Page 88 of Finding Noah

She laughed breathlessly, gasping a bit as I ground my hard length against her.

Fuck, I needed to get out of these jeans.

“Not this kind of sensitive,” she said, catching the corner of my mouth with her lips. “This is like I'm moments away from my period kind of sensitive. They hurt.”

“I'm sorry, babe,” I said with a frown. “We don’t have to—”

“No, it's okay,” she replied, peppering kisses along my jaw, down my neck, and toward the dip at the base of my throat.

Her fingertips skated their way down my chest and abs to the waistband of my jeans. I held my breath, eager anticipation thrumming beneath my skin, as I watched her pop the button and pull down the fly, her fingers deft and skilled after doing this so many times over the years. And never had I grown tired of this part of the routine.

I could never be tired of her.

“Hey,” I whispered, grasping her chin in my hand and tipping her head back, her mouth upward.

“Yeah?” she whispered back.

I sought her gaze, danced within the endless sky hidden within her eyes, and said, “I love you.”

She held my erection in her hand, moving in languid strokes as she replied, “I love how much you love me.”

“There's no limit to how much I love you,” I said. “Every single day, it grows and grows and grows.”

“I know,” she said, her hands soft but her voice softer. “I know because that's how I feel about you.”

“It's endless, Meg,” I said, strained by pleasure and emotion combined. “Every time I think I couldn't love you more, I do, and it takes my fucking breath away.”

She could only nod, and I knew she understood. I knew because I saw it in her eyes, I felt it in her touch, I heard it in the way she gasped when I laid our bodies down and fit the breadth of my hips between her spread thighs, sinking in until our flesh melded and molded and our hearts thumped in time with one another to a song only heard by them.

And we moved together, changed positions, and moved some more. I watched her climb the ladder of ecstasy, and I followed behind, caring more for her pleasure than I could ever about mine. She clutched my shoulders, dug her fingernails in, and her orgasm was released with an escalation of screams, every pulse and wave of her body coaxing my own until it spilled out with a groan that came from somewhere deep, deep within.

Then, as we descended, she reached for my cheeks, grasping them between her palms, and she kissed me, hard and needy. I tasted her sweat before I tasted her tears, and when I realized she was crying, I pulled away, diving into her watery gaze.

“Babe,” I said, laden with concern, “what's wrong?”

“I just love you so much,” she whispered, wiping her cheeks. “And I'm PMSing, and I'm hormonal, and …” She laughed, embarrassed. “And that was just really good.”

I couldn't help but laugh, brushing my thumbs beneath her eyes. “Yeah,” I replied. “Yeah, it was. And I love you more.”

***

She fell asleep easily, lulled in a way only good sex could.

I wasn't as lucky.

Something she'd said pricked at my brain and wouldn't let up until I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and opened a browser.

I'd been searching for Tom, Tommy, Thomas Nolan. But never had I tried alternative spellings of the name.

Nolen. Nolin. Knowlan.

God, the options suddenly seemed never-ending and daunting, but it only meant that my search was far from over. There was no reason to give up now, and it didn't matter that I had to be at the station in six hours. Nothing mattered except continuing the search for the man whose house my father had dragged me into twenty years ago.

So, first, I tried Thomas Nolen, then Nolin. I wasn't even entirely sure what exactly I was looking for, not sure if the man was dead or alive, but I scoured the internet for anything I could find. Anything that would lead me in the right direction, only to find nothing.

I tried Knowlan next and was met with the same luck—nothing.

Fuck. I glanced at the time. I'd been at it for an hour and a half now, and if I was going to be at all rested for work, I needed to sleep now.