Wildflower (Colors #4)

by Jessica Prince

  “Please, stop,” she pleaded with me on a whisper. Her bright eyes were shining with tears, the sight of them cutting into me like a white-hot blade. But I had to get it out. I had to lay everything out there.

  “Because this was the last place I had you,” I told her, my voice going softer. “Because I kept telling myself that maybe one day you’d come back. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. I wanted to be here. I needed to be here, because this town is the only place I’ve been able to feel close to you for over five years.”

  “Stop,” she breathed.

  “You know why I push you, Harlow?” She shook her head frantically, her eyes squeezed closed tightly. “Because you’re the love of my life, wildflower. You were then, and you are now. Always will be. There’s nothing that could ever change that.”

  I had barely gotten the last word out before she launched herself at me, her arms going around my neck, her legs around my waist, as she held on with a vise-like grip. And the instant her lips smashed against mine, I lost what little rational thought I had left.

  I didn’t think, I just acted. My body reacted to Noah’s impassioned speech of its own accord and before I knew it, I was flying into his arms and taking his lips in a brutal kiss, drinking in the groan and grunt that came from deep in his chest.

  It was fierce and hungry, clashing teeth and tongues battling for dominance. It was passionate and addictive… and one hundred percent us.

  Noah growled down my throat as my back connected hard with the cool surface of a wall. I vaguely heard the sounds of pictures falling and glass breaking, but neither of us disengaged.

  My hands were everywhere, frantically roaming across as much of Noah as I could reach, wanting to touch him everywhere all at once. His lips left mine. My whimper at the loss of them quickly turned into a moan as he trailed tiny biting kisses along the length of my throat.

  “Oh, God,” I gasped, my hips rocking against the rock-hard erection pressing through his pants, causing a deep growl to vibrate up Noah’s chest.

  His head lifted, his lips brushing against my ear as his breath tickled my skin. “I still remember exactly what you taste like,” his voice rumbled as he pressed his clothed cock against me even harder. “I remember what you smell like, what you sound like, what you fucking look like when you come around me.”

  “Noah…” my voice came out in a choked beg as he continued to move, stoking a fire deep in my belly.

  He cupped my ass in one hand, holding me firmly to the wall as his free hand trailed up my side, brushing against the swell of my breast before coming up to wrap firmly in my hair.

  “Never forgot, baby,” he said against my lips, twisting my head to get it at just the right angle for him to devour my mouth like he hadn’t eaten in weeks.

  That pressure in my belly continued to grow, sending jolts of electricity straight between my thighs. “Oh, God… I need…” I needed what? At that very moment, I was so overwhelmed by everything Noah was doing to me, I couldn’t figure out what I needed.

  “Know what you need, wildflower,” he grunted. “You want me to give it to you?”

  I did.

  I so did.

  “Yes,” I panted deliriously. “Please.”

  That was all it took.

  Noah dropped me to my feet just long enough to whip all clothing from my body. I was naked in a matter of seconds. It had to have been some sort of land-speed record. The instant my panties hit the floor, I was back up, legs wrapped tightly around his waist, back thrown against the wall.

  Noah’s hand worked between us as he freed his thick cock from the confines of his pants. Just the sight of it was enough to render me speechless. I remembered everything about our time together as well. And that had definitely gotten bigger.

  “Noah, hurry,” I pleaded.

  With one powerful thrust, Noah entered me, stretching me fuller than I’d ever been before. My head flew back, hitting drywall as I cried out loudly in a sweet combination of pleasure and pain. It had been so long, and he was so big, it hurt a lot more than I’d expected.

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” he groaned between clenched teeth. His warm amber eyes held mine as he pulled out and pushed back in. I watched in fascination as his pupils dilated and his gaze went glassy. “So tight, baby. Shit. I don’t know how long I’ll last.”

  With each thrust of Noah’s hips, the pain lessened and something inside me twisted tighter and tighter, eagerly waiting to snap and send me spinning out of control.

  “Harder,” I coaxed, doing my best to move against him, meeting him stroke for stroke. “Faster, honey. Need it harder and faster.”

  “That’s right,” he grunted as he pulled out before shoving back in as hard as he could. My back banged into the wall over and over, the remaining frames rattling each time he plunged into me. “Go crazy for me. I wanna see you lose control.”

  His words, combined with each powerful, delicious thrust of his cock drove me closer and closer. My moans turned into keening whimpers.

  “Oh shit,” I panted, my chest rising and falling frantically as my vision clouded. “It’s too much… Noah…” I wanted him to stop at the same time I prayed he never would. The tension I was feeling was stronger than any orgasm I’d ever experienced in my life.

  “No one can make you feel like this,” he huffed as he continued to work my body.

  “No,” I agreed, completely lost to the frenzied motions of our sweat slick bodies.

  “Only me.”

  “Only you, honey.”

  With that, one of Noah’s hands moved between us, his thumb hitting my clit with perfect accuracy as he fucked me faster and harder.

  “Come on my cock, Harlow. Wanna feel you squeeze everything outta me.”

  And I did. At his deep, gravelly words, I fell over that ledge into pure, unadulterated bliss. Blood rushed through my ears as I threw my head back, crying nonsensical words.

  Noah thrust one, two, three more times before planting himself to the root, filling me up as he buried his face in my neck on a low, ragged groan as he came, twitching inside me as he emptied himself completely.

  “Holy shit,” I gasped once my lungs filled with air. “That was…” I was at a loss for words.

  Noah wasn’t. “In-fucking-credible,” he finished for me, his forehead resting on my shoulder. He still had me pinned against the wall as we breathed heavily. “Jesus, wildflower. I think I might have blacked out.”

  A nervous giggle worked its way up my throat as images of what just happened bombarded me. Thoughts of ‘holy shit, what did I just do?’ warred with ‘when can we do it again?’ in my head. I had no clue what I was supposed to feel, how I was supposed to react, to what just happened.

  I tried to convince myself it was just the heat of the moment, but I knew, deep down inside, that it was more than that. It was something that had been building between us since the moment we laid eyes on each other once again, growing more tense until it finally combusted into what had just happened.

  I was so busy trying to wrap my brain around what we’d done that I barely heard Noah’s whispered voice in my ear. “Baby.”

  “Huh?”

  “I didn’t use a condom.”

  Noah’s arms grew so tight it was a struggle to breathe.

  “Noah,” I wheezed, hoping he’d loosen his hold. He didn’t. His head came up, those honey eyes full of tension as he stared at me.

  “Shit. I’m sorry, Harlow. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Noah, please…” I wheezed again. “I can’t breathe.”

  “Fuck,” he ground out, his iron-like hold loosening enough that I was able to suck in some much needed oxygen. “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop apologizing,” I replied. Normally his admission would have been like a bucket full of ice water being dumped over our heads, extinguishing any remaining smoldering embers of our heated encounter. But his anguished expression tugged at something in my chest. The need to comfort him overpowered t
he panic that should have been roiling around in my gut. “It’s all right, I’m covered. I have an IUD.”

  “Okay,” he sighed, his large frame sagging in relief as he pushed me farther into the wall.

  “You can let me down now.”

  His arms twitched, squeezing me slightly before he pulled away just enough for his softening erection to slip out. I felt an immediate sense of loss, but tried to push it to the back of my mind as I unwrapped my legs from his waist. But my feet never hit the ground.

  “Noah, you can let go now,” I pressed.

  With a simple no, he kept a firm lock around my body and walked toward the couch. Holding me against him as he sat, then laid back and rested me so I was laying half on top of him, my other half resting against the back of the couch.

  My heart rate kicked up at the intimacy of our position. “What are you doing?”

  “Just…” his voice trailed off as his chest rose with a deep sigh against my cheek. “Just let me hold you for a little while longer. Please.”

  I couldn’t argue. If I was being honest with myself, I didn’t want to argue. I had no idea what was happening between us, what we’d just done meant. But the thing that was at the forefront of my mind was how comforting it felt to be in his arms. I felt more secure just then than I had in years. So I was giving myself a little more time, snuggling into the warmth of his chest before the real world had a chance to seep back in on us.

  “What’s going on in that head of yours?” he asked in a low, gravelly voice after several minutes of content silence.

  “Nothing,” I responded immediately.

  I felt his chest vibrate with laughter and my arm reflexively tightened around his middle. Undertones of humor echoed through his voice as he said, “God, you’re still a terrible liar.”

  “You sound just like Chloe,” I grumbled into his skin as I sense of contentment settled over me like a comfortable blanket.

  Noah remained silent for a few seconds, and I thought the subject had dropped. I was wrong. “You might have started a new life with new friends, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t know you better than anyone else… at least back then.”

  His words caused a sharp sting behind my ribs. “What are we doing?” I asked, lifting my head and resting my chin on my folded hands. His features were hardened with determination as he focused on me.

  “We’re starting over,” he declared seriously. “What just happened between us changes everything, Harlow. There’s no going back.”

  My stomach flipped with a combination of excitement and anxiety. I just couldn’t tell which one was the strongest. “But we’re a disaster,” I whispered.

  The hardness melted from his face and his eyes grew soft. “We’re not. It’s easy to hold on to all the bad shit when a relationship ends, but you’ve forgotten about all the good. We had a lot of good back then, baby. I just need to remind you of that.”

  My nose tickled as a lump formed in my throat. “I can’t go through that again, Noah. You make it sound like we ended because of a meaningless fight. It was so much more than that, and you know it,” I spoke in a ragged voice.

  Noah’s abs flexed as he pushed to sitting, taking me with him so I was forced to straddle his thighs. Wrapping his fist around my hair, he pulled down slightly so our gazes met. “You have to trust me, Har,” he insisted vehemently. “You said you forgave me, but you haven’t, have you? Not really.”

  I tried unsuccessfully to turn my head, I couldn’t stand to see the disappointment shining back at me. Because what he was saying was at least half-true. I just hadn’t realized it until that moment.

  There was no mistaking the hurt in his voice when he asked, “What do I need to do to earn your trust back? Or is that even possible?”

  “I just… I’m not…” I stumbled over my words, trying to figure out what it was I actually wanted. I was so confused. The push and pull of wanting Noah and fearing more heartbreak was tearing me in half. “I don’t know,” I whispered in frustration. “Can we just… go slow? I’m not saying I don’t want this, or that I don’t want to try. But I need this to move at a pace I’m comfortable with. My head feels like it’s about to explode. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore.”

  His eyes seared my skin as he watched me intently. I began to fidget under his scrutiny before he finally spoke. “I can give you that.”

  Five simple words from him were all it took for relief to wash over me.

  “Thank you.”

  “But…” he continued, “slow doesn’t equal space, wildflower. Just keep that in mind. I won’t push you to go faster than you’re comfortable with, but this…” he waved a finger between the two of us, “…is happening. You made that decision earlier when you kissed me. If this is going to work, you can’t keep me at arm’s length.”

  “Okay.”

  His head jerked back, his eyes growing wide in shock. “Okay? That’s it?”

  My brows furrowed in confusion. “Well, yeah. What you’re asking for isn’t unreasonable. I can handle that. As long as you’re okay with keeping this between ourselves for a little while.” I felt his body grow tense and agitated and hurried to clarify. “I’m not saying I want to keep this a secret. But we need to take time to get to know each other again. Besides, the whole town knows what happened between us before. Do you really want to deal with all that gossip while we’re trying to work on building something together?”

  His body relaxed, but his face remained somewhat stormy as he grudgingly admitted, “I see your point.”

  I couldn’t help but giggle at his disgruntlement. I gave his shoulders a gentle push and tried to stand, only to have Noah jerk me back into place.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” His voice rumbled against my ear, sending shivers across my skin. I wanted him again, there was no doubt about that, but I needed to get home.

  “I have to get back to Ethan. We didn’t leave things on the best of terms and I kind of stormed out of there to come yell at you.” I pushed again and this time he let me go. I grabbed my clothes off the floor and began dressing as he stood and pulled his flannel pants up.

  Once I was properly covered, Noah wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me against his chest. “We need to figure out how to tell Ethan about this. We might not want the whole town to know, but we can’t keep this from him.”

  I let out a breath and dropped my forehead to his chest. “I know. I’m just worried about doing something that’ll set him off. He’s had enough upheaval in his life already.”

  “Hey. Look at me,” Noah said softly, tipping my chin up. “This isn’t a bad thing, okay? Us being together isn’t something that’ll disrupt his life. This is good.”

  I nodded in agreement even as uncertainty raged inside of me. I wanted so badly to believe him. I wanted to trust that it was a good thing. However, my sense of self-preservation refused to let me look at the situation through rose-colored glasses.

  That niggling doubt remained in the back of my mind, reminding me of just how badly things could get.

  After kissed me good bye, branding my lips with his before letting me go, I climbed into Grammy’s truck and started home. As I tried my best to ignore the frigid chill filling up the cab thanks to the malfunctioning heater, I got lost in memories of the past.

  That one fateful day, where everything turned from wonderful to bad standing out prominently among the rest of them.

  Noah’s knee continued to bounce up and down so rapidly the cheap Formica chair I was sitting in next to him continued to shake.

  “Will you stop?” I whispered harshly. “You’re stressing me out even more than I am already.”

  His knee stopped moving and he cut his eyes to me. “Well, excuse me. So sorry to stress you out. It’s not like this is affecting my life or anything.”

  Dropping my chin to my chest, I ran my fingers through my hair agitatedly. It had been like this since that stupid stick turned pink. Constant bickering and snapping was
adding intense tension to an already shitty situation.

  “Can we please not fight?” I asked in a weak voice, barely able to speak through the tears clogging my throat. I couldn’t stand fighting with Noah. It wasn’t something we’d done often in the time we’d been together. But the fact that we were both freaking out about our futures had us at each other’s throats. I hated it. I needed him to tell me it was all going to be okay. I needed to know we’d get through this. Noah was the only person, other than Grammy, who was a constant in my life. I couldn’t lose that.

  “I’m scared out of my mind, Noah. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

  I could see the struggle on his face as he pushed aside his own fears in order to comfort me through mine. “It’s okay, wildflower,” he soothed, wrapping his arm around his shoulder and pulling me into his side. “We’ll get through this, okay? Everything’s gonna be all right. I promise.”

  It was in that moment that I was reminded of exactly why I loved him so much. Despite his own worries and concerns, he was my rock. He was the shoulder I could lean on when things got hard. As I melted into his embrace, I kept telling myself that he was right. We were strong. Everything was going to be okay.

  Because as long as we had each other, nothing else mattered.

  Right?

  “Prewitt?” A short, stocky nurse called, holding the door that lead to the exam rooms open with her ample behind. “Harlow Prewitt?”

  “That’s me,” I answered, nerves causing my voice to break as I stood from my seat.

  “Right this way, please.” Noah stood next to me and took my hand, leading me toward what I had come to view as the door of doom. “Sir, I’ll have to ask that you wait out here.”

  “Like hell,” Noah shot back. “I’m going in there with her.”

  I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do more, kiss him for his show of support, or kick him in the shin for causing a scene on the lobby of the Planned Parenthood office. I didn’t get a chance to decide before the bitchy nurse from hell spoke again.