“Charlotte!”
Noah’s voice is panicked as he scrambles out the other side of the car, but I’m already fumbling with the latch on the gate, the twilight storm making it difficult to see anything past my drenched lashes. Hair sticks to my face and neck and just as I feel him against my back, his hand reaching to help, the gate gives way and I fall forward into the garden. My flats slip against my wet feet, and I step out of them ready to leave them until morning. Running on my toes over the cobbled path, I hold my arms up and laugh at the insane amount of rain pouring down over us.
“We’re this far from Portland and still getting soaked,” I call over my shoulder, a drunk laugh threatening to burst. “So much for your beloved sunshine.”
Noah’s hand on my arm spins me around to face him. His hair is a sopping mop, the loose waves hanging over his forehead.
“What you said in the car. Did you mean that?”
I bite my lip, the taste of rainfall mixing with my lowered inhibitions. I could say it was the beer talking, or that our game of pretend had gone to my head and it was a momentary lapse.But standing here, under a freak torrential downpour in the desert, I want to tell the truth.
“Yes.”
The word is barely out and Noah is reaching for me, his hands cupping my face, his lips crushing down over mine. The heat from his kiss melds against all the places chilled from the rain and I reach for him, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling him closer. We’re ravenous, desperate under the heady fog of want. It’s the kind of kiss they film in the movies when lovers reunite after years apart, full of lost moments and whispered promises and punctuated with raindrops. Only for us, it’s the start of something more. The beginning of what could be.
What could be. I break away, backing up the porch stairs and under the overhang. Noah follows, his eyes watching closely as though he’s afraid I’ll run again, tracking me like a predator. His breath is ragged, matching my own uneven gasps. I can still taste him, the way he poured himself into the kiss.
My lip throbs under the memory.
“We shouldn’t,” I whisper.
He reaches for my jaw, his thumb running along the swollen curve of my bottom lip.
“I know.”
His gray eyes are on fire—iron sparking against the wash of rain—and before I can stop it, I’m letting him kiss me again. Our hands dance against each other and in tandem; his run down my sides, gripping my hips and tugging me closer as my palms glide up his arms and link behind his head. With my back pressed against the side of the guest house, his lips whisper along my jaw and down to my collarbone. I’m fighting with everything I have to stop myself from wrapping my legs around his waist and taking him right here on the front porch.
“Fuck,” I breathe, the desire coiling tighter in my belly.
I want him. I want himbad.
“I won’t take this further until I hear you say it, Lottie.”
The sound of my nickname in his ragged tone sends a shiver down my spine and into my toes and I smile. “It’s a little unfair for you to be asking while your face is buried in my neck, and your hard-on is pressed up against my thigh.”
In an instant, Noah stands up straight and holds his hands up as if surrendering. My body aches in all the places he’s no longer touching, the sudden space uncomfortable. A dash of doubt trickles in but the mischievous snark behind his eyes tells me stopping is at the bottom of the list of things he wants to do.
“I hereby promise not to touch another inch of”—he swallows hard, running his gaze up and down my rain soaked form—“of your body, until I hear you say it.”
I consider making him work for it, knowing I might enjoy the satisfaction of watching him pretend he wasn’t incredibly turned on while feeling me up, but the erratic pulse between my legs commands otherwise. I reach for his shirt, twisting it around my fist and pulling him towards me. With his lips a mere inch from mine, I whisper.
“I want you to fuck me, Noah. No more rules, no more words. Take me into this house and show me what you’ve got.”
While his determination was clear before, my consent gives it another edge. Gone is the gentleman who’s opened my doors and made small talk with business associates, and in his place is a man unleashing a voracious hunger. The kissing grows more desperate now as he slides us towards the door, my fingers still wrapped in his shirt, and his hands wandering over every available piece of me. The door swings open and we tumble in, bumping into the entryway table, a vase wobbling and crashing to the ground.
“Shit,” I curse, coming up for air.
The breakables. My shoes are still in the garden, and now there’s broken glass to traipse over. I turn my gaze back towardsthe door, ready to run out and grab them, but let down it will ruin the flow of things. Maybe it’s for the best.
Noah, however, does not let the interruption deter us, and in one fell swoop picks me up and tosses me over his shoulder. Impressed by both his quick thinking and his ability to toss me like a rag doll, I break into a laugh and kick my legs.
“You can’t be serious.”
He crosses the threshold of the bedroom and flops me onto my back. Flashing a quick grin, his lips swollen, he pulls his shirt up and kicks off his shoes. “I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.”
Scrambling up the bed with a laugh, I lie back as he lowers himself down. Our mouths crash together again, and the next wave of laughter dies in my chest.
There is nothing funny aboutthis.
