by Linda Kage
“Wrong answer. I’m driving. Besides, we came here together. How do you expect me to get home?”
Instead of pulling away to walk on her own as she would have if she were completely coherent, she leaned a little more heavily against me. “I could drive you back to campus to get your car.”
There she went again, thinking I had my own set of wheels. I sighed. “You can’t even see three feet in front of you. I’m driving.” When she frowned at me, I merely sent her a saccharine smile. “Deal with it, sweetheart.”
She sighed, giving in, and rested her head on my shoulder as I led her the rest of the way to her car. It felt nice, but I still had to glance around to make sure no one saw us. I doubted anyone would fire her just because she was hurt, and drugged, and had no idea what she was doing. But I knew I shouldn’t risk it, except she felt too nice in my arms for me to let go.
***
“There you go.” I handed Aspen a glass of water.
“Thank you.” She accepted it and popped a pill into her mouth before swallowing the contents.
I sat on the edge of her bed beside her, my hip dangerously close to hers, even though she was covered by a few layers of blankets. I could still feel her warmth soaking through them.
While she set her cup on her nightstand, I fluffed her pillow before she could lie down. “Need anything else?”
She twisted her torso to watch me with a half-smile. “Noel Gamble, nursemaid,” she teased.
I grinned back. “What? Didn’t you know I doubled as one in my other secret life?”
“Just how many other secret lives do you have?” She lay down, but not on the pillow I’d just readied. She curled into me, wrapping her warm arms around my waist before placing her cheek on my thigh. Then she closed her eyes and sighed in contentment.
“Damn it, Aspen,” I groaned, unable to stop my own arms as they folded around her in return. Lifting her lightly, I scooted down so I could lie next to her and provide my shoulder as her pillow.
Pressing my lips to her hair, I sighed. “Why do you always turn so sweet and cuddly when you’re half out of your mind?” When I couldn’t in good conscience do anything about it?
“I’m always cuddly,” she answered, her voice thick and slow. “You only notice it when I’m half out of my mind.”
I chuckled and pulled her blankets up to her chin. Eyes still closed, she sighed again and a smile spread across her face.
No way could I leave her like this. Besides, she was hurt. Someone had to watch over her. But I kept my shoes on, letting my feet hang off the edge of the mattress, thinking that somehow made this not so taboo.
Burying my nose back into her hair, I closed my eyes.
“Want to hear a secret?” I whispered, hoping she was fully out so I could confess everything to her subconscious instead of her.
“Hmm. Wha’s that?”
I grinned fondly at the way she slurred. It reminded me too much of Saturday when we’d kissed and she’d been drunk. And it helped me to spill out my confession more freely. “I had a crazy-ass crush on you the first day of school.”
She lifted her face and looked up at me, her lashes flickering open to reveal glazed, drug-fogged eyes. “No way.”
I nodded. “Way. I was looking down, doodling in a notebook or something. Then I heard your voice, introducing yourself, and I had to look up. You sounded so...I don’t know. Compelling. Even wearing one of those gawd-awful suit things you wear to class, I wanted you.”
Her lips curled with pleasure. “Really?”
I nodded. “Absolutely. Some guys may be leg-men, or ass-men, or breast-men. But I am most certainly a confirmed mouth-man. And your mouth...” I reached out to barely press the pad of my index finger to her lips. “Christ, Aspen. I think I had about fifty split-second visions of everything I wanted to do to your mouth.” Shaking my head, I grinned as she continued to watch me from lazy, tired, but transfixed eyes.
“I wanted to impress you with my first paper you assigned us. I wanted you to remember me and think of me as one of your favorite students. But you hated my paper. I don’t think I’d put so much effort into a stupid literature assignment before, and I got a freaking C. It blew my mind. Then, when I was answering a question you asked in class one day and you found out I was on the football team, you looked at me as if I was complete slime. That kind of hurt, you know.”
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, letting her cheek drop glumly onto the pillow. “It wasn’t really you I didn’t like.” She lifted a hand to reach for me, but her fingers fell listlessly as if they weighed too much for her to handle. So I caught her wrist and lifted her hand for her, bringing her knuckles to my mouth so I could kiss them.
“I know that. Now. But with every C and D you gave me, I began to dislike you more and more until I hated you with this burning passion. It pissed me off so bad that I could be that attracted to you, and all you saw in me was a big, dumb jock.”
“You’re not dumb, Noel. The furthest thing from it.”
I shook my head and smiled derisively, keeping to my own subject. “Didn’t matter what I felt for you, though, it was always intense. Intense attraction, intense loathing, intense everything. I have been intensely aware of you since the first day you came into my life. Every time you assigned us anything, it was like a personal challenge for me to impress you, but my grade just kept dropping. I felt so stupid. I just...”
I gathered a piece of her hair and smoothed it out of her face. “I wanted you to look at me and see the success I wanted to be. Not the failure I knew I was.”
“But I do see a success.” Since I was still holding her hand up by my mouth, it was easy for her to open her fingers and cup my cheek. “You’ve accomplished so much.”
“No. I only wish I have.” I leaned forward to press my forehead to hers, adding a few more goals I knew I’d never reach onto my wish list, and all of them relating to her.
Her touch slid up my jaw until soft fingers curled around the back of my neck and urged me down, bending until I was face to face with her. When she tried to reel me in for a kiss, I resisted.
“Aspen,” I whispered in warning, gritting my teeth. “You’re not in your right frame of mind again. I can’t take advantage of you like this two times in a row.”
“I won’t tell if you don’t,” she whispered back and pulled on me a little harder.
Resisting her mouth wasn’t something I could do so I kissed her, lightly. But damn. Her mouth. My lips couldn’t get enough. They turned hungry and moved a little more insistently until I had her opening up under my urging. My tongue was right there alongside hers, curling up with hers and snuggling inside.
I groaned, deep and low, trying to soften the kiss so I could safely pull away. But her hands swept over me, and I only kissed her harder.
My fingers ached to explore. My heart pounded, and my body yearned to covers hers. Before I knew it, I was rolling her onto her back and crawling over her.
“You’re so beautiful.” I traced the delicate curve of her jaw before sweeping down her throat. She lifted her chin, allowing me access, so I leaned in to kiss her pulse.
With a sweet moan of acceptance, she buried her fingers into my hair. My mouth found her collarbone and my tongue delved into the little indention between the two. I tugged gently at the sleeve of her blouse with my teeth to expose more skin on her chest. And as my lips foraged a path south, my hand smoothed up her arm to her shoulder, only to encounter the gauze patch, covering her stitches at the very top of her bicep.
It was the slap back to reality I needed. “Shit,” I breathed against her throat and closed my eyes as I eased my mouth off her.
“What’s wrong?” Her palm cupped my cheek.
I remained hovered over her a second longer before I cracked my lashes open and met her concerned, yet cloudy, gaze. “Nothing.” I smiled. “Rest now, okay?”
When I went to crawl off her, she grabbed a handful of my shirt and clung on. “Stay.”
&nbs
p; Nodding, I tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll watch over you.”
Her hand relaxed and her body settled. “Thank you,” she murmured one last time before she was completely out of it.
The smartest thing would’ve been for me to leave. But there was nowhere else I wanted to be. And I’d promised to stay. So I settled down beside her, ignored the pissed-off straining erection in my jeans, and I slept next to Aspen Kavanagh for the second time. And it was just as amazing as the first night I’d held her until dawn.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.” - Mae West
~ASPEN~
“Science is about hypotheses, theories and laws made from facts that have been proven over time. Mathematics is made up of absolutes, where there is only one correct answer to each equation. But with music, art, literature, the possibilities are endless. There is no specific law or equation that makes a piece of literature so-called good. There are literally millions. And here’s the real kicker. It’s all completely subjective. One song may please the ear of one person, while it completely irritates the ear of another. So, does that make it good or bad or merely average? What do you think? What makes truly good literature good? What makes it stand the test of time until here we are, years, decades and centuries later, discussing it in a classroom?”
From the back, a male voice guessed, “It’s got to be boring enough?”
Folding my hands together at my waist, I waited patiently for the laughter to die down. Then I nodded to the student, allowing him his answer. “It may be boring to you, Mr. Tenning. But obviously it wasn’t boring to someone, or it wouldn’t have been published, and republished, and then republished again so many times, so...try again.”
He didn’t have another witty answer ready, so he shrugged and slumped lower in his chair. I shrugged too, which pulled at the stiches in my arm. With a wince, I reached up to cup it briefly, my gaze straying not far from Mr. Tenning to where Noel sat.
It’d been a week since I’d fallen asleep in his arms, drugged just enough to say things I knew I shouldn’t have but sober enough to remember everything I’d said. I knew he had stayed until morning too because I’d gotten a drink at three due to a dry throat and he’d still been there, next to me, keeping me warm, protecting me. But he’d been gone when my alarm clock had woken me at five thirty.
And now, here we both were, eight days later, on either side of the room, a line of propriety separating us from being together.
He sat sprawled in his chair with his long legs kicked out in front of him and crossed at the ankles while he tapped his pen again the notepad on his desk. His eyes were on me, though. And they narrowed as they darted to my hand cupping my injury.
I dropped my fingers and turned my attention to a girl in the front lifting her arm. “Yes?”
“It reaches our emotions,” Sydney Chin answered.
With an approving nod, I gave her a brilliant smile. “Very good, Miss Chin.” Turning back to the others, I began to walk toward the other side of the room. “People turn to the arts to find the height of an emotion. We go to a scary movie to be frightened, or a comedy to laugh. Books are the same, except without all the special effects on a screen. Instead, you have to use your imagination.”
I tapped the side of my head. “And the best part of using our imagination is that each and every person in this room can read the same line on a page, and you will all picture something totally different in your heads. You’ll all feel something different about it, because you’ve all come from different parts of the world, been raised by different standards, influenced by different people, taught from different backgrounds. No two people are the same, so no two opinions can always be the same, which is exactly why I grade on essay papers only. I fully believe there is no wrong answer to your opinion about a story...as long as you have sufficient reason to back that opinion up.” I glanced up at the clock on the wall. “Which reminds me, I’m halfway through reading all the papers you handed in last week, so I should have them back to you by next Tuesday at the latest.”
Spreading my arms wide, I gave the room a large grin. “And with that, I’ll see you guys on Thursday.”
A collective sigh spread over the class. By the way they scrambled to collect their things and leave, a girl might think they were thrilled to escape her room. Humph. I shook my head. Tough crowd. Oh, well. Sidney Chin had seemed interested in what I’d had to say. One fan was better than none. My shoulders slumped, making the ache in my wounded arm throb even more.
I massaged the tender spot as the group of jocks from the back made their way out of the seating area. I couldn’t help but glance toward Noel. Mr. Tenning was talking animatedly to him, but he must’ve sensed my gaze because he looked over. Everything inside me sparked to life. It was as if this one man held the switch to my happy endorphins.
“Mr. Gamble,” I said, nodding to him with a stony stare, “may I have a moment, please?”
He paused and kicked at his friend when Mr. Tenning murmured something in his ear. But he stayed behind, not moving until everyone in his group had made it to the door. Then, and only then, did concern fill his eyes as he approached me.
“Are you okay? You were rubbing your arm. Does it hurt?” When he went to reach for it, I pulled back and glanced behind him to where a few stragglers were still lingering.
Noel ground his teeth together as he took them in, and turned back to me, lowering his voice. “I can’t believe it’s still bothering you after a week. You need to go easier on yourself so you can heal. You’re remembering to take your painkillers, right?”
I frowned. I hadn’t called him after class to get my own lecture. I’d actually had something important to say. “I can’t. They make everything...muzzy. And I need a clear head to teach.”
He stepped closer, coming right up to the edge of my personal space. It was...nice, but this was so not the time or place. “You need not to feel any pain. I don’t like knowing you’re still hurting because of something I did.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” I cringed and drifted my gaze over the students who were now milling toward the doorway, not paying us any attention. More quietly, I hissed. “My arm is fine. The stitches are healing and everything will be okay. This is not why I needed to talk to you.”
Eyebrows lifting with interest, Noel cocked his stance with smug arrogance. “It’s not? Well, then...what’s up, Professor?” Folding his arms over his chest, he waited for me to continue.
I sighed and held out his essay I’d read last night. “I can’t accept this paper.”
His gaze lowered before lifting again. “Why not? Didn’t I get the meaning of the assignment this time?”
“You know why not,” I hissed. “You’re treading on dangerous ground here. You risk too much.”
His lips twitched as if this all amused him, as if there was nothing to worry about at all. “But you asked for an essay about how certain events change a person’s goals. And you just said, two minutes ago, there were no wrong answers. Didn’t I give you sufficient enough reason why I have the opinion and feelings I do?”
I did not like my own words used against me, but I did like how he’d been listening and soaking them in.
Grr. So not the point.
“You can’t just write something like that. What if someone else had gotten their hands on this and read it?”
He shrugged. “So what? I didn’t name you specifically.” But he had written about how someone who was forbidden to him had just come into his life and changed some of the major things he wanted. I had altered his hopes and dreams. It was frankly flattering to know I made him question what he really wanted out of his life and how the only thing holding him back from pursuing his newest dream was my security.
But he’d come right out and announced he wanted to date one of his teachers, writing the line: I stay away only because the consequences of fraternizing with a student are too g
reat for her.
“You actually wrote the word fraternize,” I accused.
He gave a wide, proud grin. “I know. I even shocked myself on that one. Good word, huh?”
“Noel.” I shook my head. He was impossible. Impossible! “I can’t accept this essay.”
“Okay, fine.” With a roll of his eyes, he blew out a harassed breath and slipped a stapled stack of papers from his messenger bag to set it on my desk. “How about this one, then?”
I glanced down, blinking at what looked like another essay. “Wha...?” I looked up at him, completely confused.
He winked. “I had a feeling you’d be demanding a different version. So, there it is, without a single word of what you do to me on any line.”
“You...you wrote two versions of your essay?” When he nodded, I shook my head, baffled. “Why?”
His blue eyes filled with an intense emotion that made my throat go dry. “Because I wanted you to know. I wanted you to understand.”
My heart wrenched in my chest as he turned away and walked from my classroom.
***
Okay, fine. I admit it. Noel Gamble’s freaking mock essay had gotten to me. So had that honest, seeking look in his eyes when he’d said I wanted you to understand.
He’d just placed the ball firmly in my court. And it was just too tempting not to leap toward it. So, there I was, doing something unspeakably crazy.
Forbidden was an apt name for this club, I decided. I knew I shouldn’t be in it, but a thrill of naughty anticipation danced over my scalp as I opened the front door and stepped inside. I couldn’t believe I was giving into this so easily, coming here in the hopes of maybe only catching a glimpse of him.
He probably didn’t even work tonight. God, I hoped not. I didn’t need anything else making me fall under his spell. I didn’t care how much I really did want to see him, even if it was just stolen little longing glances from across a room without him knowing I was there. I needed to nip this fascination in the bud.