When she pulled off him, he was afraid she wanted to stop. But it was only so she could spin around and lie on top of him, giving herself over to his tongue while she took his cock in her mouth. The warmth of her mouth, taste of her sweetness, everything made him out of his mind. Her muffled cries vibrated against the head of his cock as her thighs clenched, and she came, her wetness coating his chin as he licked and licked until her legs stopped trembling.
She rolled off him, gasping hard. “Is that what you were imagining?” he asked, so happy he felt like he was floating.
“Even better.” She paused, grinning. “And you know that’s saying something, because I have a good imagination.”
He laughed. “You’ll have to tell me what else you came up with, then. So I can give it to you.” So I can give you everything.
She raised up on her elbow to look at him. Her eyes were soft, liquid, dark. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you inside me.”
He was so hard, he couldn’t even touch his cock out of fear he’d come just hearing her say that, picturing her lying in this very bed touching herself, thinking about him. Telling him, now, what she desired.
She was still lying upside down so her feet were by the headboard, her head down by his knees. He got a condom, rolled it on, and came back to bed. But when she moved to right herself, he held her there, rolling her onto her stomach, pinning her hips to the mattress as he knelt behind her, admiring the view.
“Is this what you want?” he whispered into her ear as he hovered over her, sliding just the head of his cock over her opening, feeling how slick, how ready she was.
But he wanted to hear her say it. He wanted to hear her need.
“Yes,” she pleaded. “Please, Noah.” He loved the way she said his name, how it was all for him. She bucked her ass back, trying to push him inside her. But he retreated so he was still only teasing her with the head.
“Say it,” he told her. “Say what you want.”
“Fuck me, Noah.” Her ass came up and down, rubbing herself against his cock and grinding into the mattress and then his cock again. “Please,” she said again, her voice breaking. “Noah. Fuck me now.”
He couldn’t hold on any longer. He spread her legs, grabbed the base of his cock in one hand and her ass in the other, and pushed inside her. His feet against the headboard, he used the leverage to thrust deeper, her every whimper urging him on. The bed was shaking, and she wasn’t holding back her cries. But he didn’t care who heard. He didn’t care who knew. He didn’t care about anything but the two of them, together.
He reached his hand under her so he was fingering her clit at the same time that his cock filled her, and he could tell by the way her body tightened and her breath came hard that she was close to coming again.
“Yes,” she panted again, grinding into his hand.
“I’m too close.” He started to pull out. But she reached around and grabbed the back of his thigh, pulling him into her.
“Come,” she gasped, pushing her hips back to meet him. “Come inside me.”
He groaned, resisting, not wanting it to end, not wanting to spill before she was ready. But she ground her clit against his fingers and arched her back to take his cock, and it was too much, it was too good. He couldn’t hold back anymore. He thrust hard into her and came. As he rubbed her clit, he could feel her coming, too, that telltale way her legs trembled, her cries deepened, and she shuddered until she was still.
He didn’t move for a long time. He lay on top of her, feeling their sweat mingling, his heart beating against her back. She intertwined her fingers with his, wrapping his arms tighter around her. He didn’t want to let go.
At last, he pulled out and got up to throw away the condom. He wondered what would happen next. Was this it? Was it over? Would she expect him to go home now?
But when Amanda crawled under the covers, she pulled back the corner and gestured for him to climb in. He wasn’t going anywhere—and he knew she didn’t want him to.
He’d stay right here for as long as she’d let him. For every single second he had.
Chapter Nineteen
Amanda put her arm on Noah’s chest. Her cheek rested on his shoulder, one leg thrown over his. He had his arm around her and stroked his fingers across her back as she did the same to his chest, feeling his soft skin and the ripple of hard muscle underneath. She couldn’t believe he was here in her bed. Still lingering, still fitting together like two pieces that belonged.
She wasn’t sure she’d ever realized how good it felt to be held. Sex was one thing, and Lord knew, she wasn’t knocking it. But it was this, she realized. This touch. This possession.
This was what made people lose their minds, made them fall so hard and fast they couldn’t even see how dark the descent was, the wind whipping around them, the ground getting nearer and nearer until they were already splat.
This was what broke hearts. Holding on and being held.
This was what she couldn’t get enough of.
“God, I’m so tired,” she sighed, sinking deeper into him.
She hadn’t meant anything by it, but she felt him shift against her. “Do you want me to go home?”
“No.” She held him tighter. “That wasn’t a hint about anything. You should be flattered I’m so relaxed right now.”
“Jelly legs?” he asked.
“Jelly everything.”
He made a contented-sounding noise. “That’s how it should be.” He paused. “But I can go any time.”
She sat up on her elbow to look at him. “Do you have to?”
Immediately, she worried she sounded needy. It was like some Dating 101 rule she was always getting wrong: don’t let them know you like them. Even though liking them seemed like a fairly key component of the whole thing.
But Noah didn’t scramble away. Didn’t make his excuses. Didn’t have some not-funny, not-joke about her getting her claws into him when she was supposed to remember this was just for now and just for fun.
“Would you think I’m a loser if I admitted that in addition to bringing condoms, I also packed a toothbrush?” he asked.
She grinned, heart fluttering. “I guess you really did have high hopes for tonight.”
“Running is 90 percent mental. You have to visualize yourself doing it, visualize yourself finishing, really be able to picture it—to feel in your body what’s going to happen.”
“Uh, so I’m a race to win?” Her smile was gone.
But his wasn’t. She wanted to trace her finger along that dimple, feel every line of his skin. She wanted to kiss his lips until there weren’t any more atoms between them.
He reached out and ran his fingers over the fringe of her hair, which she could only imagine was standing straight up after everything they’d just done. “No, silly. I mean I thought about what I wanted. I pictured myself doing it. And that involved falling asleep beside you. Waking up beside you.” He paused. “And probably needing to brush my teeth.”
She was melting. Completely. Before their date, she’d frantically tried to pick up her room in case he came over—and then berated herself for bothering, sure she’d come home alone. The thought of Noah planning ahead, too, and knowing he’d wanted to come here—she had to laugh at how, despite their differences, they were similar in so many ways.
Then she saw something in his face change. So quickly she might not have noticed it if she hadn’t been lying so close to him. If she hadn’t found herself looking in ways she’d never looked before.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
But he said it too fast. She lay her palm on his chest, directly over his heart. She could feel it beating, his steady breath. “No, really.” Her voice was soft. She wasn’t joking anymore. “What?”
He put his hand over hers, pressing her to him. “I just…I realized I w
as assuming a lot. That you’d want me here, I mean.”
“Of course I want you here. Can’t you tell what a shitty job I did trying to make my bed because I thought—hoped—you’d come over?”
Noah smiled. “The thought may have crossed my mind.”
She could have taken the change in conversation and run with it, made some joke about the mess or how she was sure Noah’s bed had perfect hospital corners. But she didn’t want to joke with him right now. She didn’t want to run away.
They were quiet. Everything was quiet. Even the music from her roommate had stopped. It felt, for the first time in their entire whatever-it-was-they-were-doing, that they were completely alone, just the two of them, and anything could happen.
“Noah?” she asked.
He turned his head to her.
“Why would you think I wouldn’t want you here?”
She wondered if he’d answer. Or maybe he’d be the one to crack the joke and brush it off. Keep that distance between them. Maybe she was reading this wrong.
Just because this felt honest didn’t mean it was real. She’d had plenty of experiences where things that seemed one way in the darkness looked totally different once the sun rose.
But Noah rolled onto his side and looked right into her eyes. He didn’t blink as he said, “I’m not sure I can admit this.”
“Try,” she said.
“It’s embarrassing.”
“Do you think I’m going to laugh at you?”
“No,” he said. And then: “I’m afraid you’re going to tell me I’m right.”
She had no idea what he meant, and she told him so.
“I’m afraid you might still wish it was Luke here, instead.”
He could have pushed her off the side of the bed with a feather, that was how stunned she was. They were lying here naked, limbs intertwined, and he was thinking about Luke? She wasn’t sure there was anything further from her mind than Noah’s brother right now. The leaves in her mother’s gutter, probably. Definitely her next credit card payment.
But as much as she wanted to burst out laughing…she couldn’t. Not when she saw the look in his eyes—what it had cost him to admit that. What it meant for them to say this out loud.
Noah’s fear hadn’t come from nowhere. She’d put it there. Now it was up to her to make it right.
She ran her hand over his hair and pulled him toward her. They were forehead to forehead, nose to nose. She could tickle her eyelashes against his cheek. She could almost feel his very pulse.
She’d never been so close to anyone before. Or so naked, not just physically but something else. Something seen. Noah had shown her something of himself.
Could she do the same?
“There’s only one person I want in my bed with me,” she said. “And he’s here. Right now. And I really don’t want him to leave tonight.”
Or ever, she added silently. Please don’t move to L.A. and make this end.
“Are you sure?” He stroked her cheek.
“I know it sounds crazy, like how can I just change my mind like that? But honestly, Noah? I’m not even sure I changed my mind.” She felt his eyes flutter in confusion and tried to explain. “I’m not sure I went from wanting Luke to wanting you the way it seems like I did.” She took a deep breath. Came out and said it—said it to herself at the same time that she dared to say it out loud. “I’m not actually sure I wanted Luke at all.”
Noah started to protest. It was obvious she’d had a crush on his brother for ages. Amanda had to nod—it wasn’t like she didn’t know that. But there was more. She wanted him to understand it. She was just starting to understand it, too.
“Even if I did want him, at the beginning, I’m not sure that’s really what I felt all that time. I think I just wanted to have a crush on someone. A crush I knew I’d never have to act on.” She winced. “Is that stupid? The whole reason I liked Luke was because it was safe. It was obvious from the get-go that it wasn’t going to happen. Yeah, things change. Friends get together. Life is weird, I know. But I don’t think I would have been so into Luke if I thought it could go anywhere. I don’t think I wanted anything real.”
It sounded so mortifying to admit it. Especially to Luke’s brother, of all people. She had to close her eyes, cringing at the words. She couldn’t look at Noah when she said it out loud.
“If you think that’s even more fucked up than crushing on him, I’d understand. If you want to go now…” She couldn’t quite bring herself to say, “That’s okay.” But the door was open, so to speak. If he wanted it.
But he didn’t move.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said quietly.
“Do you still miss Kristina?” Her voice was barely a whisper. “Do you wish you were with her instead?”
It was like he’d said. She didn’t want to know if she was right. She didn’t want to think about him with anyone else.
But she had to know.
And his lips on her forehead were so soft, so tender, they said everything without him breathing a word.
“It’s funny,” he whispered into her skin. “I don’t know if what was hard was losing Kristina or losing this idea I’d had in mind of what my life looked like. What my future was going to be. We’d been together for so long, we were a habit. Being together was just the thing we’d always done.” He sighed against her. “I can’t blame her anymore for seeing that sooner than I did. For wanting things to be different.”
“And now?” she asked.
His lips went to her forehead again. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed the kiss to last forever.
“I never thought I’d be so grateful for something so completely unexpected.”
She swallowed. Felt something pricking inside her that she couldn’t ignore. “Noah, can I ask you something?”
“You can ask me anything.”
“Do you still want to move to L.A.?”
It wasn’t like she expected him to jump up and change all his life plans for her immediately. He’d just said it himself—whatever was happening between them was completely unexpected. There was no accounting for this, no planning, no road map to tell them what to do.
But she heard him inhale. She knew that pause meant something—something big—before he answered.
“I don’t know,” he finally said, his arms still tight around her.
It could have been a non-answer. But Amanda knew it wasn’t.
Because Noah always knew what he was doing. He knew what the plan was. He knew what the next step was supposed to be.
Unless, of course, it was up in the air. Unless it meant, in this moment, that he didn’t.
He didn’t insist, “Of course I do!” Or say something defensive about how she, an only child, couldn’t possibly understand what it was like to have plans with his twin. He didn’t tell her she was crazy for asking. He didn’t dismiss her. Them. Whatever was happening right now in this bed.
“I moved to New York for Kristina. She had a job here, so it seemed like a given. And Luke followed me. There wasn’t any question. Without that holding us here, it seemed like of course we should move back to California.” She nodded. She understood those obligations better than a lot of their friends. “Our mom is there, and I can’t keep coaching forever. We’re not just out of college anymore. I need to make a living.”
“Of course,” Amanda said. She certainly got that, too. “But in L.A.?”
“Luke hadn’t even thought about PlayStation, or leaving Zenith, until I brought it up. I started this whole thing.”
“But do you want to?” she repeated. “It’s a different question. You’re allowed to want things, Noah. Separate from what’s good for Luke or his career. You’re allowed to change your mind.”
It seemed like such a simple thing. And such a big one, too. The whole idea of wanting. Of being
their own people and deciding what to choose.
He didn’t answer. After a long enough silence, she wasn’t sure he was going to.
“Coaching is hard,” she said gently. “You’re not a failure for working at something that’s hard. You’re not a failure for quitting to do something else.” She paused. Then went for it anyway. “But you also don’t have to quit just because you said you were going to. Because probably your mom and Luke and everyone else you know expects you to, some day.”
“I know,” he said.
“Do you?”
There was a difference between knowing and knowing. Between the things her mind told her and what came from deep in her gut.
“I’m not asking you to stay,” she whispered, her mouth dry. “I don’t have any right to do that. And I don’t want to. I don’t want to tell you what to do—especially not when what I’m really trying to tell you is to live your life as if it’s yours. But if I could, Noah—”
His eyebrow notched up.
“If I could ask you to stay…then I wouldn’t object to having you around,” she finally finished before she lost her nerve.
She hardly dared to look at him. What if he said no? It would be worse than a text message, worse than silence, worse than any “thanks, but no thanks” she’d ever had. What if he didn’t really want her?
He brushed a hand over her hair. Pulled her close and kissed her nose.
“I wouldn’t object to being around with you,” he whispered back. “As long as I can.”
It wasn’t a declaration of love. It wasn’t a promise or an offer or any statement about their future.
But it didn’t need to be. It was his arms around her, his lips to hers. It was everything they didn’t know and couldn’t say, still strong and full between them.
She closed her eyes and let herself rest against his chest, allowing him to hold her. Knowing she could fall asleep like this in his arms, not afraid about if and when he was leaving. Not afraid of anything at all.
Wrong Bed, Right Brother (Accidental Love) Page 12