by Emma Scott
His skin reddened, his face a mask of rage and humiliation.
“And this f-f-fucking stutter,” he seethed. “Are you listening to it, Thea? Is this the shit you want t-t-to hear?”
“Yes,” I said, tears streaming down my cheeks and my voice quavering. “Yes, I want to hear it.”
“It’s fucking pathetic.”
“It’s not. It’s what happened to you and it matters.”
“Yeah, it happened, Thea,” he said, breathing heavily, in and out. “You wanted to know what it was like? That’s what it was like. That’s what I know. That’s life.”
“So is this,” I whispered. “You and me. Right here. Now.”
He stared at me and my heart broke for him, ached for him. Yet it filled with a fierce pride that he had endured all that he had and didn’t let it turn him rotten. He was still a good man.
The best kind. He deserves everything.
I moved in. My hands holding his face, my forehead pressed to his. His eyes fell shut.
“I’m going to fuck it up,” he said hoarsely. “Or your meds are going to fail.”
“Neither of those things is going to happen,” I said. “Or they both might. Or maybe I’ll fuck us up with one too many bad jokes. But we can’t live waiting around for that.”
He pulled back enough to hold me with his hands and his gaze. “I’ve never had anything as good as this.”
“Neither have I,” I said. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone. Ever.” I kissed him once. Twice. “I’m scared too. But let me…”
Love you.
“… take care of you.”
I kissed his lips. Each corner of his mouth.
“Please, let me. Let me be there for you the same way you’ve been there for me. You brought me back to life.”
“God, Thea.” He kissed me between words. “You’re doing the same.”
His hands came up, one in my hair, the other at the small of my back. Pressing me to him. I felt the need in him ignite under mine that roamed his back, his neck, his hair.
“We’ll take care of each other.” My head fell back as his mouth moved over my neck. “No matter what happens.”
His arms around my waist tightened. I took his strong, chiseled jaw in my hands and kissed him slow and deep, giving him everything. Sealing a promise to him.
He made a sound, deep in his chest, and then his kiss turned hard and biting. I whimpered into at the flush of heat that surged through me. Again and again, he took my mouth with his magnetic, sucking pull that made me dizzy and delirious. He stripped me out of my shirt. I tugged his over his head.
“Shower,” I murmured as his hands roamed me. “I want you in the shower. Like the rain of our first night…”
We moved to the bathroom, stripping each other of clothes as we went. I turned on the water, and we stood under the stream, skin to skin, wrapped tightly in each other. I felt his cock between my legs, huge and hard, but I forced myself to slip out of his embrace.
“I’m going to take care of you,” I said. “Right now.”
I moved behind Jimmy, ran soap over his broad back. He tolerated it for a minute, then turned, reached for me again. I gave him one brazen kiss—all tongue and teeth—while my hands indulged in the planes of his chest, the ridges of his abdomen, moving downward.
“Thea…”
I dropped to my knees and took him in my mouth while I stroked the immense, hard length of him.
He groaned. “Ah, fuck…”
The water fell over us, warm and clean. I tasted every inch of his cock with my tongue, then took him deep. His hand smacked the tile above me, bracing himself, and the sound spurred me on. I wanted his release for myself. Greedy for every sound, every low moan. He found my hair, his fingers tangling.
“Harder,” I managed.
His hand tightened in my hair, pulling, holding me there.
Yes, oh God, that.
Jimmy tensed and then spilled his release into my mouth. I drank it down, sucking and stroking to take every last bit of it, because it was mine.
“Jesus, Thea.”
Jimmy’s head dropped, the water streaming across his face to rain over me. It ran in rivulets over the cut planes of his body, the muscles of his arms and shoulders. Sheer masculine perfection. His eyes opened and found mine. My heart thudded at the pure, raw want in his expression.
“Come here.” Still breathing hard, he pulled me to my feet. The intensity in his eyes sent shivers dancing over my skin, despite the heat of the water. “My turn.”
His words dropped between us, deliciously menacing in the promise of what he was going to do to me. Desire coalesced in a heavy ache deep inside me.
“Oh God…”
He captured my mouth in a searing kiss, while his hand slipped down between us, between my legs. He rubbed circles over my flesh, and then he slipped two fingers inside me.
I trembled, arching my hips into his touch.
“Yes…” I clung to him, my arm wrapped around his neck. “God, yes… Please…”
He pressed me to the wall, pinning me with his body, his mouth, and his fingers that took me to the edge before he pulled back.
I let loose a little mindless cry at the loss. It echoed in the bathroom and morphed into a gasp as Jimmy went to his knees and put his tongue on me. He kissed me with that same sucking pull and I came almost instantly—the ferocious ecstasy tearing through me. I scrabbled to hold on to him, my nails digging, starbursts firing behind my closed lids.
Jimmy rose and held my jaw in one hand. He took a kiss from me, sucking it from my lips with wanton greed. His other snaked out and shut off the water. Without a word, he lifted me out of the bathroom and laid me down on the bed. He stood over me like a warrior, ready to conquer.
And then he did.
He slid into me with one hard thrust. I stretched my arms over my head and arched my back as he braced his weight on one forearm and hooked my leg over the crook of the other, taking me hard and deep.
I gave myself up to him completely—my body and my heart naked and his for the taking.
Chapter 31
Jim
Thea nestled into me and nuzzled my neck. “Morning. May I take your order?”
“Surprise me,” I murmured sleepily.
She kissed below my ear, my jaw, my lips, then disentangled herself from my arms. I yawned and watched through half-closed lids as she padded naked to the bathroom. After these last three days, I had her morning routine memorized by sight and sound. She’d use the bathroom, brush her teeth, take the Hazarin. Then she got dressed, grabbed her bag and slipped out the door, blowing me a kiss on the way.
I rubbed my eyes and settled in to wait. I was getting better about letting her do things for me, like buying me coffee in the morning or picking up the—very—occasional tab at dinner. Lancing the wound of my childhood and letting her see the venomous details had loosened the grasp of a lifelong fear.
But I’d never fall asleep while she was out there alone.
Fifteen minutes later, Thea returned with two cups of coffee and two sausage-and-egg sandwiches from the shop across the street. She sat cross-legged on the bed beside me while we ate.
Thea sighed happily between bites. “I love this city. We could go to a different restaurant for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day for years and never eat at the same place twice.”
“What’s the plan for today?”
Thea’s phone rang. Right on schedule.
“Hold that thought.” She wiped her hands on a napkin and answered her phone. “Hi, Delia.” She climbed off the bed and went to the window to talk to her sister. Their relationship hadn’t improved during our time in New York, but Thea never let a day go by without telling her sister she was okay. In return, Delia stopped threatening to have me arrested.
A fair trade.
“I will,” Thea said at the window. “We’re having an amazing time. The time of my life… Okay… Okay. Bye. Bye, Delia.” She came back and dum
ped her phone on the bed beside me. “I wish she’d just marry Roger and leave us alone.”
Thea’s eyes betrayed the hard words. I knew she hated the estrangement, but Delia couldn’t be trusted. She still hadn’t rescinded power of attorney.
Thea blinked away her sadness and smiled brightly at me. “Where were we?”
“Today’s plan,” I said through the last bite of my sandwich. “Empire State Building?”
“Not yet,” Thea said. “That’s last. I figure I have enough cash for a few more days. And don’t tell me you got it. You have rent to pay and no job.”
“I have savings.”
“We can’t drain them down. I don’t want to make anything harder for you.”
I reached and pulled her on top of me. “You’re making it hard for me.”
She settled against my groin, grinding on my growing erection. “I see what you did there.”
I kissed her, tasting the salt of her breakfast and the sweetness of coffee that was more cream and sugar than anything else. The kiss deepened, and all thoughts of food were forgotten for the next hour. I could’ve happily remained in the hotel for the rest of the day, losing myself in sleep-sex-talk intervals, but Thea had more New York-ing to do.
“I’d like to wander through Greenwich Village,” she said. “No plan. No agenda.”
“No oysters,” I put in and laughed at Thea’s sour expression.
Two days ago, we went to Grand Central Station, where Thea insisted on splurging at the Oyster Bar because it was a very “New York thing to do.” When the plate of raw oysters arrived, her eyes widened at the gelatinous goop and her nose wrinkled at the smell. But Thea being Thea, she clinked an oyster shell against mine in a toast and tossed it back. She immediately looked like a beautiful woman who’d knocked back the worst thing she’d ever eaten and was trying desperately to pretend it wasn’t so bad.
I can’t remember laughing so hard in my life. I chuckled again now, thinking about it.
“You’re still laughing at me?” She held up her pinched thumb and forefinger. “I was this close to barfing.”
“Is barfing in the Oyster Bar a very New York thing to do?”
She gave my bicep a playful punch. “Shut up. Anyway, I’d like to walk around Greenwich, have a late lunch, maybe do some shopping, and then have a cocktail at a jazz lounge or something. Sound good?”
She always asked me that. Sound good? And I always pretended to think about it for a half a second, before saying, “Sure.”
As if I’d deny her anything.
We showered, dressed, and headed out into another sticky, sun-drenched day. Thea wore shorts and a white tank top with flowers embroidered along the top.
“You’re beautiful,” I told her on the elevator ride down.
She leaned into me, kissed my neck. “You always say you’re beautiful, instead of you look beautiful.”
I shrugged. “Both true.”
“Yes, but one is a sweet compliment about how I might look at the moment, and the other feels like you’re describing who I am.” She sighed and rested her cheek on my shoulder. “You’re very eloquent. Has anyone ever told you that?”
I smirked. “What do you think?”
“I think everyone who missed that about you can suck it.”
“It’s not like I gave them many opportunities. I didn’t say much. But I had this one teacher, Mrs. Marren. She was nice to me. Said I was smarter than anyone thought, including myself. She’s the one who told me to sing to help the stutter.”
“I love her already.” Thea glanced up at me. “Speaking of singing…”
“Ah, shit.”
“How have I completely forgotten you brought your guitar?”
“Because I keep it stowed in the hotel closet?”
She grabbed my arm as the elevator door opened on the lobby. “Promise you’ll sing for me? And play? At least once?”
“What do I get out of it?”
Thea tapped her chin, pretending to think. “Sex. All the sex.”
“I’ll sing for you. No sex required.” I kissed her softly. “But since you’re offering…”
“Oh hell, let’s be real,” she said, looping her arm with mine as we crossed the lobby. “If you play guitar and sing for me, Jimmy, I’ll be naked before the second verse.”
We took the subway to Christopher Street and proceeded to walk approximately every square inch of Greenwich Village. Thea dragged me up and down the streets, pausing to admire window displays or pop in every other shop. She took us over to Bedford Street to see the apartment building they used for the exteriors of Friends.
“Second best show on TV after The Office,” she declared and had us take a selfie while she sang a terrible song about a smelly cat.
We had lunch at a noodle restaurant on Sixth Avenue, then headed back over to Christopher Street for soft-serve at The Big Gay Ice Cream shop on the corner.
The entire time, Thea’s happiness wrapped around me like a summer heat—not thick or humid but the kind of heat that thawed a decades-long winter. I wasn’t the only one basking in Thea’s radiance. Anyone who came in contact with her—waiters, passersby, street vendors—they were in love after one smile, joke or hug.
It’s so damn easy.
In the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop, Thea spent half an hour listening to the cashier—Jonathan—vent about his on-again, off-again boyfriend as if Thea were a lifelong friend and not literally someone who walked in off the street. When we left the shop, Thea had the guy’s number in her phone and was surreptitiously wiping her eyes.
“Since the accident, all my old friends in Richmond have moved on,” she said. “Or maybe Delia cut them out of my life. Other than Rita, I haven’t had a friend until you.” She gave my arm a squeeze. “But you’re my boyfriend now, so that’s not the same. Everyone needs that BFF to talk boys with.” She waved at Jonathan through the window and blew him a kiss.
He waved vigorously and mouthed Call me.
“Boyfriend, huh?” I said, trying for casual when my stupid heart grabbed at the word and held on for dear life.
“Oh shit. Is it too soon? I just thought…”
“Whatever you thought, I’m thinking it too,” I said. I pulled her close to me and kissed her, tasting cool vanilla sweetness on her tongue.
“You always say the best things,” Thea said.
“I want to get a good report when you call Jonathan.”
She laughed and pounced on me, wrapping her arms around my neck. “You’re doing all right so far, Jimmy Whelan.” She slid down until her feet touched and then her eyes widened at something over my shoulder. “That bookstore is too cute. Let’s look.”
She took my hand and dragged me down Bleeker to a small shop with carts of books spilling out the front door. We went inside and Thea picked up an old paperback, opened it, and put it to her nose to inhale deeply. “No better smell than an old book.”
“Did you read before the accident?” I asked.
“Romance novels, mostly.”
I frowned. “I didn’t see you with any books at Blue Ridge.”
Thea lifted a shoulder. “They probably thought it wouldn’t take if I was only ‘there’ for five minutes at a time.”
But did they try?
“I also really dig books about books,” she said. “My all-time favorite is Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Ever hear of it?”
I shook my head, scanning the Zs on the fiction shelves.
“It’s romance, magic, and tragedy set around an old Barcelona bookstore in nineteen forty-five.” She toyed with the little green gem on her necklace, her gaze turning distant. “My mom introduced me to Zafon,” she said. “He was her favorite too.”
My fingers found Shadow of the Wind and handed it to her. “I think this is yours.”
Thea smiled gratefully and took it. She blinked hard at the cover. “Reading it again will be like coming home. What about you? Do you like to read? If you say yes, I’ll have to marry you righ
t now.”
“Yeah, I read,” I said slowly.
“You do?”
“Yep. Guess you’ll have to marry me right now.”
Thea hugged her book to her chest, a blush in her cheeks “Guess we should find City Hall.”
“Guess we should.”
The moment caught and held. Thea looked away first, uncharacteristically shy as she perused the shelves. “What’s your fave?”
“Chuck Palahniuk. Fight Club.”
“Saw the movie.” She wrinkled her nose. “Too violent for me.”
“Yeah, it is. But I read the book a hundred times over the years. The idea of creating a better, stronger version of yourself that doesn’t put up with any shit appealed to me, I guess.”
Thea moved around a table of bargain books. “And now?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Like your love for all things Egyptian, Fight Club doesn’t feel like it fits me anymore.”
“You don’t need a better, stronger version of yourself.” Thea pecked my cheek. “You never did.”
“What are we going to do next?” Thea asked after we left the bookstore, a new copy of Shadow of the Wind for her and Catch-22 for me in her backpack, and her arm tucked into mine.
“Up to you,” I said. “It’ll be dark soon. You hungry?”
“No, I mean when this trip is over,” she said. “What’s next, Jimmy?”
“We go back to Virginia, I guess.”
“And then? I’m not going back to Blue Ridge. No chance.”
“Neither am I,” I said. “Because I was fired.”
She didn’t smile. “You need a job. I need a job. We both need to go back to school. I mean, if you feel up for it.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Your art school was in Richmond?”
She nodded. “But even if I went back. I don’t know where I’d live.”
Inhale. Exhale. “Maybe we could both move to Richmond.”