IsTheo Monroeterrified 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 hedoescare.
He cares what Emma thinks. He cares what his dad thinks.
And I’m slowly realizing he cares whatIthink.
“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’twaitto 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 wordsaren’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.
