Chapter 32
RAQUEL
Theo undressed me slowly, kissing me breathless but moving with the purpose of a man who was enjoying something he loved for the very last time. I supposed that was pretty accurate, though. This would be our last time together.
Our last night together.
Burning pressure formed at the backs of my eyes when I thought about it, so I did my best to just shut down my brain and not think at all. If this was going to be our last night together, I wanted to make the most of it and I couldn’t do that if I was just crying in his arms.
So instead, I reached for the hem of his T-shirt and lifted it off over his head, running my fingertips across his skin with every move I made. He trembled a little in response, kissing me harder, and he unhooked my bra after dropping my shirt on the floor.
I pressed my chest up against his, relishing the sensation of his warm skin against my own and the way our chests were rising and falling almost in perfect unison.
I dropped his shirt next to mine, then ran my palms along the ropes of muscle in his neck, mentally committing the feel of him to memory.
As he reached for the button on my jeans, I kicked off my beat-up sneakers and the heavy thud of his boots followed. He slowly freed my button and tugged down on the zipper, but he still wasn’t hurried, drawing out every moment like he wished it could last forever.
I followed the pace he was setting, trying to drink in everything from the masculine, leather and smoke scent of him to the way it felt when his muscles moved against me. Like the ripple in his abs when I reached for his jeans and the way his biceps twitched when I wrapped my fingers around them.
We never stopped kissing, either. Our tongues stroked hungrily, but even that felt different tonight, like we were trying to taste just how much we were going to miss each other.
I almost broke the kiss to offer to go back to Chicago with him, but deep down, I knew better than to say something like that in the heat of the moment.
So I dismissed the thought and pushed my fingers into his thick hair, just focusing on the sensation of the soft strands against my hand. Theo pulled me with him once the last of our clothes were off, laying me down gently on the bed. He curled around me like he was shielding me with his body.
Neither of us broke the kiss, and I felt myself melting into him, trusting him and opening my heart to him in a way I’d never done before. It was absurd, considering that he was leaving tomorrow, but that was why I wanted to let myself feel everything I was feeling today.
Theo dragged his fingers across my throat and my shoulders, like he was committing every inch of me to memory too. Then he moved a hand to one of my breasts. The pad of his thumb brushed over my nipple. I sighed into his mouth, tightening my grip on his hip.
He moaned in response, cupping my cheek in his palm. “I love you, Raquel. Don’t forget that.”
“I won’t.”
Finally, his hand moved away from my breast. His kisses were still tender as he slid his palm down the length of my stomach. When it landed between my legs, I spread them a little, expecting him to go for gold, but he didn’t, just letting it rest there for a minute until I arched into him.
He obliged without being asked to, sliding a finger into me and teasing me until my body started grinding against the heel of his hand of its own accord. He groaned into my mouth and didn’t stop, letting me take what I needed until I finally felt myself shatter around him.
I moaned, but even that wasn’t as loud today. Our kisses eased for just a minute before he brought his mouth back to mine. When I started moving my hand down, he grabbed my wrist and held it tight, murmuring against my lips, “Not today, okay?”
“Why not?”
“I’m not ready for this to be over yet,” he said, sounding rough, but I wasn’t sure if it was lust, emotion, or both.
Theo kissed me gently as my heart rate tried to return to normal. He sent it spiking again when he gripped my hip, one of his long fingers brushing across my pelvis. I half-bucked, seeking out his touch, and once again, he didn’t wait for me to ask.
He slid his hand back between my legs, lazily drawing circles around my clit and sliding his fingers through my folds. I had no idea how this wasn’t killing him, but I didn’t try to touch him again, frankly not ready for it to be over yet myself.
Instead, I ran my palms along his back and his shoulders, taking his face in my hands as I kissed him, and finally tracing his ribs and side. Through it all, he kept up with the gentle touches, never taking me all the way there, but also not teasing me so much that it became unbearable.
When he finally lifted his head away from mine, the sun had mostly set outside, the sky a deep purple and muted orange. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead, his jaw slack and his eyelids heavy. “I don’t think I can take anymore.”
“So don’t.”
He held my gaze for another long beat, then nodded, quickly grabbing a condom out of the nightstand and tearing the package open with his teeth. Bringing his eyes back to mine, he rolled it on, then crawled on top of me and reached for my hands.
“I’m never going to forget you,” he whispered as he sank into me, tightening his fingers around my own when he started moving.
Tears pressed against the backs of my eyes again as I shook my head. “You should, but I won’t forget you either.”
He rocked slowly into me, eyes on mine until he kissed me again, just as slow and loving as before.
I held on to him, desperate not to cry as I kissed him back.
Soon enough, we fell into a rhythm that had become as easy and familiar as breathing, both of us moaning as our bodies started the inevitable climb to the edge.
It never took long once we found this particular rhythm, and tonight was no exception. I felt the first wisps of pleasure sneaking up on me long before I was ready for them to, but just like I’d promised him in the Airstream that day, I didn’t hold back.
Theo’s climax followed directly after mine and I held him through it, my eyes closed and my heart racing. Panting and breathless in the aftermath, he collapsed beside me, not saying a word or even switching on a light as he pulled me to him.
I woke up to the unmistakable roar of a motorcycle engine and my eyes flew open, the motel room washed in pale, early morning light, and Theo already gone. As I twisted onto my side, I caught one last glimpse of him pulling out of the parking lot, just him on his bike riding into the sunrise.
All I saw were those broad shoulders encased in his black leather riding jacket, his legs spread across the seat and the dark shadow he left in his wake. Tears filled my eyes, a terrible pain starting up in my chest.
Every instinct I had told me that this was wrong and that I couldn’t just lie there and watch him leave, but that was exactly what I did. I didn’t jump out of bed or try to run after him. I was sure my truck could’ve caught up, but instead, I let him go.
It was better this way, without any dramatic goodbyes or promises we both knew we couldn’t keep. Even so, it felt like he’d attached one end of a cable to his bike and the other to my heart, tearing it apart more and more with every inch he put between us, but I still didn’t move.
For one crazy minute last night, I’d thought that maybe if he couldn’t stay, I could leave. I’d thought that perhaps I could go back to Chicago with him and we could approach his family together. Theo had said they weren’t bad people, so I’d thought that maybe we could go plead our case.
We loved each other, and surely, they wouldn’t force us to stay apart just because I wasn’t rich. That would be ludicrous and nothing I’d heard of them suggested they were quite that medieval, but the idea hadn’t even fully formed before I’d realized it couldn’t happen.
Theo couldn’t turn his back on his family, but neither could I, and his life was there while mine was here.
If their rules really were so iron clad, that meant he would know if there was some loophole he could use to stay, and since he hadn’t mentioned any other options, I had to assume his family wouldn’t be able to help us even if they wanted to.
So I sagged back against my pillows, unable to watch any longer as the sound of his engine eventually faded to a distant hum and then disappeared altogether.
As soon as the silence it left in its wake washed over me, the tears I’d been trying to hold back slid free and I sobbed into the pillow, burrowing into those on his side of the bed and just riding out one wave of devastation after the next.
I wasn’t sure how long it took until the initial shock of him actually being gone subsided, but when I finally rolled onto my side, I noticed a piece of paper sitting on the bedside table. I lunged for it, thinking it was a note, but nope.
It was a check. For an eye-watering amount of money. “Why the hell did he leave me a hundred thousand dollars?”
I whispered the question into the quiet room, blinking hard past the tears still sitting in my eyes just in case I’d made a mistake, but nope. No matter how many times I blinked, the numbers remained the same. No period appeared between the zeroes and none of the zeroes themselves disappeared.
Pushing myself up slowly, I sat there and stared at it, unable to believe that he’d do this, but on the memo line, he’d written simply, For your dream house.
A wet, shaky laugh escaped me. Then I was crying again. Oh, Theo, you’re an idiot. An absolute fucking idiot, but I love you. I love you so much that it hurts.
Despite the fact that it had only been a few minutes, I already missed him so much that every breath felt like I’d swallowed a whole handful of razor blades, and I also already knew that I would never find another man like him.
Theo Westwood was one in a million. For all his money, all his family’s expectations, and all the impossible complications that came with loving him, he was the first man who’d listened to me like I’d mattered.
He’d looked at me and had seen not only the mechanic, but the girl who loved old houses and who’d bought an Airstream with dreams of an adventure she wanted, but wouldn’t go on.
He’d seen every part of me, from the grease stains to the pink paint, and instead of judging, he’d loved me for it. Fresh tears slipped down my cheeks as I clutched the check, wondering how I was ever supposed to get over this.
From a philosophical point of view, I understood that not all people who entered our lives were meant to stay. Some were sent to shake things up and then they had to leave. I got that, but Theo had blown into town on his broken bike and he’d changed my life.
Now he was gone and I was alone again, left to figure out what came next for a future he would never be a part of. I knew that somehow I had to find a way to be okay with that, but I just wasn’t.
Not yet, anyway, but maybe one day, many years from now, I would be.