“Aren’t you going to touch me back?” Her voice was husky; she was just as turned on as I was.
“You asking me to? Because I promised I wouldn’t.”
Her breath heated my lips. Fuck, she was right there. “Noel,” she whispered. I opened my eyes just as she added, “Touch me.”
Her mouth met mine, and I felt it zap through the entire length of my dick.
As I hardened in my jeans, her lips parted and a warm, moist tongue darted cautiously forward.
Gasping, I clutched her face and tipped her jaw until she was following my lead, clutching my arms and straining onto her toes to press against me. She tasted of cotton candy and cola. Thrusting my hips against her softness, I tried to alleviate some of the insistent throbbing. But she was so warm and pliable right now, nothing except release was going to bring me down from my high.
“God, you know how to kiss.” She was driving my mouth crazy with her shy, curious exploration.
She pulled away to pant against my throat. “I do?” Since she didn’t sound as if she believed me, I thought I’d just show her.
“What do you think?” I returned my mouth to hers and took things a little deeper. She seemed eager to go where I took her, her hands smoothed up over my chest, along my arms, into my hair...
“Jesus.” I broke off to catch my breath. My shallow gasps stirred her hair. She shivered and cuddled into me, so I wrapped my arms around her. We held each other as the music from the Ferris wheel poured over us and a cool breeze from the setting sun brushed past. The scent of popcorn and hot dogs made it almost surreal, but we were really here, really doing this, a college football player and his literature professor fraternizing.
I rested my mouth against her temple and soaked her in.
“I’m in this if you are, Aspen. I know we have a lot to lose. But I fully believe we have more to gain if we start something. So, it’s up to you completely. You have to make the final decision.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Angry people are not always wise.” - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
But...
“Even a fool learns something once it hits him.” - Homer, Iliad
~ASPEN~
I hadn’t seen, talked to, or heard from Noel in three days, not since he’d driven me home from the carnival, walked me to my door, and kissed me senseless on my front porch. I guess he’d been serious when he’d told me the next step was completely and totally up to me, which freaked the crap out of me.
The smartest thing to do was stay away. I knew that and my head was on board. But my body just didn’t understand, and I don’t think my heart had caught the memo either. I was restless all day Sunday and Monday. I kept checking my phone to see if I’d missed a call. I kept glancing out my living room window to see if anyone was walking up my front walk. At work, I perked to attention in my office every time I heard footsteps in the hall. But no Noel, or any student or professor for that matter, stopped at my door.
Today, though...today I’d see him. In class. I was so on edge relaxing was impossible.
All my classes took place in Morella Hall except one, a beginning literature course I taught remotely through telenet to a local community college. I had to cross the street and walk half a block to the campus library, which had the closest video broadcasting system to the English department on campus.
As soon as I was finished with that, I had ten minutes to return to Morella to lecture for Noel’s Modern American Lit class.
Keyed up to see him, I hurried from the library, nearly galloping in my heels. I knew I couldn’t tell him I wanted to start a relationship, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t having some serious withdrawals. I needed a Noel fix...soon.
So when I spotted him as I was nearing Morella where he leaned a shoulder against the building with his back to me and his cell phone pressed to his ear, everything inside me soared.
I started his way so he would see me pass...until I heard what he was saying.
“Shh, sweetheart. Just calm down and tell me what’s wrong?”
The concern in his voice and the feminine pet name he used made me pause. A thick layer of jealousy tasted like acid on my tongue. Who was Sweetheart, and why did he sound so invested in her?
That’s when he hissed, “Pregnant? You’re pregnant? How can you be... Jesus Christ. But you said—”
Pregnant.
My ears rang with a hollow pain I couldn’t even brace myself against. But he’d gotten some girl pregnant? I couldn’t...this was just...
No.
“Just save it, okay,” he growled savagely into the phone. “You can apologize until the cows come home, but that’s not going to change the fact there’s going to be a...Jesus, how are we going to afford a kid? Holy fuck.”
He jerked his hand over the back of his head, his fingers shaking. “Stop. Stop crying right now. You got yourself into this one. And now we’re both going to pay. Fuck. I can’t...I just can’t...” He let out a world-weary sigh and messaged his temples as he bowed his head. “I can’t talk about this right now. I have to get to class. No...no... Damn it, no! I’ll call you later.”
He hung up and shoved his phone into his pocket. Glancing to his right as if to make sure no one had overheard him, he didn’t bother looking left, or he’d have seen me not moving, staring right at him with my heart shattering to pieces in my eyes.
The pain of knowing he’d impregnated someone else splintered until a fresh anger rose. He’d been nothing but rude to that poor girl. She’d been crying and apologizing, and probably scared out of her mind, and he’d yelled at her, scolded her, made her feel like shit.
What a total douchebag.
My disappointment rose up my throat. I couldn’t believe I’d been falling for this man, thinking he was noble and good.
Curling my hands into fists, I wanted to hit him, and make him hurt the same way I hurt. Hell, the same way his sweetheart hurt.
But for now, I had to get to class too.
After marching the rest of the way to my room, I set my briefcase on my desk hard enough to make a student in the front row who was lying her head on her desk to jump and sit up. Crap, I needed to cool myself down before I did something stupid.
Easier said than done because Noel walked into the room a second later, igniting every pissed off nerve in my system. I glanced at him, and he met my gaze. He looked very solemn and grave, and I wondered if he was going to confess everything to me. But then his lips twitched as if he was trying to force them to smile for my benefit but couldn’t quite get the job done. All the while, his eyes remained hooded and troubled.
As he passed, he flipped a folded slip of paper my way. It landed perfectly in my closed briefcase. He didn’t even slow his pace as he kept going, finding a spot in the back of the room.
Thinking he was going to ask me to meet him somewhere so he could tell me what had just happened, I reached for the note with unsteady hands and unfolded it. But it was just another quote for my board. And a cheerful, happy quote at that.
“A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.” - Phyllis Diller
I frowned, the straight line of my lips showing that everything was indeed not straight.
How dare he? After what he’d just done to that other girl, after what he’d just found out...how fucking dare he try anything with me? Awful, no good, rotten, cheating bastard.
Opening my case, I slid out my pile of notes. Blood seethed through my veins as I shuffled through them without a clue as to what I was actually looking at. Then, calmly, I stood in front of the room, my hands curling around the notes as I watched seat after seat fill until it looked as if everyone was present.
Noel sat low in his chair, his eyes closed, and his face in his hands as he rested his elbows on the desk. It was more than obvious news of his fatherhood was bothering him. Well, I decided that clearly wasn’t enough for him to worry about.
Cramming my notes back into my case, I clicked it shut and rested my hands on
top.
“In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s work, The Scarlet Letter,” I started, with my chin high, “the protagonist, Hester Prynne, has to wear a red letter A on her clothes to show everyone she committed adultery and had a child out of wedlock. She became an outcast for the rest of her life. While her lover, who committed the very same act, got off scot-free because she refused to name him. But even though he lived out a life of good reputation, he ended up driving himself insane and dying from the guilt. Mr. Gamble.” I lifted my voice and shot him a hard stare. “Which do you think is worse?”
His jerked his head up from where he obviously hadn’t been paying attention to anything I’d just said. Eyes ravaged with torment, he croaked, “What?” Then he glanced around and turned back to me. “I’m sorry, what?”
“The Scarlet Letter,” I reminded him. “Nathaniel Hawthorne. The woman sleeps with her minister and gets pregnant. She’s publicly scorned for three hours, then thrown in jail, and then forced to wear the letter A to show her shame to everyone for the rest of her life. Or her lover. The local minister she refused to indict. He comes away with a clean reputation but can’t handle all the guilt. So...which character do you think had it worse? Would you rather everyone know what you did and hate you for it, but end up with a fairly clean conscious? Or would you prefer to hide it and let it fester, where you always worried about it coming to light, and were always ashamed to know someone else paid for the very crime you committed?”
His face lost all color as his mouth fell open. But he had nothing to say. He stared at me hard for a good twenty seconds, and torment filled his eyes, before he blinked rapidly and shook his head. “I...I thought we were starting on Tennessee Williams today.”
Around us, the class tittered, and my face filled with red, hot shame.
Dear God. What the hell was I doing? This had to be the most unprofessional, immature thing I’d ever attempted. If I was upset with Noel for something, trying to take it out on him in the classroom was the worst thing I could possibly do. Feeling sick to my stomach with my own shame, I glanced away and brought the back of my hand to my mouth as I tried to pull my dignity back in around me.
It didn’t work. Drawing in a deep breath, I lifted my face, trying not to bawl. “Very good, Mr. Gamble,” I said, my voice raspy with emotion. I nodded once. “I guess you were paying attention after all.”
Though everyone else let out an amused chuckle, Noel just kept staring at me as if I’d betrayed him.
Still too rattled to continue class, I fluttered out my hand. “I still expect you all to have The Glass Menagerie finished by the end of next week. So today, I’m giving you the rest of the hour to find a nice quiet corner to read. We’ll continue our classroom discussions on Thursday.”
For a beat, no one moved as if they thought I was teasing them. I wasn’t one of those teachers who let class out early, but today, there was no way I could stand up here the entire hour.
Not bothering to wait on them, I yanked up my briefcase and streaked toward the exit. Behind me, I heard them finally begin to gather their things, but I didn’t wait around as I usually did. Like Hawthorne’s minister, I had my own guilt to nurture.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise
~NOEL~
What the hell had just happened?
I was already in a fuck-tacular mood. The call I’d just received had flipped my world upside down.
I’d woken up this morning, planning on being the perfect student in Aspen’s class and being playful and cute and shit so she’d stop resisting me. I’d even found the perfect quote to make her smile. But then all hell had broken loose, and it had taken everything I’d had to even look at her in all her stunning glory while my guts felt like they were being jerked up toward my tonsils.
She’d called my name while I was in the middle of deliberating whether I should go home and try to help clean up some of the mess my sister had made. But Jesus, how were we going to raise another kid in that place? Caroline would be eighteen soon. Maybe I could bring her out to Ellamore with me. Except the idea of leaving Colton and Brandt alone made me cringe.
Then Aspen happened. I have no clue what had changed between Saturday night and this morning, but this was not the woman I’d kissed goodbye on her front porch. That woman was warm and receptive and could send me to my knees with her smile alone. But this woman...fuck, I don’t know. But I was going to find out what her fucking deal was.
As she raced from the room as soon as she dismissed us, I grabbed my things and followed in hot pursuit.
“Hey!” I called. But there were still too many people around. I wasn’t sure if she ignored me for propriety’s sake or because she was just that pissed. Clenching my jaw, I followed. She hit a stairwell that led up to the top floor where the offices were kept. We left the students behind and as soon as we reached the landing, I grabbed her arm.
She whirled around, glaring at me. So I glared back and yanked open the first door I saw. It ended up being a supply closet. Perfect. I shoved her inside.
“What do you think you’re doing? Stop manhandling me.”
After making sure we were good and locked inside, I came around slowly. “We are going to talk about this.”
“I said get your hands off me!” Panting, she twisted her elbow out my grip.
I clenched my teeth. “Christ, what is going on with you? Why are you suddenly so pissed off? Saturday night—”
“No! How dare you mention Saturday to me? Damn you.” She shoved against my chest. “Even the idea of you coming into my class with your flirty little note just minutes after hearing you’re going to be a father disgusts me.”
“A father?” I took a step back and ran into the door. “Say what?”
“Yes! A father.” Her green eyes shot hateful daggers just before they filled with pain. “I heard you talking to that poor girl on the phone, yelling at her. Jesus, Noel. How could you treat her that way? You’re just as responsible for this as she is, yet you didn’t seem to have an iota of remorse or—”
“Okay, stop right there.” I lifted my hands, glaring at her. “Maybe you should know all your facts before attacking me.” I snorted out a bitter laugh. “Jesus. Your faith in me is incredible. I can’t fucking believe you automatically thought that was my kid.”
“Well, you sounded pretty fucking sure you’d have to take care of it, going on about how much harder this was going to make your life. Why wouldn’t I think it was yours?”
“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not into incest. That was my seventeen-year-old sister, Caroline, and yes, I was furious to learn she was knocked up. I’m also fairly certain the baby’s daddy isn’t going to be there for her, so I will have to help her take care of it and this will make our lives that much harder to handle.”
“Oh.” She blew out a harsh breath. Apology hung heavy in her gaze, but she didn’t beg for any kind of forgiveness. “I...”
When she couldn’t even say sorry, I snorted.
“This is just great.” Spiking my hands through my hair, I whirled away but couldn’t even step a foot from her; the closet was too small for me to escape. I felt sick to my stomach. “I can’t believe I’m falling so hard for you that I’m willing to risk school, my family, my entire future—everything—and you still think I’m capable of juggling you and a new kid. Fuck, I was even willing to try a monogamous, committed relationship with no qualms whatsoever, which I’ve never even considered before.”
Rage consuming me, I spun back to her and pointed a finger into her chest. “I may have had drunk sex with complete strangers more times than I can count, but I have never, not even once, forgotten protection. I’m a safe fuck, got it? And if I did manage to impregnate some girl, I sure as hell wouldn’t turn around ten minutes later to send secret love notes to my goddamn English teacher! Is that perfectly clear?”
Her green eye
s were so wide I could see every remorseful thought inside her. “Yes,” she whispered. Then her face crumpled. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Why do I keep misjudging you?”
“The hell if I know.” I clenched my teeth and glared. “I fully realize this thing between us is doomed, okay. I know we can never...” I closed my eyes and bowed my head. “We might not stand a chance, but I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop craving that connection we share. It’s so fucking strong, I’ve been willing to... God, I would do anything for little stolen pieces of you, Aspen. But if you can so easily assume I’m... Christ, if you don’t feel the same way about me—”
“I do. I feel the same.”
“Then prove it, damn you. Show me I’m risking everything for a reason. Because, right now—”
Warm lips crashed into mine, cutting me off. Aspen clutched my face and rose up onto her toes, pressing herself against me and fitting us together like two halves of an inseparable whole.
“I do. I swear it,” she rasped against my mouth between kisses. “I feel the same. Exactly the same. Please. Please. I’m sorry. I feel it, too. I’m just scared and—”
“So am I.” I literally shook from fear, and some residual anger, as well as growing lust. The lust won out. Hauling her up into my arms, I slotted our mouths firmly together.
Every molecule in my body ignited. As heat consumed me, my brain shorted out and my body took over. Or maybe it didn't quite short out, but it definitely went into caveman mode.
Mine.
Must possess.
My words hadn’t gotten through to her, so I was compelled to just show Aspen how much she affected me. How different she was from every other woman. I had to somehow cement what we'd started so she'd know this wasn't merely fluff.
My mouth attacked hers, forcing her to open and let me in, to accept every piece of me. My fingers imprisoned her face, trapping her in my kiss. I turned into some kind of madman, unable to get enough. The fact that she was just as frantic for me only fed the beast.
Blood pumped through my veins like rushing lava. Hot and explosive. Unable to control my staccato breaths, I backed her into the small space of wall next to the closed door. But that wasn't enough for either of us. Not nearly enough. She climbed me, clinging to me with her legs as she wound them around my waist.