She’s going to be sore as hell for a few days, but I can’t say I’m terribly sorry. After all, I don’t know when I’ll have her to myself all night like this again.
It’s going to be tricky as fuck, dating a student, but I’m up for the challenge. Noelle is worth a little trouble. Hell, she’s worth a lot of it.
As if she can sense me thinking about her and she doesn’t want to miss it, Noelle stirs awake. Her eyes only crack open, then she sees how bright it is and squeezes them shut again.
“Ew, mornings are gross.”
I chuckle, absently trailing a finger along her jawline. “Not a morning person, huh?”
“Decidedly not. Only psychopaths like mornings, and probably only the hours of morning where it’s still dark so they can move around dead bodies when all the sane people are sleeping.”
“That’s a vehement opinion you have there.”
“I stand by it,” she states, bringing her hands up to rub her eyes. Finally, she opens them and finds me staring at her like a lovesick idiot.
"What are you looking at?" Her question is sleepy and self-conscious, maybe a little guarded.
My reply is solemn and simple. "You."
She wrinkles up her adorable little nose, trying to roll away from me and hide her head under a pillow. “Don’t look at me. I’m an ugly mess, I need a shower.”
Curling an arm around her waist and yanking her back against me, I lean down and press a kiss to the side of her face. “Don’t talk about my woman that way.”
That startles her enough that she gives up her hiding pillow and looks over her shoulder at me. “Excuse me?”
“You’re mine now,” I answer simply. “No returns. No exceptions.”
She can’t hide the pleasure dancing in her emerald eyes even as she tries to play it cool. “Now, wait a minute. I don’t remember agreeing to be your woman.”
“You did, last night.”
Noelle shakes her head, attempting a straight face as she presses her lips together in a firm line. “Listen, Mr. McLaren, you’re sexy and all, but would you really expect me to be satisfied with you? You, an excessively experienced man—practically an elder. And you know, they say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, so do you really think you would be enough for me?”
My heart stopped for a brief second, but as I recognize enough of my own asshole words flipped around and echoed back at me, I realize what she’s doing. Cutting her off with a brutal tickling, I make her squirm and arch and cry out against me again—but this time, with laughter.
“Okay, okay, I give up!” she cries. “I give up! Mercy! Have mercy!”
I stop tickling her and pull her back against me, curling my arms snugly around her waist. “I’m not a merciful man,” I inform her.
“Well, you better be glad I don’t share that sentiment,” she tosses back.
“You have all the lovely qualities I don’t. You’ll balance me out perfectly, and I’ll keep you from wimping out on life. We’re a perfect match.”
“You were a fool to fight it,” she adds playfully.
I may not have been a fool to fight it, but I was certainly a fool to let the doubts I had creep in and threaten to ruin everything.
I could be found out, I could wind up in deep trouble and lose my job over being with Noelle, but it would never be because she turned spiteful. Noelle isn’t spiteful. She’s never proven herself to be anything but thoughtful and considerate of others.
As if I needed more proof that she’s not out to punish me for being a bastard, after the awful way I treated her, she still allowed herself to have fun with me last night. She still gave herself to me without hesitation, like I somehow deserved her when we both know I didn’t.
She’s intoxicating, like the purest form of an already potent drug, and I want more. I don’t care if she wrecks my system, I don’t care if she ruins me as much as I ruin her—I want her, she wants me, and nothing is getting in our way this time.
If by some chance being with her costs me everything else, to hell with it.
I’ve been with plenty of women over the years, but I’ve never enjoyed any of them the way I enjoy Noelle. There’s a brightness that radiates from her—from her mind, from her heart. It dances in her eyes; I taste it on her lips when I kiss her, feel it when I touch her.