Chapter Twenty-Four
Iris
I didn’t know what to expect when I walked by the English Department on my way back from the library to see Noah’s office light still on.
I had sat there in the cold night air, arms wrapped around myself as memories from that night replayed in my mind. The only reason why I didn’t want to face him was because I knew that I’d fall into his arms again. I was terrified of getting caught. I was terrified of how Noah made me feel. It had nothing to do with anything else.
And, it had been either pure courage or pure stupidity on my part to walk up those stairs to face him for the first time. He had been understandably pissed, but now he poured all of that frustration into bruising kisses that left me panting and craving more of it. His body was taut and hot beneath the palms of my hands as we continued to kiss hotly in his dark office.
Our clothes were off before I even realized it. All I felt was Noah’s soft skin, his hands clasping my buttocks tightly, and a certain hard organ pressing against my lower belly. His lips trailed hot kisses down the side of my neck and worked their way down to suckle at my breasts again. I threw my head back as I stifled a moan with my hand.
This was what hot and pure pleasure felt like. Every inch of my skin was covered in a slick layer of sweat, and I could feel the dampness on his skin when he pressed up against me.
“Damn,” he whispered, letting go of my breast much to my reluctance. “I’ve missed you, Iris. You have no idea.”
I reached down to skim a finger along the hardness pressed between us. Noah let out a ragged hiss at the touch. I smirked when a wave of feminine smugness washed over me. I liked knowing I had this much power over someone like Noah.
“Pretty sure I do,” I replied, breathlessly.
Noah smacked me playfully on the right butt cheek before hooking my leg up around his waist. He spun us around, and then I heard him shoving things off to the side before the cool grain of wood touched my back. It was so dark that I could barely see his tall figure moving gracefully in front of me, but his hands were clear indicators of where he was going. I felt them trail down the inside of my thighs sensually, drawing patterns at my knees before moving back upward.
My heart thudded quickly under the teasing touch. The first touch of his fingers sent pleasure spiraling through me. I arched off the desk with a startled gasp.
“I think you’ve missed me even more, dear,” Noah said huskily. “Do you think you can keep quiet? The janitor is downstairs cleaning.”
I nodded feverishly before I realized that he couldn’t see me. “Yes,” I whispered back. “I can be quiet. Please, Noah.”
“Say that again.”
I lifted my head off the desk. “Say what?”
“Say ‘please, Noah.’ I like the sound of that.”
“Please,” I groaned out, body aching to be touched the only way Noah knew how to.
Hot breath caressed me intimately. My eyes widened at when I felt his nose nudge my hip before trailing kisses down closer to the bundle of nerves twitching between my legs. Surely he didn’t mean to actually…
Liquid pleasure rushed through my veins so fast that it left me dizzy and panting helplessly against the onslaught of it. My fingers clawed at the desk to hold myself down while his hands steadied my hips, not missing a stroke down below. Whimpers escaped my lips as my lower stomach coiled in response. I was back on that platform again, rushing madly toward the end of it before I fell off into a stormy sea of orgasm after orgasm.
The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth when I finally came to surface to catch my breath. I lifted my head when I felt Noah finally lift his head from between my thighs.
“Holy crap,” I said, breathlessly. “That was… That was amazing.”
He chuckled deeply, an almost predatory sound. A shiver went up my spine when he turned me over so that my breasts were flattened against the damp wood of his desk. His hands roamed around my buttocks for a moment before giving a full squeeze.
“You don’t hurt at all, do you?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I don’t hurt at all.”
“Good. I just wanted to check before I did this.”
“Did wha-”
He slid into me hard before I could even finish my question. I curled my fingers around the edge of his desk to hold on while Noah set a fast and hard pace that made it damn near impossible for either of us to be quiet. Our mingled gasps of pleasure filled the entire office. How many times had I thought of being bent over like this in Noah’s office late at night?
Gratification filled me at the thought when I felt myself plummeting downwards to that same turbulent sea of pleasure. Noah’s thrusts were punctuated by grunts now as he drew close to his own release. One hand curled around my shoulder while his free one slipped around my waist. The second his thumb pressed up against me I let out a muffled scream as pleasure shot through me hard and fast.
I fell limp against the desk as tremors crashed over me. A few seconds later, I felt Noah’s hips twitch against me one last time as he stiffened with a satisfied moan before collapsing on top of me.
We stayed that way for a while, drenched in each other’s sweat, but too exhausted to lift away from one another. Noah pressed a tender kiss to the back of my neck before he pulled back finally.
“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asked, concern lacing his voice.
I straightened up gingerly, but to my relief this time, I felt nothing. No throbbing pain this time. Just throbbing pleasure.
“No,” I said. “No pain this time.”
“Good. We should get dressed just in case someone comes up here.”
My throat tightened at the thought. We dressed in silence before Noah clicked the lights on. He reached up to run a hand quickly through his hair while I also pulled my hair back into its braid. If anyone stumbled upon us now, nothing would look suspicious.
Except for Noah’s desk.
“This was not how I imagined my night turning out,” Noah said, an amused grin tugging at his lips.
He stepped by me to organize his desk back to the way it was. The spine of a book on his desk caught my eye. Love Triangle. I picked it up curiously to read the description on the back and stopped short when I read the last bit of information at the bottom.
Jack Miller currently lives in Provo, Utah.
I looked up to find Noah’s gaze on me. “Why is this on your desk? Seems a little out of place to me.”
“It’s my book,” he replied, shrugging as if him writing an erotica romance was no big deal. “You look a bit stunned.”
“I am a bit stunned,” I said, flipping through the hefty book with an impressed glance. “I mean, I knew you were obviously a good writer to be an English professor, but I didn’t know you were published.”
“A few months ago, after I came back from New Zealand, I published it,” he said. “It does decent on the market, but it’s also costing me a lot to have my own team to look through it.”
“Team?”
“Editors, proofreaders, cover designer. Things like that.”
I looked back down at the cover of two women wrapped up in a man’s embrace. Ironically, I felt like it suited Noah in a lot of ways. He had women wrapped around him all the time, whether or not he embraced them back.
“Respect,” I said. “I understand why you are so critical of me now.”
His eyes narrowed a bit. “I’m critical of you for other reasons, too, Iris. You’re an adult. I’m an adult. We don’t need to treat each other like we did this past week.”
I set the book back down on his desk. Guilt went through me when I caught sight a brief glimpse of hurt in his eyes.
“I know, and I’m sorry for leaving your house the way I did and then ditching your class. I suck at this, if you can’t tell.”
“I can’t criticize,” he said. “I’m not the best at relationships, either. Don’t look up my track record.”
I twisted my hands around each other nervously. I had no idea what to do now. For the past week, I had told myself to avoid Noah at all costs, but here I was standing in front of him with pleasure still throbbing in my body. It occurred to me then that no matter how hard the both of us tried, we couldn’t avoid one another. I was drawn to him in ways I’d never imagined I would be.
“What do we do now?” I asked. “We can’t let this get out of this office, obviously.”
Noah reached up to rub at his chin with a sigh. “No,” he agreed, softly. “We can’t let anyone know about this.”
I bit my lip in contemplation. “Do you think we got it out of our system for now?”
“Probably not,” he said, shrugging. “How about we just promise to keep it low until the next few weeks are over with? Deal?”
“Does that mean you’d take me out on an actual date then?” I asked teasingly. I didn’t expect an answer, but Noah glanced at me with a mischievous smile.
“Plenty of them,” he said. “We’re going about this backwards, but we really don’t have a choice.”
“We really don’t,” I agreed. “We will wait until May, then?”
“Until then,” he said. Wrapping me up into a tight embrace, he rested his forehead against mine. It felt so natural to fall right into his strong arms. “Don’t be afraid to sneak off to my house in the meantime. I won’t be able to keep my hands off of you.”
I grinned up at him. For the first time, I felt confident about where things were going between us. It wasn’t awkward, or strained like I had dreaded. It felt assuring and steady, despite the cold hard reality outside of Noah’s office door.
“Count me in,” I said. “I’ll be there for visits away.”