She smiled at him. “No, I think it was just a reflex. Besides, my mum’s been gone for twenty-two years. She doesn’t have a right to nicknames.”
She could feel him staring at her and fought the urge to say something conciliatory, the way she did whenever her friends asked about the mother-shaped hole in her life. Talking about Deborah DaSilva always filled her with the most uncomfortable rage. She wanted him to see it. To know she wasn’t, couldn’t, judge.
She met Noah’s eyes, saw tension roiling below the surface. “Can you please tell me?”
His jaw tightened. “Paula went to Silver Daughters this afternoon, her and Shredder.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. She’s got issues with drinking. Drugs. Tabby’s text said she was pissed, screaming and making a scene.” He sounded rough, torn open. “She told them about me. Told them everything.”
“You mean The Rangers?”
“And that I’ve been locked up. And whatever the fuck else Paula decided to let loose.” His cheeks looked grey beneath the stubble. “Tabby wasn’t happy, and she said Sam’s furious.”
She squeezed his leg. “She’ll get over it. She had to find out sometime. At least it’s over, right?”
But he continued to stare blank-eyed at the road. Nicole listened as some of her most precious possessions sloshed around in the back of the van. She remembered her watch and Aaron’s condom. Sleeping with Noah on her old bedroom floor. A floating sense of unreality washed over her. The day felt three long and two wide, and they were still seven hours from Melbourne. It wasn’t close to being over.
“Where’s Paula now?” When Noah didn’t reply, she squeezed his leg. “Noah?”
“Dunno. That’s why we needed to leave.” An ugly smile twisted his mouth. “What are we gonna say about us?”
Nicole blinked at him. “Pardon?”
“Sam and Tabby know we’ve driven to Adelaide together.”
“How?”
“Your ex called Tabby. Told her and Sam we fucked in his bedroom.”
Nicole gasped. “How does he know about that? We didn’t use…there wouldn’t be any evidence.”
A ghost of a smile. “Dunno, I’d imagine he had a conversation with your neighbour.”
Of course, Mrs Harris had watched them kissing, seen her in Noah’s t-shirt. Probably tripped over herself to tell Aaron. She covered her face, as though she could hide from her sisters and Aaron, what they now knew. “That gossipy b!”
“Yeah, genie’s out of the bottle now. Tabby says Sam’s pissed.”
“But she isn’t?”
Noah grimaced. “She was kinda…hoping for something like this.”
“What do you mean?”
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “She came up to me after you got dumped. Told me to…you know. Help you get over it.”
Nicole felt like screaming. After her cathartic escape from Aaron’s house and their dream dinner, she’d been on top of the world—all ready for a fresh start. But the night had taken on the momentum of a runaway train. “She told you to sleep with me?”
“Yeah. Said it’d get you to stop chasing your ex. But, Nikki, I swear that’s not why I—”
“Please be quiet,” she screeched. “I need to think about things!”
Nicole pressed her fingernails into her cheeks, denting her skin. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world that her sisters knew about her and Noah—but it wasn’t fair. They’d slept together twice and hadn’t had a single real date. She was supposed to figure this out before Sam and Tabby could weigh in with their Muppet balcony opinions.
“Do you want kids?”
Her mind on seven different things, she didn’t even think. “Of course.”
“How many?”
“Three.”
“All girls?”
“I don’t mind, as long as they’re all healt…” She stared at Noah. “Why?”
“Because I don’t want them.”
Nicole felt like toddler Tabby had sunk her fists into her stomach, the way she did when she used to feed her. “Why?”
He gave her a hard smile. “Because the world’s fucked.”
“But by that logic, no one should do anything.”
He shook his head, the subtext clearly that she didn’t have a clue.
“Shut up!” she said, though he hadn’t spoken. “Are you just scared you’re going to be like your dad?”
Noah’s fake smile vanished. “Don’t talk like you know me.”
“Well I do!”
“Is that what you think?”
“Yes! I’ve seen you being nice to sad customers and playing with the puppies, and you looked after Sam when my dad left and slept on the visitors couch after Greg Sanderson tried to burn our house down.”
“So?”
“So, you’re a nice guy!” she snapped. “You’re nice and you take care of people, and you don’t have to be a dad if you don’t want to, but if it’s just because you’re scared of being like your dad, then you’re a big pussy!”
The word rang around the car like an echo. Noah laughed a short but undeniably authentic laugh. “You okay, Nikki?”
Not anymore. Now her heart was pounding, and her forehead was sweaty, and she didn’t know where to look. She rubbed her palms on her skirt, her mouth slicking with saliva.
“Nicole?” Noah barked. “What’s happening?”
I’m having a panic attack, you melon, she thought, but she couldn’t say it. Panic was gathering like an acid ball in her stomach, and though she tried to stop it, the worst memory rose like a corpse. Crying in the doctor’s office, alone because she couldn’t tell Sam or her dad or anyone where she was, and the doctor’s fake smile. “You don’t need to cry. It’s common. Antibiotics’ll clear it up.”
“Really?” she’d asked between sobs.
“Unless there’s permanent damage to your uterus. Then there can be complications with your fertility.”
And then she’d cried and cried and cried because she’d always wanted to be a mother and now she wouldn’t be, because of stupid, pointless sex with stupid, pointless Greyson, who licked her ears and couldn’t make her come.
“You just need to be more careful,” the doctor had said, rolling her eyes with her voice.
“But I am careful,” she’d said. “I’m always, always careful. Always! I look after my little sister and I cook dinner and….and I was school captain!”
And then the doctor had laughed, a high giggle, and Nicole’s walls had turned grey and collapsed in like molding papier-mâché. Noah’s voice was like heavy waves crashing over her brain. Saying things she couldn’t make out. She’d had unprotected sex with him. How could she have done that? Put herself at risk the same way, worse than the same way.
The van slowed and she heard the tack, tack, tack of the indicator coming on. She shook her head, remembering the hours they had left to travel. “We can’t stop.”
But they were already parked. Noah flicked the hazard lights on and took her hand. “Nikki.”
The van swam back into focus. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. What’s wrong?”
“I can’t...” Her panic mixed with molten embarrassment and acid tears burned the backs of her eyes.
“You can. Say it.”
And maybe it was the stress of the day, but she was suddenly, furiously sick of carrying the secret she’d kept locked inside her for nine years. “I had chlamydia when I was nineteen. My high school boyfriend, Greyson, gave it to me.”
The silence burned like dry ice.
“He told me he was safe. He never got tested, though. I started feeling weird down there and I went to the doctors and they told me it was that. Then when I got upset, she was so, so mean to me. I can’t believe how mean she was, and for no reason. I was just this terrified kid who’d only slept with two people.”
“Nikki…”
“Please don’t? I know this has nothing to do with right now, but sometimes
I get stressed and then I think about it and I just…break a little.”
A big hand smoothed over her hair. “Nikki, it’s okay. STD’s happen, they’re not the end of the world.”
Shame washed over her in a hot wave. “It shouldn’t have happened! It was disgusting. And the way the doctor looked at me, like I was just the dirtiest girl.”
“You’re not dirty.” He hesitated. “In that way. You can be dirty in the good ways.”
She laughed, then felt utterly ridiculous. “I’m sorry about freaking out. Like we don’t have enough to deal with.”
“It’s okay.” He rubbed a thumb over her cheek. “Is this because of what we did together?”
“Probably. I shouldn’t have told you to do it without a condom. I’m never that reckless. I never do anything wrong.”
A soft laugh. “Maybe that’s part of the problem. You never let yourself have any fun and then it all builds up and you binge.”
“Maybe,” she sniffed. “Sorry for freaking out.”
“Stop saying sorry. You don’t have anything to be sorry about. And I promise, to the best of my knowledge, I’m clean. I always use condoms.”
It should have been reassuring, but it just reminded her of all the other lovers he’d had, women who weren’t so childishly paranoid about sex. She yawned, wanting nothing more than to curl up and sleep forever.
“Have you ever talked to anyone about this, Nikki? Your dad? Your sisters?”
She shook her head.
“It must have eaten you alive.”
It had. She’d stayed up late for weeks, months, crying and making promises. A month later, a different, nicer doctor said she was clean, but the damage had been done. She’d had nightmares, felt phantom itches, froze with terror whenever Greyson went down on her. And there was Sam and Tabby, dating and sleeping with strangers and giggling about sex like it didn’t have terrifying consequences. Like it was just fun.
“I was so lonely,” she told Noah. “And I knew Sam and Tabby would have supported me, but I was just so mad at them for not getting something when I did. When they slept with a million more people than me. I couldn’t say anything.”
“Is that why you went to Adelaide?”
She went to say ‘no’, but the word caught in her throat. She remembered what she’d said to Noah, a million years ago this morning, ‘I’ve never run away from home before.’ She snorted.
“What?”
“Just thinking about what a hypocrite I am.” She swiped a wrist across her eyes. “We should get going. Get back to Melbourne and sort everything out.”
“That can wait until you’re feeling better.”
“I’m fine!” She scrubbed her face with her palms. “Sorry, I think I’ve cried in front of you more than I’ve ever cried in front of anyone.”
“Stop fuckin’ saying sorry.”
“Or what?”
Noah leaned in, his smell and his hardness so close, it made her dizzy. He kissed her, lightly, sweetly, then sat back, jerking his thumb behind him. “Get in there.”
“What?”
He turned off the engine, opened his door and climbed out. Nicole scrambled after him. He was standing at the back of the van, shoving boxes out of the way.
“What are you doing?”
He seized her by the waist and laid her down in the back of the van, on top of what felt and smelt like a beach towel. “Noah!”
He climbed in after her, his weight shifting the van downward. “Pull your dress up.”
“What?”
He made an impatient sound and gripped the hem of her silvery stretchy dress.
“Noah, are you trying to have sex with me? By the side of the road? In a van?”
“Nope.”
“Then wh—”
“I’m gonna eat your pussy.”
“No!” She pressed her hands to her thighs, holding the dress down. “Noah, that’s my worst fear, that’s my biggest trigger, a guy putting his mouth there. I don’t—”
“Too fuckin’ bad. I want it.”
“I know what you’re doing, but I don’t want to play ‘bad man’ right now. What if someone sees?”
“The windows are tinted, and even if they pull over, you can just yank your dress back down. You’re telling me you haven’t thought about it? Me, making you come like that?”
“Yes, but—”
He gripped her hips and hauled her back down toward him. “You want to make this hard, Nikki?”
“What would that involve?”
In an instant she was lifted, turned and placed on his thighs. He hauled up the hem of her dress and laid a swift, blistering slap on her ass.
“Oww!”
“You gonna let me eat you out?”
“It’s too gross!”
He spanked her again. “You’re fuckin’ crazy.”
“Oh, that’s original, calling a woman—oww!” She was angry, but she was also laughing, hysterically, yes crazily. It felt so hot it was almost too much, but it felt good. Cathartic.
“You’re. Fucking. Gorgeous.” He spanked her after ever word. “Anyone’d. Want to. Eat you. Out. Get it through. Your. Head.”
Nicole gasped. The pain was sharper now, flicking between her ass cheeks, heating her. She could picture it now, his mouth on her clit, making her melt into him. “Noah?”
“You want it now?”
She nodded.
“Good.” He turned her onto her back and knelt down, burying his face between her legs. She screamed, the sensation so sharp that it almost hurt. Then he licked her and everything went butter-soft and hazy. God it wasn’t sharp at all, it was amazing.
“Noah…”
He removed his face from between her legs. Even in the darkness, she could tell he was smug. “Like it?”
She gripped his head and pressed it back down.
He laughed as he went back to work, flicking and stroking and making her pulse like a strobe light. She’d had this before, but it had hurt. Noah just touched her, warm and wet and lovely. Her midriff tightened. God, it was happening already. She was going to finish so quickly. She felt herself tip up, squeezing exquisitely as Noah’s tongue ran the length of her pussy. Then a thought came.
She was sitting in the doctor’s office, crying and itching and wanting to die. That was her body; that was her, dirty, dirty, dirty. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling the shame anew, Noah’s tongue like an eel against her labia. Then the memory shifted, went sideways. Noah burst into the room, big and covered in tats and smelling of smoke. He stood between her and the doctor, glowering at the shocked-looking woman.
“There’s no need to act like that,” he told the doctor. “She’s just a kid. She’s done nothing wrong.”
He turned to her then, held out a big hand. “Come on, Nikki.”
And he led her from the doctor’s office. He’d taken her to get her antibiotics and ice cream. Then he’d kissed her and told her that the two weeks they had to wait until she could have sex would be like foreplay, because it was no big deal.
Nicole snapped back into the present, her thighs tight around Noah’s head. The pleasure was rushing through her, rising like a tide. It didn’t so much circumvent her panic, as rush over it, like a wave crushing a sandcastle. Sex was complicated, but it was wonderful. She moaned, her head banging back against the bottom of the van. “Noah!”
He continued to lap, even softer than before so that her body shuddered. “You like that, baby?”
“Yes.” A car rushed past, so fast and close that it rocked the van. Nicole smiled. “I can’t believe that just happened.”
He sat up then lay beside her, not touching, but close. They lay there a while, her heart racing, her skin prickling with goosebumps in the cooling air.
“That was nice.”
He made an affirmative grunting noise, his arm wrapping around her.
“Can I…do anything for you?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“I like the way you touch me.�
� She could hear the delicate note in her voice. Like wind chimes. Only she didn’t know why it was there. Was she hopeful or trying to put distance between them? She had no idea, only that she needed him to say something. But he stayed quiet. Separate.
That’s how he is, she reminded herself.
She remembered imagining he’d come into the doctor’s and rescued her. Her face went hot as fire. What right did she have to lean on him like that, even in her memories? She thought of the stresses they had waiting for them at home and a jolt of panic hit her, making her insides churn. “Should we get going?”
“Probably.”
She felt what he was about to say before he said it, a burst of adrenaline in her mouth, a tightening of her leg muscles.
“You’re something else, Nikki. You’re lovely.”
The rough sincerity in his voice only made it worse.
“But?”
“But, I’m not the guy.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not the guy you marry and have three kids with.”
Her chest splintered just a little. In the quiet of the van, Nicole could almost believe she’d heard it happen. “Does that mean we shouldn’t sleep together anymore?”
A soft, strained laugh. “You’re gonna have to fill me in on that one.”
“Why?”
A beat.
“Because I’ll have you for as long as you’ll have me. But this isnt going to be more than what it is now.”
Another hairline fracture, the splitting of something delicate and lovely that lived deep inside her and between them both. “What isn’t it?”
There was a silence, and she must have developed a sixth sense for Noah’s silences because this one was slippery and cold-blooded as a snake. She couldn’t stand it.
“Can you please take me home?”
He was silent a second, maybe surprised, maybe just thinking. Then he sat up. “Of course.”
Chapter 17
It was three in the morning when they reached Brunswick. Noah’s eyes burned and his back ached, but he wasn’t tired. He’d been chain smoking, but the adrenaline would have been enough on his own. He’d tried to call Paula on their last petrol stop, but she’d hung up on him. He couldn’t stop himself from imagining his house destroyed, burned down, overrun with scumbags. Beside him, Nicole sat bolt upright, her eyes glassy.
So Steady: Silver Daughters Ink, Book Two (Silver Daughters Ink Book Two) Page 21