She nodded and tried to wipe the evidence off her face. “Yeah. Better. With a little help from Aspen.”
When she glanced at me, I sent her a supportive smile. She started back toward the bed, so I took that as my cue to climb off it. But as we traded places, she gave me one last impulsive hug.
“Thank you,” she whispered into my ear.
I nodded, gave her a farewell smile, and turned toward Noel. He stared at me, his eyes swirling with emotion but his expression hard. Then he spun away and stalked from the room. I followed him, down the hall and to the front door. He didn’t slow down or hold out his hand for me, and that hurt. But I really couldn’t expect less, could I?
Once we were outside the apartment, the dim lights from the exterior halls showed how stiff and uncompromising his shoulders were.
He kept walking, so I kept following down the stairwell. Hurrying to keep up, I finally called, “You didn’t tell me Caroline had lost her baby in any of your messages.”
Jerking to a stop, he whirled around. We’d just reached the landing between floors, where the stairs turned. He grasped my arm and urged me toward the wall until cool brick met my spine.
Stepping in close enough for me to feel his heat and smell mint on his breath, he growled, “Well, you didn’t tell me you were leaving town. You didn’t tell me Marci Bennett had blackmailed you. And you sure as hell didn’t tell me you’d lost your fucking job...because of me. Christ, Aspen.” He cupped my face and pressed his forehead to mine. “You didn’t tell me shit.”
He was so mad he shook with it. I felt every tremor move through him so acutely I might as well have been shaking too.
“Damn it,” he muttered when I didn’t respond. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I closed my eyes. “Because I didn’t want you to do anything stupid.”
He snorted. “Too late.”
“Oh, God. Noel.” Shoving against him, I gasped. “I lied for you. I refused to tell them who you were, to protect you. Why would you...wait. What exactly did you do?”
Looming above me, he fisted his hand on his hips and scowled right back. “I told them it was me in that picture. What do you think I did?”
“No.” Denying it, I shook my head adamantly. Fear raced along my skin, prickling my scalp. But if Noel had gotten hurt from this, after everything I’d sacrificed to keep him safe, I...I didn’t know what I’d do. I’d probably lose all faith in the world. “Did they...did they kick you out?”
Shame entered his eyes. Bowing his head slightly, he glanced away and ran his hand over his hair. “No,” he admitted in a low voice.
Air hissed from my teeth. “Oh, thank God.”
“They wouldn’t let me leave,” he added on a frustrated sneer.
“Wouldn’t let you? What did you—please don’t tell me you tried. God, Noel. You need this scholarship.”
He stepped toward me. “You know what? I’m tired of everyone telling me what I need lately.” Setting his fists against the wall at either side of my head, he leaned in until our faces were inches apart. “What I need is you. No one gets me like you do. No one loves me like you do. You are everything. And when you went down because of me, a part of me died. I feel fucking broken because I couldn’t leave that damn place with you. I tried. I tried so hard to get them to bring you back. And when I threatened to leave, they threatened too. And now, if I go, they’ll make this whole thing public and drag your name through the mud. You’d never get to teach again, anywhere. So, here I am, stuck, unable to do a single fucking thing, while you take all the heat for—”
“Shh.” I touched his face and stroked his cheek, offering him a wet smile. “It’s okay.”
“No.” He gritted his teeth, snarling at me, and he mashed his forehead more firmly to mine. “It’s not fucking okay. What they did to you was not okay. They made what we had lurid, and dirty, and wrong. And it wasn’t. It just...wasn’t. I swear to God, you’re the only thing that’s ever been right in my life.”
I leaned up onto my toes and smashed my mouth to his. He kissed me back savagely, grabbing my hair hard, and bruising my lips with his. I think he was trying to punish me, but it felt too good to be any kind of punishment. I ground back just as fiercely, needing to feel him and taste him and—
He ripped his mouth from mine and wrenched himself away, squeezing his lips together as if they’d betrayed him. Glaring, he said, “Don’t ever do that again. If we were caught, we were supposed to go down together.”
I shook my head. “I don’t recall ever making that deal.”