They could depend on no one but each other.
Winter was fast approaching, and soon she wouldn’t be able to leave the house without the added comfort of a hat, gloves and scarf. She picked up her romance book and began reading. The storyline was about a full figured woman who couldn’t find a man and ended up finding love through an escort service. The story was hot with massive amounts of tension and a gripping plot. The sex was dirty, which made her yearn to be the woman on the receiving end of such passion.
Putting the book down, she glanced around the room and saw Brad’s laptop sitting closed at the table. Curiosity biting at her, Noelle moved to the screen and pressed a few buttons.
In no time the internet was up, the search engine ready for her to type. She placed the book by the side of her and typed in some words. Male escort service.
The search bought up a huge list of sites. She clicked on a few and gasped at the naked pictures on some of them.
Being a virgin and never having kissed a man before, Noelle stared in wonder at some of the women being fucked on the screen before her. The only knowledge she had was the stuff she’d watched in movies and the television, along with the reading of the erotic romance books. Licking her lips, she searched through all of the sites available. No man had ever looked at her with pure, naked longing. For once she wanted to be able to be near a man and know what it felt like to be touched, to be cared for, and maybe even to be loved by a man.
Would she ever feel a man’s hands caressing her body? Touching and tasting her, spending the time to get to know what her body liked, the way they did in her books? She jumped back from the laptop and closed the windows she had open. Her heart pounding, she waited for Brad to appear in the doorway.
“Hi. Sorry I took so long,” he said as he pulled his coat off. “It’s bloody cold out there. You didn’t have to wait up.”
She glanced at the clock and saw it was after nine.
“I wanted to make sure you got back in one piece.”
He gave her a twirl. “I’m here, and I survived.”
Noelle went into the kitchen and made them both a cup of tea. “With how long you’ve been gone, does that mean it was a huge success?”
“Yes. We don’t know much about each other, but we are going to see if we can form a relationship together.”
“I’m so happy for you,” she said. She stirred the cup and handed him one. Her hands were shaking slightly from the images she’d seen.
“You’re looking a little flushed. Are you feeling okay?” he asked and reached out to touch her head. She pulled away, not wanting him to touch her.
“I’m feeling a little tired. I think I’ll go to bed if that’s all right with you,” she said. Going to her room would be the only way for her to calm down her erratic thoughts.
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
She nodded, leaned up to kiss his cheek, took her cup and book and disappeared into her room.
What would Brad think if he knew what she’d been searching for?
Closing her eyes and shaking her head at the stupidity of her thoughts, she lay across her bed and opened up the page of her book.
After a few minutes of reading about a virgin being fucked, she lost interest. Staring at the ceiling above her bed, she allowed the pain to come to her. The pain of knowing no man would ever love her. She wished that just once, one man would look at her and want her to be with him. The tears she kept locked up fell from her eyes in a trail down her face. For so long she’d sat and cried about her predicament. Paying a man to pretend to care was the lowest form of self-pity, but wouldn’t paying someone to care for an hour be better than living a life without any form of love?
Brad was her best friend, and she wouldn’t dream of asking anything from him that he could not give. He was gay, and he was in love with someone else.
She heard him move around outside the door, but her tears were as silent as before. When he called her name, she didn’t answer. Speaking at the same time as crying would be a disaster. The lump in the back of her throat made it hard to breathe. He moved away from her door, and she could give in freely to her emotions.
****
Brad watched as she left the kitchen. She looked flushed and embarrassed, two combinations he’d never associated with Noelle. He grabbed his cup and went to the laptop still set up on the table. He frowned as he noted the internet connection was still hooked up. Turning the screen saver off, he checked the history to see if Noelle had been using his laptop. What he saw had him frozen to the spot.
He went to her door without thinking about what he’d found.
Knocking on her door, he called her name. When she didn’t answer, he took a breath and went back to check out the sites she’d been looking at.