“Come on,” she whispered. “Jump.”
I gave up the fight, sliding all the way inside her with slow, sweet ease. When I couldn’t go any deeper, she looked up at me, and even though it was dark, I knew what her eyes said.
I trust you.
I trust you not to hurt me.
I trust you not to lie to me.
I trust you not to break my heart.
As I moved deep within her, I vowed to myself that I would honor that trust. That I would keep my promises. That somehow I would become the man she saw when she looked at me, rather than the one I saw when I looked at myself.
I just had to figure out who he was.
And how to make him stay.
Twenty-Six
Claire
* * *
“Come here, I want to show you something.” I grabbed Theo’s gloved hand in my mitten-covered one and tugged him through the snow toward the tree with the tire swing. It was late afternoon, but we’d only just gotten out of bed a little bit ago. It was still snowing and the temperature was only about twenty-eight degrees, but the wind had died down a bit, and I felt plenty warm.
“Aha, there it is.” Theo grinned when he saw it. His smile was so different today—he was so different. Still the same guy who loved to tease me and laugh (he was endlessly amused by all the accoutrements of the “cabin” as he was fond of calling it, complete with air quotes), but gone were his guarded responses and wary expressions. No shadow fell across his face when I asked about his past, his family, or his feelings. I can’t say that he appeared to enjoy talking about himself, but he was doing what he’d said he would—letting me in.
“That’s the swing you were scared of falling off?” he taunted.
“Yes.” I giggled. “In my defense, it seemed higher up when I was little.”
He shook his head, laughing. “Get on it. I’ll push you.”
I put my legs through the tire and held on to the sides. He grabbed me by the waist, pulled me back, and let me go. I laughed, stretching my legs out in front of me and my head back as I swung through the air, snow flurries drifting down around me. When I slowed down, he gave my legs a shove so I spun around in dizzying circles.
“Stop!” I shrieked, breathless with laughter. “I won’t be able to walk when I get off.”
He held it still and I waited a moment before getting off, hoping the world would stop spinning. But when Theo leaned down and kissed me, I felt even more light-headed.
“Was it fun?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Not afraid of falling anymore?”
“Nope. I’m getting braver by the day, aren’t I?”
“You are. I’m very impressed. Next I’m going to work on getting you to submit some artwork.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and got off the swing. “Next you’re going to work on building that business of yours. I don’t want you supplementing your income by hiring yourself out as a Hottie anymore.” I thumped him on the chest. “You’re my hottie. And I don’t like to share my toys.”
He smiled and wrapped his arms around me. “I promise you, I’m all yours.”
I’d never get tired of hearing that.
We spent another hour out in the snow—making snow angels, throwing handfuls of snow at each other, trying to catch snowflakes on our tongues. We attempted a snowman, but the snow was too soft for packing. Eventually the wind picked up and our fingers and toes grew numb, so we went inside to warm up.
Theo built a fire in the fireplace while I hunted for the ingredients to make real hot chocolate for us. Then he stood rapt at my side as I warmed milk, sugar, a cinnamon stick and a vanilla bean in one pan and melted good dark chocolate in the double boiler.
“What is that thing?” he asked, his face scrunching up. His hair was a damp, tousled mess, but he looked so adorable, I had to smile.
“It’s a double boiler. Don’t worry, you don’t need one.” After removing the stick and bean from the milk, I carefully poured in the melted chocolate.
“What if I want to make fancy ass hot chocolate for my girlfriend one day?”
My heart knocked crazily against my ribs. “Then you can use mine.” I whisked the chocolate into the milk, and threw him a suspicious look over one shoulder. “Assuming the girlfriend is me.”
“Um, your ass is phenomenal, your cooking makes my mouth water, and you give the best blowjobs known to man. It’s totally you.”
“I knew it. You just drove up here for the food and the sex.”
“I’d be lying if I said those things weren’t tempting.” Moving behind me, he wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face in my neck. “But you know that’s not why I’m here.”
“I know.” Smiling like a lovestruck teenager, I added a tiny pinch of salt and chili powder, then shook him loose. “Shoo. I have to get this off the heat.” He let me go, and I poured the fragrant chocolate into two hug mugs. “Let’s drink it over here by the fire. I’m still freezing.” I set the mugs on a tray along with a bag of marshmallows.
“Oh my God. Marshmallows?”
“Marshmallows. Your favorite thing.”
He tugged a strand of my hair. “You’re my favorite thing.” A pause. “But now I have an idea that involves marshmallows too…”
* * *
We spent all afternoon drinking and talking and sharing chocolate-flavored kisses in front of the fire. Snow continued to fall, blanketing the woods and the house, and huge drifts pressed at the windows. It made me feel like we were the only two people alive, tucked away from everything, hidden inside our own little fairy tale world.
“It’s New Year’s Eve.” Lying on my side, I propped my head on one hand. “Doesn’t that seem weird?”
“You’re right.” Theo’s long legs were stretched out in front of him, and he leaned back on his elbows. “It does, kind of.”
“Do you usually go out?”
“Depends. I did before I stopped drinking. What about you?”
“Yeah. I usually do something with my friends. Oh, shoot.” I sat up.
“What?”
“I just realized I’m going to owe my friend Margot a hundred bucks.”
His brow furrowed. “Why?”
“She bet me you’d apologize for walking out like you did by January first.”
He feigned outrage, sitting up tall. “You bet against me? How dare you!” Lunging for me, he pinned my body beneath his, shackling my wrists next to my head.
“I’m sorry!” I squealed, crushed by the weight of his chest. “I didn’t know!”
“How could you?” He shook his head. “You faithless, heartless woman.”
“Let me go!” Laughing, I tried kicking my legs, but he pinned them with his own.
“Never.” He moved down so his hips rested between my thighs and brought his lips close to mine. “Never.”
I wrapped my arms and legs around him as his tongue swept into my mouth, and slid my fingers into his hair. The fire crackled and sparked as we lay tangled together on the floor, but our passion burned even hotter. We never stopped kissing as we rolled and shifted to shed pants and shirts and socks and underwear. I ended up on top, straddling his hips, his cock sliding between my legs as I rocked my body over his. He moaned, taking my breasts in his hands, teasing the tingling peaks with his thumbs.
“I need you inside me,” I whispered, reaching between us. “Right now.”
“Should I go get—”
“No.” Sitting up, I slowly eased myself onto his cock, watching his jaw fall open and his eyes roll back in his head. This morning, we’d used a condom—twice—and even though the sex was still incredible, there had been something there the night before that I missed. It wasn’t a physical feeling—it was something else. I wasn’t even sure what to call it.
“Fuuuuck,” he moaned. “I cannot believe how good that feels.”
When he was buried inside me, I held still just for a moment, letting my body adjust. “You’re so deep,” I w
hispered as I braced my hands on his chest. “How is it possible you feel even deeper? I can barely breathe.” I started to move my hips in tiny circles, leaning forward so my hair brushed against his chest.
“God, I love your hair.” He wove his fingers through it, wrapping his hands around my head and pulling me into a kiss.
“I love that there’s nothing between us.” As I set a sensuous rhythm above him, I realized that’s what made this so different—there was no longer anything in the way. He felt deeper because he was. Because he’d bared himself to me. Because he’d let down his guard and showed me his true self. Sex without a condom was just a physical symbol of an emotional barricade destroyed.
I felt fearless—and I couldn’t get enough.
I rocked my hips a little faster, the heat and friction between us growing feverish and frantic. I stayed tight to his body, rubbing my clit against the base of his cock, crying out as he pinched my nipples and sent me over the edge. Over and over again, my body throbbed around his bare cock, and I was delirious with the joy of it—he was here and he was mine and it was real.
Theo sat up and turned me beneath him, our bodies still connected. “You’re so fucking hot,” he growled, driving into me again and again. The tension inside me that had just unwound began to coil again.
“Yes,” I breathed, bringing my knees up alongside his ribs. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
“Not until you come again for me.”
I raked my nails down his back, grabbed his ass, and pulled him close. “Fuck yes, right there.” It was insane how fast the second orgasm hit me, and I bucked up beneath him, my body a live wire. “Now you come for me,” I panted. “Anywhere you want.”
He groaned, getting to his knees and moving in and out of me with slow, deep strokes. He looked down at me. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I paused, pushing myself to be brave and say what I wanted. “I liked it that one time, but I couldn’t see you. I want to watch.” The idea had sort of come out of nowhere, but it made sense—I wanted him to let me see him like that, masculine and virile and unashamed, but vulnerable too. And I wanted to offer my body that way. It was sexual, but also intimate.
It meant we trusted each other.
I ran my hands over my stomach, my chest, my throat. “Anywhere you want. You can cover me with it.”
“Jesus,” he whispered, pulling out of me and taking his cock in his hand.
“No one’s ever done this to me before,” I whispered, eyes wide as I watched his flesh slipping through his fingers. “You’re the first.”
“Good.” Knees slightly apart, he squared his shoulders and straightened his spine. He looked like a god. The firelight burnished his skin to copper and made his dark hair glint with gold. The sculpted muscles of his arms and chest and abs flexed as he worked his fist up and down, faster and faster. His breath came hard and heavy.
“I love it. I love watching you.” I kept my hands on my breasts, playing with them just like he had. His jaw was set, his eyes hooded, his chest rising and falling with an increasing rhythm.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh God, you’re gonna make me come so hard.” His hand became a blur, his breathing even more strangled.
“Yes,” I told him, over and over again, my body tingling with anticipation.
He widened his knees, his hips thrusting his cock through his hand. I watched, riveted, as he brought himself to the edge of climax and pushed himself over, unashamed and unguarded. Finally he leaned forward slightly, angling his cock toward my chest and came all over my breasts and stomach in hot, pulsing bursts.
It was the hottest thing I’d ever seen, but even better, it made me feel closer to him than ever before.
Still breathing hard, he sat back on his heels and looked down at me. “I’m trying for words, but I think my brain is broken.”
I smiled. “It’s OK.” I started to get up, but he stopped me.
“Don’t move.” He stood up, pulled on his jeans, and disappeared for a minute. When he came back, he knelt next to me with paper towels in his hand. “Let me.” He did his best to clean me up, but my skin was still pretty sticky.
“I think I should probably just shower,” I said.
“Probably. Sorry.” He stood up and reached down for me.
“I’m not.” I put my hand in his and let him help me to my feet. “I loved every second of that. Didn’t you?”
He laughed. “Um, yes.”
“Want to get in the shower with me?”
“Again, yes. Got any more crazy questions?”
“Are you hungry?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” I started gathering up my clothes, and he did the same. “Let’s take a shower, and then we’ll eat, and then we can snuggle up on the couch and watch an old movie that will probably make me cry and you can poke fun at me.”
“Poke what at you?”
“Ha. That too.”
We went upstairs and I ran a hot shower in the bathroom across the hall from my bedroom. As we slipped beneath the spray, Theo asked if he could wash my hair.
“Sure,” I said, surprised. “My shampoo is right there.” I got my hair wet and turned my back to him, smiling blissfully as he lathered my head and massaged my scalp.
Afterward, I applied the conditioner and let Theo soap me up, laughing at how serious he was taking the job, and the way he claimed every new part of my body he touched was his favorite part. When I was all rinsed off, we switched places and I lathered him up from head to toe, running my hands along all his limbs, sliding my palms over rippling abs, rising on tiptoe to wash his hair.
Once he was rinsed, he pulled me under the water with him and wrapped his arms around me. I rested my head on his chest and twined my arms around his waist. His heart beat steadily against my cheek.
For a minute, neither of us said anything. Steam rose up around us, and water cascaded down our bodies, but we were still. I felt warm and safe in his arms.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For what?”
“For trusting me. It means everything.”
I hugged him tighter. Kissed his chest. “I know.”
* * *
“I think we missed New Year’s.” We were finally worn out, cuddled up beneath the covers in the same bed we’d slept in last night.
“Hold on, I’m trying to think of a joke about balls dropping.”
I laughed, pressing as much of my skin to his as possible. “I can imagine.”
We were silent for a moment, his fingertips brushing idly back and forth on my shoulder. “Home tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “As long as the roads permit it. I wish we didn’t have to go. I love it up here, just the two of us, no noise. But I would like you to meet my friends, eventually. And introduce you to my dad.”
His body tensed. “The judge?”
“Yes. But stop worrying. My father is not a fire and brimstone kind of guy. He’s very kind and has always believed in rehabilitation. And we don’t even have to tell him about your past. It’s not his business.”
“The record is easily found.”
“It’s not important anymore. And it doesn’t matter to me.”
He breathed easier. “OK.”
“And we already know my mother adores you.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do. Trust me, she’ll be cooking meals for you in no time. Baking cookies for you. Picking out sweaters for you.”
He laughed a little. “She sounds like a great mom.”
“A little overbearing, but yes. She loves to mother people.”
We were silent again for a while, and I thought he’d fallen asleep, but he spoke again. “I don’t even remember my mother.”
A chill ran up my spine. “No?”
“No. She left when I was only one.”
“I don’t know how any mother could do that,” I said.
“She left a note. It said, ‘Tell the boys I love them.’”
The chill turned to goosebumps that blanketed my arms. “I’m…I’m sure she did, in her own way.”
“But not enough.”
I didn’t know what to say.
A moment later, he said, “Doesn’t matter anyway.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Nah. Like I said. I don’t even remember her.”
He didn’t say anything more, but I didn’t believe him that it didn’t matter. What did that do to someone, to be abandoned by a mother who’d said she loved him?
I thought about how different my family was than his, how opposite our childhoods had been. The more I learned about Theo’s past, the more amazed I was that he’d grown into such a warm, easygoing person. In many ways, he was much more at ease with himself than I was. But how much of that was an act, a mask he wore so he could keep the painful stuff buried?
No wonder he didn’t like getting close to people. On some subconscious level, he was probably always worried they were going to leave.
‘I’ve fucked up every good thing in my life by giving up on it. Running away from it.’
Because he was scared to stay.
‘And the reason I don’t let anyone get close to me is because I know I’ll disappoint them.’
No, it was because he didn’t think he was enough to make them stay. If she hadn’t…why would anyone else?
A lump built in my throat, but I fought off the tears by concentrating on the warmth of Theo’s body, the smell of his skin, the beat of his heart. He fell asleep first, and I kept still, wrapped in his arms and lulled by the deep, slow rhythm of his breathing.
But I was awake for a long time.
Twenty-Seven
Theo
* * *
The snow had ceased during the night, and reports said the highways were fine, so we decided to take off. Claire had things she needed to get done before school started again, and I had a ton of shit to figure out, too. We drove home separately, and even though I missed her two minutes after I hit the road, I was glad for the time to think.
If You Were Mine Page 18