"Me neither," I admit.
The admission breaks any remaining restraints between us. He pulls me against him, his mouth claiming mine in a kiss that's both familiar and new—the same heat, the same hunger, but now weighted with possibility rather than fleeting connection.
I melt into him, my hands gripping the lapels of his suit, my body remembering exactly how we fit together. This isn't the desperate urgency of strangers seizing a moment during a storm. This is deliberate. Chosen.
When we finally break apart, both breathless, his forehead rests against mine. "So," he says, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth, "about those candles..."
Chapter 14
Brian
We barely make it up the stairs, stopping every few steps to kiss like teenagers. My pea coat lies abandoned somewhere near the register, and my suit jacket is discarded on the landing. When Noa fumbles with her keys at the apartment door, I press against her back and kiss the sensitive spot below her ear that I discovered during the snowstorm.
"You're not helping," she laughs, but the tremor in her voice reveals her arousal.
"I'm highly motivated," I murmur against her skin.
Once inside, she turns to face me, her eyes reflecting the city lights streaming through the windows. The apartment feels like a haven—familiar yet new, just as I remembered, but somehow more significant now.
"The menorah," she says, yet she doesn't move toward it.
"In a minute." I cup her face in my hands. "I need to look at you first."
She's breathtaking in the dim light, her professional composure softened at the edges. Her blue dress hugs every curve, and when I run my hands down her sides, she shivers.
"Four days," I tell her. "Four days of meetings and flights and hotel rooms, thinking about nothing but you."
"I thought it was just me," she admits. "Counting days, remembering everything."
I kiss her again, deeper this time, walking her backward toward her bedroom. Unlike our first night together, there's no storm raging outside and no power outage forcing intimacy. This is a deliberate and clear-eyed choice.
Her bedroom is bathed in the soft glow of her little light. She stretches out to turn it off, but I catch her wrist.
"Leave it," I say. "I want to see you."
I unzip her dress slowly, reverently, and let it slide down her body to pool at her feet. She stands before me in black lace underwear, curves generous and inviting. My breath catches.
"You're staring," she whispers.
"Appreciating," I correct her, tracing the line of her collarbone with my fingertips. "There's a difference."
She reaches for my tie and loosens it with practiced movements. "Your turn."
I let her undress me, each button on my shirt exposing more of myself to her. When she pushes the shirt from my shoulders, her hands linger on my chest, fingers threading through the dark hair there.
"I missed this," she confesses. "I missed you."
The words strike something profound within me. How can she miss me after just one night? How can I miss her like a limb I've lost? None of it makes sense, yet it feels more real than anything I've ever known.
When we're down to just underwear, she surprises me by sinking to her knees. "I didn't get to do this last time," she says, looking up through dark lashes.
My body responds instantly, straining against cotton boxers. "Noa, you don't have to?—"
"I want to." Her fingers hook into my waistband. "I want to taste you."
I'm helpless to resist as she frees me, her warm breath ghosting over sensitive skin. When her mouth finally closes around my sensitive tip, I groan, one hand instinctively tugging on her curls.
Time slows as she works me with lips and tongue, finding a rhythm that has me fighting for control. Noa is unlike any other lover—such care, such attention to my responses. Her hands steady my hips as she takes me deeper, and the sight of her—this brilliant, confident woman on her knees for me—nearly undoes me completely.
