32. Piper
THIRTY-TWO
PIPER
The evening had been…magical.
I really couldn’t describe it as anything else.
Theo and I were on the couch with Finn snuggled between us, while Nelly sat on the recliner that faced the television that hung on the mantel above the roaring fire.
The lights were dimmed as The Polar Express played out on the screen.
It felt like a whirlwind.
A dream.
Decorating the tree, sharing the delicious soup that Nelly had made, then curling up in the sanctuary of it all.
I’d changed into cozy pajamas, the same as Finn, and both of us had slippers on our feet.
Now, as the credits began to roll, my sleepy boy yawned from where he was tucked beneath a fuzzy blanket.
“I think it’s time we get you to bed,” I murmured into the hushed peace.
“I not tired.” Only he yawned again and rubbed a tiny fist in his eye, his blond hair sticking up all over the place.
A soft chuckle rolled out of Theo, his presence so thick I could taste him with every breath that I inhaled.
“You sure about that? If you stay up any later, you’re going to turn into a pumpkin.” Theo tapped a finger on the tip of his nose.
Finn scrunched it up with a giggle, wiggling his legs in front of him. “I not a punkin .”
Affection washed through Theo’s expression, though I didn’t miss the wave of wistfulness that came with it.
Nelly suddenly stood. “Well, I for one am spent after this exciting evening. I think I’ll take my little Finn here to sleep with me so I’m not lonely.”
There was no missing the gleam in Nelly’s eye as she pushed out of her chair and came shuffling our way.
“That’s not necessary.” It left me a wispy defense.
I wasn’t sure I could handle being alone with Theo right then.
Not when he had me feeling this way.
Like I was floating.
Free.
As if all of this could be a possibility.
“Oh, I’m not doing it as a favor. It’s purely for selfish reasons.”
“Because you wuv me?” Finn peeped it as she swept him into her arms.
“That’s right. Because I love you.” She smacked a kiss to his chubby cheek then set her knowing gaze on me and Theo. “Besides, I wouldn’t want my little man to suffocate on all the tension that’s clouding this room. It’s a wonder any of us are still breathing.”
I sent her a scowl, though it was soft. “You stop.”
“Just telling it like it is. Maybe you should start doing the same.”
She shifted her attention to Finn who clung to her side. “Now give your mommy a kiss and tell her to have a real good night.”
Another scowl, but it only lasted for the flash of a second since Finn leaned in my direction, his sweet face so full of joy and calm that I felt a rush of it roll through my being.
He gave me a sloppy kiss then pointed a chubby index finger at Theo. “ Feo night-night!”
Nelly swooped Finn in his direction, and Theo reached out with those big, tattooed hands. Tenderly, he cupped Finn’s jaw and placed the gentlest kiss on the middle of his forehead. “Goodnight, Finn-Finn.”
Nelly was totally right. I couldn’t breathe.
Finn flapped a hand, then Nelly turned and plodded with him toward her bedroom. She paused in the doorway and wagged her brows at us from over her shoulder. “Don’t worry, this door will be locked up tight until at least dawn. You have the whole place to yourselves. We’ll leave you to it.”
She shut the door to the sound of Finn’s sleepy voice calling, “Night, Mommy and Feo !”
We sat there staring behind them for a few moments until Theo finally let go of a light laugh as he shifted in my direction.
“Does your grandmother make a habit of throwing you at the men who come crawling to your feet?” A soft ribbing filled his quiet words.
I rolled my eyes. “I hardly have men crawling to my feet.”
Another holiday movie had begun to play, the volume barely audible in the background.
That dark gaze slipped over my body.
In an instant, tension filled the two feet of space that separated us.
“I’m not sure how that would be possible,” he grunted.
I gave him a huff, voice hinting at a tease. “I think the shock and worry over coming up on that accident blinded you that first night. Or maybe you were the one who bumped your head.”
He drew a leg up as he turned to me, and the lapping flames cast shadows across his striking face.
Every severe angle etched in mischief and possession and lust.
“I was blinded, all right. Blind to everything else but the sight of you. Most gorgeous girl I’ve ever seen.”
Heat warmed my cheeks, and my teeth sank into my bottom lip.
Theo groaned.
“You know exactly how to drive me wild, don’t you, Little Liar?” His words were gravel, and energy pulsed through the air.
A disorder of need and desperation tossed with a feeling of belonging.
“I’m pretty sure it’s you who has obliterated all logic,” I murmured.
He suddenly reached out, big hands gripping me by each side of the waist as he hoisted me from where I sat on the couch. He pulled me over to straddle his lap.
I had to bite back the squeal that streaked up my throat.
My hands shot to his shoulders to keep myself steady.
To keep from floating away.
To stop this fall that felt inevitable.
He tilted his head back on the cushion, staring up at me as he released the gruff words, “Or maybe it’s just the two of us together that makes everything go boom.”
“What happens when we get burned?” I rasped.
Theo splayed his palms out wide, gliding them around to grip me by both butt cheeks.
He dragged me forward and rubbed my center against his hard cock.
There was no stopping the gasp, and I arched into him, my back bowing as a flicker of pleasure whipped up my spine.
Edging forward and pressing his mouth to my neck, he kissed up and down. “That burn would feel so nice, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes.” It was a masochist’s admission.
“Whole day, I’ve been thinking about making you come again,” he muttered, hands guiding me in a slow rhythm against him.
Only his jeans and my sleep pants separated us.
The friction the most sublime sort of tease.
“Thinking about the way your body comes alive under my hands. Way you fuckin’ glow when I send you soaring. Want to do it over and over again.”
I whimpered.
“Do you want that, Pipes? Do you want me to send you soaring again?”
“I’ve been thinking about it nonstop. I think I almost got myself fired daydreaming of you.”
Apparently, there was no longer any lying when it came to him.
His chuckle was low. A tremor that skated across the surface of my skin. “Not goin’ to apologize for being a distraction.”
“Because you’re cruel and wicked.” I breathed it like my own praise as my fingers rode up the sides of his thick, tattooed neck, before I grasped the longer pieces of his hair as he rolled me over him.
“How do you feel so good?” I whimpered quietly.
It was kind of ridiculous that he could wind me up to nearly boiling by merely rubbing himself against me.
He punted me one of those arrogant smirks. The one that made him look dark and delicious and like every single thing I should never want.
“Barely touching you.”
“And it’s almost too much.”
“You want me to stop?” It was a seductive threat.
“I’ll stab you if you do,” I wheezed.
Rough satisfaction skated from his mouth. “We can’t have that happening now, can we?”
He shifted me up higher onto my knees.
Clinging to his wide shoulders, I looked down at him, the man slung back on the couch as he gazed up at me.
His body dark and menacing.
This foreboding man who made me feel as if I were safe for the first time in so many years. As if I had the chance of a life that I’d believed stolen.
Such dangerous thinking.
But that’s exactly what he was.
Dangerous.
“How are you so beautiful?” Theo rasped it into the lapping night. “How do you manage to make me feel like I’ve been knocked senseless every time I look at you? Stealing my mind and stealing my breath.”
What I was terrified of was that he was stealing my heart.
“So damn perfect. You’ve got everything I thought I knew tangled,” he continued.
I could almost discern a ribbon of guilt woven into the words, but he didn’t give me time to evaluate it before he rubbed his hand between my thighs.
Sparks lit, and I gripped him by the shoulders, leaning my weight on him as I held back a moan.
“You like that?” He uttered it quietly. So savage and deep. “So fuckin’ responsive to me. Can feel the way you need it. The way you need me. Way this sweet body is begging for me to set it free.”
“I didn’t know I needed anyone until I met you.”
Did it make me a fool to admit it?
He glided his left hand up my side, over the loose sleep sweater that I wore. He cupped my breast and grazed his thumb over the pebbled peak of my nipple.
With his right, he undid the tie to my sleep pants. He loosened them enough that he could slip his hand underneath.
He grunted when he found me bare and aching, and he ran his fingers through my folds.
“Drenched and missing your underwear,” Theo gritted.
Moonlit eyes sparked in the night.
I suppressed a groan by biting down on my bottom lip, my lungs quaking as I began to pant.
“You really are trying to do me in, aren’t you? Were you prepared for me, Little Liar? Making it easy for me to get to this needy cunt?”
He seemed to be daring me to deny it.
I bit down harder at his words, and I barely fumbled a ragged, “Yes.”
His sharp jaw clenched as he pushed two big fingers inside me.
I bowed with the pleasure, and he sat forward and jerked my sleep pants down so they were stretched around my thighs.
A growl rolled in his chest as his attention dipped to where he thrust his fingers deep.
“So tight, this pussy clenching around my fingers.”
He pulled them almost all the way out before he plunged them back in, and curled his fingers inside me to touch a place I’d never been touched before.
Air shocked from my lungs.
“Theo.” I whispered his name on a plea.
“You like that?” he demanded.
My nod was frantic.
He began to roll the pad of his thumb over my clit as he hit the same spot again and again.
“Good, then take it like you want it.”