Chapter Twenty-Three #3
He bounced his brows right back at her. “Uh-huh. He can’t shut up about her, whether he’s ranting about whatever she did to him most recently, or about how wonderful she is.
He thinks he sounds begrudging, but I’m fairly certain he’s been in love with her for months now.
At least that’s the subtext.” He frowned slightly and tapped a finger to his lips.
“Or supertext, maybe? Is that what you call something that’s so fucking obvious it doesn’t even count as subtext anymore? ”
She snorted and snuggled even closer into his side.
His arm tightened around her. “Well, don’t tell that to Violet.
She’s still convinced she hates him, not that she thinks or talks about him constantly, or even that tall, lanky gingers are exactly her type and have been since at least middle school.
I didn’t even know Jersey had that big of an Irish population, but apparently they do. ”
“What? Oh my god, what a revelation.” Theo didn’t even attempt to properly feign surprise. “Violet might like Alastair? He might be exactly her type? This is news to me. Absolutely earth-shattering information.”
She snorted. “Don’t you dare pretend to be an expert in these things, Theodore Henry Sullivan.
You couldn’t even tell that I had the biggest, most awkward crush on you when you were coming to the coffee shop and that was pretty fucking obvious if you ask me.
” She tugged his ear. “If you remember, I had to ask you out first.”
“Oh?” he purred, leaning in even closer to whisper against her lips.
“Did you now?” He slid his left hand up her neck and buried his fingers in her hair, stroking hard and pulling it in just the right way to make her shiver.
“I’m pretty sure I was pining for you much earlier than you were for me, but perhaps I’m wrong. ”
Audrey hummed. “I don’t know. I liked you from the beginning.”
“I could barely breathe from the moment I saw you.”
“Well, I had to ask you to kiss me,” she pouted. “When the hell were you going to do that?”
“Eventually.” He grinned at her with dark delight. “And that’s not exactly how I remember it. I remember simply being a gentleman and not wanting to pressure you.”
“I remember having to demand that you not go so slowly.”
“Ah,” he crooned. “I see that we’re at an impasse. So why don’t you remind me again how I kissed you on our first date? I’m not sure that’s burned deep enough into my memory.”
“You need a reminder, huh?” Her breath had quickened. Her body burned.
It was always like this with him.
She always wanted him.
Always.
Theo nodded and hummed, just barely brushing his mouth against her own.
“I mean, I think it might have gone something like this, but I’m not sure.
Tell me if I’m wrong, and I’ll try again.
” He curled his fingers beneath her jaw, his calloused fingertips grazing across the sensitive skin as he gently tilted her mouth up to meet his.
She flung one leg over his hips to carefully settle into his lap, straddling him on the couch cushions.
Theo was getting harder and harder by the second.
“That’s not how it went,” Audrey muttered.
“No?” Theo breathed, snaking a hand beneath her sweater and bra to palm one of her breasts. Her nipple hardened to a tight peak beneath his touch, and she sucked in a sharp breath when he lightly pinched her.
“Nope. Not that either,” she gasped. “Like you were ever so forward in your life.”
“Well, fuck me,” he chuckled. “I guess I’ve just completely forgotten, then.”
Liar.
“Why don’t you show me, sweetheart? I think I need my memory jogged.”
“Mmm. Okay, fine.” She cupped his face with both hands. “Close your eyes. And don’t open them. No peeking.”
Those extraordinarily unique hazel irises of his glittered with mischief before they disappeared behind their lids, his long, dark lashes sweeping half-moons across his high, pale cheekbones. “Yes, ma’am.”
They grew silent, and Audrey took her time to study him.
It never ceased to amaze her how handsome he was, despite what he might have thought of himself.
He was beautiful, even with the scar, perhaps even because of it in some ways, and she ran her thumb gently along its length, as quiet and soft as a whisper.
This must have been what he was doing that night, she realized—why he took so long to press his lips to her skin.
He’d wanted to look at her the way she looked at him now.
He’d wanted to study all the dips and curves and planes of her face.
He’d wanted to capture them in his memory—just in case she might not have wanted to go out with him again after that night, despite what she said. Despite all of her clear reassurances to the contrary.
For the space of a second, Audrey’s heart ached. That would have been a very Theo thought, even as far from the truth as it was then—and even farther now.
As far as she was concerned, he was stuck with her.
She would never give him up.
She loved him far too much.
Audrey leaned forward and drew her nose across his face, tracing it the same way he had with her all those months ago.
His mouth dropped open and his breath trembled at the sensation of it, only for it to catch when she pressed her lips first to one brow, and then to the other.
Now he knew what it had felt like when he’d done this to her—when he’d dragged his lips across her eyelids and her cheeks, briefly rested them at the tip of her nose, tilting her head this way and that between his hands as he completely ruined her for first kisses.
And made sure she wouldn’t ever want another man.
She could practically hear his heart thundering in his chest. And when she finally pressed her lips to his, he broke and surged forward, pulling her closer so he could bury his hands in her hair and utterly wreck her mouth with his own.
He’d already wrecked her for anyone else, after all. Absolutely destroyed all other prospects in claiming her as his.
The truth was, she’d always been his.
She had been from the very beginning.
Theo moaned when she opened her mouth to allow him in, wanting him deeper, closer, just the way she always did, and when he swept his tongue inside so softly, so expertly, Audrey couldn’t take it anymore.
With her eyes closed, her hands dropped to his lap, and she fumbled at his belt buckle, finally wrenching it away and tossing it victoriously behind her.
His zipper was next, and as soon as she had access, she plunged a hand into his underwear, pulling it down slightly to palm at his length while she ran her free hand along the hard stretch of abs hidden beneath his undershirt and sweater.
He moaned again, the sound rumbling deep in his throat when her fingers wrapped around him.
“I don’t think this is what happened next,” he breathed, sliding his hands up her sweater to rip it over her head.
The clasps of her bra were next, and he flung it away from the couch as he mouthed at her neck.
His hands were occupied with her breasts, caressing and massaging them, pinching and soothing in equal measure before his right hand slid down into her jeans and gave her clit the attention it was begging for.
As soon as he touched her between her legs, his skilled fingers deft and circling and teasing, she shuddered and groaned.
“Doesn’t mean I didn’t want it to.” Audrey gasped again when he suddenly sucked at her collarbone.
Now that it was cold and she was always covered up, Theo seemed to take extra pleasure in leaving marks behind on her body.
No one else had to know except for them.
It was another delicious secret they shared.
“And besides, how would you know? You said you couldn’t remember. ”
That earned her a derisive snort. “As if I could ever forget, sweetheart.” Her zipper was next, and he hooked his thumbs in her belt loops and yanked her jeans down forcefully.
They both grunted as she shifted on his lap slightly to rip one leg off fully, and then the other before turning her attention to Theo’s own sweater.
Warmth washed over her as soon as she pressed herself to his chest. The man was a raging inferno, a walking space heater, and he radiated that heat even more now through his undershirt than he had when there was a thicker barrier between her and his skin.
Audrey positioned herself over him in his lap.
As soon as she was settled, he drew one nipple into his mouth, sucking hard and laving at the bud for a moment before letting it go with a gentle pop.
She grabbed his head and held him to her chest, directing his mouth to the other breast with a soft inhale.
She was already soaking wet.
Her body always responded to him like this now.
Quick and desperate.
“How’s your hip?” she murmured, sliding her hand back into his underwear while he dutifully suckled at the other nipple. It was easier straddling him this way than having to ask him to get up or lift his legs to take his pants all the way off, which was sometimes a clunky, hobbling affair.
He came up for air long enough to answer her. “Feels plenty good enough for this today. I—oh god.” Theo shuddered and buried his face between her breasts when she pressed up and positioned him just so, right before sliding down his length.
And sliding home.
They both paused for a moment when he was fully seated inside her and gazed at each other silently. Audrey knew he was thinking the exact same thing she was: How was it that they managed to fit together so perfectly? So gloriously? How was it that it felt like this each and every time?
It seemed impossible.
It seemed entirely too good to be true.
And yet…
“I love you,” Theo breathed. He cupped her face with both wide, warm hands. “I love you so much.”
Audrey dug her fingers into his dark hair, marveling at how thick and soft it was. She rolled her hips, slowly at first, and then a little more insistently when he dropped his hands to her waist and dug his fingers firmly into her flesh.
“You light me up like nothing else,” she whispered in his ear. “Like no one else.” She nuzzled into his cheek. “Tell me again how you love me.”
Theo took her mouth with his and drew her bottom lip between his teeth.
It was already swollen and red from before, and the tiny, sharp bite of pain was exquisite.
Sparks skipped along her skin. “ ‘Brother, bear the needle’s pain and draw out the poison from within,’ ” he quoted breathlessly, rocking his hips up slightly to meet hers.
Audrey gasped as he plunged deeper inside, hitting that spot she never seemed to be able to reach herself.
Heat surged in her core and rose through her body, simmering all the way down to her fingertips.
She moaned, and he chased it with his mouth, pressing another kiss to her lips—longer this time.
“ ‘Break free from the prison of your mind and rise up, kill the self, master your fate. If you do, you’ll command the heavens.’ ” Theo’s lips skated down her jaw, and he sucked another small bruise beneath her chin, punctuating it with a thrust of his hips.
“ ‘The sun can’t touch you if you burn yourself.’ ” She moaned again, deeper this time.
She could feel it hovering, the inevitability of her release, and she kept up the punishing rhythm of her own movement as she tried not to combust. The flames threatened to consume her.
But not yet.
Not just yet.
Audrey buried her face in Theo’s neck, sucking hard for air as she rode him.
“ ‘Its light slips by those who hold fast to the radiance of suffering.’ ” He only dug a hand in her hair to hold her closer to him, even while he snaked his left hand down between her legs again.
“ ‘To the peace found through pain.’ ” His fingers found the bundle of nerves there, and he began to gently stroke and circle it, matching the cadence of her hips, the pads of his fingers pressing harder as she ground into him.
“ ‘The thorn blooms into a rose. The drop becomes an ocean. The—oh god, Audrey. Audrey!” he rasped, swallowing down a moan of his own.
He was close too.
But he managed to rally enough to finish the poem.
“ ‘The fragment of a soul unites with the infinite.’ ”
With one final thrust of his hips, he made her see stars.
Audrey cried out and gave herself over to it, seizing and shivering in his lap as she drew his own orgasm from him.
Her nails bit into his back just as firmly as Theo’s fingers pulled against her scalp, and together they sat there in their living room, on their couch, riding the waves of their bliss between drinking their pleasure with their mouths.
Then, there was silence.
And softness.
Theo leaned back on the couch, cradling her on his chest as he laid them both down. He was still inside her, but she didn’t want him to leave yet. He was warmth. He was love.
He was home.
Finally, he broke the silence.
“You saved me from my prison. From my pain. You are my light.” His voice trembled as he spoke, just as much as his right hand once did, lifting to sweep her tousled hair away from her face.
“My infinite love.” Tears lined his eyes and glinted in the firelight.
“My beautiful Audrey.” He sniffed, and a quivering smile cracked across his wide mouth.
“I love you too, with all that I am.” Audrey closed her eyes as she cupped one cheek and pulled his face closer so she could press her lips to the other. “You shine just as brightly for me, you know.” She smiled against his skin. “My brilliant Theo.”
That, at least, was no secret.
It was a truth she’d never stop sharing with him.