Chapter Thirteen #2
“Theo!” She tried to hiss his name, but it was awfully hard to do through the laughter bubbling up. “These are my classmates! They’re watching!” A few were, it was true. And they seemed awfully interested in whatever was happening.
“I’ve been dying to do that for weeks. Now go ace your test.” He shooed her inside the room with another playful smack on her ass before turning and making his way toward a nearby vacant table and chair.
Audrey gathered herself and took her usual seat, cheeks still burning fiercely. But the warmth in her face and her chest did help steady her nerves while she got out her pencil and settled in.
“Let me see these wires here…you might just need to adjust them a bit, hang on. The contact points aren’t quite right, and that might be your issue. Hand me those wire strippers?”
After her exam, Theo crouched to examine her battery and circuit in the lab with interest. Once Audrey had gotten started, it was a whole lot easier to ease into a problem-solving mindset, especially knowing Theo was waiting for her outside, and it was more fun than she initially thought it would be to have him there in her capstone lab.
But since it was a Friday, they were the only two there.
It was perfect timing.
And the perfect place for him to feel comfortable without his mask out in public.
“I can’t believe you told me, ‘I know a thing or two about circuits,’ and this entire time you’ve been a fucking master electrician,” she grumbled, begrudgingly passing him the tool while he plucked curiously at her wiring. “Way to bury the lede.”
He shrugged and unwound some of her handiwork. But he was right: on a second glance, she hadn’t put that together quite as thoroughly as she’d needed to.
“Yeah, well, it seemed like a useful license to get. I started earning my hours when I was in high school, and then I ended up choosing an art form that uses electricity for the crux of…well, everything, so I’m glad I decided to follow through.”
His brow furrowed slightly while he concentrated, and Audrey had to admit: she loved watching him work, even if she hadn’t seen him do his real specialty yet.
Someday, maybe he’d let her watch him in his own studio.
“Sure, but master, though?”
“I don’t do anything by halves. And I mean anything.
” He raised an eyebrow at her before he finished snipping the wires and rewound them, making sure the copper was thoroughly in contact with the rest of it.
“Honestly, this is great work, you just need some minor tweaks.” When he went back to his investigation, his phone buzzed with a text, the vibration louder than normal against the wood of the worktable.
But he only glanced at the screen and dismissed the message immediately.
“What does your family think of all this? Your art, I mean?”
He froze.
“My family?”
“Yeah. You never really talk about them.” She rested her chin on her hand. “If I had a family, I’d never shut up about them.”
“I don’t talk to my family,” he muttered, plucking at more wires and testing their connections. “I was close with my dad. And now my dad is gone.” His phone buzzed again, but this time, he threw it bitterly inside his satchel without looking at it.
All right.
She wouldn’t press him.
At least, not about that.
“What are you doing for the holidays, then?” She frowned. “Surely you don’t spend them alone?”
“Diego’s mom invited me this year, which was nice of her. But I was just going to try to work on my piece for the charity gala. I don’t mind being alone. It’s better that way, honestly.” He grabbed a soldering iron and placed it in her hands. “Touch that part up.”
Audrey peered at where he’d pointed. He was right: it wasn’t properly joined all the way. “Thank you.”
But his distraction didn’t hide how deftly he’d avoided her question.
Theo studied her carefully as she worked. “What about you? Are you going home to Florida?”
“No. I usually spend the holidays with Violet and her family in Jersey. I can’t afford to fly back to Tampa, and I’m not sure I’d call it home anymore anyway.” She finished fixing the connection and set the iron aside.
“But what about Gladys? You always speak so highly of her.”
She sighed. “I’d love to see her. She was the closest thing I ever had to a home and I try to keep up with her as much as I can, but she usually has her hands full with other foster kids.
She doesn’t have time for me, and can’t afford to help me out.
You don’t get all that much from the state as a foster parent. ”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“Before I moved here and started college. Almost five and a half years ago now.” She pointed down at her experimental battery prototype. “So what do you think of the design, Mr. Master Electrician? I need a professional opinion before my capstone presentation.”
“It looks great. My expertise is more in the practical implementation, not the theoretical, and I don’t really work on sustainability—not expressly, anyway.
But it looks good to me.” Theo leaned his hands on the table surface and rocked back and forth on his heels.
“Is your presentation a public thing?” Audrey nodded. “Can I come?”
Her heart raced at his question. He wanted to be there? For her? But she chose a casual shrug rather than show how excited that made her. “It’s open to the whole university, so I suppose the public can technically attend.”
“So I’m just ‘the public’ then, huh?” He shifted and loomed over her, his voice dropping low enough to almost qualify as a growl while he pointedly eyed her mouth and rolled his jaw pensively. She had an excellent view of his soft, plush lips from where she stood.
“Yep. Just the public. Just some guy.” She bit her own lip and closed the gap between them, sliding a hand up his sweater and trying not to grin as the muscles of his torso twitched beneath her touch.
He was somehow the perfect combination of both soft and sculpted, and he shuddered as he bent over her, burying his face in her shoulder.
He’d done this to her in his studio. They were in hers now.
Fair was only fair.
“I’m not special at all?” he breathed, pressing his lips to her neck and settling his hips against her own.
The bulge in his jeans was intriguing.
“Nope.” She changed direction and slid back down, her fingers toying with the elastic waistband of his briefs. When she paused, his breathing quickened. “Positively plebeian.”
She pushed her hand beneath.
And his breath caught in a sharp inhale.
“You’re playing with fire, Miss Adams,” he rasped. He’d wrapped her in his arms and his fingers tightened at her back as her own curled in his dark hair.
“Can I touch you?” she whispered back. Her fingertips grazed against something hard and silken, but before she could explore further, he grabbed her wrist and held her still.
“Naughty girl,” he rumbled as he finally pulled back and looked her in the eye.
His pupils were blown black and wide. “This isn’t the right place.
I told you: I don’t do anything by halves.
And I have plans.” He tossed her hand away and grabbed the back of her neck, yanking her lips to his.
When his tongue swept insistently into her mouth, tasting her expertly like he was searching for something, the temperature in the lab was suddenly sweltering.
It was entirely too warm to continue working in those conditions.
“We’re getting out of here,” he growled against her skin. “And you’re coming home with me.”
Walking into Theo’s house just before sunset felt so different the third time.
It was the first time Audrey had planned to be there, the first time she’d ever done such a thing with any sort of intention, and even though she was so comfortable with Theo now, her body still vibrated with electricity when he shut the door and locked it before helping her out of her coat.
Part of it was the anticipation. He’d kept mum about what he was planning, and she knew he was planning something. He was nothing if not deliberate.
Part of it was the length of time. Their longest date so far had stretched overnight, sure, but three days?
Three days and three nights with one person?
What if they got bored with each other? What if it didn’t go well?
What if they got into a fight? At least they weren’t going on a trip and she could go home if that were the case.
But even imagining the possibility felt awful, and Audrey tried to shove the thought away from her mind.
The last part of it was the expectation—not his, but hers. She’d started taking her new birth control after going down into Theo’s studio.
She wanted more of that. More of him.
But she was also scared.
Violet said sex could be a lot of things.
It could be good, bad, mediocre, incredible, short, long, painful, soft, intimate, impersonal.
It could be any of those things, sometimes all at once, and not knowing for sure what sex with Theo might be made Audrey want to crawl out of her own skin with anxiety.
That same restless feeling had coursed through her veins while they made a quick trip to her apartment to grab her things after somehow making it out of the lab with their clothes still on.
It didn’t let up as Theo helped her pack her bag—and especially not when he peered curiously into her drawers and pulled out her summer bikini.
“What do I need this for?” she’d asked when he’d handed it over.
“You’ll see.”
“What are we even doing, anyway? How do I pack for this weekend?” A bikini didn’t make any sense at all for how cold it was outside.
“We’re going to do whatever you want.” His phone vibrated in his pocket, but he took one look at the screen and sharply silenced the call before shoving it back into his jeans, irritation flashing briefly across his face as he turned his attention back to investigating her bed.
“Personally, I don’t think you need any clothes at all, but trust me: a bathing suit could be fun. ”