This was my best idea ever.
I didn’t even realize I’d said it out loud until a wide, bright smile broke out over his face. That brief pause from the harsh, dangerous version of Noah, the one who looked ready to eat me whole, had a whole different effect on me. One that was just as potent.
“It’s been a while for me,” he admitted, sliding his hands up my legs as they fell open for him.
“Has it?” I gasped, tilting my chin up when he caught the edge of my shorts with tightly bound fingers and tightly bound strength. “F-for me too.”
“That’s why this first time will be fast and hard.” He leaned over me and took my mouth again in a kiss so dirty, I started squirming for relief.
“Yes, please,” I begged.
He smiled again. My shorts were whisked off, and he leaned back to stare at me unabashedly.
“Next time,” he said in a rough, uneven voice. His hands gripped my hips and pressed me into the bed. “Next time, I’ll take my time.” He cupped one breast and rolled his thumb. “Here.” His hand slid between my legs. “Here.” He bit my bottom lip. “Everywhere.”
“Noah,” I groaned.
He prowled between my legs, and as I registered the feel of each slab of muscle on his chest and stomach pressing against my soft skin, my back arched so I could feel more, more, more.
There was a pause before he delivered on his promise of fast and hard, both adjectives equally as exciting to me, and at that moment, his eyes held mine.
This matters.
It was hard to remember our promise of two nights, of this protected space to exorcise whatever had been brewing between us when we shared a look, a moment, a breath so heavy and poignant. But then he shifted forward, forward, forward in a long, slow slide, and with a long, slow groan from deep within his massive chest, I forgot everything but him.
He didn’t stop until he was tight against me, and his arms curled under my shoulders and tucked me firmly against his chest. I had to swallow a loud sob of relief at the way he was wound around me, in me, filling me.
For another moment, he held impossibly still, and it had me shift my hips up in a restless, anxious movement. He sucked in a breath through gritted teeth.
“Molly,” he groaned. “I can’t… I can’t…”
I gripped his face and sucked at his lips. “If you stop right now, I’ll murder you in your sleep.”
Noah rolled his forehead on mine. “Once I move, I can’t hold back. I don’t want to hurt you.”
I brushed my nose against his. “Give me everything,” I whispered. “I can take it.”
And he did.
With harsh pants of breath against my skin that felt like he was branding me with hot strikes, Noah pulled back and, true to his word, gave me everything he had.
It was all I could do to hold on as he moved with ruthless, unrelenting snaps of his hips, unleashing his strength in the bunching muscles that had me pinned to the bed. I clapped a hand over his mouth when he groaned loudly, and I had to bite down on my own lips when I felt the cresting, rolling wave of pleasure, the bright burst of ecstasy that split me wide open.
Behind my fingers, he shouted roughly and then slowed his movements. I tilted my pelvis up to draw each last pulse of pleasure and finally opened my mouth to kiss him deeply. He tangled his fingers in my hair and let the full weight of his body collapse onto mine. I wrapped my arms around his back and held on with deep, shuddering breaths.
When he tried to roll off me, I tightened my arms, and he chuckled. His skin smelled like masculine soap, and I wanted to get high off it. I practically already was. In this bed, in this room, I could easily pretend that nothing existed but me and Noah.
“You’re not allowed to leave yet,” I informed him haughtily.
Noah pulled back in surprise. “No?”
I shook my head. “That’s part of the South Dakota agreement. If we only get two nights, I get maximum bed sharing.”
His eyes traced my face, and the sated smile he wore did funny things to my insides. I’d never seen him look so at peace. So happy. “Just running to the bathroom, greedy girl.”
Greedy.
Such an appropriate term, I thought as I watched him stroll naked from the bed into the adjoining bathroom. He let out a satisfied groan, which had me burying my dumb smile in the pillow under my head. Yes, greedy was right. The dim light from the bathroom bounced off the angles and curved lines of his muscles as he walked back.
I wanted to hoard him. Clutch him to me and impatiently demand more of his lips and tongue and hands. If I could only collect a handful of these salacious memories of Noah Griffin, I’d need them to be good.
He must have been feeling the same way because for the next couple of hours, he was insatiable. More than likely the byproduct of withholding for as long as he had. If the rumors were true, Noah had years of unspent sexual tension that needed to be unleashed somewhere, and oh sweet mercy, I was glad it was me who was benefiting. Again. And again. And again.
By the time I lost count of how many times he brought me over the peak, I was so exhausted that my eyes could hardly stay open, and still his hands didn’t stop running over the tight tips of my breasts or the curve of my ass … he really liked it there. The hollow of my belly button. Noah was storing up memories of his own, and it was past two before we fell into a deep sleep, his arms curled around me as I laid tucked against his side.
I woke briefly when he climbed out, and it was still dark outside.
“What time is it?” I mumbled as he kissed my forehead.
“Early. I just need to get downstairs before anyone else wakes up,” he whispered. “Go back to sleep.”
Like a good girl who’d been screwed into oblivion all night, I did as I was told.
When I woke, it was bright, and the sounds of the small farm echoed through my room. I stretched and couldn’t stop the happy wince at all the places I felt evidence of my night with Noah.
Deliciously sore, as I’d read in almost every romance novel that I loved so much.
It was used so much because it was effing accurate.
I showered and left the room with my game face on.
There would be no sex-drugged looks in his direction.
No daydreaming of how tight his hands held my hips during the third—
or was it the second?
—round.
No staring at him and remembering what he looked like when he pressed my knees up and braced them on his chest.
And we did well.
Feeding the horses with his grandma was as exciting as I thought, and she laughed at me when I bounced on my toes at the thought of brushing them out for her. Occasionally, I felt eyes on me as we worked in the barn, but I never caught Noah looking in my direction.
When Rick suggested they walk around the property, I followed along. And even though I had the thought that my presence was completely superfluous to this entire process, nobody seemed to question it.
Noah didn’t need anything from me, especially because his honest reaction to this whole adjustment was the point of the documentary in the first place. Rick and Marty didn’t really need me either. They’d done this before and knew that anything negative caught on film would be caught in editing and removed, probably at Beatrice’s request.
Why had she thought it necessary for me to be here?
It was strange to come to that realization now, of all places. The place where I’d felt freer than I had in a long time. Where Noah clearly did too. But it was the truth. I watched from behind Marty as they filmed Noah and his grandma fishing in a pond that had been hidden from view behind the barn. I couldn’t help but be thankful that I was here, but the truth was that there was no reason for it. My sisters questioned it, but now I wondered if there wasn’t another reason.
Rick came up to me and found a seat on the grass. “You’re quiet today.”
I smiled at him. “Just enjoying the day.”
He nodded. His mouth opened like he was going to say something, but he shook his head and stopped.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.