Noah lowered himself to his knees on the floor and I felt his hand touch the center of my chest as if feeling for my heartbeat. He stroked down my body until his fingertips settled into the valley between my hipbones. His thumb dipped into the hot, wet folds of my core and he massaged my clit with the pad. The sensation rocketed through me and I cried out. Almost instantly Noah's mouth replaced his thumb. His tongue delved into me, then he slowed down again, tracing through each of the tender petals to ensure that the tip of his tongue stroked every accessible inch of me.
I dug my fingers into Noah's hair, at once holding him closer to my body to create more of the delicious sensation and pulling him away to provide relief from the intensity of that same feeling. My legs shook on either side of him and I felt nearly overwhelming pressure starting to build through my hips, thighs, and stomach, telling me I wouldn't be able to maintain my control for much longer. My back arched and I let out a sound between a gasp and a scream. Noah responded to my desperation by standing and turning my body so that I lay with my head rested on the pillows. I opened my arms to him and he stretched his body across mine, pressing our skin together from shoulder to entangled feet.
Noah slowed down again, spending a few minutes kissing me languidly, his hands stroking through my hair as he balanced with his elbows on either side of my head. I drew my legs out from beneath him and parted them so that his hips could settle between my thighs. I could feel the tip of his erection nudging at my core and I tilted my hips toward it. Noah gave a soft moan and rested his forehead against mine. I ran my hands along the firm muscles of his back until he opened his eyes to look at me.
He gazed at me for a few seconds and then climbed off of the bed. I watched as he walked back into the bathroom and then returned holding a condom. It was already out of the package and Noah came to the side of the bed so that I could watch as he settled it onto the head of his erection and eased it down. Watching him created a stronger reaction in me than it had before and I bit down into my lower lip. He climbed back onto the bed and positioned himself over me.
I stroked his face with mine, encouraging it upward until our eyes met again. Remaining propped on his elbows so that our bodies created a close space of indulgence, Noah flexed his hips and sank into me gradually. My eyes fluttered closed at the pure, visceral delight of my walls welcoming him. I felt Noah's mouth come to the soft place beneath my ear, close enough that I could feel his lips brushing against my skin.
I shuddered with pleasure as my body relaxed around him and Noah started to move. He rolled his hips slowly, sinking into me a little deeper with each stroke. When he was fully within me, I could feel his hipbone grinding against mine. His pace increased only slightly as my body molded to him and my hot, slick fluids made his thrusts smooth and dizzyingly intense. The attention that he had lavished on me with his fingers and his tongue had left me just on the brink of oblivion and now he felt masterful and strong over me, starting my intense spiral upwards within moments.
Noah's velvety, rhythmic sounds told me that he was there with me, seeming to transcend what was happening around them until it was only us, existing on a separate plane from everything else. In that moment, everything felt right. In the chaos that I felt like my life had turned into, it seemed I had found my calm.
I dug my fingers into Noah's back as the sensations within me continued to grow more and more powerful, going beyond anything that I ever thought was possible, until I could no longer control my shaking. Noah lifted up so that he balanced on his hands to give himself more leverage. This allowed him to pump into me faster and harder. A final thrust hit the most sensitive point within me and I screamed out as my orgasm tore through my body and the tension that had built within me shattered and dissolved in a cascade of tremors. Almost immediately Noah let out a deep growl and I felt his cock throb inside me. Each of my contractions met one of his pulses, drawing him deeper as he spilled into me, corresponding our pleasure until it seemed that we were melded on a level beyond just the desire of our bodies.
Noah lowered himself carefully so that he stretched fully over me again. His weight pressing down on me was soothing and I drew in another breath, filling my lungs with the smell of him, now mixed with the smell of our bodies together. I could feel his heartbeat reaching out to mine through his chest and it acted like a lullaby, soothing and quieting me into a blissful sleep.
Chapter Twenty
Snow
I stared through the window on my oven door at the dough that was trying to rise. It didn’t look like it was changing much and I tried to figure out what I had done wrong. I gave a sigh of frustration and stomped back into the living room, tossing myself onto the couch. It had been a longer stretch between stays at the cottage because I had left immediately after my date with Noah, returning home two days sooner than I usually would have. It wasn’t the date that had made me leave. That had been the most wonderful date that I could have imagined and I had revisited it several times in my dreams since leaving. It was the conversation when we woke up that had pushed me to leave and return here so that I could hide.
Waking up in Noah’s arms had felt incredible. It simply felt right to feel his skin against mine and to roll over and look into his face in the first moments of the day. Almost immediately, though, things had changed.
“Tell Fawn that you don’t want to finish. Tell her that you’ve decided that it isn’t right for you and that you’d rather just go home and not come back.”
“I can’t do that, Noah.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? You know why not. I signed a contract.”
“So? Just like Fawn said, this experience is supposed to be all about you. It’s not for anyone else, including her. You’re calling the shots, which means that you can leave at any time.”
“What if I don’t want to leave?”
“What?”
“Noah, I didn’t sign up for this retreat on a whim. It might seem like I did, but it wasn’t an easy decision for me. I thought a lot about it and I am very serious about my decision. This is something that I need to do. I need to see it through.”
I couldn’t stop thinking about the pain in Noah’s eyes as he got out of the bed and dressed, leaving the room without even saying goodbye. It saddened me to see the hurt in his stare, but it also made me angry. I had started this quest with a specific purpose in mind, and I felt like Noah was trying to lead me away from it. I wanted him to understand what I was doing and that it didn’t have anything to do with him.
The knock on my door startled me and I had to look through the peephole before I realized that with all of my concentration on why I had made the right decision to start this experience and to continue it, I had lost track of the days and forgotten that it was nearly time to return to the cottage. I brought the box into my house and sat down to read the note.
“Shine like a diamond.”
I opened the box and found a long white dress. A slit that looked long enough to come up to my hip was accented by a glittering rhinestone brooch and the same light-catching details lined shoulder straps that created a complex web pattern at the back of the dress. The shoes that were into the bottom of the box had the stones along all of the straps, completing the theme. I carried the dress into my bedroom to hang it up and started to pack my bag for the next day’s journey to the cottage. I didn’t know what to expect when I got there. For the first time, I hoped that I wasn’t going to run into Noah.
“Oh, no,” I murmured as the limo pulled to a stop.
The door opened but I didn’t move.
“That’s where I’m going?” I asked, pointing to the building in front of us.
“Yes,” the chauffer said.
“It doesn’t happen to say the name of the man I’m supposed to be meeting, does it?”
“No, just the address.”