Chapter 56: Chapter 56

adds hesitantly.

“None taken.”

I feel as if I should be defending Dakota, but I don’t want to just yet. Nora’s entitled to her own opinion of her, and I’m in no place to be her defender. Who are the two guys she slept with? Do I know them? It’s more than likely that I don’t. I know a handful of guys in New York and she’s been single the whole time she’s lived here. I don’t want to begin to consider that she slept with anyone we knew in Michigan.

“Well, it’s just my luck that I tried to go on a date with my ex’s roommate. I’m sorry,” I say with a laugh, aiming to lighten up the energy in the room.

Her expression tightens and she shrugs her shoulders again. “It’s fine. It wasn’t much of a date. I don’t really have the time to date anyone anyway. So what was your third thing? There’s the omelet, the uncomfortable date not-date, and then there was something else.”

When I pause for a moment to remember, she leans over and pokes at my cheek. My heart leaps. “What. Was. The. Third. Thing?”

She leans back and rests her head against the cabinets, then opens the top of her Gatorade bottle and takes a sip. Perfect timing.

“This!” I point to the red perpetrator in her hand.

Nora closes her mouth, cheeks full of Gatorade, and widens her eyes.

“You hated it just the other day and now this!” I tap the bottle with my fingers as she swallows a huge gulp.

A dribble spills down her chin as she tries to hold it in, and I laugh, leaning across her. Her thighs separate and she doesn’t move away when I take the towel from the counter and gently dab at the corner of her chin.

I’m between her thighs now and my entire body couldn’t be more aware of it. She swallows, then reaches up and holds on to my forearm with both hands. Her fingers press into my arm and I lean closer. My chest is touching hers now and her ankles are wrapping around my legs. I’m so damn attracted to her that it hurts. Physically and mentally, in every place it could hurt, it stabs at me—want and need mixing together into a cocktail of confusion.

She’s no longer a silly, giggling girl sitting on a countertop batting her lashes at me. She’s a seductive, sensual woman wrapping one of her arms around my neck, letting her nails drag along behind her smooth fingertips. Goose bumps rise on my skin, and there’s no way she didn’t just feel me shiver, and there’s no way I’m letting that bother me when she’s wrapped around me like this. I’m only a little taller than her when she’s sitting on the high countertop, but when I look down at her, she’s breathing heavily, her lashes dark, resting on her cheeks as she looks down.

I move my hand to her chin, lifting gently until her eyes meet mine. She inches closer. Her breath whispers into my mouth and I grip her thighs with my hands on instinct. Only it shouldn’t be an instinct because I’ve only touched this woman once, yet I can’t seem to convince my body otherwise. It has a mind of its own and I’m in no shape to stop it.

She breathes my name and I take it in, appreciating the way her tongue seems to wrap my name in sugar. My hands move up, and up, until they reach the side of her thighs where her ass begins. In the wake of my hands, red streaks blotch her smooth skin. Her breathing accelerates again when she looks down at her thighs and up to my eyes. I gently nudge her cheek with my jaw and she turns her head. My mouth delicately touches her neck in small pecks of admiration and need.

She moans; her legs tighten around my waist and she reaches up and grips my hand. She rocks her body against mine and I move my mouth to her ear, drenched in lust for her. It’s coating me, covering me.

She puts her hands on mine and presses them into her legs. She moves both of our hands closer to the apex of her thighs and the drawstring on my sweats rubs against her. She moans again, her nails press into my hands, and I’m in a daze. This woman who I know close to nothing about has me dry-humping her on the kitchen counter with Tessa at home in her bedroom, after Dakota skipped out on me this morning, and despite these things, I am completely at her mercy. It’s like I’m sucking in laughing gas, like I can’t tell black from white, or innocent touches from sexual advances. This kiss is strong enough to bring me to my knees. She looks like a dark angel through my hooded eyes, and though I’ve never been religious, now I’m a devout Nora-ite.

I shouldn’t be doing this, and she shouldn’t be doing this, but I want to keep doing this. I desire this, I need to do this. On this counter, on the kitchen table, even on the kitchen floor.

I feel her pull away when my teeth brush against her ear.

“This . . . is . . .” she breathes. “This is bad for me. For both of us.” She pushes her hand against my chest and I back away.

“Good God.” She touches her hand to her chest and takes a few deep breaths. “You are soooo bad for me. And I’m even worse for you.”

She jumps down from the counter and tugs at her shorts in frantic desperation to conceal her body from my eyes.

I try not to stare, knowing that with every second that passes she’s letting doubt creep up her spine and is checking off the list of reasons why Tessa’s loser roommate isn’t good enough for her. She’s trying to tell me something, and I’m doing that stereotypical man thing where I stare at her instead of listening to what she’s saying.

Except I’m not. I’m trying to keep a good grasp on reality and what’s happening between us. Good thing I’m not completely clueless, and I’m fully capable of looking back up at her eyes and listening to her list of the reasons why we can’t jump each other’s bones every time we are alone in the kitchen.