29 | Noted
THEO
The cottage door closed behind us and she turned to me with something fierce in her eyes, her hands already reaching for my shirt.
“Come here,” she said. “I’ve been waiting all day.”
I caught her wrists, gentle but firm, and she looked up at me with questions starting to form.
“Not like that,” I said.
“What?”
I kissed her slowly, taking my time, and walked her backward. “Like I have all the time in the world.”
She exhaled, something in her softening—the urgency draining out of her shoulders, her hands uncurling in my grip. I laid her down carefully and followed her, covering her body with mine.
No rush this time. No desperation, no half-dark cottage, no wine and jealousy and walls. Just her, and me, and the luxury of knowing we had all night.
My hands moved over her slowly—her shoulders, her ribs, the curve of her waist. I moved into her carefully, watching her face adjust, watching her breathe.
“Tell me something,” I said.
She was already distracted. “What?”
I shifted. Slow. “What you desire.”
Her breath caught. “That’s—” A pause while she found words. “Not a fair question.”
“Very fair.” I kept moving, same pace, watching her eyes go slightly unfocused. “Tell me.”
“I can’t—think—when you’re—”
“Try.”
She exhaled through her nose, a sound that was half laugh half something else. Her hands found my back, gripped. “I want to know what it’s like when you’re not being careful.”
I stilled for just a second.
“Not careful how?”
“Like—” Her hips shifted, chasing the rhythm I’d stopped. I let her find it. “Like the wall. Here. In Napa.” Her head tipped back slightly. “But—more.”
I filed that.
“What else?”
“Theo—”
“Tell me.” I pressed deeper, slow and deliberate, and her sentence dissolved into a sharp exhale.
I waited.
“What else.”
She swallowed. Her hands tightened on my back. “I want—” I moved again, and she lost the thread. Found it. “I want you to tell me what to do. Sometimes.”
“Yeah?”
“Not—not always. Just—” Her breath hitched. “Sometimes.”
“Noted.” I kissed her jaw. “What else.”
A pause. Longer this time, like she was deciding something.
“I want to try—” She stopped when I shifted angle, her whole body arching slightly. “—being on top.”
“That one’s easy to arrange.” I pulled back just enough to look at her. “Tonight if you want.”
“Not tonight.” Her fingers curled into my skin. “Tonight I want—this.”
“This.”
“You doing—” Another exhale, sharp. “Exactly this.”
I kept moving. Same pace. Watching her try to hold the thread of the conversation while her body kept pulling her elsewhere. There was something deeply satisfying about that—about being the reason she couldn’t quite finish her sentences.
“Keep going,” I said.
“I want—” Her head pressed back into the pillow. “I want you to—” She stopped. Started again. “I want you to tie me.”
I went still for just a second.
“Like—” Her cheeks were burning now. “Not complicated. Just—hold them. Or use something. I don’t know if I’d like it but I want to—”
“Find out,” I finished.
“Yeah.”
“Noted.”
I pressed deeper and she exhaled sharply, losing the thread for a moment.
“What else.”
She was quiet long enough that I thought she was done. Then:
“I want to—” She laughed, embarrassed, covering her face with one hand. “God. I want to be bend over something. A table. A counter. I don’t—” She uncovered her face, looked at me directly despite the flush spreading down her chest. “I’ve thought about it.”
“That one’s easy to arrange too,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I kissed the corner of her mouth. “What else.”
“That’s—” A breath. “That’s most of it.”
“Most.”
Her cheeks flushed darker. “There’s one more.” I slowed further, which made her grip tighten in protest.
“Tell me.”
“I want—” Her head pressed back into the pillow. “I want you to use me.”
I went still.
“What?”
“Like—” Her cheeks were burning. She didn’t look away. “Like I’m yours to do whatever you want with. Like you don’t—like you don’t ask.” Her breath hitched when I shifted slightly. “Like you just—take.”
The word landed somewhere low and certain.
I looked at her for a long moment. The flush down her chest, the way she was holding my gaze despite everything it was costing her to say this out loud.
“Noted,” I said quietly.
“You’re not—” She searched my face. “You’re not weird about it?”
“No.”
Something released in her expression.
“Okay,” she said.
“Good.” I pulled back just enough to look at her. “One more.”
She blinked. “There isn’t—”
“The table,” I said. “Your kitchen or mine?”
She stared at me for a second.
Then she started laughing—real, surprised, the kind that shook her whole body—and I felt it everywhere we were connected and thought: this. This is it.
“Yours,” she said finally, breathless. “Definitely yours.”
“Noted,” I said again.
And then I stopped asking questions.
I kissed her then—not strategic, not to make her lose her train of thought. Just because I needed to.
“I’m remembering all of this,” I said against her jaw.
“Don’t—” She gasped when I shifted angle. “Don’t you dare use that against me.”
“Not against you.” I kissed her throat. “For you.” Another slow stroke. “There’s a difference.”
She stopped forming sentences after that.
Every sound she made, every place she arched into my touch, every whispered version of my name—I collected them all like evidence of something I’d been waiting my whole life to prove.
Mine.
TESSA
I woke to sunlight and the smell of coffee.
Theo was sitting on the edge of the bed with a tray—two cups, pastries from the resort bakery, and what looked like an entire bowl of strawberries.
“Is this room service?” My voice came out rough with sleep.
“Yep.” He handed me a coffee. “They have excellent timing.”
“Or you called down while I was asleep.”
“Details.” He bit into a croissant and grinned, and something about the whole scene—him shirtless and rumpled in morning light, breakfast between us like we did this all the time, the easy comfort of it—made my chest ache in a way that wasn’t unpleasant.
“I could get used to this,” I said without thinking.
He went still. Croissant halfway to his mouth.
“Say that again.”
“What?”
“That you could get used to this.”
My face warmed but I held his gaze. “I could. Is that okay?”
“More than okay.” He set the pastry down and leaned over to kiss me—slow, thorough, tasting like butter and something that felt dangerously like a promise. “I’m counting on it, actually.”
“Counting on what?”
“You. Getting used to me. Deciding you want to keep me around.”
“Pretty presumptuous.”
“Yep.” He fed me a strawberry. “But you haven’t kicked me out yet, so I’m taking my chances.”
I laughed and stole his coffee, and he protested by tickling my ribs until I was gasping and threatening to spill everything, and it felt like being seventeen again except better—because now I knew what I wanted and it was sitting right in front of me looking at me like I was the best thing he’d
ever seen.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand.
Tom’s name was on the screen.
I felt Theo go slightly still beside me.
“It’s fine,” I said, opening it. “He’s just apologizing.”
“For what?”
“Being pushy.” I read the message. “Says he got the memo.”
Theo relaxed. “That’s decent of him.”
“Yeah.” I set the phone face-down. “He’s a good guy. Just not my guy.”
“Who is your guy?”
I looked at him. “Don’t fish for compliments.”
“Not fishing. Just want to hear you say it.”
“You’re my guy.” I kissed him. “Happy?”
“Getting there.”
He pulled me closer, and the breakfast tray got pushed aside in favor of other things, and by the time we actually made it out of bed it was nearly ten and we had to rush to pack before checkout.
----
The resort grounds were beautiful in morning light—golden and green, the hills rolling away in every direction. We walked slowly despite the time, my hand in his, neither of us quite ready to leave.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For what?”
“Bringing me here.”
“I think that was supposed to be a mutually beneficial arrangement.” He was smiling. “I definitely got the better end of the deal.”
“Tom signed your contract.”
“I was talking about you.” He stopped walking. Turned to face me. “But yeah, you make a lot of things happen.”
“Like what?”
He stepped closer. Cupped my face in both hands.
“Like me finally admitting I’ve been in love with you since we were kids.”
My breath caught. “You haven’t said that before.”
“Haven’t I?”
“Not in those words.”
“I’m in love with you, Tessa.” His thumbs brushed my cheekbones, steady and certain. “Have been for years. Probably will be for years more.” A pause. “Just so we’re clear.”
“We’re clear,” I managed.
“Good.”
He kissed me.
Behind us, somewhere in the direction of the main building, I was fairly certain I heard James Rothstein start clapping.
The flight back was quiet but different—his hand on my thigh the whole time, David pretending not to notice, Linda smiling knowingly from across the aisle, Vanessa quiet and tense.
We didn’t talk much. We didn’t need to. Something had settled between us in Napa, something that made words feel less necessary because we already understood each other in the particular way of people who had decided.
The car service dropped David and Linda at their building, then continued to my neighborhood.
When we pulled up outside my apartment Theo got out to help with my bag even though it was small enough to carry myself.
“Want to come up?” I asked.
He looked at the building for a moment. Something moving across his face—not hesitation exactly, more like someone taking in a view they’d been looking forward to.
“You can say no,” I added. “If you need to—”
“I want to.” He picked up my bag. His mouth curved. “Lead the way.”
I did.