pulled her closer — tugging, reaching — until she straddled me on the couch.
But when the heat of her center rubbed against my hard-on, I bit her bottom lip, sucking in a groan and releasing her mouth on a panting breath that felt like I’d been sucked back down to Earth and landed flat on my back.
“Stop,” I breathed, pressing my forehead against hers.
Ruby Grace’s chest heaved, her hands still under my shirt, lips parted.
I swallowed. “I don’t want you.”
Her face crumbled at that, brows bending together as she pulled back to look at me.
“Not like this,” I clarified. I reached under my shirt for her hands, folding them in mine and bringing her knuckles to my lips. “I have thought about kissing you since the day you showed up at the distillery, Ruby Grace. And I’d be lying if I said I’d never thought of doing more. But, I… I can’t. Not now. Not when you’re torn up over another man.”
The level of hurt on her face in that moment was enough to make me wish I’d never opened my door in the first place. I knew that kind of hurt — it was rejection. And God, it killed me that I’d been the one to put it there.
But I couldn’t lie to myself, or to her. I wanted her more than I could say, but that didn’t change the fact that she still wore another man’s ring on her finger.
I waited for her to curse, to slap me, to crawl off my lap and slam my door in my face as she stormed out of my house and maybe even out of my life completely.
Instead, she let out a relieved breath, shoulders folding forward as she squeezed my hands that held hers.
“Tonight has nothing to do with him and you know it,” she breathed.
My heart was a stallion in my rib cage, thunderous and powerful, steady and strong.
“We’ve both known it,” she continued. “And I’ve tried to fight it, tried to convince myself that what I felt when I was with you was wrong, that it wasn’t real.” She shook her head. “But it is real. I’m just sorry it took me so long, that it took this, for me to finally admit that to myself.”
I searched her eyes, and when I found nothing but sincerity there, I didn’t know if I wanted to jump and throw my fist in the air or curl into her and fucking sob.
Because I felt it — right then and there on my couch on a normal, summer, Saturday afternoon in Stratford, Tennessee — I felt it and I knew.
The ring on her finger didn’t matter anymore.
She was mine.
And I was hers.
As if to hammer that point home, she kept her eyes locked on mine as she reached down, slipping the ring off her finger and leaning back to deposit it somewhere on the coffee table before she slipped her hands back beneath my shirt.
“Now,” she said, rolling her hips just enough to elicit a stiff breath from me. “I’m going to ask you to kiss me again, Noah Becker. And I won’t ask you twice.”
My lips were on hers before she could even say the words.
Ruby Grace
Dark.
Everything was dark.
Outside, the sun was shining, another bright summer day in Tennessee. But inside Noah’s bedroom, where he was currently kissing me and backing me up — slowly, step by step — it was all dark.
Dark walls. Dark comforter. Dark curtains covering the window and blocking the sun’s light from sneaking through. Blind caresses in the black space between us — lips and necks and hands and sighs. Dark intentions, dark promises waiting to be fulfilled.
His dark hair in my hands, my dark heart in his.
He was just a shadow as he held me, his kisses touching me like a sweet, soft, summer midnight on a tropical island.
I didn’t realize how much a kiss could feel like a vacation.
I didn’t realize how much a person could feel like home.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long,” he breathed against my lips, breaking contact just long enough to whisper the words before his mouth claimed mine again. “And now, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop.”
Every breath was a trembling, shallow sip of air. My body didn’t know how to react with new hands on me, with new lips, a new tongue, a new feeling. I didn’t want to think about another man in that moment, but I couldn’t help it. Because I remembered my first kiss with Anthony.
And it was nothing like this.
Noah’s hands held my face like I was the treasure he’d hunted for his entire life and finally found. He peppered me with kisses before holding me to him longer, slowing it all down, caressing my lips with passionate, silky kisses. He’d slip his tongue inside my mouth, taste me, draw my bottom lip between his teeth and release it on a groan that I felt all the way to my toes.
This wasn’t just a kiss.
This was a dream, a fantasy — and every part of my body surrendered to the impossible realism of it all.
Noah backed me up farther, his hands sliding down to the small of my back to guide me, and when the back of my legs hit the edge of his bed, he stopped, holding me steady.
“Ruby Grace,” he whispered, kissing me again before I could answer.
“Yes,” I barely breathed in return.
“Can I take this dress off you?”
“Yes.”
The word was a longing sigh falling from my lips, and as soon as it had, Noah trailed his fingertips down my arms, hands rolling into fists at my sides and bunching the fabric of my dress up with it. He captured my mouth even harder, sucking in a breath on a passionate kiss before he broke away and lifted the dress up and over my head.
My arms were still in the air when he threw my dress somewhere behind him, and he reached up, meeting my hands with his own as he kissed me again. He wound his fingertips with mine, and somehow, what his hands did to mine was even more sensual than the kiss, than his t-shirt on my half-naked body, than his hard-on pressing through the fabric of his black sweatpants.
I didn’t ask to take his clothes off. Instead, I trailed my hands down, his fingers following mine until I slipped them between us. His hands found my waist as mine dove beneath the band of his sweatpants. I trailed my fingertips from hip bone to hip bone, just under the band, and I groaned when I realized he didn’t have briefs on beneath.
“You surprised me,” he mused with a smirk. “Didn’t have time for underwear.”
“Would have just gotten in the way,” I breathed. Then, I gathered the hem of his shirt in my hands and tugged.
Noah lifted his arms, letting me strip him before he reached around me and unhooked my bra.
I inhaled a stiff breath when he slipped the straps of it over my shoulders, the fabric eliciting a wave of chills as he dragged it down my arms and let it fall on the floor between us. His eyes dipped to my exposed breasts for just the smallest moment before he found my eyes again, his Adam’s apple bobbing hard in his throat.
Then, his lips were on mine again.
My knees buckled when he pressed me back farther, and I fell into his sheets. His lips never left mine as he helped guide me up, crawling over me, every part of him towering over every part of me as he settled between my legs. I sighed when the warmth of his bare chest brushed my nipples, and the heat of him lined up with the heat of me, only his sweatpants and my tiny strap of a thong separating us.
Noah pulled back, balancing on his elbows above me as he searched my eyes, my hair, every centimeter of my face. He seemed to be tracing lines between my freckles — first with his eyes, and then with the tender tip of his finger.
“God, Ruby Grace,” he whispered, shaking his head. “What are you doing to me? I feel like I’m under your spell.”
I smirked, rolling my hips against his. “The real question is, what should I do to you next?”
Noah groaned at the contact, biting his lower lip and kissing me hard before he pulled back again, this time peppering my collarbone with kisses and shifting his weight.
“You aren’t going to do anything to me. Not yet. Not before I get my turn.”
The chuckle I meant to give in response was lost in my throat, kidnapped by a gasp that ripped through me at the shock of his mouth on my sensitive nipple. He sucked gently, rolling his tongue over the puckered tip before trailing over to the other. He massaged the weight of each breast in his hands, his mouth devouring me like I was the sweetest dessert.
And then, he trailed down.
His lips wandered like lost travelers over the hills and valleys of my rib cage, sliding down the middle of my abdomen, traipsing the freckles between my hips before he settled on his elbows between my thighs. His eyes were dark and hooded as he gazed up at me, and with that look of sin holding me captive, he pressed one, feather-light kiss to the wet center of my panties.
I moaned, back arching up off the bed as my fists twisted in the sheets. When he slipped his thumbs under the straps of my thong and slowly trailed it down my thighs, I couldn’t help but watch, and I loved the way his eyes darkened even more when I was bare beneath him.
I’d never had anyone that up close and personal to my vagina.
Anthony never went down on me, and as far as I was concerned, it was just something that happened in the romance movies Betty loved to force me to watch. But the second Noah had my panties off my ankles and dropped somewhere off the bed, he dragged his tongue up the inside of each of my thighs, and then, he pressed that same brush of a kiss to the same spot.
But nothing was between us this time.
Every inch of me trembled at the warmth of that kiss, and even more so at the loss of it. I gripped onto the sheets again, like they could ground me, like somehow they could steady my shaking nerves.
“You’re trembling, Legs,” Noah whispered against the spot he’d just kissed, his breath hot and wet and sending another wave of chills over me.
“I’m so nervous I feel like I’m about to pass out.”
The words flew out before I thought better of them, and Noah laughed, pulling away long enough to look up at me. “Why nervous? It’s just me. It’s just us.”
“I know,” I said, shifting until I was on my elbows and could meet his gaze. “I just… I’ve never…” I didn’t even want to say it, so I just nodded to where he was between my legs. “You know.”
His face sobered. “A man has never eaten your pussy before?”
A fierce blush shaded my cheeks at the p word.
What, am I twelve?
“Never,” I think I said. I wasn’t sure if I just moved my lips or if an actual sound came out.
“Not even your fiancé?”
I shook my head.
For a moment, anger flashed in his eyes, and he shook his head again, jaw muscles ebbing and flowing in tense little pops. Then, he let out a long breath and met my gaze again. “Well, just proves to me once again that he’s a fucking idiot. And now I’m hell bent on devouring your pussy until you have the best orgasm of your goddamn life.”
I swallowed, the blush on my cheeks paling immediately as my fists twisted in the sheets. Noah glanced at my hands, and a devilish smirk spread on his handsome-as-hell face.
“Hold on tight.”
Without another tease, or so much as a warning, his mouth was on me.
On me — as in, his lips surrounded my clit, his tongue tracing the sensitive bud in a circular rhythm before he dragged it back and forth in slow, long rolls.
I fell back into the sheets, my entire body convulsing at the feel of his expert tongue. I couldn’t wrap my head around anything he was doing, and as soon as I felt like I was used to the sensation, his tongue would start a new pattern, or he’d suck my clit between his teeth, or drag his tongue between my lips and dive inside me before returning to my clit.
Every second was a new feeling, a new reason to shake, a new thief of breath.
“Yep,” Noah said, kissing the inside of my thigh as he ran his hand up over my knee. “He’s a fucking idiot. Because you have the sweetest pussy, Ruby Grace.”
I didn’t have time to blush or moan or bite my lip because in the next breath, he slid one finger in
side me, right up to the knuckle.
I was so wet, he slid right in, but I still felt every inch of him stretching me open. I gasped, head rolling back in the pillow, fists abandoning the sheets to fly back and hang onto the top of his headboard. I needed friction. I needed grounding. I needed something to keep me from flying out of this universe entirely at the feel of him inside me and sucking me at the same time.
My mind raced, trying to piece it all together as Noah worked between my legs. I’d never felt so cherished, so worshipped. Having a man between my legs was somehow the most powerful experience, and I reveled in it, letting every time I’d ever wanted to touch him or kiss him build up in my memory before I’d remind myself that it was happening. That time was now.
Noah Becker had his face between my legs, and I was like a prisoner surrendering willingly to whatever consequence lay before us after this moment.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
Nothing but this man and this moment.
Noah stayed between my thighs for hours. I was certain of it. It had to be hours. After working me open, he slipped another finger inside me, his tongue rolling in a new way as he curled his fingers inside me. And I felt it building, like a slow, glowing ember that caught oxygen and exploded into flames with another flick of his tongue.
“Noah,” I breathed, heart racing, legs trembling. “Oh, God. Noah. Noah.”
His free hand gripped my ass, pulling me even more into him, the other working its magic inside me. And when he circled my clit faster, faster, giving me the friction I needed, I completely spiraled.
Sheets and headboard be damned. I flew into the atmosphere, every part of me alive and burning, stars invading my vision as I succumbed to the darkness and panted out each rolling, euphoric wave of my orgasm.
I was floating.
I was soaring.
I was nothing at all and everything I’d ever wanted to be.
My heart was still racing in my chest, breaths loud and heavy in the space between us as Noah slowly climbed his way back up, trailing kisses along the way. When he settled between my already sore legs again, he smirked, brushing my wild hair away from my face and kissing me.
On the Rocks Page 19
