Then he simply breathes.
I touch his damp hair, running my fingers through the strands. Rain slides down the patio windows in long, silvery trails, like tears.
He turns his head so his lips are on my stomach. They’re moving swiftly and silently, as if he’s saying a prayer.
It isn’t until I feel water slide over my temples that I realize I’m crying.
Theo lifts his head and looks at me. His eyes burn as hotly as his skin.
I whisper, “Please,” but I don’t know what I’m asking for.
Still on his knees, he takes my face in his hands and gently kisses me. It’s a reverent kiss, soft and chaste, at least at first. He’s hesitant, his lips barely grazing mine, until I thread my hands around the back of his neck and pull him closer.
I curl my body toward his and take his tongue into my mouth. Desire flashes over me like a detonation.
He makes a sound of pleasure deep in his throat. His fingers twist in my hair.
Outside, a rolling boom of thunder rattles the windows. Waves pummel the shore with a wild, powerful sound that matches the crashing beat of my heart.
Then his lips are gone, but I get them again somewhere else—the tender flesh of my inner thigh. The heat of his open mouth on my flesh is shocking. He sucks, and the sharp scrape of his teeth makes me gasp.
“Theo. Theo.”
His name is a plea, a soft, broken noise beneath the drum of the rain. He slips his fingers into the waistband of my shorts, then slowly eases my shorts and panties past my hips and down my legs. Then his big, rough hands are all over my body. Everywhere they roam, they’re followed by his lips.
Breasts, stomach, thighs, neck—his shaking hands and greedy mouth map the contours of my body. I quake as he devours me, my eyes closed and my lips parted, dragging air into my lungs. When I feel his mouth between my legs, I release a low, guttural moan that makes him dig his fingers into my bottom.
Like grief, pleasure comes in waves. It builds and recedes and builds again until it crashes over you. Then you either swim, or drown. I’ve ridden hundred-foot-tall waves of grief—cresting the top so I can see the endless line of waves waiting to roll in before tumbling to the bottom and starting the ride up all over again—so I know how to survive without going under.
What I didn’t expect was pleasure that could surpass the height and power of those waves of sorrow. I didn’t expect I would so gladly stop treading water so I could drown.
With my nails digging into his shoulders and a cry of surrender raw in my throat, I convulse around that bright, burning spot of pleasure between my legs. I sink so deep into that pleasure, it’s like a kind of death—there’s nothing else. I’m obliterated.
Then he’s lowering his naked body on top of mine. Somehow, he’s undressed. It must’ve happened while I was busy dying.
He’s hot, heavy, and shaking like a leaf, and I love it all. I love it that this is as momentous for him as it is for me, that he feels the burn and power of this lightning strike just as deeply as I do.
I open my thighs around his hips. He presses his face to my neck. Then it’s as natural and effortless as breathing. A tilt and a flex and his hardness slides inside me, and both of us are groaning.
As with his kiss, it starts gently but quickly turns passionate. We’re both frantic, greedy and grasping, wild with need. I meet every thrust of his hips with one of my own, grabbing his ass to take him deeper. Starting to buck, he rears up onto his hands and throws his head back. I draw my knees up around his waist and gaze in wonder at his beautiful body, all his muscles bunched and straining, the strong column of his throat painted pale from a sliver of moonlight filtering through the clouds.
He moans, faltering.
“What’s wrong?”
Lowering himself to his elbows, he rests atop me and nuzzles my neck. With one hand, he reaches between our bodies and flattens his hand over my belly. Then he lifts his head and looks at me with a question in his eyes.
“You don’t have to worry,” I whisper, understanding. “I can’t…we’re safe.”
We both know we’re not talking about diseases.
He cradles my head and kisses me, and in his kiss, I feel his sorrow.
That brings on the tears again. I’m sorry too, sorry for what I’ve lost and can no longer have, sorry that if Theo pictured his life including fatherhood, by default that means his life won’t include me.
He kisses my wet cheeks so tenderly, I feel like I might shatter. Then he stares down into my eyes as he starts to move again with small, perfect thrusts that soon have me panting.
Everything narrows to the space between our faces. The room vanishes, as does the storm outside, as does any final shred of my resistance.
I go over the edge before he does. My eyes closed and my head thrown back onto the pillow, my body arched against his. As if from a great distance, I hear myself cry out his name. He swells and throbs inside me, grunting faster and faster until the sounds merge to become one long, wavering moan as his entire body stiffens.
He spills himself inside me in a hot, pulsing surge as lightning tears a jagged white scar across the midnight sky and my soul sings a song of resurrection.
22
When I open my eyes in the morning, the sky is clear.
Theo is gone.
Gathered in a water glass on the nightstand are a bunch of purple sweet peas.
Unmoving in bed, I stare at them for a long time. I listen to the waves break, listen to the seagulls cry, feel my pulse and the soreness in my body. For the first time in a long time, my mind is clear and still.
I sit up and bring the glass to my nose, inhaling the flowers’ honey-sweet perfume. It’s October. Sweet peas aren’t in season, but somehow, they’re in my bedroom.
I won’t ask how.
Don’t ask, don’t tell. That was the deal.
As if in a dream, I rise, shower, and dress. In the kitchen, a fresh pot of coffee awaits me. Another gift from Theo. Smiling, I pour myself a mug and stare down into the inky liquid, remembering his hands on my skin.
When the phone rings, I float over to it, pillowed on clouds. “Hello?”
“Hi, is this Ms. Dunn?”
“Mrs. Dunn,” I correct dreamily. “Who’s this?”
“I’m calling from Seaside Pharmacy. We’ve got your prescription ready.”
I take a sip of coffee before answering, savoring its nutty goodness. It’s black and strong, exactly the way I like it. “Right. My crazy pills. Hold on to those for me for a few days, would you? I’d like to see how far down the nutso river I’ll get before I really need them. This morning, I’m paddling way upstream.”
I hang up before the young woman on the other end can respond.
* * *
At 11:00 a.m. on the nose, someone knocks on my front door. I’ve been standing at the patio windows, staring out at the ocean, my mind as blank as a clean sheet of paper. When I open the door, I find Coop and his team grouped on my porch. They’re all wearing tool belts and carrying lunch boxes. Work trucks line the curb on either side of the street.
“Mornin’, Megan,” says Coop. A small smile hovers at the corners of his lips.
“Hey, Coop. Hey, guys.”
The men solemnly nod. I stare at them, waiting, but no one says anything.
“You boys lost? Out for a morning drive and took a wrong turn?”
Coop’s smile grows wider. “No wrong turns.”
My face grows warm, and my heart beats faster. I whisper, “Theo?”
Coop’s eyes are so blue. As blue as the sky above. He nods, grinning now. “The one and only. Sent word that we were to start work on the Buttercup as soon as I could get everyone together. So, I got us together. Here we are. We’re gonna start on the master bedroom first. Theo said make sure that gets done before anything else.”
The men look at me. My cheeks go from warm to burning.
Coop says, “You ready for us?”
I swallow, quickly
nodding. “Yes. Please, come in.” I swing the door open, and the men file inside.
Coop is last to walk over the threshold. He stops and gazes down at me. He keeps his voice low so only I can hear his words. “I take it you and Theo hashed out your problems.”
My laugh is a little shaky. “I guess that’s one way to put it. Is he…is he coming?”
Coop slowly shakes his head. “But he seems better. What I could tell anyway, from his emails. I’m sure I have you to thank for that.”
“Well, you know what they say, Coop. The thing that breaks you is the only thing that can put you back together.”
“Yeah, I think Einstein said that, right?”
I rise up on my toes and kiss him on the cheek, making him blush. “Yes. It was Einstein, for sure.”
Coop chuckles, giving my arm a friendly squeeze. “You talk to Suzanne since you ran outta church like you were bein’ chased by the Holy Ghost?”
“No.” I think for a moment. “That must’ve been an interesting spectacle I made.”
“Hate to tell you, Megan, but it was all anyone could talk about after. New girl in town starts laughin’ like a hyena at the start of the sermon, then bolts for the doors at a hundred miles per hour—the general consensus is that you’re either on drugs or an atheist. Drugs bein’ the better option, by the way. Folks around here are pretty nonjudgmental, but nobody likes an atheist. You can’t trust a person who doesn’t believe in God.”
I smile at that. “I can honestly tell you, Coop, that I’m not an atheist this morning.”
“So it’s drugs, then,” he teases. “Guess I should make you pay up front for the job in case you’re incarcerated for possession. That way we can still work on the place while you’re dryin’ out in the poke.”
I laugh, pressing a hand to my forehead because it feels like my brain is cracking underneath my skull.
Coop shakes his head and sighs. “Okay, dopehead, outta my way. I gotta get to work.” He tweaks my nose and ambles past, his boots thumping hollowly against the wood floor.
* * *
That night, I wait, but Theo doesn’t come. He doesn’t come the next either, or the next. By Friday, I’m climbing the walls in frustration, my need to see him gnawing my guts like an infestation of termites.
So much for paddling upstream.
Meanwhile, the men of Hillrise Construction are hard at work turning my vision of the Buttercup Inn into reality.
One team works on the master bedroom—starting by ripping out the bathroom sink, bathtub, and shower—while another team goes to work on the roof. A construction Dumpster rental company delivers two huge trash bins on flatbed trucks and parks them along the curb. Every day, more workmen and equipment show up until the place is crawling with both. Coop keeps me abreast of all the plans and the progress, but I pay attention to his briefings with only half my mind.
The other half is in Theotown, searching desperately for its namesake.
A dozen times, I sit down at the computer to compose an email to him, but I always end up deleting it. I pick up the phone to call him but quickly hang up, my skin going clammy with a cold sweat. A voice inside my head keeps screaming hysterical warnings about looking a gift horse in the mouth.
I made a pact when I said in my email that we wouldn’t talk about each other’s crazy. I have to keep my word, even if it makes me grow even crazier.
Finally, on Friday night, he returns.
In the darkest heart of the evening, I’m lying in bed staring at the ceiling when I hear footsteps downstairs. My pulse soaring, I jerk upright and stare at my closed bedroom door. For several long minutes, I listen to him rove around in the dark, going from one room to the next, pausing briefly before moving on.
I know it’s him, and I know what he’s doing. He’s checking on the work that’s been completed in his absence.
When heavy boots begin to ascend the stairs, my heart pounds so hard, it’s painful.
Outside the door, the footsteps pause. Electricity sizzles over my skin. Then my bedroom door handle turns.
It takes a lifetime for the door to crack open. When it slips a few inches wider, Theo silently eases into the room. We stare at each other through the shadows for a long, breathless moment, and everything I am or ever thought I was dissolves when I see the look of ardor in his eyes.
I launch myself from the bed and fly into his open arms.
My sudden assault doesn’t budge him a single inch. He simply stands with his legs apart, holding me up like he’s holding up air. My legs are wrapped around his waist, my arms are wrapped around his shoulders, my face is buried in his neck. Shuddering, I suck in a breath, taking his woodsy scent into my nose. “You’re here.”
He nods. His pulse throbs against my lips. Against my chest, his heart drums as madly as mine does.
I whisper, “I’ve been waiting. It feels like I’ve been waiting forever.”
He presses the softest kiss to my temple, his lips a featherlight brush against my skin. Then he carries me slowly over to the bed.
He lays me down, peels me out of my shorts and T-shirt, and throws them away with a low growl. He tears off his own shirt and jacket and discards them just as quickly. He opens the top button of his jeans, his hands fumbling, but my impatience is too great. I sit up, bat his hands out of the way, and rip open his fly.
His erection is a big, straining bulge beneath a pair of white boxer briefs. I press my cheek against it, nuzzling the pulsing vein that runs the length underneath. Theo sinks his trembling hands into my hair.
I pull down the waistband of his boxer briefs, and his gorgeous cock springs free. I grip it and lick it from base to crown, swirling my tongue around the engorged head. Theo sucks in a hard breath through his teeth.
When I take the length of it down my throat, he groans. He fists my hair and flexes his hips, forcing me to take him deeper.
I want more of his groans. I want him unleashed, as raw and starving as I am.
I scoop the velvet heft of his balls out of his underwear and caress them with one hand while I stroke his pulsing shaft with the other, still sucking the crown. I immediately get that groan I wanted, a deep, guttural one, paired with an involuntary shudder. I look up and find him gazing down at me with his hair falling into his face, his eyes filled with hazy wonder.
And a dark, dangerous lust. The intensity of it makes my heart skip a beat.
He pulls away and pushes me onto my back. He lifts my legs and hooks both of my ankles over his shoulders. Then he slides his hands down my shins to my thighs. Staring down at me with burning eyes, he runs a thumb back and forth over my wetness until I’m panting and rocking my hips in time with his strokes.
“Theo. Please. Your mouth.”
Without hesitation, he sinks to his knees and gives me what I need.
Gasping, I arch against the mattress. He swirls his tongue around and around, sliding a big finger deep inside me, then another. My trembling hands find his hair. Moaning softly and starting to sweat, I grip it as I flex my hips against the strokes of his tongue. The room is cool, but I’m almost unbearably hot. My skin is so tight. My heart pounds so hard it might burst.
“Not yet—with you inside me.”
My words are fractured and strained. I’m holding back, barely in control. He must hear the desperation in my voice, because he stops licking, grabs my hips, and drags me to the edge of the mattress. He shucks off his boots, tears off his jeans and briefs, positions himself at my entrance, then plunges deep inside me, so deep, I throw my head back to scream.
Nothing comes out. Pleasure has stolen my voice. I can’t make a sound as he starts to fuck me, hard and fast, pulling my hair and sucking on one rigid nipple, scraping it with his teeth.
He fucks me like he owns me, body and soul.
And he does. But I own him too. Every look and touch is evidence of his total surrender. Every kiss is one more link added to the chain.
He breaks away from my breast and takes my mouth in
a hard, possessive kiss. He makes an animal sound deep in his chest that’s incredibly erotic. He’s close to his climax, and he’s falling apart.
I fall apart first.
With the initial hard contraction deep inside me, he groans. On the second contraction, I start to thrash, losing control of my body. I find my voice and moan, loud and long, the hard, rhythmic clenching and unclenching of muscles and the aching throb of pleasure breath-stealingly intense.
He comes in a hot swell, jerking and gasping as I writhe beneath him. His fingers twist in my hair. His unshaven jaw is a welcome rough scrape against my skin as he moves against me.
When it’s over and we’re both wrung out, sweating and panting against each other, racked with tremors and utterly spent, I burst into tears.
I curl against Theo’s chest and sob like a baby.
He strokes my back and hair, gently kisses my cheek and neck. He holds me tight, his arms like a vise, and throws one heavy leg over me so I feel cocooned, safe and snug in the small slice of heaven we’ve created in the moonlit shadows of my room.
When the worst of it is over and I’m quietly hiccupping in his arms, I whisper, “Do you still think we can never be friends?”
He cups my face in his hand and tilts it up so we’re gazing into each others’ eyes. Then he kisses me with such depth of feeling, it brings fresh tears to my eyes. I break away first because I can barely stand how much it hurts, and hide my face in his chest.
We stay like that, locked in each other’s arms, until I fall asleep to the sound of his deep, even breathing.
In the morning, he’s gone again. Once again, fresh sweet peas sit in a glass of water beside my bed. But this time, there’s something else. A haiku, handwritten and left on my pillow.
Isn’t it simple?
Whatever we are, or not,
There is only you.
I read it over and over, my eyes filling with water. Then I tuck the poem carefully in my wedding album and pick up the phone to call Suzanne.
Midnight Valentine Page 20
