CHAPTER 11 — WHITE TAPE #2
The question hit him. I saw it in his face.
I saw it in the way his eyes lifted to mine all at once, green and hard, as if I’d put my hand in the wrong place.
Satisfaction came with a stab of guilt, and that irritated me even more.
I didn’t want guilt with Noah. I wanted simple anger, simple desire, anything simple.
But he was there with white tape on his fingers and a truth hidden somewhere behind his mouth, and I was tired of being the only idiot in this story without the complete script.
“Don’t talk about my father if you don’t know what he carried,” Noah said.
“Then tell me.”
“You don’t want to listen. You want to interrogate.”
“Maybe because every time I get close to a real question you hide behind protocol, clipboard, or sarcasm.”
“And every time I get close to you, Damon, you decide whether to kiss me or condemn me depending on how scared you are.”
The sentence detonated what little control I’d gathered.
I grabbed his hand before he finished pressing the last strip.
Noah froze, his fingers trapped under mine against my chest. The touch put us back in the hotel room with brutal speed, except now there was too much anger for easy gentleness.
He tried to pull his hand away, not with fear, but as a warning.
I didn’t squeeze. I just kept it there, on my body, where my breathing no longer obeyed the lie that this could be just physical.
“You think I was scared yesterday?” I asked.
“I think you got scared today.”
“Of you?”
“Of what you felt with me.”
His honesty hit me like a clean blow. For a second, I had no response.
Noah used that second to step half a pace closer, not retreating, but taking back the space I was trying to dominate.
His hand was still trapped under mine, the white tape crossing my shoulder like a clear mark, and he looked down at me from his position—something rare enough to mess with my pride and with another part of me I preferred not to name.
“You want to punish me for a story you don't understand,” he said.
“You want to touch me like it costs you nothing.
You want me to tell you the truth in the exact format you can handle.
And when something spirals out of control, you call it just physical so you don't have to admit that last night got to you somewhere you didn't want to be gotten to.”
“Careful.”
“No,” Noah replied, and his free hand touched my chin—not gentle, not violent, just firm enough to hold my gaze.
“You told me to stop hiding behind my position when I wanted something.
So listen now: I wanted it. I still want it.
And I'm furious because wanting you is still the easiest part of this whole mess.”
My body reacted before my head, but this time I didn't move forward.
Maybe because his words had knocked the ground out from under me.
Maybe because, for the first time in that room, Noah didn't seem to be running.
He was there, angry, wanting, whole enough to face me without giving in to the small version I was trying to impose on last night.
His hand slid from my chin to my chest, over the tape, and his fingers spread there as if testing the heartbeat I preferred to keep hidden.
“What do you want from me?” I asked, and my voice came out rawer than I'd planned.
Noah looked at my mouth, then at my eyes. The answer didn't come as a clever line or a pretty surrender. It came with exhaustion, anger, and an honesty so direct it stripped away any comfortable place to hide.
“Right now? I want you to ask without trying to turn it into a contest.”
The room went still.
I could have laughed. Could have returned a cruelty, pulled Noah close and proved I still knew how to command the scene.
But his hand remained on my chest, the white tape marking the place where my body needed him to stay whole, and the most unbearable truth was that I wanted to ask.
I wanted to because, since last night, the memory of Noah beneath me had become less a memory and more a necessity.
I wanted to because his touch irritated me, relieved me, excited me, and disarmed me in equal measure.
I wanted to because “just physical” had been a bad lie, and he knew it.
“Stay,” I said.
Noah didn't move. His eyes narrowed slightly, not suspicious, but demanding.
“Stay for what?”
My jaw tensed. He saw it. Of course he saw it.
The corner of his mouth didn't quite curve into a smile, but there was a firmness there that made me understand, too late, that Noah didn't want to humiliate me.
He wanted to pull me out of the automatic reflex of turning desire into command.
He wanted me to choose with words before using my hands.
“Stay because I want you,” I said, each word harder than the last. “Because I spent the day trying to call it physical and failed.
Because you've been touching me for ten minutes and I can't think about anything except pulling you closer. Because I want you to stop working and touch me like you did last night.”
His breathing changed. The hand on my chest grew heavier for a moment, his fingers pressing the freshly placed tape as if his body had lost some of its steadiness.
When Noah leaned in, I thought he was going to kiss me.
Instead, he rested his forehead against mine for a second—brief, intense—and the gesture cut through me somewhere more dangerous than my mouth.
“No cruelty after,” he said.
“No running before.”
“No forcing the shoulder.”
“You're going to boss me around now?”
“You just asked, Blackwood.”
The surname in his mouth, in that tone, almost dragged a sound out of me.
Noah noticed and finally kissed me, unhurried at first, as if testing whether the confession could bear the weight of the touch.
It held for seconds. Then I gripped his waist with my right hand and pulled him between my legs, and the kiss lost any initial delicacy.
Noah responded with the same intensity, but this time he didn't let me lead everything.
His hand went to my nape, the other to my chest, keeping me seated, stopping me from standing up and turning the scene into something brutal.
“Slow,” he said against my mouth.
“I hate that word.”
“I know. That's why I'm using it.”
He kissed me again before I could complain, and his body fit between my knees with a confidence that took my breath away.
The white tape was still fresh on my skin when his fingers trailed down my abdomen, exploring without hurry, without clinical excuse, with an attention that made every muscle contract.
I tried to reach the hem of his shirt, but Noah caught my wrist and brought my hand to the side of the table.
“Leave it there,” he ordered, low. “Keep that shoulder still.”
“You're enjoying this too much.”
“You obeying? Very much.”
His provocation set me on fire. Not the easy way, not just through my body.
There was something in the calm way Noah took control that challenged me without diminishing me, that made me want to test limits and yield at the same time.
He pulled off his own shirt with one hand, quick enough to reveal skin, shoulders, abdomen, and I lost patience for a few seconds.
My right hand left the table to touch his waist, and Noah let it, but he caught my arm before I used too much force.
“You can touch,” he said, his eyes locked on mine. “Just don't retreat into control when it gets hard.”
“You talk like you know me.”
“I know you well enough to know when you're about to kiss me just to avoid answering.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Not when you answer afterward.”
I pulled him closer by the waist and kissed Noah as a temporary answer, because some truths need a body before they can find a voice.
He came with me, bringing one knee up onto the table beside me, careful to control his weight so he wouldn’t press on my shoulder.
The position brought us closer—chest to chest, warm skin against tape, our breathing ragged.
His hand slid into my hair, pulling my head back gently, and the sudden exposure of my throat surprised me enough to make me stop.
Noah noticed. His mouth found my neck—not aggressive, but determined—and the sensation tore through me with startling force.
I gripped his waist, and he bit down lightly, just enough to make me hold my breath.
My whole body wanted to flip this, push him against the table, take back control.
His hand on my chest stopped me before I could even start.
“Ask,” he said, his mouth hovering near my skin.
The word hit deep. I wanted to hate it. Wanted to call it a game, refuse, prove I didn’t need to. But his body was over mine, his mouth had left a hot mark on my neck, and the truth was that asking didn’t feel like defeat in that moment. It felt like a more dangerous kind of honesty.
“Kiss me,” I said, voice rough. “Now.”
Noah kissed me. Not because I’d ordered it, but because I’d asked the right way for both of us.
The difference threw me completely off balance.
He slid off the table and pulled me along just enough to guide me to the couch, where the angle would be better for my shoulder.
That should have made me laugh, or complain, but his attention in the middle of all that desire caught me off guard.
Noah was aroused, irritated, hungry—and still taking care of my body as if pleasure and safety didn’t have to be enemies.
That combination undid me more than any obedience could have.
On the couch, he claimed the space. He sat beside me first, kissing, touching, working open my workout pants with firm hands—but in no rush to give me everything I wanted. I tried to pull him on top of me, and he pushed my hand away with a low laugh that vibrated against my mouth.
“No.”
“Noah.”
“You asked me to touch you. Not for you to be in charge.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“I am.”