Chapter 12 Theo #2
“Good.” She catches my hand before I can pull it back all the way, presses a kiss to my palm. “Same.”
I forget what I was going to say next.
“When I’m on deadline,” she continues like she didn’t just short-circuit my brain, “I forget to eat entirely. My cat judges me.”
“Mr. Darcy.”
She blinks. “How do you know my cat’s name?”
“Lucas told me last night. After his date with you.” I grin. “Told me the pen name, and I was up until three in the morning reading all four.”
“There’s a group chat, isn’t there? Between the three of you?”
“There’s always been a group chat. Since high school.” I refill her wine. “We never deleted it. Even after you left.”
“What do you talk about?”
“Everything. Nothing. Lucas sends articles about medical breakthroughs. Nate sends exactly zero messages and then responds with one word six hours later. I send pictures of plants nobody asked for.”
She laughs. “That tracks.”
“Nate hasn’t said much about you being back. But he will.” I lean back in my chair. “He processes slow.”
Her face goes thoughtful. “I still need to talk to him.”
“Chapter seven in particular.”
“Please stop.”
“And chapter twelve. That scene was—”
“Theodore Holt, if you finish that sentence, I’m leaving.”
I grin. She’s blushing furiously, trying to hide behind her wine glass, and she’s so beautiful it hurts.
“I liked it,” I say quietly. “Your books. For what it’s worth. Not just the... detailed parts. All of it. The way you write about love. About wanting something so much it scares you.”
She lowers the glass. “You did?”
“I saw myself in those pages. The version of me I wanted to be. The one who actually asks for things instead of just giving all the time.” I reach across the table, take her hand. “I’m not there yet. But I’m trying.”
“You’re doing better than you think.” She squeezes my fingers. “Kissing me in the greenhouse. Making me risotto. That’s not nothing.”
“It’s not enough.”
“It’s a start.” She stands, comes around the table, and settles into my lap like she belongs there.
My hands find her hips automatically. Hold her steady.
She’s warm and soft and fits against me perfectly, and everything in me screams omega, ours, keep.
Her scent surrounds me—honey and citrus and that deeper note of want underneath—and I feel myself responding in ways I haven’t in years. Protective. Possessive. Hungry.
“We have time, Theo.” Her voice is soft. “We don’t have to figure it all out tonight.”
“No?” My voice comes out rougher than intended. Gravelly. My grip tightens on her hips without meaning to.
“No.” She loops her arms around my neck, unfazed. Like she knows exactly what she’s doing to me and she likes it. Her fingers play with the hair at my nape. “Tonight, we can just... be. Together. No past, no future. Just this.”
“Just this,” I repeat. My thumbs trace circles on her hip bones through her sweater. I watch her breath catch, smell the way her scent spikes sweeter.
“Mmhmm.” She kisses the corner of my mouth. Soft. Teasing. “Is that okay?”
I pull her closer. Let myself breathe her in—honey and citrus and something that’s just her.
Feel the warmth of her thighs bracketing mine, the rise and fall of her chest, the way her fingers tighten in my hair when I press my lips to her jaw.
My teeth graze her neck, right where a claiming mark would go, and she shivers.
“More than okay,” I murmur against her skin. “It’s perfect.”
We make it to the couch eventually. I’m not entirely sure how—one minute we’re at the kitchen table, the next I’m carrying her across the room because walking seemed too far and I couldn’t stop kissing her long enough to let her use her own legs.
She pulls me down on top of her, and the full-body contact makes both of us groan. Her thighs wrap around my hips, pulling me closer, and I can feel the heat of her through our clothes. Can smell how wet she is, slick and sweet and making me half-crazy with want.
“Theo.” She’s tugging at my shirt. “Off. I want to feel you.”
I lean back just long enough to yank it over my head. Her hands are on my chest immediately, tracing the muscles I’ve built from years of manual labor. When her nails scrape lightly over my nipples, I shudder.
“Your turn,” I manage, and she sits up just enough for me to pull her sweater off. She’s wearing a simple cotton bra underneath—nothing fancy—and she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“You’re staring,” she whispers.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for ten years.” I unhook her bra, slide it off her shoulders. Her breasts are perfect—soft and full, nipples already peaked. “Let me look.”
“Looking is not the same as touching.”
Permission granted.
I cup her breasts in my hands, feeling the weight of them, the softness. When I brush my thumbs across her nipples, she arches into my touch with a moan that goes straight to my cock.
“Sensitive?” I ask, doing it again.
“Very.” She’s panting now. “Theo, please—”
I lower my mouth to her breast, sucking one nipple while my hand works the other. She cries out, her fingers tangling in my hair, holding me there. Her scent blooms thicker—honey and citrus and the unmistakable sweetness of omega slick.
“I can smell how wet you are,” I murmur against her skin. “Can I touch you?”
“God, yes. Please.”
My hand slides down her stomach, over the waistband of her jeans. I fumble with the button—my hands are shaking, I’m shaking—and she helps me, lifting her hips so I can tug them down. Her underwear follows, and then she’s bare beneath me, spread out on my couch like every fantasy I’ve ever had.
“Theo.” Her voice is strained. “Stop staring and touch me.”
I slide my hand between her thighs and nearly come in my pants.
She’s soaked. Slick coating her folds, dripping onto my fingers the moment I touch her. Hot and wet and swollen, her body desperately ready for an alpha even though she’s not in heat.
“Fuck,” I breathe. “Cara, you’re so wet—”
“It’s you.” She’s rocking against my hand, trying to get more friction. “It’s been like this since the greenhouse. Please, Theo, I need—”
I slide one finger inside her and she clenches around me immediately, her whole body arching off the couch. She’s tight—so tight—and the way her inner walls grip my finger makes me imagine what she’d feel like around my cock, around my knot—
“More,” she gasps. “I can take more.”
I add a second finger, stretching her slowly. She moans, long and low, and more slick gushes around my hand. I start to move, thrusting my fingers in and out while my thumb finds her clit.
“Oh god.” Her head falls back against the cushions. “Oh god, Theo, right there—”
I curl my fingers inside her, searching for that spot, and when I find it she nearly screams. Her whole body goes taut, thighs clamping around my hand, and I can feel her pulse fluttering against my fingers.
“That’s it,” I murmur, working her harder. “That’s it, sweetheart. Let go for me.”
“Theo—” She’s writhing now, hands fisting in the couch cushions. “I’m going to—I’m so close—”
“I’ve got you.” I lean down, take her nipple in my mouth again while my fingers drive into her. “Come for me, Cara. Want to feel you come on my hand.”
She shatters.
Her whole body convulses, clenching tight around my fingers, and the sound she makes—broken and desperate and satisfied—goes straight through me. Slick floods my hand as she rides out her orgasm, wave after wave of pleasure that I can smell in her scent, can feel in the way she trembles beneath me.
I work her through it, gentling my touch as she comes down. When she finally goes limp, panting, I ease my fingers out of her. They’re coated in slick, glistening in the low light.
She watches, eyes dark, as I bring them to my mouth and taste her.
“Theo.” Her voice is wrecked. “That’s—”
“You taste incredible.” Sweet and musky and omega. I lick my fingers clean while she watches. “I could do that all night.”
“Later.” She’s already reaching for my belt. “Right now I need to touch you.”
I help her get my jeans off, then my boxers, and then we’re both naked on my couch and I can’t think straight. My cock is straining, painfully hard, and when her hand wraps around my shaft I nearly black out.
“God, I missed this.” She’s stroking me slowly, her grip firm and perfect. “Missed you.”
“Cara—” My voice is strained. I’m thrusting into her fist now, unable to help myself. The base of my cock is already swelling, my body responding to her omega scent.
“I know you’re holding back.” Her thumb swipes over my tip, spreading the precum there. “You’re always so careful. So gentle.” Her grip tightens. “But I don’t want gentle right now, Theo.”
I groan. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“I know exactly what I’m asking for.” Her hand slides down to the base where my knot is forming, and she squeezes.
I see stars.
“Fuck—” The pressure is incredible, her fingers tightening around the swelling flesh. My knot pulses bigger under her grip, thickening until it fills her hand completely.
“That’s it.” She squeezes again, rhythmic pulses around my fully formed knot. “Let go for me.”
Her voice, her hand, her scent everywhere—it’s too much. I’m gone.
I come with a groan that’s almost a growl, spilling over her hand and onto her stomach. She keeps stroking me through it, squeezing my knot in waves, milking every drop while I shudder and curse and try not to collapse on top of her.
When I finally stop shaking, she’s looking at me with so much warmth it makes my chest ache.
“Hi,” she says softly.
“Hi.” I lean down and kiss her, slow and thorough. “That was...”
“Yeah.” She’s smiling against my mouth. “It really was.”
I grab my discarded shirt and clean her up gently—her stomach, her thighs, my hand. She watches me the whole time with soft eyes.
“Stay there,” I murmur. “I’ll get us something better.”