“I know, right?” said AJ. “Did you see my decorative plants? They’re to make the opposite gender feel at home.”
Noah replaced the mug and walked over to her Billy bookcase. “I can’t believe you still have this,” he said, tapping the cracked spine ofLaughter & Death.
“Oh wow, I forgot,” AJ lied. She really, really did not want to give it back.
Noah surveyed her living room. “Aren’t Tauruses supposed to be domestic?”
AJ shrugged. “According to my sister-in-law, I’m on the cusp with Aries, if that helps you.”
Noah squinted. “I don’t know if anything can help that couch.”
AJ’s jaw dropped. “That is a standard-issue Ektorp,” she said, then proceeded to fuck him on it.
They arrived, flushed, at his car twenty minutes later, Noah carrying the duffel bag, AJ shuttling her snake plants, to two hundred sixty dollars in parking fines.
“Maybe I’ll get an Ektorp,” said Noah, popping the trunk.
“They cost about as much as those tickets,” said AJ.
The next few weekstransformed AJ into someone she didn’t recognize. Overnight, she had gone from being a person with a very perfunctory sexual appetite to being one who was always a little bit turned on, and the effects were filthy and mind melting and disruptive and exhilarating and explicit and sweet.
She and Noah both wished to make up for lost time, and this, alongwith their heightened sense of each other, meant that even the slightest look could turn into a one-way ticket to bone town.
One morning about a week into her stay, AJ put on one of Noah’s giant sweatshirts and traipsed downstairs to do her laundry. She had never been inside this room before and as she sorted her clothes, she wondered idly how many hours Mrs. Gilroy had devoted to the space.
The housekeeper’s reign had indeed ended. AJ opened the cabinet to find that the fancy lavender detergent she associated with this house had been replaced by off-brand soap from Costco.
Behind her, Noah’s footsteps sounded in the hall. She turned to find him dressed for a run.
“Need a hand?” he asked, pausing on his way out. There was a note in his voice that made AJ’s entire body flush.
“Nope, I’m good,” she said, reaching for the detergent. The sweatshirt she was wearing rode up slightly, as she knew it would.
He was there before she could turn around, his hands on her hips, lifting up the sweatshirt to expose her bare lower half. AJ gasped as his hand slipped between her legs. She was already wet.
Noahgroaned.
“Do you remember that day?” he said low, in her ear. The timbre of his voice sent a chill through AJ, who wasn’t sure how much longer her legs would hold her. It was all she could do to nod.
“So do I,” he said, and pressed her against the washing machine so she could feel his erection. AJ gasped; as her knees began to give, he spun her around and lifted her onto the washer. His hands were in her hair, his mouth demanding on hers as AJ fumbled with his shorts.
AJ moaned as he pushed into her. Noah hissed, his teeth grazing her neck as he thrust again.
“Can I tell you something?” she said, wrapping her legs around his hips, her hands sweeping up his chest to grab his shoulders. “That day. Your shirt was completely see-through—”
“Can I tellyousomething?” He palmed her right ass cheek, gripping her hard. “So was yours.”
AJ stared at him. “I wasn’t wearing a bra.”
“Iknow,” said Noah. He was really fucking her now.
“I didn’t even see you look—” said AJ, panting as he piled into her. She leaned back onto her elbows, taking him deeper.
Noah winced as a wave of pleasure surged through him. “I was hard as a fucking rock.”
He was actually going to destroy her. “I had no idea,” AJ managed.
The friction was almost blinding now. She was barely hanging on.
