Her hand dropped from my hair only to land on my arm. Warm and soft, her fingers teased and seduced as they slowly trailed a scorching path down to my elbow.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I thought you were like him. But you’re not. You’re nothing like him.”
Say what? I glanced from her fingers on me and up into her eyes. “Like who?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she sniffed and wiped her palm over her cheek, the move making her look like a little kid instead of an accomplished college professor. “He made me hate football players. Especially quarterbacks. He made me...he made me cold and lonely. Hollow inside. But you would never do that. You would never hurt anyone the way he hurt...”
When her words trailed off, a burning hot pile of anger uncoiled in my stomach.
“What did he do?” I coaxed softly. She didn’t answer. It only enraged and worried me more. “Aspen? Is he the one who…who raped you?” Shit. No wonder she’d always given me such a hard time. I reminded her of that.
I hated knowing I did that to her.
She turned to me and smiled softly. “You’re not like him at all. You’re...I don’t know. You’re something amazing.”
I choked out a harsh laugh and pushed her door open with a savage shove. “Yeah, real amazing. I’m dirt broke, barely keeping my football scholarship afloat and about to let down the three people I care about most in the world if I can’t keep my shit together. And let’s not forget how I cheated my way to get here...or remind you of the boy who raped you. There is nothing amazing about that at all.”
“Come here.” Aspen gently took my hand and led me inside her dark house. I followed. I have no idea why I didn’t even hesitate, but I went wherever she led.
Once inside, I reached out, fumbling until I found a light switch. When a pale glow brightened the corner of a tidy living room cast in shades of bright blue, I glanced at her just as she glanced back at me.
Framing my face with her hands, she looked into my eyes and said, “You are amazing, Noel Gamble.” Then she let out a drunk grin. “Geesh, I would’ve thought the star football player of the university’s undefeated team would be a little more cocky and sure of himself.”
I shook my head. “You grow up the poor, dumb kid of the town whore and your peers beat arrogance right out of you at a young age. Literally.”
She leaned in and rested her forehead on my shoulder. “But you have every right to be proud of who you are. You’re a survivor.”
The tight ball in my chest made it hard to breathe, and the way her soft fingers felt on my neck as they moved down from my cheeks and over my shoulders was doing a number on my dick. “Why?” I demanded, my voice a little too rough. “Because I know how to throw a ball?”
She looked up again. “No. Because you’re not just a pretty face in an empty shell. You love. You fear. You feel things so...so strongly.”
When one hand landed just over my heart, I sucked in a sharp breath.
It took everything I had to keep my hands off her in return. “Everyone feels, Aspen. Some are just better at covering it up.”
“But you feel good things. Might be a little rough around the edges, but you have a good heart. A compassionate heart.” Then she kissed my chest, right through my clothes and over my heart. It would’ve been so easy to bury my fingers in her hair, to tip my face down and inhale her scent. But I didn’t, no matter how much it killed me to restrain myself.
“Aspen, we should—”
She lifted her face, startling me as she gave a pleased sigh. “I love how you say my name.”
“Aspen,” I murmured, saying it again because I just couldn’t help myself.
God, what was I doing?
She closed her eyes and sighed again. “You make me tingle every time I see you.”
Damn, if she wanted to talk about tingling... She licked her lips unconsciously, and my dick tingled from base to tip, turning as hard as stone.
“I think I’ve been perpetually wet since the first moment I saw you walk into my class.”
Jesus.
A groan slipped from my throat. I gripped her shoulder, telling myself to push her back, but instead, I held her right where she was.
“The first time you walked into my class, I felt this zing,
like a hot flash, cover me from head to toe. I remember stuttering when I introduced myself because I was so flabbergasted. You flabbergasted me. No one flabbergasts me. But then I learned you were Ellamore’s precious quarterback and it all became clear. He was the football star too, and I had such a huge crush on him. I think that’s my curse. But he only paid attention to me to make me think he was interested, so he could humiliate me...and then he hurt me. I thought you’d be exactly like that. I mean, I had the same first impression of you as I did him. Except with you, it was like...fifty times stronger. I just...I love looking at you. I love the sound of your voice. The way you walk. The way you smile and brush your hair out of your eyes. But I will never get over the way you love your family and how you’ll do anything to save them. I just...I wish someday, someone would love me like that.”