Offside (32 page)

I couldn’t.

My heart started to pound faster, and my hands went cold and numb.

“Holy shit,” Nicole finally breathed out.

“I don’t…I mean…I was just…um…kidding.”

“No.” Nicole shook her head slightly. “You weren’t.”

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Thomas?”

I didn’t answer even when I felt her hand against the side of my face.

“Thomas. Look at me.”

I opened my eyes slowly, waiting for the expression that would tell me she knew I was a complete freak, and she would probably toss me right out the window.

“Do you really remember all of that?”

“Maybe,” I whispered.

“Thomas…that is incredible.”

I tucked my head against her shoulder, and it felt like my skin was trying to implode into my body or something. It was all tight and making everything inside of me hurt.

“Oh my God,” Nicole suddenly said. I heard her slight gasp. “You said something about this before—that you would never forget anything again after…after your mom…”

Both her hands captured my face, and she turned my head up. I looked into her soft blue eyes, waiting for the loathing that was sure to appear when she put it all together.

Not only did I kill my mom, but my dad hated me,
and
I was a total freak of nature as well. As I stared, her look did change, but I didn’t see the loathing I expected.

It just wasn’t there.

Shock, yes, and maybe even a bit of awe but not the hatred I had anticipated. Not the disgust. There was no hint that she considered me Shakespeare’s “lump of foul deformity.”

“I remember everything,” I said quietly.

I couldn't look at her. I could still feel her eyes on me, but I kept mine on the open door across the room. I wondered if Greg was asleep by now or if he could have been out in the hallway or maybe even able to hear us talking from his own room. Strangely, the idea didn't really freak me out as much as I thought it would.

“That's why you don't bring anything to class, isn't it?” Nicole surmised. “You aren’t being shitty; you really don't need it.”

“Not if I've already read the chapter,” I told her. I clenched my hand into a fist behind her back. “I don't really need to take notes or anything.”

“And here I thought you were just being a prick.” Nicole let out a short, soft laugh.

For the longest time, she said nothing. I didn't really have anything to add, so I stayed silent as well, letting my mind conjure up all the possible things she might be thinking. The one I kept coming back to was her wanting me to leave. Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore, and I had to know.

“Should I leave?” I asked quietly.

“Leave?” Nicole repeated. “Why would I want you to leave?”

I just shrugged. It was too obvious to voice.

“Thomas?” I felt her fingers on my jaw again as she tilted my head to look at her. “I don't want you to leave.”

“Even though I'm a freak?” I asked.

“Thomas…” She shook her head slowly. Her expression was confused and a little sad. “It doesn't make you a freak.”

With that, she moved closer and pressed her lips against mine. She wrapped her fingers into my hair as she rose and kissed me harder. She pushed me back into the pillow, and I groaned quietly. The pressure of her tongue on my lips was too brief, and she soon backed off and just looked at me. She left her fingers still tightly twined in the hair at the back of my head.

“Why are you so worried?” she asked.

“I didn't think…I thought you would think I was…weird.”

She laughed softly again.

“Thomas,” she said, “you are a little weird. Not in a bad way at all, but you certainly do have a few…idiosyncrasies.”

She kissed me again, and again it was too brief.

“And I kind of like them.”

“You do?” I was a little astonished.

“Yeah, I do.” She propped herself up on her elbow a little, and my hand finally managed to open up to press against her back. She reached over and ran her fingers lightly over my temple and down my jaw. She kept going down my neck, across my shoulder, and finally rested her hand on my bicep, right where the T-shirt ended. “There are some things you do though…”

Her voice trailed off, and I felt panic welling up in the pit of my stomach.

“What?” I wondered if I really wanted to know. Her hand ran over my arm again.

“You have beautiful arms,” she said quietly. Her finger traced the outline of the muscle there. “But sometimes…how you use them…well, that bothers me.”

My eyes narrowed.

“What do you mean?”

“Every time you get pissed off about something, you start hitting people,” she said. “We were supposed to talk about that, you know.”

“I remember.”

“I bet you do.” She turned her gaze from my arm and met my eyes again. “I don't like it, Thomas. You can't just lash out and threaten people when you get mad.”

“I don't,” I said. Even as the words left my mouth, I knew it wasn't really true. “I mean…not every time.”

“Most of the time,” she amended. I could tell by the tone in her voice she wasn't going to back down any more than that.

“Sometimes I have to,” I said.

“Why?”

“I'm not going to let anyone talk shit about you,” I told her. “I said I'd protect you, and I will.”

“That doesn't mean beating people up and shoving them into lockers.”

“He learned to keep his mouth shut, didn't he?”

“That is not the point.”

“Yeah,” I corrected, “it is. That was the goal—to shut Clint's ass up, and it did. He knows better now, and so does everyone else. What did you expect me to do, tell him to ‘please stop’ and expect that to work?”

“That doesn't mean you have to get violent!”

“What else am I supposed to do?”

“Well, what did you do to Crystal? You didn't hit her, did you?”

“Um…no.” I looked away again. I really didn't want to go there. After I didn't say anything else, Nicole prompted me to elaborate. “I just…took care of it another way.”

“Did you threaten her?”

I shrugged again since I was getting so good at it.

“How?” she pushed.

“You really don't want to know,” I informed her.

“You are only making my point, you know.”

“What
is
your point?” I asked.

“I don't want you to hit people anymore,” she said, “or threaten them.”

She took another deep breath and dropped her eyes back to her fingers where the fiddled with my shirt sleeve.

“It reminds me of…of…” She didn’t finish the sentence.

“Him?” I whispered.

Nicole nodded.

I looked at her eyes and tried to figure out just exactly what I was supposed to do. I told her I would protect her, and I wasn't going to back down—not from that. I wasn't going to put up with anyone giving her any kind of grief for anything. Not Clint, not Crystal, not anyone.

But I didn't want to remind her of that guy in Minneapolis, either. I definitely did not want that, but what else could I do to make sure she was safe? What could I do to keep her happy here?

“I said I'd make everything okay for you,” I reminded her. “How else am I supposed to do that?”

“You already do,” she said softly.

Now I was really confused.

“But you're telling me not to do that anymore!”

“You don't have to go after other people to make everything feel all right,” she said. “You do that just by…by being here.”

I had said it before, and I would continue to say it: girls made no sense whatsoever.

“I don't understand,” I admitted.

“Remember when we were here, and I was upset the other night?” she asked. “Remember when you just hugged me?”

I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Okay…you do remember.” She took a deep breath and let it out through her nose in a huff. “Just doing that made it better, and when I was…upset with what you had done with my locker and…and you took me outside and held on to me—that made me feel better, too. You didn't have to beat someone up to make me feel better. You fixed it just be being there for me.”

I wanted to argue with her and tell her the only reason I could do that was because I had already taken care of the kids at school so they wouldn't bother her again, but I was captivated by her eyes instead. The way she was looking at me…so intensely…it made my heart start pounding in my chest again.

That look was what did it. As soon as my eyes met hers, I knew immediately that I was done for. I would do absolutely anything she asked if she would just keep looking at me like that. Was that all it took? Just
being there
for her? I didn't even know what that really meant, but I did know at that instant that she had me—heart and soul. I could feel it in my mind and every aching muscle in my body.

“Anything,” I whispered. I slipped my other hand around the back of her head and pulled her to me. I pressed my lips to her warm mouth, and I kissed her over and over again. I felt her fingers grip on to my arm, and the nails biting slightly into my skin felt wonderful. I broke away for a moment, murmuring against her lips. “I'd do anything for you…anything you want. Just tell me what you need because I don't know what to do.”

She smiled down at me for a long moment before speaking again.

“Are you tired?”

I shrugged and shook my head against the pillow.

“I had a pretty decent nap today,” I reminded her. “Are you tired?”

“Not so much,” she said, and she kissed me again.

I had no idea how long we had been lying there in Nicole’s bed, facing each other and making out. I hadn’t looked at the clock for a while, and my brain was far more interested in keeping track of the feel of Rumple’s lips on mine than it was on how long we’d been at it. If I really wanted to know, I could always figure it out later.

I found a nice, soft, warm spot of skin at the place where Nicole’s neck and shoulder came together and sucked lightly on it. I didn’t do it hard enough to leave a mark—her skin was too perfect to be marred like that. Nicole’s fingers made little trails down my arm all the way to my wrist and then back up again. I traced my fingers against her side, pushing the hem of her T-shirt up a little.

I danced the tips of my fingers along the skin on her side. I drew little circles and then a few other shapes as I tasted the skin of her neck and shoulder. Nicole jumped a little as I hit a ticklish spot, and I smiled into her skin.

Her hand pushed against my shoulder, and she rolled me away from her and onto my back. Before I could protest, she tossed one leg over me and straddled my stomach.

“You should take your shirt off,” she said. Her teeth bit into her bottom lip.

“Oh, really?” I replied with raised eyebrows. She nodded, and I could see her cheeks tinge with pink in the glow of her bedside lamp. I flexed my back and brought myself up just enough to pull my shirt over my head.

I watched my Rumple’s mouth turn up in a sly smile as she glanced from my face to my chest. She reached out and started with her fingers at my shoulders before they slowly traced down—over my pecs, brushing against my nipples, and then to my stomach. Her touch was light and brought goose bumps out on my arms. When she circled my navel with her finger and then followed the thin line of hair below it, I had to pull up my knees to keep her from sliding any farther back. If she did, she was definitely going to notice the effect she was having on my body.

She glanced from where her hand was resting on my stomach to my eyes. She was breathing a little heavier, and my heart was practically making my chest jump up and down. I was torn between wanting to flip her over and bury myself in her as quickly as possible and wanting to make sure I didn’t push her into anything she wasn’t ready to do. I was pretty sure if I did that, this relationship would be over.

I was going to let her lead.

I licked my lips quickly and gripped her hips with my hands, hoping to keep them steady. With my fingers, I found that spot where the hem of her shirt met her sweatpants. I touched the soft skin of her sides, spreading my fingers out to reach more of her.

Nicole leaned down and touched my lips with hers, kissing me hard as her tongue tangled with mine. Her hands roamed over my chest again, and I used my fingers to creep up her sides a bit more. I stopped before I got to the bottom curve of her tits because I was feeling far too good to press my luck.

I was ready for anything she wanted—she could have all of me or just some of me—whatever made her happy.

That was when, without breaking our kiss, Nicole’s fingers left my chest and ran all the way down my arms. When she reached my hands, I was expecting her to push them back down and away from the tender, soft flesh they wanted to touch so badly. I even started to slide them back down myself, but she gripped my fingers and pushed them up until I was cupping both of her glorious, soft breasts.