"I want you to come back to that bedroom with me. I want us to have these two nights, to get whatever this thing is between us out of our system. I feel like … like we pushed a wheel into motion ten years ago, and we need this to make it stop."
If I'd grabbed the frayed edge of a live wire, it wouldn't have had as powerful of an effect on me. My whole body shuddered from the force of it.
"These two nights," I repeated.
She nodded slowly. "What happens in South Dakota, stays in South Dakota."
That she could make me smile at that moment should have terrified me, but it didn't. It felt right. And as she'd said, it felt inevitable.
Molly tilted her chin, inviting my kiss, but I shook my head. My thumb pulled at the generous curve of her lower lip.
"If I kiss you here, I won't be able to stop long enough to move to that bed, and if I get an entire night with you …" I dropped my forehead against hers and took a shuddering breath. "Then I need room to work."
Molly whimpered.
It was the last shred unraveling, the final cord splitting with an audible snap.
Slowly, leisurely, with a measure of control that I did not know I had left, I slid my hand down her shoulder, her arm, her wrist, and wove my fingers through hers. Then I led her back to the bedroom.
Chapter Twenty
Molly
Everything took on a filmy, hazy, decadent quality when the door clicked shut behind me. Like someone changed the filter through which I saw everything, and it shut my brain off in the same motion. My hands didn't even seem like they belonged to me when I pivoted and pushed Noah up against the door.
His expression was forbidding at the move, and I shivered.
"Take your shirt off," I ordered.
He jerked up his chin. "You first."
There was a moment when we both froze like that, unwilling to give up control to the other person. Then we collided. His mouth took mine, rough and hard and deep. His hands boosted underneath my ass, and I wrapped my legs around his waist.
Lips and teeth and tongue, slick and slippery and messy. I'd been waiting for this, I thought, since the moment I saw him in the elevator. Waiting for the strength of his body against mine, overpowering me in the best possible way.
He tasted minty and cool, and his tongue twined around mine as his fingers dug into my flesh until it hurt.
This wasn't sweet, and it wasn't slow as I tugged at his shirt.
I wanted my hands on him, now that I'd given myself permission for this. Nothing short of that would suffice until we were both gasping and spent and sweaty in the middle of that exceptionally large bed. He tossed me back onto it, and I bounced with a laugh.
But my laughter died at the look on his face.
This was a man pushed to the edge of his sanity. By me.
I'd done this to him, and it sent such a wet, hot rush of power through my body. Something overtook me at that realization, and I sat up on my knees as he ripped his shirt off and threw it onto the floor. My shirt went with it, and his eyes darkened even further as I laid back and started pushing my shorts down in slow, rolling movements of my hips.
"Stop," he growled.
My hands froze. One finger played idly with the elastic edge.
Noah shoved his shorts down, his boxer briefs with them, and I licked my lips at the sight of his glorious, glorious nakedness.
This was my best idea ever.
I didn't even realize I'd said it out loud until a wide, bright smile broke out over his face. That brief pause from the harsh, dangerous version of Noah, the one who looked ready to eat me whole, had a whole different effect on me. One that was just as potent.
"It's been a while for me," he admitted, sliding his hands up my legs as they fell open for him.
"Has it?" I gasped, tilting my chin up when he caught the edge of my shorts with tightly bound fingers and tightly bound strength. "F-for me too."
"That's why this first time will be fast and hard." He leaned over me and took my mouth again in a kiss so dirty, I started squirming for relief.
"Yes, please," I begged.
He smiled again. My shorts were whisked off, and he leaned back to stare at me unabashedly.
"Next time," he said in a rough, uneven voice. His hands gripped my hips and pressed me into the bed. "Next time, I'll take my time." He cupped one breast and rolled his thumb. "Here." His hand slid between my legs. "Here." He bit my bottom lip. "Everywhere."
"Noah," I groaned.
He prowled between my legs, and as I registered the feel of each slab of muscle on his chest and stomach pressing against my soft skin, my back arched so I could feel more, more, more.