The Party Girl

by Tamara Morgan

  “I like my house the way it is. We didn’t talk about—”

  She gave his balls a pat and sauntered into the house ahead of him. “Don’t look so shell-shocked. I’m not moving in—but you’re the one who asked me to come back. If you want me to make regular house calls, I’m going to require caffeine and two-ply toilet paper and my happy nature sounds sleep aid. I have needs, my friend. And I intend to get them met.”

  He looked up at the suitcase again, frowning. No way was there fifty pounds of toilet paper in there.

  Still, he carried the case in and set it by the door, feeling an odd mixture of alarm and amusement at Kendra’s not-so-subtle takeover. This was how it all started. Fancy soap here. An underwear drawer there. Before long, you were sharing bank account information and losing everything you owned.

  “Do you need anything else from the car before I shut the door?” he asked carefully. “Your backup generator, maybe? A luxury yurt you want me to assemble out back?”

  Kendra ignored him. She stood at the base of his kitchen table, her finger extended toward the oversized Mason jar that sat in the middle, a white linen bow tied around the middle. “What is that for?”

  Oh. “I made it for you. I know it looks strange, but—” Finding the words difficult, he moved to her side. He picked up the wooden paddle that sat next to the jar and showed her how it worked. Basically, all she had to do was push the paddle through the openmouthed top, where a large piece of cheesecloth was secured with a rubber band. He’d spent most of the afternoon fiddling with the contraption in his workshop, trying to create the perfect fit. “You just put the ground coffee on top of the cloth and push down, like this. It’s a kind of rudimentary French press. I tried it out earlier, and it’s not too bad. No worse than floating cork bits in a bottle of wine, anyway.”

  He didn’t see her coming. One minute, he was trying to cover the awkwardness of his crude gift, and the next Kendra was pressed against him, her arms wound around his neck and tugging on his hair. His senses whirled, but his body knew that tug. Dipping his head, he brought his mouth to hers, claiming her for a long, greedy kiss.

  Rather, it would have felt greedy making those demands on any other woman, what with his firm thrust for heat and depth and always, always more. But Kendra gave as good as she got, her fingers gripping his hair so tightly, her mouth hungrily devouring his, he couldn’t tell which way was up.

  Good thing a rather important part of his anatomy still could.

  “You bastard,” she said, her words a sigh as they tumbled from her lips and into his own. She drew back and ran her hands down the sides of his neck, across his chest, skimming and scouring and leaving a trail of fire behind. “I spent the afternoon buying all kinds of creature comforts for my rustication.”

  He ran a hand up between their bodies, loving the softness of her belly, lingering in the deep indentation between her breasts. “I don’t need creature comforts.”

  She tipped her head back and arched into his hand. “Well, I do. But you’re not supposed to be all adorable and hermity and make them for me. Now I feel awful.”

  “I can change that.” He hoisted her up so that her ass was cradled in his hands, her legs encircling his hips as he held her aloft. He nuzzled at her neck. “In fact, I can promise to make you feel very, very good. And I’ll make you coffee afterward.”

  “Mmm. You sure know how to sweet-talk a woman.” She looked up at him, mischief in her eyes. “I don’t suppose you can also dirty-talk one?”

  All those one-syllable words came rushing back, the body parts he currently held in his hands, the actions those body parts were capable of. But somehow, it seemed like a litany of discordant nouns and verbs weren’t quite what she was looking for. “What do you want me to say?” he asked. While he waited for her answer, he started heading in the direction of the bedroom. Kendra squealed as he hoisted her through the door and tossed her to the bed.

  “Well, you could start by telling me what you’re feeling right now.”

  Noah paused, watching her with such intensity in his dark gaze that Kendra thought it might be possible to come on willpower alone. And she’d thought his sex lasers were powerful before. Feed those suckers and they apparently became nuclear blasts.

  “You want to know what I’m feeling?”

  “Yes.” She flicked her gaze over him. “Are you having any...underwear feelings?”

  He laughed and lifted his shirt over his head, doing that one-handed back-of-the-shirt-grab thing that muscular men made look so damn good. She bit her lip as he tossed the shirt aside and crawled to her, leaning her back and trapping her against the bed. “Yes, Kendra. You make me have underwear feelings. Hot, throbbing underwear feelings.”

  Oh, man. He wasn’t the only one. She squirmed against the mattress, loving the helpless, wriggling feeling of being trapped under his body. “That’s a good start. What else?”

  He dipped down and kissed her long and hard, leaving her lungs gasping for air, her body aching for more. “I feel you moving underneath me and want to rip your clothes off with my teeth. I feel the soft weight of your breasts under my hands and thank God for creating such perfection.”

  It took her a moment to process both those things, as he used said teeth to tug at the row of buttons along the front of her blouse, stopping to nuzzle at her tender nipples as he went.

  “Hmm, well,” she managed, gasping when he took a nipple between his lips and suckled. Even through the material of her yellow mesh bra, she felt the deep pull down to her toes. “It’s not God you should be thanking for that. It’s Whitney.”

  The tingling in her toes stopped—her other sensitive parts not far behind—as Noah sat up, his heavy body straddling her hips. “What did you just say?”

  She laughed at the look of incredulity that crossed his face. “You really couldn’t tell? You must be more out of touch with the world than you let on. These babies defy the very laws of physics.”

  As if to prove it, she reached behind her and unclasped her bra. Without the support of the underwire and thin material, her boobs remained afloat on her chest. That was one of her favorite things about them. Forget gravity. Forget age. Forget logic. She could be suspended from the ceiling by her feet and still look fantastic.

  Noah’s eyes widened as he reached for her again, hesitant and unsure.

  She didn’t care for hesitant. She liked unsure even less. “My having had a boob job doesn’t go against your ascetic principles, does it? Because I can tell you right now—I love them. Where I go, they follow. Or lead, I guess. They’re like pets.”

  He didn’t answer her, leaning down instead to make a more minute inspection, his breath warm where it landed. He squeezed. “But they feel so real.”

  She bit her lip to keep from laughing. “That’s sort of the point. Whitney is very good.”

  “No. Real isn’t the right word.” He furrowed his brow and played with them some more, pushing and prodding and toying with her sensitive skin. It didn’t take a medical expert to see that her nipple responses were excellent. “They’re exactly how I imagined boobs were supposed to feel back before I had the privilege of actually touching one.”

  As he continued his examination, he looked like a little boy exploring a cave for the first time. Or the mountainous peaks leading down to the cave. Peaks he didn’t intend on leaving any time soon, apparently.

  She wriggled her hips to jolt him back to awareness. His approval of her plastic surgery wasn’t a requirement, but his ability to accept her was. She knew he found her frivolous, that her suitcase full of toiletries and nice bedding existed in direct opposition to his way of life. It took her at least an hour to get ready in the morning. She vigilantly removed any body hair that refused to obey her command. She owned expensive perfume and a car with bad gas mileage and breast implants.

  She also reall
y cared for Noah.

  “So what you’re saying is, they feel like your fantasy?” she asked, nudging a little. There had to be a way to make all those parts of her life fit together.

  He finally tore his gaze from her chest, his sex lasers back on and set to stun. “No, Kendra. I’m saying you feel like my fantasy. Head to toe. Side to side. Inside and out.”

  She lost her breath—and not just because he pressed the full weight of his body on top of her for a searing kiss. For a man who didn’t have much of a way with words, he certainly had a way with words.

  “Can I be done with the feelings now?” he asked, nipping the edge of her mouth. She arched to allow him better access as he traveled a path along her jaw, down her neck, over the slope of her shoulders. His beard scuffed against her, the juxtaposition of sensual mouth and scratchy skin driving her over the edge. “I’d really rather start on the action part.”

  “Action is good,” she said, moaning when he once again buried himself in her chest. “Action is fucking awesome.”

  Noah continued moving downward as he kissed and licked and sucked a hot trail over her body. By the time he got to her stomach, they were both tugging off what remained of their clothing, no longer able to withstand the barriers between them. There was no way she was allowing something as ridiculous as fabric to get between her and that man’s mouth.

  She had no idea when it became the vogue for men to be clean-shaven, but she would have liked to personally slap every person who compelled a man to take a razor to his jaw. It was hypocritical, she knew, as her body was buffed and waxed to falsely smooth proportions, but there was something about the rough scratch of Noah’s beard moving over the surface of her skin that made her squirm. It rendered him quintessentially male; her, his counterpart. She loved it.

  And he knew it. He nuzzled and nipped his way down her belly, over her mons, pressing deftly between her thighs. Pleasure far surpassed pain as he licked at her—no, laved at her—her open legs practically begging for him to rub and scuff and scour until her nerve endings went up in flames.

  She was close—too close—and pulled back just from the edge. “Please, Noah,” she begged. “I want to come with you inside me.”

  He blinked once and nodded his understanding. She was glad he knew what that was, even if she didn’t. All she knew was that she wasn’t sure she’d feel whole until he was a part of her.

  The strength of Noah’s body was evident as he turned to grab a condom—the line of which he’d cleverly stashed by the bed—and slipped it on. Each twist and twitch of his muscles filled her with a spasm of longing, what with the golden-red thatch of hair that danced across his chest and led downward, culminating in the thick protrusion of a cock she wasn’t sure she’d ever get tired of admiring.

  “Up.” He lifted his finger. Drawn by it—by him—she complied, rising to her knees on the bed. She thought he was simply taking a moment to admire the view, but he grasped her around the waist and lifted, settling himself underneath her so she sat astride. He didn’t enter her yet, instead nestling his cock along her ass, where the weight of it nudged heavy and promising.

  “That was very demanding of you.” She smiled as she ran her hands over his chest and down his stomach. Just in case he had any misapprehensions regarding how she felt about that, she purred. “What next?”

  He placed his hands on her thighs and lifted her up. “Now you ride me. I want to see you work yourself up and down my dick until you make yourself come.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath as he brought her down, his cock spreading her wide, her body wet but still unready for the size of him. More roughness. More pleasure. More Noah.

  “I see you don’t need dirty-talking tips after all,” she teased, moving against his body almost immediately. His hands strayed to her waist, holding her firm as she arched her back and lifted her hips. Feeling him stretch and fill her once more had her letting out a muffled whimper. So she did it again. And again. Her head lolled back and she lost herself to the sensation of their bodies fitting perfectly together.

  “Touch yourself,” Noah commanded, his voice hoarse. “Touch yourself for me.”

  She glanced down to see him staring rapturously up at her, and she felt a spasm in the pit of her stomach that had nothing to do with their physical proximity. Unable to withstand the pleading in his eyes, she lifted her hands to her breasts and cupped the weight of them, twisting and rolling her nipples in time to the movements of her body. She dipped one hand lower, undulating over her belly until she found the place where his cock slid into her.

  And that was all it took. Being on top was one of Kendra’s favorite positions, and she could have happily extended the act for as long as Noah could stand it. But the slick glide of his erection, the complete acceptance in his eyes as she massaged her own breasts, the firm press of his hands that hinted at his ability to overpower her right then and there—they proved too much for her restraint. With a cry she didn’t bother holding back, she gave in to the downward pull of release.

  Seconds later, she was moving up again. Noah’s grip on her tightened as he flipped her expertly on her side and angled himself between her legs. She barely had time to process the highly erotic sensation of his strength taking over hers before he plowed into her—once, twice, a guttural roar and done.

  His arms tightened as he slid up to cradle her, his heartbeat rapid against her back. He gave it a few moments to settle before bringing his lips to her ear. “All that for a Mason jar and some coffee grounds I borrowed from my neighbors? I can’t wait until you see what I’m planning for dinner.”

  She laughed and turned to face him, loving the solidly safe cocoon of his arms. Funny—she didn’t even know what she needed to feel safe from. All she knew was that a man’s embrace had never felt quite this comforting before. “Who could blame me? I had a need. You saw it. You met it.”

  Not only that, but he’d met it by creating something with his own two hands. She’d never realized before how much that could mean. It was easy for a man to go to a store and purchase, say, a pair of dangling silver earrings in an attempt to smooth things over. It was quite another for him to take the time to really think about what she wanted—and to do something about it.

  Noah caressed the side of Kendra’s face, brushing back strands of hair that had fallen into her eyes. She was a difficult woman to pin down, but something about the soft afterglow of sex made her more accessible. “I know I don’t have much to offer you out here, but you have to believe that I’ll do everything in my power to meet your needs. Whatever they may be.”

  She squeezed his waist. “My suitcase really bothers you, doesn’t it?”

  “It does,” he admitted.

  “I’m not crazy, despite how it appears on the outside. I’m not about to start moving things around without permission and inviting friends over while you’re out milking Goat. It’s just a few towels and things for me to use when I’m here.”

  It wasn’t just towels—that was the thing. It was what the towels meant in the grand scheme of things. What he had—who he was—didn’t meet her expectations. She wanted more, needed more, was willing to go out and get herself more. A good man would stand by and allow it to happen. A great man would even help.

  But Noah was neither of those things.

  “Is it a temptation thing?” she asked gently. “Is it that you’re afraid having nice things will only make you want them more?”

  He almost said yes. It would have been so easy to blame his reluctance on his personal weaknesses, on his desire to strip his life of any and all excess. She’d believe him without question, he knew—his greed for her was proof enough of that. Having her naked and in his arms wasn’t nearly enough to quench his thirst. He wanted more. He wanted it all.

  “No.”

  She shifted so that her face was just inches from his, and he felt r
ather than heard the wobble in her voice. “Is it me?”

  “God, no.” He tucked her head under his chin and pulled her close. How horrible a man would he be if he let her walk away believing his failings were her fault? Even though the very thought of this conversation had him breaking out in a cold sweat, it had to be done. Until she knew why he’d renounced the world and all its trappings, she could never understand why her world and her trappings scared the shit out of him.

  “At least, it’s not about you directly,” he amended. “It’s more about what you represent.”

  She pulled away, her body tense. “I don’t represent anything but myself.”

  He only wished it were that simple. “You know the guy who was out trespassing the day Goat ran away? The guy Lincoln got rid of for me?”

  “Um. Yes. I think I might remember a little something about that.”

  He grunted, feeling foolish. Of course he knew the incident had been bothering her since it happened, but it had seemed silly to go into detail at the time. Why dig out his past when there was no chance of a future between them? Unnecessary sharing led to unnecessary pain. Hermit rules to live by.

  “Yeah, well—that guy wasn’t the first person to come out here looking for me.” And he probably wouldn’t be the last. “Even though this is private property and no one can trespass here without permission, my ownership is a matter of public record. And there are people looking for me.”

  “What kind of people?” From the movement of her eyes, he knew she was imagining something terrible. Escalade terrible.

  “Not scary people,” he assured her. “Sad people.” Which, in his opinion, were infinitely worse. His life would be so much easier if the people who wished him harm were bad, evil, even a little morally gray around the edges. But they weren’t. They were fathers and wives and daughters and sons. They were him. “That man was the victim of a Ponzi scheme—one that came to a head about five years ago. A time that, not coincidentally, matches up with my own retreat from the world.”