“I gave you five days.” I step closer, rain dripping from my lashes. “Five days of agonizing silence while you convince yourself you’re too inexperienced for me. I’m done waiting for you to finish that spiral, Cade.” His eyes hold mine, and I take the opportunity to drop my voice an octave and add, “but I’m glad you’re not alone. I’m glad you leaned on family.”
His throat works. Those warm eyes, the ones I’ve dreamed about for years, flicker with pain and longing. “You deserve someone who knows how to talk about hard things and… how to take care of you.”
The words sting, but they don’t surprise me. This fear in his eyes now is the same I saw in them after Eli’s keynote. I reach into my pocket and pull out the folded pages, now slightly damp at the edges.
“No,” I say firmly. “What I deserve is you, Cade. And you’re going to listen to me, now, okay? Listen when I show you that I’ve known I have wanted you for so long, and if you think a little inexperience is going to stop me now, you’re crazy.”
I unfold the review under the porch light, the paper trembling slightly in the wind-whipped rain. Cade’s eyes widen as I begin reading, but eventually, I have to focus onthe words on the paper. Between my racing heart, knowing his dad is privy to this moment despite not standing there awkwardly, the rain licking my knuckles and threatening to sting my eyes—I have to stay focused and read.
“This is the letter of recommendation I wrote to Dr. Pratt on your behalf, after your first year at the university, before we’d even become friends,” I tell him, voice steady despite the storm. “Before anything happened between us. When I was still just the dude you shared an office with.”
I begin to read aloud, the words I once poured out in private now spoken into the rain-soaked night like proof, a promise, a vow.
“‘Professor Cade Mercer’s new analysis of formerly over-read and reassigned works serves as a glowing contribution to the field of literary analysis. With both scholarly and professional criticisms, Professor Mercer dissects the texts with empathy and intellectual courage. I find myself profoundly moved by Professor Mercer’s ability to see what others overlook and in a discipline often mired in cynicism, Professor Mercer reminds us why literary critique matters: because it teaches us how to finally see one another clearly.’”
I lower the pages, meeting his gaze. Rain soaks me to the bone, but I don’t care. “I wrote that when I was still pretending my feelings for you were purely professional. Every word was about your work, yes. But it was also aboutyou. The man who spent years convinced he was one way because the world never sparked for him the way it does for others. The man who, when he finally let himselffeel, did so with such depth it humbled me.” I shake my head. “Loving you humbles me in the best ways.”
Cade steps out onto the porch, the door clicking shut behind him. Rain immediately begins soaking his hair, darkening his blond to brunette. He is handsome, even in pouring rain, wearing heartache on his face.
“You are not a rebound,” I continue, voice rising over a rumble of thunder. “Eli was never the one I waited for. You were. Years of watching you close yourself off, respecting your boundaries while my heart split open, wider and wider, every single day. You think your inexperience makes you lesser to me? Seriously?” I laugh. “It makes yousacredto me, Cade. Every hesitant touch, every time you discover what makes me moan or makes yourself moan, every moment you trust me with your body and your fears—it’s the most erotic, meaningful connection I’ve ever experienced. In my life.”
I close the distance between us, cupping his wet face with both hands. His skin is warm despite the rain, stubble rough against my palms. I love the way wild droplets of water coat his lenses. Those glasses that make my heart race.
“You’re not too difficult. You’re not broken. You’re the connection I’ve been waiting for my entire life. I want to stay home and grade papers on the couch just to hear you laugh at terrible student metaphors. I want to make meals with you and eat with you, rub your feet and kick your ass on the trail. I want it all because I do choose you, the you that you are today, and the one you become tomorrow.”
Cade’s breath shudders out. His hands come up to grip my wrists, not pulling away but instead, holding on.Keeping me. Thank fuck. “Noah?—”
“You are enough.” I press my forehead to his, rain everywhere in the best ways. “More than enough. I don’t want easy. I want the man who overthinks because he cares so deeply. The man who quotes poetry in bed without realizing how romantic it is. The man who makes me feel like being on campus every day is a gift, or a lottery I’ve won. Because you're there.”
Lightning flashes, illuminating his face. I kiss him then—deep, desperate, tasting rain and relief on his lips. Cade melts into it after half a moment, hands sliding through my soaked hair, pulling me closer. The kiss turns hungry fast, five fucking days of separation and fear spilling between us. I back him against the porch railing, bodies pressing tight, rain soaking us both to the bone.
Ford cracks the door open briefly, clears his throat with a knowing smile, and says, “I’ll lock up and head out the back. Don’t drown out here, you two.” Then he’s gone, giving us privacy we need, privacy I’m starved for.
Cade laughs softly against my mouth and it’s the first time in five days I’ve felt like everything was going to be okay. “He’s been here all evening. Trying to talk me out of my own head.” He smiles. “Kat called him.”
“I’d love to have dinner with him, to get to know the man who raised you,” I murmur, nipping at his bottom lip.
We stumble inside eventually, shedding wet clothes in the hallway in a trail of soaked garments that wouldnormally have Cade itchy. But tonight, we only care about each other.
The house smells like him—books and citrus and that faint trace of the wine that he and his dad shared in the living room. I don’t give him time to overthink. I crowd him against the bedroom door, dropping to my knees on the hardwood.
“I’ve been dying for this, been dying for you,” I confess, looking up at him as I peel his soaked sweatpants down. His cock springs free, already hard and flushed. “Five days without you. Never again.”
I take him deep into my mouth in one smooth motion, groaning at the familiar salty taste of his eager cock on my tongue. Cade’s head thuds back against the door, a wrecked moan escaping as his fingers play in my wet hair.
“Noah—God?—”
I worship him with everything I have—long, slow pulls, swirling tongue, hollowed cheeks. One hand strokes what I can’t swallow while the other teases between his legs, pressing lightly behind his balls the way I know drives him wild. He fucks my mouth in shallow, desperate thrusts, the last five days melting away under the heat of my devotion to him and us, and everything I’ve shared with him tonight.
When he comes, it’s with my name on his lips, pulsing hot down my throat. I swallow every drop, then rise to kiss him, and I adore the way he moans when he tastes himself.
We make it to the bed this time, bodies still damp from the rain. “I’m sorry,” he starts, and I tug his glasses off tohave an unbidden look into his eyes. They’re wet, but not from the storm outside but from the storm inside this house, inside ofhim.
“I want you inside me tonight,” he breathes, the words hanging in the air between us, everything I’ve wanted for so long.
I drag the tip of my nose along his, and press my palm into the center of his chest. “Tonight is big. I’m glad you came back to me. But you don’t have to offer if you’re not ready, baby.”
He bites my bottom lip, sucking it into his mouth. “No, I swear, I want it. I’m ready.” The familiar pink I now know as Cade’s embarrassment flushes his cheeks. “I just came. Maybe if you fuck me now, I’ll last more than a few minutes.”
