Chapter 24 #2
“So you just came by information and didn’t take it to Matherson before diving headfirst into following it?” A subtle criticism edged Theo’s words, as Jade expected. He wasn’t going to let her use it as an excuse for going rogue.
“It played well enough into my assignments and wasn’t risky, especially at first. Since I didn’t know where the information came from, I didn’t run it by Matherson in case he shut down potentially good leads for the sake of them not being verified.
” Jade’s shoulders sagged, her right one throbbing with a dull ache.
“When I realized the information was helpful, I knew I couldn’t ignore it.
But I was still afraid that if I brought the leads to Matherson, he’d shut it down until the military was able to verify the source. ”
Jade flicked her eyes up momentarily to glance at Theo when he failed to respond. He was watching her, but his expression was not judgmental.
“It definitely wasn’t the right way to go about things, and it could have ended badly if the leads had been false or things had gotten dangerous.” The last ounce of reproach left his tone. “But you were still doing the work. You earned those promotions.”
Jade’s face whipped up, his words taking her by surprise. “You’re not upset with me?”
Theo angled his head. “I didn’t say that. I’m upset you’ve been risking your neck following leads without knowing the source. And you need to tell Matherson about this.”
She nodded, guilt weighing heavy on her heart. He was probably right.
“But I trust your judgment.” His voice was little more than a murmur, and his eyes radiated honesty.
Tears stung the backs of Jade’s eyes, but she blinked them away. He’d always stuck by her and supported her. A wave of relief dislodged some of the guilt.
“How does this explain the shoulder?” he asked, uncrossing his arms to rest his palms beside him on the desk, his fingers curling over the edge. “And are you hurt anywhere else?”
A sheepish smile tugged on Jade’s cheeks. “Basically, my whole body aches. I got the tip about Arthur and wanted to catch the assassin, so I decided to take it on by myself. I couldn’t find a way in and ended up on the roof. And up there, I found the killer.”
Theo’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “He was still there?”
Jade nodded. “I chased him along the roof until he made it to a drain pipe and shimmied down. Then I tried to follow him down the drain pipe, but my foot slipped. I managed to catch myself and tore my arm out of socket in the process, so I ended up falling the rest of the way to the ground.”
“Jade,” Theo said in a breath, fear etched on his face. He pushed off the desk and took her hand, forcing her out of the chair and leading her to the bed. “Sit here; it’s more comfortable. I can get you something for the pain.”
But he didn’t leave the room. He didn’t so much as leave her side.
Theo sat beside her, the mattress sinking with his weight.
Concern flooded the blue pools of his eyes as he took her in, seeming to assess every inch of her that he could see for injuries.
Once his perusal was complete, his eyes locked onto hers.
A breath puffed out his parted lips and he shook his head a millimeter.
His next words, barely above a whisper, were ripe with his own anguish. “Why didn’t you ask me to go with you?”
Jade scrunched her eyebrows together and briefly closed her eyes.
“I should have. I thought about it. I thought about telling you all of this and asking you to come with me, but I decided I could handle it by myself.” She let out a humorless laugh.
“I was so wrong. It was all I could think about after I fell off the roof, that I wished you were there with me.”
Theo tenderly picked up the hand of her good arm, twining their fingers on top of the bed. His stare bore into her, speaking to his sincerity. “I would have gone with you in a heartbeat.”
The uncontrollable rhythm of Jade’s heart spiked with Theo’s gentle touch and soft words. This was the Theo she had longed for after her misunderstanding in the garden. But things since had revolved around her assignment, the Conflict of Succession, Nicolas . . .
A lump lodged in her throat with thoughts of Nicolas. She barely knew the man and had no reason to develop any kind of feelings for him. He had been complimentary, yes, and helpful, but his threats and unpredictability weren’t lost on her. She saw it even more clearly now, away from him.
Theo reached up his free hand to tuck a loose lock of hair behind Jade’s ear, pulling her out of her thoughts.
His hand remained as he cupped her jaw, running a thumb over her cheek.
Again, a memory flashed in Jade’s mind of Nicolas’s knuckles tracing her jaw, but she shoved it away.
She wouldn’t allow him to invade this moment any further.
“You know I came here for you,” Theo murmured, his eyes catching the lamplight. “I told you as much when I first arrived, but . . . everything I did, all these years . . . I was working to get back to you.”
Jade smiled, her eyes burning. For years, she had longed to be with Theo again. She had accepted it was up to the whims of those in power whether they would ever be in the same place again. But Theo hadn’t.
He continued, apparently bolstered by her expression, his mouth quirking in response to her smile.
“And it wasn’t only because we always said we wanted to be on base together, or because you’re my oldest friend.
” Theo took a shaky breath. “You have been the driving force behind all that I’ve done.
You are at the center of my very being. You’re the sun my world revolves around. ”
The sting of tears bit her eyes, but she welcomed them this time. This wasn’t a dream or her mind crafting the interaction she’d longed for. Theo was saying these things to her, here, now.
His voice dropped to almost inaudible levels. “I love you, Jade. I always have.”
She knew. Of course she knew. But to hear him say so, to know without a shadow of a doubt that this man loved her, had loved her, could have caused Jade to sprout wings and fly.
“I wanted to tell you the moment I got here, but I convinced myself you didn’t feel the same way. The last thing I wanted to do was push you away from me.”
Jade might have laughed at the irony, how she had believed the same thing about Theo. But he couldn’t have been more wrong about her. She had loved Theo her whole life, though that love had grown and evolved into something different but just as wonderful as the years had passed.
Jade lifted her hand to press against his cupping her jaw. “I love you. Now and always.”
A smile spread across Theo’s parted lips as an almost incredulous laugh passed from them.
His eyes searched her face, almost asking for permission.
Jade scooted closer to him on the bed and leaned in, winding her arm around his neck.
Her eyelids fluttered as the space between their faces diminished to almost nothing, and their breaths mingled as their mouths hovered right beside each other.
This was happening. This was perfect.
This was Theo.
Jade suppressed the grin threatening to overtake her as Theo’s lips brushed against her own.
She pulled his face to hers, closing the kiss.
His lips were soft and warm as they moved on her own, slow and intentional.
Jade’s heart threatened to burst like a firework, an intense explosion of light and color and sound that couldn’t be contained or missed.
A beautiful, wonderful, awe-inspiring thing to behold.
Theo wrapped an arm around her waist and tugged her closer, his other hand moving to the back of her head.
The pressure of his grasp raised a fluttering warmth in Jade’s abdomen, and she melted into him, her good arm winding behind his head.
Theo seemed to pick up on her response and kissed her with a new eagerness, as though the kiss gave him life.
Jade almost didn’t feel present in her body, her spirit floating somewhere above them, but Theo’s tender touch grounded her. It made this real.
He pulled away just enough to speak, his lips grazing hers as they moved. “If this is a dream,” he murmured, “don’t wake me up.”
Theo moved farther back from the kiss, releasing his hold of her waist to cup her face with both of his hands. His eyes commanded her attention, and he waited a moment as though to ensure she was completely focused on him.
“This is what I want, Jade. Forever. Only you. Always you.”
Jade’s heart fluttered and missed a beat. Theo meant each word wholeheartedly, that was clear, his expression profoundly serious. This was more than a kiss—more than “I love you.”
Such a proclamation might have scared others away, but not Jade. Not coming from Theo. If he was in it for the long haul, so was she.
This had never been a possibility before they were on the same base, so she’d refused to let herself consider it. But everything had changed. She’d been given the option to have Theo as her very own, and she would choose him every time.
Jade pulled one of the hands on her jaw to her mouth and kissed his palm. “Always you,” she repeated in a whisper.
He dove back in for another kiss, like Jade was the air he breathed.
His hands moved to the sides of her head, to her hair, and he tangled his fingertips in the loosened wraparound braid.
A soft sound escaped Jade at the touch, and Theo responded with a low rumble from his throat.
How was she living this life right now? Kissing Theo, loved by him, wanting only him. Her heart could burst.
Theo angled his face above Jade’s, tipping her mouth up toward him and deepening the kiss. Memories of the night before this moment were the farthest things from Jade’s mind. All that mattered was the man holding her.
Jade raised her other arm to wrap around his neck, but the movement sent a twinge of pain through her shoulder and she winced, sucking a small gasp through their kiss.
Theo sat back, his eyes wide. “Oh, I’m so sorry.
I was going to get something for your pain.
Let me do that.” He scrubbed his hands over his face and stood, apparently trying to regain his bearings.
Leaving Jade on the bed, he crossed to his closet and rummaged around for a moment before returning to the desk with a small metal box—the standard medical kit each soldier was issued.
Theo rifled through the open box, quickly finding a small paper packet labeled with the name of a common pain alleviant.
“This’ll help,” he said, locking eyes with Jade for a moment as though reliving the past few minutes.
She waited to see if he was going to come back and kiss her again, but instead, he left again, going into the bathroom and turning on the sink.
This time, he came back with a glass of water and ripped open the packet, dumping the contents into the water and mixing it with a metal stirring stick from the medical kit.
Theo handed Jade the glass, and she drank. He retrieved it from her when she had finished, setting it and the medical kit on the desk. She expected him to sit on the bed beside her again, but he remained standing.
“You need rest,” he said with the extension of a hand toward her.
He wasn’t trying to kick her out—nothing in his demeanor had changed, and a soft smile graced his lips.
“It’s late, and you need to get as much sleep as you can.
” One side of his mouth pulled more than the other, making his smile lopsided. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
It wasn’t lost on Jade that Theo insisting she leave him and go sleep was only further evidence of his care and love. If he was being selfish, he’d go back to kissing her, maybe even keep her there all night. But he wanted her to heal and recover. He wanted what was best for her.
Jade accepted his offered hand and came to her feet, her sore muscles crying out in protest. All of her discomfort had dissolved while kissing Theo, a better remedy than any medicine he could procure.
She didn’t want to leave. She would have stayed with him for as long as he would have had her, but she knew he was right.
Even now, her body sagged with fatigue from the late hour and how hard she’d pushed herself at the estate.
If she was going to be in any shape to convince Matherson that nothing out of the ordinary had happened, she needed to go to her own bed and sleep.
Theo opened the door for her and Jade passed through, but she turned around only one step outside his room to find him still in the doorway, his forearm raised above him and leaning on the doorframe. With his free hand, he grasped Jade by the waist, pulling her body close to his for another kiss.
A bolt of lightning surged through Jade’s heart, his touch and kiss catching her off guard.
She raised up onto her toes to press herself into the kiss, tempted to cross the threshold again and carry on inside.
But Theo broke the kiss, and she lowered back down, rolling her swollen lips and then parting them with her tongue.
Theo seemed to see her desire, but he still wouldn’t relent. He angled his head down at her and whispered, “Go.”
Jade’s mouth curved into a smile as she took a faltering step backward, then she turned to proceed down the hallway.
She didn’t get far before she looked for him over her shoulder.
He remained in the same position in the doorway, his mesmerizing blue eyes exuding a mixture of both contentment and longing.
He flashed that crooked smile again, and Jade’s stomach leaped, sending a bubbling laugh to her lips that she tried and failed to stifle as she made her way to her room.