Chapter 27
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
NOAH
Five days of silence from Cade feels like five years.
I’ve tried to respect it. I really have.
But enough is enough.
The rain is coming down in grey sheets as I pull up to his house on the quiet street lined with old magnolia trees.
His sister and her wife must be gone somewhere—their house next door is dark, the cars gone, everything closed up.
My headlights cut through the downpour, illuminating the familiar porch where I stood with an overnight bag not that long ago.
I kill the engine and sit for a moment, my heart seemingly hammering harder than the rain on the roof of my car.
In my jacket pocket rests the folded pages of the tenure-track letter of recommendation I wrote—before we were anything, when my crush was a private thing I held tight to myself.
I’d poured more of my adoration of Cade into that letter than I should have, than what was wise.
Anyone with half a brain could’ve read this and seen that I was wildly infatuated, obsessed even.
But Pratt had no clue. Because I did a good job of hiding my feelings until recently.
But Cade is convinced I need someone with experience. That I long for someone who has been with others or, I don’t even know. What I do know is that he’s wrong. He’s always been wrong, and it’s time he hears it.
I grab my little university umbrella but I don’t open it. The rain feels right. Dramatic, maybe, but fitting for two English professors unraveling in a spool of heated tension and high-rise emotions. We’re a literary masterpiece in the making, maybe. I certainly hope.
Some dog barks once as I climb the steps, shoes squelching, immediately soaked. I knock firmly, three times, then wait. Water streams down my face, soaking my shirt until it clings to my chest. The door cracks open after a long pause that has my breath catching.
Cade stands there in gray sweatpants and an old university tee, hair disheveled, eyes wide with surprise and something guarded.
Behind him, in the hall, I catch sight of Ford leaning against the doorframe.
Our eyes find each other and he gives me a half-smile along with a quiet, approving nod.
Ford doesn’t say a word. He simply watches for a moment before retreating deeper into the house, giving us privacy.
“Cade,” I start, voice low against the dull hum of rain. Against my thunder heart. Against all the mistakes I’ve made rattling around in my mind.
He grips the door and I take a sliver of relief in how terrible he looks. As bad as me. Which means maybe he loves me too. Maybe this has killed him, too. “I said I needed space.”
“I gave you five days.” I step closer, rain dripping from my lashes.
“Five days of agonizing silence while you convince yourself you’re too inexperienced for me.
I’m done waiting for you to finish that spiral, Cade.
” His eyes hold mine, and I take the opportunity to drop my voice an octave and add, “but I’m glad you’re not alone. I’m glad you leaned on family.”
His throat works. Those warm eyes, the ones I’ve dreamed about for years, flicker with pain and longing. “You deserve someone who knows how to talk about hard things and… how to take care of you.”
The words sting, but they don’t surprise me. This fear in his eyes now is the same I saw in them after Eli’s keynote. I reach into my pocket and pull out the folded pages, now slightly damp at the edges.
“No,” I say firmly. “What I deserve is you, Cade. And you’re going to listen to me, now, okay? Listen when I show you that I’ve known I have wanted you for so long, and if you think a little inexperience is going to stop me now, you’re crazy.”
I unfold the review under the porch light, the paper trembling slightly in the wind-whipped rain.
Cade’s eyes widen as I begin reading, but eventually, I have to focus on the words on the paper.
Between my racing heart, knowing his dad is privy to this moment despite not standing there awkwardly, the rain licking my knuckles and threatening to sting my eyes—I have to stay focused and read.
“This is the letter of recommendation I wrote to Dr. Pratt on your behalf, after your first year at the university, before we’d even become friends,” I tell him, voice steady despite the storm. “Before anything happened between us. When I was still just the dude you shared an office with.”
I begin to read aloud, the words I once poured out in private now spoken into the rain-soaked night like proof, a promise, a vow.
“‘Professor Cade Mercer’s new analysis of formerly over-read and reassigned works serves as a glowing contribution to the field of literary analysis. With both scholarly and professional criticisms, Professor Mercer dissects the texts with empathy and intellectual courage. I find myself profoundly moved by Professor Mercer’s ability to see what others overlook and in a discipline often mired in cynicism, Professor Mercer reminds us why literary critique matters: because it teaches us how to finally see one another clearly. ’”
I lower the pages, meeting his gaze. Rain soaks me to the bone, but I don’t care.
“I wrote that when I was still pretending my feelings for you were purely professional. Every word was about your work, yes. But it was also about you. The man who spent years convinced he was one way because the world never sparked for him the way it does for others. The man who, when he finally let himself feel, did so with such depth it humbled me.” I shake my head.
“Loving you humbles me in the best ways.”
Cade steps out onto the porch, the door clicking shut behind him. Rain immediately begins soaking his hair, darkening his blond to brunette. He is handsome, even in pouring rain, wearing heartache on his face.
“You are not a rebound,” I continue, voice rising over a rumble of thunder.
“Eli was never the one I waited for. You were. Years of watching you close yourself off, respecting your boundaries while my heart split open, wider and wider, every single day. You think your inexperience makes you lesser to me? Seriously?” I laugh.
“It makes you sacred to me, Cade. Every hesitant touch, every time you discover what makes me moan or makes yourself moan, every moment you trust me with your body and your fears—it’s the most erotic, meaningful connection I’ve ever experienced. In my life.”
I close the distance between us, cupping his wet face with both hands. His skin is warm despite the rain, stubble rough against my palms. I love the way wild droplets of water coat his lenses. Those glasses that make my heart race.
“You’re not too difficult. You’re not broken.
You’re the connection I’ve been waiting for my entire life.
I want to stay home and grade papers on the couch just to hear you laugh at terrible student metaphors.
I want to make meals with you and eat with you, rub your feet and kick your ass on the trail.
I want it all because I do choose you, the you that you are today, and the one you become tomorrow. ”
Cade’s breath shudders out. His hands come up to grip my wrists, not pulling away but instead, holding on. Keeping me. Thank fuck. “Noah—”
“You are enough.” I press my forehead to his, rain everywhere in the best ways.
“More than enough. I don’t want easy. I want the man who overthinks because he cares so deeply.
The man who quotes poetry in bed without realizing how romantic it is.
The man who makes me feel like being on campus every day is a gift, or a lottery I’ve won. Because you're there.”
Lightning flashes, illuminating his face.
I kiss him then—deep, desperate, tasting rain and relief on his lips.
Cade melts into it after half a moment, hands sliding through my soaked hair, pulling me closer.
The kiss turns hungry fast, five fucking days of separation and fear spilling between us.
I back him against the porch railing, bodies pressing tight, rain soaking us both to the bone.
Ford cracks the door open briefly, clears his throat with a knowing smile, and says, “I’ll lock up and head out the back. Don’t drown out here, you two.” Then he’s gone, giving us privacy we need, privacy I’m starved for.
Cade laughs softly against my mouth and it’s the first time in five days I’ve felt like everything was going to be okay. “He’s been here all evening. Trying to talk me out of my own head.” He smiles. “Kat called him.”
“I’d love to have dinner with him, to get to know the man who raised you,” I murmur, nipping at his bottom lip.
We stumble inside eventually, shedding wet clothes in the hallway in a trail of soaked garments that would normally have Cade itchy. But tonight, we only care about each other.
The house smells like him—books and citrus and that faint trace of the wine that he and his dad shared in the living room. I don’t give him time to overthink. I crowd him against the bedroom door, dropping to my knees on the hardwood.
“I’ve been dying for this, been dying for you,” I confess, looking up at him as I peel his soaked sweatpants down. His cock springs free, already hard and flushed. “Five days without you. Never again.”
I take him deep into my mouth in one smooth motion, groaning at the familiar salty taste of his eager cock on my tongue. Cade’s head thuds back against the door, a wrecked moan escaping as his fingers play in my wet hair.
“Noah—God—”
I worship him with everything I have—long, slow pulls, swirling tongue, hollowed cheeks.
One hand strokes what I can’t swallow while the other teases between his legs, pressing lightly behind his balls the way I know drives him wild.
He fucks my mouth in shallow, desperate thrusts, the last five days melting away under the heat of my devotion to him and us, and everything I’ve shared with him tonight.
When he comes, it’s with my name on his lips, pulsing hot down my throat. I swallow every drop, then rise to kiss him, and I adore the way he moans when he tastes himself.
We make it to the bed this time, bodies still damp from the rain. “I’m sorry,” he starts, and I tug his glasses off to have an unbidden look into his eyes. They’re wet, but not from the storm outside but from the storm inside this house, inside of him.
“I want you inside me tonight,” he breathes, the words hanging in the air between us, everything I’ve wanted for so long.
I drag the tip of my nose along his, and press my palm into the center of his chest. “Tonight is big. I’m glad you came back to me. But you don’t have to offer if you’re not ready, baby.”
He bites my bottom lip, sucking it into his mouth. “No, I swear, I want it. I’m ready.” The familiar pink I now know as Cade’s embarrassment flushes his cheeks. “I just came. Maybe if you fuck me now, I’ll last more than a few minutes.”
I bury my face into his neck and take tastes of his warm, sweet skin. “It’s hot when you can’t hold back. You make me feel so fucking good. Better than I’ve ever felt, and that’s the truth.”
Our mouths collide, his phone rings, and mine does, too, I think. But we ignore everything but each other.