Chapter Thirty One
Present Day
When I woke the next morning, the heat in the room made it very evident that it was late in the morning, possibly even verging on the afternoon. Theo was still curved into me, his body warm and heavy with sleep.
I relaxed into the bed, and closed my eyes. Last night had actually happened. He was actually here.
I laced my fingers through his, which made him stir and he pulled me closer, even though it wasn’t possible. His face nuzzled into my neck.
“I love you.” He said, his voice soft and hopeful.
The words made my heart flutter, he hadn’t woken wanting to take them back. He was still here, his arms were still around me and he’d said it again.
“I love you too.” I said, turning over, desperate to see his face, to drink him in.
He looked more rested than he had been only a few hours prior, we’d both benefited from the somewhat early night. We hadn’t needed sex to put a bandaid on something broken, we’d just needed each other and time.
He lifted a hand to my face and cupped my cheek. “Can I tell you something?”
“Yes, tell me something.”
I loved listening to him talk in his sleepy murmur, it was hypnotizing and sexy. He leaned forward and kissed me on the mouth - just a peck before resting his head back on the pillow, but against my forehead, our noses almost touching.
“I dreamt about you last night.” he whispered, his face breaking into a smile.
“Did you now?” I chuckled.
He nodded and slid his hand underneath my oversized t-shirt. “It’s not the first time.”
“Really?” I genuinely was shocked at that, but then I remembered the gallery and all the photos and the fact that Theo had seen me differently, long before I thought he had.
“All the fucking time.” he stretched and then moved his hand up higher under my shirt up, my back.
I’d dreamed about him too of course, more times than I cared to admit.
I’d dreamt of kissing him on prom night, of losing my virginity to him, of making love in the tent at summer camp.
I’d even dreamed of him showing up at my door and proclaiming his love to me - long before any of this had ever happened.
“Tell me about your dream.”
His face reddened and he became a little shy before looking back up at me. “Well, see I’ve dreamed everything there is to dream about you.” He leaned forward and kissed my neck. “Last night’s dream was different. I dreamt of a life. A whole life and it was with you and it was beautiful.”
He pulled back and his eyes were shining with tears. I smiled and nodded. “Kiss me. Please.”
He did, his mouth finding mine with a tenderness that made my chest ache. This kiss was different from last night’s desperate reunion, different from the frantic encounters at the hotel. This was slow, deliberate, a promise being made with lips and tongue and breath.
His hand slid higher under my shirt, fingers tracing the curve of my spine, learning the landscape of my back like he was committing it to memory. I arched into his touch, my own hands finding the hem of the t-shirt I’d lent him—my shirt on his body, the intimacy of it nearly undoing me.
“Can I?” he whispered against my mouth, tugging gently at my shirt.
“Yes.” The word came out breathy, certain.
He pulled it over my head slowly, reverently, his eyes tracking over my body like I was art. Like I was his favorite photograph come to life.
“God, Gin,” he breathed. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”
I waited for the usual surge of self-consciousness, the urge to cover myself, to hide. It didn’t come. Instead, I reached for his shirt, pulled it off him, let my hands explore the planes of his chest, the warmth of his skin.
“So are you,” I said, and meant it.
He kissed me again, deeper now, his body pressing against mine as we sank back into the pillows.
The sunlight filtered through my curtains, painting everything gold.
His mouth moved from my lips to my jaw, down my neck, across my collarbone. Each kiss was unhurried, worshipful, like he had all the time in the world and intended to use every second of it learning me.
“Theo,” I sighed as his lips found the curve of my breast, his tongue circling my nipple until it peaked. My hands fisted in his hair, holding him there, and he groaned against my skin.
“The last few days have been torture.” his hand skated down my stomach to the waistband of my sleep shorts. “Not waking next to you, not breathing in your scent. Knowing I wouldn’t wake to feeling your body against mine, knowing I couldn’t make you feel good.”
His words were making me desperate to feel him, for him to touch me in all the places my body had missed him. I arched slightly in an effort to guide his hand to where I needed it most, but he was deadset on taking his time.
“Then make me feel good,” I begged.
It was almost like I’d hit a switch, Theo moved up from lying next to me and I almost would have cried at the removal of his touch - if it wasn’t for the way he hovered above me, his fingers hooked in the waist band of my shorts.
He pulled them off in one motion while his eyes stayed lustfully with mine.
He licked his lips before letting his eyes drift and absorb the sight before him.
I was completely naked in front of him, and it wasn’t lost on me that only two weeks ago I’d have wanted to do anything but lie here, his naked muse, his subject - but now I also knew I was his love, his desire and it made me feel seen and sexy in a way I never expected I could.
I didn’t need him to think I was beautiful, even though I knew he did - because I finally believed it myself.
I’d seen myself how he saw me and it was liberating.
His eyes were love drunk as they finally locked with mine again, he lay down next to me for a moment and let his hands wander, his fingers danced and so that he could kiss me - long and slow.
Drawing out an impatient moan from my lips, I was trembling with want - in need so bad that there was a painful ache at my core and I needed his touch.
“Theo, please.”
“I know, baby. I’ve got you.”
He moved again, this time kissing down the length of my body, over my breasts, my stomach, the curve of my hips.
His mouth moved lower still, and I gasped as his breath ghosted over my inner thigh.
He took his time, kissing and licking his way up, bypassing where I wanted him most to kiss the other thigh, building the anticipation until I was squirming.
I was going to combust, I was almost sure of it, and I knew Theo was well aware of the torture he was putting me through.
Then his mouth was on me, his tongue finding my clit with devastating precision. I cried out, my back arching off the bed, my hands flying to his hair. He worked me slowly, thoroughly, alternating between broad strokes and focused attention.
When he slid two fingers inside me, curling them just right while his mouth continued its work, I felt the tension coiling tight in my core. I was almost there and he’d barely even touched me.
“Yes.” he murmured against me.
My climax was mind bending, I felt it from the tips of my toes to the top of my head, a rolling wave rather than a crash, and when it broke I called his name - or at least what I imagined his name was when I was incapable of thought, my body pulsing around his fingers,
pleasure radiating through every nerve.
He worked me through it gently, then kissed his way back up my body, his lips glistening, his eyes dark with desire.
“Come here,” I breathed, pulling him up to kiss him, tasting myself on his tongue.
I could feel him, hard and ready against my thigh, and I reached down to stroke him through his borrowed sweatpants. He groaned into my mouth, his hips jerking forward.
“Off,” I said, tugging at the waistband.
He complied quickly, kicking off the pants until he was spread before me, all lean muscle and warm skin and those impossibly blue eyes locked on mine.
“My turn.” I whispered, spent from the intense climax, but desperate to return the favor. I hopped on to my knees and moved down the bed,
“You don’t have to.” He said softly, his eyes were apologetic almost and it did something funny in my chest.
“I want to.”
I flicked my tongue over the head of his cock , lapping up a glistening drop of precum that was already escaping. He shuddered and mumbled my name as his hand ran over my back and settled on my ass.
I kissed down the side of his shaft, and he moaned as he pushed his hip upwards. I knew what he needed, but he had teased me so I was going to return the favor. I wrapped my hand around it, and moved it up and down gently before placing the tip into my mouth.
“Fuck.” Theo groaned. “You’re going to kill me Gin.”
“I should stop then.” I teased.
Theo’s hand moved up to the back of my neck, he gathered my hair and looked down at me with his pupils blown wide. “Don’t stop.”
I moved my hand and took all of him in my mouth, and I could tell he almost came apart then and there, but he tensed slightly to hold himself off. I kept going, sucking and flicking my tongue. Theo’s hips thrusted upward one last time before he let go of my hair and pulled at my hands.
“No more. too much. Come here.” he spoke in breathless spurts as I made my way up to him, he kissed me again and then lifted himself over me.
He settled between my thighs, the weight of him grounding me, and I felt him there, thick and hot against me. He didn’t push forward, just stayed there, looking at me like I held all the answers to every question he’d ever had.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you too.”
He pushed forward slowly, filling me inch by inch, and we both sighed at the sensation. This wasn’t the desperate coupling from the hotel, or the frantic encounter at the lake. This was different. This was making love.
When he was fully seated inside me, he stilled, his forehead resting against mine, our breath mingling in the space between us.
“Okay?” he whispered.
“More than okay.”
He began to move, slow and deep, each thrust deliberate and measured. One hand laced with mine, pinning it gently to the pillow beside my head. The other cupped my face, his thumb brushing across my cheekbone as he looked into my eyes.
“I’m scared I’m going to wake up.” he said, with a surprising amount of feeling. “I’m scared that this isn’t real.”
I knew what he meant, because when I’d woken it was the first thing I’d thought.
“It’s real.” I said softly, lifting my hands to his chest. “It’s so fucking real.”
I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, and he groaned. His rhythm never faltered, that perfect, steady pace that had me climbing again.
“You’re home to me Imogen.”
The word cracked something open in my chest. Home. I was home to him, and with me he was home.
He kissed me, deep and thorough, his hips moving faster now, the angle shifting just slightly until he was hitting that spot inside me that made stars burst behind my eyelids.
“Theo—”
“I know. I can feel you. Come for me, Gin. Let me feel you.”
His thumb found my clit, circling in time with his thrusts, and I shattered. The orgasm rolled through me in waves, my body clenching around him, his name a prayer on my lips.
“Fuck,” he groaned, his rhythm faltering. “Gin, I’m—”
“Yes,” I breathed.
Three more thrusts and he was there, burying himself deep as he came, his body shuddering above me, my name torn from his throat like a confession.
We stayed like that for a long moment, hearts pounding against each other, breathing hard, tangled together in sweat-damp sheets and sunlight that had started to edge off this side of the apartment in the early afternoon.
Finally, he carefully withdrew and rolled to his side, immediately pulling me against him. I tucked myself into his chest, his arms coming around me like a fortress.
“That was—” I started.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
We lay there in comfortable silence, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my shoulder, my hand resting over his heart, feeling it slowly return to normal.
“We need to talk logistics.” I said a few minutes later, propping myself up to look at him for just a moment. “How this will work and… realistically.”
He pulled me back down against him, and he smiled against the top of my head. “I know. But later.”
“There is one thing we need to settle right now though,” I said after a moment.
“Oh? What’s that?”
I grinned against his chest. “You need to admit, once and for all, that pineapple belongs on pizza.”
His laugh was surprised and genuine, rumbling through his chest and into mine. “Never. Not happening. It’s a fruit, Gin.”
“Tomato is a fruit.”
“We are not having this argument while we’re naked in bed.”
“When else would we have it?”
He rolled us over suddenly, pinning me beneath him, his eyes dancing with mischief. “How about we table this discussion for now, and I’ll order you a Hawaiian pizza for lunch? Extra pineapple. And I’ll even try a bite.”
“Really?”
“Really. Because I love you, and apparently love means compromising on deeply held pizza beliefs.”
I cupped his face in my hands. “That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“God, your standards are low,” he teased, but his eyes were soft.
“My standards are perfect, actually. Because they led me to you.”