CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Three weeks to Christmas Eve
It was after ten when Cat slipped onto Noah’s porch under the cover of shadows and knocked softly. She leaned against the clapboard siding and stared out at the darkened neighborhood. They had three weeks before Christmas Eve. Three episodes had already aired, and people were talking about the show and not just speculating about her and Drake now. Best of all, a few more advertisers were on board. And she was riding the fine line of adrenaline and exhaustion.
The applications for the school were trickling in, still without a standout location. And with the grant money burning a hole, Cat was anxious to give the project her full focus. But that meant leaving Merry. Leaving Noah.
The door opened, and there he was. Hair disheveled, worn college t-shirt, and bare feet sticking out of those easy access sweatpants she found so sexy. He shoved his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and grinned at her.
Cat forgot all about her exhaustion and pushed him backwards into the house, hands flat on his chest. Noah pulled her into his arms, spinning them, and kicked the door closed. One-handed, he flipped the deadbolt.
“Bed?” she breathed when his mouth closed over hers.
She was already revved, ready for him. “I’m two floors up,” Noah said, biting at her lower lip.
“Couch first then,” Cat said, slipping her fingers into the stretchy waistband of his pants and pulling him toward the family room.
It was much the same as the last time she’d seen it except there was a fat tree crammed into the corner. It was covered in a hodge-podge of handmade ornaments, obviously family favorites, and glass bulbs. There was a lopsided plastic star perched atop the tree. A trio of candles blazed in the front window. Homey. Cozy.
“Boots. Pants. Lose ‘em,” Noah ordered, his mouth busying itself against hers. His tongue, a tempting devil that swept between her lips to taste her.
Cat heeled off her work boots, letting them land with twin thunks on the living room rug. Noah was too impatient to wait for Cat to get to her jeans and helped himself to her button and zipper. The denim bunched and slid down her legs until she was free.
Cat backed Noah up to the worn, comfortable couch, pressing him down.
“Do you want a drink?” he asked as he freed her from her coat and pulled her down to straddle him.
She swiped the hat off her head and threw it into a dark corner of the room. “Sure. After.”
His fingers opened her fleece vest and slid it from her shoulders. “How many damn layers?” he murmured as Cat shoved her hands into his hair.
Cat kissed him hard. “Three more.”
She shucked the thermal shirt off over her head, leaving him to stroke over the silky fabric of her tank top. “Two more,” she whispered.
Noah slid his hands under the hem and skimmed upward, drawing the tank with him.
“Last one,” she promised. He yanked at her bra, a simple sports design, and unceremoniously discarded it.
He paused for a breath, admiring the view of her bare breasts just inches from his face. Cat felt his erection lengthen beneath her. Then his hands, those rough and ready palms were on her, drawing out the winter’s cold and replacing it with a heat warm enough to scorch her. He leaned in, his tongue darting out to taste the tip of the breast closest to him.
Cat dropped her head back, her hair tickling her back, and sighed. Noah closed his mouth over the pink bud. The windows inches behind the couch fogged as Cat’s breath grew ragged. She rolled her hips against him, grinding against the cock that was straining against his sweatpants. He took a handful of both breasts and worshipped them one at a time with his busy mouth.
With some minor gymnastics, Cat managed to force his pants down a few inches. Just enough to free his hard-on. It jutted proudly, arching away from the flat lines of Noah’s stomach. Cat didn’t bother taking a moment to admire it. She pounced, gripping him firmly at the root. Noah groaned against her breast, the vibrations surrounding her aching nipple and tingling her to her core.
“I love when you touch me.” His voice was a gravel road on a Sunday drive.
Cat pumped up his shaft, brushing her thumb across the tip. She felt powerful as Noah collapsed back against the couch, his hands seeking purchase on the curves of her hips.
“I can see that,” she teased, stroking up the column of hot, smooth flesh.
His eyes were clamped shut, his jaw tight as if the pleasure she doled out was more torture than rapture. She loved watching him react to her. Increasing her pace, Cat gripped him tighter and lifted onto her knees.
“Hold this,” she ordered, pulling her simple gray briefs to one side. Noah’s finger snaked in and hooked the material. Wickedly, he brushed his thumb over the lips of her sex, and Cat’s breath caught in her throat.
She was the one in charge. She was the captain of this ship. Brushing aside his exploring digit, Cat brought the crown of his cock to the gap in her folds. She pleasured them both that way, hard, tight strokes that brushed her bud of nerves that was already begging for more.
She needed the control. Needed the anchor it gave her so she wouldn’t be swept away like last time. This was temporary. A fling, an affair. And she needed to be able to walk away from it, from him, heart intact.
Noah’s fingers dug bruises into the flesh of her hip. “Cat.” Her name from his lips made her toes curl with pleasure. There was so much in that one word. Need, desire, an ache, an echo of something so much deeper than she expected. It jettisoned her away from her anxieties from her agenda. Nothing else mattered.
Cat made a grab for the jeans she’d flung on the end of the sofa and fumbled through the pockets before finding the condom she’d stashed there. The foil crinkled between her fingers as she worked it open. She couldn’t wait. She’d wanted to torture Noah to the edge before riding him into oblivion, but she couldn’t take the empty ache in the depths of her core. He’d fill it. He’d fill her.
She rolled the condom on, sliding it down his thickness, and Noah groaned. Still holding her underwear to the side, he lined himself up with her entrance. She wasn’t ready for him, wet but still so tight. As she slid down to sheath him, that edge between pleasure and pain cut at her with silver blades. Pain, fullness, and all-consuming pleasure. She was stretched tight around him and still hadn’t taken all of him in.
Noah gripped her by the hips and, with one hard yank, settled himself all the way inside her, her ass resting against his thighs. She was stretched beyond her limits, and it took more than a deep breath and then another to let herself start to relax around him.
He was panting beneath her—they both were—as if they’d run a mile at a flat-out sprint.
“God, did you get bigger since last time?” Cat gritted out.
“Just relax,” he ordered, breath ragged. “Relax and give me a minute, or I’m going to fuck you too hard before you’re ready and you won’t be able to walk tomorrow.”
It was the threat that did it. Cat never backed down from a challenge. She wanted that feeling, that soreness tomorrow. Wanted to be reminded of Noah every time she took a step.
“Do it,” she begged. “Take me that way.”
She didn’t need to say it twice. With his grip painful on her hips, he guided her up and slammed her down on his cock, jarring her. She cried out. “Again.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, whispering the words.
“So sure. Need you.”
This time he held her in the air, biceps straining, and he pumped his hips into her from below. The steady slap of warm flesh, the catch of breath, the cries of pleasure and pain. It all filled the room in a music unlike any other.
“God. Yes. This,” Cat demanded, leaning into him. He closed his mouth over one of her nipples and sucked hard. She saw stars.
“Christ, I need more,” he rasped, he rose, plucking her off his dick. He slid free, and Cat stared at the evidence of her own arousal coating his wrapped cock. He pushed her, draping her facedown over the hefty ottoman. “Tell me if this isn’t okay,” he warned her as he settled between her spread legs. She accepted his weight against her and wriggled her ass. She was open, needy, more than a little desperate.
“So very okay.”
He slapped at her ass, the flat of his palm connecting with the round of her curves. She yelped, and he groaned deep and guttural.
“Fuck.” He drew the word out as he pushed his way into her. Cat felt the sharp ache as he hit bottom. “Am I hurting you?”
She shook her head, not trusting her voice. She didn’t need soft, tender words. She needed his body bruising and using hers. He shifted against her, pushing off from the floor and powering into her. Again and again, biology urging him on. Cat felt every inch of him as he drove into her and dragged himself out. She’d wanted to dominate him tonight, yet once again she found herself giving over to the moment, the craving to be taken.
This wasn’t her thing. She shouldn’t be feeling the edge of release already teasing her spine. Shouldn’t be shuddering as an orgasm built so quickly she feared she wouldn’t survive it. Noah shifted just a bit and pressed her thighs apart, opening her lips to bare her clit against the ottoman’s hideous plaid upholstery.
His next thrust dragged her clitoris and nipples against the material, and Cat cried out. The friction of the fabric, the depth of his thrusts, those short grunts of pleasure that worked themselves out of his throat. It all worked together in a symphony that carried her to a crescendo. It slammed into her, through her, molten like lava, fast like electricity. And Noah never slowed. He fucked her fast and rough through the shudders of pleasure that erupted in wave after wave.
“Noah!” She shouted his name as he owned her body.
His thrusts slowed, and he went stock still in her, every muscle, every cell tensed against her. The guttural, primitive noise came from his chest as Cat felt his cock pulse inside her. He fought it. The release that was inevitable.
“I need to see you, Cat. I want to see you, taste you, when I come.”
She was too weak to answer. He pulled out of her, and despite the climax that had left her wrecked a moment ago, she ached for more.
He pulled her up and arranged her on the couch, pillows at her back, legs open. When he ranged himself over her, Cat felt her breath catch. Was there anything in this world more lust-worthy than a naked Noah Yates professing all the ways he was going to take her? Desire, hard and dark, crystallized in his eyes. And when he pressed her thighs further apart and lowered himself between them, she felt the promised ache of soreness.
“Hold on to me,” he ordered.
She obliged, gripping his shoulders and pulling him to her.
“Fuck me, Noah. Hard. I want to feel you come.”
Surprising her with tenderness, Noah leaned down to nuzzle one breast and then the other. His teeth grazed her nipple, and Cat sucked in a breath.
“God you’re built,” he murmured, tongue brushing the sensitive tip. “I could do this all day.” The rough flat of his tongue dragged over her peak.
“No complaints here,” she gasped.
“I’d come too fast if I let you keep riding me,” he confessed. “Just watching your perfect tits puts me on the edge.”
Cat bucked against his hips. “Noah. Please?”
He probed at her core, and Cat relaxed her muscles, open and ready. The pulls from his mouth on her breast were echoing in her core.
“Once I start, I’m not going to be able to stop, baby.” He gave a testing push of his hips. “Once I’m inside you, I’m going to fuck you until I can’t stop coming. Until I fill you with everything I’ve got.”
“Jesus, Noah.” Cat wrapped her legs higher up his hips.
He gave her other nipple a lazy stroke with the flat of his tongue. “Don’t you love the anticipation?” His lips hovered over the bud that strained toward his mouth like a flower reaching for the sun. “It’s like Christmas Eve.”
When his lips closed over her bud, Cat cried out, and he slid into her in one powerful thrust. Her breast popped free from his mouth. And Noah let himself off the leash. It was what she wanted. Noah Yates beyond control. But she’d failed to anticipate being there herself. His hips slammed into her, his cock riding her slickness home. Cat could do nothing but hang on for dear life. The power in him, the rocketing of his thrusts into her core. She was dizzy with need, with desire.
“I’m never going to get enough of you, Cat.” He was panting, breathless, hammering into her with the single-minded ferocity of an animal.
She felt the sparks in her fingertips and toes. Felt the molten glow, volcanic as it began to move through her body. “Noah?”
“Come, Cat. Come on my cock. Milk it for me.”
How could a man so reserved, so responsible, turn into an animal, primitive and dangerous and dirty?
Her arms were vises holding him against her. Noah lifted her hips, adjusting the angle, and dragged the crown of his cock over that secret place of wanton pleasure. That bundle of nerves that turned detonator.
“Yes,” Cat hissed out the word.
“I can feel you, baby. I can feel you,” he chanted. “Don’t hold back.”
Cat squeezed her muscles around him, his erection brushing exactly the right spot again.
“Fuck.” Noah murmured as his thrusts changed, wild and powerful, taking what he claimed. It sparked bright, hot. She closed around him in involuntary pleasure, shouting his name. He was there with her, coming hard, loud. She gripped him with those hungry squeezes and felt him pour himself into her. Again and again until he collapsed on top of her, pressing her into the pillows beneath.