Page 27 of Crawl for Me

Noah

The door cracks open a hand’s width, then swings wider, and she’s there—flushed, hair messed up, her bedsheet knotted tight under her arms like she hauled it up in a hurry. The sight alone makes my mouth go dry, and every single line I’d rehearsed lifts off my tongue and drifts away like fog.

“Yes, Noah?”

Shit.

“If you—” My voice breaks— off to a great start. “ If you tell me to go, I’ll go.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” she says, eyes flicking down the hall, then back to me.

“That isn’t what I said.” My fingers flex uselessly at my sides. “Tell me to go.”

“Noah—”

“I know you’re capable of speaking your mind,” I push, even though my stomach is roiling and my nerves are fried. “It’s what you do best. So go on. Say it.”

Her mouth presses tight as she shifts the sheet higher. “Noah…”

“Say it. Say the words...”

She blows out a heavy breath. “We agreed. If it got too much, we would back the hell off.”

Why won’t she just tell me to go?!

“I’m coming in,” I say, because if I stay in the doorway, I’ll lose my nerve or my lungs. I edge past and she moves with me on instinct, swinging the door shut with a bump of her hip.

“What are you doing?” she snaps.

I turn to face her. “What I’m doing,” I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking and failing in my throat, “is saying screw HR, screw my job. I don’t care about any of it.”

Her head jerks back like I shoved her. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means exactly what I’m saying.”

“How reckless can you get?” She takes a step toward me, fingers twisting in the sheet.

“Are you insane? Do you even hear yourself? You’d torch your job—your entire career—for what—this?

” She gestures at the two of us in her dim living room, at the mess we’ve made of ourselves. “Some pussy from your neighbor?”

I suck in a sharp breath, fists clenching at my sides. Did she really just take her own worth and slap a cheap sticker over it?

“No.” The word comes out far too quiet. “Don’t do that. Don’t make it small so I don’t jump. It’s not some— It’s not—” The stutter catches my tongue and burns there. I push through it. “It’s you.”

“That isn’t any better, Noah. What do you want from me? You can’t come in here and announce you’re willing to burn down your life and expect me to clap.”

I shake my head quickly. “I didn’t ask you to clap. I asked you to tell me to go if you want me gone.”

Her eyes flick to the door. “That isn’t fair.”

“Yes, it is. Make the call and I’ll live it,” I manage, voice trembling. “Tell me to go and I’m gone. Right now. Out the door. Distance at the office, no talking—whatever you want.”

She stares at me for a minute before a half-disbelieving laugh shoots out of her chest. “You’re fucking delusional.”

I look up at her, heat flooding every vein. “Yeah. I know.” I swallow, steadying myself with a deep breath. “But I want you . And you aren’t giving me a straight answer.”

A long breath leaves her, and she pivots to the couch, sinking onto the cushions.

The sheet cinches higher around her as her head tips back on a low groan.

I drift after on instinct and stall a step short, nausea going wild in my gut.

She nods down at the cushion next to her, and I slowly sink down, palms pressing into my thighs.

“Noah,” she says, dragging her eyes to me. “I want you. Of course I want you. I want you so bad I can’t think straight, and I’m spending my nights fucking myself stupid with you on my mind just to shut it up for ten minutes.”

My heart all but explodes behind my ribs, blood rushing south so fast it’s dizzying. “Wh—what?”

She runs a hand through her hair. “You make me feel good. Not just the orgasms—though, yes, that . You make me feel like I’m in my skin on purpose.

And I like what I do to you. I like wrecking you.

I like knowing you’ll take it and ask for more.

” Her jaw moves as she chews the inside of her cheek. “But I’m not getting fired over this.”

My brain whites out for a second. Wrecking me.

Nights. Want you. The words stack and tilt and my chest forgets how to expand.

Heat, shame, relief—it all floods through me—everything at once, loud enough to buzz in my teeth.

I want to laugh, or cry, or put my face in her lap and breathe her in and please her all at once.

“Okay.” My voice scrapes out. “Then—what if we don’t hide. What if we… disclose.”

Her eyes widen. “What?”

“Hear me out.” I let out a shaky breath. “We met before I started. Before the account. That matters.”

“The manual says?—”

“I know.” I nod, fast. “I read it last night. And again this morning. Three-point-four bans supervisor–subordinate relationships. But I’m not really your manager—Marla is. And there wasn’t a damn thing written about pre-employment relationships.”

She stays stock-still, brow furrowing deeper with every word that falls out of my mouth.

“So we ask for mitigation,” I push. “We say we stick to the rules they have—I don’t treat you any different in the office than I would anyone else, I don’t touch you, or look at you weird, or kiss you even when I really, really want to—which is what I’ve been doing anyway.

We schedule everything on the calendar so HR knows what’s what and when we’ll be together.

Honestly, we wouldn’t have to change anything.

It’d just be… formal, and in writing. We’d just have to let them know. ”

“And if they say no and fuck us up?”

Air scrapes down my throat. “I don’t know, Sable,” I admit, because lying here would be worse than stupid. “But I’d rather stand under fluorescents with you than keep tripping in the dark and hope we don’t break our necks.”

“It’s a good idea… but…”

But…

This is it, Noah. No more awkward speeches. Just proof.

One last attempt.

I slip off the couch before I’ve even thought it through, the drop jolting through me as my knees smack the floor, the shock ricocheting up my thighs. The room tightens around us—walls pressing in, her silence crushing against my ribs until I can’t breathe, can’t hold myself upright.

Idiot. Idiot, idiot. My brain won’t shut up, the panic splintering through me. What the hell am I doing on my knees, like this? What kind of fucking moron ? —

A quiet gasp ripples through the air and my eyes snap up to meet hers.

“If you want me on the floor, I’m on the floor,” I say, and I don’t blink.

“If you want yes, it’s yes. If you want no, it’s no.

If you want quiet, I’ll swallow my tongue and learn your silences; if you want still, I’ll count the stitches in this carpet until my knees know them by heart; if you want patient, I’ll measure time in your breaths and wait through every elevator ding and HR form and Monday morning until you say move.

If you want distance, I’ll turn into air and pass you in the hallway like I never learned your taste.

If you want this—” my throat works, heat climbing up my cheeks “—say it, and I’ll crawl.

I’ll crawl to you, and I’ll keep crawling—across this room, across whatever’s between us—until you point and say stop. ”

The silence that follows is thick and quiet and loaded. My palms sweat where they press into the carpet. My knees fucking ache. My pulse hammers like it’s trying to outpace the shame already pooling hot behind my ribs.

Then she shifts forward, tilting her head. “Then crawl for me.”

My mouth opens and closes, heart stopping and restarting in one single dizzying beat.

“Wait—what?” My voice breaks. “You’re—are you serious? Like does this mean you… I mean, we—? Can we…?”

Jesus Christ, I’m malfunctioning.

She doesn’t flinch. Just rises from the couch like this isn’t the single hottest, most nerve-frying thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. The sheet stays wrapped around her body—tight, knotted high under her arms—fingers clutching it in place.

“You offered,” she says simply. Then she turns, walking toward the hallway. “Come on then,” she calls without turning. “Be a good boy. Crawl for me.”

Oh fuck.

Oh, fuck oh fuck oh fuck.

My knees stutter forward before I can even think.

I follow. Like a fucking animal, like a pet, like I’ve never been given something more powerful than this—than her.

My palms drag across the carpet, fingers curling into it like traction might save me, but my legs feel weightless, buzzing, every nerve shot through with heat.

She’s ahead of me in the dark hallway, hips swaying beneath that sheet, feet silent against the floor.

I’d follow her anywhere. Into fire. Into hell.

Into every part of myself I thought I’d buried to survive this job, this life, this version of me that didn’t even know I could kneel for someone and like it.

She pushes her bedroom door open. The room is shadowy, dim, lit only by the faint spill of hallway light. I crawl across the threshold and pause, breath shaking, forehead damp.

Without a word, she lets the sheet fall to the floor. Then she climbs onto the edge of the bed and spreads her legs, bracing herself on her palms. Her thighs part wider. Her pussy glistens in the low light, bare and wet.

My nails dig into the carpet, trying to anchor myself to sanity.

She was naked. The whole fucking time.

Holy shit.

I stare, brain short-circuiting… The slope of her collarbone, the dusky line of her sternum, the curve of her waist, the shadow between her thighs. She’s fucking beautiful, and she owns me, and I think I’m going to die.

“You coming, or do I need to drag you the rest of the way?”

I surge forward on hands and knees, heat pulsing in my cock so hard it’s almost painful. My head swims, everything blurring at the edges except her— her, her, her —and the way she’s watching me like I’m prey already snared.

She lifts one bare foot and taps the air between us with a flick of her ankle. “Crawl closer,” she murmurs, head tilted. “Put your mouth to use.”

Yes. Fuck, yes.