A drop of sweat dangled precariously on the tip of my nose until it fell onto her bottom lip, and I watched as she flicked her tongue out and tasted it. Her eyes closed and she hummed like she’d just popped the last gourmet chocolate into her mouth and was savoring the taste.
“Look at me, kitten,” I whispered. She did as I said, her eyes forming an instant connection with mine. It was a connection that went so much deeper than outward appearances. “I love you, Lanie.”
“Noah, I …” She moaned and then bit down on her bottom lip, tossing her head back. Her orgasm rippled through her body in waves and her body stretched tight beneath me.
That sight. Oh, God, that sight. The look on her face when I told her I loved her and she orgasmed … there simply were no words adequate enough to describe how it made me feel.
With one final thrust, I followed suit. I could feel her inner walls gripping and stroking, milking me as I throbbed and pulsed inside her until there was nothing left to give. I rolled onto my side and took her with me, using both arms to hold her against my chest, unwilling to let her go. And wasn’t that the crux of the matter? I couldn’t let her go, but I had to. Because to keep her there would just be cruel.
We lay there in our postcoital bliss for what seemed like a lifetime, but it still wasn’t long enough. Neither of us said anything, neither of us relinquished our hold, both of us lost in our own thoughts. The sheets were drenched—soaked from our wet bodies, soaked by the sweat of our labor, soaked by the resulting release. And oh, what a sweet release it was.
And then she broke the silence.
“Noah.” Her voice was so soft I barely heard her say my name. “We need to talk.” That I heard loud and clear. And I didn’t want to, because this was the part where everything got ruined, where I got bitch-slapped by reality … where she told me she was going to leave.
“Shh, not yet.” I smoothed her hair back and kissed her forehead. “It can wait until the morning. For now, let’s just stay here like this.”
Delaine … Lanie nodded and nuzzled her face back into my chest without another word, giving me that one last night to hold her in my arms. It was the first and only night that everything was right in the goddamn world because she was there and she knew I loved her. No way was I going to sleep and waste one second of what precious little time I had left with her.
~$~
For the remainder of the night, I stayed right there. As she slept peacefully, I stroked her hair, rubbed her back, inhaled her scent. It wasn’t until the first tinge of orange tinted the morning sky that I finally maneuvered my way out from under her. A soft kiss to her cheek and a whispered “I love you,” and I was off to take my shower.
As I passed by the bedroom door, an invisible hand seemed to reach in from out of nowhere to grab hold of me. Down the hall and into my office it dragged me, until I found myself standing in front of an open drawer on my desk. With a shaky hand, I reached inside and pulled out my copy of the contract, the contract that bound Delaine to me for the next two years.
Lanie
I awoke the next morning and freaked for just a moment (okay, it was longer than a moment) when I couldn’t feel and then didn’t see Noah in the bed. But then I sat up and looked around, noticing that the bathroom door was closed, which meant he had to be there. I realized I was still naked, which wasn’t too shocking since Noah had always insisted I sleep like that—truthfully, I kind of liked it—and the gown that I had discarded was still lying on the floor where I had stepped out of it last night before the shower. It hadn’t all been another one of my delusional dreams. I floated back down to the bed and snuggled with Noah’s pillow.
He loved me. He really loved me.
And he hadn’t just said it. He’d shown me with every touch, every kiss, with every part of him until there could never be any doubt.
My thoughts flashed back to mere hours before, and I smiled so hard that my cheeks hurt. I was soaring on the inside, my body vibrating on the out.
I knew the second he told me he loved me with his “whole fucking heart” that he meant it. But it just didn’t sound right for him to say something like that, without using the name I had insisted he had no right to use. He’d more than earned the right to call me Lanie. Nothing could have been more right. And when I heard him say it, heard the L roll off his talented tongue—gah, it gave me goose bumps, and I trembled from the inside out, yearning to hear it over and over again.
Until that moment, I had been sure things could never work between Noah and me. We came from two completely different worlds, and regardless of how we felt about each other, those worlds could be unforgiving. But when I saw, felt, and heard his conviction, I knew we deserved a fighting chance, and I wasn’t going to be the one who killed our shot of happiness. Not when I felt the same way he did. We could make it work. Maybe all those romantic comedies weren’t just fantasies. Maybe Noah and I could have a little bit of that magic, too.
I was going to tell him that I loved him, but then he told me to look at him, and I saw what I could only imagine was how he truly felt on the inside. It was as plain as the sexy nose on his face, and then he said those three little words again, using the familiar version of my name. I couldn’t hold back the orgasm that it evoked. Utter bliss.
I even tried to tell him again, once we each had a chance to cool our jets, so to speak. But he didn’t want to talk. He just wanted to bask in the aftermath of what we’d done, and that was A-okay with me, too. Because we still had today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and every glorious day of our lives after that.