Nothing Less Read online

  She laughs, a small sound. “Oh, no, you wouldn’t have. I was wild, too wild for you.”

  Too wild for me? Once again, I’m reminded that I’m not the life of the party. Since when is being tame so bad? Why is it that girls and women alike always want the drama and wild nights? Why are illegal street races and explosive arguments and gut-wrenching angst more fun than lying on the couch in each other’s arms and watching Netflix? What’s that thing everyone is saying?

  Netflix and chill?

  Yeah, that’s it. Why can’t women just be happy with Netflixing and chilling? Netflix has all the good shows and movies now anyway.

  “I got in a lot of trouble, with my school, my parents. To say that they were embarrassed by me would be the understatement of the century.”

  I study her, this wild, fiery woman. I drag my fingers down her bare back. Even her back is sexy—who would have thought a back could be so sexy? The soft line of ridges down her spine curve into her full ass, and I brush my fingers over it, gently squeezing a handful of her flesh. “Everyone has their own way of crying for attention.”

  Her eyes change; little storms brew in the depths of them. “I don’t know if that’s what I wanted.”

  I’ve offended her now.

  Great.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you.” I draw small circles on her skin and hope that she doesn’t get up or move away from me. I like her body pressed against mine like this. I like the warmth of her enveloping me.

  She sighs. Then licks her lips. “It’s fine. I mean”—she stares up at the ceiling with a thoughtful expression—“I guess when I really think about it, I did want attention. My sister, Stausey, she has always been the center of my parents’ universe, and I was just a little speck in the abyss, not even bright enough to be a star.”

  Not even a star? I look at her closely, contemplate the longing in her voice. I memorize her face, the little freckles on her forehead and the small scar near her chin. It’s so light that I never noticed it before. I thumb over it, wondering where it came from. My eyes follow up to hers and back down to her mouth.

  I think about her bright laughter. Her fiery sass. Her blazing confidence. She’s certainly a star. If people were stars, she would be the North.

  “And what about you?” Nora snuggles closer. “How were you as a teen? Wild as a boar?” She giggles.

  I shake my head. “Hardly. I read a lot and just hung out with my friends.”

  Nora’s fingers feel so good on me. “Did you have a lot of friends?”

  “Nope. Like two.”

  “Well, everyone at your school must have been too stupid to realize how great a friend you are.” She says that like it’s the surest thing in the world.

  I chuckle. “That’s one way to look at it.”

  Nora’s fingers climb up my neck to my chin. “It’s the only way. If I had a friend like you in high school, my life would have been easier. That reminds me”—she looks up at me while brushing over my facial hair—“you’ve been such a rock for Tessa these last few months. I’m so glad she has you.”

  When I look away from her praise, she turns my chin back to her. “Seriously, you’re such a rare kind of person. I don’t think you realize how special you are. It sounds stupid and weird and corny, but special is too light a word for you.”

  My cheeks are on fire. “I would do just about anything for Tessa.”

  “I know you would.” This time it’s Nora who looks away. “Anyway, what kind of books did you read?”

  Back to the superficial subjects. I’m okay with this. I can only take so many compliments plus sex within a one-hour period.

  “Mostly fantasy. I loved all of the Lord of the Rings books, Harry Potter. I liked some dystopian, too. I mean, I’ll read just about anything.”

  “I hate dystopian.” Nora groans.

  I gently shove at her shoulder and smile. “What? How could you?”

  She rolls her eyes and props herself up on her elbows. She tucks her hair behind her ear and licks her lips. “Because, let me tell you why. In nearly every single one of them there’s some warrior chick who’s like fifteen and who has these amazing friends, and together they’re strong enough to save the world, of course. Let me tell you, at fifteen I had no fucking idea who I was, and I sure as hell couldn’t have saved the world.”

  “I disagree. You could totally save the world.”

  She nods. “Yeah, sure, now I could. But as a teen? I felt weak and confused, and sometimes I made shitty decisions. Where are those books?”

  Her passion and ferocity make me like her even more. “I don’t know. Maybe you should write one.”

  She smiles at me, and my breath gets caught in my throat. “Yeah. I should. I bet it would be a hit.”

  I don’t doubt that it would. I would love to read anything she wrote. I’ve thought about writing something myself many, many times, but I’m not sure I’ve had a dynamic enough life yet.

  “Are you hungry?” Nora sits up, taking my eyes with her.

  God, she’s so fucking hot. I can’t believe I just had sex with her. “I’m always hungry.”

  She grabs my hand and pulls me up. “Let’s go. I’ll make us some food.”

  “I would rather do something else,” I say, feeling rather brave.

  Nora’s brows rise in surprise. “The night’s not over. We can do both,” she says with a mischievous smile, and drags me out of bed.

  chapter

  Nineteen

  WE ARE SOMEWHAT DRESSED—her braless and wearing one of my WCU T-shirts with a pair of my boxers, me in thin cotton sweatpants—and when I try to put on a shirt, Nora yanks the gray cotton from my hands and tosses it across the room.

  Shaking her head, she grabs my hand and pulls me out of the room. Nora holds me tightly, her hands always so warm. So we walk, hand in hand, into my kitchen, where she goes straight to the fridge. I lean on the counter and she busies herself.

  Her head pops out from behind the open fridge door. “Do you like cabbage?”

  I recoil. “Does anyone?” My mom’s cabbage rolls would smell up the whole house for at least two days. It was horrible.

  A smile creeps across her face. “Have you had it recently?”

  I shake my head.

  She nods and closes the fridge. “Will you try it my way? If you don’t like it, I’ll make pizza.”

  I can name about thirty things I would rather do than eat cabbage. Twenty-nine of them have to do with Nora’s naked body . . . Unless I get to eat the cabbage off it?

  I wonder how hard it would be to get her to agree to that.

  Nora walks to me, a whole cabbage head in hand. I back away with a smile, and she advances on me, her smile even bigger than mine.

  “How about this?” She moves the head of cabbage behind her back. “If you promise to take two bites, I’ll make cookies, too.”

  As she takes a teasing step back, she licks her lips, and I don’t tell her that with a mouth like that, I would do many, many things for her.

  “Hmm.” I press my fingers to my chin, pretending to be weighing the bargain in my head. I love to tease her and watch her eyes crinkle and sparkle, and the sassy smile that fills her face gives me the instant gratification I was searching for. “And you’ll feed the cookies to me?”

  She nods, beaming. “And the cabbage.”

  I walk over to her, lean into her body so that the fridge touches her back, and bring my lips to her ear. “You’ve got yourself a deal, little lady.”

  She’s breathless when she pulls away from me.

  A few minutes later, when the oven is preheating and Nora has already cut and pulled apart the cabbage leaves, I decide to try to connect a few more pieces of the puzzle that is her.

  I start with simple questions. “Did you grow up in Washington?”

  She shakes her head. “No. I lived in California for a while when I was young. Then we moved to Las Vegas, then to Washington.”

  “Wow.” I remember the move fr
om Michigan to Washington, feeling like my little world was being flipped upside down. For the first two months I missed my house, my school, my girlfriend. Well, I missed Dakota all the time, until now. Guilt rumbles somewhere inside me. I miss her sometimes still.

  I’ve never been to California or to Las Vegas. “How was Vegas? Is that where you were wild?” I tease.

  As if in reply, she asks me to grab the olive oil for her, and I walk to the cabinet to look for it. I didn’t even know we had olive oil.

  When I find it, she reaches for it. I lift it high in the air. “Is Vegas where you were wild?” I ask again, lifting the bottle too high for her to grab.

  She looks up at me and then to the bottle and back to my eyes. She’s humored and surprised by my game. “Yes and no. I was sixteen.” She moves closer to me, brushing her body against mine as she tries for the bottle again.

  “Tell me about the yes part of that.”

  She presses against me farther. Her breasts push against the top of my stomach, and it starts to require effort to keep my hand in the air. I feel her fingers gently stroke over my sweats, and when she wraps her fingers around my growing cock, I can’t control the groan from my lips.

  She moves her hand, up and down, up and down, over the fabric. My vision is foggy, and my head is swimming when she leans her face into my neck and her hot breath caresses me.

  “Got it,” she says, and it takes me a moment to realize what she means.

  I stare at the olive-oil bottle in her hand. “You cheated!” I reach for her arms and pull her back to me. “So, so unfair.”

  Her hair smells like coconut, and it’s soft against my lips. I kiss her head again, and she melts into me. Holding her closer, I press my thumb and forefinger under her chin to lift her eyes to me.

  “No one said I played fair,” she says with a perilous smile.

  I lean into her to press my lips to hers, but she ducks out of the way and untangles herself from my grasp. When she gets back to the stove, the devilish woman turns and winks at me. Winks! I love how wicked she is.

  I try to keep my hands off her while she talks. She tells me about her parents, their big house in Las Vegas, her summer spent learning to play the piano. Piano lessons, a big pool, and the hot Nevada sun—sounds like heaven.

  She brushes the cabbage leaves with olive oil and tells me stories about her sister pranking her and the winter in Southern California, where there’s really no winter at all. She talks about palm-tree leaves and horrendous traffic. She made a friend, named Pedra, and Nora’s sister, Stausey, met her husband, Pedra’s brother, that winter. The doctor husband I saw online, I realize. His big white smile and gazillion certificates fill my mind. Nora remembers that winter with a pained expression, and I remember the Ken doll from the Facebook picture.

  “Did you have a boyfriend there?” I ask, prying.

  Nora doesn’t turn to me when she answers, “Something like that.”

  Why is she so secretive? It drives me crazy. Crazier than crazy.

  “How was he?” I know she doesn’t want to talk about him. But I do.

  Before responding, Nora opens the oven and places the sheet pan full of green leaves on the rack. She sets a timer and finally turns around to face me.

  “Are you sure you want to go there?” Nora’s questioning eyes lift to mine. “Once we go there, we can’t go back. I just want you to know that before we do.”

  Do I want to go there? Where exactly are we going?

  I want to know as much as I possibly can about her, but what if I don’t really want to know once it’s all laid bare? What if the reality is worse than this fantasyland we’re playing in?

  Can’t I just stay here a little longer? What’s the harm in being ignorant? I decide that the saying “Ignorance is bliss” was made for moments like this.

  I look at her, her hands clasped in front of her body and her eyes staring into mine, and decide to live in ignorant bliss just a little while longer.

  “What’s your favorite food?” I ignore the chill that runs down my spine when she looks a little more relieved than anyone should.

  chapter

  Twenty

  NORA WAS RIGHT. Her cabbage was delicious. It didn’t taste anything like the smelly rolls my mom would make. She pulled the leaves off and sliced them up, then threw them onto a plate for us to munch on. That’s it. And it was much, much better than I thought it would be. Nora sat perched up on the counter and fed me bite after bite. It tasted like garlic and salt, and, given that she kissed my lips after each bite I took, I ate the entire pan.

  “I told you it was good.” She squirts soap onto the pan she cooked it on. I watch her clean the dishes and wonder if I should offer to help.

  I probably should. “Can I help you?”

  Nora turns, half-surprised, half-smiling, like I just offered a fluffy white puppy. “Let me get this straight.” She licks her lips, and I walk closer. “You not only have the tongue of a saint, the body of a god, and the brain of a philosopher, you also help wash dishes?”

  Something pulls at my chest with each word of praise.

  Her expression is amused, and I love the way her unguarded smile hangs from her lips. Just as I love the way my boxers hang low on her hips. My shirt doesn’t swallow her; the fabric is somewhat tight against her chest and hips, but loose on the arms. Now my shirt will smell like her. I’ll never have to wash it again. Okay, maybe not never again, but not anytime soon. I barely do laundry anyhow.

  I stand behind her as she pretends to wash the same pan that has been in her hands for two minutes now. What is she daydreaming about? Me helping her with dishes? Is it that simple to climb into her heart?

  Finally I say, “That I do, little lady.”

  Her long fingers hold on to the sponge, and she dips it back into the soapy water. “Again with the little lady?”

  She tilts her head slightly, exposing her neck. I can’t tell if she’s purposely encouraging my need for her, or if her body is calling to me without intention. Either way, I’m a lucky SOB.

  “I’m older than you,” she notes.

  I laugh under my breath and watch small bumps grow on her neck. Did I cause that? Holy shit! I think I did. I wrap my arms around her waist, and she leans back into me, her bare neck calling my name. I kiss her there, just above the curve of her throat.

  “I’m bigger than you.” I kiss her neck again. My tongue swipes over her warm skin, and she groans, breathless. My hands move to her hips, and I give her a light squeeze.

  “Bigger, are you?” Her voice is small and gruff. Nora pushes back, her ass pressing against me.

  “I am.” My hands travel to her breasts, and I rub them softly, gently caressing her flesh. When my fingers find her nipples, covered only by the thin fabric of my cotton T-shirt, my fingers tug at them and they harden under my thumb. I tweak them; with each pinch my touch grows stronger, her moans transform into mewls, her whining gasps make me throb for her.

  Her unmoving hands are still in the water, and I move one of my hands down to her stomach. I stop there, unsure how far to take it. As if she can hear my thoughts, she looks over her shoulder at me. “You can be whoever you want with me, remember?”

  I can be who I want to be with her. No pressure, no worrying about whether I sound cool or lame, or strong or weak. I don’t have to push through the fields of doubt in my mind; I don’t have to question every single thing I say or do. I can sidestep all that. With her, there’s a calm silence like I’ve never known.

  She turns the faucet off, and I watch her rinse the soap from her hands. “What do you want, Landon? Tell me.” Nora moves her hips, rubbing her ass against me. “Don’t be afraid. I want you.” Her hand wraps around me through my thin pants. “I need you.”

  “Turn around,” I growl, barely recognizing my own voice.

  Nora doesn’t hesitate; she turns around to face me. The sheepish gaze isn’t one that I’m used to from her. Her expression is timid, she’s panting, her shyness i
s new but so, so hot.

  “Do you want me to tell you what I want?” My voice comes out much clearer than in my head. In my head, I’m nervous, excited. I’m jumping up and down with the anticipation of touching her. But here in reality, I’m standing tall, my unwavering gaze swallows her, and I can’t believe I’m this damn lucky.

  She nods, her eyes staring right through me.

  “I want you to sit in this chair.” I reach for the chair closest to me and pull her away from the sink. Her hands are still dripping with water, and the front of my pants are wet. She sits down in the chair, hands folded on her lap.

  “Stand back up,” I instruct.

  When she obeys, I tug at my boxers to pull them down her thighs. I lift the shirt up over her head and watch, enthralled with the way her tanned breasts hang heavy and full, how her nipples are hard and ready. Her body is something to behold, and I drop to my knees to worship her.

  “Sit down,” I say when my knees hit the floor.

  She sits, and I run my fingers up her legs to the tops of her thighs. A shiver runs through her, and she watches me, her breath hitching each time my eyes meet hers. I gently spread her thighs and bend my head down to kiss the tops of them. Nora’s fingers thread through my hair, and she caresses my head as I give her body my full devotion. My fingers tease her, running over her pussy, and I push one inside her. I watch her face as her eyes roll back and her mouth parts in ecstasy.

  I pump my fingers slowly and tease her with my lips, softly brushing them over her sex. She groans and groans with every stroke of my fingers. I love how vocal she is; it does amazing things for my ego.

  After a few seconds of torment, I end her suffering by swiping my tongue over her wetness.

  “Oh, God,” she says, and I repeat the motion. She tastes like sugarcoated honey, and I’ve always had a sweet tooth.

  When her legs stiffen in the chair, I wrap my arms around her thighs and lift them just enough to support her as she comes. I press my mouth against her hard.