Enemies Abroad

“We should stop. I should stop.”

He’s worried about taking advantage of me.

Hilarious! He should be worried for his own safety. I’m about to take advantage of him, poor guy.

“Stop? No no. We can’t.” I crawl on top of him and sit up. “I want this. I want this so badly. I’ll write it on that contract for you if you need me to. The defendant Audrey Cohen is of sound mind and will testify that she’s absolutely 100% okay with Noah putting his hands on or around her breastal region and in her panties too. Something like that. I’ll sign it and everything.”

“Breastal,” he repeats, tickled.

I point back and forth to my breasts. “Exhibit A.”

Even in moments like this, we’re unable to be completely serious. We can’t just look at each other and say the god’s honest truth: Noah, if you don’t kiss me and touch me and undress me out of these pajamas, I feel like I might spontaneously combust. I want you—god, can’t you see that? Haven’t you always seen that?

He smiles like a confident superhero who’s just saved a whole city from destruction and mayhem.

“Thank you.”

Oops. That was supposed to be internal monologue.

He grabs my waist, rocking me backward just a hair, enough for me to feel how much he wants this too.

“We might regret this in the morning.”

It’s his last-ditch effort to talk some sense into us, but I can already tell he’s losing steam with his argument. His eyes are eating up every inch of my body. He’s toying with my shirt, lifting it up so his hand can slip underneath it, grazing the bottom of my ribs. He keeps bucking and adjusting his hips beneath me like he’s desperate for me to move and grind on him.

“Well why don’t we just let that be a problem for Morning Audrey and Morning Noah?” I say, walking my fingertips down the center of his chest. My touch is barely there, teasing and playful before I start to slide it temptingly slowly down to his stomach and—whoops, naughty me, I don’t stop there. I keep going lower. I make it to the dark trail of hair beneath his navel, and that’s when Noah’s good intentions go up in smoke.

Chapter Twenty-One

Noah sits up and whips my pajama shirt right up and over my head with smooth dexterity that makes me swoon. It’s like he’s been practicing the move for years. Then he loops his arm behind my shoulders and tugs me back down to the bed with him. His hand cups my head through my hair. He’s kissing me with a ferocity that feels like we’re trying to start something—a relationship, a fire, who knows. We’re skin on skin and it’s sensory overload. I shiver with want and he kisses his way down my neck to my collarbone. It feels so wonderful to have his mouth there, but it’s even more wonderful when he keeps going lower, giving the same amount of care and attention to every part of me. His hands touch me everywhere, but then mine are prone to wander too. It’s like we’re hopped up on Red Bull Xtreme, too excited to slow down, too enthralled with each other’s bodies to properly take our time exploring one thing before we’re distracted by something else.

When his hands cup my breasts, a deep, satisfied moan escapes his lips. It’s the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard. If I had even one last vestige of worry about Noah’s motive for pursuing me, that moan obliterates it. He wants me in the purest, most basic sense. There’re no hidden agendas, no dastardly plots.

I slip my hand past the waistband of his shorts, and it’s like I’m revving the engine. From there, we’re in a mad dash to have each other. How quickly can we finish ripping each other’s clothes off? Who cares about buttons and seams, just tear through it. Bite it with your teeth. Stretch the neck out and let’s get on with this. We’ll toss these clothes in the trash in the morning.

“Condoms?” I ask, wrenching my mouth from his and coming up for air.

He points to the pocket of his shorts. “I bought a pack of a hundred at the store this morning.”

“Only a hundred? Okay, we’ll pace ourselves.”

So here’s the thing…there’s no time for me to have one of those quintessential What Have I Done freak-outs about Noah and me having sex because we technically don’t stop going at it the entire night. Sure, there are a few bouts of intermittent sleep and a few breaks for hydration purposes. We go halfsies on a protein bar at like 3:30 AM and I think I cobble together an hour or two of shut-eye here or there. But for most of the night, we’re going at it like it’s our sole mission to repopulate the earth and we take our job very seriously.