CHAPTER 11 — WHITE TAPE
POV: Damon Blackwood
I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to convince myself that walking out of the physical therapy room without looking back had been a victory, but the penthouse welcomed me with too much silence to sustain any lie for long.
The phrase I’d thrown at the door before leaving—only physical—should have put that night at the hotel to rest, should have filed Noah back in the safe category of controllable mistakes, should have made my body stop remembering his weight on the bed, his mouth on mine, his firm hand on my hip forcing me not to run from my own pleasure.
Instead, the phrase kept coming back with the taste of cowardice.
My shoulder hurt less than it should and more than I’d admit out loud.
The tape under my shirt kept the joint stable, but it did nothing for the rest of my body, which seemed to have learned a new language overnight and now refused to return to silence.
I walked into the kitchen, draped my jacket over the back of a chair, and stood staring at the counter where Noah had served food two days ago—as if that domestic scene had any right to exist in my house.
The penthouse was clean, cold, and expensive as always, but there was one of his mugs near the sink, an anatomy book in the corner of the table, and the ice pack he insisted on leaving within reach.
Small invasions. Small proof that he was here.
I picked up my phone three times. Not once did I call Julian.
My brother had sent two messages since morning, both with that polished tone that passed for concern if you didn’t know how to read poison.
“We need to talk about Bennett.” “Don’t let the medical department make decisions without supervision.
” Julian always said supervision when he meant control.
Before, I’d accepted it because control was the only language left after our family’s fall.
Now, after seeing Noah go pale at his name and Valerie talk about missing documents, each message seemed to come with a second text hidden underneath.
Noah arrived around seven, and I knew something was wrong before he even spoke.
The elevator opened, he stepped in with his backpack on one shoulder and the medical bag in his hand, and the first thing he did was scan the entire room—quick, as if checking whether anyone else was there.
Then he spotted my phone on the counter, screen-down, and the tension in his shoulders tightened half a degree.
Subtle. For anyone else, nothing. For me, after spending years hating every memory of him until I’d turned it into a method of observation, it was almost a confession.
“You’re late for icing,” Noah said, kicking the elevator door shut behind him with his heel.
His voice was too professional, his posture too controlled, and it gave me an immediate urge to peel back each layer until I found what he was hiding.
“And before you turn this into a debate, yes, I know you left the medical room pissed off. No, that doesn’t suspend your recovery plan. ”
“You’re late too,” I replied, watching how he avoided the table, the corner where he usually dropped his backpack, the exact spot where the light would make his face easier to read. “Or has the department started including secret meetings in your workload?”
Noah stopped near the armchair, and his hand tightened on the bag’s strap before relaxing.
He didn’t give me the satisfaction of a quick answer.
He took off his coat, folded it over the arm of the chair, and only then looked at me.
His hair was still damp from the light rain outside, his mouth too serious, his eyes holding that surface calm that made me more suspicious than any open panic would have.
“I stopped by the supply room and reviewed inventory,” he said. “Your imagination is more active than your medical discipline.”
“My imagination didn’t put that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“The look of someone who found something they didn’t want to find.”
His silence lasted less than two seconds, but it was enough.
Noah turned to the medical bag, set it on the coffee table, and started pulling out supplies with almost aggressive precision: towel, white tape, cream, elastic band, ice pack, clipboard.
That efficiency was a shield. I recognized it because I used more expensive versions of the same trick.
The more organized he got, the clearer it became that something inside him had shifted out of place.
“Sit,” he said, ignoring the accusation. “I’m going to change the support tape and check whether your range of motion got worse after your little maturity display in the medical room.”
“Little display?”
“‘Only physical’ was a poor choice of words, but effective enough to demonstrate panic,” Noah replied, finally looking at me, and this time there was anger beneath the control. Not shouted, not scattered. Concentrated. “Now sit before I decide to write this up in the report with prettier language.”
I should have enjoyed seeing him irritated.
A wounded Noah was easier to face than a calm one.
But his words hit me because I knew exactly what I’d done and still didn’t know how to undo it without looking like I was asking for something I had no right to ask for.
I walked to the folding table still set up near the windows and sat down, pulling my shirt over my head carefully to avoid straining my shoulder.
Noah looked away too late. The satisfaction I felt was immediate, base, and mixed with a deeper irritation when I realized I wanted that look for reasons that didn’t fit into “only physical” at all.
“You’re too quiet,” I said as he approached with the white tape. “Normally you’d have already made three comments about my ego, my posture, and my inability to follow simple instructions.”
“I’m trying not to waste words on a patient who reduces everything he feels to a convenient bodily reaction.”
“So you’re still pissed.”
“I’m working.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Noah tore open the roll of tape with a sharp pull.
The sound cut through the room like a warning.
He positioned himself in front of me, close enough that my knees almost touched the outside of his thighs, and began removing the previous tape with careful movements.
His fingers found the edge of the support on my skin, pulling slowly to avoid irritating the area.
The touch was practical, but not neutral.
Nothing was neutral after that night at the hotel.
Every inch of tape that came loose felt like a layer being stripped away between us, exposing skin, pain, memory, and a desire I couldn’t fit into any safe category.
“What did you find?” I asked.
His hand stopped near my collarbone. It was brief, but I felt it. Then he continued removing the tape, slower, as if concentration could erase reaction.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Lie.”
“You’re awfully comfortable using that word for someone who spent the morning pretending yesterday meant nothing.”
The accusation came low, without tremor, and opened a cut I deserved.
Noah set the used tape on the table and grabbed the warm towel to clean my skin before applying the new support.
When his fingers traced the side of my shoulder, my body reacted—not with pain, but with recognition.
His hand knew the limits of the injury and, now, knew other limits of mine too.
That knowledge bothered me because it didn’t feel taken by force.
I had given it to him. In bed. In the dark.
With my mouth. With my skin. With the sound I tried to hide and he made me stop hiding.
“I didn’t say it meant nothing,” I said, and my voice came out lower than I intended.
“You said enough.”
He leaned in to reach the back of my shoulder, and his scent arrived before the touch: rain, therapeutic cream, coffee, and warm skin.
I gripped the edge of the exam table with my right hand, trying not to follow the impulse to pull him closer.
Noah began applying the white tape with maddening slowness, pressing the first strip onto my skin, guiding the support around my shoulder with firm fingers.
The tape had been part of my game ritual forever, wrapped around sticks, gloves, pads—a clean symbol of control.
In his hands, it became something else. Care.
Temporary possession. A way of holding me without saying he was holding me.
“This white tape,” he said, perhaps just to fill the silence, perhaps because he also felt the weight of the gesture, “has always been your thing.”
“It worked.”
“For the stick, maybe. For everything else, you’ve always used it like you could keep everything in place by wrapping it tight enough.”
“Are you doing psychological analysis with department supplies?”
“I’m saying you believe too much in containment.”
“And you believe too much in disappearing when containment fails.”
His hand pressed the tape with slightly more force.
Not enough to hurt, but enough to tell me I’d hit the mark.
Noah breathed through his nose, controlling his response, and continued working.
The strip passed over the front of my shoulder and moved down toward my chest, requiring him to step closer.
He stood between my knees, his hips inches from mine, his gaze fixed on the path of the tape as if he didn’t know the proximity was changing my breathing.
“You want answers,” he said, his voice low, as he smoothed the tape against my skin. “But you only accept answers that confirm the sentence you’ve already written.”
“Then give me another one.”
“Not like this.”
“How, then? When you decide you’ve suffered enough in silence? When my brother authorizes it? When your father stops looking at you like he’s afraid one wrong word will bring down the entire university?”