Chapter 27

27

" G ood morning." I shivered from the whispered words against my ear. Recognition of the voice warmed the blood in my veins and had me opening my eyes in shock.

The first thing I saw was his blond hair, confirming my suspicions.

"Please tell me you remember last night." His hand was on my back, drawing indiscernible designs in a way that had all my nerves on fire.

I walked backward through my mind, trying to remember how the hell I would wake up in Noah's arms again. Was it another love potion and antidote?

Yes, that much I remembered. The football game, Forrestbriar's win, and the potion attack.

I leaned back to look at him, my memory piecing itself together all at once. Bloody hell, I remembered last night, and my cheeks were already heating at the memory. My whole body was.

The smirk I'd once hated but had come to crave slowly lifted Noah's lips. "You do."

I nodded, words not coming to me.

"Tell me, Henri. Was the potion exaggerating a small fancy for me? Or-"

I didn't need him to finish the question. Cutting him off with my lips seemed to do the trick, because the second I kissed him, he responded with his whole body. His arms tightened around my back, one hand cupping the back of my head as though I would pull back too soon. As if.

I'd dated before. A few times in my undergrad, I'd gone out with guys, and once, I'd ended up in a relationship. I'd had my fair share of kisses and romantic experiences.

But nothing compared to the movement of Noah's lips against mine, the caress of his hands on my body, or the knowledge of knowing it was he who wanted me like I wanted him.

And this was real, not a kiss for show or to get us out of a sticky situation. This was a kiss with no agenda other than the two of us being together, and that made it all the better.

We could have both stayed on that couch or in his bed all day. I nearly begged him for exactly that.

But we had work to do, work that felt like the world depended on us since no one else seemed to care about the love potion attacks.

"What potion are we going to use?" I asked, looking through the cabinet of already-made potions in Noah's brewery. It was a tricky experiment, because any potion we chose would need to be one relatively harmless to the public.

Hands slid around my waist from behind, and I couldn't help the grin that took over my face, potions forgotten.

"I don't care," he murmured as his lips attacked my neck. "Just pick one."

Laughing, I turned to him, giving him a serious look. "Come on, we have to get this done."

"Are you sure? I mean, now that you know why I needed the anti-potion so badly, I'm rather uninterested in anything other than you."

I rolled my eyes but pulled him in for another kiss. "Yes, I'm sure. Just because the potion benefited us doesn't mean we shouldn't learn how to end it altogether. Think about how many people it has harmed."

"Do you hate that I'm only concerned with you?" Noah's hand cupped my jaw, and it took a lot of strength not to give in.

"No, I don't. But you have to help me." I turned back around to look through his potions, trying not to think too hard about all the times I witnessed Noah struggling against the love potion. How, all those times, he was struggling because he was with me and wanted nothing more than to act on his affections for me. Yet he didn't.

"If I must, I would recommend the Jubilance potion." He reached over my shoulder, his long arms reaching for a potion on the top shelf I wouldn't have been able to reach anyway. He handed it to me, resting his now-empty hand on my shoulder.

"Perfect. Now, how are we going to practice this without getting caught?" I moved across the room to the table where all our books lay spread out. We hadn't gotten far in our reading this morning, too distracted with one another, but I knew exactly what page we needed to be on and had at least opened one book to the right place.

I looked over the page again, memorizing the spell written there. The book would have to remain here if we were going to go to campus and test out this potion.

Noah reached over me again, turning the page back one to show me a passage. "It can be cast from within walls and still work. We could just do it from your dorm." The suggestion in his tone had nothing to do with the spell casting, and I had to turn to him and smirk.

"Fine, but we are only casting in my dorm."

"Sure," he conceded but did the worst job of convincing me he meant it.

Especially when he leaned down to distract me once more.

"I should have pursued this a long time ago," Noah said, pushing me back into the small bed in my dorm. Though I protested, I did nothing to stop him, because this was what I wanted too.

"Why didn't you?"

"Because you would have rejected me."

"You don't know that," I whispered, suddenly serious as I sat up.

"When the potion outbreaks began, you weren't inclined to me at all."

"That was because you weren't even on my radar. I'd never stopped to think of you as anything other than…well, my enemy. I might have said yes to a date."

Noah chuckled, lacing his fingers through my hair and pulling back slightly to tilt my head up. "I'm sure you would have cursed me just for asking."

"Not true!" I laughed, tilting my head even further. Since we couldn't keep our hands or lips or bodies to ourselves today, we took another break from our mission to enjoy that we were now fully honest in our feelings.

Time seemed to pass a little too quickly when I was with him, and it was soon time for lunch. We hadn't even attempted the spell yet.

"Noah! We need to at least try the spell."

Though he grumbled, he pulled both of us from my bed, and we moved to my desk. With the vial of Jubilance, we began practicing.

From the text we'd read, the potion would slowly dissipate if we were successful. Both of us tried our hand at the complicated spell, yet still, the yellow liquid filled the vial.

"This is ridiculous."

"Are we saying the words correctly?"

"How else would we say them?"

"I don't know. Perhaps we're emphasizing the wrong syllable?"

"Henri, I don't know if that has ever mattered."

"It does. Trust me."

I picked up my wand from where I'd frustratedly thrown it down on my desk and repeated the same words, saying the last with a different emphasis. After all, the textbook was old, and some of the ink could have worn off from the years.

After the last flick of my wand, the potion seemed to bubble. The urge to throw the vial down just in case it was going to explode in my hand was a hard one to combat, but Noah's hand came up to hold the vial around mine.

"Bloody hell, I think that worked, Baker." Noah's voice was completely shocked, and I gave him a smug look.

"Turns out, you don't know everything."

"Smart-arse," he muttered under his breath.

The shimmering liquid slowly started dissipating, and I felt hope swell in my chest.

I stashed the vial away inside my desk, pulling Noah in for another kiss. I couldn't help myself today. After a few minutes, I decided we needed to move to our next task. Warmth was spreading throughout my body as I thought about how much we'd accomplished.

"Let's go see if it worked," I said with a giggle. I didn't know why it had bubbled out of me, but I shrugged it off.

Noah grabbed my hand and pulled me from my room. Just barely, I'd remembered to close and lock the door in our haste to get outside and observe everyone.

He led us directly to the dining hall, where most students who remained on campus would be. According to the spell and our calculations, the potion should have reached across campus—if it worked. If I'd cast well enough.

The potion slowly seeped its way into my bones, and I felt myself growing lighter and happier. It was nearly euphoric, but I assumed that was because I'd been so riddled with worry and anxiety lately, making the Jubilance effect a stark contrast.

When we entered, the beautiful sound of laughter met our ears. My smile hurt my face as I observed the people around me. Even a few people were dancing to whatever tune they must have been singing in their heads.

"Noah!" Someone screamed across the room. Both of us turned together to see Lukas pushing his way through strangers to get to his best friend.

"Luka—"

"Please tell me you two are finally together!" Lukas grabbed our still conjoined hands and lifted them, placing a wet kiss against my skin. Laughter bubbled out of me unintentionally as I looked at the wonder ing Lukas' eyes. "If I have to listen to one more second of this fool blabbering on about how much he wishes the two of you would stop faking—"

"Enough, Lukas," Noah said in a half-growl, but there was still a wide grin on his face. I wasn't sure if any of us could feel a true negative emotion in this moment because of the potion. I giggled again, squeezing Noah's hand tighter. "But yes, Baker finally admitted her undying affection for me."

I lightly smacked Noah's arm, but couldn't relax the grin on my face. The muscles in my cheek were hurting from smiling so much, but I couldn't even care about that.

"Thank the powers that be!" Lukas yelled as though he needed everyone in the dining hall to hear him. "Finally!" He leaned in and grabbed my face with both hands and for a second I thought he was going to lay a kiss on me, but he just squeezed my cheeks and gave my forehead a sloppy kiss.

Noah pushed his best friend away with a laugh, but still with enough force to get his point across. "Yes, finally." His voice held such relief and calm in it that I nearly melted.

"You treat him well, Baker! I must—" Something caught Lukas' eye, because he stopped midsentence, gave Noah a mischievous look, and bolted away.

I could only laugh at the interaction, and watch as Lukas approached one of the girls I'd seen him with before. "What just happened?" I asked through my laughter.

"It worked, Henri!" Noah said, probably too loud, but I couldn't bring myself to care. His face was already overtaken with a rare look of joy.

I was also unreasonably happy with the result of our experiment, so I threw my arms around Noah's shoulders. As though there was no one else in the room, I kissed him with joy. We worked splendidly together, yet again.

"Shall we eat?" Noah asked with a smile I'd never quite seen on the normally broody male's face. It warmed my insides, and I skipped as we went to the serving lines.