Just Pretend (Love Comes To Town)

It’s so humid out that the air feels like it’s full of skin cream. The silence is like this part of the world has earplugs on.

Everyone says that when you lose one sense, the others make up for it. But even in the dark like this, I don’t feel like I’ve lost one sense at all. I feel like I’m finally remembering I have taste buds and nerves as they delight in every crunch, crumb and crust of the bread, savor the sharp tang of the aged cheddar and its give under my teeth, lose themselves in the smooth slip of the salami and the satisfying puncture of the red grapes.

“You like it,” Nolan says.

I chuckle. “That a question?”

He shrugs. Another flash of his teeth in the night. “Depends on your answer.”

All at once, I know exactly what I want to do, here and now. “Why don’t you come over here and I’ll tell you.”

Maybe it’s the night, dark enough that it’s like the world itself has closed its eyelids, or maybe it’s that what’s done is done, or maybe it’s none of those things and that, quite simply, Nolan brings out the wildness in me, but I’m suddenly so tired of being scared and unsure and suspicious.

I just want to take the now and have it take me, whatever that means.

Nolan comes over, and I rise to meet him. The only thing that makes sense next is our lips meeting, me pressing my answer into them: “I love it.”

I can feel him smile against my lips. The slightest scratch of new stubble. The tautness of his sculpted body against mine, even separated by several layers of clothing.

Our lips seem to know what they’ll do before we do: they sweep and pull and give, and our tongues sweep together with a rightness that doesn’t feel real. It feels impossible that two people so odd and dissimilar could come together like this, for this one perfection.

Because that’s what being with Nolan Storm is. He kisses me back into a tree, and cups my face so he can get more of this, more of my lips, my body. His kisses claim more of me, venture to my neck—even his teeth get a slight taste. I groan.

His hands are holding me and his lips are tasting me, and me, my hands are tangled in his hair as one moan follows the next.

And what happens next is what you do when the night’s closed its eyes and the air itself is a warm soft stroke and you’re with the man you could just maybe even love.

Chapter 15

Nolan

I thought I knew what sex was. What it felt like to make love to a gorgeous woman and enjoy it.

Turns out, I had no fucking clue.

All it takes is one kiss with Sierra for me to know that. Her lips fit with mine, her tongue too. Her hair might be the silkiest thing I’ve ever felt, her skin the softest.

When I kiss her, it’s like someone hit my heartbeat.

I want to touch all of her at once. Kiss her. Stroke her.

Her shoulders fit in my palms and I press my lips onto her closed eyelids.

She giggles. “What’s that for?”

“For tonight,” I say, grinning like a fool.

But if being a fool means I get to be with Sierra, then I’ll take it.

This fool loves her scent, some kind of rich fruit-nut something that doesn’t have a name, that’s just her. Sierra. Sierra-a-a-a.

This fool loves the feel of her, how, right now, our hips move along to the same beat the breeze seems to be blowing.

This fool wants every part of her, all of her—now.

Before I know quite what I’m doing, I’ve picked her up.

Her delighted laughter fills the night. “Nolan—what the hell are you doing?”

I swirl her around as she laughs and laughs. “Whatever I want to.”

“You jerk!”

“You like it.”

“Prove it.”

“OK.”

The only thing to do then is kiss her again, kiss that smile right off her face. Until it becomes a very different smile.

Smile to smile, we find our way onto the ground, onto each other. She sits on my lap and threads her fingers through my hair.

When my eyes open, I find her stroking my hair between her two fingers, her grin rueful. “I don’t know if I’ve ever dated a guy with better hair than me.”

I flick my hair over my shoulder with a flourish. “What can I say. It’s a gift.”

Our eyes meet. We somehow take that to mean that it’s time to laughingly kiss again.

I want her, want to be inside her, and yet, I want to make this last. I’m enjoying myself too damn much.

“Know what I’m thinking?” I kiss into her ear.

“That we never had the cake?” she asks.

We chuckle, and I shake my head. “That you’d look better without your clothes on.”