“I feel like I know you, too,” I said, stepping closer to him. “Why is that a problem?”
“You already mentioned your contract. I signed one, too. I can’t honestly say that I’m here right now thinking about only your pleasure and knowing that we aren’t going to see each other again. That’s not what’s on my mind and I don’t think that it’s fair for me to continue if I’m not doing it for the reasons that I told Fawn that I would do it. She hired me for a specific purpose, and I’m not fulfilling that purpose.”
“I thought that you wanted me,” I said, almost embarrassed by the statement as soon as I said it.
“I do,” Noah said. “That’s the problem. I wanted you before I came here, and that’s not why you’re here. You signed up for this for a reason, and you don’t deserve to have someone distracting you from that.”
“But, Noah,” I started.
He turned his back to grab the bowl from the table, immediately silencing me.
“Come on. I’ll walk you to your room.”
It had been a surprise to know that Noah was my date and to hear everything that he admitted to me, but I hadn’t expected him to cut off our date so abruptly. In my mind, I knew that he was right, but that didn’t change the disappointment that I had felt. We had been having so much fun together. It was different from the other dates. With them, I had been thinking about the men in visceral, sexual terms from nearly the first second that I saw them. I had fully embraced the exploration that was intended to be part of the dates and though it had been interesting and illuminating to go through the different types of dates that the men had planned, I had looked at each of them as a different form of sexual being and weighed our activities and interactions on a scale of the effectiveness of the seduction and what it had taught me about myself and my tastes.
It wasn’t that way with Noah. Instead, the time that we had spent together had been about just that. I had enjoyed his company and felt present and engaged in the moment throughout the evening, truly having fun with the activities that he had planned. Now I was back in my room, Noah having left me at the door, trying to really wrap my head around what had happened and what it meant. Though it was still early, I decided to go to bed. I kicked my clothes off in the bedroom and walked into the bathroom. Positioning the shower on to the hardest massage setting, I turned the heat up until it filled the room with steam and stepped around the gauzy curtain into the stream.
I had only been standing in the water for a few moments when I heard the distinctive click of the door to the bathroom opening and I felt my stomach tighten.
Chapter Nineteen
Snow
"Noah?" I asked, knowing that he was the only person who could come into my room like that, and the only person who would have reason to.
He said nothing and I tucked my head around the edge of the shower curtain to look into the bathroom. My wet hair clung to my skin, but I had yet to wash my makeup off, and I saw him let out a long breath as if the image had struck him far more powerfully than I would have expected it to. Keeping his eyes locked on my face, Noah grasped the bottom of his shirt and pulled it off over his head, tossing it aside. I drew in a breath. We had tried to stop ourselves, but the expression in his eyes told me that he had no intention now of hesitating. What had started between us couldn’t be denied and he had made the directed, intentional decision that he wasn’t going to let us even try. He released the button on his pants and let them drop to his feet. When I didn't ask him to stop, Noah looped his thumbs into the waistband of his trunks and eased them off of his hips.
As Noah stepped out of his trunks and kicked them aside, I slipped back behind the curtain. It was as much an invitation as it was a moment to myself to breathe. He walked up to the edge of the tub and spread his hand against the curtain. I brought mine up and meet his, my fingers spreading slightly to match the expanse of his and my palm pressing into his touch. We both breathed into the cautious, measured contact for a few moments before I took the side of the curtain in my other hand and slowly eased it back so that I could look at him again. Noah took hold of it just above my hand and opened it further to create enough space for him to step inside with me.
Neither of us spoke as Noah stepped and into the water with me. His eyes traveled along my body, appreciating every lush curve and full, delicious swell. He reached forward and brushed his fingers back through the wet strands of my hair and then let them trail down onto my shoulder and along the edge of my neck. I shivered slightly beneath the touch and Noah stepped up closer. His fingers traced my collarbone and rested briefly in the soft dip at the base of my throat as his other hand came up to rest on the full curve of my hip. There he paused again as if he was feeling my pulse, bringing another moment of connection between us.
I reciprocated by running my hand down the center of his chest, moving slowly as I allowed my fingertips to memorize the ridges and planes of his muscles. Even that simple touch seemed to send shivers through him and Noah closed his eyes briefly. I didn’t know if he was doing it to enjoy the feeling of my touch or if he was trying to bring himself under more control. Noah bent down and pressed the stopper into the drain to allow the deep tub to start to fill with the water streaming from the showerhead. When he straightened and turned back to me, I had washed away my lipstick. It left my plush lips slightly swollen, and he tilted his head forward to brush his lips across my mouth. It was less a kiss than a gesture of tender, cautious appeal, reaching out to me to ask me to see that he was offering himself to me and to accept him simply as he was. I tilted my mouth into the touch, seeking more of it, and Noah obliged, pressing his lips against mine with more pressure. My eyes closed as I felt his lips part on mine and the tip of his tongue dip inside to taste the soft, delicate inside of my mouth.
We both eased a step closer to one another and the front of my body brushed against his, tightening my nipples and causing my belly to tremble. He rested his hand on the back of my hip and pulled me close so my breasts crushed against his chest and the barely-there wisps of downy hair at the apex of my thighs teased his legs. I knew that he was growing harder and thicker and he tightened his hips slightly to nestle his erection into the softness of my belly. I gasped slightly and Noah deepened the kiss. I relaxed into him, wanting to bring him with me into the same euphoric desire where my mind and body were existing. My mouth opened further and our tongues tangled. I ran my hands along his arms and up over his tight, hard shoulders to wrap my arms around his neck, tightening to stabilize me as my body shivered with anticipation of more of his touch. Though I desperately wanted him, I didn’t feel urgent. We had so far to go, so much more to discover, and I didn’t want to sacrifice even the smallest detail of it.