Page 19 of Noah's Reckoning
Noah: What are you doing?
Me: Coming?
Noah: Are you so desperate that a few bump and grinds on your ass made you resort to this?
Me: Yes?
This was not good. This was why I’d had absolutely no problem with Noah’s decision to try to make it to the mainland. What if my hormones got the best of me? What if, after a few days with him and a few nights in his arms, he would be the one to wake up to me humping him?
And why wasn’t he sleeping with Jenny. Maybe Jenny didn’t want him?
Impossible.
Maybe he didn’t want Jenny? At least not like that.
Well, I was going to have plenty of opportunity to find out with us spending all this time together.
Right now, though, I had to decide. To come or not to come?
An orgasm would help to take the edge off by the time he got back. I slipped my fingers down my pants then jumped at the sound of the door opening.
“Fuck, it’s cold outside!” he said as announcement of his return. He was busy kicking snow off his boots, so he hadn’t noticed my scrambling.
I lowered my sweater over my jeans so he wouldn’t be able to tell they were open.
Then I stood and turned my back to him so he wouldn’t see how flushed my face was. “I have water,” I said lamely, picking up the kettle I had set next the fire to cool.
“Good, I’m thirsty. And hungry. Let’s crack open that can of soup.”
He was peeling out of his coat, with snow falling everywhere. There was a hook on the back of the door and he hung his coat there to dry. His boots he set directly underneath it.
Orderly. Like any good engineer. And Noah wasn’t just a good engineer. He was the best. A fact he’d reminded me of only yesterday.
I turned to face him with my semi-epiphany.
“I think one of the reasons we fight so much is because I hate that you’re better than me. At everything apparently,” I said, waving my arms about. “Engineering, survival, fire making.”
“Your pants are unbuttoned.”
Shit, my sweater must have lifted when I raised my arms. I turned my back to him.
“I must have forgotten to button them from when I had to make a trip outside.” LAME! And I referenced peeing in front of a guy. Awesome.
“Olivia, I have, what six, seven years of experience on you? You can’t expect to be at my level…yet. And being raised in Alaska is different than being raised in Seattle. Can’t change that, either.”
“I know that logically,” I said, pointing to my brain. “You have to understand that when you’ve had to swim upstream for as long as I’ve had to, nothing is as satisfying as being on top. I can’t be on top with you and I don’t like it.”
His head dropped back on his neck as if I’d said something horribly wrong.
“What?” I asked.
“I can’t. It’s too easy. Look, Olivia, I don’t know what to tell you other than…I’ve seen your work. I’ve watched your process. And if you think for ten seconds I would have let you have full control over my rigs and my wells if I didn’t think you were up to the task, think again.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Now, can we get that can of soup going?”
I nodded. “See, this would be the time where I would have to point out it’s sexist to assume that, as the woman, I naturally should be preparing the soup. However, I do recognize in this case a division of labor can’t be done across equal lines because I don’t have your skill sets. Therefore, me preparing the soup makes perfect and logical sense.”
