Chapter Ten
Ten
Audrey genuinely thought Theo would simply carry her straight to the bedroom.
But no.
Instead, he plopped her down on the counter back in his huge bathroom with one more kiss before stooping to dig around in the cabinets beneath the sink.
“Theo, what are you—”
He straightened and held out a toothbrush wrapped in plastic from a dentist’s office.
“Oral hygiene’s really important.”
Of course it was.
She took it from him with a shake of her head. “You nerd.”
That earned her another crooked grin. “So I’ve been told—many, many times.” He also held up a roll of thick clear tape with blue backing and pointed bitterly at his scar. “And I have to put this shit back on if I ever want this thing to fade all the way. Which I very much do. I fucking hate it.”
“Yes, I’ve gathered.”
Given what they’d just discussed, brushing their teeth, doing skincare together, and taking turns in the bathroom felt so oddly domestic, Audrey couldn’t decide whether it put her more at ease or only made her feel all the more electric inside her own skin.
When Theo opened the bathroom door again and she tried to hop off the counter to find his bedroom, he grabbed her and set her back up there before reaching for a pair of medical scissors.
“Are you just going to fling me around like this all the time now? Carry me everywhere?”
He leaned down—she still wasn’t quite eye to eye with him—and planted a quick kiss on her forehead.
“Yep.” He dropped the roll of scar tape in her hand.
“You’re really light. It’s fun. Now hold that for a second.
” And then he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye before crossing his arms and gripping the hem of his shirt.
With a sigh, he steeled himself and yanked it over his head.
She’d been wondering what the extent of his scar was, how far down it ran beneath his shirt. She’d had plenty of time to ponder that, given how broken he’d seemed for a while now.
But she hadn’t expected it to be this bad.
The scar ran deep, carved down his neck and through his chest like a river cutting through a canyon.
It crossed his collarbone and tore into his right pec, jagged and vibrating, slicing even further down into his ribs and all the way across his arm, deep into the meat of his biceps, and again across his forearm.
It was as if someone had tried to cleave him in two with a piece of torn scrap metal, so ragged and violent was the damage across his body.
It also wasn’t the only scar he had.
Additional scars, smaller and lighter and altogether shallower, crisscrossed his chest and his shoulders and arms, especially the right.
But two more stood out on the left side of his body, both circular and puckered and deep red: one on his left shoulder and the other on the lower left side of his abdomen.
Theo watched her face while she took it all in, silent and anxious, his extraordinary dark hazel eyes wide with apprehension in the bright lights of his bathroom.
Audrey pulled him closer, directing him to stand between her legs while she trailed her fingers along the length of his wound.
It had healed well, as far as she could tell, though it didn’t make the way it tore across the broad, pale expanse of his chest any less devastating.
But the rest of him was beautiful. Just like his face and neck, his chest was dotted with a smattering of dark moles and freckles, each one of them unique and precious.
Somehow, with his shirt off, he was even wider than she’d thought him before, and as she ran her hand gently along the scar, his hard, thick muscles twitched beneath her touch.
Even if he hadn’t played since college, he was still in fantastic shape, still built like she imagined a lacrosse player might be—all dense, solid strength and explosive power, if the way he held her like she weighed nothing was any indication.
A little trail of soft, dark hair disappeared beneath the waistband of his sweatpants, and she jerked her gaze back up, face aflame at the sight of it.
“It’s bad, right?” Theo’s throat bobbed, and he rolled his lips nervously as he swallowed.
“Frankly, I’m surprised you’re alive,” Audrey muttered, lifting her fingers again in wonder to the deepest parts of the scar on his face and his chest.
“Me too,” he murmured. “It’s a miracle I lived. I have titanium screws and a plate in my cheek holding my face together. The bone there was shattered, and my hip was even worse. I was in a coma for a few days. I should’ve died.”
“I’m really glad you didn’t.”
He opened his mouth, shut it, and then swallowed thickly again with a nod. “Me too,” he finally ventured.
She turned her attention back to the tape. “All right,” she said, rubbing her hands together matter-of-factly. “So do we just stick this on?”
She helped him cover the length of the scar in sections, cutting and placing the clear strips carefully onto his skin. She’d had no idea his wound was that extensive, and she could only imagine how hard it had been for him to show her.
It meant a lot that he had.
When they were through, she tried to hop off the counter again, but he blocked her with his left arm once more before she could.
“I can walk, you know!” she squeaked.
He shook his head and tossed his shirt over his shoulder with his other hand. “Not tonight, you don’t.” He pulled her into his chest and picked her up. “You have to be right here, against my heart, the whole time. That’s the price you pay for choosing to stay.”
“So it’s like a bridge-troll-toll thing?”
“I was thinking more of a monkey’s-paw situation. Unintended consequences versus actual tax.”
Audrey threw her arms around his neck and surrendered while he carried her into his room, dipping only to switch on the lamp by the side of his bed before setting her gently down on it. Turned out the entire third floor was the master suite.
And she was right.
His bed was predictably huge.
Wonder of wonders, Theo was, of course, the type of man who had an actual bed frame—thick, sturdy wood in a modern style, low profile and stained a cool walnut.
It was a king size, draped in a plush white duvet covered in a multitude of luxurious pillows accented with simple charcoal throws piled at the head, all neatly arranged without a wrinkle in sight.
More industrial pipe shelving was mounted to the historic brick walls of the house next to a matching dresser across from the bed, dotted with a smattering of books and photos and fabric storage boxes.
A few tasteful paintings hung on the walls in a combination of abstract and modern art styles, all of them in vibrant shades of red.
There was no TV in sight, and the windows were uncovered and overlooked the river, just like the ones in the living room.
“Do you wake up at dawn with the sunlight streaming in?” she asked, drawing her legs beneath her on top of the thick covers.
Theo chuckled and shook his head. “No. Just watch.” He scooped up a remote from the nightstand closest to the door and punched a button. Machinery whirred and dark blackout shades descended from a thin slot she hadn’t noticed in the ceiling.
“My god,” she gasped. She turned to face him.
“Seriously: How much money do you have? I know it’s rude to ask, but this is insane.
” Then she narrowed her eyes accusingly at him.
“Or did you just rent some fancy Airbnb for a night to impress me? Is this all some elaborate ruse? You planned this, didn’t you? ”
He laughed harder and pulled the covers back, fluffing the pillows and tossing her a few as he went. “No, sweetheart, I promise. Not an elaborate con. But I will tell you a secret if you’ll tell me another of yours.”
“You want more than my deepest, darkest, I’m-still-a-virgin confession? Violet’s the only other person who knows.”
“I showed you my scars. My family, doctors, and Diego are the only other people who’ve seen those.”
All right, that was a fair point.
“Speaking of Violet,” Theo said, opening a drawer and digging around in it before passing her an extra phone charger. “Do you need to text her?”
“Oh shit, yes, thank you. She’d be one to worry. And she’s going to be way too excited about this outcome.”
“That makes two of us.”
“Yeah, well, Vi will be leaping straight to conclusions all over the place.” She pulled her phone out from her pocket and shot off a quick text before turning it off entirely to avoid the inevitable explosive aftermath and plugging the charger into the built-in USB port on the nightstand next to her side.
She looked back up as he was getting ready to slide into bed.
“Wait, Theo—do you honestly expect me to believe you sleep in sweatpants?” She pointed at them. “No one actually sleeps in these things, right? And you’re like a walking furnace.”
He paused, hand gripping the covers frozen in midair, and gave her a pointed look. “Are you going to? Sleep in that getup, I mean. Because—”
He blanched when Audrey reached up and fully unzipped his hoodie before ripping off his ginormous pants and tossing them both onto the edge of the bed, leaving her just in her panties and his circus tent of a gloriously soft T-shirt. The cool air prickled against her bare legs.
“Happy now?” She jutted her chin out defiantly.
“You know what? I’ve already confessed, and I trust you.
I’m not going to dance around things anymore.
” She threw herself under the covers—which, of course, were so soft and silky they probably cost a fortune and had some ridiculously high thread count—and waited, watching him intently to see what his next move was.
Theo rolled his jaw pensively and considered her for a moment.
Red crept up the sides of his neck and to the tips of his ears, but he hooked both thumbs under the waistband of his sweatpants and tugged them down sharply, stepping out of them and lifting them up for display before dropping them defiantly to the ground.
Oh.