Never Have I Ever (4 page)

I started to say, “I’m sorry,” but, before I could formulate the full word, his lips were on mine in a flash of vigor and sensuality. Once his forwardness registered in me, I landed someplace between astonishment and elation. He was soft and warm and tasted vaguely of peppermint flavored tobacco.

The rain poured harder. Water soaked through my skin, ran down Noah’s face and off the tip of his nose onto my cheek. And for once, not an ounce of me cared that I was kissing a stranger. I accepted the kiss, I even enjoyed the kiss. The sentence, “I am not a prude!” screamed its way through my head over and over until I grabbed ahold of Noah’s shirt and kissed him back with as much force as I could muster.

Noah slipped his hand through my hair at the base of my neck and pulled me in closer for an instant longer. He was drenched now too, though didn’t seem to notice as he broke away from me. I blinked away the raindrops to look up at him.

A fire burned bright behind those hazel eyes.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, an octave above a whisper. His voice was like liquid platinum. “That’s one Never I’m happy to fix for you.”

The kiss.
I remembered the kiss with such vivid clarity that I clung to it throughout the night. It was the first thing I thought about when I woke up the next morning. I remembered Noah’s warmth, the scent of him and the fierceness of his face. I remembered wanting more. Then the world got fuzzy. Everything after the kiss was a blank slate. And, as I drew my first deep breath of Sunday morning that fact scared the hell out of me.

I sat bolt upright in my bed, a decision I at once regretted. My head swam between the haze of a hangover and the fog of the waking world. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck,” I repeated the word aloud over and over until it ran together and lost its meaning. I must not have been too far gone because I was out of my soaked sundress and in a white tank top and a pair of burgundy sleep shorts.

Once I slammed down a couple of Advil and a tall glass of water I made quick work of finding my purse and phone. A rather hasty text was composed to Anya that read:
What the hell happened last night?

While I waited for her to answer I started a pot of coffee; a dark roast to pick my ass up and trigger some sort of memory. About five minutes later my phone
blinged
to life with her reply.

Anya:
Mornin
’ sunshine! Declan said Noah
took you home. Your car’s at my place.
Want
to
do lunch so you can get it?

He did what?!

I froze up. It was nearly eleven thirty. I was in no mood for food and still in no condition to drive. A quick look around my apartment yielded little explanation. If Noah did bring me home, he didn’t stick around. The lock on my front door was still unlatched. My keys were on the island in the kitchen. At least he was decent enough not to steal them.

I sent back:
Make it dinner instead. Let me get my bearings.

Paranoia snuck up on me, and I searched all the rooms of my apartment again for good measure. Never mind the fact that a complete stranger was given directions to my apartment, was allowed to drive me home, and probably came into my apartment; I just wanted coffee now.

And to fucking remember.

I swung the front door open to a blue sky, just to check. The clouds had parted, making way for a clear day in the wake of the storms. Most of the cars belonging to my neighbors were gone. One that I only indistinctly recognized, a sporty silver sedan with a stylized T on the front of it, stood out. It was parked in my direct line of sight. The side windows were tinted
. Through the front windshield,
I could make out someone laying back in the driver’s seat with their eyes closed. When I looked a little closer, I realized it was Noah.

I wasn’t sure whether to feel violated or flattered, but there was only one way to find out. I fixed up a cup of coffee and brushed my hair out of its rat’s nest state, then marched out into the parking lot, mug in hand.

He jolted awake when I tapped on the half closed window. I held up the coffee mug into his vision. “Want to come inside?”

Noah ran his hands over his face to drive away the sleep. “What time is it?”

“Almost noon.
And it’s hot out here. Come inside,” I insisted.

“Yeah, sounds good,” he agreed, half asleep and just about as hung over as me. He accepted the coffee once he was out of his car and followed me back into my apartment.

I poured a second cup for myself and got comfortable on one side of my couch. As I breathed into it to cool it off, I said, “So, I’m a little hazy on the details of last night.”

“You passed out after giving me directions and asking me to bring you home,” he said. He sat on the other end of the couch. “You were pretty insistent about not staying at Anya’s.”

“And so you brought me home.”

“And so I brought you home,” Noah confirmed.

“And I’m the one who changed into my pajamas?”

“Correct.”

“And you just decided to sleep in your car?”

He exhaled deeply in a bid to either drive away his own hangover or wake up. He cleared his throat and said, “Frankly I probably shouldn’t have even driven this far, but sure as shit wasn’t about to take my chances going home. And sleeping on your couch didn’t seem like the greatest idea.”

“And… nothing else happened?”

The gears in his head turned for a long breath. “You mean aside from the sex?”

“What!”

He burst into laughter. “I’m kidding! I’m kidding. Calm down.”

“Put your coffee down,” I commanded. He set it on the table in front of us, and looked at me like he expected I would throw him out. Instead, I lobbed a small pillow from the arm of the couch at him. “Don’t ever scare me like that again!”

He caught the pillow and tucked it behind him, but still laughed. “I’m sorry, really. You should see your face right now.”

I clung to my coffee cup. “Nearly gave me a freaking heart attack.”

“There was one other thing. What the fuck’s a Cocoa? You would
not
shut up about it. I couldn’t tell if it was a drink or a person.”

On cue, my long haired coffee-colored cat leapt over the arm of the couch on his side and mewed.

“That’s a Cocoa,” I said, motioning to her with an open palm.

“Oh. Hello Cocoa.” Noah sat back on the couch to let her get comfortable in his lap. She was a real people-person, my cat.

We sat in the stillness of Sunday morning for a while, just drinking coffee and giving some much needed attention to the little ball of fur while he recounted the events of the early morning hours to me. Luckily, beyond going on about my cat and requesting a ride home, I managed not to embarrass myself further.

Finally I worked up the courage to tell him, “Thanks for not, you know, robbing and killing me.”

Noah shot me a sideways smirk.
“Or other things.”

My heart quickened. I felt the rush of blood flood to my cheeks. “I can’t believe I said that last night.”

Fuck liquor and its inhibition-dampening nature.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” he chuckled. Then he gave me a subtle wink and added, “Honesty is sexy.”

Having completely missed the flirtatious compliment like the nerd I was I drew my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around my legs. “Not that kind of honesty. That kind of honesty just makes me seem like a slut. I mean, it isn’t like I would
really
want to be raped. I’ve had maybe three sexual partners in my life. It’s just a fantasy. A lot of girls have that fantasy, apparently. And I’m giving you way too much personal information right now aren’t I?”

“Piper, you have a lot of control over your daily life don’t you?”

“Yeah, I really do.”

Noah shrugged and sipped his coffee. “It isn’t about the violation. It’s about letting go. It’s about losing control and letting someone else tell you what to do for a while.”

I was pretty sure it was about the v
iolation too. For some reason,
the thought of being used as an object for someone else’s pleasure turned me on. I even thought momentarily about Noah being on the receiving end of that exchange. Though I hardly knew him, I began to like the idea. It was reckless and exciting and far from what I had come to accept as my norm. Perhaps a change of pace would benefit me. Even if I never saw the man again, Noah was a genuinely nice guy from what I could tell. Something hid far behind his eyes, calling out to be one of the bad boys like he had to ask permission to do it.

And he could.

My phone rang to life. I grabbed it from the table and flipped over to my text messages.

Anya:
Out all afternoon and most of the
night with Declan and Sarah. She’s super cute and really into Declan. Can someone bring you to pick up the car instead?

I glanced over to Noah. “Noah, I don’t want to impose, but do you think you could do me one more favor?” I waited for him to answer. He didn’t speak; he just nodded for me to continue. “My car is still at Anya’s.”

“Ah. Sure, I’ll drive you.”

I took a quick shower, changed into an old pair of blue jeans and a simple white shirt, and we were off.

As I slipped into the passenger’s seat of his sporty-looking sedan, I said, “This is a gorgeous car. I don’t recognize the brand though.”

He explained, “You don’t recognize it because they aren’t terribly common yet. This is a Tesla.”

“Where the hell did you get it?”

“It was one of the first off the production line.”

“How hipster of you,” I teased.

He grinned and held his index finger up to his lips in a shushing motion. A quick twist of his wrist turned the key in the ignition.

With the exception of a full array of computer statistics like a map of the city, the temperature, and what was currently on his playlist—The Outsider by A Perfect Circle—nothing happened.

He turned down the music and asked, “Hear that?”

I looked around the car. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly; it’s completely electric,” he said.

The world needed more people like Noah in it, I decided. It was a sleek car, and environmentally friendly to boot. How strange, the environmentally friendly part of that train of thought meant more to me than it being a sleek car.

We turned out of my complex as I got up the nerve to continue our conversation from earlier. “Do you think you could ever do it? Take a girl by force, I mean.”

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to follow through with my fantasy. Saying it out loud—like, actually admitting it—made it seem like it was an attainabl
e thing. On some level,
it was detestable, but I wanted this. I was sick of being labeled as a prude. I was tired of being the straight-laced friend who never did anything wrong or even anything adventurous. I spent all of my time devoted to my studies and to my work that I completely forgot to set any time aside for me. I never gave myself anything. It was high time for that to change.

“Are we talking about any girl here… or just you?”

The excitement of the idea coursed through me. I was tired of not experiencing the Nevers in life. I said, “For the purposes of this discussion we are talking about me. After all, you seem to be in the business of granting Nevers, what with that kiss last night and all.”

Noah’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “I see you remembered
that
aspect of the night just fine.”

I shot him a coquettish smile. “It’s the last thing I remember; a satisfactory end to the party if I do say so myself.”

He caught the smile and said, “You’re a very attractive woman, Piper. While it wouldn’t be my first choice, I’m sure I have it in me. Why do you ask?”

Just thinking the words was difficult enough; I was surprised I could actually say them. “I think I want it to be you.”

“What?” he said quickly.
“Really?”

“Really,” I confirmed. “Declan trusts you and I trust Declan which means I can trust you. You’re the kind of guy who sleeps in his car and doesn’t take advantage of a situation like last night, Noah.”

The smug look on his face masked his shock and let me know he took my statement as a compliment. Still, he was cautious. “Don’t be so certain. I was tempted. But, you’re sure? I don’t even know your last name. Hell, you don’t even know my last name.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to. Not yet. I don’t want to know anything else about you.”

Christ, what the hell was I thinking? This entire idea was fucked six ways from Sunday and, for some reason, I didn’t care. Something must have been seriously wrong with me.

“That might not be such a bad thing. As it happens, my last name is excessively pretentious,” he replied with a grin. His casual way of addressing the whole scenario calmed me somewhat. “So, this is a road you really want to go down.”