22. Theo #2
It doesn’t explain enough. I pull back with a frustrated sound trapped in my chest, and Callie keeps her hand on my jaw, her thumb still, her eyes searching mine.
“Color?” she asks.
“Green.” My voice shakes, but the word is true.
“Do you want me closer?” she asks, already still enough to let me be the one who chooses. I nod, then make myself answer because she listens so carefully when I manage words. “Yes.”
She moves closer until our legs touch fully and the side of her body is warm against mine. I breathe her in and shake harder, and she watches me like every answer I give matters more than the fear sitting in the middle of my chest.
“Do you want my hands on you?” she asks.
I nod, then remember she asked for words. “Yes.”
Her hand slides from my jaw to the side of my neck. Her touch is cool compared to the heat under my skin, and I lean into it so hard she has to brace her other hand on the bench. She doesn’t laugh, and she doesn’t tell me I’m too much.
“Do you want to touch me?” she asks.
My hand is already at her waist. I freeze there, fingers curled in the fabric of her shirt, and my whole body waits for her to decide whether that was too much.
Callie looks down at my hand, then back to my face. “Theo,” she says, and there’s so much want in the way she says my name that I nearly forget to be afraid.
“Yes,” I whisper.
She nods. “You can.”
The permission breaks something open. I touch her waist first, then her side, then the soft place where her shirt has ridden up above the waistband of her pants. Her breath catches when my fingertips meet bare skin, and that sound goes through me so sharply my eyes sting.
I did that.
Callie’s hand slides into my hair. “Still green?”
“Green.” I lean into her again and kiss her harder. This time I know what I’m asking for, or almost know. “Want you.”
Her fingers tighten in my hair for half a second before she loosens them again. Her voice comes out lower when she answers. “I want you too.”
The room tilts in the best way. I move closer until there isn’t careful space left between us, my knee pressing into the scarf while her papers sit abandoned on the plant stand.
Rain keeps touching the glass roof above us, soft and steady, while I try to tell her with my mouth what my voice can only hold in pieces.
“Please,” I say against her lips.
Callie draws back enough to look at me. “Do you want more?”
I nod.
“Hands?” she asks, and when I say yes, her thumb strokes once at the side of my throat. Her eyes stay on mine. “Mouth?”
My whole body goes hot. I look down because I can’t hold her eyes and that question at the same time, but I don’t let the word disappear. “Yes.”
Callie’s breath leaves her slowly. “Do you want to make me feel good?”
The wanting in me turns bright and terrifying. I nod, then make myself give her the word because this one matters too much to leave only in my body. “Yes.”
She closes her eyes for one second. When she opens them, they’re dark and soft and careful all at once. “Then we’re going to keep checking in, okay? You can stop whenever you want. I can stop whenever I need to. This only happens if it’s good for both of us.”
“Good,” I say, and the word almost breaks because I mean yes, I mean please, I mean I want something that doesn’t feel borrowed from the Alphas or taken from a future I’m not allowed to ask about. “For both.”
Callie leans in and kisses me again, slower this time, giving me room to answer with my mouth instead of only my hands.
I do. I kiss her the way I’ve wanted to since the first time she let me close—careful at first, then less careful when she makes a soft sound against my lips.
Her hand stays in my hair, not pushing, only holding, and every time her fingers tighten I feel it all the way down my spine.
I press closer until there is almost no space left between us, my knee sliding over the scarf, my hands finding the warm curve of her waist beneath her shirt.
“Still green?” she asks against my mouth.
“Green.”
She draws back just enough to look at me, eyes dark and careful. “Do you want my hands on you?”
I nod, then force the word out because she always waits for it. “Yes.”
Her hands slide under the hem of the sweatshirt, warm against my skin. I shiver hard the moment her palms touch my back. She stops immediately.
“Color?”
“Green,” I whisper. “Please.”
She keeps going, slower, palms gliding up my spine and then around to my stomach.
I lean into every touch like I’m starving for it.
When her fingers brush the waistband of my pants I make a small sound I can’t swallow, and Callie stills again until I nod.
Only then does she continue, tracing the line of my hip with her thumb, grounding me even as the heat under my skin climbs higher.
“You can touch me,” she says. “Wherever you want.”
My hands are already at her waist. I push her shirt up carefully, watching her face the whole time.
When my palms find the bare skin of her sides she inhales sharply, and the sound goes straight through me.
I touch her like she’s something I might break and something I might never get to hold again at the same time.
My thumbs skim the soft underside of her breasts through the thin fabric of her bra.
She arches into my hands with a quiet, broken breath.
“Theo—”
My name in that voice makes my eyes sting.
I lean in and kiss the place just below her ear, then lower, along her throat, tasting the warm pulse there.
She tilts her head to give me more room.
Her fingers tighten in my hair. I kiss lower still, across the slope of her collarbone, then down to the soft skin above her heart, breathing her in until honeyed pear and vanilla tea are all I can taste.
“Do you want my mouth on you?” she asks, voice low.
I shake my head quickly. That isn’t what I need. I need the opposite. I need to give her something.
“Want to,” I say, the words clumsy. “Want to make you… feel good.”
Callie goes very still. Then she cups my face with both hands and looks at me like I’ve offered her something precious.
“Yes,” she says. “I want that. I want you.”
She shifts back against the cushions and helps me settle between her thighs. The nest rearranges around us—scarf under my knees, cardigan still clutched in one of my hands until she gently takes it and sets it aside. I look up at her once more.
“Color?” I ask, because I need to hear it from her too.
“Green, Star.” Her fingers slide back into my hair. “You can stop whenever you want. I can stop whenever I need to. Only if it’s good for both of us.”
“Good,” I repeat, and mean it with everything I have.
I push her shirt higher and press my mouth to the soft skin just above the waistband of her pants.
She shivers. I unbutton them with careful fingers, watching her face the entire time, and she lifts her hips to help me ease them down over her thighs.
The scent of her hits me fully then—honeyed pear and vanilla tea and something warmer, richer, that makes my mouth water and my hands shake.
I lean in and press an open-mouthed kiss to the inside of her thigh.
Then higher. Then higher still, until I can feel the heat of her against my cheek.
When I finally put my mouth on her she makes a sound I’ve never heard from her before—soft and startled and already close to breaking. I freeze.
“Green,” she says immediately, voice rough. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
I don’t.