Did that mean…?
What did that mean?
“Fuck!” Noah shouted, his grip tightening, his hips slamming into hers on a series of mind-numbing punctuated thrusts.
Kristina pushed the thoughts away and turned her face to his. “Come in me,” she whispered into his good ear.
Noah pressed his face to hers and yelled his release, his big body shuddering in her embrace. She held onto him with everything she had, loving the feeling of his cock jerking deep inside her, loving knowing that she’d made him fall apart every bit as much as he’d made her.
Words rushed to the tip of Kristina’s tongue. About how good they were together. About how right they felt together. About how she’d never experienced anything as meaningful as being with him.
“Fuck,” Noah rasped. He blew out a long breath, then pressed a kiss against her cheek.
She shifted to look at his face in the now-dim room, and he looked so damn…at ease. If she let any of those words loose, would she mess that up for him? Because it was the last thing she wanted to do, no matter that her heart felt too big to remain inside her chest.
“Food. Water. Sustenance,” he said.
Kristina chuckled, following his lead and keeping the tone light. “I did promise to make you dinner.”
“You totally promised to make me dinner.” He lifted off of her, and she immediately missed his heat, his presence inside her. “Let’s go eat ice cream while I watch you cook.”
Despite the mess in her head—or her heart—that made her laugh, and she smacked his arm. “Ass.”
Noah slid off the bed and headed for the door. “You need an anatomy class.” He pointed to his exceedingly fine backside as he kept walking. “This is my ass.”
She forced herself to get up as she heard him close the bathroom door.
Keep it light. Keep it fun. Just sex.
Right. She could do this. She was doing this.
Clicking on the bedside lamp, she saw Noah’s black T-shirt discarded on the floor. She slipped it on and glanced at herself in the mirror. Lips swollen. Cheeks flushed. Hair a mess. Wearing a shirt miles too big.
She was a wreck, even if she secretly loved that it was Noah that had made her look this way. Except, then, why was her throat getting tight? She turned away.
When she heard Noah come out of the bathroom, she made her way there, grinning at the gob-smacked look on his face as he noticed what she was wearing. In the privacy of the bathroom, she cleaned herself up and then once again looked at her reflection in the mirror, intent on bolstering her resolve.
“It’s just sex, Kristina,” she whispered to herself. “No matter what, you’ll always have this. Don’t fuck it up.” She nodded and took a deep breath, and then she put on a playful smile, made her way to the kitchen where she found him eating from the carton of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream wearing only a pair of unbuttoned jeans, and ate dinner with him, just like she’d done a thousand other times.
Chapter Thirteen
Noah wasn’t sure what had awakened him, only that—for once—it hadn’t been a nightmare. He suspected he’d only been asleep a short while, despite the fact that he felt more rested and more peaceful than he had in a long time.
Staring into the darkness, he wondered what time it was, but he was too tired and comfortable to even thinking about moving to find out. Not to mention that he didn’t want to disturb Kristina, whose heat blazed all down his back where she pressed up against him.
Kristina. They’d had sex three more times after dinner—once in the shower—and then Noah had used his mouth on her to see how many times in a row he could make her come on his tongue. It turned out the answer was four, and even then he only stopped because she was afraid the neighbors would call the cops from her inability to stop moaning and screaming.
Best sounds he’d ever heard.
A hollow ache took up residence in his chest. Because they were also the worst.
How would he go on without ever hearing her come again? Even worse to contemplate, how would he be able to stand the thought of any other man making her make those sounds?
And she had that fucking date coming up soon. God, he didn’t want her to go. Maybe he should ask her not to. But, then, there’d have to be a good reason to do that, wouldn’t there? He couldn’t ask her not to date if he wasn’t planning on stepping up to be with her himself. That would just make him a selfish prick.
Except, how realistic was it to think he could actually have a relationship right now? Half the time he couldn’t sleep or eat. There were times when paranoia and anxiety plagued him for no good reason. There were days when finding the motivation to simply get out of bed was beyond his reach. Christ, he could barely take care of himself these days, so how could he be a part of taking care of someone else? At least, the way she deserved.
And Kristina deserved everything.