40. Theo
Theo
Liv stared at me. “You’re not broken, Theo. How can you say that?”
“Because.” I stalked over to the fireplace, grabbed the lighter, and ignited the pile of logs. The flames licked at the wood, consuming it.
“You don’t know how bad it can get,” I said, staring into their depths.
“You’ve only seen me when I’m basically okay.
But trust me. When I’m hyperventilating in the middle of Target because it’s too crowded, or staring at the ceiling for two days in a row because I can’t hack getting out of bed, you’ll change your mind. ”
“Why would I care about you any less because of that?” She sounded genuinely confused.
I spun to face her, bewildered. What was she not getting here? “Because! I saw what it did to my great-grandmother. My grandmother. My mother. I would never dump that on anyone else. No one should have to deal with it.”
“Will deals with it,” she pointed out.
“He’s my brother!”
“Yes, and he loves you. From what you’ve said, he hardly thinks you’re a burden.
Nor do I.” She shrugged. “All this stuff about not dating because you think love is a bunch of crap…I think you’re full of it, Theo.
I think you don’t want to fall in love, because you’re afraid you’ll inflict this—what did your mom call it?
A demon? Talk about absurd—on the person you care about, and your kids, too. ”
She was starting to sound like Will. “Who the hell said anything about kids?”
Liv met my eyes, her gaze clear and implacable. “You did great with Chloe. And you love Caiden.”
“That’s different. Chloe’s yours. It’s easy to hang out with a kid for an afternoon. And Will is a great dad, with none of the...the fuckedupedness of me.” I gestured at myself, beginning to get pissed off. What about this whole scenario was she failing to understand?
“Will shares the same gene pool you do. Are you saying he should never have had children?”
“Of course not.”
“You deserve happiness, too.” She sounded so adamant, it almost made me smile.
“No one’s perfect, Theo. Everyone’s got something.
Like, Chloe’s allergic to garlic. One clove, and we’ll wind up in the hospital.
So, I plan around it, which is a pain, because she loves Italian food, and you wouldn’t believe how many sauces have garlic in them. ”
She wrinkled her nose, looking unfairly adorable. “But it doesn’t matter. It’s not an inconvenience, because she’s my daughter and it’s my honor to be there for her. When you love someone, supporting them through the hard times is what it’s all about. It’s what you do.”
“My depression isn’t a garlic allergy!” And had she just said ‘love’? What the hell was happening here?
Liv heaved a sigh. “You’re right. That was a terrible analogy. How about this? What if, God forbid, Will got sick, you wouldn’t hold that against him, would you? You’d show up and help him, because he’s your brother and you want to be there for him.”
The thought of anything happening to Will made my stomach hurt. “Of course I would. But it’s not the same.”
“Why not? Because that wouldn’t be his fault, whereas you’re convinced that your depression and anxiety make you defective and therefore unlovable?” Her voice was gentle, but each word hit me like a blow. My response jammed in my throat, and damn it, she just kept talking.
“If…if we were dating, you’d be supporting me, too. There’d be times when I had to work late, and I asked you to pick up Chloe or make dinner. Just the fact that I have a daughter is a lot to contend with. It’s a give-and-take.”
I wished she would stop talking about children. And dating. And love. “I’m aware of that,” I bit out. “And I’d be a whole lot of take and no give. How am I supposed to support you when I can’t even scrape myself off the bathroom floor? When I’d know that you’d only be staying with me out of pity?”
Her jaw dropped. “I don’t pity you,” she said. “I wouldn’t. You’re a numbers guy; well, over twenty million people in this country suffer from depression. Do you think all of them are unlovable, or is it just you?”
“I—”
“It’s just part of who you are,” she said, her tone coaxing, persuasive. “Would it be easy to see you like that? Probably not. Would it hurt me to see you hurting? Absolutely. Would I do everything I could to help you feel better? You bet I would.”
“That’s not the point, Liv. You don’t need a fucked-up boyfriend when you could have a perfectly normal one.”
Liv’s cheeks flushed. “You’re not fucked up, Theo. I wish you’d stop talking about yourself that way.”
“Oh, yeah? When I came back to the city, I realized the longest non-familial relationship in my life has been with my goddamn doorman. My parents are both drunks and my mother’s idea of a vacation is drying out on the psych ward.
I take pills every morning just to freaking function.
Does that sound like a paragon of virtue to you? ”
She didn’t back down. “Plenty of people take pills every morning, for blood pressure or high cholesterol or diabetes. So what? What you’ve gone through—to be standing here in front of me, like this, today—it doesn’t make you bad, or weak. It means you’re strong.”
I couldn’t understand why she saw me like this. At some point, she’d realize who I really was and I’d come tumbling right off the pedestal she’d stuck me on. It would be a nasty fall for both of us. “How would you know?”
Liv narrowed her eyes. “For one thing, all the research I’ve done tells me so. Trauma psychology is my field of study, in case you’ve forgotten. What happened to May changed your biochemistry. It’s not something you can help.”
“I—”
“Shhh.” She put her hands on her hips. “For another, I know you. And…look, I’ve been married, okay?
I know what it’s like to be with someone who doesn’t support me, and believe me when I say you don’t fit the profile.
Even though we’re on opposite sides of this feud, you’re still here, with me, trying to figure it out, like an equal partner.
That’s more than I ever had with Gray. And I swear to God, Theo Dressler, if you say you’re fucked up one more time in my hearing, I won’t be responsible for what I do to you next. ”
I stared at her, trying to decide whether she was delusional or the best thing that had ever happened to me. And then, before I could think better of it, I crossed to her, knelt down, and took her mouth with mine.
Her response was instant: her tongue licked into my mouth, her hands tightened in my hair, and when my hands rose to her face, cupping it so I could get the angle I wanted, she didn’t resist. In fact, she leaned into my touch, as if she’d been aching to feel my hands on her as badly as I’d been to have them there.
“You’re not fucked up,” she whispered against my lips, as if willing me to believe it. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
God, I wanted to lose myself in her—to wash the past twenty-four hours away.
Settling onto the couch beside her, I lifted her so she straddled my lap, one of her knees on either side of my body.
I groaned as her heat soaked into me through the cotton of her yoga pants.
I was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing anything under them.
Maybe having sex in this apartment was the best idea I’d ever had, a sort of in-your-face to generations of Carters. Or maybe I was just looking for excuses. Because I sure as hell didn’t want to stop.
“Kiss me,” she demanded, and I obliged, invading her mouth with my tongue, claiming it the way I wanted to claim her. She sank her teeth into my lip in retaliation and I growled, sliding a hand under her shirt to cup her bare breast. No underwear, no bra—was she trying to drive me crazy?
Her nipple hardened against my palm, and when I brushed it with the pads of my fingers, it was her turn to moan—a sound that nearly pushed me over the edge.
“Liv,” I said, tugging the shirt over her head and dropping it onto the rug, “I don’t have anything with me—any condoms, I mean.
But I’m clean. Tell me you’re on birth control. ”
I nearly lost my train of thought at the sight of that glorious fall of hair tumbling over her shoulders and brushing the tips of her pale, full breasts. But through the blood that pounded in my ears—and everywhere else—I somehow heard her say, “I’m on the Pill.”
“Thank fucking Jesus,” I muttered, a heartfelt prayer that made her laugh.
I dropped my head, taking her nipple into my mouth and sucking, hard. She moaned, a sound that went straight to my cock. My hands tightened on her hips, and I moved her, dragging her back and forth, letting her feel how hard I was—for her.
Those gorgeous blue eyes opened and fixed on mine.
The look in them was searing: lust, but also something else I didn’t care to explore too closely, because it scared the shit out of me.
Instead, I laid her down on the rug in front of the fire and did what I wanted to since I’d pulled her on top of me.
I hooked my fingers under the waistband of her pants and yanked them off.
I’d been right—there was nothing underneath them but Liv.
“Christ,” I muttered. “You’re trying to kill me.”
Before she could reply, I spread her wide and buried my face between her legs. She was as wet as I’d imagined, and the scent of her was an aphrodisiac—salt and musk and the taste that was just Liv. My tongue speared into her, and she moaned again. I ground against the carpet, desperate for release.
“Theo.” Her fingers wound their way into my hair. “I want you inside me. Now.”
My heart beating an uneven tattoo, I reared up, over her.
She was impossibly beautiful, her red hair spread out all around her and the flames casting shadows on the curves of her pale body.
“Yeah?” I said, the corner of my mouth tugging upward in a smile.
At least she wanted me as much as I wanted her; I wasn’t in this alone. “Well, I’m all yours.”
She scrambled upward, yanking my shirt over my head.
Her fingers went to my belt buckle, and then she was pushing my pants over my hips and tossing them aside.
Then it was just the two of us, naked in the firelight, our shadows rising and falling on the walls.
Looking at her, something in my chest caught and twisted.
I didn’t believe in love, wasn’t made for it. But in this moment, with the taste of her on my lips and her eyes fixed on mine, I couldn’t deny what I felt was more than lust.
I didn’t know what to do about that. But I did know how to satisfy both of us, to silence the craving that had clawed at me since the very first night.
There was no way sex between us had been as incredible as I remembered—right?
So I would fuck her now, like she’d asked me to, and get it out of both our systems. I’d make the unfamiliar, twisting feeling in my chest disappear once and for all.
“Lay back.” It was a command, and she obeyed, falling down to her elbows, her body opening for me.
Kneeling between her legs, I let my gaze drift over her—those eyes that could shred me with a glance, glassy now with desire, the rise of her breasts, with their pale pink nipples, the line of her belly, the pink, glistening flesh between her thighs.
I traced her with my fingertip, then with the tip of my tongue, and she shivered.
“Jesus, Theo. Stop teasing me.” Her voice was as hoarse as my own.
I sucked in a breath and drove into her, feeling the heat of her body clutch at me, bottoming out inside her.
She pulled me down to her, her mouth taking mine, as her hips rose and her legs wrapped around me, pulling me deeper.
I thrust and her body clenched mine tighter, small spasms that hinted of the storm to come.
I had to grit my teeth to hold on, to stop from spilling myself into her.
Shit. It wasn’t as good as I’d remembered—it was better.
Her kisses were as greedy as mine as her hands roved over my body, her nails marking my flesh. I moaned and she swallowed the sound; she arched upward and I pressed into her, circling my hips to find the spot that made her shake, until she came apart again and again, calling my name.
I held on, clenching my jaw so tightly I was sure it would ache in the morning, thrusting deep into her heat until she began to shudder around me again. Only then did I let go, coming until constellations of stars clouded my vision, every pulse of her body rousing an answer in my own.
Afterward, we fell asleep in front of the fire, with me still deep inside her. And if the ghosts that haunted both of us passed judgment, they didn’t say a word.