Chapter 22 Hung Jury
HUNG JURY
THEO
Theo hadn’t meant to act weird last night. He just didn’t know how to be normal around her sometimes. Every glance felt loaded, every sentence an exercise in restraint.
He’d tried to play it safe—keep things conversational, respect boundaries, not assume that one drunken confession and a hot-as-fuck kiss meant she wanted him the way he wanted her.
He’d woken up ready to move things forward. In hindsight, “ready” might’ve been optimistic.
As the day went on without her around, his bravery thinned—especially when his mind wandered to the thing he’d wanted too many nights in a row, the thought of her tangled up with him in ways he’d never let himself have.
His alcohol-induced honesty didn’t mean the next logical step was fucking, and he’d had to remind himself of that more than once.
He’d needed to pull himself back before he did something reckless, remind himself why they were there in the first place.
It stalled whatever momentum he’d built.
And he’d stood there in the shower, debating if he should say something—anything—when she returned, but the words didn’t come.
Because if he was wrong, if he misread even a fraction of it, he’d lose the only thing that mattered to him: having her around at all.
So he’d done the responsible thing.
Which, in his case, meant lying awake for an hour holding her while she slept, thinking about her mouth, about the unfair odds of their size difference—if he’d even fit, if he’d hurt her—and getting half hard for even considering any of it at all.
And then, this morning, while making the bed, he found it. Nestled right beneath her pillow.
A vibrator.
For a full minute, he just stared at it, thoughts cycling between awe, arousal, and the irrational urge to find her immediately. Punish her for putting him through this absolute misery.
Then the realization punched him square in the face: she’s just as wrecked over this as he is.
The knowledge unravels something in him. Because now he knows. She wants him too. And there’s no pretending otherwise.