“Nice try, sweetheart. Why don’t you just enjoy the ride? We’re almost inside.” He laughed as he felt her try to free her hand and figure out what she could do with only one. All of a sudden, he felt her breath on his skin. If she put her mouth on him, it would all be over. “Don’t do it, I can’t be held responsible for taking you right here and now, which is what I have wanted to do since I first saw you crawling around my garden.” The growl in his voice warned her that he was serious.
He felt her breathing stop as she held it. The next thing he knew he felt her tongue dart out and softly licked his skin. Pulling her roughly over his shoulder, he backed her up against the wall, and devoured her lips. The heavens opened up and it started raining. They moaned as she moved her hands over his rain-slicked shoulders. He grabbed her, pulling her up and closer to him.
He started kissing her jaw, moving down her neck as he said, “What is it about you? I can’t get you out of my head. I stare out of my windows hoping to catch a glimpse of you like some lovesick teenager.” He lifted her arm and kissed down to her elbow, his tongue licked at the sweet saltiness. Noah smiled as she moaned.
“I would do anything, give anything, to see your smile. I want to know everything about you. I want to know every curve of your body, to taste every inch of you.” He nibbled on her neck while his hand glided down the length of her body. “Take you places you’ve never been before. Protect you. Cherish you. Make love to you. No one has ever had this effect on me before.”
He sighed and rested his forehead on hers. “You already matter too much to me. I’m going to take care when it comes to you. I won’t use you and throw you away like I’ve done in the past.” He framed her face with his hands. “I’m going to prove to you that I am more than just some rocker who used to party too hard and didn’t care for anyone but himself.” He lightly kissed her on the lips. “If I have to spend the next eighty years proving to you how much you mean to me, I will do it every single day.”
Closing her eyes she said, “Let’s go inside and get dry. If you really are serious, there are things you need to know.”
*
As the storm raged around his house, she changed into dry shorts and a t-shirt Noah had given her. They were large on her, but they worked. Lexi tried to calm herself down. She hadn’t talked to someone who mattered to her about what had happened in a long time. Noah’s room was huge, of course, and faced the ocean like hers did. It was on the side of the house closest to hers. She shivered as the lightning continued to flash across the sky. It was now or never. She went downstairs and joined him in the family room at the back of the house.
“My clothes look much sexier on you.”
“Noah, you would think a burlap sack looked sexy on me.” She smoothed out the imaginary wrinkles in the shirt.
“True, but you could pull it off.” He stood up from where he had started a fire in the fireplace and moved over to her to put an arm around her shoulders.
“Do you have any wine?” She desperately needed a little extra something to give her courage to tell her story to Noah. He meant so much to her and she wasn’t sure how he would react.
“Um, yeah, but isn’t it kind of early?” He looked at the clock. “It’s not even lunchtime yet.”
“I know, but it feels later, it’s so gloomy outside, and what I have to tell you is dark.”
“Do you have a preference?”
“Anything will do. I’m just going to have a glass or two in order to get through this all.”
He paused and looked back at her on the way to get the wine. “Is it that bad?”
“Yes.” She looked him in the eye and did not blink.
She watched as his eyes closed at the one simple word. “I’ll get a big glass.” He walked out of the room and took a moment to gather himself. He had a feeling what was coming wasn’t going to be pretty and he wanted to be what she needed to get through this.
Lexi paced back and forth waiting for Noah to return. She tried to mentally gear herself up to tell him everything because he mattered to her, which made this more difficult than talking about it to a group of strangers in group counseling. When he returned and handed her the glass, she drank half of it in one big gulp.
“Easy there, love. The wine’s not going anywhere.”
“I know. I just needed a big hit to get started.” She let out a deep breath.
He rubbed her shoulders. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”
“Noah, if I had my choice, I would never tell anyone this ever again. But that’s not healthy for me. Besides, I might be able to help someone. I have told my story countless times to other women. It’s hard for me to tell, but not impossible. It’s just different with you. This matters, you matter.” She moved away from him and stood looking down at the fire.