CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“Are you alive?” Cat prodded Noah in the shoulder. She wasn’t sure how long they’d lain like this, tangled together in a heap on the floor. Frankly, she wasn’t sure what year it was. She couldn’t even scroll back through her memory banks to compare any of her earlier sexual escapades to what clearly was the mamma jamma of all orgasmic experiences.
Her body was loose and lazy, her mind virtually blank. Cat was left with only two coherent thoughts:
1. Noah Yates was the king of orgasms.
2. And her dining room table was broken.
One of them, in the throes of passion, had kicked the leg and dislodged it from the table which now leaned precariously without the support.
Noah stirred and shifted the weight that was holding her fast to the floor.
“Mmm?”
Cat poked him in the ribs. “Hello?”
“Think I’m in a sex coma,” Noah muttered against her shoulder.
A sex coma. That was about as perfect a description as possible for their current scenario. Her heart rate had yet to return to normal, still revved from the adrenaline and perhaps from the swirl of fear he’d stirred in her.
Cat liked it fast, fun. No time to think or linger. But he’d taken her beyond that. He’d taken her to a space where all she could do was feel. And the tenderness with which he stared into her eyes, her soul? It was enough to stir some anxiety.
Noah was complicated. He was a father, a reluctant part of the show, and he made her feel things she wasn’t interested in feeling. Cat wasn’t willing to make room for complicated. Noah was a long-term monogamous guy. He studied risk and chose the safest route. He’d expect a relationship. A real one. Not just a “Hey, I’m in town,” booty text.
Noah needed someone who’d be home every day by 5:05 p.m. Someone who would be around on the weekends. Someone to go to the movies with on a Wednesday.
But Cat loved her life, ridiculous schedule and all. She loved the business, the importance and necessity of what she was doing. She loved not having to check in with someone if she was running late. If she wanted to spend an extra weekend on a shoot she didn’t have to confer with anyone else’s schedule. She enjoyed the jet-setting, the frantic rush, the intense time frames of television. Didn’t she?
God, a handful of orgasms, and she was already anticipating a marriage proposal from the man. She was short on sleep and brain cells. Could sex kill brain cells?
Cat scrambled for an excuse to send him home, to give herself a little distance to find her balance. But the sex coma left her brain mushy.
“Want some water?” Noah murmured, lips brushed the tender skin of her neck.
“Yeah,” she croaked. Anything to get his hot skin off of hers.
Noah pushed himself up, and Cat pretended not to notice the bulge of biceps, the ridges of abs. Stripping off the pants bunched around his feet, Noah padded naked to her miniscule kitchen and opened the fridge. “Jesus, Cat,” he called. “You’ve got three bottles of water, half a green juice, and some wilted lettuce in here. How do you survive?”
“I do just fine. Water me,” she ordered, working her way into a sitting position. She grabbed a shirt off the floor and dragged it on over her head. If she wasn’t naked, there wouldn’t be a reason for him to stick around. She stumbled to the couch and flopped down on the cushion.
His ass was a fine specimen of male asses, she thought, cocking her head to admire its firm symmetry. She’d admired it before in Dockers and jeans, but it was even more spectacular without any adornments.
“Do you work out?” she asked before her brain caught up with her mouth.
Noah returned to her, water bottles in hand, and gracefully sank onto the cushion next to her. He opened a bottle and handed it to her. “I go to the gym,” he said, guzzling his own water.
“It shows,” Cat said, letting her gaze appreciatively wander the rest of his body. She liked that he was confident enough to not immediately reach for his pants in the corner or his underwear, wherever the hell they were.
“We’re making small talk now?” Noah asked, eyeing her. “After that?”
Cat felt embarrassed over her embarrassment. He had her off kilter. It reminded her of when she and Gannon were kids playing baseball in the neighborhood. In their infinite nine-year-old wisdom, they’d put their foreheads on the end of the bat and spun and spun until they couldn’t run a straight line.
That’s how she felt now. Dizzy and giddy and not completely in control.
“An observation isn’t small talk,” Cat argued.
“Hmm,” Noah responded. He was watching her with something warm, something possessive in those sharp green eyes. His hair was a mess from her demanding fingers pulling on it. He looked so relaxed, so happy and confident. All Cat wanted to do was curl up in his lap and fall asleep. But that wasn’t how she rolled. Not even close.
“Well, I’ve got an early morning,” she began.
“Ask me to stay, Cat.” He gave the order calmly, quietly. She blinked, opened her mouth to argue. But her body didn’t want her to argue. Her body wanted to curl up next to Noah’s heat, wanted to wake up to that soft look and those strong hands.
But, damn it, her body also wanted pizza and a Jack and Coke and deep fried Snickers. Her body did not rule her mind.
“Stay with me. Please.” The words were out of her mouth before she could corral her traitorous urges.
He pulled her back against him, his lean, hard body cradling hers. Cat resisted the urge to relax, but his heat and the gentle stroke of his hand over the curve of her hip were impossible to fight.
“I have questions,” she said into the dark.
“Okay,” Noah sighed indulgently into her hair. “Fire away.”
“Your mother. Why is she… the way she is? And why is the Christmas Festival so important to you personally?”
He took another breath, let it out slowly as if he were carefully choosing his words. “My dad was an alcoholic gambler. But I didn’t know that until years later. All I knew when I was five or six was that he scared me. There was never enough food. Never any money. The house was never warm enough in the winter. My mother was never happy. They fought a lot at night. He’d disappear for days at a time.”
Cat sat up to look at him. This was not what she’d expected.
Noah swallowed hard and then gave a wry smile.
“One day he was supposed to be watching me while my mom went to the grocery store. He thought I was making too much noise. So, he… he, uh, locked me in the basement. When my mother came home, he was passed out drunk, and she thought I’d wandered away. The cops were called, but it took a while before they finally found me.”
“How long were you down there?” Cat asked quietly.
“Six hours.” There was no amusement in Noah’s dry laugh. She reached out and interlaced her fingers with his. Just a touch. A friendly reminder that the past was where it should be. Far, far behind him.
Cat swore under her breath. “You could have just said ‘none of your business, nosy.’”
He gave her a crooked grin and adjusted his glasses. “After what we just experienced right there,” he said, pointing to the floor, “you want to start drawing boundaries?”
“I don’t want you to feel obligated to tell me…anything,” Cat began. “It’s just—I mean I know it has to be hard for you, and we didn’t exactly get off to the best start.”
“I think we’ve more than made up for that,” Noah countered. “I guess I just want you to know. That’s why the festival is so important to me. Cat, that was the only time of year I could really escape. When that tree was lit the day after Thanksgiving every year, when the whole town was decked out in lights and tinsel, I had a place to go every day after school besides home. I helped out wherever I could just so I wouldn’t have to go home. And the people of Merry let me. I manned the hot chocolate stand. I swept sidewalks. I wrapped gifts. They fed me, paid me. Even when they didn’t have to.”
He cleared his throat, his voice thick with emotion. “I went to every tree lighting. Ada Romanski—she was the last city manager—she’d give a little speech and then push the button that lit the tree, and I thought it was the coolest job in the world. I wanted that job. Sometimes in the summer when my parents were fighting or when there wasn’t enough to eat, I’d go to bed, and I’d dream about those lights.”
Cat blinked back a hot rush of tears. “Jesus,” she breathed. “Is your dad still alive? Because I’m all for driving to his shithole apartment—because I know an asshole like that doesn’t have a house—and kicking his ass.”
“He left when I was a teenager. Went to work and just never came back. It was a relief to me at first. He wasn’t around to tell me what a disappointment I was or how pathetic I was. But then reality set in. Mom didn’t work, never had. And we went from barely scraping by to heads underwater.”
Cat squeezed his hand, her heart breaking to bits over the little boy who dreamed of Christmas lights.
“The only things I had in those days were school and the Christmas Festival. Two bright, shiny things that I could hang onto to get me through the rest of it. The fights, the never having enough, the never being good enough. So I worked hard, got some scholarships, and decided I’d spend my life giving back to the town that had given me so much. And my mother? By the time he left, there wasn’t much left of her. She moved, a couple miles outside of town. Neither one of us could stand the sight of that house anymore. But she just gave up a long time ago.”
Cat dropped her head back and stared up at the ceiling. “Noah, this explains so much.”
“Like what?”
“You’re not an asshole. You’re scarred.”
“I’m not scarred,” he argued. “It was decades ago. I’m over it. I should be over it.”
Cat cupped his chin with her free hand. “Listen to me. There’s a difference between being scarred and being a victim. You took what was a terrible childhood, and you made sure your daughter would never feel any of those things. She’d never be hungry or cold or scared.”
“A lot of good it did her. She wants to be a celebrity and have pink hair. Next, she’s going to be telling me she doesn’t want to go to college.”
She gave his grizzled chin an affectionate squeeze. “Stop. You didn’t have control when you were a kid. Your parents weren’t responsible enough to provide the stability and security you needed to feel safe. It’s why you’re Mr. No now. Why you were such a dick about the show.”
“I wouldn’t say I was a dick—”
“Totally a dick.”
“Fine. I was a dick,” he conceded. “I just. Things need to be safe, tidy, secure. I’m in charge of the livelihood of this town, and I take that very seriously. I don’t want to let anyone down or make a bad decision that would hurt people.”
“So, you play it safe,” Cat filled in the blank.
“Sometimes maybe a little too safe,” he admitted. He picked up her hand and traced the tattoo with the tip of his finger. “I’m unnaturally good at assessing risks. And you’re a huge one.”
She grinned. “How am I risky? I’m light, I’m fun, I don’t require constant care and attention.”
“Oh, you’re risky. I could fall for you, and you could just walk out of my life onto the next job, the next guy, the next adventure. And I’d just be left remembering.”
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Cat woke with his sleep-hardened cock buried at the base of her spine. Even in his sleep, Noah was shifting against her, greedy for more friction.
Her body felt sore and well used from last night, and yet… there was a sharp yearning for more. She’d thought getting it out of their system at least once would dull the need she felt. But now she feared she may have only awoken the dragon. The intimacy? That was too much. But the outcome. Dear, sweet baby Jesus, she’d never experienced anything like that in her entire sexual history.
It was ironic to get to thirty-two only to realize how sorely she’d been deprived. She wanted more. More of his rough words, more of his body worshipping her own. More of that edge of pain mixed with a pleasure that threatened to drown her. And yet, her heart ached for him, for that little boy hungry for love and safety. She’d misjudged him on so many levels.
His arm was thrown over her waist, hand gripping her breast. She felt her nipple pebble against his palm, seeking, needing. Noah flexed against her ass again, and Cat felt a shiver of desire snake through her.
She closed a hand over his as it gripped her breast and kneaded.
“Mmm,” he murmured against her hair. She waited for him to wake and was rewarded with a more conscious thrust at her back.
Cat reached behind her between their bodies and trailed her fingers over his hard-on. He pulled his hips back, giving her room to wrap her hand around him. One pump of her tight hand was all it took to feel moisture pooling at his tip.
She heard the sigh resonate in his chest, and his cock twitched in her hand. He was beyond ready for her. But she wasn’t ready for the intimacy, the rawness they’d shared last night. It felt too… serious. Too intense. She wanted to show Noah fun, not turn him into a sex slave soulmate.
Cat rolled onto her stomach, knees pushing her ass in the air. It was all the invitation Noah needed.
“Condom,” he demanded in a sleep-roughened voice.
She pointed to the nightstand, and he ripped the drawer off its tracks in his hurry.
Like a Pavlovian experiment, Cat felt herself go wet at the sound of the foil between his very capable fingers. There’d be no finesse here, just a sleepy morning fuck that woke and warmed their bodies. No staring into each other’s eyes and guessing the other’s secrets. No unsettling yearnings for something so much more.
Cat buried her face in her pillow when Noah notched himself into place. He stayed there for just a moment, one inch inside her, igniting a fire that threatened to burn them both to the ground. Smoothing his hands up her back and around her sides, he leaned forward just slightly to cup her breasts and slide another inch deeper into her.
She could barely hold back the cry. It wasn’t deep enough. She wasn’t full enough. She was desperate for it. For him.
She flexed her hips backward against him, and he allowed her another inch. Cat took a shaky breath. Her fingers held the sheets in a death grip. Noah stroked up her spine and back down, a gentle yet stirring touch. Everywhere he touched her, her skin felt a thousand degrees warmer. Her ass cheeks, the backs of her thighs, her spine, and now her breasts again. He kneaded them with his firm fingers and without warning used his grip to yank her backwards onto his cock.
Cat cried out into the pillow. Her muscles were already dancing and sparking with an impossibly swift build toward orgasm.
“Damn it, baby. You’re so wet,” he groaned, fingers flexing into her soft flesh. “I haven’t even touched you yet.”
Noah took his time sliding out of her, and Cat immediately felt bereft, empty. When he sank into her again, she could feel his body coiling against hers. The need that she was fighting was present in him too. Instinct was driving them in one direction and one direction only. Fulfillment.
He started a leisurely pace that had Cat writhing against him, needing more. This slow, sweet slide of his body against hers, the gentle stroke of his hands, were doing things to her heart. She felt warm, open, worshipped.
He was making this too serious, too intense.
Cat pressed herself up onto her hands and flipped her hair. She stared at him over her shoulder. She caught his eye and gave him a dirty grin. “Fuck me, Noah.”
The second those words were out of her mouth, Noah clamped his hands on her hips and drove into her like a man on a mission. Stroking in and out of her, his measured pace tripped and then stumbled into brutal speed. Mindless with it, Cat curved her spine to change the angle.
“God, yes,” she murmured.
His fingers dug in, bruising the soft flesh at her hips, but Cat didn’t care. She wanted more of those soft grunts that were spilling from him. Wanted the stab of his fingers. Wanted the feeling of being impaled as he bottomed out inside her.
Harder and harder he thrust into her, his hips pistoning against her. He held her in place with hard hands.
Her breasts swayed with the thrusts, nipples dragging across the soft sheets and sparking her arousal.
She was mumbling nonsense. Begging for what they both knew he’d deliver.
“I want to come, Noah.” She shouted the request.
He shoved her shoulders down so only her ass was in the air and then slid his hands down to tug at her nipples.
“Touch yourself, Cat. Come on me. Make me feel it.”
His fingers pulled on nipples in a concerted rhythm like twin mouths. Cat slid her hand between her legs where their bodies joined.
Nothing mattered. Not time, not call sheets, not even Christmas. Just this.
Cat was an expert on her body. She knew just what pressure was needed. She used her fingers to rub and stroke her way to the top.
“Noah,” she gasped.
“I feel you, baby. Let it go. Need to feel you—”
The first delicious squeeze of her orgasm cut him off. Noah gritted out a sound of pleasure as Cat closed around him.
“Fuck, baby. Yes.”
His fingers never stopped their pulls at her nipples, and Cat felt her body slide into heaven between the strokes of his cock inside her and the tugs at her breasts. She closed over him again and again, riding out a blissful, soul-shattering release that left her weak-kneed and shaking.
She heard him, the guttural grunt of the build to his own climax.
“Come on me,” she heard herself say.
She didn’t need to say it twice. Noah was pulling out of her and dragging off the condom. Cat reached between her legs to cup his balls and peered over her shoulder. She didn’t want to miss a second of this fantasy she’d had for a straight month.
He fisted his cock, primed it once, and growled.
“Come for me, Noah,” Cat instructed.
He stared into her eyes, a madman out of control, as he dragged his hand down the length of his shaft.
“Faster,” Cat whispered, enthralled.
Noah obeyed, never breaking eye contact. The grip on his cock looked almost painful. Cat forgot for a moment that she had the soft cushion of his balls in her palm. Remembering, she tugged them down, palming them.
Noah’s nostrils flared, his green eyes hooded. Cat suddenly felt the sensation that she was his prey, not his tormentor.
“Harder, Noah.” She squeezed his balls, hard, saw the wince, but his hand sped up jacking his erection harder, faster, until his jaw locked tight and his breath stopped. Then suddenly his free hand was between her legs, fingers pressing on her clit, dancing over its slick surface.
Cat cried out as the sneaky bastard shoved her into another orgasm. She felt the first hot rope of his release land on her back, dripping down the curve of her ass. Cat forced her eyes open to watch as they came together. She felt imprinted, branded, engraved, as Noah grunted softly at each pump of his fist. Cat sobbed her way through the orgasm that wrung her out, destroying her ability to think.