I’ve never been a one-night stand kind of girl. I haven’t been with anyone since Isaiah left. I shouldn’t do this with my newest employee.
But I want him.
I want the mind-numbing moment he’s offering. He’s wiping clean the slate of concerns in my head. At least for a little while.
Suddenly, I’m moving. With staggered steps backward, I’m eventually plastered against the wall, where Noah grinds into me.
“Oh, God,” I murmur against his mouth. The press of his covered cock against the seam of my leggings sends an erotic jolt up my middle. I want him inside me, but I don’t want to break this kiss. This powerfully electric spell.
Noah rocks forward, and my hips respond. If he keeps this up, I’m going to come in my pants.
Then I realize that’s his plan.
Without officially touching me, he’s working me up, winding me tight, and I’ll have no other recourse than to unravel. With my leg hitched over his hip, I flex. His hand in my hair fists firmer. His other hand clasps my ass, forcing my center to rub and rub and rub at the large length straining inside his jeans.
“Noah,” I whisper. Or am I warning him? He’s going to break me, and I want to shatter. “Please.” The whimper escaping me says it all.
“Let go, little bird.” His voice isn’t demanding but straining in its own right.
My underwear is soaked with desire. My thighs clench, and my clit throbs.
Noah’s hand on my backside squeezes while he grinds against me again, harder and faster. If only he were deeper. The thought of him thrusting into me pushes me over the edge.
“Ohmygod.” Both surprised and pleasurably relieved, I choke as a fierce orgasm rips through me. My breath hitches while I cling to him, afraid to release him, afraid to break the spell he’s put me under. Our mouths have broken apart while I gasp for air, and Noah’s breath stirs the hair near my temple.
“Fuck, you’re going to make me come,” he mutters.
He rocks forward once more and stills. Lowering his forehead to my shoulder, he presses his hard length against my center, and through cotton and denim, I feel him pulsing, pumping, responding to me.
Quickly, Noah pulls back and swipes a palm down his face. His eyes widen as he looks at me. I can’t seem to help the satisfied grin gracing my lips, but Noah appears stunned.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.” His eyes lower briefly as if he can see the evidence of what he’s done to me. He’s just given me quite the orgasm. And he came as well.
Glancing back up, he points at me. “You.” He pauses, pointing at himself. “Me.” He exhales. “That was supposed to be all for you.” He takes another deep breath. “Not …” He mouths the word me as if he’s stumped, flabbergasted by his reaction to me.
It shouldn’t be that big of a surprise. We were both turned on. His hardness proves his desire. He wanted me.
Didn’t he?
3
[Noah]
Just what the fuck was she doing to me?
Finding her standing inside this guest room, staring out the window, she looked so lost, so alone. On some level, I could relate, but I didn’t want to relate to her. I didn’t have space for relations in my life. I was only here because I needed a job. I wanted to keep my résumé full and my time filled while seeking another position.
But when she touched me earlier. After three days of building tension, she coasted her fingertips down my hand, working some strange magic. Little shocks crackled over my skin like touching a doorknob after crossing carpet, only this inn hardly has any carpeting, and the doorknobs have all been tightened.
By me, thank you very much. I can so wield a hammer…and a zipper, little miss smart-ass.
However, that kiss was only meant for her. The meeting of our lips wasn’t supposed to be tit for tat. I wanted to take her worries for a few minutes. It wasn’t supposed to rattle me. None of the kisses I’ve ever given have been anything other than a means to an end. That’s how people treated me.
Gotta show people you’re good enough, my dad would always say.
Needed tickets to a basketball game? That was me.
Immediate reservations at a restaurant with a four-month wait? I was your man.
Lonely, rich woman passing through town? I could accommodate.
But something was different here.
Maybe it was Tessa’s reaction—her eager response and quick release. Maybe it was the way her body relaxed like she was giving me control and really giving me her worries. She wanted me to take her concerns from her, and even more surprising was that I was glad to carry her burden. Not that there was any hardship in what just happened, other than I jizzed in my jeans like a randy teenager instead of a man of forty-five.
“I’m sorry that wasn’t what you expected.”
Her haughty tone snaps me out of my head, and I blink. Then I blink again, taking in the stern expression on her face but the hesitation in her eyes. The look is a contradiction between the fierceness she wants to portray and hurt.
She’s in over her head like she said earlier, and the last thing she needs is a complication like me, like what we just did. Only I couldn’t help myself. The sorrow coming off her skin. The scent of meadow flowers and honey. I needed to connect with her. Touching her neck, feeling her pulse fluttering under my fingers like a tiny bird flapping its wings…I just had to have more of her.
I step toward her, crowding her space as she remains pinned to the wall.
“It was more than I expected,” I admit, finding myself in a rare position of vulnerability.
“Really?” The softening of her face and surprise in her tone cause my own insides to flap around like a caged bird.
Dammit. What is this reaction to her?
I nod and take a step backward, keeping my eyes on her. Then I take another large step, still facing her, like a damn magnet that can’t quite break the attraction. She remains against the wall, watching me, waiting for me to move. Finally, I spin and exit the room, expecting her to be right behind me, but when I take a final glance down the hallway, she isn’t emerged. She’s still inside room twenty-seven.
+ +
I escape the inn and return to my rented condo on the lake, taking a quick shower and washing away the evidence of my behavior. Not able to stand my own company or the thoughts racing through my head, I make an impromptu visit to my brother, who happens to live down the street from Bluebird Hollow.
Zack is three years younger than me and newly in love with the woman who inherited our childhood home. Their tale is quite the romance from last summer, and my brother learned a lot about love in his early forties.
Me? I’m not certain I’ll ever understand the meaning of the word.
I let myself into his backyard. Nothing obstructs his view of the lake, and I gaze out at the dark water in the distance. Late spring brings longer days, but we have months to go before the sun hangs in the sky, stretching out the evenings and brightening the sunsets. As I stand in my former yard, fond memories fill my head as they have since Zack moved into this old house. When Zack and I were kids, our family was happy here, or so we thought.