He nuzzled into the crook of my shoulder and replied with a soft growl. “My wife.”
“That’s not a taste.”
“Mmm. It is now.” He turned me around and set one hand low on my belly where my jeans gaped open, the other on my shoulder. “Remember what I said about being quiet?”
“Yeah, it’s why I have a perfect impression of my teeth on either side of my thumb.”
“I’ll have to kiss it and make it better.”
He walked me up the stairs like we couldn’t risk making a single sound. The pressure to maintain this silence swelled inside me, pressing at my breastbone and pulling my shoulder blades tight. I didn’t realize until we reached his bedroom, on the opposite end of the house from Gennie’s, that this feeling was anticipation. It was a delicious kind of stress—just like the drive home—and I was all the way back to simmering again.
When he opened the door to his room, a breath whooshed out of me at the sight of his big bed complete with a navy and white quilt and two layers of pillows of the appropriate size and quantity.
“What was that for?” he asked, his broad chest warm against my back.
“You have pillows.Realpillows.” I looked up at him. “Men never have real pillows.”
He glanced between me and the bed as he closed and locked the door. “Yeah. That’s interesting.” He shifted the hand on my belly lower until his fingers cupped me between my legs. “Is this okay?”
I dropped my head back to his shoulder. “Yes.”
He moved his other hand over my shoulder to my breast. He was hard against my ass. I couldn’t miss the solid ridge of him or the way he rocked between my cheeks. “What about this sweater?”
I wiggled to free myself from the sweater but Noah wasn’t having that. He gave my pussy a rough squeeze and whispered, “Slow down.”
Motioning to the bed, I whined, “But I don’t want to slow down.”
He pressed his mouth to my neck, saying, “We have to discuss a few things before we take another step toward that bed, sweetheart. I need you to talk to me about protection and I need you to tell me what’s off-limits for you.”
Suddenly shy, I fixed my gaze on the quilt. “I had all the tests done in July after my—well, after my last situation went down in flames. Everything came back clear.” I forced all memory of the ex from my mind. He wasn’t entitled to destroy this too. “And I have an IUD. So.”
“I haven’t been with anyone in months. Since before Gennie moved in. No one since my last check-up.”
“So, then,” I started, forming bold words from nothing, “we can skip the condoms.”
“Is that what you want?”
“I—um.” I had no idea what I wanted. No, that wasn’t true. I wanted to be held down again. Pinned in place in his truck, backed into the corner of the kitchen. Trapped yet completely safe. And I wanted him over me, around me, inside me. But that wasn’t the question. “Yes. Is that okay with you?”
“That works.” He stroked my cheek, my jaw. “What’s off-limits?”
“After what happened in the kitchen”—a laugh burst out of me—“nothing.”
“I don’t believe that.” Noah traced around my nipple, careful to never circle too close and accidentally give me what I wanted. “You’ll stop me if you don’t like something. Understand? I want to hear you. I don’t want to hurt you or freak you out or—look, it matters to me that it’s good for you, Shay. I need you to talk to me.”
I could’ve lied to myself and said he didn’t have to worry about making it good for me. I could’ve said this was meaningless sex. Casual. No strings. What happened tonight didn’t have to matter. It didn’t have to be important.
I could’ve lied and told Noah as much.
“Yeah. Yes. Okay.” I bobbed my head. “I’ll talk to you but only if I’m allowed to touch you.”
“Why do you want to touch me?”
He asked this question while dragging his finger along the outer edges of my underwear, the scrap of fabric a second away from officially being declared an island since I was wet like an ocean between my legs. And he asked this question as if there was something fundamentally curious about me wanting to rub my hands all over his body.
“Because this thing you’re doing, the plaid shirts with the rolled-up sleeves and the broken-in jeans, the beard, the ball caps, the growling—god, can’t forget all the growling—it’s impeccable. Flawless. And when you touch me and do all these things to me, I don’t want to feel them alone. Does that make sense? I don’t want to be alone in this. I need you with me.”
His first response came in the form of him spanking—yes,spanking—my pussy. An open-handed slap that echoed off my clit and folded me over at the waist as a garbled cry of “Gahhhhfuck” rattled out of me.
