Chapter 35
Dawson
My body was sore in the best way when I woke up, a testament to how well Theo had fucked me through the night.
He’d taken me three more times before we both passed out from exhaustion and I fucking loved every second because he had been my Theo through all of it.
There had been no trace of the wild, harried touches from the barn and my relief had been palpable.
My arm met cold, empty sheets as I stretched and felt around for Theo.
I sat up and listened for him in the bathroom, but it was silent.
As the fog of sleep cleared away, my brain caught onto something strange in my room and it took a solid minute before I figured out what was missing.
I scooted to the edge of the bed and reached for my glasses, finding a note folded under them.
You looked too cute to wake up, so I let you sleep in. Meet me at Neverland when you’re up. I love you ?
P.S. I was bored and stole your guitar to practice.
A quiet snort escaped me, easily imagining Theo sitting up bored in bed while I snoozed away and looking around my room for something to get into. After a speedy shower, I rushed to dry off and get dressed, then hurried downstairs. Dani sat at the kitchen bar top, slurping down a cup of coffee.
“Do you know where Theo is?”
“I’ll give you three guesses, but you’ll only need one,” she droned, eyes glued to her phone as she scrolled on Instagram. I took advantage of her distraction to snatch a piece of toast off the plate in front of her, ignoring the colorful curse she yelled on my way out the door.
Theo hadn’t taken the golf cart, so I drove down to the barn where the stilted twang of guitar strings rang out through the trees.
The sound was coming from above and I scaled the ladder, halting mid-climb when I realized the song was actually recognizable.
I was stunned when I hauled myself up onto the loft and saw Theo peering down at the phone balanced precariously on his knee.
His brows were wrinkled in concentration and his bottom lip was trapped by his teeth as he glanced back and forth from the screen to the guitar, his uncertain fingers forming chords on the neck.
He snapped his head up when he finally heard me, his features lighting up. “Babe! Wait til you hear this!”
My cheeks ached from the grin that stretched across my face when Theo started to play and hummed the melody of “Chasing Cars” as he moved through the song. He was slow and had a couple of minor stumbles, but the more he played, the more sure he became.
When he got to the end of the chorus, he flipped his blond locks out of his eyes and beamed my direction. My heart nearly beat out of my chest at how truly gorgeous he was, pride and excitement evident on his face.
“Pretty cool, huh? You impressed, Mercury?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows.
“Beyond. If I had ten bucks, I’d stick it in your jockstrap,” I teased with a wink.
“Hell, I’m worth at least a twenty, cheapskate,” he scoffed.
“How long have you been up?” I asked, sitting down across from him.
“Eh, I couldn’t really get back to sleep, so pretty early. Then I thought it’d be cool to try to learn a song for you before you woke up. I’m romantic as fuck like that,” he joked. His eyes gleamed with mirth, but they softened a fraction as he gazed at me. “Come play it with me?”
As if I could ever deny this man anything…
I scooted until my back was against the barn wall for support and patted the spot between my legs. He carefully crawled over and assumed the same position he’d been in on the beach weeks ago when I tried to teach him to play.
“Put your fingers over mine,” I instructed.
As soon as he was set, I began to play it at the correct tempo with his hands moving in time on top of mine.
It wasn’t a song I’d played much, but it was easy enough to figure out by ear.
Within a minute, I’d gotten the chord progression down and the music flowed.
I sang the song to him, smiling at the shiver that coasted down his body when I crooned a few of the more meaningful lyrics right against his ear.
I eventually closed my eyes and let the song take me, soaking up the way his back curved into my chest and the way his lightly calloused fingers on mine sent tingles zipping up my arm.
I continued to sing to him as though it were an invitation, a tempting proposal to drag him back to my bed and lay there in my arms as we tried to forget the world. Tried to forget everything but us.
Tried to forget that nothing gold can ever stay.
“Do we really have to go down to dinner?” Theo asked for the third time in the last hour.
While we’d hung out with my family most of Tuesday, we’d spent all of yesterday together while everyone else chose to do their own thing, so I understood his reluctance to give up our alone time.
However, our tiny bubble had to pop sometime since we’d come to my parents’ house specifically to spend the holiday with them.
I arched a brow at him as I ripped off my shirt and hunted through my duffel for the nicer clothes I’d brought. Mom wasn’t a fan of gray sweats and t-shirts at the Thanksgiving table.
“Unless you want to piss off Emilia Hayes, the answer continues to be yes. And I thought you said you were hungry.”
My hands stilled when inked arms slid around me from behind and trailed up my naked chest. Theo tweaked my nipples and I hissed as sparks of heat rushed through me.
My breath hitched when he lowered one hand down to my sweatpants, palming my rapidly hardening cock through the material while still tormenting one nipple.
“I didn’t say what I was hungry for,” he said.
My sweats and briefs were shoved down under my balls, my dick standing at full attention now.
His appreciative rumble vibrated against my back and I dropped my head back on his shoulder, giving in to the sinful sensations as he twisted around the tip expertly.
“Holy shit…” I breathed, my knees trembling as Theo fondled my throbbing length, smearing the precum down my shaft and using it to jack me off. “Baby…fuck, we can’t…”
“But we can,” he purred, shuttling his hand faster and I started thrusting into it. “That’s right, fuck my fist, beautiful. I’m going to lick every drop of cum from my hand so I taste your flavor on my tongue all night long.”
My orgasm barreled into me in less than a minute and Theo clapped his free palm over my mouth to muffle my cries of pleasure as he continued to milk my cock for all it was worth.
Once he’d drained me, he brought his cum-covered hand up to his lips, lapping up my release with a low moan.
The erotic sight and sound of him sucking his fingers clean of my seed was almost enough to make me harden again.
When he was done, he grasped my jaw and brought his lips down on mine. The hint of my essence on his tongue made my chest flare with possession, loving that he tasted like me. Tasted like mine.
Just then, the door flew open as Penny bounded into my room, her nails skittering across the hardwood floor. Theo and I sprang apart and I scrambled to haul my pants up, but ended up tripping over my own feet and stumbling into my dresser.
“Hurry up and get down here so we can eat, losers! We’re all starving!” Dani called from down the hall. She whistled for Penny who raced out of the room as fast as she’d blown in, leaving us shellshocked.
“You didn’t close the door?” I whisper-shouted at Theo with wide eyes.
“Sorry if I was a bit preoccupied!” he retorted. “It’s your fault for wearing those gray sweatpants. I am only a man, Dawson…a weak, weak man.”
A sharp snort of laughter broke free at the grave look on his face that melted into an impish grin. I finished getting dressed while Theo washed his hands and we traipsed down the stairs to join the family.
Thanksgiving for the Hayes clan was always a big affair and Mom had gone all out with the food. Everyone was already seated, including my grandfather who was in deep discussion with Dad about the Dallas Cowboys’ game earlier that day.
“I’m telling you, Lincoln, they haven’t had a decent quarterback since you retired. They only won today because the Commanders’ defense was a joke. If those Cowboys know what’s good for them, they’ll draft our boy Dawson here and then—”
“Pops, how about you stow the football talk at least until after dessert? We already got enough of that today,” Uncle Don cut in. I threw him a grateful look and found my seat, my gut churning with anxiety.
“Yeah, for real. I love football as much as the next Hayes, but we all need a break. You don’t want to harsh Dawson’s juju before his game on Friday with all your armchair quarterback talk,” Dani added.
“What in the blue blazes do you mean ‘harsh his juju’? Is that some new hippie phrase your generation came up with?” Grandpa barked.
Dani and Gramps started bickering back and forth over her choice of words as I sighed in relief that the topic had veered away from anything football related. But my relief was short-lived as Theo joined their conversation and I could tell right away that something was off.
“—and I find it funny how older people hate that our generation makes up all these words when they did it themselves back in the day, like with ‘groovy’ and ‘far out’. And what does ‘back in the day’ even mean anyway? Is it like a time period or a certain amount of time? You ever find it weird that we use all these phrases and sometimes never know what they really mean? Like that one about blood being thicker than water, but that’s only half the saying!
It doesn’t mean what people think it means, it’s actually the exact opposite and most peeps don’t even realize that they are arguing against their point when they use it and—”