Bad Case of Loving You

by Deborah Cooke

  She could envision all of them here.

  In a way, it amused her that the first impression was horrible, but the truth beneath held such promise. It could have been a poster for Theo’s resolve to look beyond the surface.

  She knew he felt the same way, because he was taking pictures with his phone. He hadn’t done that yet and the real estate agent noticed, as well. “It’s a terrific location,” she said. “And a building with a good reputation.” She enumerated the advantages of the immediate neighborhood as Theo came to stand beside Lyssa.

  “You like it?” he asked.

  “It needs TLC but I’m good with that.”

  “Ty’s brother-in-law is a contractor. Maybe he could do the bathroom on a budget.”

  “It’s the worst part,” Lyssa agreed in an undertone. “I’m wondering about that kitchen.”

  “So am I. It looks solid at least. Let’s ask Derek. Damon may have ideas too.” Their gazes met and Lyssa nodded. “Can we have a few minutes?” he asked the agent who smiled agreement and went to check her email in the smaller bedroom. He talked to Damon and sent him pictures, then went back into the kitchen. Lyssa followed as Theo looked at the cabinets more closely, probably as instructed. “Solid wood,” he said to Damon. “You’re right.” He listened and looked around, nodding, then spoke to Lyssa. “He says you could get new counters, maybe change the floor, paint the cabinets or stain them and change the hardware. It would be much cheaper than a new kitchen and would look a million times better.”

  Lyssa nodded agreement, her excitement rising. “I can help.”

  Theo was listening again. He gave her Damon’s ballpark estimate for a complete bathroom renovation and Lyssa went to his side. “Pending Derek’s real quote, of course, but he says that should cover it. He and Haley have just done some renos themselves.”

  “Can we do it?”

  “Looks like it.” Theo’s eyes were dancing with an excitement that echoed her own. “Want to make an offer?”

  Lyssa nodded agreement.

  Two hours later, they walked down Central Park West together and Lyssa couldn’t keep from sliding her hand into Theo’s. She felt his surprise but just squeezed his fingers. If there was ever a moment for boom, this had to be it. “We just bought an apartment,” she whispered, her delight clear.

  “We just bought a lot of work together,” he corrected her with a smile.

  “But I love it. It’s going to be great.”

  “Ready to live in one place?”

  She nodded with determination. “Let’s celebrate.”

  “Okay,” Theo said and gave her a mysterious smile. He squeezed her hand and led her to the subway. She thought they’d be going back to F5 but instead, he got off at 81st Street.

  “Not the museum again?” she asked when she saw it.

  “I’m thinking I should buy a membership,” he said, and led her inside. He had a definite objective, because he urged her to check her coat, then claimed her hand again and led the way.

  Lyssa smiled when she realized they were going to the butterfly exhibit. “To prove how fearless they are?”

  “Something like that.” He had tickets and she wondered when he’d bought them, and how much of this he’d planned in advance. Then they stepped through the doors and were surrounded by surprisingly warm and humid air. There were a few butterflies in the space between the double doors, their wings so beautiful that Lyssa wanted to stop to look. Theo urged her onward and she stopped to stare, unprepared for so many butterflies. They were everywhere, fluttering on all sides, dipping and weaving through the air, flying through beams of sunlight and landing on dishes of fruit.

  Theo led her to a bench and they sat, the butterflies all around them. He stretched out a hand and one landed on his finger. It was huge and brilliant blue, its wings shining like gems. “A blue morpho,” Theo said. “Logan and Simon learned the names of all of them.”

  “Gorgeous.”

  “Same color as your eyes,” he said and held it up to her cheek to compare. It fluttered and stepped into her hair. Theo pulled out his phone and took a picture, then showed it to her. She was laughing, looking up at the butterfly as it opened its wings. The butterfly flapped then launched into the air, heading for an orange that had been cut open. It joined three other butterflies there and Lyssa watched with fascination as they fed.

  “Remember that first day?” Theo asked, his gaze fixed on an orange and black butterfly that landed clumsily on his knee. It balanced itself then opened its wings and they shone in the sunlight.

  “The day you let me take all the chances?”

  He nodded. “I was dazzled,” he admitted quietly, his gaze lifting to hers. “I thought you were like a butterfly.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you had so much energy. You were so alive.” He shook his head. “I thought that if I moved too fast or said the wrong thing, you might just disappear.”

  Lyssa sobered. “But I did anyway.”

  He nodded once, his gaze drawn again to the butterfly. “But not before we savored a lot of moments. I think that fall was the closest I ever came to living in the present. I’ve always planned ahead and kept a reserve for the future. You encouraged me to enjoy the moment.”

  “You seem really serious. Is this the effect of buying real estate on you?”

  “No.” Theo’s smile flashed. “I had a visitor this morning.” He pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to her.

  The bottom dropped out of Lyssa’s world. She blinked but her sister’s name was still on the card. She immediately tried to hand the card back but Theo wouldn’t take it. She met his gaze and his solemnity frightened her.

  “I guess you have your answer about that Christmas,” she said, feeling as if she was on the lip of a precipice. Things hung in the balance. She wasn’t sure how or why, but she could taste the uncertainty.

  “I’m sorry, Lyssa, but your mom’s not well.”

  “I don’t have a family anymore,” she said tightly, hurt rising hot in her chest, even after all this time. “He threw me out. He said I wasn’t his daughter anymore. He told me not to come back.” She heard her voice rising. “I did exactly what I was told, for once in my life, and I’m not going to change that now.”

  “Maybe you should rethink that,” he suggested.

  “No, no and no, Theo. No!” Lyssa got to her feet, ready to bolt, but Theo didn’t move. Neither did the butterfly. It closed its wings once, slowly, then opened them again, revealing all that rich color.

  “What about your sister?”

  “What about her? She was there. She was onboard with it all.” Lyssa shook her head.

  “She said she tried to contact you, but you didn’t reply. I wondered if it was more of Mercedes shielding you from contact.”

  “It must have been. I didn’t know, but I wouldn’t have answered anyway.”

  Theo’s gaze was steady and filled with understanding. “Your mom’s sick. Doesn’t that change everything?”

  “No. She’s not my mom anymore.”

  “Your dad has passed.”

  Lyssa caught her breath and turned to look across the exhibit, the ferocity of her reaction to that news making her shake inside. She didn’t even know what to think. She was still angry with him, still hurt and resentful, but Theo’s words also brought tears to her eyes. She blinked them away with impatience. She wouldn’t weep for him, not after everything he’d said.

  “Your sister is going to be alone soon,” Theo continued softly.

  “That’s not for me to fix.”

  He fixed her with an intent look, as if he could scrutinize her very soul. Lyssa had to avert her gaze. Her breath was coming quickly and she clenched her fists. It was taking everything she had to stand and listen to him.

  “How is it different for you to turn away from her than for them to turn away from you?”

  Lyssa had a lump in her throat. “It’s not worth talking about, Theo.”

  “Oh, I
think it is,” he mused, then lifted his hand. The blue butterfly took flight and flitted away. Lyssa watched it go to a hibiscus flower. When she looked back, Theo had pulled something else from the pocket of his jeans. Lyssa recognized it immediately. It was the poem she’d written by hand and tucked into the back of the painting, when she’d left it for him that day.

  “You play a lot harder than you used to,” she whispered.

  “Only when it’s important, Lyssa.”

  Her breath abandoned her. “Why did you keep it?”

  “It goes with the painting.”

  “But why did you keep it?”

  “Because that was when I knew.” He studied her. “The day I saw that painting was when I knew you were as good an artist as you wanted to be.”

  Lyssa inhaled and turned away, loving that he believed in her and afraid of the import of that at the same time. “It was a long time ago.”

  “And you started running that day and you haven’t stopped since.” He stood up beside her and she caught the scent of his cologne. It made her think of touching him, of feeling him against her, of that heady sense of having an anchor. This man. He’d always been able to turn her inside out, to give her pleasure, to challenge her assumptions.

  To convince her to change.

  Or was he helping her to heal?

  “You won’t be able to make a home, Lyssa, unless you face this, unless you stop running.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her words were quick and clipped, and even she didn’t fully believe them. It was a protest made out of habit and she was relieved in a way that he ignored it.

  Theo unfolded the piece of paper and read the poem aloud. Lyssa closed her eyes, powerless to do anything but listen, even with the tightness of her throat.

  * * *

  “I loved you first: but afterwards your love

  Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song

  As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.

  Which owes the other most? my love was long,

  And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;

  I loved and guessed at you, you construed me

  And loved me for what might or might not be –

  Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.

  For verily love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine;’

  With separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done,

  For one is both and both are one in love:

  Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine;’

  Both have the strength and both the length thereof,

  Both of us, of the love which makes us one.”

  * * *

  Theo folded the piece of paper and put it back in his pocket. “Christina Rossetti,” he concluded and Lyssa felt a treacherous tear on her cheek. “Not technically one of the nineteenth century English romantic poets, but she writes of love all the same.”

  “She lived in the nineteenth century in England. She should count.”

  “The woman who first read this to me could not possibly believe that love is fleeting and untrustworthy,” he added with quiet conviction. “She’d changed her mind in those few months. She was in love, just like me.”

  Lyssa dropped her gaze.

  “I’m still in love, Lyssa. I still love you, or maybe I love you again. Which of us is the one afraid to take a chance this time?”

  She met his gaze warily and found compassion there, as well as the love he’d confessed. She opened her mouth but didn’t know what to say. He handed her the card and this time she took it, her hand shaking.

  “I can’t,” she whispered, looking at the phone numbers added in Sarah’s own writing. The house number was the same, the one she’d memorized as a kid. The other was new and must have been for a cell phone.

  Sarah.

  “I won’t,” she added, but there was less heat in her words.

  She thought Theo was going to say something, but he simply stood up. She was sure he was going to leave, because she’d let him down again, but he offered his hand to her.

  “I can’t,” she whispered.

  Theo shook his head. “I think you can.”

  Lyssa saw the encouragement he offered and knew she could do it if she wasn’t alone. She swallowed, recognizing that she’d try for Theo. She loved him. She always had, but she’d been afraid to put her faith in love. She still had her doubts, but there was no one she trusted more than Theo.

  Franco had told her to open her heart.

  Putting her hand in his, Lyssa listened to her instincts and chose.

  It was terrifying, but also felt right.

  She wanted this. She wanted him. She wanted to be everything he believed she could be. She reached up and touched her lips to the pulse at his throat.

  Theo froze.

  Then his fingers slid into her hair, cupping her nape, drawing her closer.

  Of course, he met her halfway. He always did.

  She kissed his throat again, a little higher and a little less gently. He smelled so good. She put her hands on his shoulders, gripping his strength, then rose to her toes.

  “Lyssa,” he growled in the way that made her toes curl. She felt the tension in him and smiled against his skin. “Don’t start what you don’t want to finish.”

  “We’ll finish,” she vowed, then kissed him on the mouth. She felt Theo resist temptation for a second, then touched his lips with her tongue, just the way she knew he liked it. He shuddered and his arms locked around her, almost lifting her from the ground while he crushed her against his chest. His fingers speared into her hair and he bent down to deepen their kiss. It was a glorious, possessive and passionate kiss, exactly what she wanted and needed. “Not here,” he said when he lifted his head.

  “Not here,” Lyssa agreed, laughter in her words. “We don’t want to frighten the butterflies.”

  “I don’t think that would be easily done,” he said, his eyes sparkling. “Haven’t you noticed how many of them are doing it?”

  Fifteen

  It was almost too good to be true.

  Theo hailed a cab when they left the museum, and Lyssa liked that he didn’t have the patience for public transit either.

  “Not giving me a chance to change my mind?” she teased and he fired a hot glance her way. Just that look made her simmer. Her hand was securely in his and she almost ran to keep up with him, a sign that their thoughts were once again as one.

  This was the good stuff.

  Lyssa couldn’t remember how she’d lived without him. She leaned against him in the cab, gripping his hand, too excited to speak. Theo was taut, and spoke tersely to the driver, even as she ran her hand down his thigh. The driver seemed to sense their tension because he made it to F5 in record time. They ran across the lobby to the elevators to the condos and one more time, Lyssa backed Theo into the corner once the doors closed. “Your place is closer,” she whispered, then kissed him before he could argue.

  Theo groaned and crushed her against the wall, kissing her as if he wanted to eat her alive. In a way, Lyssa wanted to take it slow, but there was no chance of that. They were both too hot.

  Maybe the next time.

  Just as they had once before, they broke their kiss only when the elevator doors opened at Theo’s floor. Lyssa felt rumpled and flushed and she didn’t care. They stumbled out of the elevator and into his apartment. He locked the door behind them, his gaze simmering, then Lyssa put her hand in the middle of his chest. She smiled. “I want to look at it first,” she whispered, then brushed her lips across his before she went to stand in front of the painting. She shed her coat, letting it drop to a chair as she stared.

  The work was better than Lyssa recalled, but not as good as she wanted it to be. She remembered the fear that had driven her confession on canvas and knew the next one would be better. Brighter. Bolder. It would be fearless, a tribute to the strength Theo was helping her to find again.

  She would paint again.

  Sh
e would paint Theo a thousand times. She would be honest with her art and she would be fearless. She wasn’t optimistic that she could repair her relationship with her mother, but she’d try, so that Theo wasn’t disappointed in her. She would strive to be her best, and she would do it for him.

  She turned to find Theo watching her, his gaze dark with desire. He’d put his coat over a stool in the kitchen and waited.

  “I want you,” she said, enjoying the sound of her words. They sounded audacious and confident, a glimmer of her lost self, the self she was reclaiming. “I want you, Theo Tremblay, but not just because it will probably be great sex.”

  “Probably?” he repeated and she laughed.

  “I want to make love to you.” Lyssa backed toward the couch with measured steps, slowly undoing the buttons of her blouse. “I want to master the art of making love. And I want to do it right now.”

  Theo tugged his sweater over his head and tossed it on top of the jacket. He followed her, his power and grace reminding her of a sleek predator. A panther.

  She seriously hoped that he was going to gobble her up.

  “A command performance?” he asked, his voice low.

  “Almost certainly more than one.” Her nipples were taut, straining the soft fabric of her bra, her mouth was dry and her panties were wet. It had been exciting to touch him in the dark before but this time, she could see him clearly. Theo pulled his T-shirt over his head, his movements filled with welcome impatience.

  Lyssa inhaled at the sight of him and shivered to her toes.

  “In the light this time,” he said, echoing her thoughts. “Since it will probably be good.” Then he came to stand in front of her, a smile playing over his lips. When his hands were in her hair and he bent to kiss her again, Lyssa tipped back her head and abandoned herself to pleasure.

  “Close to definitely,” she managed to say when he lifted his head.

  Theo made a little growl and caught her closer, capturing her lips with his own with possessive ease. Lyssa arched up to meet his touch, liking how he kissed the smile from her lips. He scooped her up in his arms, crushing her against his chest for a wonderful moment before he lowered her onto the couch. The warmth of his fingertips brushed her cheek and she kissed his palm.