Never Have I Ever (24 page)

“I really did miss you,” I said, “Thank you for coming back early. Though, I sort of feel bad you wore yourself out in the process.”

“Then I’ll just have to find a way to make you wake me up won’t I?”

Even though everything started to settle back into some level of comfort with him beside me again, the ominous discussion I had with Anya and Declan when he was absent hung over me. That coupled with the message I received from Ethan clawed at me a bit more than it should have. How was it, after all I’d unearthed in the past month, that there was still a sliver of doubt in my mind? Why had he not shared his secret with me himself yet?

When we neared his car in the garage, he asked, “Why do you look worried?”

“I’m not worried really. I’m conflicted.”

He tugged at my arm until I stopped and faced him. “Talk to me, sweetness.”

“That,” I said as I glanced at his hand on my bicep. The pet names, the subtle gestures, the signs of his growing power over me; all of it clawed against me at the same time it melted me. “That right there. I can’t help but think there’s something wrong with me for wanting this sort of thing. For wanting you the way I do. For wanting to submit myself completely when in reality we’ve only just met. It doesn’t seem natural for any human being to want to dive into this so fast.”

Noah gave a quirk of a smile. “I’m sensing an addendum to that moment of clarity.”

He knew me so well already it was frightening. “I’m afraid of liking this too much. Am I broken? Ordinary people—”

“No,” he cut me off with a shake of his head and a little gentle encouragement, “Jesus Christ Piper, no, you aren’t broken. Not by a long shot. Those ordinary people with their ordinary lives can go straight to Hell. Neither of us—you most of all—should give a damn about them. What have the ordinary people whose approval you so crave ever done for you?”

Fair question; and it took some thought. In reality most of my life had been one series of fuck-ups after the other. My mom died when I was seven. It wasn’t until I went off to college that I finally forgave her for leaving me before she could teach me the secrets of becoming a woman. My father has a brilliant mind. He could’ve been the greatest chemist in New York except that after
mom,
he grew a new found love for cars and never looked back. Going from a chemist to a mechanic was a strange leap, but my dad proved himself the best damned mechanic he could be. In the end I believe it was his twisted way of coping with my mother’s death.

Because of his love affair with the automobile and my mother’s absence, I taught myself everything I know. Sure, my dad supported me from a distance, but ultimately it boiled down to my own drive to get as far away from the east coast as possible. There were no aunts or uncles or even cousins for that matter that cared, and no teacher would take me under their wing outside the classroom for fear of the establishment.

As far as my social life was concerned it hit me that the small group of people at dinner that night had been the only people I ever truly considered friends. Most of them were far from ordinary.

“The answer you’re looking for is nothing,” Noah said after the long beat of my silence. “Everything that you currently have going for you in your life you did yourself. Nobody else took the tests for you, passed the classes for you, or worked their asses off in the field for you. You did. And you did it extraordinarily well. You’re entitled to live your life the way you want to.” He lowered his voice, the milk chocolate words dripping with scheming intent, “Especially if that means giving yourself to me in the process.”

I shot him a purposefully coy glance. “You really are beside yourself about that.”

“Absolutely.”

That was good to know. At least we were both on the same page. I thought of little else since meeting him and I began to wonder if I was just as much of a distraction to him as he was to me. Based on his reaction I would have to say so.

Noah balled his hand into a fist between us and drew it open slowly as he said, “There’s this—this brilliant fire, like the heart of a newborn star, blazing away in you. No ordinary person can utilize that power even if they could imagine it.”

The analogy curled up in my soul and nested there. “Brush up on your physics metaphors while in Paris did you, Sir?”

“No, that one came to me all on my own,” he said with sly pride. He pushed me the two feet it took until my back was against the wall of the deserted parking garage only a few steps away from his car, and pinned his forearm beside my head. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

I wet my lips and stared up at him a moment. They were pretty and near perfect words that I would have liked to have thought were not at all wrong. I answered tentatively, “The core temperature of that newborn star reaches several million kelvins you know. It’s a hot, hot heat.”

“Which is why it takes someone with the right skills to bend all that beautiful energy to their will; the star would have to allow it.”

I was ready to be devoured by his eyes, by his touch. For the life of me, he wouldn’t touch me. Apart from our shared embrace at Tannigan’s and one or two brief instances like the subtle grip on my arm or his hand at the small of my back he hadn’t given me the kind of touch I grew used to when we were together before. He just hovered above me now, leaning in and teasing me with the smell of peppermint cologne and the lingering cigarette smoke clinging to his shirt.

I swallowed hard as my eyes darted between his. “What if you got burned?”

“If you were going to burn me, my pet, it would have been while I was away. You would have taken the money Ethan offered you.”

All ability to breathe was lost. Surprise etched itself across my face at his knowing about the check. “How did—”

He rolled his eyes in a grand gesture and tried to play it off like it was no big deal. “We spy on each other a lot. It was only a matter of time before he figured out what you are to me.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What I am to you?”

“Yes.”

“And what is that, exactly?”

“Someone very important.
Granted, I hoped it would take much longer for him to piece it together.”

I had wondered how Ethan found out where I lived so quickly. The thought of being spied on by his brother did little favor to ease my mind about the entire thing.

“There’s a lot of that speed thing going around lately isn’t there?”

“Yes, there is,” he said.

“So, you’re not mad about the check?”

“That’s a very stupid question.”

“Then please provide a stupid answer, Sir.”

He sighed in mock drama and said, “Yes, Piper. Yes, I’m alight with anger that you failed to cash a quarter million dollar check from my jealous overbearing brother because you have the audacity to think there’s more to this world than money. I’m sorely disappointed in you for the glaring oversight you seem to have made when you thought that cold hard cash doesn’t buy happiness.” He paused to suppress a smile. “Satisfied?”

I nodded.
“Yes, Sir.”

Noah chuckled. “What did you do with it anyway?”

The words were a little hesitant as they left my mouth, “I tore it up and sent it back to him with a message saying I didn’t base my judgments of people solely on the contents of their wallet.
More or less.”

“Ooh, he’ll
love
that. Congratulations. I think you’ve just made an enemy for life.”

In all seriousness I asked, “Is this something I should worry about?”

After a moment he said, “Not at all.”

“What’s his damage anyway?”

“I really don’t want to talk about Ethan anymore right now.”

I reached up to touch his face since I grew tired of waiting for him to touch mine. He grasped my hand and lowered it to my side, though he didn’t let go. For a while we just stood there, me pressed up against a grimy off-gray sort of concrete wall stained with the exhaust fumes of a hundred thousand vehicles and him pinning me there without actually pinning me there like a shark that almost, but not quite, felt remorse for its very existence, as if to give me an out. He searched my face while his was stoic; not betraying a single emotion of his own through thick skin.

In all that time I fell frozen. If he wanted to give me an out, I wasn’t going to take it. I hoped whatever he saw in my expression told him that. I hoped that my act of defiance against Ethan’s will when I ripped up the check told him I intended to go nowhere. It was never about the money. It was about the connection and the discovery of someone who wanted to discover me just as much as I wanted to discover him.
And my list of Nevers.

My voice was meeker than I hoped when I admitted, “I was scared these past few weeks.”

“Me too,” Noah said.

“Still am,” I whispered.

“Me too,” he confessed. Then he smiled. A big, ridiculous, real and handsome smile that could not be stopped come Hell or high water. “Isn’t it an astounding feeling?”

“Yeah,” I breathed the word between a light laugh. “Yeah, it really is.”

I couldn’t imagine that someone as put-together as Noah was would ever be afraid a day in his life let alone
be
afraid of what we had between us.
Or of losing it.
He radiated confidence like I never saw before in anyone. He always appeared so sure of himself. The revelation of his mutual fears made me feel exceptionally better about my own apprehension. Now was not the time, but before the night was over I felt the desperate need to tell him about my conversation with Declan and Anya. It was important that I know what to expect if the worst happened.

Noah’s hand was at my cheek then. He brushed his thumb across my bottom lip. It was such a simple, subtle, and effective display of his complete ownership of me.

“I plan on being deliciously cruel to you tonight,” he told me.

Two and a half weeks without him had damned near driven me to insanity. My voice was barely an audible, trembling sigh as I said, “Please, please do.”

“
Mmm
, I like it when you beg.”

“My apartment’s right down the road you know.”

I said that a little too fast.

“I won’t suffer the drive,” he said just as quick.

With the grace of a cat, Noah was on me. A surge of power leapt from him and in one fluid motion he pinned me to the hood of his car a few paces away. His left hand cradled the back of my head so I wouldn’t smack it against the hood. The delectable taste of dread and elation blended somewhere deep inside of me. He pushed my legs apart enough so he could stay between them, half standing and half lying on top of me. His hand slithered down my hip, under the hem of my skirt and brushed his fingers across the soft skin of my inner thigh.

My breath caught in my throat. “You want to do this here, Sir?”

“Yes, I want to do this here,” he growled. I felt his hand squeeze my thigh and I let out a whimper. “Would you dare to deny me?”

A rush of all things sinful rattled me. “You’re not exactly a saint are you?”

“Last I checked it wasn’t my halo you were after, pet.”

And how!

I glanced to my right. There were few cars still in the small parking garage so late at night, but the entrance was close enough that I could hear the traffic echoing off the walls outside.

“What if someone comes?”

“Then they can watch in envy. Stripping you of your modesty is just one of the many things I will be doing to you tonight,” Noah promised. “Would you like that?”

I could only nod slowly and say, “Yes, Sir.”

His fingers found the crotch of my panties. When he touched the base of the vibrator inside me he smiled. “And what’s this? You’ve had this in you the entire evening and never said.”

“You told me to keep it inside me, Sir. I assumed—”

“I remember,” he said. He pushed my panties aside and slowly dragged the length of the vibrator out of me about half way, watching my face as the action also dragged a moan from my lips. “You’re such a good little slut for me.” The vibe was pushed back into me at the same aching pace, and then pulled out again. He continued this leisurely, torturous fucking for half a minute. Each time it glided in deep I clutched my hands into fists to keep from crying out. Finally, he asked, “Do you want this cold piece of machinery to be replaced with something more appropriate for you my pet?”

I needed him inside me so bad my head was near to spinning. I didn’t even care that we were in the open air of a parking garage at that point. The only thing that mattered was that, after all of the teasing without a single moment of gratification, I needed him to fuck me. The location became a non-issue.

“Yes, please,” I implored.

He pulled the vibrator from me, switched it off, and held it close to my mouth. It was slick with the evidence of my arousal. “Lick it clean,” he ordered.

Without hesitation I took the length of the vibe into my mouth and pretended it was his cock as I sucked my juices from it. He twisted it in and out of my mouth to make certain I did the job right.

“Good girl,” he said as he took it from my lips. He reached for my purse and dropped the toy inside for safe-keeping, then tossed the small bag to one side of the car.