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Puck stumbled into her room and crashed face first onto her bed, his head a spinning mess. How was it that she managed to throw him off completely every time? He had followed her with the intention of assisting despite her protests, but he got distracted by the swing of her hips as she walked and he had gotten real close without meaning to. Then, she had looked at him and he couldn't think of anything besides wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing the hell out of her. And he had been so close. Damn his conscience.
Hell, he wasn't kidding anyone. He didn't really care that she was so inexperienced. In fact, with her it was a turn on, but at the last second he had remembered the picture of Finn stuck to her mirror and that had been enough to bring him back to reality. Cursing his luck that he was really starting to like the one girl that was doubly bad for him. But…if she could cook everything like that spaghetti, it might be worth it, even if he got fat.
Rolling over and wiggling into a more comfortable position, he took the time to look over her room again. He felt uncomfortable here. With the exception that she had two fathers and she was extremely unpopular at school, Rachel's life seemed like the American ideal. Everything had its place in here but him.
The light floral scent that imbued her pillows floated around him as he shifted. He inhaled deeply and it reminded him of her wrist pressed to his forehead. He relaxed as he thought of the sweet concern on her face and the matter of fact way she had said that she would worry about him. Only his mother and maybe Finn's mom had ever offered comfort like that without strings attached. Even the people at school, the counselors or the nurses, who were supposed to care never really did. Sure, they sympathized as they listened to him as he poured out his eight-year-old heart and hugged him as they pressed Band-Aids over his skinned knees, but he had never felt that they were sincere. And then there was Rachel, a girl he had tormented daily for almost two years, a girl who barely knew him, and she was the only one who had communicated pure and simple caring when she brushed her fingers over his cheekbone or checked him for a fever. It made her dangerous and infinitely appealing.
He was so wrapped up in his musings that he didn't notice when she slipped into the room. So he almost hit her when she spoke right over him.
"Comfortable?" she asked, then squeaked and backed up quickly as he jumped up.
He huffed and sat back on her bed. "God. Don't sneak up on me like that," he warned her.
"I'm sorry," she said in a shaky voice. "I didn't know you were so jumpy. Believe me, it won't happen again."
He scrubbed a hand over his face and looked up at her. "Are you okay?" She had definitely lost some color in her face and she had a hand to her throat. It made his stomach turn to see her like that. He didn't know how many times his mother had worn that expression.
She nodded. "Yeah. I'm fine. That just really freaked me out, too. I am sorry," she apologised again. Taking a quick, deep breath, she straightened her shoulders and dropped her hand.
"It's fine. Just remember next time," he said. He wanted to go over and comfort her somehow, but he thought that might make her anxiety worse. Instead, he retrieved his guitar and sat back on the bed with it. "So, what did you have in mind for Glee?"
Rachel moved to the music stand and shuffled through the stack of sheet music sitting there. She smiled as she found what she was looking for and held it up. "This," she said as she handed it to him. "I thought we could try a duet. You really haven't had much of a chance to sing on your own and I think you've got a lot more talent than you're given credit for."
There she went again, telling him that he was worth something in such a 'duh' tone that he couldn't help but believe her. However, he was still wary of singing a duet with her. "Okay," he said, glancing over the music. Uh, oh. Love song.
"Think you can pick it out as we go along or do you want to run through it first?" she asked, dropping to a seat next to him on the bed.
Exerting a monumental effort to ignore the sudden flames on the left side of his body, he shrugged. "I can pick it out." He glanced around him, looking for a place to put the music where he could read it.
She jumped up. "Oh, here," she said, removing all the papers from her music stand and dragging it over in front of him. Shaking her hair to the side, she leaned over to adjust it, giving him a clear view down the front of her shirt.
Puck's vision instantly narrowed until all he could see were the tops of her breasts, cupped snugly against her body by her bra. He wished his hands were holding them there instead.
He didn't really get more of a view than he got from the sluttier girls (actually, it was less of a view) at school, but the sight still made his whole body tighten. His hands itched to reach out and squeeze. God, what was he? Thirteen? Not even that first girl, Kelli something or other, had made him feel this unsettled and uncertain.
"Okay," she said, straightening up and arranging the sheet music on the stand in front of him. "Ready? Noah?"
He snapped his gaze up to her face to see her place her hands on her hips and raise an eyebrow.
"Were you staring at my chest?" Her voice was incredulous and a little bit pleased. With a practiced flick of her head, she caused her hair to settle back in its usual position across her shoulders.
"No," he said too quickly. "Are we practicing or what?" He arranged his fingers on the guitar strings.
She let her hands fall from her hips with a quick glare and crossed to her vanity to pick up her hairbrush. She smiled and explained, "My microphone." She assumed what he figured was the proper singing stance and nodded to him.
Suppressing his eye roll at her authoritative nod, he ran his fingers over the strings and began to pluck out the tune. Glancing up at her at her cue, she smiled at him and sang,
Kiss me too fiercely
Hold me too tight
I need help believing
You're with me tonight.
My wildest dreamings
Could not foresee
Lying beside you
With you wanting me.
Just for this moment
As long as you're mine
I've lost all resistance
And crossed some borderline
And if it turns out
It's over too fast
I'll make every last moment last
As long as you're mine
Maybe I'm brainless
Maybe I'm wise
But you've got me seeing
Through different eyes
Somehow I've fallen
Under your spell
And somehow I'm feeling
It's up that I fell
Every moment
As long as your mine
I'll wake up my body
And make up for lost time
Say there's no future
For us as a pair
And though I may know
I don't care
Just for this moment
As long as you're mine
Come be how you want to
And see how bright we shine
Borrow the moonlight
Until it is through
And know I'll be here
Holding you
As long as you're mine*
Rachel let the final notes die out and took a shaky breath. She had definitely not expected the odd dropping out of the bottom of her stomach as Puck worked his way through the verses. He was definitely much better than she had anticipated and something had shifted inside her as she watched him play and sing. Though his voice was quite a bit rougher than those with whom she was used to singing, she found that it was far more appealing to her less refined desires.
"That was very good," she said softly, sitting down beside him again. And, sitting there next to him, her body humming with emotions she would never have thought Noah Puckerman could evoke in her, all the strangeness of the day came crashing down on her head. "Excuse me," she mumbled, and darted into the bathroom adjacent to her room.
She closed the door quietly and leaned against it for a second. Slowly backing away from the door, she stopped when her calves hit the edge of the bathtub and she sank to a seat on the narrow wall. She had thought that she had gotten herself under control in the kitchen, after reminding herself a thousand times that he was Noah Puckerman, the obnoxious, self-absorbed, self-proclaimed God's gift to women, sitting in her room. He wasn't the kind of guy she was supposed to like and it was completely impossible for his feelings for her to have shifted so dramatically in the last day and a half. She had seen the way he looked at Quinn. He obviously had a thing for the head cheerleader and there was no way he would settle for someone like Rachel. Not that she wanted him to. He had thrown slushies in her face several times a week for the last year, he had tormented Kurt and Artie for no good reason and he had paintballed Finn for joining Glee. But then he had apologized, though for what exactly (there was so much) she wasn't sure; he had saved her from creepy Jacob Israel; he had held her hand so carefully while inspecting it; he had kissed her; and now, he was practicing a duet with her that was all about sex and he hadn't made a single crude remark the entire night.
With a small groan, she slid back into the bathtub and pulled the shower curtain across so that she sat in the enclosed space. She tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling. Her mind was such a chaotic mess of what should and shouldn't be, but was and wasn't. If she closed her eyes, she could feel his hands cupping her face and smell the clean scent of his soap as he leaned close.
"No," she whispered to herself, willing her brain to return to Finn, to familiar territory where she knew what was what even if it sucked to be in the limbo between something and nothing to him. It was too confusing, too unreal to be attracted, to want Noah so badly when she had been head over heels for his best friend barely a day ago. Maybe the whole situation was just a sad statement about how starved for affection from the opposite sex she was. Ugh.
A soft knock on the door made her squeak. "Rachel? You okay?" Puck called through the door.
She hated the way her body betrayed her as everything sped up at the sound of his voice. He did sound a little worried, but she couldn't answer him. She was too afraid that her own voice would give away her precarious mental position, so instead of answering him, she just pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and tried to take deep calming breaths. She was so wrapped up in trying to calm herself that she didn't hear him ease open the door and step inside until he swept the shower curtain aside.
A short scream burst from her throat as the sudden movement and sound scared her and she jumped about a mile. "Do you always just walk into bathrooms that are occupied by young women? What is the matter with you?" she screeched, desperately trying to regain some semblance of composure.
"What are you doing in the bathtub?" he asked, his voice shaking with laughter.
She glared up at him to start yelling again, but the smile on his face killed the words. Oh. All thoughts flew out of her head as she saw his smile, his real smile, for the first time. She sat there, her predicament completely forgotten, and just stared at him as he laughed at her. She hadn't ever seen him so relaxed and it took her breath away. Against her better judgment and her will, she started laughing, too. "It's not funny," she giggled. "I was thinking."
"In the bathtub?" he wheezed, knocking down the lid to the toilet and sitting down holding his side.
"Okay," she said, trying to keep a straight face. "It's really not that funny."
He coughed. "Yes, it is. Seriously, what were you doing?"
She pushed herself to her feet and rolled her eyes. "I told you, I was thinking." Leaning over, she placed her hand on his shoulder for balance as she stepped out of the tub and onto the floor. Having taken her shoes off prior to coming back upstairs, her stocking feet slid a little on the smooth tile.
Without missing a beat, Puck's hands locked around her waist and effectively twisted her as she came down so that she landed in his lap. "Um, thanks," she said as she immediately tried to bounce back up, but he wouldn't let her.
"What were you thinking about?" he asked, dangerously close to her ear with all laughter gone from his voice.
She leaned back a little so she could search his face, but his expression was unreadable. A thousand different and untrue responses flitted through her brain, but instead of using any of those completely plausible excuses, she looked him straight in the eye and said, "You."
His eyes widened for a fraction of a second, but she held her ground. "What about me?" he pressed, the hand on her outside hip sliding from her hip to her thigh.
She breathed in slowly through her nose, fighting the tremors radiating from where his body touched hers. The heat of his hand on her leg and his thigh under her buttocks caused much more of a reaction in her body than any full contact with Finn ever had. Oh, God. His thumb was stroking soft circles on her leg. Gathering her thoughts with incredible will power, she answered, "That you're dangerous." And he was. She could lose herself completely in him and, though she was afraid she might never find her way back, she found herself totally willing to take the chance.
Rachel knew that she had said the wrong thing as his eyes immediately shuttered and his hands stilled. Gently, he lifted her as he stood and set her on her feet. Her body cried out at the loss of contact.
"Sorry I can't be the safe white knight," he said in a cold quiet voice. He slipped around her and walked back into her room, leaving her standing alone and confused.
It was a few seconds before she could move, the shock of his words keeping her immobile until she heard the soft clicks of the latches on his guitar case. She ran out into her room to catch him, but he was already on his way down the stairs.
"Wait!" she called, hurrying after him. "Noah!"
He stopped at the front door, his hand on the doorknob. "What?"
"What are you talking about?" she asked, out of breath from the rapid shifting of emotion inside her. "Why are you leaving?"
"I know I'm not Finn, okay?" he snapped. "But I'm not the kind of guy to hurt a woman. I'm not the deliquent asshole everyone thinks I am. Sure, I'm a jerk sometimes," he admitted as she opened her mouth. "But, that 's not the only thing I am." He yanked the door open.
Moving quickly, she threw herself in front of him and slammed the door shut. "I never asked you to be Finn. And I don't think you'd ever physically hurt me. You can't say that you haven't done it emotionally, because you have, but that's a discussion for another time. I don't think you're only a jerk."
Throwing his hand up he growled. "Then why the hell would you call me dangerous?"
"Because you are," she said, steeling herself as his expression darkened further. "Because in one day, you've managed to turn my world upside down." She relaxed a little and stepped toward him away from the door as he backed up a few steps in confusion. "Because I can't imagine what you could do if you had more time." She managed to get close enough to touch him. She couldn't stop shaking. "Because I want to take that chance," she whispered. And rising up on her toes, she took his face in her hands and pressed her mouth to his.
*Rachel, Puck, Rachel & Puck. As Long As You're Mine from Wicked.