“I don’t think so,” I tell him.
“Just as friends?”
“I still don’t think so,” I repeat.
“What’s Noah got that I don’t?”
A personality.
“What does Noah have to do with this?”
Colin shrugs and takes a swig from his beer while offering the ocean a contemplative longing look. “I’ve seen the way you look at him.”
“So what?”
“I want a shot too.”
I snicker without hiding the snide inflection I’m purposely ensuing. “Yeah, I’m not a bull at a rodeo, bud.”
“I could be the bull if you’d prefer,” he counters.
“I think I’m all set, but thanks for the creepy offer.”
Colin sighs and shakes his head. “I’m just being real with you. I like you. I want to get to know you more.”
“I’ve got nothing,” I tell him.
“You’re supposed to get to know all of us before making a decision.”
This time my laugh is more from anger. I sometimes laugh when I’m angry, and well, I might look a little crazed right now. “I’m not actually for sale; I’m not a prize. I’m not up for grabs, and I don’t know how else to explain this to you.”
“We were told an attractive, young, single woman would be living on the property, and one of us might be lucky enough to sweep you off your feet.”
“Were you?” I’m not surprised to hear this. I figured most of this out based on the other facts. “Still not up for grabs.” I tap my hand against his chest. “Good luck, though.”
Noah steps back into the scene and takes my hand. “Excuse us,” he says to Colin. Noah pulls me away from the bonfire. We’re moving so quickly my feet are hardly making contact with the sand.
The last thing I see before we step out of view is Olivia clinking her bottle against Alexander’s beer bottle.
I’m slowing down as we continue to run. The sand is dry and forcing me out of breath quicker than I normally would be when going for a run.
Noah slows down and glances back at me. “You okay?”
“Out of breath,” I tell him.
He scoops me up and slides me onto his back, holding onto my arms. “Hang on tight.” The adrenaline running through me fills my mind and body with excitement. I don’t know what’s happening or where we’re going, but I like the thought of the surprise.
We make it to a high-standing dock and stop beneath it. Noah lowers me off his back and pulls me into his chest.
The shadows cover us with pin spots of the moonlight shining through the wooden cracks. “You’re incredible,” Noah says. “I was sure nothing would bring me down during this stupid study, but I’ll be damned.”
“Don’t lose the prize money over me, Noah.”
“Haven’t you heard the phrase, ‘There are some things money can’t buy?’”
“Of course, but I think it’s a stupid phrase,” I tell him, laughing against the apprehension tugging against my chest.
“You do?” he presses.
I shrug against his hold. “I don’t know.”
Noah lifts me up, holding his arms beneath my butt. I’m eye-level with him, and I instinctually tangle my legs against his waist. “Can I show you what money can’t buy?”
“I suppose,” I say, teasing him.
Noah walks us a few steps back, pinning my back against one of the wooden stilts supporting the dock. Freeing his hands from holding me up, he cups his palms around my cheeks. “I’m a man who usually knows what I want, Ashley. Like I said though, I didn’t see you coming.”
“Well, here I am,” I whisper.
Noah inches his face closer to mine, touching the tip of his nose to my nose. He smells like sea salt and coconut, a scent that’s making me weak. “Are you sure you want to ruin everything?” I ask once more.
“I’m not ruining a damn thing, Miss Ashley.” His lips softly touch mine, and my heart feels explosive. His breath is minty, and his tongue tastes the same: cool and spicy.
A low murmur growls from his throat as his body presses against mine, holding me tightly to the wooden support. His hands tangle in my hair, and I feel secure in his hold, melting into him with every second longer we remain connected at the lips.
I trace my tongue along his bottom lip, and then nip where I licked with my teeth.
Noah pulls his head back and groans. “I knew you’d do me in.”
“Is kissing allowed, or does that break the rules?”
“I haven’t broken a rule yet,” he says with a raised brow, taunting the idea.
We’re silently staring at each other as heat burns through every nerve in my body. “Let’s just run.” The words aren’t coming from Noah.
“What was that?” I ask.
Noah places me down on my feet, and we both turn around looking for the source of the sound.
“Just come clean,” I hear.
“Theo?” I call out. I recognize his voice.
“Pretend you don’t see us,” he says.
It’s dark under here, so I only make out Theo and Jim’s shadows as they run back toward the bonfire.
“Uh?” Noah says, questioning what just happened.
“I think they’re feeling the same stress we are right now.”
“Ha, I had no idea. Good for them,” Noah says. “Maybe they know how to beat the system.”
“If they’re hiding under here too, I assume not.”
“True,” Noah replies. “I guess we should return to the auction.”
I slap his chest. “Not funny,” I tell him. Although I’m sure he’s not taking me seriously as I giggle through my statement.
“Hey,” he says, taking my hand within his. “I’d walk away from all this tomorrow if it meant something might happen between us.”
“It’s only five more months,” I remind him.
“I don’t know if I can keep myself in control around you.”
“Fire me then,” I tell him.
“I’m the finest masochist there is,” he tells me.
“So you like a challenge?” I question.
“That’s my middle name.”
“It’s on, Noah.”
Surely, this will end well.
Chapter 21
When we arrive back at the bonfire, I see the anger written across several faces. It seems as though all conversations have paused, and a spotlight is on Noah and me.
I search around for Olivia, hoping she’s still chatting with Alex, rather than looking for me. I probably shouldn’t have just left without warning her, but Noah kind of dragged me away, even though I sort of went willingly.
It takes me a minute for my eyes to adjust to the area with the glowing fire before I spot Olivia, still chatting with Alex.
She places her hand on his shoulder, smiles, and heads toward me. The look on her face seems unsure or flustered. “I have to get going,” she says. “I wanted to find you before I left.”
“I’m so sorry,” I tell her. “Noah just had to speak to me for a moment.”
Olivia winks as if she knows what I mean by speaking. Either that or she can see the flush coloring that’s likely masking my face. “Oh, no, it’s nothing you did. I wanted to stay, remember?”
“Oh,” I reply. “Well, is everything okay?”
Olivia scratches at her head, above her ear. “Yes, and no. It’s only been six months, and I shouldn’t enjoy talking to another man. Not yet. Although, did you know Alex lost his wife to cancer a few years back? He’s got quite a story too. Poor guy.”
“Oh my gosh,” I spit out. I had no idea about Alex. That’s terrible.
Noah reaches forward and places his hand on her shoulder. “Coming from a Marine, I assure you, your husband would want you to be happy, and I’m almost positive he would be okay with you having a friend who understands what you’re going through on a level most people don’t understand. However, you need to do what feels right to you.”
She sighs he
avily. “I was flirting with him. I don’t do that,” she says. “We both have a shitty history, and yet, there we were, laughing about life.”
“You looked happy,” I tell her. “It’s okay to be happy, Olivia.”
“I was, but then I felt guilty.”
I lunge for Olivia and give her a tight hug. “Your heart will tell you when it’s time,” I say to her. I don’t have any experience with losing a spouse, but I imagine the pain will eventually subside enough for her to focus on the future more.
“Thank you for saying that,” she says. “Besides this intense weirdness here at the bonfire, I had a fun night. I needed tonight, and I hope we can do it again sometime.”
“I won’t leave you alone when we hang out again,” I tell her.
“Tell that cutie-pie of yours we said hello,” Noah adds in.
“Mia will love to hear that,” Olivia says.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” Theo says, walking toward us.
Theo, Jim, and Olivia say goodnight and leave the party full of hostile-looking men.
“It’s only been a week,” Colin hollers from in between the small crowd of men, standing around, sipping on their beers.
“A week,” I reply. “A week where none of you made any effort to get to know me. A week where most of you spent the only five minutes we chatted, talking about yourself. I didn’t come here looking for a man. I came here looking for a job and to take advantage of the free rent my brother offered me. Yet, you came here for a completely different reason, signed your lives away for this reason, and now you’re lonely.” I realize I sound like I’m on a soapbox, but the expectations these men have are incredibly absurd, and I don’t think they even know what they want. “You’re all attractive men with successful careers, but again, that isn’t why I came here. However, you should all focus on the reason you signed up for this study, take each day as it comes, and realize what you agreed to. I was not what you agreed to.”
The men have a synonymous look of shame written across their faces, so I check on Noah who is standing slightly behind me. He has the same look. The difference between them and Noah is that he made an effort to get to know me. He was honest upfront. I’m sure most of these guys are great, but maybe they have something more to learn before this study is over. “So ... you’ve made your choice then?”
This isn’t a choice. I wasn’t choosing someone. “If that’s how you want to still look at this after everything I just said, then yes, I’m falling for Noah.” I swear I hear a whimper from the dark crowd. “Look, I know you must all be lonely living in this situation, but in five months, you’ll have a new outlook on life, and you’ll be able to find a type of love you don’t have to fight for.”
“I’m out of here,” one of the guys who is standing farthest away says. I squint to make out who it is. I think his name is Chad, but I didn’t spend much time talking to him. “I don’t care about the money, and I’m not going to sit around and wait for one chick to choose me out of nine others.”
Nice. I have some choice words I could respond with, but in reality, I don’t blame him. He made a mistake thinking he could participate in this study, so be it.
Chad makes his way over to me with a pure look of despondency. He takes my hands and places a kiss on my right cheek. “I wish you luck, Ashley. I wish we had gotten the chance to get to know each other a little more, but that’s life, right?”
“Thank you for being here,” I say without thinking. Why am I thanking him? He didn’t come here for me. I’m here to be a tool to make people like Chad leave the study. In any case, I feel bad.
The rest of the men slowly disperse. The clink of beer bottles falling into a metal bin by the path shuddersthrough my body, one after the other. I’m surprised Noah is still standing behind me.
“You’re falling for me?”
“It’s been a long week,” I tell him, twisting around to face him. “I’ve come to see what I don’t want, what I want to avoid for the rest of my life, and the type of men I might actually be afraid of, but then there was you. Honest, integral, real, and we’ll add extremely hot into the mix because you are. I like you, Noah, and I think I want to like you a lot more after we spend time together.”
A cute smile perks along Noah’s lips. “You like me?”
“I do,” I tell him, sounding shy.
“I really like you too, Ash,” he says, pulling me in and refreshing the feeling of what the kiss under the dock did to me.
I pull back an inch, needing to add in that, “I might want a lot more of this too.” My words whisper into his mouth.
Noah twists his head to the side, speaking softly near my ear. “Want to run away for a few?”
“Would you think less of me if I said yes?”
He places a soft kiss on my neck, and my body temperature skyrockets.
“Maybe,” he says.
“Think less of me, then.”
Noah hums a sigh of relief into my ear and takes my hand, leading me back toward the docks.
Without exploring this direction of the island yet, I wasn’t aware of the gorgeous hotel situated on the water just a half mile down the shore.
It’s the direction we’re heading. Noah apparently has a key to the resort as he scans a card in front of a small machine at the pool gate. “If you had a bathing suit on, I’d say we could take a quick dip in the hot tub.”
Now, what kind of bachelorette would I be if I didn’t show up to a bonfire without a tiny bikini under my casual sundress?
“I do,” I tell him. Without wasting time, I cross my hands on the bottom hem of my dress and pull the material up and over my head, revealing the skimpy black bikini I purposely decided to wear, without knowing if Noah would actually get to see it.
“Wow,” he says. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
I wasn’t expecting that he’d have on short, tight board shorts beneath his dress pants. However, I enjoy the surprise as he drops his pants to the pool ground.
With the need to take the lead, I take the first few steps down into the hot tub, giving my body a minute to adjust to the heat.
Noah follows. My heart is racing, both from the quiet and the hot temperatures, and I have the urge to continue our kiss from earlier.
“Maybe we should talk more,” I tell him.
“We can do that,” he says.
“But maybe—“
Noah takes my arm and pulls me through the water to straddle his seated waist. “Maybe, what?”
I place my wet hands on his cheeks and touch my lips to his. The excitement of our connection isn’t hidden below the water. His hardness is obvious beneath me, and it’s a turn on. I rest my body down closer to his, teasing him. His hands wrap around me, cupping my butt cheeks firmly, but when his thumb glides down the center, shocks of excitement burn through me. I grind gently on top of his lap, press my breasts against his bare chest and continue our deep, hard kiss full of passion.
His fingers slip beneath the material of my bikini bottom, and then slip inside of me, gliding in and out slowly as he touches the most sensitive spot over and over, torturously. My body is moving harder against his, and I push the thoughts of people watching us from their balcony away. “I need more,” I whisper against his lips.
His fingers continue dancing inside of me, and I let out a cry louder than I should while bucking against his hand and cock. “More than this?”
“Please,” I beg.
A look of mischief flashes through his eyes as he lifts me up and switches places with me. My pulse races when Noah pulls in a deep breath and disappears beneath the hot water.
One hand falls to my thigh, and the other pulls the material of my bikini away. Then, I feel his tongue parting me. I toss my head back, knowing this won’t last long. He knows what he’s doing. It’s clear by the thrusts and movement of his tongue. I grapple my fists in his short hair and bite my lip to stop the screams. My body unravels and shudders against his mouth, informing him I’ve reached the
end.
Noah emerges from the water and takes a moment to catch his breath. He catches his long before I catch mine.
“I’m going to get us both towels,” he says.
I keep my eyes closed, avoiding the truth of watchful eyes or people passing by. I don’t want to tarnish the moments we just shared.
After a quick minute, Noah returns with a towel wrapped around his waist, a towel for me, and our clothes piled beneath his other arm.
I step out of the hot tub, feeling the cold air cover my skin in the seconds before I can wrap myself in the towel. The sensations are electric.
We collect our clothes and quietly make our way into the hotel and into the elevator. Noah corners me, forcing my back against the wall as he plunges his mouth against my neck, sucking and biting gently. He kisses his way up to my ear. “This is the longest elevator ride in the world.”
“Mmm,” I mutter.
The doors open and I follow Noah down the hall he seems familiar with. He unlocks the door for room number 1101, and we step inside.
Before dropping his clothes into a pile on the floor, Noah reaches into his suit-coat pocket and tosses a condom onto the bed, making his intentions clear. I want his intentions.
His bathing suit falls to the ground, exposing more perfection across his rippled, tanned and toned body. Some men overcompensate with muscles to make up for lacking something in a different department, but Noah is hung like no man I’ve seen before.
He slowly paces over to me and removes my bikini by pulling to the strings loose. He lifts me with one arm and carefully tosses me onto the bed that has already received a turndown service.
Noah pulls the sheets over us and in the same motion, takes a quick minute to slip the condom on. “Is this okay?” he asks as if this wouldn’t be okay after everything we just did in a public hot tub.
He’s hovering over my body, and I reach for his cock, pressing it against my opening, hoping that will answer his question of whether this action is okay.
“It’s been a while for me, be easy,” I tell him.
“Easy like a roller coaster ride?” he asks.
I don’t know what he means, but I agree with a moan as he enters me. His movements are slow to start, but his hands are wild, grabbing my breast, pinching my nipples before he devours each one as if they’re his favorite flavored lollipop. My fingernails are digging into his back muscles, holding on for dear life while we climb to the top.
The Bachelor Beach: The Love Connection Series - Villa One Page 16
