Noah felt a tenderness toward her that he hadn't experienced before this night. Sure, he'd been fond of her, wildly attracted to her, had enjoyed her witty, sometimes sharp sense of humor. But he hadn't felt this aching sort of affection until he saw how strongly both his words and his presence seemed to effect her. The walls he'd kept in place had come crashing down in her absence, in the stilted awkwardness that had developed after that day with Rufus and all the drama.
Normally, the sight of a woman crying around him made Noah deeply uncomfortable, but now he just wanted to soothe her. Very carefully, he lifted a hand to wipe at the moisture when it escaped after she'd dropped her own hand, and in a strange way he savored it all, down to the mildly salty liquid that dampened his fingers.
"No," Noah murmured when she said she thought he had been trying to end it. "That isn't what I want." His fingers stilled on her cheek and he tipped his face down a little so he could brush his lips over the other one. "I wanna be with you, just you, and I don't want there to be any distance." And if it all falls apart someday, it will, but I don't want that to keep us from trying. He was effectively distracting himself kissing the soft, smooth skin of her cheek, inhaling the scent of her, and he forced himself to lift his head again. "And if you wanna call me your boyfriend or whatever the hell, I don't mind." There was the faintest gleam of mischief in his eyes when they locked with hers again.