Chapter 19
OWEN
The smile Thea gives me is the epitome of the cat who’s caught the mouse, and I’ve never been more grateful to be caught up in anything.
She lowers herself slowly, savoring the anticipation and the tension in my body.
A fucking queen, even in nothing but a thin white tank top and ripped jean shorts.
I should be the one on my knees, swearing my fidelity.
She undoes my pants, pulling them and my underwear down in one tug until my cock bobs up in front of her.
We both pause, her staring openly while I track every expression that crosses her face—the way her deep brown eyes go wide and the delicious way she licks her lips.
She leans forward to take me in her mouth, but that’s not how I want this.
And she told me to demand what I want. My hand wraps around her gorgeous curls, tugging her head back so she has to look at me.
“You want to know where my thoughts went when you were on that stage?” I ask as my other hand wraps around my cock, stroking myself. She nods her head. “Then put your hands behind your back.”
My heart is thudding, half because she’s the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen and half because I’m afraid she’s going to turn away from me.
When she was up there, I didn’t just want her.
I wanted complete control, to take and own every piece of her.
It’s a fantasy I’ve never felt safe enough to explore with any of my past partners, and part of me believes it’ll send her running for the hills.
But her lips just twist into a devilish smile as she bends her arms, laying her hands on the small of her back.
“Tongue out,” I say.
She doesn’t miss a beat, sticking her tongue out while keeping her eyes glued to mine.
I step closer, running the tip across her full top lip like I’m painting it, and she lets out a moan so hot, I don’t know how I’ll make it through more. I tap my dick on her tongue a few times, then slide between her lips. “Fuck, Thea. This mouth.”
I give a short experimental thrust and—shit—nothing has ever felt so good. Thea holds my eyes the whole time, somehow smiling with her lips stretched around me.
“Is this okay?” I ask, my voice strangled, and she nods.
She tries to move her head forward, but I tighten my grip on her hair to keep her in place.
This is what I want, what I have never been bold enough to ask for until Thea demanded my whole truth.
My life has been about meeting the needs of others, and this freedom—the freedom to take what I want without thinking about anything but my own pleasure—sets something free inside me.
She moans as I plunge into her mouth, the vibrations shooting down my cock and through every inch of my body.
I pull her mouth off me, using the controlling grip on her hair to stand her up. “Take off your shorts, then get back on your knees. I want you to make yourself come while your mouth is wrapped around me.”
Thea whimpers, tugging against the hand in her hair to capture my lips as she unzips her shorts and drops them and her underwear to the floor.
I almost change my mind, begging for a chance to look at her, but she drops back to her knees, her hand delving between her spread legs while she wraps her lips around me.
It’s the hottest sight I’ve ever seen, her eyes fluttering closed even as she fights to keep them on me.
She sucks hard, her cheeks hollowing, and my desperate groan fills the room.
And a few minutes later, when her body tenses and she moans around my cock, it takes every bit of control to keep from coming down her throat.
I pull her off me before she can push me over the edge and bring her back to her feet, pinning her to the shelves as I kiss her deeply.
She pulls her tank top over her head and throws it across the room in one fluid motion and suddenly she’s there, bare for me and so glorious I know I’ll spend the rest of my life comparing every other woman to her.
Her breasts fit perfectly in my palms, like they were made to be there.
My lips close around her nipple, increasing the suction until she writhes against me.
Her hands come to the hem of my shirt, pushing it up so she can run her nails down my abs.
I rip it over my head and drop it at our feet as she continues playing.
“I have to be inside you,” I groan onto her lips.
“Fuck, yes,” she moans in response.
I make sure she’s steady on her feet before I take a few quick steps to where I kicked off my jeans, digging in the pocket for my wallet.
I flip through it—cards, cash, my ID, a fucking library card for Christ’s sake—but there’s no condom.
A frustrated sound rips from my throat and I throw my wallet across the closet.
It slams against a bottle of cleaner, which teeters precariously before settling back on the shelf.
I don’t know which of my cousins stole the condom I keep in my wallet, but they’re fucking dead when I find out.
Thea’s staring at me with disappointed eyes. “No condom?”
No, but she’s still right there, and I’ll be damned if this ends here.
“What are you doing?” she asks in surprise as I go to my knees before her, grabbing one leg and throwing it over my shoulder.
The moan she lets out when I close my lips over her clit is second only to the taste that explodes across my tongue.
Fuck, I could live off only this for the rest of my life.
“If this is my only chance with you,” I say, letting the breath of my words breeze over her beautiful pussy, “there’s no way I’m letting it pass without tasting you.”
I keep eating her like she’s my last meal—honestly, I can’t think of anything else I’d choose over this if I were about to die—and I’m rewarded. Her hands dive into my hair, tugging me against her while she rides my face.
“So fucking sweet, Thea,” I murmur against her, and she whimpers.
My fingers tighten where my arm wraps around her thigh, keeping her open and bared to me as she squirms. My other hand closes around my cock, moving in time with my tongue over her swollen clit as she goes over the edge.
Pleasure shoots up my spine seconds later, and I have just enough mental clarity to grab my shirt and come into that instead of all over the shelf supporting Thea.
I sit back on my heels as Thea’s legs give out and she settles onto my lap. My arms come around her back as hers land over my shoulders, and we just hold each other.
I’ve always thought Thea was too bright for me, like a spark shooting off the campfires we had every summer.
I’d watch them twist through the air, constantly changing directions, mesmerizing in their unpredictability.
They were meant to be watched and admired, not touched.
I’d assumed Thea would be the same. But instead of feeling burned, I’m warm, like the spark sunk into my soul and is heating me from the inside out.
Her face is buried in my neck, and I think, of all the incredible things that have happened in the past fifteen minutes, this is the greatest of all.
She feels right in my arms, and the only negative thing in this beautiful moment is the fear of what happens next.
That once she recovers, she’ll walk away from me.
I’m so wrapped up in her that it takes a minute to register the moisture on my neck. I pull back to find tears streaming down her face. I wipe them away with my thumbs just for them to be replaced seconds later.
“I’m so sorry.” She hiccups, her eyes glued to my chest.
“What in the world are you sorry for, Thea?” I ask, wiping at more of the tears.
She opens her mouth but cries harder, her body shaking with her sobs. I hate that she’s hurting, and I’m desperate to fix it.
“I was such a bitch to you. I’m such a bitch to everybody,” she says. “Why don’t you hate me after all of that?”
“Hate you, because you were upset and needed to let off some steam? You’re not one moment, Thea, and trust me, the good of you far outweighs the bad.”
She watches me for a half second, then breaks out into sobs again. “That’s not your line.”
“What?” I ask, unable to stop my laughter.
“When I screw up, when I’m angry and mean and self-destructive. That’s not how the script goes. You’re supposed to call me out and tell me what a bitch I’m being.”
My stomach drops as I realize that’s what everyone else has done to her. No one’s ever given her room to feel those complicated feelings without cutting her off.
I gently kiss her forehead. “Let’s call this improvising, then.”
“You’re not supposed to be like this. It’s supposed to be easy,” she says.
I smile against her skin, because even if I hate that she’s hurting, it feels good to know this isn’t easy for her, either.
Walking away from her in a few minutes will feel like my soul’s being stripped from my body.
But for now, I have her. And I want to do anything I can to help her feel better while she’s letting me.
“Do you want to talk about what happened with Addy now?” I ask gently, tucking a curl behind her ear.
She shivers, leaning into my palm in a way that sets off a round of fireworks in my chest. “It wasn’t pretty.”
My mouth tugs up. “I don’t mind a bit of ugly. You’re too pretty as is.”
There’s a flash of a smile across her face—crinkled eyes and tilted lips—but it’s gone too quickly.
“It was about our mom. I won’t bore you with the details.” It’s on the tip of my tongue to say I want to be bored with the details, until I see the tightness around her eyes and realize she can’t handle them yet. “And I just lost it.”
“Why?” She tenses in my arms, and I rush to add, “Not saying you shouldn’t have. I just want to understand.”
She blinks at me, like the idea of someone wanting to get her is foreign. “You do?”
A breath gusts out of me. “Yes. God, Thea, I want to understand everything about you.”
She looks physically pained at my words, but she leans forward, placing the softest kiss on my lips before pulling back. “Long story short, she wants to focus on her new family instead of the family who has never been there for her. So, you know, me.”
Fire shoots through my veins. Anyone who interacts with the sisters can see how vehemently Thea loves Addy, how much she’d sacrifice for her sister’s happiness.
Before now, I’d have said it’s two-sided.
The only true emotion I’ve seen from Addy is when she talks to Thea or Harrison, flashes of something real underneath her facade.
“I’m sorry, Thea,” I murmur. “You deserve a lot more raging than a couple snippy comments to me.”
Thea snort-laughs into my neck, and I feel so accomplished.
“But I don’t believe she meant it. It was a shitty thing for her to say, and you deserve an apology, but she loves you.” She shakes her head, and I pull her face back to meet her eyes. “How could she know you as well as she does and not love you?”
It’s too close to a confession, and I’m worried she’s going to bolt. Instead, her eyes are soft, filled with gratitude and longing as a tear slides down one cheek. I kiss it away, then pull her back into my arms.
We sit, wrapped up in each other, for a few more minutes before Thea whispers, “We need to get dressed.”
“I know,” I say, shifting her closer in my arms. My legs have gone numb underneath me, but I’ll keep her here as long as she’ll let me.
“This has to stay in here,” she says. “No room for improvisation in that part of the script.”
I suck in a breath, my chest expanding with the motion and pushing us more tightly together. “But what if there was?”
She leans back, her strong brows pulling together. “What do you mean?”
“Did this feel like a one-time thing to you? Because it didn’t for me. All of it—every time we talk and touch—feels like so much more, and I don’t want to walk away.”
Thea takes her plump bottom lip between her teeth, and I can see the wheels in her brain moving. She doesn’t know how to make it work, but she wants to. It’s clear in the way her arms tighten around my shoulders.
I push forward before she can spiral and talk herself out of it.
“We can take the rest of the week to get to know each other, to make sure this is what we want. No mess or fuss before the wedding. Then, once it’s done, we come clean to my mom.
Tell her everything while Harrison and Addy are on their honeymoon and do whatever we need to do to placate my mom before they get home.
Assuming you still want to when the week’s up. ”
The corner of her mouth quirks up. “And assuming you still want to.”
I bark out a laugh. “Oh, trust me, I’ll still want to.”
Thea watches me closely, running her fingertips along the ridge of my nose and over my cheekbone. “Are you sure? I’m … I’m not easy.”
“Easy’s overrated,” I say, pairing it with a shrug that has Thea’s lips twisting up for a second before they fall again.
“It could make things hard with your mom,” she says, looking over my shoulder, like she can’t bear to watch my face.
“You’re worth making waves for.”
Thea doesn’t respond for what feels like eons, and my heart sinks. Maybe I misread the situation. Maybe I’m just a distraction.
“Addy may never forgive me.” The words are quiet.
It’s hard to resist the urge to rub at the ache in my chest. This woman—the one who has called herself “selfish” and “difficult” multiple times—has brought up how everyone except her would feel.
I can’t help but wonder how this lie about who she is became so ingrained in her identity, especially when she’s shown nothing but selflessness to me.
I want to help her see the truth. The beauty and light she brings into the world.
“You deserve happiness, too, Thea.” I search her face, giving those words a moment to sink in. “Do you want this?”
I keep the question gentle, giving her the space to say no, to retreat from the feelings I can see shining out of her eyes.
“Yes.”
Her whispered response barely reaches my ears, and I ask to make sure I didn’t imagine it in the silence. “Yes?”
She laughs, then rolls her lips together. “Yes. I want this.”
I kiss her then, slow and deep, the rumble of her laughter sliding into my body and making me feel light as air.
She’s it for me. My body recognized it when she looked up at me from her knees, my heart felt it when she crumpled into my arms afterward, and my soul knew it the moment I saw the tears on her cheeks.
I want to be the one who lets her be angry, who holds her through it all until the anger fades enough for her to feel the real emotion underneath it.
We have four more days until the wedding. Five until Harrison and Addy say goodbye to all of us and head on their honeymoon. Which means we have to make it through six days without getting caught, to keep Thea from getting too jumpy about the risk.
Then we can start our lives together.