36. Theo
THIRTY-SIX
THEO
Enough is enough.
As I stand outside Matteo’s office, it’s with the determination to fix the fuck up I caused. I haven’t seen him in over a week, and I believe it has entirely everything to do with what happened when we went to Cheyenne.
The days without him have been rough—monotone and dull—and it feels like I’ve been missing something so very essential to myself. Now that I’ve admitted to myself I love him, the feeling of being without him has only grown to be exponentially painful. The fear that this is the end of us has plagued me, making it hard to sleep, eat, or function.
He isn’t expecting me, but I think that’s best. There’s no time to give him an excuse to talk himself out of seeing me like he has these past couple of days. I press my ear to the door, waiting to see if there’s someone in there with him and open it when I hear nothing.
Matteo’s sitting behind his desk, head bowed down, and he looks up when I walk in. His eyes widen in surprise as he takes me in and darts over my shoulder to see if there’s anyone else. When he sees it’s just me, he visibly relaxes, letting out a sigh as he slumps back into his seat. “Theo, I didn’t expect you.”
“I know,” I say, but I’m not angry. I close the door behind me, fidgeting with my hands as I make my way to his desk. “You’ve been busy these past few days?”
He nods as he dips his head back down to look at the papers on his desk. “Marcy’s kept me busy.”
“Too busy to see me?” I joke, but a part of me is afraid I’m coming off as needy, so I backtrack. “I mean, I get it. Work can get a bit hectic sometimes.”
He hums, fingers clenching and unclenching around his pen before he sets it down. “Theo, I think we need to talk.”
I flinch at his to-the-point tone, nerves coursing through me as I scramble behind his desk. “Matteo, baby, what are you doing? Are you putting an end to us?”
I panic. No. This can’t be it between us. Not after everything we’ve been through and everything we’ve done. I fall to my knees in front of him, grasping at his knees with white knuckles. “Please, don’t do this.”
His brows furrow in concerned confusion as he reaches for the top of my head, smoothing back my hair. “What? That’s not it?—”
I sigh in relief and drop my head down on his thigh. “Fuck, you scared me.”
“But we do need to talk.”
I should listen to him, but I can’t think straight. The fact that I haven’t been with him in a week, the idea that he was going to leave me, all of it piles up until I’m frantically clawing my way up his body to his lips.
He gasps into my mouth, lips fumbling against mine in shock. I don’t give him a chance to say anything as I begin to work on his zipper, pulling it down in a frenzied haste. I have his cock out in no time, and I pull away from him and swallow, taking him all the way to the back of my throat in one go.
“Fuck!” he shouts, fingers gripping my hair, almost like he wants to push me away. “W-We need t-to talk…”
I shake my head, continuing to bob my head up and down, licking up his length the way I know he likes. I pop off for a second, licking my lips as I smirk. “We can talk after. I haven’t tasted your cum in a week, baby, and I’m starving for it.”
He has a moment where he looks torn, but when I fish out his balls and suck them into my mouth, fluttering my lashes at him as I do, he caves with a groan. “Yes— uh —suck my balls just like that, precioso .”
I feel the triumph fill me as I stroke up and down his length, laving his balls with the attention they deserve, sucking them and rolling them around my tongue until he’s pulling me up by my chin and back to his cock.
“Fuck my face. Please, Matteo. Use me,” I beg, opening my mouth wide in invitation, needing to feel like his after a week of doubt. “I know you’re my slut, baby, but treat me like your whore.”
That does it. Matteo loves things dirty—loves the filth—and my words have pushed him to his breaking point. With a growl, he snaps his hips up, filling my mouth in one brutal stroke. He pumps his hips hard and fast, not taking any mercy on me. He’s so caught up chasing his orgasm, that he doesn’t have the time to run his mouth the way he so deliciously does. It’s all animalistic grunts and groans, the wet sound of my sucking reverberating in the room.
There’s a knock on the door that freezes us both. He stops and I pull off, wiping the saliva off my chin with the back of my hand. “Shit. I should?—”
“One second!” he calls before he seizes my chin. “Get under the fucking desk and get that mouth open so you can keep my cock warm while I get rid of them.”
Fuck me.
I scramble under the desk without needing to be told twice, too tremendously into this idea. Shit, it’s just as hot as when he ate me out in the confessional. The sense of danger is enticing as I hide, and he slips his cock back into my mouth. I lick and suck, keeping my movements small as he calls for the person to come in. His fingers are running through my hair, his thighs tense with the adrenaline, and I sneak my hand into his pants to palm his balls.
“Father, thank you so much for seeing me.”
I freeze.
No… Please, God, tell me that’s not?—
“C-Clara,” Matteo stutters, ripping me off his cock as he pushes his chair closer to the desk. “I—Hello. I didn’t expect to see you. Isn’t there school today?”
No, no, no, no…
“I took the afternoon off because I needed to come see you,” she says, and I can hear the desperation in her voice as she sits. “I need your help.”
Matteo clears his throat, fingers twitching on his thighs. I can see how tense he is from here, and a part of me longs to reach out and tell him everything’s okay, but I can’t. “Of course. I’m here for all my flock. Please, what’s the matter?”
“It’s about Theo.”
My entire body starts to shake, sweat pooling on the back of my neck, and the paranoia I’m feeling makes me think that she knows I’m behind the desk. That she knows what I was doing to the man she’s looking for help from.
Matteo breathes out slowly, trying to keep himself calm as he white knuckles his pants. “Um, what about Theo?”
“I know you stopped our marriage counseling because you got too busy, but I really think we need one more session. He’s… He’s pulling away from me, and I don’t know what to do.”
Matteo waits for a beat. “Clara, I don’t think?—”
“Please, Father.” She rushes out, a tearful lilt to her voice when it cracks at the end of her plea. “Please. My marriage means everything to me and it’s slipping through my fingers. I need to fix things with Theo, and I think you’re our only hope.”
I’m going to throw up. If there was ever a time to want the world to swallow me up whole, this is it. It’s so unbelievably cruel for Clara to be begging the man that’s, unbeknownst to her, fucking her husband to save her marriage.
I’m cheating on her .
It’s the dirty truth that’s finally plastered on the billboard for all to see. I just had Matteo’s cock down my throat and now my wife is pleading with him to help bring me back to her. The universe is so wicked, all the tangled strings growing taut, impossible to untwine with the complexities of their temperament.
“I…” Matteo hesitates, but Clara must give him a look because I can see the moment his body slacks in defeat when he gives in. “Of course. If that’s what you need from me, that’s what we’ll do.”
“Tomorrow?” she asks hopefully. “I think the sooner the better.”
“We can do it tomorrow after you get off work. I’ll be here.” I hear the scrape of her chair against the floor. “Wait, Clara.”
“Yes, Father?”
“Do you think…”
He’s choosing his words carefully and it makes my breath stutter in my chest.
“Do you think Theo will agree to this?”
Clara sighs deeply as her footsteps migrate to the door. “If he loves me, he will.”
I wait until I hear the door open and the small click of it closing, but I still don’t come out. I curl into myself, wrapping my arms around my knees as I lean against the back of the desk.
I’m a horrible person. The absolute worst. I’ve shit on my entire marriage, the only thing I’ve ever known, because I… what? Got bored? Wanted something different? Wasn’t content with my what’s supposed to be a wonderful life?
Matteo rolls his chair back but doesn’t say anything. I don’t think either of us knows what to say in this situation. I stay there hidden, a part of me thinking that if I don’t come out, I don’t have to face what happened or the consequences of it.
Eventually, leaving my cave becomes inescapable when Matteo sighs. “Theo…”
“I know,” I rush out, wiping my nose with the back of a trembling hand. “I know. I’m not going to do it. You don’t have to worry?—”
“No,” he snaps, not in a hostile or aggressive manner, but curt and to the point. “You have to do this, Theo. For her.”
I don’t like what he’s saying, but I know he’s right. There’s no way to escape this session just like there’s no way to escape death. One way or the other, the three of us are crowding into his office tomorrow to talk about my marriage once again, and I don’t know what’s going to happen because of it.
I see Matteo’s shiny shoes and reach out to touch them, trying to use him as an anchor to the present, but it does no good. It doesn’t make what happened go away and it doesn’t keep me blissfully ignorant like it used to.
I don’t think Matteo and I will ever be blissfully ignorant again.
I crawl out from under the desk and stand on shaky feet, avoiding looking at him as I nod. “Um, so you wanted to talk?”
My eyes zero in on the way he hastily tucks himself back into his pants, almost as if trying to scramble the memory away, and it stings. “Not today. We need…” He trails off, cursing under his breath. “We’ll wait until after tomorrow.”
That makes me nervous because I don’t know why he would want to wait. I don’t ask him that, however, because I have a feeling the rest of our conversation today is going to be clouded in this toxic discomfort of two people realizing how truly horrible they are.
But still, it’s hard to leave. “I?—”
I almost say it. I love you, baby . Almost say it as a way of reassuring him that everything is and will be okay, but now I’m not too sure if it will be.
So, I don’t say anything else as I leave. On the walk back to work, I’m in a daze, going through the rest of my day barely present. There are no texts from Matteo and none from Clara, and the feeling of isolation grows as the day progresses. Although I’m surrounded by people at the office, I feel so incredibly alone.
The feeling only grows when the day’s over and I get home. Clara immediately accosts me about marriage counseling, and I mindlessly agree. Like the coward and the fool I am, we have a nice neutral night, but I’m not entirely present for it. When we go to bed, lying on our separate sides, her asleep while my mind races, I can’t help the sickening feeling that takes root in my gut.
Like Matteo and I just peaked and there’s nowhere to go from here but down.