He sighs and pushes himself off his chair, walking over to me. I sit forward, my hands resting on my forehead, as my hair falls around me. I don’t want his pity, but I’m beginning to realize that is all he is willing to offer me.
My body tenses as I feel him in front of me. He crouches down, his finger pushing my hair from my face. I can’t handle having him this close to me when all I want is his lips on mine.
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t do more for Karly,” he whispers, his expression pained.
I lift my head, my eyes meeting his. Before I can comprehend what I’m doing, I press my mouth against his. He resists for all of a second before he falls into the kiss, my heart racing as his fingers curl around my neck, bringing me closer to him. All I can think about in this moment is Noah, and how much I need him.
No matter how upset and angry he is with me, when my lips had touched his, he kissed me back. That has to mean something.
Chapter 28
Noah
Her lips feel amazing. Soft yet demanding, but still compliant enough to yield to my control. Perfect. Absolute perfection.
I do need to try to exert a little self-control, though. After everything that’s gone on in the past few days, I need a little time to gather my thoughts and figure out what my plans going forward are. I can’t allow myself to forget I’m in this predicament only because of Zara.
Pulling back from Zara even though all I want to be doing is kissing her, I opt for a not-so-subtle change of subject. “Pick a board game from the closet. I’ll grab us that bottle of wine and some glasses.”
Without waiting for her response, I force myself to leave her side and gather our drinks. As I’m rummaging through the drawers for a corkscrew, what appears to be the sound of game pieces cracking against the tile breaks my attention.
“You okay in there?” I yell, not moving while I wait for a response. After a few moments of nothing, I make my way to the front room.
“Zara?” Looking around, I see the small metal pieces and fake paper money lying on the floor, but no Zara. A flicker of light from the main bathroom catches my attention as well as a shadow being cast from under the door.
“Zara? Are you in there?” Taking my chances, I turn the handle and push open the door. That probably isn’t the smartest thing I could be doing in my current state. Not even a little.
“What’s going on?” I ask to the gorgeous blonde standing before me in only a pair of jeans and a black see-through lace bra underneath a ripped shirt. Even with her hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun, she’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
“Shit,” she mutters, grabbing a small hand towel from the rack and trying to cover her chest, but it barely does the job. “I was getting a game and I think a nail or something hooked into my shirt and ripped it. Then a giant spider attacked me. I dropped the game and ran in here to make sure that demon wasn’t inside my shirt somewhere. And now here I am.” Zara laughs nervously, rocking back and forth on her heels.
Fighting the urge to take her against the bathroom counter here and now, I silently excuse myself from the room. I don’t miss the heavy sigh coming from the bathroom when I leave, but it’s the right thing to do. Walking into my bedroom, I find a few pairs of sweatpants and a couple T-shirts in the drawer. Putting out one set for me and another set for Zara, I change quickly and take the others back to her.
“Since your shirt’s ripped, toss this on. It’ll be more comfortable to sleep in, anyway.”
“Thanks,” she whispers, as I walk back into the living room.
Since Monopoly is out of the question, I scan through the other remaining games, but none catch my attention. There has to be something to do in this damn house. Then I remember. When my cousin and I would come up here with our mothers, he used to sneak a portable DVD player with him and hide it here. If my memory serves me right, it should be under the spare sheets in the guest room off the dining room.
All but running to his old room, I’m excited to find the small device sitting exactly where I thought it would be, the charger next to it and all. It’s a small win, but at this point in the game, it’s better than nothing.
“Zara!” I call down the hallway. “Wanna watch a movie?”
“But you don’t have a TV,” she says, coming into sight, retying the hair on top of her head, wearing only the shirt I gave her. Glancing at her legs, my eyes shoot back to hers. If this is some kind of game she’s playing, it’s going to end badly…for me. She’ll come out victorious.
“Sorry, the sweats kept falling down and there wasn’t a string to tie them. I grabbed a pair of boxers. I hope that’s okay,” she says, lifting the shirt a bit, cracking a smile. All along, men thought that women in their shirts were sexy. That’s probably because they never saw a woman in their underwear.
I hold up the DVD player, trying my hardest to focus on her face and not how the black contrasts with her creamy thighs.
“You got any movies to go along with that thing?”
I didn’t think that far ahead. Trying to remember what the last thing we watched was, I can’t for the life of me recall. Powering the device on, I pop open the disk tray to see what’s inside. Praying that it’s not porn, I’m pleasantly surprised when I see the name written across the small silver circle.
“Super Troopers work for you?”
“Absolutely. I’ll grab the wine, you set that up right meow,” she jokes, turning on her heel to walk out the door.
My new favorite thing in the world is the boxers she’s wearing.