Out of the Blackness (29 page)

It boggles my mind how much I want to step forward and press myself against Noah's nakedness, how hard it is to not press my lips to that spot high on his back between his shoulder blades, to not wrap my arms around his narrow waist and explore his flat stomach and hard chest with my hands.

I take a deep breath and force myself to continue drying him, down his thighs.
Perving on a sick man. What the hell is wrong with you?
I curse myself, nearly yelping aloud as I accidentally pinch the throbbing erection in my jeans as I drop to my knees to do his calves. Speaking of erections…oh, please, no, Noah. Please don’t…oh. Oh!

Shallow breaths rush into and out of my lungs as I knee-walk around in front of him again and see I’m not the only one with blood flow problems. His eyes are closed but his head is still tilted down as if watching me through his eyelids. Up one leg, then the other I swipe the now sodden towel, thrilling internally at the power harnessed in his thick thighs. And then…then all that’s left is….

I look up at him again, hoping, praying, dreading that he’ll spare me this, that he’ll reach for the towel. His body tenses but his eyes remain resolutely closed, his face blank, almost as if asleep. The lump in my throat has grown to the size of Connecticut, but I force my trembling hands to press on. I look away, but push the towel between his thighs, sliding up…up…up.

The heat of his balls against the back of my hand startles me and I force my eyes back to the job. Obviously I can’t dry him there without seeing what I’m doing. I swipe the towel between the juncture of legs and torso and then gently cup it around his balls, rolling tenderly, tugging slightly. I wrap my toweled hand around his length, carefully moving back and forth, pretending with everything in me that I don’t feel him lengthen and thicken even more under my fingers.

My breath comes in hard, short puffs but I can’t…can’t bring myself to release him, because then I’ll have to look at him, stand beside him and help him to…to bed. A shiver races down my spine and it’s enough to break the spell. I release my hold on Noah's…very,
very
generous…thickness…and wrap the towel around his waist, anchoring it above his left hip. I clear my throat so the lump is only Rhode Island-sized and dare to look up. Noah's heated gaze meets mine and I swear I positively dissolve into a puddle at his feet. With so little blood actually flowing to my brain I have no idea how I flush as furiously as I do.

“C’mere,” he commands gruffly and there’s no one in the world—or at least the room—who could disobey. I’m barely steady on my feet before his arms wrap around my waist and bring me tight against him. I feel his erection against my belly and moan into his fierce kiss. One of Noah's hands grips the hair at the back of my head, angling my mouth just how he wants it. The other anchors me firmly to him at the waist. Mine are splayed against his chest, feeling those golden hairs and that solid wall of soft, heated skin beneath my palms at last.

The kiss is unlike any we’ve shared before. There’s a hunger, a desperation there that he’s never shown before. Noah's tongue delves quickly into my mouth and I push back aggressively, something I’ve never really done. Sure, we’ve played with tongues before, but I’ve mostly followed his lead, learning as I went. He moans into my mouth and bends me slightly backward. My arms slide around his neck and I rise to my toes, giving as good as I’m getting. Finally, Noah drags his mouth away to nuzzle my neck—something else new—as we both gasp for breath.

“So much,” he whispers against my skin. “So much.”

I nod against his chest, not sure what he means, but agreeing anyway. That kiss was so much more than I could have believed before. As the world slowly settles back on its slightly more tilted axis, I realize he’s trembling against me. I’m flooded with remorse for forgetting what we’re supposed to be doing. “C’mon,” I mumble against his skin. “Let’s get you to bed.”

“You look good in my shirt,” he mumbles.

I flush and stare at the floor. “Are you ever going to tell me why you wear this one so often?”

“Easy,” he says, falling into the bed. “You talk to me more when I wear that one.”

I stare at him in disbelief but he doesn’t notice; he’s already passed out.

***

While Kira tends to Noah in his bedroom, I escape to the kitchen with a riot of confused thoughts struggling for dominance in my head. My physical reaction to Noah is most easily explained. I’ve never been that close to a naked man before, especially not someone I care about. And I do care about Noah. He’s a wonderful person. He’s incredibly kind, infinitely patient, endlessly intriguing and ridiculously generous. And he kisses like a dream. The fact that he wants to kiss me, of all people, still surprises me. He could have his pick of men to kiss and…more.

I close my eyes against the deep slice of pain in my chest that thought brings. I don’t want him to kiss someone else, much less the more. I slap a hand to my mouth to stifle the startled cry that issues from my throat. Tears pool in my eyes and I bend over as if taking a blow to the stomach, because the realization hits me with a physical force.

I’m in love with him.

It’s absolutely, positively insane, but it’s unquestionably true. I want to be with him all the time and when I’m not, the mere mention or thought of him causes a giddy smile to spread my lips. I want to make him laugh and take care of him. I want to hear about his day and what he thinks about his classes. I want to help him achieve his dreams, even if it’s just by making sure he has enough of the right things to eat. And I want him to kiss me, to hold me, when the world seems too messed up to survive another minute. Noah makes me feel safe and…like I matter…in ways I’ve never experienced before. He makes me
feel
.

I take a moment to savor the exquisite joy the revelation brings, trying unsuccessfully to stifle a giddy giggle. I’m in love with Noah Yates, the most beautiful man I’ve ever known. Of course he’s sexy as all get-out, but it’s his internal beauty that has brought us here. I’ve seen good-looking men around before, but none of them have possessed the generosity of spirit that Noah has. None of them ever cared to look past my fears and scars to see what Noah instinctively saw in me. And none of them made me want to be a better person, to overcome my fears and my past. None of them could ever be Noah.

I want to rush back to his bedroom and smother him with kisses, a thought that makes me giggle again, somewhat uncomfortably. The poor man’s sick. The last thing he needs is some lovesick idiot mackin’ all over him.

I plunge my hands into the hot water in the sink and wash the dishes left over from Noah's dinner last night, carefully razing all thoughts from my brain. I can’t afford to examine them now. Noah, the man I’m in love with, needs me to help him get well.

***

The man has the worst handwriting on the planet. I’d swear it on my father’s grave, if I knew where it is. Trying to decipher his flat lines and curlicues is nearly impossible, but I have to do it. He wrote his final paper for Behavioral Psychology longhand and the final, polished project has to be presented to the professor’s secretary by Monday. I have to transcribe it, because if he doesn’t get better in time to do it himself, it will earn him an Incomplete, meaning he won’t graduate. I can’t let that happen, even if he does write in something resembling Arabic.

I glance over at Noah sleeping peacefully beside me. I’m torn between wanting to smack him upside the head for never learning penmanship or curling up next to him and holding him while he sleeps. The last option is almost enough to catapult me off the bed and into the living room, but when I tried that earlier, he’d shuffled slowly down the hall, wrapped in a sheet to sleep on the too-short couch. He wanted me near him while he slept, he said. My fingers card through his short hair and a smile pulls at my lips. How could I possibly turn down the request of a sick man, even one with atrocious penmanship?

With a contented sigh, I turn back to the paper and the laptop. I don’t understand a lot of what Noah has written, but some parts make me gasp with their familiarity. He’s not talking about me at all, but those certain instances do a lot to explain how he has always known how to approach and deal with me. If it were anyone but Noah using these techniques to get me to trust him, I know I would feel like a lab experiment, but I know Noah's heart. He would never look at me that way.

We’ve come so far together in these seven months. If anyone had told me in November that I’d be sitting on the slumbering giant’s bed with him next to me, I would have…well…I probably would have run and hid. But here I am and there he is, making soft snuffling noises in his sleep, battling to get well.

Fighting myself even as I do it, I sit the laptop and the paper aside on the nightstand and stretch out atop the covers. He’s asleep. He’ll never know. And if he wakes, I don’t think he’ll mind. Slowly, carefully, I move up behind him. Resting my head on my crooked arm, I slide the other around his waist. It’s only seconds before Noah's fingers thread through mine and he slides our joined hands under his chin. He sighs contentedly and whispers my name. I press a tender kiss to the back of his still-heated neck and close my eyes, letting his clean scent fill my lungs. Eventually I drift off with him, the very sick man I love.

***

Four days pass before Noah feels well enough to kick Kaleb out of his apartment. I get the phone call on my way home from work. They’ve all taken turns taking care of him when I’ve had to work. Kaleb, Kyle, Kira, and even Sam have taken shifts sitting with the patient. Each has reported increasingly irascible behavior which has pleased me no end because it means Noah is feeling better. So when Kaleb calls, I’m ready and relieved, except Kaleb is far too gleeful. He laughs uproariously as he describes in great detail how red-faced Noah was just before almost physically tossing him out.

“Kaleb,” I say on a sigh, signaling a change in lanes so I can go by Noah's place instead of going home to shower first, “the poor man’s been sick. Did you have to bait him so much?”

“Hell yes!” Kaleb laughs. “He’s fine, Aves. I swear to you. He’s just milking it so you’ll keep taking care of him. One of you is going to have to make a move soon or you’ll be at this stalemate forever. Well, not forever because I’m about done watching you two dance around in circles. Don’t make me kick your asses. Tell the man how you feel.”

With a gasp, I jerk the car into an empty parallel parking spot and nearly drop the phone. “What are—what are you talking about?” I’m not ready for anyone else to know. I haven’t even told Noah I love him. I’m not even sure I know how to tell him.

I can hear the smirk in Kaleb’s voice. It is
so
not attractive. “Uh huh. Friends who kiss. Friends who nurse each other back to health. Friends who decipher his abominable handwriting so his paper isn’t late and he graduates with honors.”

The sound of my racing heartbeat in my ears almost drowns Kaleb’s voice, but I hear him loud and clear. “Yes. Friends. Nothing more.”

Kaleb sighs and the mirth is gone from his voice when he speaks next. “You can lie to yourself all you want, but you can’t lie to me. I’ve seen you together and I’ve seen you apart. I was in Noah's shoes once, remember? Never—listen, you know you can talk to me about anything, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And that I won’t judge you and will always love you as my brother from a really shitty other mother?”

I can’t stop the chuckle. Kaleb, Mr. Blunt. Love him or leave him, you’ll never change him. “Yeah, I know.”

“Alright then. Go see your boyfriend. He’s jonesin’ for some Avery time.”

“He’s not my—”

“Yeah, yeah. Shut up. Love you, buddy.”

“Love you, too, Kaleb.” And I do, almost as much as I love Sam, which is how I know I’m in so much trouble when it comes to Noah. My feelings for him are off the charts, totally different—and growing. I sigh heavily—because what the heck else am I gonna do?—and nose my old rattletrap Honda back into the traffic that will take me to the man I’m hopelessly in love with.

***

He crushes me to him when I walk in the door, his mouth finding and devouring mine before I can even say hi. As hellos go, this is definitely the best on record. When he finally breaks away, I flush and look down, then quickly to the right when my gaze encounters evidence of his arousal straining his sleep pants. So it wasn't just a one-time occurrence. I’m simultaneously pleased and terrified. It’s one thing to wonder if kissing me pushes his buttons, it’s entirely something else to be presented with the throbbing evidence. I push away. “Miss me?” I ask in a leaden attempt to lighten the mood.

“Maybe a little.” He smiles that dimpled smile he knows gets him anything he wants.

I tap him hard in the middle of his chest. “You’ve been told on.”

He holds his hands up in surrender but doesn’t even have the grace to look abashed. “It was all Kaleb.” Now he turns on the puppy dog eyes. “I’m a sick man and all he was doing was harping on me. He could have set back my recovery by weeks! Months even!”

I can’t stop the laugh that bubbles out of me, but he knew that. He always knows. I let him encircle me in his strong arms once again and I breathe in the fresh, clean scent of him. I rest my forehead against his chest and smile when he presses a kiss to my hair. “Why am I the only one you don’t fight tooth and nail?”

“Because you’re the only one I want or need to take care of me.”

It would be so much easier to be cross with him if he weren’t so flipping wonderful. Oh, he’s not perfect. The last several days have proved that. He can be irritable and snappish and whiny, but he’s my irritable, snappish, whiny, handsome, hulking mountain of a man. And I love him, more than I have a right to.

I push away and head for the kitchen, hoping he doesn’t notice as I wipe my eyes. “Have you eaten yet?”

***

“I can’t go, Sam. Stop arguing with me!”

Sam rolls his eyes like a petulant child or a fed-up older brother. “You
are
going and that’s final. Go get dressed.
Now
.”