RUSH (City Lights, #3)(60)
I started for the door but Noah reached for me. “Charlotte, wait.” His hand snagged my sodden sweater. “What…?” He reached his other hand, grasped me, pulled me close, his face incredulous. His hands felt my shoulders, my hair that was plastered to my cheeks. “Were you…out looking for me?”
“Of course I was!” I thrust away from him. “You didn’t even think of that, did you? You don’t care whether or not you make other people worried. Like your parents and friends. Like Lucien. God, poor Lucien…”
“Charlotte,” Noah’s voice was heavy. “Don’t do that. Don’t put yourself in that place where you’ll get hurt. Don’t think I’m just like everyone else, because I’m not.”
“No, you’re not,” I said. “And I’m glad. I—”
“No! Don’t be glad. Don’t tell me that you wouldn’t want me any other way, or that my blindness has made me who I am. I want me another way. I want to be what I was. I want—”
“You have no idea, do you?” I cried. “None whatsoever. You’re so wrapped up in what’s happened to you that you don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks or feels. You. Are. Blind. You are not what you were. But you are alive. You have no idea how much worse it could be.”
“Worse?” he thundered back. “You mean paralyzed or a vegetable? Because I’ve heard all that shit before, remember? A thousand times…”
“And yet not one word seems to have gotten through to you,” I spat, tears watering my voice. “I felt bad that no one had granted you the freedom to mourn your loss. But you’ve had time now, and you still don’t get it. They talked about being lucky but they weren’t just talking about you. They were talking about themselves. The ones who care about you. They are the lucky ones. Lucien, your parents, your sister…They are lucky that they didn’t have to make final arrangements, or place horrible phone calls and listen to the people on the other end fall apart. They didn’t have to pick out what to wear to your funeral, or plan what to say in front of a room full of crying people when the only thing they want to say is I wish we weren’t all standing here doing this right now.”
My sobs were coming hard now, hot tears on my cheeks where the rain had been cool. I endeavored to calm down because the full impact of my fear for him—the enormity of my feelings—was trying to drown me.
“Charlotte…”
“What I’m trying to say, Noah, is that you can’t do that again. Not ever. Not while I’m here. I can’t take it. I can’t…”
The tears broke over me again and I felt his arms go around my shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, pressing his cheek against my damp hair. “I did it for you. For us. I know that sounds like madness, but I had to get out, to throw myself off that cliff into the black and prove that it wouldn’t destroy me.”
“But it could have. It could have been so much worse,” I whispered, clinging to him, and then his words hit me, wrapped around me like a warm blanket to stop my shivering. I looked up. “You did it for…us? What does that mean?”
“Charlotte, you’re soaking wet…”
“Tell me.”
He cupped my cheeks in his hands, wiping away my tears with his thumbs. “It means I’m trying to be what you need. To not be a coward. To live…the way I am now.” He swallowed hard, his hazel eyes finding mine, holding my gaze for a few brief seconds, and though I know he saw nothing, my heart ached to see him looking at me, even for just a moment. “You deserve more than what’s left of me.”
I shook my head. “There’s so much…”
“Not yet, but I’m trying. I’m so sorry I hurt you tonight. Or ever. You’re the light in my darkness, Charlotte. You are…”
He kissed me then, his lips warm on my cold skin. A quick touch and then retreat, a short inhalation, and then his mouth descended again; covering mine and then entering with a delicious sweep of his tongue.
Noah’s kiss seeped into my cracks, filled all my broken places. I felt it in the marrow of my bones, and I clung to him, kissed him back with all that I had, knowing that this was what I had been waiting for, that I’d never have something this strong and real ever again.
He slowed the kiss, then broke away. “Charlotte, you’re shivering.”
“Yes,” I breathed, craning up, not wanting my mouth to part from his.
He scowled, his expression seductively fierce and hungry. “We need to get you out of these wet clothes.”
I moaned softly, aching for him. Noah moved in again immediately, hard and insistent, his tongue seeking entry. I gave it to him, taking him in deeply as he kissed me with a fiery aggression that flooded my entire body with heat. His tongue slid into my mouth, tangled with mine, and the scent of his skin in my nose—his closeness—sent shivers dancing down my skin and my heart to pounding.
“Charlotte,” Noah breathed, his hands moving to wrap around me, to pull me close even as his words tried to push me away. “I’m scared I’m no good for you.” He buried his face against my neck, laid kisses on my skin between his words. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
I pulled away, held his face in my hands. “Then don’t.”