Vain - Part Two (The Vain Series Book 2) (9 page)

"Kayla told me that Brighton offered you a job in Paris." Her tone is even and unemotional. Seeing how she can't disguise how excited she is when there's a sale on apples at the market, I'm assuming she's not thrilled with the idea.

"I'm not going." I take a small sip of the iced tea she got for me when I arrived at Axel.

"Why would he offer you a job?"

It's a very logical question. A world famous watercolor artist breezes into town, creates a stunning masterpiece to sell her to gift to me for my birthday and then offers me a job at a school that he's on the board of. "Why does Brighton Beck do anything? He's an artist, Sadie. They're eccentric."

"Is Noah like that?" She sips from her own glass.

"Noah isn't like Brighton at all." The only thing the two men have in common is that they're gifted at creating art that many people find a need to pay exorbitant amounts of money for.

She looks down at a stack of papers she's pulled from her bag. "How are things with you two?"

I hesitate briefly while I stop to distinguish whether she's asking about how things are between Brighton and I or Noah and I. She's still blissfully unaware that I had an affair with Brighton in Paris. I need to confess that sin to her one day. I have to. We've always shared everything and so far since I've returned from my semester abroad, I've been juggling more secrets than I can manage. Telling her about Brighton and about how Noah got his scar is inevitable. I just need to find the right moment to broach it all so that she has time to absorb it. "Noah and I are good. I haven't seen him a lot this week because I've been busy with work."

"He's supportive of that?" Her mouth twitches with the question.

"Very." I smile back at her. I love how protective she's become of my career choice. When I first told her I was chasing a degree in education, she accused me of only being in it for the benefit of the extra-long winter and summer vacations. Once she understood that my love of children as the foundation for my need to teach, she'd become my biggest advocate, helping me choose my classes and being my study partner even when her own course load was weighing her down.

"I like that." She leaves through the papers on the table. "These are some of my study notes."

"Study notes?" I laugh as I see all the hurried handwriting. "Why don't you take your tablet to class?"

"I keep forgetting it." She taps herself on the forehead. "My mind is so foggy lately."

"Is everything okay?" I ask. Sadie's always been the most organized person I know. She's had her entire life planned out since we were in middle school.

"It's fine." She pulls one sheet out with a wide grin. "This is what I was looking for. I need to study so…"

"So scram?" I tease. "You want me to get lost?"

She nods playfully. "It's a big exam. I need to study."

"Consider me gone." I stand and reach over to kiss her on the cheek before heading out the front door of the restaurant into the crowded early evening pedestrian traffic.

***

"Christ, Alexa." He moans into my shoulder. "How do you take me so deep?"

I push back with my ass into his groin, pulling the wide crest of the tip of his cock over my folds before I pull him within again. "My body was made for yours," I whisper into the sheets on his bed.

"I've never fucked anyone like you." His hands grip tightly to my hips, pulling them up from the bed. "I could pound my cock into you like this for hours."

"Promise it," I whimper as he pushes even harder. "Promise you'll fuck me for hours."

He rears back and plunges his cock to its depth. My name flows from his lips in a heated rush.

I scream out sharply from the bite of exquisite pain but my body needs more. I slide to my knees, pushing my ass back towards him, putting it on full display. "Fuck me as hard as you can, Noah. Do it."

"As hard as I can?" He pulls himself from my channel and guides the tip of his cock over my clit. "You want me to pound your pussy." He pushes inside violently until he's balls deep and my body reacts. I jump forward a touch but his hands hold steady to my hips pulling me back, impaling me on his thick root.

"Ah, fuck." The words flows across my lips without any thought of purpose. I can't control myself when it's like this. I can't stop the sheer need of my flesh for contact with his. It aches for it. I crave it just like I crave air.

"Goddamn you." He thrusts himself into me over and over again. The sheer force of every drive pulls the bed along the hardwood floors. He grabs my hair and yanks hard on it, my neck snapping back.

"Harder, Noah," I plead. "Fuck me harder."

He acquiesces and digs his fingers into my hip, pushing with everything he has." Feel my dick, Alexa. Feel it inside that wet pussy."

I love the way he talks to me when he's fucking me. "Harder," I urge.

A deep grunt escapes his lips as both hands grab tightly to my hips and drive my body back onto his. "You're going to come for me, Alexa. I feel it around my cock."

The words toss me over the edge and I blindly grab for anything to center my release. My hands bunch into the mangled bed sheets, pulling them between my fingers as my sweat soaked forehead pushes into the mattress, the fabric of the linens stifling my screams.

"Milk me," he growls behind me. "Milk my dick with your body."

I rise to the challenge and glide my hips forward and back, sliding his cock within my body. I push myself back harshly as he ups the tempo again, driving his wide, swollen flesh into me until a litany of curse words fall from his lips as he pumps his desire from his body.

"Tomorrow night we're going on a date." He tenderly reaches down to pull the zipper from my sweater up so it's closed.

"A real date?" I eye him suspiciously. "Like a date where you have to wear clothes?"

His eyes drop to his naked groin. "I thought you liked me without clothes." The words are playful.

"I do," I say before pulling my messy hair into a tight ponytail. "Where are we going on our date?"

"You'll see." The spark in his eyes is irresistible.

"Are you going to pick me up?" I trace a path down his chest with my hand soaking in the definition of his abdomen.

"I'll text you the address and you can meet me there at nine." His brow shoots up with expectation. "Is that okay?"

It wasn't everything I wanted but in Noah Foster's world it was a huge step. "It's perfect, Noah."

"Tomorrow it is." His lips slide softly over mine. "I'll miss your beautiful face until then."

***

"You're Alexa, aren't you?" A woman's voice calls to me just as I feel a tap on my shoulder.

I turn abruptly, jarred from my thoughts of Noah's promise of our date tomorrow evening. I've just stepped onto the quiet sidewalk from his apartment when she's there, saying my name with an understated elegance that is unmistakable. "It's Ari, right?"

"It is." She nods as she pulls on the collar of her coat. "I take it you were just with Noah?"

The question speaks of a natural familiarity that we don't possess. "Are you here to see him?" The tone of my voice even surprises me.

"Yes." She glances down at her phone, the movement causing the curled locks of her long brown hair to bounce against her shoulders. "He texted me that he's free now and I can go up."

I taste the bitter bite of jealousy course through me. The fact that Noah reached for his phone within moments after I left his apartment is only shadowed by the knowledge that she was lurking nearby waiting to pounce. "Enjoy your visit." Small talk with Ari isn't going to appease any of my lingering doubts about Noah's connection to her or Camilla.

"He's using you." There's no hiding behind the words. She's saying them with a brazen boldness that is both unsettling and impressive. We don’t know one another. We've exchanged vacant pleasantries twice and she feels confident enough to spit out something as vile as that.

"You don't know anything about my relationship with Noah," I push back. "Nothing."

"Really, Alexa?" She taps her expensive heel on the pavement. "I know that you used to fuck his friend."

I recoil from the confession. Noah told her about Brighton and I? Why would he do that?  "Noah told you that?" It's an empty question. There's no possible way she'd know about Brighton and I unless the information had come from Noah himself.

"Noah tells me everything." A chuckle chases the words. "He's my best friend."

His words about her being a friend haunt me. He said she meant nothing beyond that, yet he's confiding personal details of my life in her. "Lucky you," I spit back.

"You're just his current fuck." The words are harsh and misplaced coming from her. At first glance, she's the epitome of grace and culture. I feel completely mismatched as I stand on the sidewalk admiring her expensive clothes and her perfectly styled hair and makeup.

"He hasn't fucked you, has he?"

Her eyes narrow as she studies my face. "He wouldn't fuck me."

There's a challenge beneath the words. "Why?" I can't resist. I need to know why.

"He loves me." She tips forward on one heel. "I'm not like you. I'll be here long after he's done with you. You're filling time until she comes back."

The words tear through me. She's talking about Camilla. I know she is. Whatever the fuck was going on with Ari and Noah didn't matter anymore. It was Camilla I needed to worry about. There were too many whispered threats about her for it to mean nothing at all.

"Did you have fun at the movie?" Noah scoops my hand into his as he opens the door of his apartment. Sitting in the back of the almost barren movie theatre, while we held hands and ate popcorn should have fueled me completely. It was what I had been wanting for weeks. Getting Noah to venture outside the walls of his apartment was everything I wished for, until Ari had stopped me on the street the other night. Now, all I longed for was the truth about what Camilla really meant to him.

"I had a lot of fun."

"We can do it again if you want." He pulls the sweater he's wearing over his head before he unbuttons his jeans letting them fall to the floor.

"Were you nude when Ari came over last night?"

His back is to me now and I watch as his shoulders tense with the question. "How did you know Ari was here?"

"I ran into her outside the building." I kick off my heels and slide the sweater I'm wearing off my shoulders. "She was on her way up."

"She didn't mention seeing you." He turns and his eyes dart past me to the windows that overlook Boston's breathtaking skyline.

"Did you put on pants before you saw her?"

"She's seen me naked, Alexa." He exhales audibly. "It's not a big deal."

It's not a big deal? "When did she see you naked?"

"I shot her for my show last year." His face is calm and expressionless. "You know my process."

"You've seen her naked too," I whisper. Why hadn't I realized that fact until now? He's seen so many beautiful women in all their nude glory.

"It's just skin." He brushes past me and I feel more exposed than he is, even though I'm completely dressed.

"We need to talk about something, Noah."

"Do you want a beer?" He disappears around the corner. I can head his padded footsteps traveling down the hallway to the kitchen.

"I don't want anything," I call after him. I just want to know about Camilla.

"Sit down, Alexa." He rounds the corner, a tall bottle of beer dangling from his fingertips. "Is it about Ari?"

I watch as he sits on the couch, his long legs crossing. He absentmindedly touches the tip of his penis, tucking it between the valley that has formed between the convex contour of his legs.

"You're so comfortable without clothes." It's not a surprised proclamation. It's a simple statement.

"I like being nude." He raises the bottle in the air before he takes a heavy swallow. "I love seeing beautiful women nude. Seeing Ari nude didn’t mean anything."

He's trying to reassure me but I suddenly feel as though I'm suffocating beneath the knowledge of how many women have soaked in the beauty of his sculpted, tattooed frame. How many women have looked at his beautiful cock and wanted to taste it? How many have actually felt him inside of them? How did I not consider any of this before this moment?

"What about Camilla?"

"Camilla?" His back leaves the couch as his entire body tenses in one swift movement. He brings the bottle back to his lips, almost emptying the contents in a single gulp. I watch the muscles of his neck as he gracefully swallows.

"Noah." I move to sit on the edge of the coffee table so my knees are touching his. "Tell me about her. Tell me about what she means to you."

He shakes his head from side-to-side before draining the bottle dry. "I told you, Alexa. Camilla and I are over."

"People keep saying that's not true." I scratch my upper lip. "Ari said that you were using me until Camilla comes back. I don't know that that means but I did that with Liz. Brighton's Liz…" I stammer before I catch my breath. "I can't do it again. I won't get more invested in this if there's a chance you're getting back together with her."

He places the bottle down next to my thigh as he leans forward. "I told you that Camilla is in my past. I don't give a fuck what Ari or Brighton or anyone else said to you about her. Ari and Camilla are old friends. She's protective of her. It's nothing." He reaches for my hands, pulling them into his. "I am telling you that she and I are over. I haven't seen her in months. I don’t want to see her. I sure as hell don't want to be with her."

The words are slow, direct and filled with quiet emotion. His eyes never waver from my face. His hands cradle mine tightly.

"I want to be with you, Alexa." He swallows hard. "You are my future. She is in my past. Don't listen to anyone who tells you differently."

"Who ended it, Noah?"

He cocks a brow. The question has surprised him. "It doesn't matter, Alexa."

I know from my experience with Brighton that it does matter. Liz dumped him and that's why he wanted me. It's my insecurities begging for an answer to the question, but I need it. I need him to tell me.  "It matters to me."

"She ended it." He hands his head down. "I thought we'd be together after the attack, but she ended it. She said my scars remind her too much of him."

"Have you tried to get her back since?" Apparently self-torture is on my menu for tonight. I may as well drive a knife through my own heart. Why am I pushing this? Why can't I just leave this alone?

"For a long time all I wanted was her." He closes the distance between us, shifting his body so he's hovering on the edge of the couch.

I nod. I knew it. Brighton and Ari may have had their own motivations for saying what they did, but the alignment of their words wasn't coincidental. They've seen parts of Noah I never have. "Does part of you still want her?"

"I might have until you walked into my apartment." Reaching down he catches my thighs in his grasp and pulls me onto his lap. "No one on this earth is as important to me as you. No one, Alexa."

I push my face into his neck, feel him wrap his arms around me as I close my eyes and give in to the promise of his words.