TWENTY-SEVEN #2
Unfortunately for him, a lull in the music came at that exact instant. Theo spun around, his eyes boring into the drunk guy with a dangerous intensity.
“What the fuck did you just say to her?”
The drunk guy held up his hands. “Sorry, man. Didn’t realize she was yours.”
“Don’t apologize to me,” Theo said. He wasn’t a super tall guy, but he had at least fifty pounds more muscle on him. He jerked his thumb at me. “Apologize to her.”
The guy thought about it for a moment, then snorted a wet laugh and staggered a little, jostling me again.
A muscle in Theo’s jaw twitched. “You’re standing too close to her.” He laid his hand calmly on the guy’s chest. “Fuck.” He gave a small shove. “Off.”
The guy staggered a step or two back, and held up his hands again, his laughter gone. “All right, man. Be cool.”
Theo’s eyes remained locked on his in warning for another second, then he put his arm around me and pulled me in front of him, keeping me in the protective circle for the rest of our slow migration to the hostess stand.
“Reservation?” the hostess asked, and it took me a second to realize she was talking to me.
“Two,” I said. “Dawson.” My heart was still thumping loudly in my chest and the heat flushing my cheeks had nothing to do with the lack of air conditioning.
The way Theo had handled that guy…
I wasn’t a fan of violence, but some strange, primal urge in me almost hoped the guy had pushed Theo back, just so I could watch Theo defend me again. Protect me because I was his to protect.
Oh my God, get a grip. You’re setting the feminist movement back fifty years.
The hostess sat us at a tiny table. I fanned myself with the menu while Theo studied his intently, totally oblivious to my reaction.
It took an eternity for the waiter to show up, then another eternity to bring the food.
When it finally arrived—chicken fricassee for me, and shrimp jambalaya for Theo—my dinner date took one taste, wrinkled his nose, and started pouring on more hot sauce.
“Are you crazy?” I said, laughing. “My mouth hurts just looking at that.”
“It was warmish,” Theo said with a grin. “Now it’s satisfactory. Barely.”
I shook my head, my chin in my hand. “You must’ve been a fire-eater in a past life.”
He laughed and we dug into the hot Louisiana night, and the hotter dinner. The pre-show music hung in the heavy, humid air like pungent smoke. I imagined spirits dancing in the shadows in this city of vampires and voodoo.
We talked easily, and he laughed readily, drinking beer to my lemonade. Still, something in me felt tipsy. High and exhilarated, my thoughts running unchecked down a road I’d never taken before.
Jonah once told me I went up to eleven. Theo went up to one hundred, I mused. Nothing ever halfway. He was the kind of man who, if you wronged him or hurt someone he loved, he’d cut you off without another word. But if he was yours, he was yours for life.
If he was mine…
The thought startled me so badly, I nearly knocked over my lemonade glass.
Theo glanced up from his food. “You okay?”
I nodded, noticing his eyes were watering. I jerked my chin at his plate. “Why do you eat that if it’s so hot?”
“I like it.”
“It looks painful.”
He gave a lopsided grin. “Hurts so good.”
“God, you’re such a man.”
“Last I checked.”
I laughed and the other half of his smile widened before he went back to his food.
I started into my dish, but my eyes kept straying to Theo.
He took a too-big bite of his jambalaya, sweat beading his brow because he’d made it inferno-level hot.
On purpose. He washed down the shrimp with a chug of beer, blowing out his cheeks, then hunched over his plate, intent, both inked forearms on the table, gearing up for another huge mouthful.
I wondered if I’d taste the heat on his tongue if he kissed me.
My knee jumped, sending my napkin to the floor. I bent to get it, not coming back up until my face was composed. God, the atmosphere in this place was making me stupid.
Theo took another steaming forkful of spicy food. Another bead of sweat slid down his temple as he licked his lips.
Oh yes, without a doubt, if I kissed him, he’d burn me.
“I got something in my teeth?”
I blinked at him. “No, nothing. Just thinking.”
“About what?” Theo asked. His eyes stayed on me as his lips wrapped around the beer bottle and took a swig. I watched the swallow go down his throat. All my sordid thoughts visible on my face, or spelled out in neon, flashing above me. A blush inflamed my cheeks as I fought for an answer.
“This place has a lot of atmosphere,” I finally said.
God, are you serious?
Theo nodded and another dark look came over him, similar to the one he’d worn confronting the drunk guy in line.
Only now it was turned on me. His whiskey-colored eyes igniting another primal urge.
Theo, shirtless and sweaty, putting a flat hand on my chest and curling his fingers into the fabric of my dress.
Instead of pushing me away, he hauled me roughly to him, intent on taking what was his…
Oh my God.
My eyes were trapped by his stare. My body trapped in the chair by a sweet ache of longing burning between my legs. I didn’t blink. He didn’t look away.
With loud drum riff and a glissando down the piano keys, the live music began, finally tearing my eyes free.
The band was fronted by a young woman with long brown hair wearing a fedora hat, black leather jeans, and a white shirt with a black vest. Three African American men made up her band of guitar, piano, and bass.
They opened with a slow song that permeated the air like fragrant smoke.
I concentrated on the music, pretending to listen and resolutely not looking at Theo. But the damn music was bluesy, sexy… A slow burn of want and longing. It dialed into my already aching body, filling me with a need to be touched.
A shadow fell over me, and I looked up to see Theo standing, his hand outstretched.
“Dance with me.”
It wasn’t a request, and my traitorous body was already rising to its feet before I could think.
Theo took my hand in his and led me to the small dance floor, where a dozen other couples were swaying to the music. Some, driven by the sultry tones of the song and the singer’s smoky voice, were grinding their hips together, thighs intertwined.
Theo slung my arms around his neck, then put his hands on my hips, and began to move.
I’d never stood this close to Theo before. Our bodies pressed tight. Our faces so close, I could smell the sweet heat of his food, the bitterness of beer, the salt of his sweat. His heart beat thick against mine. The ragged exhale of his breath.
“You told me at the wedding you didn’t dance,” I said, every part of my body conscious of touching every part of his.
His mouth shaped the words, “I lied,” but no sound reached me over the music.
I could barely breathe. I was losing myself in him.
Our eyes locked. I couldn’t look anywhere but at him.
The light brown of his eyes fiery, like a shot of whiskey backlit by a white-hot flame.
His hips ground a slow circle against mine, his thigh inching between my legs.
One arm slid around my waist, the other came up the middle of my back, holding me close.
My arms wound around his neck, my fingers burrowed into his damp hair.
“I like this,” he murmured. His whole body was flush against mine.
I could feel its power, the strength of his muscles holding and moving me with the music.
The hollow of his neck glistened. I felt my own sweat slide over my collarbone and between my breasts.
My blood was on fire in a way that was entirely separate from the Louisiana summer.
A heat Theo was building in me with every roll of his pelvis against mine.
I felt the stiffness of his jeans against my skin as his hand slipped down to my ass, pressing me tighter against him.
Grinding in a dance that felt more like…
Foreplay .
My breath caught as Theo’s forehead came to touch mine, our gazes locked. Deep within, a greedy instinct and a growing need I hadn’t felt in a long time. I hooked one leg around his waist.
“Touch me,” I breathed.
He made a noise deep in his chest and his hand slid under my dress, up my thigh to my hip, pulling me into him.
I bit back a cry as he dipped me back. I let my head fall, arching.
He bent with me, his mouth on my throat, his tongue sliding against my skin.
Feverish. Burning from the inside out. His touch was scorching, sending trails of fire across my skin in every direction.
My nipples hardened. Heat pooled between my thighs where Theo ground against me mercilessly.
Slowly his lips dragged up my neck, then my chin, both of us pulling upright until we were face to face again.
The look in Theo’s eyes—the almost feral hunger—stole my breath.
“Kace,” he whispered.
I expected his kiss. It was right there between us, waiting hungrily. I didn’t expect his hands, so rough and hard before, to hold my face gently. I didn’t anticipate the furrow of his brows, almost as if he were in pain.
I tilted my chin, wanting this, needing this so badly.
Please .
He laid his lips to mine, kissing me softly, slowly.
The world turned around us, blurring and disappearing.
I had to hold onto his wrists to keep from slipping away with it, gasping at the sensation that came roaring to life inside me.
A match lit in a dark room, flaring with brilliant light.
My lips parted with that gasp, and Theo, with a growl of pure want, kissed me again, this time hard and deep.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, clinging to him, opened my mouth to take all of his kiss.
The taste of his tongue, the heat of his mouth.
We started dancing again, our bodies acting of their own volition, our mouths opening and closing, heads tilting back and forth.
Our tongues slid and tangled when the kiss went deep.
Teeth and lips bit and sucked when it turned shallow.
On and on, we danced and in the back of my delirium, I knew I’d been right about Theo: if you had him, you had all of him.
His kiss was the purest essence of himself: intense, fiery, devoted entirely to the moment.
This close, he was my entire world, with no place for anything else.
His body pressed to mine, his hands on my body, his sweat, his mouth…
He was so much. My instinct balked, used to thinking it was too much. But no, he was giving me everything and I was taking it. I could take it. And I wanted more.
“Oh, God,” I breathed into his mouth. He replied with a groan, and I took it in, inhaled him as he kissed me again.
We kissed until the song ended and the applause of the crowd broke the spell.
Slowly, the circle we’d been turning in ceased.
My feet felt the floor again, our bodies detached.
The real world rematerialized. We remained on the dance floor a moment longer, our eyes searching each other for…
I didn’t know what. Both of us blinking and dazed, as if coming out of a trance.
We walked back to our table—me on shaking legs—and I drank deep from my water glass, trying to quench the swirl of boiling emotions in my body.
“You want to get out of here?” Theo asked, his voice hoarse with desire. I could see it burning in his eyes.
I nodded, my body screaming for his, while the realization of what just happened was seeping into the cracks of my broken heart, and I didn’t know if it was harming or healing them.
Outside, the air was cooler, a bracing slug to my slushy mind.
I sensed Theo coming down off the high, too.
The lust waning, thinking twice and starting to ask questions.
The cab ride was too long. I kept my gaze locked on my window, where I could just make out Theo’s reflection beside me, his features sharpened into hard angles of frustration.
When the cab finally pulled up in front of my house, Theo tossed some money into the front seat, and we climbed out. My hands were shaking as I fumbled the key in the lock, and once in my living room, I froze.
I wanted him to leave. I wanted him to stay.
I wanted to curl up alone on my bed and cry. I wanted to drag him into my bedroom, have him tear my clothes off, take me hard and deep until we both found relief.
I wanted to cry for betraying what I’d had with Jonah. I wanted to cry because kissing Theo felt like nothing I’d known since.
Happiness burned within the fire, a glowing treasure I couldn’t reach without getting burned.
My eyes filled with the deluge of swirling emotions. I couldn’t hold them back. My shoulders hunched and I hugged myself.
“Oh, God, Kacey,” Theo said, moving around to face me. He cupped my cheeks in his hands. “Don’t cry, baby. Please…”
I shook my head, fighting for control. “No, it’s okay,” I heard myself say, trying to explain the unexplainable. “It’s just… It’s the first kiss since…”
Theo took a step back, his hands falling to his sides. “Fuck. Kace, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t… I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Or what I feel. It’s nothing to be sorry for. It’s not your fault.”
“It’s not yours either,” he said. “We just…got caught up in the moment.”
I looked sharply up at him. “Did we?”
Theo stared at me a moment, his whiskey-colored eyes soft and warm. “Yeah,” he said, carving his fingers through his hair. “We got caught up in the moment. The place, the song, the mood. It was like a drug.”
I felt a tug in my chest, then a sharp pain. Straight through my heart. “Yeah, I guess so,” I said.
“I’m going back to Vegas,” Theo said. “Tonight. I think it’s best.”
No, I thought, even as I nodded my head. “Okay. I think, maybe…you should. I need to think. God, I don’t know what I need.” I looked at him, so stoic and kind, willing to do anything for me, to do the right thing. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he said, moving to hold me, pressing me to his broad chest. “Do not ever be sorry. Not with me.”
As suddenly as his arms closed around me, they then released. He tossed his things in his bag, and in minutes, he was at the door, leaving.
“I’ll call you when I land.”
“Okay.” I said. “Teddy?”
He stopped at the door. “Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
A ghost of a smile touched his mouth. Then he was gone.