Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Esther
Theo was an expert kisser. There was no doubt in my mind, even knowing my experience was severely limited and plenty outdated. He used his lips and tongue like tools, delicate and precise, like he was decorating a wedding cake that required both artistry and skill.
By the time we came up for air, my limbs were noticeably trembling.
Smoothing my hair back from my flushed cheeks, he trailed his lips down to my chin and along the curve of my jaw. When he nipped lightly at my earlobe, I gasped, overwhelmed by a desire so strong and pure it knocked the air from my lungs.
On its heels came a shock of fear. As his mouth grazed the pulse beating wildly at the base of my throat, I tensed and Theo drew back immediately.
“Hey. Still with me?” He kept his voice low and soothing, his eyes focused intently on my face.
I fought to steady myself. “I—yes. I’m with you.”
“Are you sure?” he asked softly. “You looked scared for a second there.”
“How much I want you, that scares me,” I admitted, dropping my eyes to the collar of his shirt. “I haven’t wanted anything or anyone with this kind of intensity in a long time. Or ever, maybe. It’s kind of terrifying.”
Now it was Theo who sucked in a breath, but then his face blossomed into a smile that threatened to flatten me. “I see. We’ll take it slow, Esther, as slow as we need to. No expectations, no pressure.”
“I’ve never done anything like this,” I warned him.
His lips coasted over my temple, warm breath tickling my skin. “Are you trying to scare me away from you? Because it won’t work.”
“We’ve already established how unscary you think I am.”
A soft chuckle vibrated against my ear. “You’re thinking too hard about this. Why don’t you just let me kiss you some more, and we’ll see where things go from there?”
There was no need for me to reply with words, because his mouth settled against mine again and I was lost. Fear, trepidation, self-doubt—they all dissipated like mist.
After some indeterminate amount of time, he wrapped his arms around my body and rotated us so I ended up straddling his lap again, all without breaking the kiss. I huffed a laugh as I settled onto him, cradling the insistent bulge behind his zipper.
He dropped his forehead to my sternum. “You are so fucking soft, it’s unbelievable.”
“And you are not soft at all,” I teased, drawing a groan from deep in his chest as I rocked my hips against him.
His lips returned to mine like he couldn’t bear to be apart for more than a moment. No matter how eager his body felt beneath mine, he stuck to those slow, tantalizing kisses that made me feel drunk on sensation.
When his fingers teased under the hem of my sweater, dancing across bare skin, I wriggled closer, pressing my breasts to his chest. He splayed one hand across my lower back and let the other rise to tangle in the dark curtain of my hair as I clung to his shoulders like I might float away if I let go.
I felt his tongue dart out to explore my collarbone and sighed at the pleasure of being worshipped like this. His voice rumbled through me when he spoke, lifting goosebumps along my arms.
“Tell me what you need, Esther. Let me give it to you.”
I rested my forehead against his as I caught my breath.
He hummed a little as he trailed tiny kisses across my cheekbones and winked at me after one landed at the tip of my nose.
A soft sigh slipped past my lips and I shifted just enough to lay my head on his shoulder.
Without removing the hand that had snuck under my sweater, Theo wrapped his arms around me and rested his cheek against the top of my head.
“You make me feel like I don’t come with a whole lifetime of baggage,” I mumbled into his throat.
“We all have baggage. Yours is just a bit heavier than others.”
The hand against my lower back began stroking slow lines up and down my spine and, without his dark, perceptive eyes watching my face, I let the emotions slide through me.
Hope, uncertainty, anticipation, and underneath it all, an undercurrent of joyful excitement that swept the breath from my lungs.
It might have scared me if I hadn’t been so turned on, so eager for whatever Theo would give me. Everything about this moment felt different from how things had been for me in the past, from the soft adoration in his eyes to the frequent check-ins.
I hadn’t been with a man since Steve, hadn’t trusted anyone with my time or energy in that way, but with Theo, I wanted to.
I sighed and said, “I never thought I’d be able to forget about it, even temporarily, but I feel like I could get lost in you.”
“Is that what you want?” he asked, the words a low rumble against my ear. “To lose yourself?”
After a beat of silence, I shook my head. “I don’t think so. It’s tempting—so, so tempting. But it’s part of me and maybe I need to own it. I lost myself for a long time, in a different, horrible way, and I’m afraid of letting it happen again, even if the method is different.”
Theo’s arms tightened around me before he let go in order to tip my face up to his. “I like who you are, Esther. I won’t let you get lost, not even for my own gain.”
Something inside me cracked, some part of myself that had been hidden away long before Steve finally died.
From that tiny fissure, hope bloomed, warm and sweet.
I tried to blink back the tears that blossomed alongside it, but one escaped to roll down my cheek.
Theo brushed it away with his thumb and kissed my forehead.
“You are unlike any man I’ve ever known,” I said quietly.
“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
I laughed, feeling a sudden lightness that banished every trace of fear or sadness. “Good, because it was meant as one.”
“For what it’s worth,” he said as he cupped the back of my head and drew me close enough to kiss again, “you’re not like any woman I’ve ever known, either.”
Makeout sessions on the couch were never part of my youth, aside from what I saw on television, but Theo had spoken the truth—he really was content to simply kiss me, and kiss me, and kiss me.
His hands strayed now and then, coasting up the muscles of my back or sliding along my rib cage, but he always stopped before things progressed too far.
When I wriggled, rocking my pelvis against his, he groaned into my mouth. “Easy, easy,” he whispered. “You’re making this harder.”
“I noticed,” I replied, laughing breathlessly when he growled.
Though his fingers tickled my ribs in retribution, this time he didn’t catch himself before reaching the underside of my breasts.
He leaned back, watching the way my eyes fell shut when his palms brushed lightly back and forth over my nipples.
They hardened into tight buds against the fabric of my bra.
“This okay?” he asked, his voice ragged at the edges, like he was desperate to see the flesh he was teasing.
My eyes opened, heavy-lidded and dazed. Before I could overthink it, I leaned back, pulled the sweater over my head, and tossed it to the cushions beside us. “Better than okay.”
“Thank fuck.” His gaze went hungry as he drank in the sight.
“I want you to touch me. Please,” I gasped.
He chuckled against my collarbone. “I might die if I don’t.”
Without another word, he rose to his feet, keeping me clasped against him as a laugh bubbled out of me.
I was certain we’d both tumble back down the stairs, but before I knew it, we were in the guest bedroom.
Anita had transformed it into an oasis of blues and greens, lush textures and thoughtful decorative touches.
My favorite part, by far, was the large bed centered against one wall, its four posts draped with gauzy swaths of fabric. Based on Theo’s expression, it was his favorite now, too.
He carried me to the bed and kept my legs wrapped around his waist as he crawled over to set me down against the mountain of pillows. As though unable to resist another taste, he dropped his head to kiss me again before drawing back to say, “Talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“My mind is racing. All I know is if you don’t put your hands on me right now, I’m going to explode.”
A soft rush of air swept over my skin when he laughed, but I nudged him backward so I could sit up, unclasp my bra, and fling it to the floor.
Theo’s expression went stark, ravenous, and a shiver ran through me at being the focus of that look.
When I relaxed back against the pillows again, he threw off his own shirt, then lowered himself over me and kissed his way down my neck.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he growled against my skin.
The sound I made when his mouth closed over one nipple might have embarrassed me, if I’d had enough presence of mind to worry about it.
He sucked hard, drawing me deep into his mouth, then grazed his teeth over the tip until I arched up to meet him.
When my fingers tangled in his hair, clutching him to me, he flicked his tongue across the peak until I was nearly frantic beneath him.
“Theo,” I whimpered when he moved to the other side, his long fingers toying with the first, plucking and rolling. I tried to clench my thighs together against the electric sensations zinging through me, but I only succeeded in wrapping them more tightly around his waist.
“Hmm?” The sound vibrated against my skin. “Should I stop?”
“No. Fuck no, please don’t stop.”
As he kissed a path between my breasts, he asked, “Are you ready for more?”
My lips parted as I met his eyes. His fingers had lowered to fiddle with the button of my jeans, making his meaning perfectly clear. “Is that a real question?”
“Is that a yes?”
I laughed a little incredulously, but when he lowered his head to trail hot, wet kisses across the soft swell of my belly, my head fell back in surrender. “It’s a yes. Please,” I panted.
After he deftly unbuttoned my jeans and drew them down my legs, Theo kissed his way back up, nipping the sensitive skin of my inner thigh and then my hip bone as he hooked his fingers in the waistband of my purple cotton underpants.
“It’s unreal just how goddamn sexy you are,” he growled as he tugged them down.
I shuddered beneath him as he crawled back up my body, his lips meeting mine just as his hand cupped me, slipping between my legs as though it was simply meant to be there.
Against his palm, I already knew he’d find me wet and hot and welcoming his touch like I’d been waiting my whole life for him.
My thighs fell open to his questing fingers, beckoning him further.
When one sank deep, filling me, he swallowed the soft sound I made against his mouth, then lifted his head to watch my expression as he added another finger and curled them inside me.
Helpless, restless bliss filled me as I rocked my hips against his palm.
With his thumb, he stroked, circling in time with the thrust of his fingers, watching as my lips parted on a gasp.
“You are stunning,” he murmured.
As my muscles began to tense, I met his eyes, my own wide and dazed. The only thing I said was his name, but it felt like a plea.
“Let go, Esther. I won’t let you get lost, I promise. You’re right here with me. Let everything else go.”
The low timbre of his voice pushed me over the edge.
I arched and cried out, clenching around his fingers.
Patiently, he waited as the ripples faded, slowing the sweep of his thumb as he brought me back down from the peak.
When every muscle of my body had relaxed into limp satisfaction, he finally drew his hand away and pressed a soft kiss to my shoulder.
“Wow. That was…wow.” My eyes fell shut while I waited for my pulse to slow. “You’re very good with your hands.”
Theo laughed. “Wait until you see what I can do with my mouth. How do you feel? Did you lose any piece of the brilliant woman that you are?”
I opened my eyes and looked at him, the rugged stranger who’d somehow become my first lover in longer than I cared to admit.
There wasn’t even a hint of smugness in his earnest brown eyes, only a fierce kind of joy.
Nothing he could say would have convinced me of his own enjoyment more than that particular visual.
“No,” I said softly, rolling so I was nestled against him. “Not at all. I feel…found.”