BOOK OF THE MONTH: BEFORE I FALL CHAPTER 15

Beth

My breath is locked in my throat as he undoes another button. My breasts are heavy and tight. I crave his touch. I want his hands on me. But he’s deliberate and slow as he pushes another button open.

I open my eyes to discover there’s a mirror over his dresser. And he’s watching me. Heat floods between my thighs at the realization of what he’s doing. It’s erotic and sexual and pure sensuality all wrapped together.

He tugs the blouse open. I wish I had a bra that was sexy lace and flowers. It’s simple cotton, but when he sees it I might as well be wearing the tiniest bikini. He traces his fingers over the edge of one cup. My nipple tightens at the promise of his touch. He tugs at the edge of my bra until it’s finally free. The cool kiss of air is a shock from the loss of the warmth of my clothing.

Then he touches me. A gentle stroke of his thumb over my nipple. He’s watching my reaction in the mirror, and I’m lost to the sensation, fascinated by watching his touch tease my body to awareness. My nipple tightens to a smaller bud as he strokes it. Again and again – each touch striking liquid heat between my thighs.

I squirm, shifting my legs apart just a little. Just enough to see his gaze drop down to where I want his touch. His hand, his mouth. Anything to relieve the pressure there.

He drags my shirt off my shoulders and my bra follows. I’m exposed and vulnerable now in the bright moonlight, but he hasn’t taken his eyes off mine in the mirror. He’s warm at my back as he slides his hands up my soft belly to cup the underswell of my breasts. Almost worshipful, he cups them, his thumbs stroking closer to my nipples.

“Noah.”

His name is a prayer. He shifts then, his thumbs circling my nipples. Making them stiffen until I’m ready to beg him for more. I part my legs just a little more. An offering.

“Touch me.” I can’t manage anything more coherent than that.

He slips the hook free of the loop on my pants and slowly – so slowly – the rasp of the zipper exposes me. I don’t know what I expect, but he pushes my pants down, down my hips. He kneels in front of me, sliding my feet free of the fabric.

I can’t look in the mirror now. Not with him on his knees in front of me, close – so close, to what I want to ask for. I don’t have the needy words to say what I want.

His palms are rough on my legs as he drags them up, higher, closer to my aching core. My thighs are wet and he hasn’t even touched me there.

I’m watching him now. It’s strangely erotic being completely naked in front of him while he’s still fully clothed. His touch stops there, just at the seam of my body. He slides his thumb over my swollen clit, the barest touch. My hips jerk at the sensitive caress.

“Christ, you’re wet,” he whispers. “Can I touch you?” His questions are an erotic sensation all their own. I manage to nod, my body tight and tense with anticipation.

He urges me back until the backs of my thighs collide with his bed. I sink onto his blankets and sheets and I am surrounded by the scent of him. They’re cool against the fire raging along my naked back. His hands brush my thighs farther apart and then his thumb is there again. Stroking. Gently petting me where I’m swollen and wet.

Then his mouth is on me. Soft and warm and wet. Suckling me where I’m most sensitive. I almost come off the bed as he torments me with his tongue. He’s done nothing more than flick his tongue over me when I completely come apart in a burst of stunningly bright light and brilliant stars.

I’m vaguely aware of a sound like crinkling foil and then he’s there, pressing into the swollen folds of my body. Somehow he’s naked and we are skin to skin, flesh to flesh. I wrap my arms and legs around him and urge him closer. I want, I need, the fullness of him. Of Noah.

He’s filling me, slowly, inch by inch, riding the shuddering waves of my body until he’s deep and thick inside me.

I try to press my hands to his back but he threads his fingers with mine, dragging them over my head. And when he moves, I’m completely lost again in a sea of sensation and hyper arousal that takes me beyond consciousness and into a space where he ends and I begin.

He kisses me, and I am drowning in my taste and his, the pleasure of our bodies mingling on our tongues. The distant edge of orgasm comes roaring back, pulsing through my body with a violence that is utterly destructive, dragging me down and carrying him with me.

I’m gone from this plane of existence, carried into a space where there is only Noah. Only me. And together we crash into the void.

Noah

I hold her close when it’s over. I don’t know if the earth moved for her, but it damn near tilted on its axis for me.

Little shudders vibrate through her every so often. I can’t tell if she’s dozing, or if the remnants of her climax are still rippling through her.

It’s endearing as nothing else is. I want her again. I want to keep her there in the cocoon of my bed and shelter her from the world. But I know she needs to get home.

And just like that, reality is back, for me at least. I’m reluctant to let her go. I’m terrified that this will be just a dream. A great dream, but one that I will miss when I wake up. I kiss her shoulder gently.

“I should get you home.”

She nods. Her hair is cool silk on my damaged shoulder. She hasn’t noticed the scars and I’m anxious to get dressed. If we can avoid that conversation today, it would be the perfect ending to a perfect day.

I’m not hiding exactly, but I’m not sure how to have the conversation yet. Not with someone who matters to me.

She slips from my bed into the bathroom. I take that moment to pull a sweatshirt over my head. I’m pulling on pants as she steps back into the room, her body gloriously naked.

“I want to remember you like this forever.” She smiles as she steps into her clothing, piece by piece, reversing what I did earlier.

It’s more erotic to watch her dress than it was to undress her. And when she’s back in that simple white blouse and black pants, my fantasies are already at a fevered pitch, creatively spinning different ways to enjoy her.

I go to her now because it feels strange not to. I cup her face. “This isn’t going to get awkward, is it?” I’m suddenly deeply insecure. It’s supposed to be the girls that worry about this stuff, but I’m not so issue-free that the thought hasn’t occurred to me. What if I read this entire situation wrong? What if this wasn’t for her what it was for me?

“Well, we’re not doing naked stats if that’s what you’re asking.” Her lips twist into a teasing grin. “But no, it’s not going to get awkward.” She brushes her lips against mine. I capture her, holding her close, sipping and savoring her lips for another impossibly long moment.

“Will you be on campus tomorrow?”

“We have class, so yes.”

“Can I see you?”

Her lips are back in that smile of hers. “Seeing how we’re in the same class, I think so.”

I pinch her butt for teasing. She yelps and ends up close enough that I can wrap my arms around her again. “I’ll see you in ethics, Ms. Lamont.”

“I’ll see you in ethics, Mr. Warren.”

I drive her home, my hands wandering over her thighs, her neck, her body. I can’t keep them from wandering.

I kiss her hard when we stop in front of the same address I’ve left her at each time before. “Think of me tonight?” she whispers.

“I don’t know how I wouldn’t.”

She disappears into the darkness up the steps. I head back to the quiet of my small house.

I can smell her in my space now. On my sheets. Part of her is still with me.

I’m tempted, so tempted not to take the sleeping pill tonight. So tempted to sink into my sheets and try, just once, to sleep with the memory of Beth’s touch on my skin, the feel of her body pressed to mine.

But I’m not a fool. I know what happens if I don’t sleep with Princess Ambien. The dreams are bad, the nightmares worse.

And I would hate to see Beth – something good and pure and right in my fucking world for once – dragged into my nightmares.

My only escape is my nightly surrender to the sleeping pills. I pretend to sleep a dreamless sleep. I wake up, rinse and repeat, and hope that maybe the next day won’t involve so many pills.

But tonight, as the sleeping pill drags me down, I’m surrounded by Beth’s scent. I pretend it’s her body I’m folded around instead of the pillow. I imagine it’s still warm from her skin. I breathe in deeply, inhaling the memory of her touch, the sensation of her hands on my skin, instead of the clawing, burning memories that usually wait for me in the dark.

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