The Worst Wedding Date, page 23
Theo.
Oh my god.
I had sex with Theo.
And it was glorious.
Magnificent.
Earth-shattering and life-altering.
And he’s still in bed with me. In paradise.
And that’s a cat curled up on my hip, purring.
This, my soul whispers. This is what you’re missing.
I never would’ve expected feeling so much peace and safety here. With Theo. But I do.
Fun? I’ve always envied his ability to find it anywhere. Always. And I’ve thought some extremely unflattering things about his sense of responsibility over the years at the same time that I was craving fun.
But I never realized he could be fun and have moments of utter peace. That he ever has moments of rest.
That he can be smiling with the mischief of ten thousand wood sprites one minute and washing my face of tears the next.
And that I’d love to listen to the rhythmic sound of his breath, and that I’d like that he’s holding my breast in his sleep, and that I like even more that I’m slowly realizing there’s a thick, hard meat stick cradled against my butt cheeks.
Meat stick.
Oh my god.
I said that.
“Beans,” he murmurs into my hair.
Oh my god again. I told him beans was my safe word.
Who uses beans as a safe word?
Worse, why did I think I’d need one when I was in charge? Tie me up and blindfold me, Theo.
I am still so boring.
“Beans,” he repeats, stronger, and I realize he’s using the safe word.
“Do—do you want me to leave?” I whisper. There’s pale morning light filtering in through the curtains.
“Stop—claws—ow.” He moves his hand off my breast and swats at something. “Beans, Miss Doodles.”
Oh.
The cat.
He’s shooing the cat.
I giggle as the cat leaps off the bed.
He harrumphs into my hair, readjusts his whole body so his erection is nestled harder against my butt, and resumes holding my breast.
I bite my tongue.
Am I supposed to ask how he slept? Or if he wants me to do something to relieve some pressure in his penis?
Hi, I’m Laney, and I am so lame and bad at dirty talk.
He probably forgot it’s me here in bed with him.
This is probably one of those things he does so often that he doesn’t really care who he’s with.
But is it?
He told me I’m not convenient. Did he change his mind in the ten minutes that he was making me come in the bistro kitchen, or when we had sex?
Or is he pickier about who he dates than I think he is?
“I was this close to getting engaged a year ago,” my brain decides I need to blurt out.
Theo yawns. “Guess you’re awake.”
“And I haven’t slept with anyone since,” my mouth continues for me.
“The logic logics,” he murmurs in my hair.
He’s not telling me to shut up.
Not squirming.
Not running for the hills.
“You’re right. You ruined me for sex with any other man, so I’m now going to turn into the crazy woman who desperately needs to marry you for your penis.”
He snickers, which makes his cock rub more along my butt crack, and oh my god, I’m wondering what it would be like if he played with me there.
And I sigh.
I’m not a can you see if I get turned on if you play with my butt? kind of girl, nor can I manage to tell him I like him without sounding like a complete doofus.
But then he kisses my shoulder. “Regrets, Laney?”
“No,” I whisper. “Not at all.”
He doesn’t reply.
He doesn’t kiss me again either.
Doesn’t pinch my nipple, even though I know he could.
“Do you do this all the time?” I cringe, wishing I’d done a better job of hiding the naked vulnerability obvious in the question.
He’s not moving, so it’s not like he can go more still, but I swear he does. More tense. More something.
Did he quit breathing?
Am I finally freaking him out?
“No,” he replies quietly before I can take the question back.
He doesn’t elaborate.
I should get up.
Or turn around and stroke his erection and ask if he wants to have morning fun.
Instead, I think I’m ruining this. “Why not?” I whisper.
“Some things matter.”
My heart flutters in a slow somersault. “What matters to you?”
“Do you always wake up this talkative?”
“No.”
He takes a deep breath and settles closer, pulling me even tighter still, until his chin is resting on my shoulder. I shift too and hold his forearm against me.
And I wait.
Once again, I don’t think he’ll answer me. But even when he’s quiet, even when he’s not answering—and let’s be real, why should he?—I don’t feel like an inconvenience.
I don’t feel like I’m annoying.
I don’t feel like he’s pulling away.
Hard to imagine when he has me tucked so thoroughly against him.
“Why’d you say no?” he asks.
“Not like I have anyone to talk to in the mornings.”
“To the proposal.”
I cringe.
He tightens his grip.
Not like I can’t breathe tight.
More like I’ve got you, you’re safe tight.
“I didn’t like him,” I whisper. “I was supposed to, and he was fine—he didn’t mistreat me—but I didn’t like him. My parents loved him, so I thought there was something wrong with me that I didn’t. That if I just got to know him better, I’d find this mystical thing that seemed to be missing in our relationship. But when he started talking about getting married…”
Theo doesn’t say anything.
Just lies there, quietly breathing behind me.
“When I realized I was more worried about disappointing my parents than I was about if I’d be happy with him, I knew it wasn’t the right relationship for me. And I realized I didn’t even know if my whole life was the life for me.”
“Hard thing to face.”
“Why is it so easy to tell you this?”
“I’ve been too much of a shit to judge anyone else.”
“I don’t think you’re a shit.”
“Can be.”
“Are you being a shit here? Right now?”
“No.”
“Would you tell me if you were?”
“Yes.”
“Would Sabrina think you’re being a shit?”
That earns a soft chuckle. “She always thinks I’m being a shit.”
“No, she doesn’t.”
He shifts behind me, and this time, he pulls away.
But only for a minute before he’s pushing me onto my back and crawling on top of me. It’s instinct to spread my legs and cradle his hips and his impressive morning erection.
“Hi,” I whisper, like a complete and total dork.
His brown eyes study me. There’s no cocky grin. No mocking my awkward hi at the first sight of his face this morning. Just an entirely more serious Theo than I ever would’ve given him credit for being. Even if only in the occasional moment.
“I don’t fuck around with women I don’t like.”
My belly tingles. My nipples tighten. And my overworked vagina decides she’s not so tired after all.
“Is this—is this fucking around?”
“I like you, Laney. I have always liked you, even when I hated myself for it. This is the scariest shit I have ever done.”
“I don’t want to be scary.”
“You were born that way, princess.”
“I didn’t mean to be.”
He squeezes his eyes shut, but there’s a smile playing on his lips. “You’re my favorite pain in the ass.”
I loop my arms around his neck, wanting to lick the patterns of his tattoos from his collarbone down as far as they go. “I like you too.”
One eye cracks open, and oh my heart.
Is Theo Monroe terrified that I’ll hurt him? That I’m playing with him? That this is a vacation fling, a walk on the wild side, something to get out of my system so I’ll have stories to tell when I go back and marry a total stick in the mud that my parents approve of?
He seems so immune to what anyone thinks about him.
But he does care.
He cares what Emma thinks. He cares what his dad thinks.
And I’m slowly realizing he cares what I think.
“I’ve been stuck in this holding pattern for the past year,” I tell him, “waiting for something exciting to happen, and that’s exactly the problem. I can’t wait to live. I have to take the step. And I don’t know who I’ll be when I land, but I can’t find out if I don’t jump.”
“You wanna jump?”
“I’ve always wanted to jump, but I’ve never been brave enough to deal with the consequences.”
“Feeling brave now?”
I nod while I brush his hair back off his forehead.
“You sure?”
I nod again.
He studies me again like he can see into not just my soul but my future.
I hold my breath.
I don’t know why. But it feels necessary.
Like jumping off of one cliff just showed me there are so many more to leap from.
My mom used to say that the only way you go when you jump is down.
But I don’t think she’s right.
I think jumping is the first step to soaring.
And then Theo’s serious face disappears behind the world’s largest, most mischievous, most breathtakingly gorgeous grin. “Good.” He scoots off me, rising in the morning light without an ounce of modesty or discomfort about being naked. “Let’s go.”
“Go…where?”
He flings my suitcase up on the bed, bringing with it one of those knitted hearts that are all over the resort, then bends, giving me a view of the most spectacularly chiseled butt cheeks for a mere second before he’s pulling briefs up to cover them.
“Time to be brave, Laney.”
“But—but—” I can’t make the words aren’t we going to have morning sex? come out of my mouth, so instead, I jerk a hand up and down, demonstrating my bare breasts.
His grin gets grinnier. “Only good girls who face their fears get more orgasms.”
My heart pitter-patters.
I could fall for this Theo.
I could fall very, very hard.
And it might hurt when I land, but what if it doesn’t?
Only one way to find out.
And that’s to be all-in.
25
Theo
“Oh my god, we’re flying!”
I grin at Laney in the seat next to me beneath our parasail as we rise higher and higher above the sea. Her eyes are huge. Her knuckles are white on the bar in front of us. And a split second after her shrieked exclamation, she tosses her head back and laughs. “We’re flying!”
Beneath us, the ocean’s a brilliant blue against miles and miles of beach, with more appearing as we go higher. Palm trees. Black lava rock fields. The volcano watching over the island. Clouds lingering beyond it.
The boat pulling us below cuts a path through the water, leaving white wakes in its trail as we climb to altitude.
And Laney laughs again. “This is insane!”
“This is fun.”
She looks at me, eyes sparkling. “This is insane.”
“Like it?”
“Depends on the minute.”
Her hair whips around her head, but she doesn’t let go of the bar to push it back. “Do you do stuff like this all the time?”
“As often as possible.”
“It’s so pretty up here. You can see forever. Like being on top of a mountain.”
“But a little warmer.”
She laughs again.
And it’s gorgeous.
All of that pink rising high in her cheeks. The wild hair. Swimsuit under her life vest.
That smile.
I want to put that smile on her face every day for the rest of her life.
Not that I’m fooling myself about her place in my future.
Her parents get here later today. No matter where she’s at in figuring out she can’t live for them, I don’t see her picking me over them.
And even if she did, the minute she finds out about my side hustle with GrippaPeen, it’ll be you can’t do that and date me. Your side hustle or me, Theo.
If it’s not a flat-out I cannot believe I slept with a porn star with a heavy dose of horror.
Either one is a relationship-killer, and a major part of why I’ve dated less and less the bigger my channel has grown.
But I have today. I have this moment. And I have something I can give her that she won’t find anywhere else.
A morning of fun. More orgasms. The full-on, best-of-the-best Theo Monroe treatment.
“Theo. Look.” She points down at the water where a huge dark shadow is moving. “Is that a whale?”
I settle an arm around her and lean over into her space as much as I can in our parasailing seat while I look too. “Dunno.”
The shadow gets bigger and darker, and then—
“It is!” she squeals while a waterspout erupts from the surface of the ocean. A moment later, we see its tail as it flips and heads back down under. “I’ve never seen a whale before.”
“Never?”
She shakes her head. “Have you?”
“Haven’t traveled much.”
“We’re sharing a first.” She smiles at me, then tucks a wild flying lock of hair behind her ear. The ponytail she put in earlier isn’t doing much to keep the wispy flyaways out of her eyes. “For all the places I’ve been in the world, I’ve never gone off the beaten path. It’s always museums and landmarks and safe resort tours. But you’ve probably seen things back home that I can’t even dream of.”
“Ever go backpacking? Sleep under the stars?”
She shakes her head again.
“Want to?”
“In the snow?”
“We can.”
“That’s—” She cuts herself off with a laugh. “Very adventurous.”
“Crazy?”
“I said adventurous.”
“Not what you wanted to say.”
“Excuse you. If I don’t call you crazy, you can’t call me boring.”
I lean in and kiss that smile.
Can’t help myself.
The number of years I’ve wanted that smile aimed at me, and now there’s no mistaking the fact that it’s all mine.
There’s no one else up here with us to smile at.
And when she cups my cheek and kisses me back, five hundred feet over the ocean, no fear, no worries, no cares—
This.
This is all I’ve ever wanted.
“Have you ever jumped out of a plane?” she asks.
“Nope.”
“No?”
“Won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Emma asked me not to.”
She tilts her head and studies me, getting brave enough to take both hands off the bar now. One keeps trying to control her hair.
The other settles on my thigh.
It’s nice to not have to explain this one to Laney.
Pretty sure she knows Emma lost a friend to a skydiving accident in college.
“This is different, huh?” she asks.
“Already know the chute works.”
“You gonna tell her?”
“If she asks.” I settle my hand over Laney’s.
She doesn’t pull away.
Instead, she flips her hand upside down and intertwines our fingers.
Like this is real.
Like it’s a thing.
Simmer down, I tell my heart.
Fucker doesn’t listen.
Especially when she squeals again. “Four whales! Look! Four of them!”
“Wanna swim with them?”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t. It’s their water. Let them have it.”
I side-eye her.
She smiles wider. “It’s not an excuse. It’s how I feel. I’d swim with dolphins though.”
“What else?”
“Stingrays? Although, we did that once at a resort in the Caribbean. Stop. Don’t make that face. You know where I come from.”
“So what’s on your adventure bucket list?”
“Hot-air balloon ride.”
Zero hesitation. None. “Done,” I tell her. “You. Me. Hot-air balloons in Denver. Next week.”
“June. And don’t even try to that’s no fun, Laney, live a little me about this. I refuse to be terrified and freezing and subject to unpredictable winter winds that close to the mountains.”
She’s researched hot-air balloons.
Adorable. I like it. Very Laney of her.
“June,” I agree. “What else?”
“Zip lining.”
“Added to the list.”
“Have you zip-lined?”
“Yep.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Of course you have. Probably bungee jumped too. And pretty much anything I can think of except maybe the hot-air balloon. Wait. Have you hot-air ballooned before?”
I laugh. “No. That’s one I haven’t done.”
“What else haven’t you done?”
I look out at the ocean. Love the view from up here. Really gives perspective. “Not much.”
“But there is something left on your list?”
There is.
It’s a big one.
“Theo?”
I blow out a breath.
Here I am, giving Laney an adventure of her lifetime, terrified to tell her what’s on my own big scary things list.
Can’t have that, can we?
“I want to fall in love.”
Her eyes widen and her lips form a small o, like she wasn’t expecting me to go there.
But I have. And now I’m all in. I look her square in the eye. “Not the happy kind of love. Not whatever it is Emma has. It’s what she wants for her, great. But I want more. I want ecstatic love. Purpose love. I want a love that’s the very reason for my existence. I want a love that makes life make sense, and I want a love that makes me want to be better. My own kind of better. Fuck happy. Fuck easy. Fuck settling. I want everything.”
