“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?”