Chapter 15
Fifteen
SARAH
Usually when I woke up, Theo was either just waking too or was already up and about. The next morning, however, he was awake, staring at the ceiling in contemplation.
“Morning,” I croaked, my throat raspy from sleep. And perhaps from crying out in pleasure more than once last night.
He turned his head on the pillow. His eyes searched my face as his mouth turned up at one corner. “Morning.”
“Everything okay?”
Theo gestured to me in answer, and I moved across the bed to snuggle into him, resting my head on his chest. His arm came around me. Tenderness throbbed in my breasts as they pressed against his side, and I remembered that dull cramps in my lower belly had woken me.
“What date is it?” I mumbled.
Theo mumbled it back and I sighed. My period was due. Had it really been eight weeks since Theo arrived at the cottage? It felt like longer.
“What’s wrong?”
I still wasn’t a hundred percent comfortable talking about my monthly visitor, but I wasn’t as shy about it as I had been all those weeks ago. “I’ve got cramps.”
His arm tightened. “Do you need anything?”
“It’s not too bad.” I patted his chest. “What has you looking so broody this morning?”
“Broody? I don’t brood.”
I snorted because he definitely knew how to brood.
“Fine, maybe I can brood.” He trailed his fingertips down my arm and back up again in a gentle caress. Pleasure flushed through me.
“Why are you brooding?”
It was Theo’s turn to sigh heavily. “I think my brother might have put a missing person’s report out on me.”
I lifted my head to look at him. “Are you serious?”
He rolled his eyes. “Unfortunately. I have a voicemail from a police officer in London.”
“Why … why would he do that?”
“Because he’s like my father and can’t see past his own nose.”
“What will you do about it?”
“Nothing. I won’t play into his little games.”
“But it … has upset you?”
Theo was quiet so long I didn’t think he was going to answer. Then, “Today would have been my mother’s birthday. She would have been turning fifty-eight.”
I felt a wee crack across my heart. “Theo … I’m sorry. I … she must have been fairly young when she had you.”
“Young but not too young. Twenty-eight. She married my father at twenty-two, straight out of uni, fell pregnant, and had Sebastian at twenty-three. I came along five years later.”
“How did she like to celebrate her birthday?”
“Cake,” he answered immediately, amusement in his voice. “She loved cake. But she didn’t indulge much because she was trying to keep a perfect figure. As if that would’ve stopped the bastard from cheating on her.”
I smoothed a soothing hand over his chest.
“But on her birthday we’d have lots of cake. When I was around twelve or thirteen, I started taking her out for her birthday and we’d go for afternoon tea, except I’d arrange it so there were more cakes than sandwiches and tarts.”
I grinned, imagining little Theo doing that for his mum. “I bet she loved it.”
“She did. We’d have a lot of fun together. We did that every year until …”
A deep empathy came over me and I turned, blinking back tears, to press a kiss to his chest.
“She deserved so much better,” Theo whispered, such sadness in his voice. “My mother was the kindest woman I’ve ever known … until you.”
My tears threatened to spill.
“It seems so unfair that someone with such goodness in her was treated so abominably by the people she loved.”
“Theo,” I forced words past the emotion thickening my throat.
“Your dad might have treated her poorly and your brother might not have been the best son, but you clearly adored her and she knew that. I know she knew that. Being that loved by one person … it can make everything else bearable. Trust me.”
His grip on my arm tightened and he squeezed me closer to him, I think to let my words percolate. We lay together in silence for a while.
Eventually, he rubbed my arm. “How are the cramps?”
My cheeks heated at how casually he asked. “A bit sore. I might see if there’s a hot water bottle lying around.”
“I’ll get up and get the fire going in the living room and have a look.
You stay here.” He pressed a quick kiss to the top of my head before he slipped out from under me.
Uncaring of his nakedness, he strode out of the room in search of a hot water bottle.
I nestled into the sheets, soaking up the body heat he’d left behind.
Five minutes later he appeared in the doorway, totally naked still. He reached up, easily touching the doorframe above as he stretched, eyes pinning me to where I lay on his side of the bed.
We held each other’s gaze for what seemed like forever, the moment charged. Sexy, yes, but more intimate than that. My heart raced.
Finally, he released the doorframe and crossed the room to me. He didn’t address the moment. “Can’t find a hot water bottle. Does anything else work?”
I shrugged. “Not really. I better check to see if … well, if it’s arrived.”
Theo grinned as he braced himself over me. “You mean, your period?”
Scowling, I huffed, “You know that’s what I mean.”
“Say it.” He tickled me under the arms and I shoved him off, laughing. “Say it, little mouse.”
Laughing but growling at the same time, I tried to escape his tickling fingers. “Don’t call me that!”
“Tell me you have your period or I’ll keep tickling you.”
“You’re so immature!” I squealed, giggling as his fingers caught on my ribs.
His deep laughter filled the room. “I’m not the one who can’t say I have my period.”
That only made me laugh harder.
It was probably why it took a minute for us to become aware of the pounding noise and a familiar voice shouting angrily, “Sarah, open up!”
I stiffened as Theo stopped tickling me and turned his head toward the doorway.
“Jared,” I whispered.
Theo looked back at me just as my cousin roared my name again and pounded harder on the front door.
“Off, off.” I shoved Theo out of my way and crawled out of the bed. The sensation between my legs told me my period was here. Bugger. Hurrying into a robe.
“Uh, Sarah …”
I turned around.
Theo pointed to the bedsheets, and I flushed at the spots of blood. “I’ll get the door,” he said, pushing off the bed to pull on some underwear. “You take care of yourself.”
I flushed even harder. “If you open the door, Jared will lose his mind.”
Still, Theo gently nudged me toward the bathroom.
“At least put on some trousers! And I need underwear!”
Theo quickly grabbed a pair of knickers out of the drawer and handed them to me before guiding me into the bathroom.
My heart raced as I hurried through cleaning myself and rummaging through my toiletries for tampons.
“Where the hell is Sarah?” I heard Jared bellow. I’d never heard him so angry.
“If you’d just calm down—”
“Calm down? Calm down? I’m this close to ending you, mate. Where’s my cousin?”
As together as I was going to be in such a short time, I tightened the ties on my robe and burst out of the bathroom, hurrying into the sitting room.
Jared stood facing off with a half-naked Theo. Theo wore a mask of boredom, but I saw tension riding his shoulders. My cousin, while relieved to see me, also looked murderous.
“Jared, what’s going on?” I rushed over, pressing my side to Theo’s.
He stepped away from my touch and I shot him a concerned look.
“What’s going on? What’s going on is that I got a call last night telling me that this prick”—he gestured angrily to Theo—“is here taking advantage of you.”
Indignation and embarrassment flooded me, but Theo asked blandly, “Who called?”
Jared eyed him as if he were a disgusting bug, and my anger built. “Someone with more decency than you. Do you get off on taking advantage of innocent women?”
Theo shrugged like he didn’t care about any of this.
Me? I was pissed. “How dare you?”
Jared stared at me, stunned. “How dare I?”
“Aye, how dare you? I’m not some innocent virgin child, for God’s sake, Jared. I’m definitely not a virgin and definitely wasn’t one before Theo got here.”
My cousin’s eyebrows raised as if this was some big surprise to him.
I scoffed. “I’m older than you, remember.”
“But—”
“No buts. I appreciate the concern and I’m grateful you love me enough to drive down to check on me. But you don’t get to come in here and treat me like a child or treat Theo like crap.”
“He’s a well-known player, Sarah. As a fellow member of his species, trust me, he’s using you!”
“If he is, it’s none of your business.” My pulse raced.
Jared scowled. “You don’t mean that. You’re not …
” He eyed Theo again. “You’re not the kind of woman someone plays with.
You don’t know the game. And you’re grieving, and this arsehole probably knows that and is taking advantage.
He’s not good enough for you. I think it would be best for you to come home with me so this prick can go back to his own life. Away from you.”
I didn’t say anything because I was stunned by how high-handed Jared was acting. He’d never been this intrusive in my life before. But then he was still grieving Grandpa. He wasn’t himself right now.
Unfortunately, Theo misinterpreted my silence.
“Go on, then,” he uttered.
I looked up at him. He gestured with his chin, trying to keep a blank mask on his face. “Go run home, little mouse. Go with your cousin. What’s it to me? I certainly don’t care.”
Hurt threatened, but then I noted the shimmer of sweat across his upper lip and the tension in his shoulders.
My eyes drifted down. His hands were clenched into tight fists.
My eyes flew back to his and he swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing visibly with the movement.
He tried to relax his hands, but he’d already given himself away.
Theo shrugged. “Off you go,” he insisted, yet there was a shakiness in his voice now he couldn’t hide.
Damn this man.
I glowered at him. “I’m not going anywhere.” Facing my cousin. “Outside. Now.”
Jared yanked his astonished gaze from Theo and turned on his heel with a huff. I followed him, stopping to shove my bare feet into boots.
“Coat,” Theo bit out.
I hid my smile as I shrugged on my winter coat over my robe and hurried outside after my cousin. As soon as the front door shut, Jared whirled on me.
“You’re out of your mind.”
Done with his attitude, I raised a palm. “Just stop. Stop it right now.”
His head jerked.
“I’m not out of my mind with grief. I am a thirty-one-year-old woman with her own mind and her own needs. While I appreciate the intention, you do not have the right to come into my home and treat me like I’m a child.”
“Sarah …” He sighed heavily. “I’m just worried about you. This guy? This fucking guy, really?”
“You don’t know him. You don’t know anything about him.”
“Do you?”
I shrugged, amazed by the truth in my next words. “I think maybe I know him better than anyone does.”
Jared scrubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t want him to hurt you. Especially not now.”
“You have to trust me, Jared.”
“I do trust you. It’s him I don’t trust. And I’m not blind.” He gestured toward the house. “Surprisingly, I can see he cares about you. But I can also see that he is terrified that he cares for you, Sarah. Terrified.” His shoulders slumped. “So please be careful.”
My cousin’s words hit home. Because that’s what I saw too.
I didn’t see a man telling me to go because he was apathetic.
I saw a man telling me to go because I scared the shit out of him.
I knew Theo could hurt me. Yet, what I felt when I was with him …
it emboldened me. It felt so good, I’d risk anything for it.
I hugged my cousin tight and hard, and he buried his head in my neck. After a few long seconds, he squeezed and then nudged me toward the door. “Get inside out of this cold.”
As soon as I stepped into the bungalow, I experienced a sharp throb near my heart.
Theo hadn’t moved.
He stood still as a statue, hands still clenched at his sides. Like a little boy who was afraid something he wanted was about to be taken from him.
“Jared is heading home now,” I said, moving to his side, using both hands to unclench one of his fists and thread my fingers through his.
Theo looked down at our joined hands, a frown marring his brow. Suddenly, his fingers tightened in mine, and his breathing grew shallow. This man. I ached for him and all his emotional wounds.
“If you hurt her,” Jared’s menacing tone brought our heads up, “I will fucking eviscerate you.”
I blinked rapidly because there was no denying Jared sounded sincere.
“I have farming equipment that can dice you into small pieces, and a lot of land in which to scatter those pieces. No one would find you.”
Well, that was grim. I bugged my eyes out at my cousin. “Okay, we get the point.”
“Do you?” Jared asked Theo.
Theo clenched his jaw but nodded.
A few minutes later, I hugged my cousin goodbye again and watched him get in his truck and drive away.
Normally, I’d ask him to stay, but there was too much tension between me and Theo.
We hadn’t discussed what we were to each other, but it was becoming increasingly clear this was more than just a casual thing.
I’d barely toed off my boots and shrugged out of my coat when I found myself spun around and hauled into Theo’s arms. His face was hard with determination as he carried me through the house and into the bedroom. He threw me on the bed, and I bounced with a startled yelp.
Suddenly he was over me, kissing me with a desperate fierceness that made me breathless and hot. Rationale broke through my arousal, though, and I pushed on his chest.
Theo broke the kiss, his eyes searching mine.
“I … I think I understand you,” I told him quietly.
A vulnerable light filled his gaze.
“That’s why I stayed despite you telling me to go. But next time you tell me to go like I don’t matter … I will go,” I warned him. “I’m not like your mother, Theo. There’s no way I’ll return to a life of feeling not worthy of someone, of feeling like I don’t matter to someone who matters to me.”
Remorse tightened Theo’s expression, and he nodded in understanding. His lips were soft, gentle, apologetic on mine.
“My period.” I broke the kiss again to remind him.
“I don’t care,” he whispered harshly. “And the sheets are already marked.”
“I need to … I need to take care of … you know.” My tampon.
“I’ll do it.” He kissed me again and I flushed head to toe at the idea of sex while I had my period. But Theo didn’t care at all. Moreover, he took his time kissing apologies all over my body. And later as he moved inside me with slow, easy, savoring glides, he held my gaze captive in his.
We watched each other come, clinging onto one another through our lovemaking, and I felt the bond between us grow stronger, tightening its grip until it was almost painful.
I had to hope that with time, what we felt for each other would become more comfortable and easier to bear.