“Lucky for me.”
Her face lit up, her cheeks flushing pink. She was so fucking pretty. I felt like I’d never get tired of looking at her. Talking to her. Being with her.
And as I hurried through the howling, icy wind and snow to my car, I realized she’d made me believe in second chances, too.
* * *
“Theo.”
I thought I was dreaming when I heard her whisper my name, but a moment later, I heard it again. Felt the mattress shift as she crawled beneath the covers.
“Theo.”
I opened my eyes and looked toward her voice in the dark, my heart beating fast. “Claire? Are you OK?”
“Yes.” She moved closer to me and I immediately put my arms around her. “I just missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
“Can I sleep with you?”
“Of course.” I wasn’t sure if she meant actual sleep or something else, but I wasn’t going to push it. If all she wanted to do was close her eyes and let me hold her all night long, I’d do it.
“I was lying in bed up there, and I couldn’t stop thinking about everything you told me.” Her left hand rested on my bare chest, one fingertip brushing back and forth over my skin. “Everything you’ve been through.”
I swallowed hard, and tried not to think about my dick. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I felt so sad. I keep imagining how hard it must have been for you guys to grow up without a mother, with a father who abused you. The two people who are supposed to love you the most and take care of you.” She sniffed and snuggled closer, wrapping her arm around me. “I want to go back in time and hug you. Protect you. Rescue you. Change your life so that none of the bad stuff would happen.”
I kissed her head. “Thank you. But you know what? I made it out OK. And I’m here now.”
“Yes.” She kissed my chest. Then she did it again. The third time, she left her lips on my skin. Rubbed them back and forth.
My cock stirred between us.
“Uh, are we still observing the no-touching rule tonight?” I asked as she kissed her way up my chest. “Asking for a friend.”
“It’s after midnight,” she whispered, her breath tickling my ear. “Tomorrow is here.”
“Oh, thank fuck.” I flipped her beneath me.
She pulled her pajama top over her head and shimmied out of her bottoms while I shoved off my boxer briefs. As soon as I could get my mouth on hers, I kissed her hungrily, passionately, frantically, as if she might be a dream and I was afraid of waking up too soon. My hands sought all the places on her body they’d missed and longed to touch. My tongue stroked along all her curves and hollows. My cock grew hard and thick, aching with the need to be inside her.
She wrapped her hand around it, rubbed the tip over her clit, moaned with pleasure and impatient desire. When she slipped it down, I pulled back. If I didn’t stop and get a condom now, I never would. “Hold on,” I whispered. “Let me get—”
“Do you have to?” She reached for me again. “I want to feel you—just you—inside me.”
I groaned. “You’re killing me.”
“If you’re worried about being safe, I’m on the pill. Come on,” she cajoled. “Let me feel you with nothing between us. Even if it’s just for a minute.”
A minute. Right. As if I was going to last a minute once I got inside her. And if I did, I knew there was no way in hell I was stopping to put on a condom.
“Please,” she said softly, feathering my neck with kisses. “I need it. I need to feel that close to you.”
God, I wanted to. I wanted to share something with her I’d never shared with anybody. I wanted her to have more of me than anyone else had ever had. But this was an ironclad rule! I’d never broken it—ever. This was more than my real name or my criminal record or my family history. This was me. Unprotected. Inside her. It was personal. It was intimate. It meant climbing levels of trust I’d never shared with anyone before.
And it scared me.
She moaned, slipping just the tip inside. “Mmmmm, see? Doesn’t that feel amazing?”
Fuck fuck fuck, what was the right thing to do? This felt like a critical moment—like the decision I made would change everything. My last defenses breeched. My final wall torn down.
“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.