Beyond Shame

“Not so loud, please.” Noelle pressed her palm to her temple and tried to keep her head from throbbing so hard it split open. “I don’t think I can eat or drink anything right now.”

Lex touched her cheek. “You’ve got to. Water and aspirin, honey, that’s all that’s going to fix this.”

Groaning, Noelle eased carefully onto her back and squinted up at Lex. “Where did Jasper go?”

“Business. Well, trouble,” she amended. “Something’s going down tonight. Got to prepare.”

Noelle choked down the aspirin with as small a sip of water as she could manage and studied Lex’s face. There was no hint of subterfuge, no sign that Jasper had dumped Noelle on Lex to get away from her.

That would be more comfort if Noelle’s memories of the previous evening were clearer—or less embarrassing. “I think I was very drunk.”

Lex grinned. “Does that mean you don’t remember making out with me? I’m crushed.”

It surfaced in a rush, a vivid memory of Lex’s tongue swiping through her mouth before Noelle ended up sprawled on the table. She groaned again and covered her eyes with one hand. “I remember. I guess it’s a good thing Jasper drank half my shots.”

“Relax. As far as those parties go, it was damn tame.” Lex stretched out beside her. “Bren said he got you back to my room, but I figured you must have dragged your drunk ass down here to have it out with Jasper.”

She remembered that, too, far more clearly than she wanted to. “I changed my mind. Maybe I wasn’t drunk enough.”

Lex laughed. “Being passed out cold has its upsides.”

“It probably keeps you in bed where you belong.” Noelle eased onto her side and smiled at Lex. “I think it ended up all right, though. We talked.”

“Good. He seemed square this morning, anyway.”

That gave her hope. Between the humiliation of begging for something Jasper wasn’t ready to give and the mortification of breaking down into tears, the evening should have been a disaster. But the moments she recalled most vividly were those spent cuddled against his side.

She couldn’t remember how long they’d talked before she’d drifted to sleep, but the low rumble of his voice had chased her into dreams, a whisper that made her feel safe and cherished.

Moving slowly to avoid upsetting her body’s precarious truce, she curled her hand around Lex’s. “I’m glad I’m an O’Kane.”

“Me too, honey.” Lex propped her head on her other hand and looked down at Noelle. “I know what you want from him, and I need to explain something to you about the way things work here.”

A different sort of queasiness stirred Noelle’s gut. “Did he tell you what happened?”

“Jasper? He doesn’t talk, not about that. But he doesn’t have to.” Lex tapped her temple. “I see the hunger, Noelle.”

“How can you even tell what’s what? I’m starving for everything.”

“No, you only want some things. The others… Yeah, you’re starving for those.”

“What am I starving for?” No, that wasn’t the real question. In her heart she knew, and so did Jasper. The question he wanted answered was the one she couldn’t begin to unravel. “And why?”

Lex shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t worry about why. Why doesn’t matter. It won’t change what you need.”

“It matters to Jasper.”

“Not even slightly.” Lex leaned closer, held Noelle pinned with her dark gaze. “Jasper doesn’t want to go too far because he’s worried about what happens after. If you think it’s all fucked up and wrong, eventually you’ll hate yourself and him. You’ll hate your life.”

“Oh.” Put that way, Noelle understood his fear. And as much as she wanted to brush it away, she couldn’t. Not honestly. “I can’t help it. I want to believe it’s not wrong. I think I’m starting to, but I don’t know.”

“So take your time and enjoy the ride.”

It couldn’t be that easy. “What did you want to explain to me?”

Lex’s brow furrowed. “The things you’ve been offering him—and what you’ve been asking for in return—it’s fast. Even for an O’Kane. So don’t be surprised if he hesitates, okay?”

Noelle closed her eyes as her stomach churned with more than the aftereffects of the liquor. “So the things I’m starving for aren’t the things I’m supposed to want.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth, baby girl,” Lex said, gentle but firm. “Fast, not wrong.”

Except wanting them fast must be wrong, or at least naive. “Help me understand. What makes it different from all the other things people do?”

“You really don’t get it, do you?” Lex sat up then, her spine stiff and her dark eyes clouded. “You don’t need him, Noelle. You don’t need anyone, not anymore. You have the gang, and you have yourself. You can do whatever the hell you want.”

Lex sounded as confused as Noelle, and she felt laughter bubbling up. Of course Lex couldn’t understand her question. She lived in a world where all the lines were drawn, where her body and her mind were her own to give. Where giving had some meaning, because she knew how to hold back.

“I was trying to do what I wanted,” Noelle confessed, safe behind the shield of her hands. “But no one can tell, can they? Jasper doesn’t know if I can say no. None of us do, not even me.”

“I think that’s the heart of it,” Lex admitted in a whisper. “Can you say it? You have to find out, for your sake and Jasper’s.”

It wasn’t likely to happen while he was handling her so carefully, but a darker part of Noelle acknowledged that it might be harder to know when he stopped handling her gently. “To him? I don’t know.” She brushed her fingers over Lex’s hip. “Maybe not you, either. I don’t want to say no.”

“Uh-huh.” Lex twined her fingers with Noelle’s. “Is that why you’re hitting on me in Jasper’s bed?”

This time she did laugh, even if the sound made her temples throb. “Only by mistake. The room isn’t spinning anymore, but my head still is. How long until this goes away?”

“An hour or two? Could be all day.”

Noelle fought a whimper at Lex’s gleeful tone. “Nothing makes it better?”

“Not drinking until you pass out is a start.” She urged Noelle over and pulled her close to her chest, one arm curled around her. “Go back to sleep. I’ll stay.”

Lex’s warmth against her back made it easy to relax. That was the seductive lure of strength—you could close your eyes and drift, content to trust your safety to someone else’s hands. “I’ll get stronger.”

“I know.”

As long as Lex believed it, Noelle would, too.

* * *

Jasper carefully stripped the red plastic from the wire between his fingers. “Want to let me know why we’re not just yanking the blasting caps and hauling ass out of here?”

“Because.” Bren didn’t sound nervous. No, he seemed perfectly at ease with a pair of wire cutters in his hand and a fifty-pound stack of plastic explosives in front of him. “If Trent has his goons check the device before tonight, we want it to look operational.”

Dallas loomed over them, chewing absently on a toothpick as he watched them work. “Guess the girl wasn’t playing you after all, Bren.”

“Told you she wasn’t.”

Jasper hadn’t been so sure. Still wasn’t, truth be told. “How do we know this wasn’t the plan? We get down here early to defuse Trent’s little surprise, only the real surprise is when he blows it up in our faces?”

“We don’t know,” Dallas replied. “Losing your nerve in your old age, son?”

“That tends to happen pretty fast with my balls parked this close to a shit ton of RDX.”

Bren grinned. “He needs those balls for pretty little Noelle.”

“I thought your kitten already had ’em tucked in her pocket.” Dallas laughed and shook his head. “She was showing her claws last night.”

“We worked it out,” Jasper muttered. “I am pissed at you, though. You could have warned me you were serious about Lex maybe wanting to keep Noelle all to herself.”