Chapter 40

Chapter 40
DALIA
The first thing I did when I stepped into the living room was glance around and my eyes widened slightly when I saw Harvey standing next to a couch. “Harvey!” I called out as I started marching towards him but came to a stop when he turned around. It was Huxley.
His expression dulled after my shoulders sagged and he shot me an apologetic look. “Sorry, dream girl,” he muttered and I frowned.
“Really? How long is he going to do this for?”
He was no longer ignoring me but he replied my messages with vague answers and always came up with a reason to hang up if we were talking over the phone. He also hadn’t come home since Friday and I was now pissed because he was going out of his way to avoid me. What exactly did I do?
“What’s wrong?” mum and Julie asked in unison and I glanced at them before plopping down on the couch he was standing next to.
“Harvey’s avoiding her.”
“That’s odd…” Julie muttered, furrowing her brows slightly, while mum asked, “What did you do?”
“Why do you assume I did something wrong?” I replied and Huxley snorted as he sat on the arm of the couch.
“Even you assume you did something wrong.”
I frowned again and turned to face him. “But did he say anything to you? Do you know why he’s avoiding me?”
“That’s between you and him,” he replied, moving away from me like he was afraid I’d grab him, and I sneered at him before Hayley walked into the living room, carrying a bouquet of roses and a gift basket. “What are those?”
“Flowers and a gift basket?” she said, raising a brow at him, and he gave her a blank stare.
“No shit. From who?”
She set the basket on the floor before removing a card from the bouquet and when she opened it, she scrunched up her face. “Lou-Anne Anderson.”
“Oh!” Julie blurted out in surprise and my brows shot up because that was Noah’s mother. Julie knows her?
The day I saw her at Noah’s place flashed through my mind and the next thing I remembered was meeting his dad in his office. I had the urge to curl up on the couch as I remembered how awkward it had been and that he had known who I was… I was pretty sure that Noah hadn’t told him about me because of how surprised he’d looked when his dad called my name, and the look the man had given him before telling me to have a nice day. I could only assume that he had found out about me from his wife. There was a high chance that he and Noah talked about me after I left and I could guess what his dad had said but I couldn’t confirm it because Noah didn’t bring it up when we talked yesterday, so I didn’t either. He hadn’t sounded like his usual self though.
“...First off, what the hell?” Huxley stated, snapping me out of my thoughts, and he jerked his head in Julie’s direction as she walked towards Hayley. “Why?”
“I saw her at the restaurant when Laila and I dropped by there yesterday,” she replied, collecting the bouquet, and when no one said anything for several moments, she added, “I gave her a bottle of wine.”
“...Why?”
“She told me that I might have been misdiagnosed on Thursday. And that I should get a second opinion.”
“How did she find out that you’d been diagnosed with something?” Hayley asked, a line appearing between her brows, and I started to get the feeling that she and Huxley didn’t like her. Why? I haven’t actually had a conversation with her but she seemed nice. Julie shrugged in response and Huxley tsk-tsked as she sat on a couch, while Hayley sighed. “Mum, you don’t have to be nice to her.”
“Why?” mum and I asked in unison and she winked at me after we glanced at each other.
“She’s nasty,” Huxley replied and I frowned because that didn’t sound like the woman I had met in Noah’s place but Huxley wouldn’t say that without good cause.
“Really?”
“Extremely. She, her son and her friends.”
Okay, the ‘son’ is definitely not Noah. I hadn’t met Shane before, so I didn’t know anything about that, but I could vouch for Noah.
“And her daughter-in-law, Addison,” Hayley added and I tilted my head to the side. What daughter-in-law?
“It’s Allison, and Lou-Anne might have changed,” Julie said and Huxley groaned in frustration
“She hasn’t, okay? I saw her on Thursday and I can confirm… She’s still nasty.”
“Wait. Can someone explain how she’s nasty?” mum cut in and Julie pursed her lips before Hayley replied.
“She made mum cry three times.”
Huh?
“She likes to project. She’s manipulative and judgemental. And when you’re with her, you’re wrong if you do something, and wrong if you don’t do it.”
“And she uses sneak attacks,” Julie muttered as my mind reeled from everything I just heard and I returned my attention to her. “I hate those… But she can be nice at -”
“Jules,” mum called out, giving her a look that said ‘really?’, while my phone vibrated in my hand and I quickly checked it to see that it was a message from Noah.
Noah: I moved.
Wait, what? I furrowed my brows as I stared at the message for several moments, feeling a bit confused because we had spoken yesterday and he didn’t mention anything about moving. Did he just decide to pack up and move today?
Me: To where?
Noah: An apartment in Murton.
Oh, that wasn’t far from here.
Me: Can I ask why?
Noah: The house was too big. I needed somewhere smaller and closer to campus.
I pressed my lips together and glanced at mum who was still talking to Julie, before I replied the message.
Me: Can I come over?
Noah: Sure. You can help me unpack.

NOAH
Be careful.
Dad’s words hadn’t left my mind since Friday and now that Dalia was here, it was all I could think of. I was only able to give that statement two meanings - Be careful so the board members won't find out and… be careful and end things with her. He definitely didn’t mean the first one and I wasn’t going to do the other but I understood why he wanted that.
Most of the people on the board of directors already preferred Shane over me and they wouldn’t think that what was between me and Dalia wasn’t about grades. They would only see the major power imbalance between us and think I’d allowed myself to be seduced by her or that I’d preyed on her. Either way, I was fucked if they found out.
“Noah…” Dalia said breathily, letting out a groan as I gave her another thrust, and I dug my fingers into her hair before jerking her back toward me. I then began to pound into her and her groans shifted to moans and cries while her hands tightened into fists on the bed.
Touching her like this felt sinful. Her moans, the way she clenched tight around me, how she moved with the rhythm of my body. It made all my thoughts break down and I knew I wasn’t going to last long. I’d craved her too much for a while now.
Pleasure coursed through me, filling the room until I was panting, before I released her hair and grabbed onto her ass, watching my cock pump in and out of her as her soft, sexy cries shot straight to it. Fuck. I slid my other hand between her legs while her gasps for breath increased in intensity, and I began to stroke her clit. Her pussy clenched tight around me in response, drawing a loud groan from me, and moans poured from her as I slammed into her over and over again.
“Dal-” My words were severed by a grunt as I finally felt the pleasure detonate inside her while she cried out. “Fuck… Fuck, that feels so good.” I rammed into her all through it, watching her writhe and squirm as she rode it out, and several moments later, my mind went blank as I joined her in oblivion. “Fuck.”
I collapsed on top of her, panting and slick with sweat, and when she turned her head to look at me, I captured my lips with hers, pouring whatever I had left into the kiss.
“So we got a little sidetracked,” she said and I let out a laugh before pressing a quick kiss to her lips.
“No, you were also on my to-do list. I just shuffled it a bit,” I replied as I pulled out of her, and I kissed her again while a smile played on her lips. “I’ll be right back,” I added and got off the bed, heading to the bathroom so I could take care of the condom.
By the time I came back to the room, Dalia was wearing my sweatshirt, and the corner of my mouth turned up while I walked over to the bed. She was on a call with her mum though, so I kept quiet. I then picked up the sweatpants I had tossed on the floor earlier and as I put it on, my phone began to buzz on the nightstand with a call from dad.
His words popped into my mind again and I stared at the phone for several moments before putting the phone in the nightstand’s drawer. I didn’t want to end things with Dalia and I wasn’t going to let him convince me to.