I scream with laughter.
He sets me down on the steps leading into the bathtub and reaches for the button on his shorts. I finish undressing, relishing in the way his eyes trail my body.
I shiver and he touches his hand to my waist as my gaze drops to the floor.
He grabs my chin between his fingers and lifts my head. “Don’t get shy on me now, sweetheart.”
I feel a blush stain my cheeks. I can’t help it.
He lowers his head, brushing his lips over mine. Softly at first and then with more pressure. My eyes close and I hum low in my throat, my fingers splaying across his abs. I used to daydream about kissing him, when I was young and inexperienced and he was my brother’s best friend. The fact that he’s mine now never ceases to blow my mind.
He sweeps my legs out from under me again and carries me into the water, settling me between his legs. The water threatens to overflow and he quickly turns it off. He added enough bubbles that I basically disappear beneath them.
The hot water feels heavenly, though. After I spent the whole day sweating and walking, my muscles are aching like crazy. I definitely got my work out in today—which is a joke since I never workout. I just can’t get into it like Xander does. I’m a couch potato. I’m blessed that I have a naturally thin frame.
Xander rubs my shoulders and I moan loudly. “That feels good,” I tell him.
I roll my neck to the side, giving him better access. He pushes against my neck and I wince.
“Sore spot?” he asks, pausing his movements.
“Yeah.”
He rubs it again but a little more gently this time. He then rubs my back and I basically melt into a pile of goo.
“I can’t believe we’ve already been here five days,” I murmur, as he moves his hand lower down my back.
“Me either. It’s gone by too fast.”
We spent the first day hanging by the ocean, the next day shopping, the day after that by the hotel pool, yesterday and today were both spent exploring. I know there’s still so much more left to see of Greece, but I think I’d rather spend our last days just hanging around doing nothing. I know once we get home we’re going to be focused on the new house, and then Xander will start his training camp next month, and I’ll be left alone a lot.
I’m not looking forward to that.
But hopefully I’ll have found a job by then, so at least I’ll have that to keep me busy.
“What are you thinking about?” He presses his lips to the crook of my neck, his hands sliding around my front to wrap around me.
“Nothing,” I answer.
“Nothing,” he echoes. “I doubt that.”
I tilt my head back to look at him, the bubbles sloshing around my chest. “Are you calling me a liar?”
He chuckles. “I’m just saying I know you better than that. Spill it.”
“It’s just life, I guess. It’s passing me by so fast.”
“Yeah, it does feel that way sometimes,” he murmurs.
I twist in the water, turning around to straddle him so I can face him. My center presses into him and I moan, unable to bite back the sound.
“What are you doing?” he asks, cupping the back of my neck.
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what I’m doing,” I quip.
“That mouth of yours.” He brushes his nose against mine. “Always such a smartass.”
I wrap my arms around his neck, my breasts pushing into his chest.
I brush my lips over his ear. “You love my mouth and everything it does and says.”
He smiles widely. “You’re right, I do. I love that you always say whatever is on your mind.”
“And now,” I lower my voice, “I’m telling you to shut up.”
I cover his smile with my kiss. His lips part and I slip my tongue inside, brushing against his. The pads of his fingers dig with a bruising pressure into the backs of my thighs.
I reach between us and wrap my hand around him before guiding him inside.
A moan passes between my lips and I lean my forehead against his shoulder.
He guides my hips, rolling them against him, and my eyes fall closed, happy to let him control the pace.
I feel my heart beating in an out of control rhythm.
He makes me crazy in the best possible way.
I lift my head and slide my hands from around his neck to rest on his chest. I find that his heart is beating nearly as fast as mine and that fact makes me smile.
His dark hair falls into his eyes and he flicks his head to the side, his eyes meeting mine.
His eyes flash with lust, and love, and something that looks like appreciation before his lips crash to mine once more. Water sloshes over the side of the bathtub but neither of us pays it too much attention.
He pulls back and grazes his thumb over my lip before he cups the back of my neck and draws my forehead to his.
“I love you,” he whispers.
“I love you too,” I murmur back, and for some strange reason, this makes me feel like crying.
He kisses me again, sucking my bottom lip into his mouth.
I tug at his hair, silently begging for more.
He kisses his way down my neck before circling his tongue over each of my nipples.
My moans increase and my breaths become chaotic.
“Xander,” I pant his name, my eyes rolling into the back of my head. “Oh, God.”
His hands slide beneath the water to my waist, holding me to him as he comes.
He then wraps his arms around me, and I fall woodenly against him.
We both struggle to regain our breaths, and we seem content to stay there forever.
Except the water is getting cold.
I start to shiver and Xander reluctantly lets me go so I can climb out. I grab a towel and dry off and he lets the water out before climbing out and doing the same.
I change into the pajamas I had set out and Xander pulls on a pair of sleep pants and heads into the room.
I brush my hair and gather it back into a ponytail before flicking off the light and joining him.
When I jump onto the bed, I see that he already has Netflix brought up on the TV. I love the fact that we can get Netflix on the hotel TV. Feeding my addiction, even thousands of miles away from home.
Scandal begins to play, and I settle beneath the covers so we can watch.
I burrow against Xander, still cold, and his body provides much-needed warmth.
I start to drift off to sleep and I feel his lips brush against my forehead.
“Sweet dreams,” he croons in a lulling tone.
And I do dream, but they’re anything but sweet.
Xander
“I had a nightmare,” Thea tells me, laying her towel down in the sand. She plops on it, stretching out her legs. She looks fucking amazing with her golden tanned skin and that little white bikini. It barely covers anything—which means several guys are staring.
Fucking great.
“A nightmare?” I repeat, sitting down on my towel beside her. I peer at her over the top of my sunglasses. “About what?”
I try to recall if she was thrashing in her sleep or anything like that.
“You were talking to my stomach.” She gestures to her stomach like I don’t know where it is. “And I was fat.”
“Fat? You mean you were pregnant?” My brows furrow in confusion. “I’m missing the nightmare part here?”
She glares at me like I’m stupid. “I was pregnant. That’s the nightmare. Can you imagine us with a baby?” She laughs like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard.
I wince, feeling kind of hurt by that. “You don’t think we’d be good parents?” I know Thea has struggled with thoughts of motherhood in the past, and I get it, her parents weren’t exactly great so she didn’t grow up desiring a family like I did.
She shrugs. “I don’t know,” she answers honestly. “I know some girls only dream of the day they get married and start popping out
kids but that’s never been me. I do want a baby, one day, but not now.”
“You’ll be a great mom one day,” I say honestly.
Thea doesn’t see herself clearly. She thinks she has no heart to give, but she’s the warmest and kindest woman I know. Any child would be lucky to call her mom.
“One day, far, far, far into the future,” she intones.
I chuckle. “After your five-year plan?”
“Exactly.” She nods, adjusting her sunglasses. She rolls over onto her stomach and props her head in her hands. “I’m only twenty-two. I want to live a little first.”
I stare at her. “Let’s not live too much, okay?”
She laughs and smacks my arm. “Not like that. I just mean, I want to enjoy this time. Being young and married. Doing things like this.” She shrugs and motions around us. “This is nice.”
My lips crook into a grin. “So does this mean you can fit more vacations into that plan of yours?”
She laughs and tosses sand at me like it’s a snowball. “Yeah, I think so. We need to take advantage of these kinds of things while we can. Not just while it’s only two of us, but also while we have the money and whatnot.”
I laugh. “You think the money is going to disappear?”
She smiles. “You know what I mean. You can’t play football forever, so we have to be smart with our money, which will mean less of this.”
“I know what you mean.” I lean over and kiss her. “Let’s not stress about the future right now.” I point to our incredible view, the ocean and sweeping cliff side with homes. “We have to live in the moment while we can.”
By some miracle, she doesn’t argue. Maybe, somehow, someway, I’m finally getting through that thick head of hers but it’s doubtful.
We arrive back in the states and Thea immediately falls asleep in the car. I feel like falling asleep too, even though it’s three in the afternoon our time. It’s been a long hard day of traveling and we’re both exhausted. I want nothing more than to get home, shower, and fall into bed.
It’s strange driving home to a home that hasn’t actually been our home yet.
We haven’t slept here, not once, but this is about to be our home.
The place I hope we’re going to grow old in.
We could’ve bought something smaller, but I had the money and that felt silly. I wanted our forever home, not a just right now home. We looked at condos in the city, and while some of those were larger they were all so cold and impersonal. Not that there’s anything wrong with them, but it didn’t feel like us. So we finally decided to get a home. We ended up getting a house in the suburbs on a bigger space of land. I also liked the fact that the house came with a gate. The media likes us for some strange reason. I think it’s because we’re young, and also because Thea commands any room she’s in. People can’t help but be drawn to her. Including me.
But the house isn’t too big, which we both liked. It’s big enough for us to grow into, but not big enough to feel museum-like.
It took us a couple of months of looking to finally find this one. I think our realtor was getting put out with us, but we knew what we wanted and nothing she showed us was it, until this.
We reach the gates, and I push the button on the remote to open it. Thea’s still passed out asleep in the seat beside me, snoring lightly. She doesn’t think she snores, but she does. Luckily, they’re soft cute snores and not loud and obnoxious ones.
The house is two-stories—well technically three, since there’s a basement—with lots of awnings and stonework. We were both drawn to the front porch. It’s small, but has enough space that Thea said she wanted to add some chairs and plants.
I laugh as I pull up the driveway and to the garage. Above the garage, our friends have hung a WELCOME HOME sign. It makes me smile. Thea and I are lucky to have friends like ours—friends that are more like family.
I push another button and open the garage door so I can park my truck inside. It’s a three-car garage so there’s plenty of room for Thea’s Mini Cooper, my truck, and my motorcycle.
I turn the truck off and Thea continues to sleep peacefully. I set our luggage out before I wake her up.
She sits up and blinks around, looking at the unfamiliar garage.
“Where are we?” she asks, squinting her eyes at me as if I’m strange too.
I laugh. “We’re home, sweetheart.”
Her eyes widen in surprise. “Oh, right.”
She slips out of the truck and I take her hand in mine, tugging her away from the garage door that leads inside.
“What?” She blinks up at me, confusion filling her hazel eyes.
“Let’s go in the front door this time.” I squeeze her hand in mine. “It’s our first real time coming home, I think we should do this right.”
She smiles, her eyes still slightly sleepy. “Okay. Lead the way.”
I grin and guide her out of the garage and onto the path that leads to the front door.
Three steps lead up to the large dark wood front door and we take them slowly. We pause outside the door and just stare.
I feel overcome by an emotion I can’t describe. I think maybe it’s pride—pride in myself that I’ve accomplished this.
“This is our home, Thea.” I squeeze her hand in mine. It feels so small compared to mine.
She jumps up and down in place. “Open it,” she squeals, like the door is a present we’re about to unwrap. I guess, in a way, it is.
I dig in my pocket for the keys and locate the right one to open the door. I slip it inside and twist the doorknob.
The door swings open with a slight squeak of the hinges.
The floors are hardwood and shine like they’ve just been cleaned, which seems impossible with all the tracking that’s probably been done with the movers. It makes me wonder if Nova didn’t clean the place for us.
Thea lets go of my hand and gives me a coy look. “Race ya,” she exclaims, taking off for the stairs to our right.
I tear off up the steps after her. Since I’m tall I’m able to skip a few steps so I catch up to her easily. I bump her hip with mine to slow her down and she laughs uproariously.
“That wasn’t nice!”
“You don’t play fair—so neither do I,” I tell her, reaching the top of the stairs.
We fight to get down the hallway to our room, pushing and shoving like a bunch of little kids, both of us unable to stop laughing.
We push open the doors to our room and race to the bed. I grab her around the waist before she can pass me.
“Xander!” She squirms in my arms before I toss her on the bed. I jump over her and kiss her, silencing her giggles.
She places her hands on my shoulders and tries to push me away. “That wasn’t nice.”
I grin. “You fucking love it and you know it.”
She smiles back and stops pushing on my shoulders, instead pulling me closer. She brushes her nose against mine. “You think you know me, huh?”
I nod, my hair brushing her forehead. “Oh, I know you.”
“What’s my favorite color?”
I snort. “Thea, I’m pretty sure all the lemurs in the world know your favorite color. It’s pink.”
She laughs, squirming beneath me. “What the hell? Why lemurs?”
I shrug. “It was the first thing that popped in my head.”
I have no real good defense. I know it was random. But that’s us.
I sit up and look around the room. All the furniture is in place, but boxes with our clothes and stuff litter the space, and I’m sure the whole house. Our bed is made, though, and I can’t thank Nova enough for doing that. I sure as hell know it wasn’t Jace. He doesn’t make his own bed.
But this is nice, especially since we’re both exhausted from the trip. Even now I can tell Thea is fighting not to fall back to sleep. I lean over and kiss her forehead.
“I’ll go bring our stuff in. You get a shower or go to bed, whatever you want.”
She nods, and
that’s how I know she really is exhausted. Normally Thea would insist on helping me, and I would then insist that she didn’t.
I hop off the bed and jog down the steps and out the front door—which we stupidly left wide open. I close it and lock up and choose to come in through the garage this time.
I set our bags inside the mudroom and shut the garage door. It whirs as it goes down.
The kitchen counters are covered in boxes and more boxes sit on the floor. I know it’s going to take forever to put all this stuff away and I’m not looking forward to it.
I carry our suitcases to the laundry room and set them inside. I would start our clothes to wash, but Thea is very particular about her clothes and prefers to do it herself.
I head upstairs and laugh when I enter the room. Thea’s already passed out asleep, her arms and legs stretched out across the bed, hogging the whole damn thing.
I shake my head. As much as I want to shower, a nap sounds pretty good right about now.
I move Thea so she’s lying with her head on a pillow, and then I cover her with the blanket that was draped across the bottom of the bed. I pull my phone from my pocket and send a text to Jace—letting him know we’re in, and asking if it’s not too much trouble if they can bring Prue home in the morning. He texts back almost immediately and says it isn’t a problem.
I yawn, looking enviously at Thea as she sleeps. I strip off my shirt and pants, leaving me in my boxers, and climb beneath the sheets. Thea stirs in her sleep, seeking me. I smile, pleased that even in her sleep she wants me.
Her hair tickles my nose when she gets fixed against me, but I don’t mind. I like being close to her.
I know we have an endless list of things to do in order to get the house ready, but for now, it’s going to have to wait.
Thea
I sleep through the whole afternoon and night. Sunlight is just beginning to filter in through the open windows when I wake up. Xander sleeps peacefully beside me, his arms wrapped around me. Somehow, I’ve ended up against him with my leg thrown over top of his above the covers. I smile when I notice he covered me with the blanket—I’d kicked it off at some point, though.
I slip from the bed and stretch my arms above my head.
When Constellations Form (Light in the Dark Book 4) Page 6