12. CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER TWELVE
CONNOR
Stumbling into the hallway, the door thuds shut behind me, the sound echoing a little too loudly inside my head. Everything feels slower, softer around the edges, the alcohol sitting warm in my veins and leaving my limbs loose, my thoughts lagging slightly behind where they should be.
Dragging a hand through my hair, I cross to Marcus’s door and reach for the handle, my fingers missing it the first time before I manage to catch it. I yank it down, frowning when it doesn’t give, rattling it again before leaning my weight into the door.
My shoulder knocks against the wood with a muffled thud.
I step back and stare at the door.
Why has he locked it?
“Marcus,” I call, lifting my fist and knocking, the sound heavy and uneven beneath my knuckles.
“Fuck off, Con,” Marcus’s voice comes straight back through it, deeper than usual.
My mouth opens, the argument already sitting on my tongue, but a woman moans loudly from the other side before I can get it out.
I wrinkle my nose.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I mutter, snatching my hand away and scrubbing both palms down my face.
A door creaks open behind me just as another moan carries through Marcus’s room, deeper this time and loud enough that I physically flinch.
I clap both hands over my ears and squeeze my eyes shut, but I’ve already heard more than any younger brother should ever be forced to hear.
“Jesus,” I huff. “You’re a fucking pig, Marcus.”
I thump my palm against the door again, and Marcus fires something back that disappears beneath another burst of noise from inside.
I don’t even try to make it out. I’ve already heard more than enough for one night.
A chuckle comes from behind me, and I breathe out through my nose, turning. Every scrap of patience Marcus has left me is ready to land on whoever finds this funny.
Theo is leaning against his doorframe.
Shirtless.
The irritation dies on my tongue.
His hair is still mussed from sleep, dark strands pushed in every direction, one arm stretched above his head against the frame, the other hanging loose at his side.
Ink covers most of the skin I usually only catch pieces of beneath his clothes, winding over his shoulder and down his arm before disappearing around his ribs.
I snap my eyes back to his face, only to find that stupid smirk already waiting for me.
His eyes are still heavy with sleep, green softened by it in a way I’ve never seen before, and for some fucking reason I can’t make myself look away.
I follow the dark ink of his tattoo’s lower across the easy rise and fall of his chest and the taut line of his stomach until the waistband of his joggers comes dangerously close to my sightline.
“Enjoying the show?” Theo asks, his voice low as he glances towards Marcus’s door.
I fold my arms across my chest, turning my glare on the wood instead of him. “I’m being traumatised.”
A quiet laugh leaves him as he pushes away from the frame and steps into the hallway. “Bit dramatic, princess.”
I roll my eyes. “Shut up.”
It should have more bite than it does. Usually, princess is enough to sharpen every word that comes out of my mouth, but the alcohol has blurred the edges somewhere between my head and my tongue, leaving the insult embarrassingly close to fond.
Theo goes quiet, his mouth twitching up.
Another hard knock of Marcus’s headboard comes through the wall behind me, my shoulders drawing up.
I’m never coming here again.
“Well, Reid,” Theo says, one hand sliding lazily down his stomach.
His fingers skim over bare skin, following the hard lines of muscle lower, until they disappear beneath the waistband of his joggers.
A dark trail of hair runs down his stomach between the sharp lines of his hips, disappearing beneath fabric sitting far too low, and it takes an embarrassingly long moment for the heat climbing my neck to convince me to look somewhere else.
I make the mistake of choosing his face.
Theo is already looking at me, the corner of his mouth pulling slowly upwards, his eyes drop pointedly to where mine just were.
I straighten, but whatever suitably irritated response I should have disappears beneath the alcohol still clouding my head. A muscle in Theo’s jaw jumps, his attention dropping to his phone, thumb moving lazily across the screen.
“Looks like you’re my problem tonight,” he hums, turning it towards me.
I squint at the message, having to read through the typos twice before it makes any sense.
Marcus
tag ur it im bsy
I press the heel of my hand against my forehead and push it through my hair, trying to force my thoughts into some kind of order.
“Asshole.”
Theo shrugs, completely unfazed. “Yeah,” he says absently. “Pretty much.”
He stretches then, arms reaching above his head with a low groan. His body lengthens with it, ribs lifting beneath bare skin, his joggers slipping lower on his hips, and this time I don’t have the excuse of my eyes wandering somewhere they shouldn’t.
I’m just watching him.
The realisation comes somewhere around Theo lowering his arms again and my mouth going dry, and I swallow before turning back towards Marcus’s door.
Fucking alcohol.
Theo rolls his shoulders, apparently completely unaware of what he’s just done to my ability to think properly. Or maybe not. With him, I can never tell.
He steps aside and tips his head towards the open doorway. “Well, come on then,” he sighs, already turning as though my answer is a foregone conclusion.
I shift backwards instead, folding my arms across my chest. “Not a fucking chance.”
Theo raises a brow, my refusal apparently doing nothing except make this more entertaining for him.
“That scared you won’t be able to control yourself?” he drawls.
Heat floods my face, made worse by the fact he’s spent the last five minutes giving me plenty of reason to doubt exactly that.
I scoff. “I’m more worried about you,” I shoot back. “You’re not exactly Mr Morality.”
Whatever warmth was sitting in his eyes shuts off so completely that my next breath catches, the alcohol fogging my head nowhere near enough to dull the cold that replaces it.
I don’t know what I’ve hit, but I’ve hit it.
Then Theo blinks it away so cleanly, I’m almost sure I imagined it.
He pushes away from the doorway and comes towards me.
I hold my ground, even when he stops close enough that I have to tip my chin back to keep looking at him. The hallway shifts faintly beneath my feet, my balance not quite as reliable as I’d like, but there’s nothing unsteady about Theo.
“Your virtue,” he says, quieter now, “is quite safe with me.”
Theo comes to a stop in front of me, close enough that I have to tip my chin slightly to keep looking at him. His gaze drops, taking its time on the way down before slowly coming back to my face, and whatever comeback I had waiting disappears somewhere along the way.
Mr Morality.
I’d meant to piss him off. I’m just starting to think I picked the wrong thing to do it with.
The memory of his face in my bedroom comes back with uncomfortable clarity, all that easy warmth shutting down after I threw those words at him. I hadn’t meant them the way he heard them then, and I don’t mean this the way it sounded now.
Apparently I’m just very good at putting my foot in my mouth around him.
“Fucking Marcus,” I mutter, blowing out a breath before pushing past Theo and into his room.
I make it two steps into the room before the bed stops me.
The dark sheets are still twisted from where he slept in them, loose across the mattress with one pillow crushed near the middle.
My feet stay exactly where they are.
It’s a bed.
That’s it.
Except Theo was in it probably ten minutes ago, all sleep-heavy eyes and bare skin, and now that thought is sitting in my head where absolutely nobody invited it.
Except this one is Theo’s, and standing in his room this late at night with enough alcohol in my system to make my thoughts significantly less cooperative makes that feel far more personal than it did the last time I was in here.
Theo sleeps there.
The thought arrives without invitation, followed far too quickly by an image of him stretched across those dark sheets, looking the way he did when he opened the door.
The thought sends a hot little pull through my stomach that sobers me.
I turn away from the bed, jaw locking.
“Most people would kill to get in my bed,” Theo drawls behind me, the door clicking shut.
Heat presses along my spine, his chest brushing faintly against me when he breathes. It’s barely contact, but my body picks up every bit of it, my own breathing slipping out of rhythm.
“I’d kill to get out of it,” I shoot back.
I turn, putting some space between us, fixing him with a scowl that would probably work better if I wasn’t drunk and standing in his bedroom.
Theo watches me, stepping straight into the space I just made.
His head tilts slightly, green eyes moving between mine with that searching look I hate, the one that always leaves me wondering what the hell he thinks he’s seeing.
“Yeah?” he hums. “Feel free to wait for Marcus.”
My eyes flick towards the door, my brain helpfully supplying exactly what that would mean.
Standing in the hallway listening to whatever the fuck Marcus is doing until he finishes, then walking into that room afterwards and getting into his bed.
My stomach lurches, bile sour in the back of my throat.
“Yeah,” he hums, a low chuckle slipping through. “That’s what I thought.”
I exhale and turn away from the door, only for the reality of where I’m standing to settle in properly now that Marcus’s room is very clearly no longer an option.
I’m in Theo’s bedroom, drunk enough that getting home isn’t happening, with his bed sitting a few feet away and rapidly becoming the only option that doesn’t involve listening to my brother fuck someone before climbing into the aftermath.
“Uh-”
I turn, gesturing vaguely towards the bed, then around the room when that doesn’t seem sufficient. “What- where-”