Chapter Twenty-Three
Harriet
’m quite pleased with myself.I I’ve never inspired a man to create new weather patterns before, but I suppose I’ve never been with a man like Nolan. His skin. His taste. The sounds he made. The way he moved, desperate and needy. For me. My touch.
I felt powerful. Intoxicated. Desired.
Nolan rolls his head against the pillows, looking at me through lazy, half- lidded eyes. Snowflakes are still drifting from the ceiling, catching in his hair before they melt. He lifts his hand and rubs his thumb at the corner of my mouth.
“I like this look on you,” he rumbles, voice impossibly deep.
I duck my head against his shoulder. “I like this look on you,” I tell him. I rest my chin against his arm and peer at his face. “You look—” He’s still wearing the remnants of his arousal—rosy cheeks, messy hair, a satisfied laziness in his intent expression. He’s the most relaxed I’ve ever seen him, and it makes me feel like I should be wearing a medal around my neck.
“Exalted?” He blinks sleepily. His hand sifts through my hair so he can touch my neck. His favorite place. “Incandescent?”
A laugh tumbles out of me. The snowflakes pause midair and tremble, then pick up speed once more, swirling in a new pattern. “Something like that.”
He grins at me, wide and beaming, so unrestrained it makes my breath catch. Nolan is so controlled with his reactions—so reserved with his affections—that this sort of smile makes me feel like I’ve been handed something precious. One of the treasures I keep at my store.
I reach out and gently touch one of the dimples in his cheek.
He turns his head to brush a kiss against my fingers, and something warm and molten twists low in my belly. “You should have orgasms more often if this is your reaction.”
He laughs, a rumbling sound that skitters over my skin like the snowflakes that are still falling from the ceiling. “You’re incredible.”
Heat climbs my cheeks. I just had my mouth wrapped around him in my
teddy bear–printed sheets, and his flattery is the thing that makes me blush.
Unbelievable. “Again, I think that might be the orgasm talking.”
His smile flickers. “Why can’t you hear praise without brushing it away?”
“Because,” I say, keeping my eyes on his neck instead of his face. “I just ended a century-long dry spell for you. I’m sure those endorphins are having
a field day.”
“Do you know what I think?”
I give him a look. “You’ve never once hesitated to tell me.”
He gently pinches my chin, holding my attention firmly on him. “I think you don’t know how to take a compliment.”
“That is …” I consider denying it. “Probably true,” I answer on a sigh instead.
His forehead creases. I don’t think he expected my easy agreement. He watches me for a moment, then dips his face closer to mine, gaze focused on my mouth. “That’s something we should work on, Harriet.”
“Sure,” I tell him, my breath hitching as his hand continues its slow descent. He spreads his fingers wide across my chest and pushes, insistent until I fall back into the pillows next to him. I land with an oof and Nolan props himself up on his elbow above me, his hand still lightly collared against the base of my throat, holding me still.
“We’re going to start right now,” he says. “With compliments.”
“What?” I laugh. “We don’t—”
“These pajamas,” he says over me. “They drive me mental.”
“That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
He toys with one of the thin straps draped over my shoulder. “They’ve driven me to distraction since the very first night I saw them.”
“Well, you’re the one who put them on me last night. So, take that up with yourself, buddy.”
“I don’t think I will,” he rumbles. He twists the strap he’s investigating, guiding it over the slope of my shoulder and down to the crease of my elbow.
The top of my shirt tugs down slightly, catching on the curve of my breasts.
He licks his bottom lip and repeats the process on the other side, until my barely-there top is barely clinging to me.
“Your skin looks like you’re glowing when you wear this color.” His eyes trail over my newly exposed skin, the straps in my elbows, my hair on the pillow. “You always look like you’re glowing,” he adds.
I certainly feel like I could be when he looks at me like that. I wiggle in the
sheets beneath him, my breath shallow.
His eyes snap to mine and hold. “You’re supposed to say thank you.”
“What?”
I shift, fighting the urge to cover myself. I’ve never been particularly comfortable with my body. The men I’ve been with haven’t held effusive praise for my small breasts or the heavy flare of my hips. The awkward length of my long limbs or the unruly nature of my hair. The act of revealing myself has always been practical. The first step in a process that ultimately ended in lukewarm satisfaction.
But Nolan is unwrapping me like one of the colorful treats I keep in a jar on my kitchen table, heat flaring in his eyes with every new inch exposed.
“When someone gives you a compliment,” he says slowly. “You’re supposed to say thank you.”
“Oh.” I wet my lips and blink up at him. “Thank you.” He clicks his tongue. “Doesn’t sound like you mean it.”
“I do. I mean it.”
“You’ll need to be more convincing.” He ducks down and presses a wet, sucking kiss to my neck. His fingers catch in my hair against the pillow.
“Let’s try another.”
I close my eyes as he works his mouth against my skin, impatient scrapes of his teeth and short, rough sounds. It’s intoxicating, feeling the way he’s holding himself back from me. I want to push that meticulous control of his. I want him to forget whatever game he’s playing and move his mouth to my breasts instead. But he’s a man on a mission, focused entirely on the thrumming press of my pulse and the spot beneath my ear that makes my legs twitch wider in the sheets.
I’m hollow and hot and absolutely aching, but Nolan stays with his mouth against my neck like he’s in no particular rush.
How nice for him.
“Your skin is so soft,” he says an indeterminate time later, when it feels like I might climb out of my skin. My neck has never been so sensitive in my
life.
“Oh,” I breathe. “I use, um, lotion.”
He presses another slow kiss to the delicate skin just below my pulse. “It’s not the lotion that makes you soft, Harriet.” His teeth catch my skin and bite.
“And remember to say thank you.”
“Th-thank you,” I stutter, my heart giving one heavy thump. I reach for
him, my palms sliding over warm skin, his shoulder blades flexing as he moves over me. He rumbles out an appreciative sound, then I dig my nails in the small of his back and some of his endless patience snaps.
His hand finds the front of my camisole, but this time he doesn’t bother with the light, teasing touches. He tugs until the silky material pools around my waist, my nipples tightening as snowflakes land against my bare skin.
Nolan pushes himself up above me so he can study his handiwork.
“Look at you,” he whispers. “Beautiful.”
He cups my breasts in his big hands, his thumbs finding my nipples. My back arches and he tugs my body fully beneath his.
“Say thank you, Harriet.”
My lips quirk up. “Thank you, Harriet.”
His eyes flick up briefly in a half-hearted eye roll, then he bends down to press a kiss right between my breasts, exactly where my heart is trying to pound its way out of my chest. He lets his forehead rest there for a moment, nuzzling, and a warm, hazy feeling cuts through the sharp burn of arousal.
“Your heart,” he says against my skin. “This foolish, beautiful thing. It’s been bruised, hasn’t it?”
My fingers climb the ladder of his rib cage, feeling the way his chest expands and contracts with every breath. Pressure builds behind my eyes. I nod.
“But you still let it tug you forward, yeah?” He settles himself over me, one of his legs between mine. “What a gift that is. To still wish and dream and want. To find the good. To wear it on your sleeve.”
“It doesn’t feel like a gift.” A single tear slips out of the corner of my eye, mixing with the snow that drifts around us. Nolan reaches up and wipes it away. “It feels like a curse. Like I haven’t learned my lesson. Like I’m setting myself up for disappointment.”
Like I’m being silly and naive, hoping things might be different. That if I’m as shiny and positive as possible, some of that might rub off on the people around me. That I can fix whatever it is inside of me that makes it so easy for me to be tossed aside. Disregarded.
Nolan shakes his head. “I don’t think you understand me, Harriet. This isn’t a discussion.” His voice is gentle, a laugh in there somewhere.
“Compliments, remember? I don’t want to hear an argument. I want to hear a thank you.”
I swallow hard at the lilting command whispering along the edges of his
voice and something in me softens and breaks. It’s a relief to hand over control. To have my role laid out so easily. To know exactly what to do.
The knot in my middle unravels, liquid heat spilling out.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Thank you.”
“That’s right.” His eyes trip a shade darker—so blue they’re almost black.
Still waters that run deep. “I’ve lived longer than any man has a right to. I don’t dabble in false sincerity. Surely you know that by now.”
He plucks at my nipple, twisting lightly. It occurs to me in a startling moment of clarity that if Nolan hasn’t been touched in almost a century, then he hasn’t done any touching either. What an honor it is to be laid out beneath him like this, bare skin and wild hair.
I relax deeper against the pillows, offering more of myself.
“Shall we try another?”
“Yes,” I breathe immediately.
He grins at me, bright and boyish, and so delightfully young that I find myself smiling back. He plants both knees between my thighs and urges them wider, shifting down to tuck his hips to mine. The muscles in his arms bunch and flex, his beard scraping at my skin just before his teeth do.
“You feel—” He inhales deeply, trying to settle himself. “You feel so good. Better than any dream I’ve ever had.” His hand palms my hip, angling it up, our bodies connecting and retreating. “So warm.”
I hook my foot behind his knee, trying to pull him closer. “Thank you,” I breathe.
“Can I truly have you like this?” He settles more of his weight against me.
“Is this not another dream?”
“It’s not a dream. I’m here, and you’re here, too, and I need—I need you to —”
He hushes me, digging his hips into mine, pressing me deeper into the bed.
“I won’t be rushed, Harriet.”
I groan.
“I thought about doing this when you wore those red pajamas,” he tells me.
“I thought about pulling those shorts to your ankles, going to my knees, and putting my mouth on you.”
My stomach twists. “I thought you hated those pajamas.”
“I do hate those pajamas,” he says. “Those pajamas make me stupid. Those pajamas make me wonder what other sorts of things you have in that wardrobe of yours. And that dress.” He makes a deep, rumbling sound.
Something tortured with his teeth bared against me. “Fuck, that dress.”
“What dress?”
“You know the one.” He yanks my top down farther, a useless loop of silky fabric around my middle. “The dress I picked out for you. You were so lovely.”
I close my eyes with a sigh. Lovely. He’s called me that before. In a tiny dressing room with his warm breath against the back of my neck. It’s just as thrilling now as it was then.
Has anyone ever looked at me and seen anything other than someone falling woefully short of expectations? Lovely is meant for other people.
Those who are soft and glowing, held between careful hands. “What are you supposed to say?” he rasps against my skin and the tension in my belly pulls tight, a pulse that echoes in time with my heartbeat, settling right between my spread thighs.
“Thank you,” I breathe, the words bursting out of me without hesitation.
“Good, Harriet,” he says and it’s almost better than his mouth against me, the electric feeling those words ignite. “See? It’s not so difficult, is it?”
I shake my head and he chuckles knowingly, one hand pressing between my thighs. He grinds there roughly, following the desperate motion of my hips. The sound that falls out of my mouth would be embarrassing if I wasn’t so relieved at the friction.
“Lovely,” he says again and I bite my lip against a whimper. “Is this what you need?”
I nod and try to spread my legs wider despite the tangle of blankets holding me immobile. My fingers release his body and tangle in my hair instead, pulling it off my sticky neck. I need something to hold on to. Something to keep from floating to the ceiling with the snowflakes.
More and more land against my skin, picking up speed as Nolan’s hand keeps the heavy rhythm, tiny white crystals that tickle at my bare breasts and the heaving hollow of my stomach. The flare of my hips and my open, panting mouth. Each one feels like a kiss. Like Nolan’s hands and lips are everywhere.
He tilts his head down, watching the way his hand works between us.
“More?” he asks.
“Please.”
He drags his hand up my thigh, slipping it beneath the loose hem of my shorts.
“You did need this.” He grunts. “Fuck. You’re wet.”
I should be embarrassed, but I’m not. Not with Nolan. He thinks I’m
lovely.
“Yes,” I tell him.
“I made you this way, didn’t I? With these little touches.” He fixes me with a heavy, hot look. “With my cock in your mouth.”
“Yes.” I hiccup a moan as he presses one finger, then two, inside me. It’s like he’s too impatient to wait, all his restraint snapped like a string being pulled from both ends.
“Tell me.” He circles my clit with the pad of his thumb, leans down, and presses his mouth to mine in a hot, licking kiss. “Tell me how much you needed it,” he says, each word accompanied with another rough thrust of his fingers.
“I did. I needed it,” I babble immediately. He deserves to know. He’s exactly right. He did make me this way. “I’ve been thinking about this, about you. I needed you to touch me. I needed you to want me.”
The words spill out of my mouth, careless, twisted up in desire. I flinch as they echo around the room, dancing between the snowflakes. It’s too much.
Too much of the secret I’ve been tucking close to my heart, only peeling back to examine in the stillness between sleep and awake when consequences feel far away and dreams are within reach. My affection for Nolan has steadily been growing into something unmanageable. A balloon in the middle of my chest that I’m afraid is going to pop and leave me scattered in pieces on the floor.
I close my eyes and hold my breath, my body stiffening beneath his. Nolan slows his touch and I tuck my arm across my naked chest, feeling exposed.
I always do this. I say too much. I make it into something it’s not supposed to be. I’ve mistaken Nolan’s affection for something more, when he’s made it perfectly clear from the very start that I’m an assignment. A means to an end.
An end he’s been waiting a very, very long time for.
It’s not fair of me to lay the weight of my growing feelings across his shoulders.
“Harriet,” Nolan whispers, and I twist my face to the side, hiding in my pillow. I try to close my legs but his other hand settles over my knee, pressing it back to the bed, keeping me open for him. He moves over me, his nose pressed to my temple. “Harriet,” he says again, sharper this time.
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly, my voice higher than usual as I try desperately
not to cry. I ruined it. We were having fun and I ruined it. “I didn’t mean— I’m just—”
I’m overwhelmed, I think. It’s never been like this for me. Magic and heat and desire so sharp I feel like I’m slicing myself against the edge of it.
“You didn’t mean it?” he asks. I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak. Maybe if we just get back to the pleasure, I’ll forget the way my admission burns at the inside of my chest. I try to rock my hips against his, but Nolan holds me still, a hiss tucked against my ear. “Look at me.”
I ignore him, biting my lip. Fingertips touch my chin, guiding my face to his. “Look at me,” he says again, softer this time. “You needed me to want you?”
I search his face, waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under me. But there’s nowhere to hide when I’m caged beneath him like this, and I nod before I can convince myself not to. Nolan might not have seen the worst of me yet, but he has seen more than most. The broken parts that I’ve done my best to patch up on my own.
“You needed me to want you,” he repeats, not a question this time, his voice cracking around that word.
I shrink beneath him, tucking my chin to my chest. Tears burn behind my eyes. I’m so embarrassed.
“It’s okay.” I press my palms to his shoulders. “We don’t have to—”
“Harriet.” He bites down around the edge of my name, his voice crisp.
“You misunderstand me.”
“I don’t—”
“We bypassed wanting long ago.” He shakes his head. “Your pajamas and your candy canes. Your smart mouth and your big heart. All of this hair.” He digs his fingers into it with his free hand, dull nails scratching against my scalp. “How could you possibly think—even for a second—that I wouldn’t want you?”
“I don’t know,” I say, sounding winded. I’m still trying so hard not to cry.
“You yell at me a lot.”
He arches an eyebrow. “You tried to assault me the very first time you saw
me.”
“You broke into my house.”
“I didn’t break—” The corners of his mouth twitch in amusement. “Is this really what you want to discuss right now?”
He traces a slow path against my skin, right below my belly button. His
fingers are still wet from me, my desire banked but not forgotten.
“I don’t even really know what we’re talking about,” I breathe.
He dips his head closer to mine, his hand sliding back up my thigh. “Do I
need to convince you?”
I squeeze my eyes shut tight. “No.”
Two fingers find the soft heat between my legs in a rough press before he lightens his touch again. Teasing. I make a choked sound in the back of my
throat.
“Okay, maybe.”
I feel his grin against my jaw. “That’s good, Harriet, because I intend to.”
He cups me fully and rolls his wrist, grinding right where I need him, the pressure delicious. I spread my legs wider and shift down in the bed, chasing his touch. “We’ll start like this.”
He finds the same pace without hesitation, working me right back up to the edge he had me balanced on. Except this time he doesn’t stop, two fingers pressing back inside me with rough, heavy insistence. I grip the arm bracketed by my head, then dig my nails into the muscles of his biceps when it all becomes too much.
“Nolan,” I whine, and a wild sound tears out of his chest. He grips my chin with his free hand and drags my lips to his, licking into my mouth.
“Next time I’ll be patient,” he says against my mouth when he pulls away, both of our chests heaving, his fingers still pinching my chin, making sure I can’t look anywhere else except right at him while he works me toward a frenzy. His fingers move faster between my legs, like he needs it as much as I do. “I’ll take my time, and I’ll prove my point, and I’ll hear you say my name like that over and over again. Next time, I’ll take off these damned shorts and watch how well you take me.” His teeth flash white as he clenches them, barely holding on to his own composure. His hips bump up against the back of his hand as he moves against me. Like he’s fucking me with more than his fingers.
“I’ll sink into you inch by inch and you’ll be so good for me,” he grinds out. “You’ll say thank you. Won’t you, Harriet?”
“Oh god,” I grit out, everything within me pulling tight as I tumble over the edge, the rest of the fantasy he’s weaving lost to the white noise in my head. To the messy, unpracticed way he touches me. It’s not the promise of more but the promise of again that has me trembling beneath him, grabbing on to whatever I can reach.
I haven’t ruined it. Not at all.
I’ve made it better.
Nolan works me through my orgasm with a low rumble of encouragement, his forehead pressed to my temple as I shiver and shake beneath him, his chest brushing against mine with every panted exhale. I keep my eyes closed and let myself feel it. How he mumbles things like good and beautiful and other words I’ve never, ever associated with myself.
But Nolan makes me think that maybe I could.
I smooth my palms over his shoulders, down to his wrists, and back up again as the pleasure ebbs out of me like a wave retreating from the shore.
I’m suddenly exhausted, my body loose and warm.
Nolan huffs a laugh, collapsing at my side, his hand at my hip. He squeezes once. I let my hands drift over his warm skin as I wait for the next part. The part where he tells me he’s only here for a little bit. That he can’t make any promises. That what we just did was a mistake, and we can’t do it again.
But all he does is drift his mouth along the shell of my ear, the snowflakes slowing until none remain.
“Do you believe me now?” he asks against my skin, not moving an inch.
My hopeful heart leaps in my chest, even as I try to stomp down hard on it.
There’s still an hourglass hanging over our heads. There are still things Nolan doesn’t know. We can’t ever have anything beyond this, these fleeting moments we steal for ourselves.
But it’s hard to worry when Nolan rolls out of my bed, half-moons from my nails decorating the skin of his lower back, his hair standing on end. He peers at me over his shoulder and smiles at whatever look is on my face, his hand reaching out to cuff my ankle and squeeze.
“Yes,” I tell him. “I believe you.”
