"What's your plan for today?"

Jess, despite Noah's disagreement, was already wearing her own clothes. She got them on after she took a shower.

Though the shower took longer than usual because Noah insisted on saving the Earth — by showering together.

They were on his balcony, cuddling on the nest chair.

"I have been avoiding my father since he appeared in my house but I can't avoid him forever so, I think, we should do the 'talk' today."

Noah kissed her temple, "How about tomorrow?"

"Noah," she turned her body to face him, "aren't you busy?"

"I am busy," he sighed regrettably. "But I want to spend more time with you."

"Just send me a message if you are going incognito. I'm not going to get angry if you can't spend a lot of time with me because of work."

"Copy," he nuzzled the base of her ears and his hands crept under her blouse, and played squeezed me not in her abdomen. "And I want you to send me as many messages as you can in a day. Photos would be very much appreciated."

"I won't'."

"Come on," he bit her earlobe. "I'm going to miss you a lot."

She swatted Noah's hands under her blouse. "Don't expect those from me. I hate texting or chatting."

"Lucille told me you send her a message every day."

She craned her neck to look at Noah, "Your daughter tells you everything."

"Hmm, not all the time. That particular info I asked."

"Yes, I do send Lucille a message every day, BUT, it's one message a day and only because I made a promise."

He chuckled. "Thank you. She was quite happy about it."

"I don't think so," she mumbled under her breath. "Does she tell you about my messages?"

"No. She said those are personal messages and won't show me."

"That's good."

"Not good." He lifted her up from his lap and deposited her beside him, "Can you tell me what you two talked about?"

She gazed at Noah's face, "I could…" she chuckled when she saw the anticipation on his face, "...I could but I won't tell you. It's personal."

"Come on," he dropped his head on her shoulder and started to kiss her neck. "Please," he whispered in her ear.

"No means no, Tiefenbacher."

"You are so mean, Miss Zimmerman."

***

Jess took a deep sigh as her fingers hovered above the keypad on the doorknob of her own house.

Noah finally let her go home after she promised him a lunch date tomorrow, but it wasn't easy. Noah can be so persistent and he found out that she has a weakness with his begging eyes. The jerk used it against her.

She found herself brazenly bouncing on his lap in broad daylight while he leaned back against the backrest of the nest chair. He made her bite the hem of her blouse so he could see her breast bounce as her hips go up and down on his hard shaft.

She shuffled her feet and pressed a six-digit number on the electronic keypad. A soft thud was heard when the door unlocked.

"Tadaima," she said clearly when she entered the foyer. There was no reply since she disabled the voice recognition as part of her house security ever since her father stayed in her house.

She has no plan to give her father full access to the security of her house. The passcode was enough for him.

She knitted her brows when she didn't hear any sound in the house. She walked further inside her house until she reached the hallway. "Papa?" she called in the middle of the hallway. She doesn't want to go to the guest room to knock.

When she didn't get any response, she just turned around and entered her bedroom.

She threw her purse on top of her bed and went to the bathroom to take a bath. She opened the faucet and she knew from past experience that it would take eight minutes for the bathtub to be filled.

She used the time to get out of her bedroom to get new candles. She put her supply of Ylang-Ylang candles in the rattan basket behind her coats, that were hanging in her closet.

She opened the closet door and shoved the coats to the side to get to the basket and saw she only had seven candles left. She took out two for the one in her bathroom would not be enough. And put a mental note to message her old nanny back home that she needed more candles; the next time she sent her monthly box of goodies from home.

She took out two candles because she planned to soak in the tub for at least an hour. Her body needed to be soaked in warm water to remove the dull ache in between her thigh and the soreness of her muscle due to Noah's greediness in bed.

A smirk spread across her face. She wasn't complaining though. She loves the way he makes love to her.

She went back to the bathroom with the two scented candles in her hands. She prepared her bath, stripped her clothes, and stepped inside the tub.

She remained standing in the middle of the tub, to let her body get used to the warm temperature of the water, then slowly lowered her body in the water.

She bit her lips when the warm water enveloped her skin. At first, there was pain. She closed her eyes and forced her body to stay under the water. After two minutes, her body no longer screams in pain.

She rolled her shoulder to ease the taut muscle and leaned back. She rested her head at the head of the tub, took a deep breath, taking in the flowery scent of the candles she put on the lavatory counter and on the floor next to the tub.

The warm water soothing her muscles and the sweet smell from the candles made her drowsy. However, she knew that her sleepiness wasn't just because of the warm water and the scented candles.

She didn't get a lot of sleep in Noah's house. He didn't let her sleep until her body succumbed to sleep, only to be woken up by the nightmare.

She wondered why Noah didn't ask her about her nightmare this morning.

She was dozing off the bathtub when she heard some knock. She opened her eyes and checked the digital clock on the left wall of the bathroom. She had a digital clock mounted there because she sometimes forgot the time whenever she was soaking. Especially when she brings wine in the tub.

She stood up from the tub, and went to the shower stall, and let her body wash over with cold water. Ellise thought her habit of taking a cold shower after soaking in a warm bath is ludicrous.

She likes taking a shower after soaking in the tub because she felt she needed to wash her skin. Especially when she used a bath bomb.

She pulled the towel from the towel rack, patted her skin, and when she removed most of the moisture, she wrapped the used towel around her hair.

With her skin still not totally dry, she applied lotion all over her body. She flinched when she lifted her leg to the toilet bowl to apply lotion on her legs.

'Should I ask Noah to be gentle next time?'

She chuckled wryly. Even if she asked Noah to be gentle, she was quite sure that she wouldn't like it.

"We just have to suffer through the pain," she muttered to herself as she finished applying the lotion to her body.

The pain wasn't really that bad. It was mostly in the middle of her leg. There is nothing to do about it, Noah is — big.

After applying lotion, she removed the towel from her hair to dry them.

She got out of the bathroom naked and headed to her closet. She chose to wear soft baggy long sleeves and denim shorts.

She checked her legs and found no bite marks. She could wear jeans but she's being paranoid that her father would know what she did.

It's not like she did something bad, however, if you grew up in a Catholic family where sex is being thought of as a sin and shouldn't be done outside marriage.

But her paranoia was more on it would be too awkward to have a safe sex talk with her father. She cringed with the thought of her father telling her how to practice safe sex. She shuddered with the scenario that came to mind.

She didn't tie her hair for she saw a hickey at the back of her neck.

"Damn, Noah this is the second time that you left a hickey on my neck," she mumbled under her breath as she headed out of her room to sit down and talk to her father about the reasons for his announced visit.

She slowly walked along the hallway thinking of a possible reason she could tell her father if he asked where she spent the night.

"Sit down."

Her eyes were drawn to the dining table with enough food to feed more than two people.

Jess exhaled a deep breath. She knew she has no way to run. Food is a trap!