Half in anticipation, half trodding with cold feet, I asked him, “Where are we going?”
Since Noah picked me up at the winery, he hadn’t spoken two words, and it reminded me how tall, stark, and moody he could be.
Maybe this was a mistake.
“Our place.” His voice was resonant and impressive, and hit me right between the feels. He began whistling softly, something I’d never heard him do before, and the beginning of a smile tipped the corners of his mouth.
Something was definitely off.
He pulled off on a road at the east side of town, driving the opposite direction of The Ranch and his hunting cabin in the woods.
My thoughts scampered around even more frenetically than usual, and he drove past a small lake where geese plucked grass along the shoreline and pruned their ombre-gray wings. There was a single, blue rowboat tethered to a small wooden dock, and along the opposite side of the shore a light breeze shuddered through the alder and willow branches.
Noah pulled into a driveway, behind a house that fronted the lake, and I tried to force my confused emotions into order.
“Here we are.” He showed no signs of feeling a need to explain what we were doing.
“What is this place? I thought you were taking me to the cabin?” I asked, baffled.
“I told you I was taking you to our place. This is it.” He almost seemed to enjoy my struggle to capture my composure.
“Come on, let me show you the barn first.” Right on cue, Lucifer whinnied from a distance. “Someone besides me will be very glad to see you.” His stare was bold and assessed me frankly.
The idea of his eagerness excited me. It had been two whole weeks, and I longed for the protectiveness of his arms, and the feel of his lips on my skin. The taste of him in my mouth.
Best get this tour over with.
I skipped ahead, and Lucifer bumped the half door of his stall with his shiny black chest, as if he was welcoming me home.
“I missed you too, you big show off.” My laugh rippled through the air and I pet his velvet nose and scratched his neck, breathing the nose-tickling straw.
Noah’s lips touched the back of my neck like a private whisper, and he spoke in my ear. “He’s not the only one that’s been waiting for you to come home.”
“Oh yeah? Who else?” I enjoyed our teasing talk.
Before he answered me, I was distracted.
“Hey, who’s boat is that down at the dock?”
I bolted towards the water’s edge, knowing he would chase me, and from behind his laugh was marvelous, catching.
Just like old times, he came bounding after me.
“Wait up, little fox. Let me show you where the life jackets are!” he bellowed.
I shouted back over my shoulder, “Life jackets! We don’t need no stinking life jackets.”
That would get to him. By now I knew him well enough to understand that just the thought of me paddling around without a float would push him over the deep end. And daddy over the deep end meant one and only one thing. I’d pay the price for the bad behavior.
Exactly as planned.
I stripped down, ripping off my t-shirt and dropping it along with my bra and panties to the rocky shoreline with colorful gravel, dotted here and there with pieces of knobby drift wood.
As quickly as I could, I unwrapped the rope from the boat tie and put both feet inside the small skipper. I took two wobbly steps towards the bench seat, plunked my naked butt down on the vinyl and used the oars to start stroking my way towards the center of the lake.
Noah dove after me, his thick, muscly arms slicing through the water, making hardly any splashing sound.
He was gaining on the tiny vessel.
A smell of algae filled my nostrils, and I dug into my strokes, showing no sign of relenting.
Neither did he.
From the corner of my eye, I spotted two blur dragon flies skimming the water’s surface, chasing one another until they fused together a complete circle with their bodies.
He was a stone’s throw away, and all at once, I wasn’t sure why I was running any more.
I stopped paddling and let the oar handles drop in my lap. Water droplets covered his chiseled perfection, and I took a moment to admire the ridges and contours of his chest, arms and shoulders as he pulled himself into the boat.
And he flipped that boat right the fuck over.
The water was icy, and I gasped as soon as I shot my head out of the water, kicking like a crazy woman.
“Gigi!” he shouted, jarringly.
“I’m here, Noah.”
The boat had righted itself after dislodging it’s two objectionable passengers, and Noah swam it towards the sound of my voice.
He didn’t look happy.
“That’s exactly why we don’t go out in the boat without a personal flotation device.” He spat the words out contemptuously, and wrapped one arm around my waist, treading water so strongly I bobbed like a cork with his support.
“You don’t have to worry. I can swim.” I said, admiringly, meeting him boldly in the eyes.
His nostrils flared, “That’s not the point. It’s about protecting you when you are knocked out, or too tired to save yourself. Keeps you afloat when you need shoring up.”
He peered at me intently.
With a slow, secret smile, I understood. “You mean like you do for me?” I replied with complacent buoyancy.
He broke into a wide, open smile. “Let me be your flotation device, baby.”
“My life raft.” We looked at each other and smiled, and headed back to the house, where we could warm up after our ice bath.
“You never let me introduce you to the special someone who has been waiting for you to get home.” Noah mentioned alluringly after we were both wrapped in fluffy robes, sitting and warming our feet by the fire.
“I forgot all about you saying that back in the barn. Who else has been waiting to meet me?” I asked, wanting to put all the pieces together.
“Stay here.” He rose off the couch like a fantasy come to life, and I stared at him with longing. “Be right back.”
I waited, thankful for the platter of appetizers Noah prepared. Making cheese and cracker stacks and filling my belly with artichoke dip and sliced carrots filled the time until he returned.
No one ever accused me of being overly patient.
When I first heard the sound, I thought I was imagining it.
Then it astounded me again. “Mew.”
Looking over the edge of his bulging forearm was the tiniest, orange tabby kitten I’d ever seen. “It’s a girl.” His voice had a rasp of excitement.
“So small!” A smile slid easily across my lips.
He lowered himself to sit on the cushion beside me and the baby cat didn’t stop her meowing.
“Small in stature, but with a king size opinion.” He turned his smile up a notch. “Like someone I know.”
The baby in his arms kept up her mewing. Her head bobbed unsteadily on her neck and Noah clarified, “She’s yours.” He doted, handing me the fluff ball to cuddle. I pet her soft fur, and within minutes, she’d fallen fast asleep in my hands.
Bittersweet tears of pleasure found their way to my eyes. “There’s no way you could ever have known that I had to leave a kitten behind in Greece when I was a kid, but he looked just like her. It’s unbelievable.” I was blissfully happy, fully alive, and in one forward motion, I was in his arms.
“Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction,” he said. My heart sang with delight. “I thought this place would feel more like home if you had someone else besides me who loves you here.”
His expression wrapped around me like a warm blanket, and my emotions melted my heart. “You’re my home, daddy. Wherever you’re at, that’s my habitat.” I set the slumbering feline on top of a pillow on the floor and covered her with the corner of a throw.
I joined Noah on the couch again and his fingertips traced the outline of my lips. “You got to play with your kitty, now I’ll play with mine.” He groaned, and got on his knees in front of the couch.
But I wasn’t ready for that just yet. I grabbed the fabric covering his shoulders for attention. “Noah, I never told you I loved you. You need to know that I do.” His extraordinary eyes blazed and glowed.
“I know,” he said, cagily.
“How do you know if I never told you?” His cool, unphased manner irked me.
“You don’t have to use your words for me to know how you feel. I like it when you do, I demand that you share your thoughts with me, but two hearts in love need no words,” he spoke. “Look at me.”
Slowly, he dragged my robe off my shoulders, revealing my bare breasts, and I hoped the sight of them made him want to ravish me.
My nipples were stiff, trying to obtain his attention so much they ached. "Now show me the rest.”
I stood up and dropped my robe to the floor.
“Yes, just like that.”
My pussy dripped her silent reply.
His hands reached for the apex of my thighs. “Why are you so wet?”
“Why do you think?” I wrapped my hand around the formidable, steel evidence of his desire. “Your kitty missed you too.”
Halting, he left his hand cupping me between the legs, and it was all I could do not to fuck at his fingers.
“Be a good girl and open those legs a little wider.” Noah lowered himself to clit level, and without warning, delivered five slaps, perfectly placed there, so arousal zipped up my belly and over my breasts.
“That’s what I remember. I couldn’t stop thinking about eating this sweet pussy while I had you tied up.” He said in a guttural tone that made my tummy swoop.
“Did you like that, daddy?” I blew air past my lips. This was all so unreal, being with Noah in a house which he called ‘ours.’
He put two hands to my breasts, cupping them softly at first, then pinching and rolling the pebbled tips of my nipples between his fingers.
“No,” he snarled. “I fucking loved it. You taste like heaven.”
He plucked at the throbbing place which could take me over the cliff, and toss me onto the shores of desire. Agonized, I said, “Fuck.”
I trembled beneath the touch of his huge fingers, desperate with need.
He looked at me as if he were photographing me with his eyes and there was a tingling in the pit of my stomach. Lust was in the driver’s seat, as I traced his lower lip with my finger, and he sucked it into his mouth and lapped at the tip with his tongue.
“Mm, daddy. What are you doing?” He was now shoving his fingers inside me, as if he had all the time in the world, rushing nothing. With an expert thumb, he swirled around the pulsating bump, and I begged, “Please, make me come. Do something—anything to me.”
“Anything?” His words came out in a growl and some primitive, purely feminine part of me relished in his animal appreciation.
“Yes!” I plead.
His tongue teases me open and his hand slides between my legs, raising his head to look into my eyes and said, “Fine. I’m going to play with my pussy. I’ve been wanting to pet her for days.”
Silent shrieks lodged in my throat while I luxuriated in sensation of his wide tongue teasing me open. My hips arched off the back of the couch, and he continued feasting on me, lapping at the places that drove me wild, taking his sweet time while he simultaneously pumped his fingers.
He was a pussy pleasing pro, and I lost myself to all but sensation as he took me higher and higher with his oral attention, stopping from time to time to talk dirty to me. “This pussy’s so tight around my fingers, her flavor so sweet. I’m keeping her forever.”
He’d lower his head to place tender kisses along the seam of my lower lips and raise it again.
“You look so beautiful when you come, little fox. I’m going to make you squirt all over my face.” His tongue circled and sucked at my swollen center and my mind went blank has he hurled me towards orgasm. “Never wash it off. Walk around covered in your juices, smelling like my sweet pet.”
He knew exactly what he was doing.
“Daddy, you get me so hot. Please, may I come?” He pretended not to listen, lowered himself again, and his stiff tongue found my trigger and bombarded me with little licks and sucks while he stretched me wide and met me thrust for thrust with two fingers, fucking me hard.
“Because you begged me so perfectly, go on. Let me watch that pretty pussy come all over my hand.” His pumping fingers made me ache for him and when he unforgivingly pressed his thumb into my clit, the sexual punishment sent me over the edge so that mini blasts shook my body.
My legs were jelly, and I breathed hard until the molten pleasure spread over me like whipped cream. “There’s no place like home.” I whispered, pressing against Noah’s chest after he joined me on the couch, petting my hair.
Huskiness lingered in his tone. “And there’s no place I’d rather reside than between your legs.”