Almost every woman Noel had slept with preferred – or wanted – to be the submissive. He always made the first move, and once things moved into the bedroom he wasn’t shy about telling them what he wanted, how he wanted to be touched and where, when to stop. When he looked back at his sexual encounters (as he often did), he seemed always to choose women who were overly eager to accede to whatever he asked for or wanted.
So it took him completely by surprise when Darby made the first move. She kissed him gently, her hands resting against his chest as she explored his lips. Her lips were soft and full and slightly cold from the ice in her glass. He could taste the gin and lime on them and on her tongue, inhaled the smell of the shampoo in her hair and the clean scent of soap on her skin.
Her hands slid up his chest and moved around to his neck, to the back of his head, where she clutched his hair between her fingers and pressed him closer to her, kissing him more aggressively, hungrily, like she had finally discovered whatever it was he had willingly stolen from her, and now her body was tensing, preparing to fight to get it back. He felt himself hardening against his pants, and when she moved her lips away he said, ‘Do you want me to stop?’
‘What I want,’ she told him, smiling, ‘is for you to stop talking.’
She pulled off his undershirt, nearly ripping it. He felt the heat from the fire on his skin, and when she went to work unbuckling his trousers he moved his hands to the buttons on her shirt.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Let me do it.’
When his trousers slid down his legs and pooled around his feet, he thought she was going to take a few steps back and undress herself in front of him, maybe take his hand and lead him to the bedroom. Instead, she manoeuvred him to the floor, in front of the fire. He lay back against the soft carpet and after she straightened he watched as she stood above him, unbuttoning her shirt. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and when she slipped out of her jeans and he saw she wasn’t wearing underwear, a part of him wondered if she had planned this moment before coming to see him.
Under normal circumstances, he would have been flattered. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have cared. But today was anything but normal; he had found his sister dead inside a water cistern, and he was sure Darby had been thinking about Cooper these past hours, wondering – imagining – that he too was lying dead somewhere.
Suddenly Noel found himself in the supplicant role.
She was more muscular than he’d thought – not in a masculine way but incredibly and unbelievably fit, barely any fat on her. In the light from the fire he saw her muscles move and constrict as she straddled him.
When he went to touch her, she grabbed his wrists, surprising him by her strength. She forced his hands above his head and pushed them underneath the bottom of the leather club chair and said, ‘Keep them right there,’ and then she straightened and reached behind his back, her fingers fumbling against the fabric of his boxers, searching for the waistband, staring down at him like she was daring him to move. He didn’t, kept his hands right where they were, gripping the wood frame of the chair, even when she mounted him.
Her eyes widened slightly and a small gasp escaped her throat. Noel, again surprised by her strength, felt her thighs tighten against him, and his mind flashed back to the Wonder Woman comics he’d read as a kid, the heroine one of a long line of warriors from some Amazonian tribe of tough, powerful women capable not only of conquering men but, if they so chose, devouring them.
She swallowed. ‘Give me your hands.’
He did. She placed them on her breasts and began to move up and down, slowly. When she found her rhythm, she let go of his hands and leaned forward, placing her hands on his shoulders, her fingers digging into the meat of his skin. When she suddenly straightened and arched her back, her arms reaching around her and hands gripping his knees and digging into his skin, her pelvis grinding against his like she desperately needed him to release something to make her whole again, he realized what he had already suspected: she was imagining Cooper beneath her, not him.
Darby whipped her head to the side, her long hair spinning behind her head and spilling across her shoulders. ‘Noel?’
It took him a moment to find his voice. ‘Yeah?’
Darby looked deeply into his eyes for the first time.
‘I don’t do cuddling,’ she said.