Noah grabs my hand, squeezes it tightly and pulls me down the hall faster than my feet can keep up. "You're going to change your mind the second you get to your car aren't you?"
"No," I laugh. I don't think...
***
This is not what I expected. I'm not sure what I expected, but when I suggested back to his place, I didn't realize I was inviting myself to a mansion. "You live here alone?" I asked, a little surprised to be parked out front of a locked wrought iron gate.
"You don't really want me to bore you with the details of the hows and whys, do you?"
Actually, I'm sort of dying to know this one... "I don't think I'll find anything you say boring."
"Oh, watch what you say," he laughs as he punches in several buttons on the number pad outside of his car window, instructing the gate to open. Yeah, I want this story.
"Well?"
He clears his voice, and his head falls back against the headrest. "My dad owned St. Laurents Medical Facility."
"Holy crap, that place is huge and its known for its..." Oh, that explains it.
"Gut malfunction?" he laughs.
"We can call it that."
"It wasn't a coincidence that you had gut problems, was it?" I ask.
"No. But it's hereditary. My dad suffered too."
Why is everything in past tense? I know why everything is in past tense. "Did it cause..."
"No, ironically he and my mother died in a car crash eight years ago. Everything he had was left to me." He's not looking at me as he says this but he's also driving up his mile long driveway.
"I'm so sorry, Noah." He lives alone with his parents’ memories in this house?
He wraps his hand around mine and looks over at me with a smile as he pulls up to the main entrance. "You read a lot of sad romance books, don't you? Typical girl."
"Huh?" Why is he smiling after just informing me his parents both died in a car crash?"
"My parents are living in Europe for the next two years while my Dad continues his research. So I'm house sitting. I live in a studio downtown."
That deserves a slap and it's exactly what I do--in a playful kind of way, though. "What if my parents died in a car accident? How badly would you feel this second? That wasn't cool, Channing. Not cool."
"Did they?" he asks, sincerely.
"Well, no, but--"
"Phew, I was going to say, you need to update your medical proxies immediately." With a quick wink, he slides out of the car, jogging around the front and up to my door. "Sorry for lying."
"I'm glad your parents are okay," I say, taking his hand and following him up to the front door.
Noah reaches into his pocket and retrieves a key. "Well, it has been a great night," he says, turning toward me. Leaning down, he places a quick kiss on the side of my cheek. "Can I call you an Uber?"
"Are you kidding me?" I snap.
He rolls back on his heels as his mouth contorts into an awkward shape. "Oh no, did you think I was bringing you--Oh God, this is embarrassing. You said to come back to my place. I thought you just want to see--Yikes. How about I just drive you back to your car?"
Oh my God. He's serious right now. I take a couple of steps back, suddenly feeling a little creeped by this man who I thought I might possibly be falling for.
Ignoring me, he turns his back and opens the front door and steps inside. I honestly can't believe this right now. I should, though. It's not like my track record proves any type of luck with men.
With my phone in my hand, I start searching through my contacts for Lori's number, ready to plead with her to pick me up. Except the second my thumb presses call, I'm scooped up and thrown over Noah's shoulder. "I had a feeling you were the gullible type." With the whirlwind of emotions, I find myself speechless and a little breathless. He's toying with me. And loving it.
"How's your stomach?" he asks.
"Empty," I tell him, quickly realizing that I'm actually starving.
"Good. So there should be no complications while I--"
"While you?" I retort.
I can only hear the door slam behind us. My face is buried in his chest since I'm still curled over his shoulder like a sandbag. Normally, I might feel the bouncing of his upper body digging into my stomach as he pounces up every stair on what must a mile-long staircase, but I'm far too enamored by the fact that a man is running me up the stairs to wherever since this might possibly beat out any fantasy I've ever had.
My body bounces against plushness and I melt into a heap of fluffy bedding. There's a smile on my face, one I can't force away. Noah's feet are still planted on the ground and he' s tearing his button-down shirt off, not wasting time with the individual buttons. Tearing them seems like a far better idea in this moment anyway. I won't complain. I've imagined what his chest might look like, and I was completely and utterly wrong. It is so much better. He's tan. How is he tan? It's May! Who cares. This is a fantasy and this better not be a friggin’ dream. His tan comes with abs, eight of them to be exact. I'm counting, looking at each one with hopes that the drool pooling in my mouth is not seeping out over my parted lips.
His dress pants go next. I somewhat expected boxer briefs and I was right about that. What I wasn't expecting was how well he fills them out. He has muscles on every inch of his legs and every inch of his arms and torso, neck, ankles. God, where does he not have muscles?
I think I want to keep my clothes on now. In comparison to his body, I'm pretty sure there is nothing to flaunt in my case. But if I were going to stop that from happening, I should say something right about now as my shirt is being pulled over my head and my pants are being yanked down to my ankles. Thank God I didn't wear grannies tonight. I haven't worn grannies in an entire week, hoping for this moment.
"You're incredibly beautiful," he says, pressing his lips against my neck. His hands, while on my breasts, feel like they're everywhere, all over me at the same exact second. His touch leaves an after effect, a tingling, hot sensation. "Tell me to stop."
I thought we moved past the whole fear of me ratting him out to his boss, but the uncertainty continues. "Please stop telling me to tell you to stop," I beg.
"That made no sense..." he sighs into my ear just before he clamps his teeth over my lobe.
"I can't make sense right now, just don't stop," I moan, digging my head deeper into the bed.
His hands slide down the sides of my waist, and his lips follow as he drags his tongue down a straight line on the center of my core.
My hands explore his chest, and his shoulders and the back of his neck as his face becomes intimate with a part of me I wasn't sure I wanted anyone to ever be near. His tongue takes the lead as he introduces a new sensation of pain. The most incredible pain I've ever felt. Throbbing and swelling, the ache quickly becomes addictive and cries caw from my throat--sounds I have never made.
I fall into a hole, like Alice into her wonderland. Thoughts are incoherent and nonsensical and I think I need to give up on my abstinence before I implode. I pull Noah away from where I don't want him to leave and wrap my legs around his torso. His lips are moving wildly over my breasts, and one hand moves from beneath him, allowing his body to fall completely onto mine as I hear a rustling noise from beside us. A drawer rattles open and foil tears in half. I'm surprised I even remember what the sound is after not hearing it for so long.
It is only seconds before he's pressing inside of me. I grit against the slight pang and press my nails firmly into his back, forcing out an erotic groan from his throat.
Our bodies sway together in a wave of motions, never separating, never pausing, and never stopping for more air that I think I desperately need right now.
I want to stay like this for hours, days, maybe more but my body is halting toward a finish, and he's ramping up for some kind of finale with the speed and pressure he's enforcing. My limbs tighten around him, and screams replace my cries as I pull him into me with all of the strength I can
muster. His body pounds against mine with heavy thrusts before a gravelly sigh fills the air beside me. Noah falls heavily into me, pulling me to my side as he runs his fingers through my hair. With no words necessary, his lips find mine, holding them there as a placeholder for everything I'm thinking at this moment.
I've never felt a connection like this and maybe my reborn again virginal state is easily manipulated by extreme cases of hotness, but I've fallen for this guy, and there is no denying it.
His hand finds my stomach as he sweeps his hand around in a circular motion. "I'm kind of glad your stomach allowed us this opportunity," he says softly into my ear. "I am going to help you. I want to take your pain away for good."
"I think you just did," I say through weak breaths.
"You think you'd want to go out with me again?"
"I don't know." I press up on my elbow. "I might just skip all of the above and go get you fired for sleeping with a patient."
"Even if I cure this patient?" he teases.
"With your cock?"
"It could work."
"Was that your treatment?" I ask much louder.
"It's a treatment, I assure you," he laughs. "But no, I really do have a treatment for you. One we can at least try." He sits up and fluffs his pillow behind his back. "What would you have done if I said that was the treatment?"
I shrug. "I would probably tell you that I need treatments at least three times a day to fix my problem."
"Damnit. Can I take back what I said?"
"Nope," I smirk. "Fix me, and I'll take your other treatment as a precaution. Deal?"
"I like this deal," he says, snaking his arm around my waist. "Should we just go on the assumption that I'll fix you and make up for the treatment you missed this morning?"
"I have at least two years of treatments to make up for," I tell him.
"Sydney, you might just be the death of me. I know you said you were the queen of the throne, and I had full intentions of making you a princess on a pedestal, but will you be the queen of my throne? And I don't mean the porcelain kind of throne...I mean the--"
"The one that's pressed against my hip?" I ask through soft laughter.
"Yes, that one."
"I accept the position."
CHAPTER TEN
I'm pretty sure it's been an entire two days since I've been home, and now my walk of shame will result in lots of questions from Lori and Kate. I take one step inside and...
"Why are you walking like that? Do you still have a tampon up your ass?" Kate laughs as I walk through the door. "And where the hell have you been? I've called you twenty times and your text response of 'don't bother me, I'm tied up, plus a smile emoticon,' wasn't funny. I considered the thought that you might actually be tied up, but I figured you wouldn't be sending me smiley faces if that were the case..."
"It's possible that I would be sending you smiley faces, and that was the case, but we won't go there. And no I don't have a tampon up my ass, but thanks for the reminder," I snarl.
"Funny," she says. "You being tied up for fun would be like forcing a two thousand calorie meal down my throat for fun," she scoffs. “Speaking of tampons in asses, Liam was asking about you yesterday." Kate settles back into the couch and places her feet up on the coffee table. "You should call him."
"Can't," I say, hanging my bag up on the coat hook. “I'm sort of off the market now." I leave her with that as I close myself into my bedroom.
Though, I should have known she and Lori would both be barging into my bedroom within thirty seconds for more information. Wow, I was wrong. Twenty-five seconds. "You have a lot of explaining to do," Kate says.
"What's all this I hear about you being tied up? It's Channing, isn't it?" Lori grins, clapping her hands together.
"We'll see how things go," I say, feeling a certain happiness fill my gut. The sensation grows whenever I think or talk about him.
"You're dating Channing?" Kate follows. "That was all true a couple of weeks ago? He was really your doctor and now you're dating him or whatever?"
"Yup, Kate. It was all true," Lori says, placing her hand down on Kate's shoulder. "Let's be happy for Sydney, she finally found her Knight and Shining Armor, and a solution to her shitty issues all in one place."
"Wow," Kate says. "I guess Happily Ever Afters can come out of the darkest places and sometimes start with a hand up your ass."
"I guess so," I comply. If things continue like this, it'll be one hell of a story to tell our grandkids.
"And he fixed your stomach?" Kate asks.
"There's hope," I tell her.
"Well, cheers to the hope of not shitting yourself in any more restaurants in front of any more hot men, forcing you to shove a tampon up your asshole underneath a yacht. Everything truly does happen for a reason. Your reason just stunk," Kate continues.
"My reason will smell like roses now, though," I say, grinning.
"Roses?" Lori laughs. No one's…smells like roses...
"Since fixing my situation might take a little time, Noah gave me Poopuri. I'll never have another embarrassing situation again." That makes him the perfect man in my book. "Any ending with Poopuri can be a happy ending."
ABOUT SHARI J. RYAN
International Bestselling Author, Shari J. Ryan, hails from Central Massachusetts where she lives with her husband and two lively little boys. Shari has always had an active imagination and enjoys losing herself in the fictional worlds she creates.
When Shari isn’t writing or designing book covers, she can usually be found cleaning toys up off the floor.
To learn more, visit her at: http://sharijryan.com, facebook.com/authorsharijryan, or twitter.com/sharijryan
Shari’s other books:
A Heart of Time
Ravel
No Way Out
Red Nights
TAG
You’re It
Schasm
Fissure Free
When Fully Fused
Boys, Toys - OH MY!
A Novella Part One
A.M. Willard
Copyright 2016 A.M. Willard
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the author/ publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events or person, living, or dead are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names or features names are assumed to be the property of their respective owners and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or in part, mechanically or electronically, constitutes a copyright violation.
Published in the United States of America in the year 2016
Copyright 2016 by A.M. Willard
The right of the Authors Name to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by them in accordance with The Copyright, Designs and Patent Act of 1988.
Edited by: Leticia Sidon, In-Depth Edits
Chapter One
The one good thing I can say about my new job is that I’m closer to my best friend’s office – which means we meet several times a week for lunch. It really means I eat while she jabs on and on about her sex life while making fun of my lack of one. I’m not a virgin – just in a mild slump. Over the last few months a lot has changed in my life; a new job, new apartment, and now I’m also man-less. It’s been three months since I decided to start over and I’m not even sure if any of the changes upset me much. When the boss’s wife found out he was sleeping with his secretary, the company was in an uproar and we all lost our jobs. No, I wasn’t the person sleeping with the boss- he was short, fat, and bald. Totally not my type. Sitting here in the café waiting on Ginger and
taking in some of the guys, I wonder what my type is. None of them look like someone that I would do, or vice versa. Ginger is convinced that I have one hang up, and eyes for only one man right now- Cooper. Yes, Cooper Fields does catch my eye, but we have a few problems with that idea. One, he’s my new boss. Two, I can’t seem to form a coherent sentence around the man, making me appear like a complete lunatic. Three, he’s my boss. Four, he’s out of my league and did I mention he’s my boss? I think I did, but just in case you missed it, HE’S MY BOSS. I’m already struggling financially and can’t lose this job by being stupid and sleeping with him. This brings me to the reason for lunch today; Ginger has a plan and an opportunity for me to make some extra money on the side. I’ll admit that I’m a little worried about this. Last night on the phone she was acting like it was some military operation. I did make her swear that she wasn’t going to make me stand on the corner while she pimped me out to strangers. That only earned me a laugh. Her response was ‘That’s a good way to clean out webs, Charlie.’ Something deep in me says to run for the hills now before it’s too late to retreat.
“Charlie, I’m so sorry I’m late. Traffic sucks and I had to go back to the office to get the paperwork for you,” Ginger says, out of breath while she slides down into her chair across from me.
“It’s okay… I’ve been sitting here like a lonely cat lady for all the people to judge.”
“Stop being so dramatic; no one cares that you’re here alone. Plus, don’t you go to that pizza place at night and eat by yourself?”
“I do, and that’s not by choice you know.”
“I know. Since we don’t have much time left, you ready for this?” she asks, but the look on her face reassures me that I’m not going to be happy about this.
“No, I’m not ready. I still think you have something up your sleeve and aren’t telling me. I swear Ginger, this will be the end of our friendship if you’re tricking me into anything illegal, hazardous to my health, or something that could possibly get me killed or kidnapped. Do you understand?” I finish as my finger’s pointing at her.