31. Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-One
Now
As soon as we climb out of Theo’s truck, he’s pressing me against the wall of the garage, kissing me thoroughly. We eventually stumble into the house only toget sidetracked again in the kitchen, where he puts me on the counter and wedges his hips between my thighs. He tastes of salt and sweat, and I’m sticky myself. But he kisses hungrily across my neck and my collarbone, taking me as I am.
“Sass,” he sighs against my skin. “I’ve got bad news for you.”
“What?”
Theo raises his head as his mouth curls into that cocky smirk. “This is romantic.”
With a scoff, I knock his hat onto the floor so I can twist my fingers through his thick hair. Less than a week has passed since the night when we hastily agreed to that no-strings-attached, non-romantic, one-sided orgasm—what a shitty deal for him—and I’m already willing to renege on it. “Good.”
He grins and then grabs at my thighs, pressing into me. His mouth returns to my skin, gently sucking my earlobe, and I let out a gasp.
“You like that?” he murmurs. “You used to.”
I let my head fall back as desire shoots up my spine. “Yes.”
“What about this?”
He palms my breast over my clothes. I glance down at my chest—not flat, but nothing to brag about. Theo’s hand completely engulfs me; he pushes up to create swelling cleavage over the neckline of my tank, then leans down to kiss me there. “That good?”
“Yes, Theo.” I tug at his hair, urging himto look at me. “It’s all good. Can we go upstairs now?”
He laughs. “Taking me back to your room?”
“Actually,” I hedge, “I was thinkingwe’d go to yours.”
For a second, Theo freezes.I immediately start doubting myself. I haven’t seen Theo’s room; it’s at the very end of the upstairs hall, and the only occasion I would have to go down that way would be to snoop—which I’m certainly not above, but even for me, that seemed a step too far.
But in the next moment, Theo’s expression clears, and his easy smile returns. He steps back, offering me his hand. I grab it as I hop off the counter. He yanks me into him, and we’re right back to it: stumbling across the kitchen, up the stairs, and down the hall, kisses growing deeper and hands taking more liberties as we go. When we fall through his bedroom door, I force myself away so I can look around.
If his room at his parents’ house is a showcase of Theo as a kid, this is the adult version. A lamp on the nightstand gives the room a muted, soft glow. His king-sized bed is backed by a dark oak headboard and covered in a gray comforter with matching sham. A dresser against the wall has a large TV on it, and on the wall across from us, floor-to-ceiling curtains are drawn. Like the rest of the house, the room is neat and devoid of clutter.
“Cute,” I tell him.
He reels me in again, looking amused. “Cute?”
“I mean, it’s very gray.” I run my hands over his chest. “Very manly.”
“Hmm.”
“And very clean.”
“Well, that is my brand.”
With a laugh, I kiss him again, pressing our smiles together. Somewhere beneath the pure joy of this moment, I know that I’m being reckless. I know that every second I spend in Theo’s arms puts both of us at greater risk for another heartbreak.
And I just can’t bring myself to care.
We fall onto the bed, me pulling Theo’s shirt over his head, him removing mine. He drapes half his body over me, his knee wedged between my thighs. My breath catches when he traces a line up my abdomen and curls his hand gently around the side of my neck. “When was the last time you had an orgasm?”
His thumb is resting in the hollow of my throat, and I swallow very deliberately, letting him feel the movement there. I watch as his gaze darkens, just as I intended. I want him to be just as affected by me as I am by him. “The other night.”
“I meant before the truck.”
“Yeah, I’m not talking about the truck.” I stretch a little, arching my back and pressing my palms into the cool sheets beneath me. Theo’s eyes rove over my body. “I’ve had, like, four since then.”
Briefly, he looks confused. Then understanding floods his features, and I don’t miss his quiet—but unmistakably sharp—intake of breath. “Yeah?” he asks, voice strangled. A jolt of satisfaction zips through me. Even after all this time, I can still knock confident, unshakeable Theo off-balance. “What’ve you been doing here at night, Sass?”
“Touching myself.” I let my hand trail along the cups of my bra, the button of my shorts, and he watches, entranced. “Using my vibrator.”
His eyes snap up from the show I’m putting on. “You have a vibrator here?”
“Yes.”
“What have you been thinking about while you get yourself off in my house?”
My hand dips just an inch into the front of my shorts, and I cock a brow at him. “What do you think?”
He makes a noise in the back of his throat, something between a groan and a growl that I can feel in the tremor of his body. He presses himself along my thigh, letting me feel what my words are doingto him. “Can I ask you a question?”
“You already did.”
Theo fixes me with an unamused look. He smooths my hair back from my face, his voice soft when he asks, “Did Daniel take care of you?”
I understand what he means. “Sometimes. A lot of times, I’d take care of myself afterward.”
I thought Theo would be thrilled to learn that Daniel wasn’t the greatest lover. Instead, his face morphs into disbelief, and then unadulterated fury. “I hate the idea of you with him,” he says, “but I think I hate the idea of you being unsatisfied even more.”
“Then don’t leave me unsatisfied.”
I go to kiss him again, but he maneuvers his mouth just out of my reach. He settles his weight more fully over me, pinning me to the mattress. With his hair mussed and his lips swollen, he looks completely undone—and I haven’t even gotten to see him undone yet. I wiggle beneath him, impatient. “What is it?”
“I want you to go over to the curtains,” he says, “and see what’s on the other side.”
I glance at them, confused. “Isn’t it just a window?”
Theo rolls off me. “Go look.”
I’d really rather stay right here and explore his bare torso, laid out so enticingly in front of me, but his eyes dart between me and the curtains expectantly. I haul myself off the bed, feeling him watch me as I walk away in my bra and denim shorts. Across the room, I pull the curtains apart. I’m still expecting to see some kind of window, just because I can’t think of what else would be there; instead, it’s a pair of French doors, leading out to a balcony.
“Oh,” I say, surprised. “Can I walk on it?”
“’Course.”
I open the door and slip out, back into the hot summer air. The balcony is whitewashed concrete with a metal railing, just big enough for two or three people. I lean on it as I look out over Theo’s land, trying to figure out how I’ve never noticed this was up here.
“We’re on the west side of the house,” he says from behind me. “You can’t see it from the road or the driveway.”
I look out at the dark outline of the trees. “Do you come out here a lot?”
“Sometimes.” His front presses lightly against my back, his hands rubbing the bare skin around my waist, thumbs snaring in my belt loops. “Look up.”
I drop the back of my head against his shoulder, turning my face to the sky. The gasp that escapes is purely involuntary.
“Oh, wow,” I whisper. You can always see the stars in Amity, but from this spot, they shine especially bright. There are too many to count, and the biggest ones seem a little too close. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that I could pluck one from the sky to keep for myself. “This is beautiful.”
Theo nudges my cheek with his nose. “You remember what I told you about the business?”
It was just about you.
Since that night, I’ve had my suspicions about the house. I whirl around to face him, only to find himleveling me with the most unaffected, infuriating look. “I knew it.”
“Knew what?” he asks, playing dumb.
“That this house was part of your...” I flap my hands around, searching for words. “Your plan to make yourself suitable.”
The corner of his mouth ticks upward. “That’s not exactly it.”
“Then explain,” I say, a little impatient.
“The business thing... I was twenty-two and still holding onto a lot of that shit from what happened with us. By the time I was in a position to build this house, I’d matured a bit. It wasn’t, ‘oh, let’s build a house for Nina.’ It was more, ‘I’m going to build a house for me , and if I ever got lucky enough for Nina to find her way back, I think she’d really like a place where she can look at the stars.” Theo pauses, watching me carefully. “Do you like it?”
A beat, and then I admit: "Yes."
“Good.” He moves toward me, backing me against the rail. His fingers deftly undo the button of my shorts; they fall to the ground, and I kick them away, not shy in the least as I stand before him.
He drops kisses down my sternum, my stomach, and my breath hitches when his teeth close over the waistband of my panties. He tugs, and those, too, fall to the concrete I’m standing on. I watch as he pushes my legs apart, rests his nose in the hair I haven’t had the opportunity to wax in much longer than I would prefer. “Nina.”
“Hmm?” I ask, at a loss for words.
His mouth moves down to my thigh, nipping at the outside, and then inward.
“Look up, Nina,” he says against my skin. “Look at the stars.”
And I do. Arms spread out on the railing behind me, I let my head fall back so I can stare up at the clear night sky. Theo’s hands grip my hips, holding me in place, and a second later a rush of sensation has me gasping as his mouth closes over my center.
One of the mysteries of my adult sex life has been that, even as I tried new things with Daniel and a handful of other men, it always seemed to pale in comparison to the fumbling missionary sex I used to have with Theo. I eventually decided that I was viewing the past through rose-colored glasses, that I was romanticizing my first time, my first love, and building it up to be something it really wasn’t.
In this moment, I know that I’ve been lying to myself. Because this isn’t the first time a man has gone down on me, but it’s the first time Theo has, and the sensation is unlike anything I’ve experienced with others. That elusive feeling I’ve been chasing since I was seventeen is back, and it’s stronger than ever.
His fingertips dig into my skin, holding me firmly over his mouth as his tongue works me over. My hands cling to the railing on either side of me; the metal bar digs into my back. My upper body arcs backwards, and the sensation of floating above the ground only heightens the thrill in my chest, the tightening in my core. I surrender to it, knowing that Theo would never let me fall.
Theo’s mouth leaves me, and for a moment, I’m bereft. Then his lips are back on my inner thigh, leaving little suckling kisses on the sensitive skin there as he pushes two fingers inside of me.
“Fuck,” he mutters. He crooks those fingers toward himself, pressing them against my inner wall. I gasp. “Nina. Tell me the truth. When you’re using your vibrator and thinking about me, do you get wet like this?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. No shame. No point trying to lie.
With his free hand, he hoists my leg over his shoulder. I let him maneuver me, gripping the handrail tighter as I shift my balance to one foot. “Next time,” he says, his warm breath washing over me, “I want to watch.”
I open my mouth, intending to voice my agreement—honestly, I think I would be willing to jump off this balcony right now if Theo asked me to—but he applies new pressure to that place inside of me at the same moment he begins to suck on my clit, and what comes out instead is a desperate, keening rendition of his name.
One of my hands leaves the railing to thread through his hair. All my inhibitions fly out the window, and I use my grip to push his face further into me. He has the same idea; he winds his arms beneath my thighs, encouraging me to move my hips. I do. I ride his face, and with that added friction, the symphony of sensation is seconds away from overtaking me.
“Open your eyes,” he says, quiet but commanding, and it’s only then that I realize they were closed at all. “Look up at the stars when you come for me.”
And I do. I stare at the sky, and I grip the railing so hard my hands hurt, and in the distance, a firework sounds at the exact moment those stars explode right in front of my eyes.