Was this really happening? Was what he’d said for real?

Still, after the confession, after my first orgasm, and even as he laid me down on the crisp, white sheets, I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Around the fact that Noah Cox, Mr. Inaccessible, my brother’s best friend, the man who’d made me feel so many negative and positive emotions, had said that he loved me.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t be loved. It was that I couldn’t be loved by him. I’d convinced myself of it, years ago, and rejected my feelings for him as a result.

Yet, here we were.

Noah crawled up my body, leaving a trail of hot, wet kisses over my calves, the insides of my knees, my thighs. He paused at my pussy and gave my clit one languorous lick, and I jolted.

His revelation had shocked me to the core, and I’d chosen to believe it, to be in this moment with him, even though the kernel of doubt still sat there, waiting. What would it take for me to believe it?

Noah parted my thighs and ran his tongue between my lips, slipped it inside me and pumped it back and forth, circled my clit with his thumb.

I jerked and moaned, gripped handfuls of his hair and hissed, softly. It was too good.

The pleasure, the moment with him, brushed the guilt and fear away, and I lost myself in him. I moved against his face, panting now, as he brought me closer to another orgasm. “Noah, oh my god.”

“Come for me, gorgeous,” he said, against my pussy.

The words sent me over my edge. I planted my feet, twitched beneath him, grabbed the pillows and pulled them toward myself, my mind blanking out at last. Nothing existed except for him, at my core, my center point, my world.

I jammed through my orgasm, pressing myself into his face as I did.

After, Noah continued his ascent, kissing his way up my body, my skin tingling beneath his gentle nips and licks. He focused on my breasts next, sucking one nipple into his mouth and massaging it with his tongue. He moved across to the other one and did the same, his hands everywhere, smoothing fingers over my skin.

“I want you,” I said. “I want you inside me, Noah. I want you to fill me up.”

“Fill you up?” He grinned around a mouthful of my breast. “Is that so? Fill you up with what?” He pressed a finger inside me and I closed around it, jolted on the sheets. “Fill you up with what, Erika?”

“With your cum,” I replied at last.

He shifted over me, kissed my lips and dragged his dick between my swollen pussy lips again but didn’t plunge inside. I arched my back, tried capturing him, but it didn’t work.

“Noah!” I slapped the mattress. “Come on!”

He chuckled and finally pushed into me, speared me—there were no thoughts or words to describe it, or the feeling. It was a joining, and I tightened around him instantly.

“Yes,” I said and looped my arms around his neck, tried tugging him down to me.

He lowered himself—the tugging had had no effect on him whatsoever—and placed his forehead against mine. Together, we looked down at the space between us, at his glistening shaft emerging from me, then entering me again, twisting our bodies so we’d get a better look at it.

“That’s so fucking hot,” Noah growled.

“It’s all yours,” I replied, and my heart skipped a beat. Is it? Is it all his?

“Fuck, Erika, that will make me come. That will make me lose it.”

I wanted him to lose it. “It’s all yours,” I repeated. “Noah, it belongs to you. It’s yours.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He thrust into me on each word, squeezed his eyes shut, his mouth losing all tension. He hardened inside me even further, so thick I lost my breath all over again, and he filled me up as I’d asked, again, and again, and again.

The sensation sent me into an orgasm that was totally internal. I let out a yelp and bit down on his shoulder, straining through it, clenching around him and trembling.

Time ticked by, him still inside me, no longer thrusting, but still hard. My teeth were still on his skin, my arms still around his thick torso. This was it. This was what I’d always wanted to feel and never had. But it had to be too good to be true.

“Noah,” I said, the doubt leaking into my voice.

He pulled out of me, sighing slightly, then hurried into the ensuite bathroom and returned with a towel. He cleaned me gently, blowing on the wetness there and bringing chills and aftershocks of pleasure.

“Noah,” I repeated.

“Yes, Erika,” he said. “What’s bothering you?”

“I think you know.”

He tugged on his shirt but didn’t button it, pulled on his pants, and zipped them up.

I sat up, and he dragged the sheet toward me, tried to cover me up, keep me warm, but I shrugged it off, opting to dress instead. I changed into my pj’s, the same silky ones that’d driven him crazy back at his apartment, in that damn kitchen, and whipped a threadbare robe out of my suitcase. I threw that on too, then turned back to him.

He was fully dressed again, handsome as ever, though his top button was still undone and he’d left his tie off. He brushed fingers through that dark, mussed hair, and quirked an eyebrow at me. “What’s it going to take for you to believe it?” he asked. “What do I have to do to show you that I’m not fucking with you? That I’m not playing some kind of sick joke on you?”

I shook my head, at a loss. What would it take? I had no idea. Everything and nothing. Trust. It would take trust, and we’d had very little of it over the past little while. “I actually don’t know, Noah. I just want to—I want to believe that you’re being real with me, but I’m scared of believing it.”

“Why?”

“Because of what happened to me. God, my ex destroyed me. He picked on the only weakness I was really sensitive about and just—you know what happened. How can I trust that the guy who tortured me in high school, the guy that I most fantasized about, hated, wanted, needed, will be the guy who actually wants to be with me? Who loves me? It seems too good to be true. Like a fairy tale.”

“Shit, if this is a fairy tale—”

“You know what I mean,” I replied. “I want to believe it, but I need time. I need time.”

Noah nodded. “I get that. And I’ll spend that time proving myself to you, OK? I’ll show you that you can trust me.”

“But that’s—ha, now I’m going to sound like I’m going back on everything I just said, but that in itself feels selfish on my part. Like, you have to prove yourself to me? You shouldn’t have to. And that worries me. Adult relationships shouldn’t be about proving ourselves to each other. They should be—right. Easy.”

“Christ,” Noah said, and ruffled his hair again. “Easy? I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a marriage that’s been easy. That people haven’t worked at.”

“Marriage!”

“Relax,” he chuckled, putting out his palms. “I’m not trying to scare you here, I just mean that long-term relationships aren’t just supposed to work. You work at them. You know how difficult that is for me to say.”

That I did—his parents had always been on the rocks, apparently, fighting with each other, despising each other, and just hiding it well. Maybe, that was why Noah had been such an asshole—it was the only method of communication he’d witnessed between two consenting adults.

I inhaled then exhaled. “I need time to think about all of this. About the St. Katherine’s thing, about the photos. You saying what you said, while amazing, doesn’t change any of that, Noah. And I feel like we’re going to burn each other if I don’t back up for a second here. OK? Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” he replied. “That makes sense. I don’t fucking like it, but it makes sense. I’ll be on my way, Erika, but you can bet that cute ass of yours that I will be in touch.”

I managed a giggle at that, then walked with him to the doorway, my heart pounding in my chest, still. Perfect example of why I needed that space to think this over, to weigh all the confusion and everything I’d wanted from the start. To decide whether I was OK with risking my heart and my plans for him. For a love I wasn’t even sure was real, at this point.

Noah kissed me on the cheek. I kissed him on the lips.

He dropped one hand to my chin, tilted it back and deepened the kiss. I inhaled, gripped the front of his shirt. “Noah,” I groaned, “if you don’t go, I won’t be able to think. Or breathe. You drive me—”

A knock rattled my hotel room door, and I sighed, stepping away from him. At least it was an excuse to gather some distance between us. “That’s probably Luna,” I said, “I kinda ran out on her there. Shit, I owe her cash for my meal too.” Not that she’d accept it. I hurried to my bag and fished my wallet out of it, then returned to the door.

I unlocked it, swung it inward, and inhaled, sharply.

It wasn’t Luna who stood in front of the door, waiting with her usually bubbly smile, hair perfectly coiffed.

No.

It was my brother.

Marc. Marc was here.