Chapter 18
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
CADE
“Us… go out? Together? At this hour?” Anyone who sees us will know we’re spending the night together. I don’t voice that worry, but I hold it near.
Truthfully, I like him here, I like being with him even when I’m being called on my shit. The scent of his skin floods my senses as brown eyes peer down at me.
“You know you want me,” he says, voice low and rough. “And you know I want you. Quit running, Cade.”
Before I can formulate a response, he swings one leg over and straddles me right there in the office chair.
The chair creaks under our combined weight.
His thighs bracket mine, heavy and solid, and suddenly his cock—already half-hard beneath the thin fabric of his sweats—is pressed intimately against my stomach. I suck in a sharp breath.
“Noah—” My hands come up automatically, landing on his chest, fingers curling against his skin, feeling the steady thump of his heart.
He leans in until our foreheads nearly touch. “Say it. Tell me you want us.”
I shake my head, even as my body betrays me and my hips twitch upward.
“You don’t want me,” I whisper. The words taste bitter because of the way my truth echoes so loudly inside them.
“You’re just… bored. Until the next hot student or colleague or whoever catches your eye. I’m your safe, repressed experiment.”
Noah goes very still. Then he climbs off me so abruptly the chair rolls backward. He stands there, chest rising and falling, staring at me like I slapped him. Like I burned his favorite special edition, like I just sullied the literary canon.
“That’s fucked up, man.” His voice cracks and genuine hurt stretches over his normally impassive face. “That’s really fucked up.”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Shame colors my cheeks. I’ve never seen Noah look like this. Wounded.
He drags a hand through his hair. “You think I’ve been chasing you for months because I’m bored?
Jesus, Cade.” He starts pacing the small office, voice gaining intensity.
“I asked you out in September. Remember? I said we should grab coffee after that faculty meeting. You thought I was being polite and talked about syllabus deadlines instead. I asked you again in October—Thai food, my treat. You said you had papers to grade. November, I brought you that expensive coffee from Rise & Grind that you like every morning for two straight weeks just to see if you’d mention the place and maybe invite me there.
I struck up conversations about your favorite poets, your dad being in New York Magazine, the way you hum when you’re deep in thought.
I’ve been right here, Cade. For months. Longer, even, and you never saw it. ”
Each example lands like a stone in my stomach. I remember all of them. I’d dismissed every one as professional courtesy or simple friendliness. Or just chalked it up to Noah Ryan, the friendliest, coolest fucking guy ever. My throat tightens.
Noah stops pacing. He sighs, long and heavy, the fight draining out of him. Then he steps close again, gentler this time. His hands come up to cradle my face, thumbs stroking along my cheekbones. His palms are warm, slightly rough. I lean into them before I can stop myself.
“You’ve been oblivious to relationships,” he says softly, eyes searching mine.
“But I haven’t been oblivious to you. Not for one damn second.
I see the way you get flustered when I roll up my sleeves.
I see how hard you work to do everything right.
I see you, Cade Mercer.” He presses a soft kiss to the center of my forehead that eases so much stress away, I can’t believe it.
“The real you. And I want every anxious, brilliant, newly-awoken piece of you.”
Tears prick at the corners of my eyes. I blink them back fiercely. “I’m scared,” I admit, voice barely above a whisper. “What if I can’t keep up with you? What if this ruins our careers or you get tired of teaching me everything—”
He cuts me off with a kiss.
It’s not soft. It’s hungry and desperate and full of all the frustration and longing we’ve both been carrying.
His mouth claims mine, tongue sliding deep, and I moan into it like a man starving.
The chair creaks again as I pull him closer, hands roaming over his back, nails digging in just enough to make him groan.
Noah tastes like mint toothpaste and raw need.
He kisses me like he’s trying to erase every doubt I’ve ever had.
One of his hands slides into my hair, gripping tight, while the other palm slides against my bare skin, over my chest. I arch into him, gasping when his thumb finds my nipple and circles it slowly. I like that, which he’s shown me.
“Feel that?” he murmurs against my lips, grinding down against my lap so I can feel how hard he is. “That’s what you do to me. Every single day.”
I whimper, hips rolling up to meet his. The friction through our thin pants is maddening. My cock strains painfully against the fabric, leaking already. I’ve never been this desperate, this alive.
“Please,” I breathe. I don’t even know what I’m begging for.
Noah kisses me again, slower this time, savoring as he sinks into the seat over me. He rocks against me in a lazy rhythm that has me trembling. His mouth moves to my jaw, then my throat over my freckle, sucking lightly at the sensitive spot beneath my ear until I’m panting.
“I want to take you apart,” he whispers. “I want to show you how good it can be. No rush. No pressure. Just us.”
I nod frantically, fingers digging into his shoulders. The push and pull inside me is grueling and quite frankly, exhausting. Not to mention the fear versus the overwhelming want. I could scream.
But right now, want is winning. By a landslide.
We stay that way for a long time, making out like teenagers in my office chair.
His hands explore me everywhere—my chest, my stomach, dipping low to tease the waistband of my pajama pants without ever quite going inside.
Every touch feels reverent and filthy at the same time, and my heart is racing so fast I think I’m going to die.
Actually, I’m already dead, because this is heaven. It has to be.
I’m shaking by the time he finally pulls back, lips swollen and eyes dark.
“We should get out of here, like I said earlier,” he says, voice rough. “Go somewhere. Talk. Actually talk.”
I blink, dazed. “Okay?”
A small smile tugs at his mouth. “Yes, Cade. We are leaving your house for neutral ground, where we are forced to keep our clothes on and use our mouths for conversation and eating only.” We both smirk. “Dinner. A walk. Something where you can’t hide behind grading papers or run to another room.”
My instinct is to protest, to find another excuse to stay inside these safe walls. But his hands are still cupping my face, and the sincerity in his eyes cracks every defense I have left.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Let me… get dressed.”
Noah kisses my forehead, lingering. “We’ll get dressed together.”
A crowded bar is not what I had in mind.
But once we arrive, the place is brimming with energy, voices spilling over half-drank glasses, plates of finger foods being shared over stories of horrid bosses and dates gone wrong.
It’s loud. It’s congested. There’s laughter, and shrieks, all in the same.
But as we sneak into two seats at the bar in the center of the lower level, I understand why he chose here.
It’s loud. It’s congested. It’s the perfect place to say things that could be hard to say. It’s padded here. Safe, protected by noise that could possibly drown out fears.
It’s the first time we’ve been out together in this new space, in the after.
His skin is so warm, even though our legs don’t touch, I feel his near mine beneath the cover of the bar top.
I close my eyes for a second, enjoying the hum of voices, the heat of his body, and knowing that I chose to come here, with Noah, and that everything is different now.
A good different. As nerve-wracking as it may be.
“Hey.” The gentle way that he says it, the way his fingertips only very slowly and cautiously dust my bicep, like his hesitancy is for my comfort, it allows me to let out a deep, held sigh.
“Hey.” I smile, and don’t bother nudging my glasses up my nose.
Noah’s lips curve, and mine do too. He fingers the end of my cable knit, giving it a little private tug before placing his hands on the bar top, strong fingers laced together.
I stare at his hands as he quietly asks, “you okay? Is this too much?”
Those hands that I love, that I’ve now seen cum drip down, that I’ve seen splayed across my bare body, those hands that have urged me on and shown me new, fucking insane pleasures. My breathing picks up and I force my gaze to another place I love—Noah’s eyes.
“It’s a lot. I’m… processing. But no,” I say definitively, holding his eyes with a seriousness I’m not sure I’ve possessed outwardly.
Not yet. But it’s been pinging around my chest, making my belly soft and warm, and it’s time to share that with Noah.
“No, it’s not too much because it’s… the right step. The next step.”
His hazel-whiskey eyes rest against mine as he catches his chin in his hand, relaxing into the bar. “Talk to me. Tell me about what’s going on with you.” It’s the tenderness in his expression that suddenly makes it feel possible. And maybe a little bit the crowded restaurant, too.
Over two club sodas and a plate of parmesan fries, I open up, and spread my feelings out for him to see, every single one of them.