30. Isabella
30
ISABELLA
I t feels strange to be back here.
The large metal gates of Teo’s home open to us in eager invitation. It is a really beautiful house, and the view across the river is unparalleled. But…
“Would it be weird if I said I kind of miss the bunker?”
Beside me, Teo snorts. “You want to live in Long Island?”
“I want to live in Manhattan, but my doorman would kick you out.”
He feigns shock. “Did you blacklist me?”
“You blacklisted yourself by stalking me,” I snap back.
His hand tugs me toward him. Exhaustion lines his features as I imagine it does mine.
He’d been discharged with nearly an entire drugstore's worth of creams and ointments and had several burns that would likely scar. But behind the exhaustion in his endlessly dark eyes is a glimmer of something beautiful.
Love. He’d called it.
The word sets something gloriously alight within me. I cradle it close, letting the warmth of it settle in my bones.
“Does this mean you’ll live with me?” he asks cheekily.
I brush my hand through his hair, pulling it back from his face. “Until you can buy somewhere nice in Manhattan.”
“ I can buy it for you?” He laughs.
I hum noncommittally. “What, you don’t want your girlfriend to be happy?”
His mouth cracks into a devastating smile. Oh, he liked that. He liked that a lot.
“I wasn’t aware that I had a girlfriend. Or that she would be so high maintenance.”
I’m about to be much more than your girlfriend. I don’t say because I’m waiting for a better moment than this.
What I do say is, “Perhaps you should have thought of that before you told me you loved me.”
“You’re right. The fault is entirely mine.” He leans in and kisses me ever so softly.
I melt into it, wrapping my arms around his neck as he presses another to the corner of my mouth. Then, my cheek. Then, my ear.
There, he whispers. “You’re my girlfriend.”
“I better be.”
He chuckles. “Possessive, belle?”
“You have no idea.”
This time, the kiss is filthy. His tongue hungrily explores my mouth, languishing in every groan I let out.
“Come on,” he says as he pulls away, taking me again by the hand. “I want to show my girlfriend where she’ll be living until I can afford to set us up in Manhattan.”
I let him lead me inside. The house—well, mansion really—was gorgeous the last time I was here. But I never had a chance to explore beyond the ground floor.
The hallway is wide and lined with sleek, modern fixtures. The silver track lighting that follows us feels almost theatrical, and the hardwood floors gleam underfoot.
The kitchen is striking in its own way, with granite countertops and a stainless steel fridge that looks like it belongs in a five-star restaurant, although I know most of it is crammed with medical supplies.
“You don’t strike me as someone who cooks too much,” I tease as I examine the extensive display of Japanese cooking knives on the wall.
“I get by,” he admits sheepishly before gesturing out. “Shall we?”
I wait for him to slip out before I hastily wrap one of the knives in the sleeve of my jacket.
“Follow me,” he murmurs when I reappear, guiding me down another hallway that opens into a study.
But calling it a study feels almost inadequate.
One wall is taken up by monitors, each displaying an array of code, maps, and schematics. High-tech equipment hums on a wide, glass-top desk, surrounded by low-lit towers of servers, the quiet whir of electronics filling the air.
He definitely notices my wide-eyed look because he gives me a smug smile. “Like it?”
“It’s…like my own personal playground.”
“I’ll introduce you later,” he replies mildly before taking my hand again. “There’s something else I want to show you first.”
We take the stairs up and head toward a set of double doors at the end of the hallway.
He winks at me before he twists the handle and opens it, gesturing for me to step inside.
It’s his bedroom.
The room is massive but feels surprisingly warm. The lights are dimmed to a soft glow, accentuating the rich, dark wood of the floors and the deep charcoal walls.
The bed dominates the room, king-sized with dark, plush bedding that looks soft enough to sink into. The pillows are perfectly arranged, though a few of them bear the faint creases of someone who’s often up late, lying awake, thinking.
A sliding glass door on the far side of the room opens to a small balcony with a view of the river, the city lights spilling in to cast faint patterns against the walls.
I take a step forward, mildly amused. “The thing you wanted to show me was your bedroom? Has the subtlety of romance been lost?”
He chuckles behind me as the door locks with a soft click. Then, another click. Then another.
I whirl around in alarm.
“This room is entirely soundproof,” he says as he casually stalks forward. “There’s nothing you can hack into to get the doors open. The glass is bulletproof, so you can’t scale the side of the building to make your escape.”
There’s something quite menacing about his approach, but I hold my ground. “Is that supposed to intimidate me?”
His midnight eyes graze over me lazily. “I suppose you think you could just stab me and make a run for it.”
My mouth opens in shock. “How did you?—”
But his hands are on me, shoving me firmly backward until I crash into the wall. The knife drops into my hand instinctively, and I press the blunt end into his neck.
We stand there for a moment, each breathing heavily.
“Any particular reason you have a knife in your hand, my love?”
“Old habits,” I breathe back. “Why did you lock us in here?”
“Because I’m not letting you go this time.”
A small gasp escapes my mouth before his lips crash into mine.
His hands cling to the sides of my waist as he hungrily draws out my tongue with his mouth, worshiping it between his lips and sending a feral sensation to my core.
I groan loudly—as loud as I would like—as he begins to plant kisses down my neck and throat.
“That it,” he growls below my ear. “It’s soundproof. No one but me gets to hear you scream.
I fight against the twitch of a smile as he continues to attack every inch of skin within his reach. It’s incredibly distracting. Too distracting.
Without warning, the knife is pulled from my hand entirely.
The metal of the sharp blade rests under my chin.
Teo leans in close. “Do you trust me?”
“Absolutely not.”
He grins, and then…
A whoosh of air and the sound of buttons and fabric dropping to the floor.
And I suddenly feel very, very exposed.
“Did you just?—”
But there’s no time to lament my sudden absence of clothes. The knife drops to the floor, and suddenly, Teo is everywhere.
His tongue, his lips, his fingers, his mouth, his breath all brush my skin with enough reverence to brand it.
His hands massage and grapple and stroke and tease. One moment, they’re tangled in my hair, holding onto my neck so that he can deepen a kiss that seems to have no end. The next, they’re spreading my legs and rubbing my throbbing core, so sinfully I could scream.
And I do. Loudly, as I spread against the wall like his own personal feast.
When he sinks to his knees to bite up the inside of my leg, I can feel myself dripping. He laps it up with his tongue.
“You are divine.”
The words hum across my skin as he moves up and up, closer and closer.
Then he licks me, laps up my juices and lets his tongue circle my clit over and over and over and over and…
“Oh, God.”
“He’s not here,” he hums against my throbbing core.
I can’t take it anymore. I need something, anything to satisfy the frustration. Friction. I need friction. I need his considerable length between my thighs, pounding into me repeatedly until I forget my own name.
I move my hand down, a poor substitute, but he just slaps it away, perfectly content with teasing me until I’m completely and utterly ruined.
It won’t do.
I wait until he attacks me again, perfectly distracted by the taste, the noises he draws out of me. Then I move, abruptly tearing myself away from the wall. Narrowly, avoiding his grasping hands, I run.
I run as far as I can. I turn around when I reach the bed, watching how he stalks toward me with that tightened jaw.
“You’re so fucking sexy when you look at me like that,” I goad him as I lean back onto the bed.
As he approaches, I place a firm foot on his chest. “You’re going to fuck me now. No more playing.”
He instantly turns his face to kiss my ankle. “I love it when you tell me what to do.”
“Then remove your fucking pants.”
With a groan, he does as he is told. I immediately begin to salivate as his cock is released, hard and thick with desire for me. It’s too easy to remember how it tastes, how it feels to be fucked in the mouth.
Teo notices my hungry stares. “I thought you didn’t want to play anymore?”
It’s a snap decision to lean forward and run my tongue all the way up his shaft.
He hisses, and the sound goes straight to my core.
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to play with you.”
I lean in again, intent on wrapping my lips around his sensitive tip to try and draw out another luxurious hiss.
But his hands wind into my hair and pull me back to the bed.
He’s on top of me a moment later, and without missing a beat, he plunges into me, filling me up entirely until he’s seated to the hilt.
The sudden intrusion is gloriously received. Finally, finally, the need for friction is relieved. Stars begin to spot in my vision as a sound erupts from my lips that I’ve never made before.
Then he moves. God, he moves, and the sound keeps coming, and my desire builds in time with the slapping of our skin and he picks up the pace, faster and faster and faster.
I think I might be pulled in and out of consciousness. There’s a ringing in my ears that ebbs and flows, distorting the flow of time.
The only thing that’s real is that he’s inside of me, constantly slamming against my walls but unable to break me while I’m transported to another reality.
Only for it to snap the second his lips crash into mine. He resuscitated me, only for every feeling, every desire, every touch to overwhelm me all at once.
“Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.”
It overwhelms me like a tsunami, and I’m suddenly soaked. The release comes in long waves, and I’m shivering around him when he finally tenses and comes straight after me.
I gulp down air like I’ve been deprived of it. Then, roll onto my side to kiss him. Then kiss him again.
The third kiss is lazier, less frantic. The exertion finally catching up to me.
“Is my girlfriend satisfied?”
I bite my lip before leaning to kiss him again.
“Not just your girlfriend.”
“Love of my life?”
I kiss him again. “Did you know that Cas had a craving for ice shards?”
He pulls back, instantly confused by the direction of the conversation. “Yes?”
“She wanted some while we were at the hospital. But the freezer was out, so I had to wait for them to restock.”
“This is truly a fascinating story?—-”
“I’m not done,” I hit him playfully. “While I was waiting, I thought it would be fun to do a little test. Just to pass the time.”
He pushes himself up on his elbow and furrows his brow. “What kind of test?”
My confidence finally wavers, and I can feel my hands twitching for something to hold on to. I settle for his hand.
“Teo, I love you.”
His breath hitches, but I don’t let him respond.
“And I know this is new and probably not what you were expecting. Or what you signed up for. But…”
“But what?”
I force myself to look him in the eye. “I’m pregnant.”
Endless night bores into me. Overwhelms me. There’s nothing in his expression beyond the shock of the revelation, and I want to laugh at him. I want to cry.
I do neither, and I’m rewarded with a kiss.
A deep one, one that I think I will remember for the rest of my life because the way he holds me is so gentle. The way he gasps into my mouth between every hurried movement sets my entire soul on fire.
“We’re having a baby?”
And it’s excitement in his voice. It’s joy, it’s wonder.
And my eyes leak the tears I thought I was strong enough to hold back.
“We’re having a baby,” I confirm in between soft, desperate kisses.
Finally, he draws back, marveling at my face. “You told me you loved me.”
“I told you that I loved you.”
“Do you mean it?”
I smile back.
“Every day for the rest of my measly existence.”