Chapter 28 Theo
THEO
“NEXT TIME, YOU’RE going with me,” I told Shep as I unpacked my suitcase so I could repack it to go to his place. “Tell your job that’s a royal decree. Must attend all personal engagements with Prince Rinaldi.”
Shep smirked as he lay back on his hands on my bed, watching me toss my dirty clothes into a hamper. “Tell my job? I’m the owner.”
“Well, as an owner you’re a hardass.”
“Damn right I am.” His legs shot out to trap me between them and hold me there. “Did you miss me or something?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did I miss having you as a buffer to hold me back from saying shitty things to my brother on my quick trip to Monaco? Gee, no, why would you think that?”
“You didn’t.”
“Say shitty things?” I smoothed my hands over Shep’s bare shoulders before threading my fingers behind his neck. “Actually, I was on my best behavior, if you can imagine that.”
“I can’t.”
“Then you should’ve been there.”
Shep groaned and dropped his legs to let me go refill my toiletry bag.
I’d been living out of suitcases for weeks now—not my favorite thing in the world—but his place was a better fit for us.
The overly stuffy royal residence my family kept off Billionaire’s Row in Midtown Manhattan was a gorgeous place, even overlooking Central Park, but it didn’t feel like home. Not the way Shep’s place did.
“I wish I could’ve been,” he said, reaching for his shirt off the ground to put it back on.
I might’ve ripped his clothes off the second he arrived, but that didn’t mean he could put them on again.
“Hey, hey, hey, what do you think you’re doing?” I said, whirling back around. “No clothes allowed at the Rinaldi residence.”
Shep looked at me defiantly, a mischievous tip to his lips, and pulled the shirt over his head. “What are you gonna do about it?”
Oh, he was pushing all my buttons. I immediately dropped my bottle of cologne on the mattress and straddled him where he sat, now wearing entirely too much with his boxer briefs pulled on too.
“This is just rude. Taking away my eye candy.” I pouted, nipping at his lower lip before sucking it into my mouth. Shep slid his hands up my back, kneading my muscles in a way that felt so damn good I practically sank into him again.
“You forgive me?” he murmured against my mouth between kisses.
“For what?” I lost all train of thought when he touched me, every problem disappearing, any issue dissolving into nothing.
There was only Shep, and spending three days apart had only reaffirmed the fact that I couldn’t be without him.
It wasn’t even just a want at this point—it was a need.
I needed Shep like I needed air to breathe, and that realization was both scary and exhilarating.
He chuckled against my lips before capturing them again, holding me tight to him.
Now this was right. How had Shep been in front of me for all these years and I’d never seen it? Never even allowed myself to think it. He’d been King’s second-in-command, his ex-partner, a man too in control and stoic to possibly be my type.
That was a laugh. Shep wasn’t just my type—he was the one for me. I knew it in my bones as an absolute fact, one that was as unwavering as the man himself.
I held his face between my hands and drew back to look at him. Those light blue eyes were hypnotizing as they opened to meet mine, his lips flushed and swollen.
He was so fucking handsome it hurt.
“I love you,” I said, brushing my thumb over his lips. “And yeah, I missed you. I hate sleeping without you.”
His arms tightened around me. “Why do you think I’ve got circles under my eyes? I kept waking up when I didn’t feel you beside me.”
I couldn’t even tease him about the dark circles, because I got it. It felt like half of me was missing and I’d only been gone for three days.
Seventy-four and a half hours, to be precise.
Not that I was counting down or anything.
“All I know is that starting from today, if you travel, I travel, and vice versa.”
“Really?” Shep arched a brow. “Is this something we’re going to put into writing?”
“It can be.” I grinned and scooted off his lap, looking around for my laptop, then realized I’d left it out on the coffee table.
Since I wasn’t about to leave him sitting on my bed all gorgeous and half dressed, willing to agree to my outlandish demands, I rifled through the front of my carry-on and found a napkin from my private plane with the Monaco royal emblem embossed on it.
Parfait.
I snagged a pen from the same pocket and wrote across the top:
Non-negotiables of Theo & Shep
No traveling without the other (if longer than one night)
No clothes allowed at the Rinaldi residence
“What is that?” Shep asked, moving up off the bed, but I quickly brought the napkin to my chest.
“I’ll show you in a minute. I’m not done yet.”
Shep’s eyes narrowed as he quickly reached for it, but I managed to dodge him, laughing when he growled.
“Theo…”
“What? I’m just writing down a few things I think we need to get cleared up going forward in this relationship.”
No life-or-death secrets
One food fight a month to blow off steam
(food of choice to alternate)
“And I don’t get to see this…list you’re writing?”
“Oh, you will, when you sign it.”
Shep snorted. “I’m signing it?”
“Oui, how else will it be binding?”
Shep started across the room then, a twinkle of fierce determination in his eyes, and I knew there was no way I’d dodge him this time. He wanted to see what was on the napkin, and if there was one thing that had always been true about Shep, it was if he wanted something, he always got it.
“Give me the napkin, Theo.”
“I’m still adding to it.”
He was gaining on me now, so I moved up onto the bed, but that didn’t slow him down. Shep grabbed me around the backs of my knees and tumbled me down onto my back.
A whoosh of air left me on a rush, before I started laughing as I attempted to finish my final demand.
“Hand it over,” Shep said as he straddled my waist, pinning me in place.
“Sheesh.” I pouted as I held the pen and paper out. “So impatient.”
“If you’re writing up some crazy list you want me to abide by, then you bet your sweet ass I’m going to be impatient about it.”
I let out a sigh and rolled my eyes as he looked down at the napkin. While he read through my “crazy list,” I rubbed my hands up his thighs.
“Theo—”
“Read it out loud,” I interrupted, as his beautiful eyes found mine. “I want to make sure I got everything.”
“Non-negotiables of Theo and Shep. No traveling without the other (if longer than one night). No clothes allowed at the Rinaldi residence. No life-or-death secrets. One food fight a month to blow off steam (food of choice to alternate).” Shep paused then and licked over his lower lip, and I swallowed, knowing the last one was barely legible. “Never stop loving the other.”
As his eyes found mine, my heart beat so loudly I was surprised he couldn’t hear it, and the love that was evident in every handsome line of his face made me melt under his stare.
“Where’s the pen?”
“Huh?”
“You want me to sign this, right? Make it legally binding?”
I blinked up at him, my pulse hammering as the craziest, most insane, reckless idea popped into my head. Then I sat up and took the napkin from him, tossing it aside.
“I have a better idea,” I said, and took his face between my hands, brushing a kiss over his lips. “Marry me instead.”