Page 97 of Set Me On Fire

“As you wish,” he said, right before he picked me up in his arms.

Chapter 45

Noah

I don’t know how we made it to Millie’s in one piece. The walk back to the car was a circuitous one because it was like a dam had broken inside me. I stopped to press her against a tree trunk and kiss her, then again as I was walking us through the fence. She ended up perched on her bonnet for a bit, the metal warming her through as I stepped between her thighs. Every part of me wanted to tear her clothes off, reveal her to the moon’s glow and then feast on her body, but her words were a whip across my shoulders. Millie deserved the best I had to give, and right now I needed to discover what that was.

“Yours or mine?” I asked once we were both in the car.

“Mine.”

She rattled off the address and I drove us there without even thinking. Even at gunpoint, I couldn’t have told you the route we took, not when Millie was in the car. I was out and around to her door the moment we pulled into a park under her apartment building. I meant to help her out, but instead, she stood in the space between the door and me, her eyes burning into mine.

I wanted her. That need was a persistent ache that never went away, no matter how I tried. I’d done my best to smother the flames, but she had to go and stir the embers up so I needed her burning with me. My mouth found hers and I kissed her over and over, needing her mouth, needing her little whistles of breaths, and half-muffled moans, until finally I was forced to pull away and stare at her.

“I gotta see you to your door,” I told her.

“To make sure I’m safe.”

Her lips curved into a half smile.

“Then I should head home.” I looked down at myself and saw the state I was in for the first time. Dirty uniform, sooty hair, I was a mess. “I should clean up?—”

“Why? You’re just going to get dirty again.”

That smile of hers, I didn’t dare think I’d ever see it again, but there was no relief to be found in it. I had to make sure she had cause to smile at me over and over again.

“Got a crappy job that needs doing?” I asked. “Need a grease trap cleaned or a toilet scrubbed?”

“Oh, we’re going into the bathroom, but not to clean it.”

Her hand grabbed my belt buckle and she tugged me over to the elevator, punching in a number as soon as we got inside. I went with her because I was helpless to do anything else. My head cleared a little as we stood in the lift, scrupulously not touching. Millie was right. I hadn’t done things the right way because I didn’t have the balls to tell her how I felt the night of the party, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t start now. I could ask her out on that date, take her somewhere, and?—

“You’re thinking too hard.”

She grabbed my hand and dragged me down the hallway, my boots scuffing across her nice, clean tiled floor until we stumbled into the bathroom.

“Maybe—”

“I didn’t ask you to think.” Her fingers threatened to lose their grip on mine, so I grabbed tighter. “I didn’t ask you to talk. I asked you to show me.” Millie did step free, and when she looked me up, everything was perfect. I’d dreamed of this moment, when she saw me, saw all the ways I’d changed, and a hunger that was a match to my own flared to life in her eyes. “Show me everything you decided was mine.”

I swallowed, her command harder than she would’ve anticipated to obey. All my life, I was used to people seeing my body and making negative comments about it. My brothers used to love to mock the shit out of me. At first, because I was the baby, then as I grew taller, because I outstripped them in height but not strength. I pushed those memories aside because they hadn’t earned a place here.

I squatted down and unlaced my boots, shoving them aside as I pulled my socks off, but when I straightened up, I moved slower. She was watching me so intently, following every move of my hands, and I sucked that attention up like a beer after a long, hot, shitty day. My shirt was pulled up and over my head, and I may have tensed my abs as I worked, making sure she saw every single one pop. It was when I pulled my belt free with one hand that she stepped in.

“For me…?”

She looked up for confirmation as her hands hovered over my chest, and I could only answer with a nod, my throat suddenly closing over. This was the way I’d wanted the night of the party to end, but beer and stupidity had gotten in the way. I reached out and placed her palm against my chest and held it there.

“Only for you.” Her hands moved, exploring every inch of my chest, but I didn’t feel it, not when I was staring into her eyes. There was no haze of alcohol between us. I was here, completely present, seeing her every response and following the flick of hertongue across her bottom lip as she stared into my eyes. I moved closer. “All yours.”

She didn’t get a chance to tell me how she felt about that because I had to kiss her right now. Her mouth, soft on mine, her lips parting–I was drowning in the feeling of her, right up until her hand slid down my pants. The zip was eased down and then she was there, hand gripping my aching cock.

“Millie…” I murmured against her mouth. “Millie, babe, I can’t?—”

“Seems like you can,” she said, smiling as I bucked up into her grip as she gave me a squeeze.

“I can…” I panted. “I really, really can, but as I’ve done this exactly one time before, this is going to be over really damn fast if you keep doing that.”

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