Chapter 5

I woke to the feel of his mouth on my neck.

Noah’s body was warm and solid behind me, one arm locked around my waist, the other hand already sliding between my legs. I was still wet from the night before—tender, sensitive, marked in ways I could feel every time I shifted. His fingers moved slowly, spreading me open, stroking through the mess he’d left inside me.

“Morning,” he murmured against my skin.

I arched back into him with a soft sound. He was hard against the curve of my ass, thick and ready. Without a word he lifted my top leg, hooked it back over his hip, and pushed into me from behind in one smooth, deep thrust.

The stretch pulled a broken moan from my throat.

He fucked me like that—slow, unhurried, like we had all the time in the world. One hand stayed between my legs, circling my clit with deliberate pressure while he moved inside me. The other cupped my breast, thumb brushing the nipple in time with his strokes. Every time he bottomed out I felt it in my stomach.

“You take me so well,” he said, voice still rough from sleep. “Knew you would the first time I heard you on the other side of that wall.”

I reached back and gripped his thigh, nails digging in. He rewarded me by thrusting harder, deeper, the wet sound of it filling the quiet bedroom. My orgasm built fast, rolling up from where we were joined. When it hit I clenched around him hard, moaning into the pillow while he kept moving through it.

He didn’t come yet.

Instead he pulled out, rolled me onto my back, and settled between my thighs. His mouth found mine in a deep, slow kiss as he pushed back inside. This angle was even better—deeper, heavier. He braced himself on his forearms and fucked me with long, controlled strokes, eyes locked on mine the entire time.

“Look at me,” he said when my eyes started to flutter shut. “I want to watch you come on my cock again.”

I did.

The second orgasm was sharper, almost too much. My legs shook around his waist. He groaned low in his chest and finally let go, burying himself to the hilt as he spilled into me with a rough, broken sound.

We stayed like that for a long time after, breathing hard, bodies still joined. Eventually he eased out and collapsed beside me, one heavy arm pulling me against his chest.

I traced idle patterns over his skin, feeling the steady thud of his heart under my palm.

“She’s not coming back,” he said after a while. Quiet. Matter-of-fact.

I tipped my head to look at him. “The woman from the other nights?”

He nodded once. “Was never serious. Just convenient. Ended it yesterday.”

Something warm and possessive curled low in my stomach. I didn’t say anything. I just leaned in and kissed the underside of his jaw.

Noah’s hand slid down my back and settled on my ass, squeezing once. “You planning on going back to your place anytime soon?”

“Not if you’re going to keep waking me up like that.”

A low, amused sound left him. “Good answer.”

We stayed in bed another hour. He fucked me one more time—slower, deeper, with my wrists pinned above my head and his mouth on my throat. By the time we finally got up my legs felt unsteady and there were fresh marks on my neck that I knew I’d be hiding under scarves for days.

Noah made coffee while I borrowed one of his T-shirts. It hung almost to my mid-thighs. He watched me move around his kitchen like he was already thinking about taking it off me again.

When I eventually crossed the hall to grab clean clothes, the shared wall felt different. Quieter. Less like a barrier and more like a memory.

That night I didn’t sleep in my own bed.

I slept in his, with his arm locked around my waist and the low sound of his breathing against the back of my neck. At some point in the dark he woke me again—mouth between my legs this time, slow and filthy, until I came twice against his tongue before he finally pushed back inside me and took what he wanted.

By the time Monday morning arrived I was sore in the best way, marked, and completely unwilling to pretend this was anything temporary.

Noah walked me to the door when I finally left for work. He kissed me hard against the doorframe, one hand under the hem of my dress, two fingers sliding through the wetness he’d left behind.

“Tonight,” he said against my mouth. “My place. Don’t bother with underwear.”

I smiled, kissed him once more, and stepped into the hallway.

As I locked my own door behind me, I glanced at the wall that had started everything.

I could still hear the echoes of those first nights if I tried—the headboard, the moans, the way I’d touched myself in secret while he took someone else.

Now the only sounds that would come through that wall were ours.

And I already knew they were going to be louder.