“The Theo I knew wasn’t such a dick.”
I pressed a tongue to my teeth, halting a laugh. “That’s just not true.”
“I don’t even want to see you. I definitely don’t want to fuck you.” She turned back so fast her hair whipped my face.
“My little liar,” I said. “When will you learn just saying words won’t make them come true?” I leaned forward, breath skating along her neck, goose bumps betraying her almost as much as her pulse. “You wanna fuck me…but I’m gonna wait till you beg.”
She canted her head, eyes meeting mine over her shoulder. Something sparked in the clay depths. Desire?
She tore her body away from mine before I could decipher and said, “I have to pee.”
I followed her inside silently, leaning against the wall opposite the door, waiting. Many windows and arched doors opened onto the terrace, but most partygoers were farther down. This was not a cramped patio. Like everything Crowne it was luxurious, opulent, and extravagant.
I kept rolling the beads between my thumb and forefinger.
Abigail thought she saw me first, that the first time we met was when she got out of that car on the beach. She thought she found me.
I let her believe it too. Shit, I let myself believe it.
The truth was, I found her.
Before everything, before the day on the beach, before I broke her heart and she broke mine. She always wondered why I got in her car. I’ve told her half-truth after half-truth. I had nowhere to go. You were the best option. It was either sleep on the beach or get in your car.
What I didn’t tell her was we’d already met, and the bracelet in my pocket was the reminder of the week Abigail Crowne had cemented herself in my heart.
When we were apart, it was a lot easier to paint her as a villain. Now she painted insidious strokes across that picture.
Loud laughter carried on the ocean wind, and my eyes landed on the chucklefucks walking toward me, Alaric and Geoff. They passed without noticing me, walking down the terrace steps to the private beach.
There were so many assholes and bitches in her world—too many to keep track of—but I remembered Alaric and Geoff. We’d fought once before, but then it had been five against one.
Abigail was broken. Broken from her bitch of a mom, from assholes like these who’d made her life hell since birth. Broken. Only I wanted to break her. She hadn’t smiled once today.
I kicked off the wall.
“Oh fuck, it’s the dog,” Alaric coughed on a laugh when he spotted me walking down the steps. The overcast sky made the pale sand shadowed and cool.
“Did we bring a spray bottle?” Geoff asked.
They laughed again, then turned back to the ocean, lifting a small, sterling silver spoon to their noses. Could be cocaine, could be fucking Oxy for all I cared.
I crooked my neck. “You owe Abigail an apology.”
A pause, then another laugh.
I debated giving them one more chance.
Fuck it.
I grabbed them both by the collars, throwing them to the sand. I didn’t want them too bloody, couldn’t have what I’d done be obvious. As they attempted to stand, I grabbed them by their necks, pushed their faces deeper into the grainy sand. They coughed and choked on it.
Above us, the party continued. The melodious laughter, crystal champagne glasses tinkling, and the deep shiver of the cello flowed despite us.
“Don’t make the reject cry. Next time you’ll bleed.”
This was nothing, I told myself. It meant nothing. It was part of the job.
I shoved them harder into the sand; then I let off and wiped my hands clean, grains of sand sprinkled into their hair.
“You think we’re going to take this shit lying down, dog?”
“You’re fucking dead!” they called after me. “Dead!”
ABIGAIL
When I came out, I couldn’t find Theo. A few days ago, I would’ve been thrilled. I’d expected to find him opposite the wall, pale eyes piercing, and for some reason an odd ache settled in my gut.
I quickly brushed it off.
Back in the ballroom, the cellist had fixed her bow and the music was low, sweet, and haunting. I caught sight of Alaric and Geoff. Their eyes were blackening, noses red and running. Another trip to their on-retainer plastic surgeon. Something in my gut spurred me to stop walking and turn to them.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
Geoff gave me the finger. “Fuck off, Reject.”
Alaric shoved my shoulder so hard I stumbled back.
“What the fuck? Eat a dick, Rick.” I called him by the nickname he hated. He was Alaric, not some “blue-collar working man.”
Alaric was, quite honestly, the worst.
Alaric spun around, holding his nose, black and bruising eyes slits. “Keep your dog on a goddamn leash, cunt.”
The words stole any comeback I had prepared, and I stared long after they’d disappeared into Crowne Hall. Could Theo have had something to do with their faces?
No…that was impossible.
I should follow them back out to the patio. I should be watching the famous cellist, mingling with whatever politicians and wealthy elite had come. No doubt my sister Gemma was doing that, and my mom would notice my absence.
Instead I walked up to the balcony overlooking the empty ballroom, sitting down and scooting to the edge so my legs swung over open air. To my left one of the tall, gilded, latticed windows was opened onto the overcast sea. I pulled out a joint from my clutch, tracing my fingers along the inscription etched in the marble floor.
AC + TH
I’d etched this the night I fell in love with Theo.
My relationship with Theo was always different. From the very beginning, we were connected. Something else, something other. But this was where it became love.
“Thought you would have grown out of your bad teenage habit.”
I coughed out smoke at the voice, looking up to find Theo staring down at me.
Some habits are impossible to break.
I lightly punched my chest, trying to stifle the coughs. When I spoke, my throat was sore. “I only smoke—”
“When you have a problem you can’t solve,” he finished.
“I was going to say sometimes.”
“Oh, you were going to lie.” He did his Theo laugh. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a scoff. Like he wasn’t laughing with me or even at me, but because he knew something I didn’t.
He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and said, “Give me a light.”
That was Theo. Never asking, only assuming.
I leaned forward, cupping my hand against the low, salty wind blowing in from the open window. He bent forward, a strand of his hair falling over one eye. As I was lighting his cigarette, I focused on that. The closeness of him, his face a devilish temptation behind the flame.
The flame caught.
He grinned and fell back, blowing out smoke. “Good girl.”
The words seized my gut, but Theo wasn’t even watching me. As if the words came out of his mouth without thought, as easily as the shivers racing up my spine following them.
He leaned with his back against the railing, staring out the open window, cigarette between his pointer and middle finger. The sky was overcast, a soft gray muting the sand. He took another drag, then turned.
And caught me staring.
I quickly looked at the ballroom far beneath my feet.
“How did you find me?” I asked after a minute, voice quiet.
“I’ll always find you, Abigail.”
My eyes snapped to his, finding him watching me already. Those devilish lips were wrapped around the cigarette, pale stare narrowed on me with something too close to possession, made even more searing through the smoke. Maybe it was supposed to be meant as a threat, but his words punched me in the chest as I imagined an alternate world, where Theo still cared.
“So…cigarettes now?”
As far as I knew, The
o didn’t smoke cigarettes. We had a bad habit of smoking together, but it was weed, not cigarettes. I guess that was another thing that changed.
He eyed me down from his nose. “Can’t be high. Not while watching you.”
My gut somersaulted, and I coughed out more smoke.
“So you still come up here?” he asked, blowing out smoke, eyes still locked.
I was hoping he’d forgotten this place. The alcove where we’d laughed and I’d spilled secrets and desires to him. Where he’d held me when I cried.
Theo broke my heart, and I’d tried to forget everything about him, but trying to forget only made me remember him more.
I shrugged. “It didn’t mean that much to me.”
He narrowed his eyes, and I thought he’d call me out, but then he tapped the ash of his cigarette out on the banister. Ash fell like muted glitter to the ballroom.
Then he sat beside me, dangling his feet with mine like we had so many times before. Our thighs and shoulders almost touched, his legs stretched so much farther than mine. There was only enough space for the AC + TH now sandwiched between us to pop out, bold and taunting.
His thighs were thicker now too, but still lean. Were his hands bigger? That seemed improbable.
I knew one major difference for certain. I couldn’t look at him. I could barely breathe.
He traced the very same inscription I had moments before.
“Cute,” was all he said.
“I was young and stupid.” Had I responded too quickly? I took a shaky drag from my joint.
Suddenly he was at my wrist, pulling my joint from my mouth, thumb at my freckle and rubbing it with too much purpose.
“Young and stupid,” he repeated. The wistful edge said there was so much more beneath his words and my heart pounded. His pressure deepened, and my breath caught.
“Truth or promise?” I asked, needing to distract from whatever was happening.
“Truth…” He narrowed his eyes, seeing through me.
“Did you beat up Alaric and Geoff?” I noticed his knuckles were abraded, not quite bloody, but something had definitely happened.
He nodded slowly, curving his lips to blow a puff of smoke to the side and out of my face.
“Why?” I asked.
He smiled slowly, shaking his head. “My turn. Truth or promise?”
I bit my lip, my turn to look away. Away from his deep eyes.
But then his thumb was at my lip, pulling it from my teeth, and I was drawn back to him. I could taste the coppery remains on his thumb.
My gut somersaulted.
Pancaked.
Bottomed out.
He was Theo Hound and he was my enemy. So why did I want him to push his thumb deep into my mouth? Why was I stuck on the way he was watching me? Why were his lips the only thing I could focus on?
Sucking the smoky taste off them.
We were getting too close.
I was going to get hurt, again.
I jumped up. “I have to go.”
He took a slow drag, staring up at me, eyes sharp. “That’s not how this works.”
“I don’t care.”
He looked almost disappointed, then stamped the cigarette out, smashing it into the AC + TH before standing up.
“You owe me.”
On our way back to the party, we passed by Alaric and Geoff. They’d since cleaned up, but their eyes were black. When they saw us, they flipped us the bird with a laugh. I kept walking, because fuck those guys, but Theo stopped. Full stop.
“Did they apologize to you?” he all but growled.
“What?”
“Did they say they were sorry?”
“Uh… no?” Was he kidding? Alaric and Geoff say sorry?
I kept walking and was nearly at the patio when I noticed Theo had changed direction—toward Alaric and Geoff. He expertly grabbed them and had them incapacitated before I reached him.
“Theo, what are you doing?”
We were just inside the many open French doors that led to the patio, barely shielded by Mother’s favorite potted black orchids. The cello’s haunting shiver ghosted on the wings of feathery ocean air, servants would be coming in and out, and, if anyone looked in our direction, they would see us.
He grabbed them both by the collars, thrusting them in front of me. “Apologize.”
They winced. “Fuck off, dog.”
Theo used to get in fights when we were kids. It was a weekly occurrence. He was the wild dog I’d let into our china shop, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to be outmatched. He’d give a good fight, but he always got his ass kicked.
I’d always had to clean him up. He’d never understood why it hurt me so much, but then, I’d never understood why he had to fight. I’d always had people talk shit about me.
He forced them to their knees with a yelp of pain. “Apologize.”
“Theo, it’s okay—” I attempted, hoping to stave off the moment it changed and Theo was thrown to the ground.
“Apologize,” his command caught on a growl.
They met my eyes, their own burning with hate. “Sorry,” they gritted out at the same time.
I barely had a moment to register shock before Theo had thrown them both down. They laid their hands out just in time to stop from smacking their heads against the marble.
“Let’s go,” Theo said.
He gripped my wrist, stepping over them like they were dog shit and dragging me with him.
I looked over my shoulder at Alaric and Geoff, still prone, then back at Theo, at his grip, firm yet unbruising on my wrist.
When had Theo become someone who could not only hold his own but take on Alaric and Geoff? And what the hell did it mean that he’d asked them to apologize to me?
Nothing.
It had to mean nothing.
The alternative was too damning.
Ten
ABIGAIL
I barely slept, tossing and turning all night. Yellow-gold morning light lit up my room and warmed my bed. Tomorrow is our annual Fourth of July party, and maybe my last chance to gain my mother’s approval.
Even still, my mind isn’t on Mom.
It’s on Theo.
I can’t stop thinking about him. I’m supposed to be above him. He’s my bodyguard, but my strings are attached to him. In public, he stands behind me. In private…
In private my heart beats for him.
With a groan, I banged my head against my pillow. I can’t give him that power. This is just lust. I’m over-the-top horny, and once I have a clear head, he won’t have any power.
I rolled over, fixed on my gilded-ivory crown molding, sliding my hand beneath my silky white sheets and pushing down my panties, sliding my hand between my thighs.
Theo means nothing. Once I take care of myself, I’ll stop thinking about him.
I closed my eyes and spread myself, sliding two fingers up and down, slowly finding the right rhythm.
If I moved these aside, would I find my answer?
Theo popped into my head. I couldn’t help it. With my eyes closed, his piercing green eyes and cocksure voice consumed me. If I opened my eyes, I could probably banish him, but just imagining his thick, sure fingers between my legs had my body heating, my breath short, and the ache between my legs growing. Theo was a flurry of agonizingly sweet juxtapositions. Rough but silky, gentle and firm.
He’d left me hanging, but maybe I could force his mirage to finish.
Do you know what would really get her attention? Fucking your bodyguard.
His voice was in my ear now. Low and quiet, but never unsure. Almost infuriatingly confident. Like how he’d commanded Alaric and Geoff. That rough, grating growl I only heard when he was consumed with emotion—so Theo. No one ever stood up for me like that—no one.
Apologize.
His name was on my tongue, slipping past my lips before I could pull it back.
“You’re having a good morning.”
My eyes flew open, finding Theo in the
doorway, a slight smirk hooking his lips.
My heart pounded with the possibilities of what he’d seen… or heard. I lifted my hand from between my legs, prepared to stop and die a slow death somewhere, humiliation coursing hot through my veins, when he growled, “Don’t fucking stop.”
It was only a split second hesitation.
I kept going, slower at first. He leaned with one shoulder against the doorframe, glued to me. At first, there was that damn apathy in his gaze. It was infuriating, but somehow so hot.
There was something about the impassive way he studied me that made my heart pound. It was as if what was happening was no more interesting than finding a penny on the ground. My heart pounded harder to the rhythm of his disinterest. I ached and the knot in my stomach throbbed.
Everything about this was a shouldn’t, but it did.
I tried to be stone, too, to show him he meant nothing, that this was nothing, but I couldn’t.
A whimper escaped my lips, and then his eyes blazed like the joints we’d smoked clandestinely when we were teenagers. I could practically hear the snick of the matches.
What am I doing?
I don’t like this.
I do.
I like him watching me. I like his hungry, ravenous eyes.
I like how he pushes his shoulder harder into the frame with my breathing. I like his jaw tightening with the deepening of his brow, the darkening of his gaze.
I like being on display for him.
It’s wrong.
But it makes me feel so good.
He ran his thumb over his lip, nail digging into the flesh like he wanted to dig into me, and said low and casual: “Faster.”
I listened, sliding along myself with fervor. My breathing rose in cadence—I couldn’t stop it. I slid inside myself. One finger, two. Wet.
I’ve never been so wet and I know he can hear it.
It’s traitorous.
It’s not enough.
I know why, it’s because of him. I’m empty with the memory of Theo’s fingers only feet away, even if they were barely touching me.
If I were with anyone else, I’d put on a show.
With him, I’m quiet.
And God, that’s so much more betraying. Only the sound of my thighs rubbing against the sheets, magnified like thunder, my breathing gusts of wind. He said he wouldn’t need a show, and I can feel the truth of those words. He reads every hand movement, every rise and fall of my chest. I can’t hide from him. I can’t pretend.
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