Never Say Never, page 14
She scoots closer to me, readying herself to cling to my every word.
“Cormac’s father was my mentor,” I say. I lean forward, pressing my elbows into my knees. “Cormac was like a brother to me.”
Skylar pulls in a breath as light as an angel and slips her arm across my back. Her head finds my shoulder. She says nothing. She’s merely there, shouldering my pain.
“My childhood wasn’t ideal,” I say. “There was a lot of neglect, abuse. My parents were too busy battling their own demons to deal with raising a child the right way. My father got a job working as a janitor at Topper’s pharmaceutical lab in Massachusetts when I was fourteen. I’m not sure exactly how it happened after that, but my parents dropped me off at the Wellesley estate and drove away. I never heard from them again.”
“Oh, God.” She nuzzles her nose into my arm, squeezing it lightly.
“It was a good thing, Skylar. I had an amazing life with the Wellesleys. Despite everything that’s happened, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I’m who I am today because of Topper and his family taking me under their wing.”
“I’d say things turned out all right for you.”
“I don’t think about my past,” I interject. “Not the way some people might. I don’t dwell on it. I mean, we were dirt poor, but all it meant was I didn’t have a bunch of mindless toys to keep me busy. I had to get creative, use my head. Invent things to keep me occupied. I’m better for it.”
She leans away, sitting up straight and facing me, taking me in as if we’ve only just met.
“My first name is Whitney,” she blurts out. Her shoulders fall as if a weight has been lifted in two seconds flat. “Skylar’s my middle name.”
“That’s your secret?” My words come out in a slight chuckle.
“Back in Iowa, when I was younger,” she continues. “I was bigger. Like, I don’t know, maybe twice the size I am now?”
I don’t see the issue.
“Kids were mean. They’d call me Whitney the Whale.” Her speech is stilted by what I can only assume is a lifetime of hurt at the hands of cruel children. “I got picked on. A lot. I didn’t have friends. I was filled with fear and self-loathing, and no one wanted to be around me.”
I find her hand in the dimness of the hotel room and thread her fingers into mine.
“I went off to college, lost weight, got healthy,” she says. “And then I started getting noticed. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t invisible. And when I moved to the city, I had more millionaire playboys blowing up my phone than I knew what to do with.”
Not surprising.
“It was fun at first.” Her head dips low. “And then I met Nick. And I fell so hard.”
“I remind you of him.”
“You do,” she says. “I mean, he’s the Italian version of you, but yeah. You two could be brothers.”
I stifle my response and let her continue, the same way she did for me.
“Anyway, Nick hurt me in the worst way possible.” I’m proud of her for not shedding another tear over that asshole. “I never thought I’d come back from that. I mean, I opened myself up and offered myself on a silver platter to the one man who promised he’d never hurt me.”
“People get hurt every day,” I say. “You can’t give up on love just because-”
“-no, I know that,” she says. “I just thought if I avoided guys like him, the rich, charming, handsome, heartbreaker-types who prey on girls like me, it wouldn’t happen again.”
Skylar lifts her stare to my mouth, lingering for a second before catching my gaze.
“I judged you for the way you look,” she says. “Which is nothing shy of fucked up because I’ve spent the entirety of my life trying to avoid people who do that to me. I’m sorry, Theo.”
“You’re a beautiful girl, Skylar.” I pull both of her hands into my lap. “You walk down the street and you turn so many heads it’s ridiculous. I don’t know if you realize that.”
She brushes her cheek against her shoulder, as if the compliment makes her uncomfortable.
“You need to own it. It is what it is. Don’t block yourself off. It’s okay to let people in,” I say. “Like me.”
“Isn’t that what I’m doing?”
My lip pulls up at the side. “We’re making progress.”
“I don’t know what more I can say,” she says. “I’m not as complex as you think I am. I’m just a girl who wants to be loved for who she is on the inside.”
“Cormac wouldn’t have loved you for this, you know that, right?” I press my fingertip gently into the skin above her heart. “That’s not his style.”
She huffs. “I know that now.”
“How’d you figure it out?”
“I asked him if he wanted to slip back to my place instead of get lunch, and he took the bait. Showed his true colors without any kind of hesitation. It’s like all the sweet, gentlemanly parts of him disappeared. It was an act all along.”
My heart sinks all the way down to my shoes. “You didn’t…”
“No.” She sticks out her tongue as if she’s disgusted. “No, no, no. He tried. I stopped him.”
That fucking prick would’ve fucked her just to spite me. “Smart girl.”
A sly smile captures her face as she lies back on the bed. “You’re the only guy I’ve ever been able to be myself around, Theo. Thank you.”
“For what?”
“I gave you every reason to run quickly in the opposite direction, but you only fought harder. You fought for me. For me. No one’s done that before.” Her cheeks flush even in the dark, and her dark eyes radiate. “You have no idea how amazing that makes me feel.”
“It’s kind of what I do,” I say. “I fight for what I want.”
She tugs on her bottom lip with her teeth, biting back a coy grin. “Do you still want me?”
“Are you kidding?” I climb over her, the bed shifting with our weight until I’m pinning her against the mattress. “I never stopped. Not once.”
The weight of Theo’s body over mine is different this time. It grounds me.
I welcome it.
I want it.
I want him.
For the first time in weeks, I can admit it, and it feels fucking fantastic.
His lips graze mine before smashing them with enough force that I feel his passion soaking into me and lighting every nerve ending on fire. His kiss is dynamite. Theo’s hands grip the hem of my shirt, slowly pulling it up.
I take a breath and harbor it, praying he can’t hear the runaway train in my chest.
“I’m not going to fuck you, Skylar,” he groans. “I want to. But I’m not going to. I’m going to prove to you that every inch of you is beautiful, not just your face.” He tugs my shirt up over my head with impatient determination. “The parts of you that make you feel like you’re not worth it, those are the parts I’m going to worship tonight.”
His fingertips brush against the soft skin of my belly, tracing the grooves of my stretch marks. They’re faded, and they flank my belly button and track all the way up the sides of my hips.
Theo lowers his mouth to my belly, pressing his feverish lips into my flesh. An errant flash of intense fear zips through me at his touch. His hand runs up my fleshy stomach until it reaches my breasts, and with one hand, he unhooks my bra until I’m free.
His mouth trails kisses up my side, leaving damp spots along my imperfections that quickly evaporate into the cool air of the hotel suite.
He doesn’t need to tell me my body is fine the way it is. He’s showing me.
Theo takes a nipple in his mouth as his hand massages my opposite breast until both nipples are awake. My breasts respond to his gentle caresses with a fullness. A slickness heats my core, and I could easily see myself having toe-curling sex for the first time in my life if it were ever to come to that.
He works his way back down my belly, the one with the slightly loose skin that serves as a daily reminder that Whitney was, and always will be, a part of me. I glance down, searching his eyes for the tiniest hint of reassurance, but he’s concentrating on my skin. My curves. The star-shaped patch of freckles to the left of my belly button.
Theo studies me like I’m a work of art, not shying away from a single flawed inch.
Without warning, Theo’s fingers slip beneath the waistband of my leggings, sliding them down my hips along with my panties with one fluid pull. Looking like he’s two seconds from devouring me, he parts my thighs, lifting them over his shoulders.
I’ve never felt so exposed.
No one’s ever done this to me before.
My breathing catches in my throat. The heat of his face radiates onto my inner thighs a moment before the hot wetness of his tongue meets my folds.
I release my breath and sink back into the mattress.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Theo kisses and sucks, his lips and tongue working in tandem to consume my most intimate parts. My hips rock and sway, bucking against the pleasurable pressure his mouth inflicts on my swollen sex. My body comes alive with every lick, and he groans into me with each kiss.
His fingers part my lips and slip inside me. The mix of his insertion with the soft traces of his hot tongue are too much. I’m almost there after an embarrassingly short couple of minutes.
This must be what teenage boys feel like the first time they have sex.
His tongue flicks my nub, triggering an orgasm that forces my body into swift contortions and jagged, foreign movements. I don’t only feel it between my thighs, I feel it in every part of me, washing over me like a wave that retreats back into the ocean.
I want more.
My hands fly to my face, my palms absorbing the heat from my flushed cheeks.
“Holy fuck.” I sigh. I’m laughing. I’m as light as a feather, floating around the room, and I don’t want to come down from that. Ever.
“Holy fuck is next time.” Theo stands up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. A thick bulge presses against his pants from the inside. He’s hard as hell.
His eyes flash like jewels in the dim light of the room. He leaves to clean up, and I’m still reeling.
He is mine.
And, oh God, I am his.
“You’re home late,” Nina says as I sneak into our apartment later that night. She’s flipping through late night TV options, the glare of the screen flashing against her face with every new channel.
I’ve just come from Theo’s hotel, and a dampness between my legs lingers as a reminder of what he just did to me. I wanted to stay. Oh God, I wanted to stay. But I didn’t trust myself with him.
I deposit my keys and bag in the kitchen and plug in my phone before taking a seat with her on the sofa.
“Can’t sleep? I ask.
“Not tonight,” she says.
“What’s on your mind?”
“Just found out my uncle’s going away to federal prison,” she sighs, pulling her knees up against her chest.
“Cory’s dad?” I ask.
She nods. “Yep. Pharmaceutical fraud or something. My mom is so upset, mostly because she feels bad for her sister. They’re going to be left with nothing. He screwed them over so badly.”
“Huh.” I’m slowly piecing it all together¸ piecing together slivers of information and fitting them together to illustrate one clear picture.
“Huh, what?”
“I was going to ask you,” I say, “Growing up, do you ever remember someone named Theo who used to hang around the Wellesleys?”
Her eyes pop open. “Theo…Theo…what was his last name? I forgot all about him. Yeah, I remember him, why do you ask?”
“What do you remember about him?”
“Um, just that my aunt and uncle took him in when he was younger. He was essentially an orphan. My uncle took him under his wing, made him blossom. He was so cute too. Smart as hell. He and Cory were super close for a while, but last I heard they had a falling out their senior year at U Mass. I think it was over a girl.” She rolls her eyes and flips to a new channel. “Wait, do you know him?”
I nod. “Yeah, he’s a client.”
Amongst other things.
She turns to me, offering me a nostalgic, sleepy-eyed smile. “How’s he doing? Good?”
“He owns some vodka company,” I say. “Protein-infused vodka.”
“Performance Vodka,” she says. “I’ve heard of it. One of the guys at work is working on an article for the business section about it. Supposedly it’s worth hundreds of millions, and he’s about to sell 49% to some liquor company. Huh. Never realized it was Theo’s business. Small world. Good for him.”
She clicks off the TV, and the room turns a shade of night in which we can only see our outlines.
“Nina,” I say as she shuffles toward her half of the apartment. “I don’t like Cory.”
She stops, turning to me. “I know, Sky. It’s okay.”
I wake up the next morning with the taste of Skylar still on my tongue. My cock hardens, and I smile. Today’s the day. Today’s the day I sign away 49% of my company, rake in a cool $150 mil, and finally start living.
I walk into Vic’s office an hour later, my fingers twitching and ready to sign away damn near half of my life’s work.
“Tyler. Brayden.” I take a seat across from Vic, sandwiched between his loyal minions.
“Yeah, so they agreed to all your terms,” Vic says with the kind of bland inflection one might use when discussing the weather. “They didn’t want to budge on a few things, but I was able to get you the hundred-fifty as well as the rest of your contingencies.”
Vic is three hundred pounds of lawyer and several thousand dollars well spent.
I sign my life away, at least 49% of it, and walk out of there a new man.
“Skylar.” I call her the moment my feet hit the pavement.
“Hey.” Her tone is breathy and beautiful. “What’s going on?”
“That apartment still available? The one you showed me a few days ago?”
“I think so, yeah.”
“Make an offer.”
“Absolutely.” The line goes silent for a moment. “Theo?”
“Yeah.”
“I know what he did to you,” she says. “Cory. He extorted you.”
“It’s over, Skylar. It’s done.”
“I know, but I wanted to tell you I hate him for what he did to you, and I’ve never hated anyone in my life. I get sick when I think about how he weaseled his way-”
“It’s fine.” I silence her words.
“I want to thank you for saving me from him,” she speaks over me. “What are you doing tonight? You want to come over to my place? Get out of that hotel room for a change?”
“Of course. Text me your address.”
“Will do.” There’s an easiness in her words, as if she’s finally accepted that we both know exactly where this is going. “Okay, let me present your offer and get you that apartment.”
The second she hangs up, I miss her. It’s both ridiculous and invigorating to know I can miss someone so naturally when that part of me was broken for so long.
***
I knock on Skylar’s apartment door that evening. Anticipation has been building all day, and I need a very specific release. I need to see her. Touch her. Taste her.
The door flies open, and Skylar’s not smiling. She steps outside and shuts the door behind her.
“We have company,” she says.
If it’s Cormac, I’ll fucking murder him.
“If you don’t want to come in, I understand. Nina didn’t tell me they’d be stopping over tonight, so…”
“Who is it?”
“Cory’s mom and sister.”
I haven’t seen Muffy and Gigi since my senior year of college, before the shit went down with the party and false accusations. I don’t know how they feel about me. I don’t know what Mac has told them over the years.
There’s a sharp ache in my chest, but this is nothing I can’t handle. “It’s fine, Skylar.”
She offers a sweet smile and slides her hand into mine as she pulls me inside. She doesn’t let go as she leads me to the living room where everyone is seated around a coffee table drinking hot tea.
Muffy’s face freezes the second she sees me, and it’s not from years of Botox. Her hand clenches against her heart and she stands up, fanning her eyes as they begin to mist.
I’m drenched in overwhelming relief. She doesn’t hate me. All those years, I’d stayed clear of the only mother I ever truly had because I was certain she hated me.
“Theodore.” She invades my space and Skylar steps away. Muffy’s hands cup my cheeks, and she’s practically standing on tiptoes as her eyes search mine. Gigi runs up from behind, slipping her arms under mine and offering me a side hug. “How have you been?”
“Good,” I say, taking refuge in her familiar gray eyes. “I, uh, heard about Topper. I’m so sorry.”
She releases my face and withdraws. “Yes, yes. He left us with quite a mess to clean up, didn’t he?”
“You two going to be okay?” I glance back and forth between Muffy’s concerned face and Gigi’s quiet expression.
“Don’t worry about us, sweetheart.” Muffy grabs my hand, sandwiching it between hers. “We’ll find a way to be okay.”
Sure, they didn’t need an estate in Amherst and vacation homes in Cape Cod, Miami, and Cabo San Lucas. They didn’t need a fleet of Aston Martins and Rolls Royces. But someone needs to make sure they’re provided for, and I want them to be comfortable. What Topper did was wrong.
“I want to help,” I say. It’s the least I can do after all Muffy has done for me. She raised me from fourteen on, and the love she showed a scraggly-haired foster child was invaluable.
“No, I can’t have you do that,” Muffy insists. I know she’s being polite, which is why I refuse to accept her words at face value. I’m going to take care of them.
The space around us silences.
“Anyway,” Muffy says. “We were in town and thought we’d stop by and see Nina. You remember cousin Nina, don’t you, Theo?”
A raven-haired girl with long arms and a wide smile appears from the corner. Last time I saw her, we were all jumping from a rope into Windsor Lake. An entire afternoon with Theo’s cousin, and all she could talk about was some curly-headed boy at school she was crushing on.
