Nothing Less

Chapter Nineteen.

Songs for this chapter are:

Colors- Halsey (the stripped version)

Let Me Love You- DJ Snake ft. Justin Bieber

White Lie- The Lumineers

Little White Lies- One Direction

...

Once we are somewhat dressed, her braless and wearing one of my WCU t-shirts and a pair of my briefs. I put on thin cotton pants 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. So we walk, hand in hand, into my kitchen. Nora holds onto my hand tightly. Her hands are always so warm. When we get into the kitchen she goes straight to the fridge. I lean on the counter and she busies herself. Her head pops out behind the open fridge door.

"Do you like cabbage?" She asks and I recoil.

"Does anyone?" I ask her, remembering how my mom's cabbage rolls would smell the whole house up for at least two days.

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

I shake my head.

She nods.

"Will you try it, my way? If you don't like it, I'll make pizza." She closes the fridge.

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 can eat the cabbage off of her body? I wonder how hard it would be to get her to agree to that.

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

"How about this," she begins and moves the head of cabbage behind her back. "If you promise to take two bites, I'll make cookies too."

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 waging a bargain in my head. Well, I'm waging all right, but I'm sure to behave much more dramatically than what's going on in my head. "And you'll feed the cookies to me?" I ask her.

She nods, beaming, "And the cabbage."

I walk over to her, lean into her body so that the fridge touches her back, and I 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 earn a few more pieces of her puzzle.

"Did you grow up in Washington?" I choose to start with simple questions.

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 from 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 inside of me and I admit that 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 her. 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 says, moving closer to me. Her body brushes against mine and she tries for the bottle again.

I challenge her. "Tell me about the yes part of that."

She presses against me. Her breasts push against the top of my stomach and I try 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. She managed to grab the bottle from me! What a sneak!

I stare at her incredulously. "You cheated. That was soooo unfair," 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 and she ducks out of the way and untangles herself from my grasp. When she gets back to the stove, the devilish woman winks at me. Winks! And I love how wicked she is.

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

She continues talking while brushing the leaves with olive oil, telling 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 her sister Staussey met her husband, Pedra's brother, that winter. The doctor husband. 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 her, 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 ask, coming to the conclusion that 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 here?" Nora asks me, her questioning eyes lift to mine. "Once we go here, 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 don't know.

I want to know as much as I possibly can about her, but what if I don't? What if the reality is worse than this fantasy land we are 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 completely change the subject and ignore the chill that runs down my spine when she looks a little more relieved than she should. 

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