Chapter 22: : Chapter 22

Hold on a sec.”

Theo’s voice echoes around us. He takes my hand, towing me toward him, arms going around my waist. The feel of his body pressed against mine is complicated; I want to peel his clothes off and let him inside me. But I also want to lay my cheek against his chest, right over his heart, and sink into this quiet with him.

He tucks my hair behind my ear. “Is everything okay with your family?”

I groan. “They’re fine. It was a drunk dial disguised as a check-in, those menaces.”

“They seem great. From what little I ever saw of them.”

My heart sinks at the held-back sadness in his eyes, and I curse my clumsy mouth. Not everyone has a family who cares the way mine does. I have no doubt they’d care about Theo, if it was like that. “They great. Overbearing sometimes, but in a . . . gentle, herding type of way.”

His mouth lifts in a sardonic grin. “Not in an way?”

I run my fingers through his hair, following their path so he won’t see the held-back sadness in eyes. “No. They’re pretty good at letting me be who I am.”

Theo’s chin dips, his eyelashes sweeping down as he closes his eyes, sighing. He leans into my touch, and I press myself closer, rubbing down his scalp, to the back of his neck where his silent tension lives.

“What do they think of all this?”

“What do you mean?” I ask, distracted.

“This road trip, what we’re doing . . .” He trails off expectantly, eyes opening.

I don’t know what to say, but Theo doesn’t press, just waits. I can’t admit it all; that would mean exposing myself completely. I’m ready to share my body, pieces of my thoughts and heart, but I can’t give it all yet. I’m not sure he’ll want it.

“Thomas and Sadie know everything, but my parents don’t. My dad doesn’t know about Paul. At least, I don’t think he does. I haven’t said anything about what I found. I was worried about how he’d react to it all, but I also wanted . . .” I swallow hard, fixing my eyes on the hollowed triangle at the base of Theo’s throat, the faint freckles sprinkled over his skin. “I wanted to know more about Gram and Paul before I talked to him. And selfishly, I want to know her secrets before anyone else does. That was our thing, you know?”

“Yeah,” Theo says quietly.

“I’m not ready to let it go. Because if I let it go, then I let . . .”

. I don’t say it. I can’t. It makes her death too real. I’ll never hear her voice whispering the four words we exchanged nearly as often as our most important three.

and . Two different things that meant the same.

I wish I could tell her about Theo. What a wild secret he is. I trace the curve of his collarbone with my finger, watching goosebumps rise on his skin. What would she think of us? Is it too strange that we’re tied by her and Paul’s interrupted love, or would she think it was something like fate?

“What did you tell your parents?” Theo murmurs, bringing me out of my thoughts.

“That this is a photography trip. Not a lie, exactly, but it makes me feel like shit.”

“And they support you?”

“Completely. My dad would cry happy tears if I made a living from photography instead of—”

God. That’s really what I’ve been doing.

“Instead of your corporate slog,” he finishes for me wryly.

“Right.” I can’t hear more of my own lies out of his mouth and don’t want to think about who I am back home. I smooth my palms over his chest, moving them up to circle around his neck. “Anyway, they’re fine. And we’re getting off track.”

His thumb brushes my cheek. “I don’t mind talking about it. We have time.”

“Not much,” I say. Four full days. Five, including our drive home. “I’m done talking for now.”

A smile curves his mouth, and I burrow my fingers into his hair, pulling him down to me. Over his shoulder, I catch a glimpse of us in the mirror. I watch the brush of his mouth against my cheek, the fluttering of his eyes as they close when he touches my skin. I watch, breath held, as his hand slides up to my neck, then my jaw so he can bring me back to him.

The kiss starts out tender, so soft it nearly hurts. He doesn’t give me his tongue right away. It’s like he’s gauging whether we’re ready to step into this different moment.

I part my lips against his, whisper, “Please,” so he knows I need —sinking into the physical connection that arcs between us. When his hand curves around my cheek and he lets out a quiet, pained sound, triumph squeezes my chest. It’s a thrill to crack Theo open, even temporarily.

He tightens his arm around my waist and lifts me, walking me out of the bathroom with my legs dangling.

I laugh, wrapping my legs around his waist just before he stumbles to sit on the bed. Suddenly we’re right back to where we started before that phone call interrupted us: my knees bracket his hips and we’re grinding against each other, kissing in long, drugging waves that pause only when we have to catch our breath. But even panting against each other’s mouths, our eyes locked while Theo’s hands shape and grip my thighs, my ass, my waist—even that feels like fucking.

“Why’d you put your shirt back on?” I grab the hem so I can get it off him.

“Dunno, but I’m not letting go of your ass, so find a different way,” he says against my throat.

The material stretches between my hands. “I’m gonna rip it off.”

His teeth scrape my jaw. “It’s my favorite shirt.”

“Then let go. I’m trying to get you naked, Spencer. Cooperation will get you inside me sooner.”

I’m unhanded instantly, and he helps me divest him of his shirt, then takes care of mine. I get stuck inside the material of my bralette when he tries to peel it off me, and he laughs, eyes crinkling. I’ve never heard his happiness so unrestrained. I tuck it away to remember later. He leans in for a kiss while my hands are over my head, the stretchy material binding me at the elbows.

“Get me out of this,” I say without heat.

His smile grows against my mouth, and he bites at my lip, licks it, kissing me with surprising playfulness as he frees me. When he pulls back and looks down between us, his eyes tracing the curves of my breasts, his amusement turns smokier.

Our eyes meet as his hands gently grip me, his thumbs moving over my nipples. He leans in, capturing my mouth, fingers pinching roughly enough to pull a desperate sound from me.

“You like that,” he says, not a question but a confirmation.

“Yeah,” I sigh, framing his face to keep his mouth, grinding my hips against his.

He pulls out of my hold, ducking his head to kiss the slope of my left breast, right over my heart. Small, plucking kisses make a path to my nipple, where he licks, then sucks hard as his hand slides up inside my sleep shorts. He realizes immediately I’m not wearing underwear and the vibration of his groan against my skin is unreal.

“Lie down,” he says hoarsely. “I’m hungry.”

My stomach pulls so tight so fast that I almost fall off his lap.

I’m spread out on the bed in less than five seconds, and Theo hovers over me, kneeling between my legs, his fingers curled into the waistband of my shorts. A tiny grin pulls up his mouth. “Is that a yes?”

“Yes,” I breathe out, lifting my hips so he can undress me. His eyes go dark when he tosses my shorts aside, taking me in.

My heart twists as Theo scoots back, adjusting into a position that looks like supplication—shoulders down, head bowed. His face lowers between my thighs and his gaze snares mine, then holds it as he opens his mouth over me.

Other guys have gone down on me, but no one’s savored me the way Theo does, licking and sucking, stopping only to gasp out a breath every once in a while. His hand grips my thigh, holding it open so he can do his work.

“Fuck, Noelle.” He pulls back after a time, watching the wet slide of his thumb over me, the press of his fingers as they move down to slip inside. His mouth finds me again, exactly where I need it, in a rhythm that gets me there so fast it’s embarrassing. Then I’m coming, hands gripping his hair. He groans against me, eyes wild and latched on mine.

My throat stings as Theo crawls slowly over my body once he’s brought me down, kissing my stomach, my breasts, my neck. I’m grateful the walls are thicker here, and that his room is on the floor above us. I don’t have to hold back.

“I love your sounds when you come,” Theo says, licking his lips with a smirk before kissing me. Against my mouth, he adds, “You’re going to give them to me again in a few minutes.”

“Always so sure of yourself.” I push at the waistband of his gym shorts, watching avidly as he takes over, stripping down.

When he presses against me, both of us naked, we let out the same hungry sound. He’s thick and hard between my legs. I shift so that he’s right there.

His hips start to move, and he groans into my neck. “God, the feel of you. It’s so fucking good. Let me do this before I get the condom.”

I wrap my arms around his neck as he adjusts his body over mine, nudging my thighs further apart with his own. “You’re really taking your time, Spencer. Come .”

“Mmm,” he rumbles. “Feels like your body was made for me.”

My mind screams it as I snake my hand down between us. I wrap my hand around him, run it up and down his slick skin.

“Jesus, hold on,” he gasps out, fumbling for his shorts. He pulls a foil packet out and, with one last searching kiss, sits back on his haunches.

This man is a work of art. Even putting a condom on, he looks beautiful, his expression taut with pleasure. When he smooths the latex down, he lets out a shaky breath. Our eyes meet and something deeper than lust passes between us. It’s a sharp need, not just for the meeting of our bodies, but for the emotional threads we’ve woven together. Right now, it feels like we’re creating something unbreakable.

I reach for him. “Come here.”

He does, his hand wrapped tightly around his base before lowering his body over mine.

“Are you okay?” he asks, an echo of the same question he asked the other day after we’d yelled ourselves into temporary relief.

Maybe that’s what this is, too. “Yeah. Are you?”

His head dips as he guides himself to me, as he strokes in just barely. “Yeah.”

It’s a gradual push and pull, each time getting deeper, but I want all of him. “You don’t have to be careful with me.”

He groans quietly. “Fuck. I know.”

It seems to unlock something in him, though, and he thrusts all the way in, hard enough to shake us both. Hard enough to make us groan with the unbelievable pressure.

He rises to his knees, panting, one hand on my hip. The other goes to my chest, right below my throat. He brushes his thumb up the column of my neck, pressing in when he gets to my pulse point.

“Are you holding yourself back from your natural inclination to choke me?”

He laughs, incredulous. “What?”

“You always touch my neck when we’re doing things.”

“Things?” His hips start moving, too slowly, an unbearable drag.

I groan. “Kissing, touching, fucking now.”

His expression softens into something achingly vulnerable. “I like feeling your heart beat fast for me.” A secret revealed in the middle of our sex. “That’s how I know you like me.”

I look down the length of our bodies, to where he’s inside me. To his hand, curled tight around my hip. I make a whole production of it, then drag my eyes back up to Theo’s.

“I think it’s obvious I like you.”

He bites his lip against a grin, rocking into me. “You haven’t said it.”

My heart starts beating faster underneath his thumb. “Were you waiting for me to?”

His head kicks back as his pace increases, then slows again. He groans. He’s holding himself back. He wants it to last, and that makes me want to break him into desperation. I it.

“Because I do,” I say, quietly.

Theo’s eyes open, and he looks down at me, hips working, stomach clenched tight. “You do what?”

My nerves and need and arousal all mix together, making my voice shaky. “I like you.”

He pushes into me so hard on the that my voice breaks.

It’s not a secret now: I like him, so much, much, and maybe he’ll ruin me. Not just because he’s curled over me now, mouth crashing over mine, holding on to me so tight I’ll feel it for days, but because he pulls back and says breathlessly, grinning, “I like you, too.”

“I got that,” I say, and he laughs, grabbing my hips to set a pace that’s hard and perfect.

Our amusement bleeds away to rough groans, the sounds of Theo’s body working into mine. His fingers dig into me, moving up to my breasts. He rests a hand on my chest, the heel of his palm pressing over my heart. It’s the softest pressure there, the most intense pressure inside me, but his hand feels heaviest. It hurts the best.

I reach up and press my palm over his heart. It’s racing. We’re even. He smiles, like he wants that. Like that’s what he was waiting for.

It’s only minutes until I’m close. I tell him shakily, digging my fingers into his arms. His eyes get fever bright, and he curls over me, sealing our mouths together as he snakes his hand between us to get me there.

“Oh god.” I groan, my eyes squeezing shut as my body pulls tighter and tighter.

“Yeah,” he breathes against my ear, nipping at my skin. “When you come, I come. I can feel how fucking close you are—”

His words push me so hard over the edge of pleasure that I surge up against him, crying out. He presses his face into the curve of my neck, panting, until his pace shortens, stutters. The sound he makes as he comes stretches out my orgasm; it’s so relieved, so wrung out.

The tension leaches out of Theo’s body in waves, in the slowing undulation of his hips and the way our kissing turns from frantic to sated. Everything slows, and after an indeterminate stretch of time, Theo lets out a sigh, his final kiss so much like the first: tender, soft.

He lifts some of his weight off me, brushing my wild hair back from my face. I frame his jaw with my hands, pressing my thumb to his bottom lip. We stay caught in a gaze that says so much of what I can’t out loud. His heart is racing from what we just did.

Did he feel it, too? That line we crossed? It didn’t feel like simple sex. Then again, nothing between us has ever been simple.

My heart skips as he gets up to take care of the condom, and it’s still unsteady when I come back from my trip to the bathroom. He’s lying with his hands behind his head, eyes fixed on the ceiling. They move to me when I crawl in next to him, and his mouth pulls up proudly.

“You look wrecked.”

I appraise him as I settle in. “Did I not work you hard enough? You should be passed out. Or incapable of speech, at the very least.”

He brings me closer, wrapping me up in his arms and dropping a kiss on my head. “You destroyed me, Shepard. I’m just not ready to sleep yet.”

There’s a tenderness in his voice that pushes straight into my heart. I tilt my head back, searching for it in his eyes. It’s there. He’s not even trying to hide it.

“Me neither,” I murmur. “Want to watch a movie or something?”

His response is immediate and accompanied by a smirk. “Or something. But a movie’s good in the meantime.” I huff out a laugh, and he rolls on top of me, biting gently at my neck. “We gonna fight over who gets to pick it?”

“Always,” I say.

He freezes and then I do, realizing how that sounds. Like we have an infinite number of these days, when in reality we have a handful and then it’s done.

His mouth parts, like he’s going to say something, but instead after a beat, he grazes his lips over mine. He takes it deep within seconds, tangling his fingers in my hair.

Whatever he was thinking of saying, I’m glad he stopped. I don’t have the right words, either.