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“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.”
“Damn it.” He came in close again, sinking his hands into my hair and cupping my head in his palms. “I could do nothing, Aspen. Do you even understand what that did to me? My hands are still tied, and I can’t do anything for you, while you can just blithely sacrifice your entire life for me? That’s not right. It’s not fair. Why didn’t you tell me what was going to happen? Some kind of warning—”
“I wanted to do this for you, Noel.” Laying my palm on his cheek, I let out a content sigh. It didn’t matter what kind of turmoil was going on around us, right here in his arms, I felt home.
“But why didn’t you tell me? And then after, why’d you leave without a word? Why didn’t you answer even one fucking text?”
“Contact with you after this might’ve alerted the university that it was your arm in the picture. I didn’t want that. Plus I thought we could use a little time apart, to clear our heads and look at everything from a fresh perspective.” When his eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth, I rushed to add, “And I was a coward. If I’d gotten in touch with you, I knew I would’ve been tempted to come back.”
“But you did come back.”
My smile was tremulous. “I guess your power of temptation was stronger than I thought. I just can’t stay away.”
A sob ripped from his throat. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled us flush together. This kiss was softer but just as greedy. “Is this it, then?” he asked, nipping at my jaw. “There’s nothing keeping us apart, so we can finally be together? Openly and permanently?”
I bit my lip, and he felt my hesitation. Lifting his head, he gazed at me. “Shit,” he whispered. “I really don’t like that look in your eyes.”
“I was offered a job,” I told him, “to teach at my university back home. Eight hundred miles away.”
The breath rushed from his lungs as he stared. Then he dropped his hands from my face and slowly backed away. “So, you’re leaving. And I can’t follow. Jesus Christ.” Gripping his head, he spun away from me. “How many times do you plan on breaking my heart?”
“No more, I hope.” Hugging my waist, I took a deep breath and took the biggest leap of my life. “Because I turned the job down.”
He whirled back, his gaze zipping to me. “You what?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“What? Are you crazy?” He came back, gripping my arms. “You can’t turn this down, Aspen. What if you can’t find a teaching job nearby?”
I shrugged. “Then I won’t teach. I’ll do something else.”
“But you love to teach.”
This time, I nodded. “Yes, I do.”
With a growl, he pressed even closer. “Do I have to throttle you, woman? You are not sacrificing anything else for me.”
I just smiled. “Well, I’m not leaving you either. I may love to teach, but I love you more. Noel Gamble, my home is wherever you are, so I’m staying here.”
He whimpered, and his hands on me began to tremble. “You should go.” His voice was strained, but he kept urging, “I know you want the job, I can tell. You should take it.”
“I do want it,” I admitted. “But I don’t care. Like I said, I want you more.”
Shaking his head, he just kept staring at me. “You say that now. But...in a few years, when you’re trapped here because of me, you’ll resent me and everything I kept you from. I need you to follow your dreams, Aspen.”
“I am following my dream, Noel. Trust me. All I’ve ever wanted is to be loved.”
