Page 93 of So Steady

“Good.” He turned her onto her back and knelt down, burying his face between her legs. She screamed, the sensation so sharp that it almost hurt. Then he licked her and everything went butter-soft and hazy. God it wasn’t sharp at all, it wasamazing.

“Noah…”

He removed his face from between her legs. Even in the darkness, she could tell he was smug. “Like it?”

She gripped his head and pressed it back down.

He laughed as he went back to work, flicking and stroking and making her pulse like a strobe light. She’d had this before, but it had hurt. Noah just touched her, warm and wet and lovely. Her midriff tightened. God, it was happening already. She was going to finish so quickly. She felt herself tip up, squeezing exquisitely as Noah’s tongue ran the length of her pussy. Then a thought came.

She was sitting in the doctor’s office, crying and itching and wanting to die. That was her body; that was her, dirty, dirty, dirty. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling the shame anew, Noah’s tongue like an eel against her labia. Then the memory shifted, went sideways. Noah burst into the room, big and covered in tats and smelling of smoke. He stood between her and the doctor, glowering at the shocked-looking woman.

“There’s no need to act like that,” he told the doctor. “She’s just a kid. She’s done nothing wrong.”

He turned to her then, held out a big hand. “Come on, Nikki.”

And he led her from the doctor’s office. He’d taken her to get her antibiotics and ice cream. Then he’d kissed her and told her that the two weeks they had to wait until she could have sex would be like foreplay, because it was no big deal.

Nicole snapped back into the present, her thighs tight around Noah’s head. The pleasure was rushing through her, rising like a tide. It didn’t so much circumvent her panic, as rush over it, like a wave crushing a sandcastle. Sex was complicated, but it was wonderful. She moaned, her head banging back against the bottom of the van. “Noah!”

He continued to lap, even softer than before so that her body shuddered. “You like that, baby?”

“Yes.” A car rushed past, so fast and close that it rocked the van. Nicole smiled. “I can’t believe that just happened.”

He sat up then lay beside her, not touching, but close. They lay there a while, her heart racing, her skin prickling with goosebumps in the cooling air.

“That was nice.”

He made an affirmative grunting noise, his arm wrapping around her.

“Can I…do anything for you?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“I like the way you touch me.” She could hear the delicate note in her voice. Like wind chimes. Only she didn’t know why it was there. Was she hopeful or trying to put distance between them? She had no idea, only that she needed him to say something. But he stayed quiet. Separate.

That’s how he is, she reminded herself.

She remembered imagining he’d come into the doctor’s and rescued her. Her face went hot as fire. What right did she have to lean on him like that, even in her memories? She thought of the stresses they had waiting for them at home and a jolt of panic hit her, making her insides churn. “Should we get going?”

“Probably.”

She felt what he was about to say before he said it, a burst of adrenaline in her mouth, a tightening of her leg muscles.

“You’re something else, Nikki. You’re lovely.”

The rough sincerity in his voice only made it worse.

“But?”

“But, I’m not the guy.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m not the guy you marry and have three kids with.”

Her chest splintered just a little. In the quiet of the van, Nicole could almost believe she’d heard it happen. “Does that mean we shouldn’t sleep together anymore?”

A soft, strained laugh. “You’re gonna have to fill me in on that one.”

---