Chapter 18 Inadmissible
INADMISSABLE
THEO
Theo wakes to pain.
A dull, throbbing, entirely earned kind that starts behind his eyes and radiates through his skull like a fucking punishment.
His mouth tastes like the remnants of bourbon.
And regret.
His first thought is that he’s an idiot; the second is that Baryn Mayfair should be tried for entrapment.
He rubs at his eyes, wincing as the night replays in fragments—the rules, Baryn’s self-satisfied grin, his own inability to walk away. He’d taken every bait thrown at him, proud and ignorant enough to keep drinking just to prove a point no one was keeping score of.
Well, no one except for Theo.
Lila does something to him. She always has.
She makes him forget himself—makes him act without calculation, without the careful detachment he’s built his life on. With her, everything always seems to go sideways for him. Rational thought goes first, then boundaries, then whatever good sense he has left.
She makes him competitive, defensive, jealous of anyone who can stand near her without feeling the floor shift beneath their feet. She makes him want things he has no business wanting—her laugh, her trust, which he most definitely does not deserve.
It’s inconvenient. Addictive.
He presses the heel of his hand to his brow, willing it all back into order, but it’s useless.
He rolls onto his side, searching for the edge of the bed, and freezes.
Lila’s there. For a moment, through the fog of his hangover, he almost forgot where he was.
She’s on her stomach, hair a messy spill across the pillow, hand tucked under her cheek. The blanket’s pulled halfway up her back, rising and falling with each breath she takes.
Briefly, he forgets to breathe at all, aching to reach out and touch any part of her.
Then the memory shoves its way back into his head—her weight in his lap, her giggles, her small frame steadying him the best it could, her voice somewhere between exasperation and care. And then the words. His words.
Been half in love with you since always.
He shuts his eyes, but it doesn’t help. The room spins, and the longing ache he feels is worse than any hangover.
He could tell himself it doesn’t count, that drunk confessions are exempt from consequence—but that’s a lie, and he’s tired of lying to himself.
He meant it. Every slurred, graceless word.
And the truth is, it didn’t start just recently. It’s been there all along—screaming, persistent, waiting for him to stop pretending he could ignore it.
He sits up carefully, the motion pulling at every strained muscle in his neck. His head throbs in steady protest. He slings his legs over the side of the bed, pausing when the mattress shifts. Lila stirs once, just barely, and he stills until her breathing evens out again.
The floorboards are cold under his feet as he pads to the bathroom. The old door complains on its hinges, and he winces, easing it shut behind him with a quiet click.
Inside, the bathroom smells faintly of her—something clean and citrusy that makes his stomach flutter for reasons he refuses to unpack. He braces a hand against the sink and studies his reflection: dark circles, scruffy face, the kind of penitence that always looks the same in the morning light.
His fingers fumble with the buttons of his shirt, movements clumsy. The fabric sticks where someone—definitely him—spilled something last night. He peels it off, then the rest, dropping everything in a heap on the flagstone tile.
When he turns the shower on, the pipes groan before the water steadies. Steam begins to rise, curling around him as he steps under the spray. He exhales, allowing his head to fall forward, letting the sound of running water drown out everything else.
It beats against him, hot enough to sting, but it doesn’t do a damn thing to clear her from his head.
She’s everywhere. The feeling of it crawls beneath his skin until even the steam feels like her breath against his neck.
He scrubs his hands violently over his face, but it’s useless. She’s in the water, in the space around him, in every inch of his body he can’t seem to reclaim.
His cock is half hard at the mere thought of her, and when he palms it, the pressure does nothing to lessen or relieve the ache she’s left in nearly every inch of his body for the last year.
He wraps his large hand around his length, the steady thrum of blood beneath his palm only making him want her more. Making him wish that it was her small hands curled around him instead.
He slides his fist from base to tip and pauses, his thumb moving along the curved silver barbell there, turning it just enough to feel the metal shift beneath his skin.
The gesture makes him twitch, and he angles his face toward the spray of the shower, savoring the heat that replaces her touch for the smallest, cruelest second.
He doesn’t remember the exact moment he decided to pierce his cock, just the stretch of days where everything about her had started feeling too much and too little all at once.
She’d joined the faculty then, trading one boundary for another—no longer a student, but still untouchable in every conceivable way—and he’d needed something to break the tortuous monotony of wanting what he couldn’t have.
It was his own strange version of control. A way to feel something that wasn’t longing.
He’d told himself it didn’t matter, that he wasn’t touching anyone else anyway, that the healing time was irrelevant.
But underneath all that rationale sat the truth he never said out loud: some part of him wanted to be different the next time he touched someone.
A new thing no one else had ever experienced with him, and in turn something he hadn’t experienced with anyone else.
And maybe—if the universe ever stopped laughing at him—that someone would be her.
He hadn’t really believed it, but the thought had stayed, unbending and stubborn, refusing to fade.
He strokes himself languidly at first, drawing out his pleasure until it edges into something close to punishment, and he finally gives in.
He pumps his fist ardently, picturing her lips, the subtle curve of her cupid’s bow seared into his amygdala, and its equal parts release and undoing.
His vision blurs at the edges as heat surges through him, cum spilling across his knuckles and the taut skin of his abdomen.
For a moment, the world goes silent—just his heartbeat, the patter of water, the gradual release of breath as everything in him finally stills. He presses a hand to the tile to steady himself.
It’s all so temporary, so pointless.
Because the second he comes down, she’s there again—Lila, the reason every ounce of restraint in him is unraveling. Slowly but surely.
He’s not supposed to want this. Not her. Not the upheaval that follows wherever she goes. But the thought of facing her now, after what he said last night, doesn’t fill him with dread, it sparks something else. Something dangerously close to relief.
He turns off the water, listening to the drip fade.
Soon he’ll have to walk out there, look her in the eye, and pretend he doesn’t remember every word, every truth he’s already surrendered.
But for once, the idea of pretending feels impossible.
He towels off, entire body wound tight. Everything in him takes a sharp left into something almost eager.
Today’s going to be an utter fucking mess.
He’s fine with that.
Maybe even looking forward to it.