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Then, there was also the stores' fault in accepting this by maintaining that the customer was always right.
A loud bang erupted in the air as the woman slapped her hand on the counter.
Noelle winced, feeling bad for the lady dealing with all this.
Not wanting to be obvious about her interest, she slowly walked around the store. As she turned to the next aisle of clothes, her attention was still on the register so she didn't realize when she bumped into someone until she was sent flying to the floor.
A pained whimper escaped her when she hit the ground, barely thrusting her arms back in time to cushion her fall.
"Shit, I'm so sorry," a deep voice uttered in a low tone.
Still wincing, it took Noelle a moment to get her bearings together.
The first thing she noticed about the person she'd bumped into were his arms. Big arms that stretched towards her in an attempt to help her off the ground.
Her eyes widened as she slowly perused the tanned skin, the light blonde hairs and protruding veins. Yet there was something else that held her attention more than anything.
On the inside of his arm, there was a semi-smudged drawing of a cat, blue ink smeared around the edges from wear. But it wasn't justanycat. It was a cat with five legs—or, at least, seemingly so because of the artist's lack of talent. Even if the cat could have been a coincidence, though Noelle didn't think she would ever mistake it for anything else—not when she'd imprinted the image in her memory—the words accompanying it could not.
A little smudged, but they were still right there for her to read.
Blued to the television.
It was the sketch Blue had drawn as a joke, promising to wear it for an entire week.
And it seemed he'd done so.
A shiver of awareness traveled down Noelle's back as she swallowed hard, unable to believe this would happen. That the man before her was actually Blue…herBlue.
Slowly, she raised her gaze to meet his, coming face to face with the bluest eyes she'd ever seen—and the most beautiful.
If before Noelle had been in love with the person Blue had been behind his computer, now she was totally, utterly, unfailingly in love with Blue before her.
Strong cheekbones and sharp jaw, his features were both soft and harsh at the same time, giving him a combination of masculine and boyish looks that was devastatingly beautiful.
She'd never imagined he would look like this, and the breath went out of her lungs the more she stared—the more she found herself both speechless and unwilling to talk. For if she opened her mouth, then the spell would be broken, and their first meeting would be forever marred by the fact that he was clearly much older than her while she was…too young. Certainly too young for him.
If he knew her real age, she had no doubt he would stop talking to her, and she could never risk that.
Realizing she was staring, she allowed him to help her up, purposefully covering his hands with her own to feel his skin on top of hers. They were big and strong and warm. So, so warm they made her entire body heat up.
It was the oddest feeling she'd ever felt.
She recognized it as desire, but it was so much more.
It was the fact that she was absorbing the heat of the man she loved—of the man who'd been her best friend for so long and who'd given her back her confidence in herself.
God, how is this real?
She trembled lightly, unable to believe something like this would happen, that she would be so lucky to meet the object of all her teenage dreams. Yet it was more than that.
Where she'd fallen in love before with him for his kindness and his intellect, now she fell for him all over, his physicality impacting hers in such a way that she became lightheaded and intoxicated in his presence.
He was more than a foot taller than her. So much so, she only reached the middle of his chest as she stepped closer. She'd always been small, but in his presence she didn't feelthatsmall, despite the obvious size disparity. There was just something about him that made her feel safe. Where someone else of the same size might have come across as threatening, Blue was the opposite. Noelle felt wrapped in a cocoon, ready to be swallowed up whole and protected by the strength radiating from him.
There were maybe only a few inches separating them. But it was enough for Noelle to inhale his scent, his aftershave filling her nostrils as well as something else. Something she knew it was him and only him—a scent that would stay with her for a long time to come and which she'd seek to recreate at every turn.
"I'm so sorry," he uttered again in that same low voice, his features apologetic, especially as his eyes flittered between her and the woman at the counter, a small grimace pulling at his lips as the screaming continued.
