“If anyone is obsessed with anyone, it’s her with you! Why can’t she get the message? This is why I need to shoot her.”
“You can’t go around shooting people just because they won’t listen to you.”
“That’s your opinion.” I smack my lips together and bite into a meatball.
“Noelle, that’s the law.”
“Well, the law is dumb. Smart people should be able to shoot idiots. We’d be doing the world a favor.”
Drake scrubs his hand across his forehead. “You’re impossible when you’re jealous.”
I point my fork at him, a meatball still impaled on the end. “I am not jealous. Being jealous would imply that I want something she has. I’m territorial over something that belongs to me. That’s a massive difference.”
“So I’m a something now?”
I want to yell, but he has that teasing twinkle in his eye. “You’re my something. That changes everything.”
He laughs. “I see your point.”
“Of course you do. It’s an excellent point.” I eat the rest of my meatball and put my fork down. “Honestly, she annoys me and she knows it. She goes out of her way to get under my skin, and she knows the best way to do that is you.”
“She also tried it on with Brody,” he says.
“I’m sorry. What?”
“Shouldn’t have said that,” he mutters. “Fuck.”
“She did what?”
“You heard me. Don’t make me repeat myself. He told her where to go.” He waves his hand dismissively. “Like your brother would ever entertain my ex.”
There’s no telling with Brody. He would if he didn’t have any better offers. Thankfully, he always has plenty.
“Mmph.” I pick my fork up, stab it into another meatball, and then push it around my plate.
I think I just discovered how to lose weight: discuss your boyfriend’s ex-fiancée over dinner.
Weight Watchers, eat your heart out. Or don’t. I don’t know how calorific hearts are.
“Don’t think about her, okay? I don’t think about any of your exes.”
“You don’t know any of my exes.”
“I know Messina.”
“He isn’t an ex. He’s an old one-time date. You knew him before anyway.”
“We trained together.” Drake shrugs. “Never got along.” His jaw ticks.
“Liar,” I mutter.
“What?”
“You’re lying. Or you’re hiding something.” I shrug. “Whatever.”
“There’s no winning with you today.”
“I know.”
He sets his cutlery down and rests his forearms on the table, focusing on me. “You really want to know why I don’t get along with Giorgio Messina?”
“It’s none of my business.” I hold my hands up and grab my empty glass of water. I take it to the fridge and press the thing in the door to fill it.
Drake comes up behind me, takes the glass, then sets it on the counter. “He was the guy I found Jessica with. We didn’t like each other anyway, and that just solidified it.”
Way to go, Noelle.
I turn around. “I’m sorry,” I say to his chest.
“I told you,” he says, threading his hand through my hair and tilting my head back. Our eyes meet, and his are clear with honesty. “I don’t care. Even if I cared then, I wouldn’t now.”
I turn my cheek into his hand. “Now, your reaction to our date makes total sense.”
“If you’re implying I was jealous…”
My lips tug to one side. “You were so jealous. You practically turned into Shrek you were so green.”
He stares at me.
“Admit it. You were jealous.”
He shakes his head, then leans in, a smile on his lips. “No, I was territorial. You were mine then. You just didn’t know it.”
“Yeah… We didn’t even like each other.”
“I told you before: I don’t have to like you for you to be mine.” He takes my bottom lip between his teeth, grazing them across my tender skin.
I shiver.
“See?” he asks.
“Are you saying you don’t like me?” I inhale sharply when he yanks me against him.
“You’ve been a pain in my ass all day,” he responds, his breath coating my lips. “So…I’m undecided.”
“Undecided,” I breathe.
His fingers tighten their grip on my hair, and he touches his mouth to mine, but he’s smiling. “Mhmm.”
“Dinner’s cold,” I mumble against him.
“Don’t care.” The smile is gone, and there’s nothing but his kiss.
It consumes me. It always does. It’s like a hurricane and a tornado swirling inside me, washing through me like a tsunami. All sugar obsessions aside, I’ve never been truly addicted to anything.
If I had to pick one thing to be addicted to for the rest of my life, it’d be his kiss.
He grabs my thighs and hoists me onto the counter. I scream at the suddenness of the movement, and my hand hits my glass. It goes flying off the counter and lands on the floor with a smash, water and glass shards spreading across the floor.
Drake stills, stares at me for a second, then looks at the mess. His erection is pressing into my thigh, and I can see he’s weighing his options.
Clean or sex?
He wraps his arms around my waist and hauls me onto his shoulder.
Fuck. Holy fuck.
Instead of screaming, I laugh. I have no idea what else I’m supposed to do, really.
“And the mess?” I ask.
“You can clean it up later,” he answers, carrying me upstairs.
“That’s the first time you’ve ever left a mess anywhere.”
Unlike me. He’s the sponge to my dirt.
“What can I say?” He drops me onto his bed and leans over me, his eyes glinting devilishly in the lower light of his bedroom. “I’m stressed the fuck out, and if it’s between cleaning a smashed glass or being inside you, I know which one I’d rather pick.”
Heat coils in my lower stomach, settling into a throbbing ache I feel right through my pussy. I curl my fingers around the collar of his shirt and pull his face down to mine.
“Fine.” I pull his face down to mine. “But if you’re stressed, then we do it my way.”
He can’t say a word as I wrap my legs around his waist and use all of my strength to drag him over onto the bed. He laughs as I land on top of him, grinning, and straddle him.
“All right,” he agrees, sliding his hands up my legs. One stops on my butt, but the other trails all the way up my spine until his fingers are buried deep in my hair. He eases my face down to his and our lips come together easily, finding each other’s without as much as a second thought.
“Right,” I say, sitting up. “Roll over. Massage time.”
Drake stops. His cock is pushing right against my wet pussy through my panties, and I’m certain I’m flushed, but I do my best to keep a straight face. He yanks my dress up and his palm connects with my ass. I half gasp, half scream as he throws me off him, onto my back, and covers my body with his.
His eyes burn hotly, sending desire flooding through my body at lightning speed. His hands find mine, our fingers linking together, and he pins them above my head. I smile coyly, dragging my bottom lip between my teeth.
He says only three words.
“Fuck the massage.”
And fuck the massage he does.
His assault on my mouth is greedy. Every kiss is deeper and harder than the last, and I revel in each one. I didn’t know how much I needed him, how much he needed me, until right this second when the promise of each other is within touching distance.
The way he undresses us both is hurried, every item of clothing being thrown to a heap on the floor. Each touch we share is a blazing inferno that sets sparks flying across my skin, and the desperate way he plays my naked body until he teases my wet pussy with the head of his hard cock is almost cruel yet exciting.
When it gets to be too much, when I can’t take any more, I tilt my hips up.