22. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CONNOR
Marcus tosses the pack of Twizzlers across the room, and I snatch them out of the air without looking, already halfway through a sentence in my notes.
The end of my pen taps against the page while I pull one free and slip it between my lips with a quiet hum, my eyes flicking briefly to the textbook in front of me before I keep writing.
“You’re gonna need glasses if you keep staring at that thing like that,” Marcus says absently, not even bothering to look up from his phone as he scrolls.
“That your professional opinion, Dr Reid?” I scoff around the Twizzler, tearing a piece off with my teeth before glancing up at him.
Marcus drops his phone onto the sofa and leans back, crossing his arms over his chest before kicking his legs up onto the coffee table.
My eye twitches.
“It is actually, yeah.”
I huff out a laugh, dropping my gaze back to the textbook and trying to focus on the words in front of me instead of the soles of his shoes pressed against the table.
There’s already a faint smear beneath one of them, and my knuckles turn white around my pen.
It’s fine.
It’s a table. Shoes go on floors, not tables, but it’s not my table, and I don’t need to look at it.
I shift my notebook a little further away from him instead, lining the corner back up with the edge of the textbook and forcing my attention onto the paragraph I’ve been trying to finish for the last five minutes.
Marcus’s leg starts bouncing beside me, his heel knocking against the wood over and over until the repetitive thud starts crawling beneath my skin and taking every word on the page with it.
“What is with you?” I bite out, turning an irritated look on him.
Marcus runs a hand through his hair before grabbing his phone again, only to look at the screen and toss it straight back down.
“Fucking Theo,” he mutters.
My shoulders climb higher, attention snapping away from the textbook.
“What?” I croak.
I clear my throat quickly, shifting in my seat as heat creeps up the back of my neck.
“I swear he takes longer than any girlfriend I’ve ever had,” Marcus grumbles, already reaching for his phone again, completely oblivious to the way my pulse has kicked up.
“Girlfriend?”
Theo’s voice cuts through my thoughts before I even register the footsteps coming down the stairs.
My head lifts automatically.
“I don’t think one night in bed counts as a girlfriend,” he adds, dropping down the last step with easy grace and shoving Marcus’s shoulder as he passes.
His shirt is unbuttoned all the way down to his navel, hanging loose enough that every step shifts the fabric over damp skin and the dark spread of ink across his chest and stomach.
His sleeves are shoved carelessly to his elbows, exposing tattooed forearms. My eyes drag over every familiar line of ink before dropping to the veins standing beneath his skin and the long fingers curling around the back of Marcus’s chair.
My stomach drops.
I look away from his hand only to make the mistake of dropping lower, over the bare strip of stomach between the open sides of his shirt to where his jeans sit low and fitted around his hips.
Heat crawls up the back of my neck.
I tear my eyes away and stare down at my textbook, biting through the end of the Twizzler still caught between my lips.
I am not doing this.
Not here, with Marcus sitting across from me.
Movement beside me pulls at the edge of my vision, Theo’s ringed fingers sliding into my space and plucking the Twizzler straight from between my lips.
My head jerks up, finding him close enough that I catch the faint sheen across his split bottom lip as he brings the Twizzler to his mouth, his tongue flicking out around the end before his teeth close around it.
Slowly.
Those green eyes locked on mine the entire time.
Then he winks.
Yesterday comes back with a force that knots my stomach, my brain not having the decency to give me the parts I can ignore. It gives me Theo on his knees. My fingers buried in his hair. Those same green eyes looking up at me while his mouth-
Fuck.
“You don’t mind, right, princess?” Theo asks, as if he hasn’t just taken something directly from my mouth and made a fucking performance out of putting it into his.
My mouth opens, and every useful word I’ve ever learned has abandoned me.
He chews slowly, still watching me with that smug look, knowing exactly what he’s done, and I drop my eyes before he gets the satisfaction of seeing any more.
A Twizzler.
That’s all it is.
Except the taste of strawberry is still on my tongue, and now I’m thinking about his mouth again.
“Asshole,” I mutter, finally managing to find my voice.
Theo huffs a laugh and drops onto the sofa beside me, the cushion dipping beneath his weight and tipping me towards him until our shoulders knock together.
Theo either doesn’t notice or, more likely, decides to make himself comfortable anyway, stretching back into the cushions and kicking his feet up beside Marcus’s on the coffee table.
My knee knocks sharply into his thigh, jolting his legs with the force of it, and my stomach drops as soon as I realise what I’ve done.
Shit.
I keep my eyes fixed ahead, heat creeping up my neck as the silence stretches. His attention drops to the coffee table, and I brace myself for whatever smart-ass comment is coming.
The eye roll. Princess. Some deliberately irritating remark about me kicking him because I can’t cope with a pair of shoes on the table.
Instead, Theo gives a low hum and drops his feet back to the floor without saying a word.
My eyes flick up to him, and he’s already watching me, no challenge in his eyes. Theo took one look at me, worked out why I’d reacted and moved his feet without making me feel ridiculous for it.
I turn back to my notes, too aware of his shoulder against mine.
“Thanks,” I mutter, keeping my voice low enough that Marcus won’t hear, Theo going strangely still against me.
When I glance back, I catch the brief surprise crossing his face before he manages to hide it, and for once neither of us seems to know what to say. We just look at each other until Theo gives me a small nod, his shoulder shifting almost imperceptibly against mine.
The scratching of my pen fills the silence between us until Theo’s hand moves at the edge of my vision. He pulls the Twizzler from his mouth and holds it out towards me.
My writing trails off as I stare at the end glistening faintly between his fingers.
He’s actually offering it back.
I should tell him to fuck off.
Instead, I look at him and find one dark brow already raised, a challenge sitting in his eyes waiting to see what I’ll do.
My pulse thuds against my throat.
I take it from him, narrowly avoiding his fingers, although somehow that doesn’t make putting something that was just in Theo’s mouth between my own teeth feel any less stupid. The taste of strawberry floods my tongue as I bite down, along with the immediate awareness of exactly where it’s been.
I turn back to my notebook and start writing again before Theo can see how thoroughly he’s managed to derail me.
“You ready?” Marcus asks.
I glance up automatically and find him looking past me at Theo, who answers with a lazy lift of his brow.
My stomach pulls uncomfortably, and I turn back to my notes, although whatever train of thought I had before the Twizzler incident is long gone.
“You coming?” Marcus’s eyes flick to me.
“Where?” I ask.
Marcus pushes himself off the couch, stretching as he slips his phone into his pocket. Theo stays exactly where he is beside me, and irritatingly, I’m aware of that before anything else.
“The new bar that opened in town,” Marcus says, as if this is information I should already have.
“No,” I huff, shaking my head. “Absolutely not.”
A crowded bar full of sticky floors, drunk people bumping into me and music loud enough to make conversation impossible sounds considerably less appealing than spending the rest of the night with my textbook.
Marcus snorts. “Yeah, didn’t think so.”
He reaches across me to clap Theo on the shoulder, trying to haul him up, and takes the opportunity to ruffle my hair on his way past.
“Fuck off.” I slap his hand away and smooth everything back into place.
By then, Theo is getting to his feet, stretching his arms above his head, and the movement pulls his already mostly useless shirt wider, exposing another strip of tattooed stomach as his back arches.
I follow the hard lines of his stomach for entirely too long before the creeping curve of his mouth finally drags my attention upwards.
“Shame,” Theo murmurs.
That’s all he says, but the word still slips beneath my ribs as he steps forward and, despite having an entire room to walk through, chooses the narrow space directly between my legs.
I stiffen and tip my head back to glare at him, but Theo’s eyes sweep slowly over me before he gives a quiet laugh and moves past.
Asshole.
He grabs his keys from the bowl beside the door and follows Marcus out.
My eyes follow him
I realise what I’m doing somewhere around the doorway, when there’s nothing left to look at except the empty space where he disappeared.
He’s going out.
Fine.
Theo goes out all the time. I know that. I’ve heard enough stories from Marcus to know exactly what those nights usually look like too, and I’ve certainly seen enough people hanging around this house afterwards.
None of which has anything to do with me.
I stare at the doorway.
Someone will flirt with him.
The thought arrives unwanted and immediately brings half a dozen worse ones with it.
My textbook snaps shut beneath my hand, and I push to my feet.
“Wait,” I call.
Marcus turns around, eyebrows shooting up before the bastard’s face breaks into a grin.
Theo stops with one hand near the door and turns to look back at me, green eyes narrowing slightly as they move over my face.
For once, he seems as confused by me as I am.
“Well, hop in then,” he says eventually, giving one shoulder a shrug as he pulls the door open and leans against it to hold it open for me.
I hesitate, glancing back at the house, before turning back to Theo.
I walk past him, my shoulder nearly brushing his chest, and head for the car before I can change my mind for a second time.
I can feel his eyes on me as I climb into the seat, and the awareness follows me all the way down, pressing against my skin while I curl my fingers against the denim covering my thighs.
This is a terrible idea.
I know it before Theo even gets into the car.
Still, when the driver’s door opens, I look up.
Theo slides behind the wheel and turns the ignition, his eyes finding mine in the rearview mirror.