Maybe that was what she'd been missing in this kind of relationship.
With her friends it was natural, an ease with which they exchanged pain and worries, passing them back and forth like cards. Joys and happiness too, mixed in with the deck. That was how women were, so naturally sitting at a table together, picking up their hand and playing the game without knowledge of what the result would be, but ready to put in whatever ante was needed to keep going.
She'd never had that with a man. What she'd had was vertiginous hope that the deck wouldn't tumble down; a house of cards instead of a back-and-forth game.
This soft silence wasn't stirring her anxiety; she wasn't wondering what he was thinking about her or if she would screw it up. It was just what it was - simple. She smiled.
Laughter and a shout broke into their gentle world, drawing their attention to a group of six men playing basketball across the street on the court in the park.
One of them she recognized and before she could hope that he didn't recognize her, his head turned and their eyes caught.
20. What If I Kiss You First?
Tilly cursed under her breath and sent Theo an apologetic smile. "Can we just keep walking? I cannot do another confrontation tonight."
Ronnie was holding the ball in both hands, a backward baseball cap on, as he watched them walk.
Anxiety crept in as their last interaction played in her mind. Jen had not held back.
The feeling of something sparking hit her and she knew without a second thought that what she was feeling was coming from the man beside her, standing broody and tall.
"Uhh," her uncertainty could have been partially her thoughts, but mostly it was battling the sudden wave of emotion from Theo. The shock of it, juxtaposing the calm and stoic man on the outside. "You should know, nothing is going on with him," she said softly.
He looked down at her. "I know."
"So, you don't have to be jealous or anything. Not that you'd be jealous. But you know," she was rambling, words filtering through her brutal experiences with her ex-husband, who would turn this into something to blame her for. "Jen took care of him. I think she hexed him," she added with a scrunched-nose look that endeared her to him.
"Tilly," he said gently, pulling them to a stop. "You do not need to worry about me acting as though I have any rights to you. What you're feeling from me is an understanding of what kind of man he is."
She tilted her head, the question of what kind of man was on the tip of her tongue, but she didn't need him to answer. Because she knew.
"Okay." Her smile was relief.
Then a large hand curled around her waist just before she was pulled and turned into Theo's body. The move didn't require much, but the intimacy of the move, like two dancers who had practiced, was expressed.
She wasn't looking in Ronnie's direction; she couldn't because her wide eyes were captured by Theo's. But she could feel a smarting anger, pulsing from across the street.
Her eyebrows popped up under the fringe of her black and emerald hair when the solid body next to her moved until she was fully turned in his arms, one of his hands having smoothly slid up the back of her head as he lightly dipped her. The suddenness of it made her catch her breath as her arms instinctively reached for him, looping around his neck.
The feeling of holding onto him, being held soon purpose, and yet gently, was heady. She looked up into his ink eyes, beguiled and waiting for whatever was next, completely content and excited to do so.
"I don't want the first time I kiss you to be in front of anyone, especially him. And I don't want the first time I kiss you to beto prove a point. And that is what I would be doin'." He kept his voice low, and deep, dragging across her exposed nerves like a soft scraping of nails on one's back.
"What point?"
He dipped lower, and she closed her eyes in anticipation-turned-surprise when his nose brushed along hers, the delicate touch making her catch her breath, forgetting what she had asked him. She'd wanted his lips, had hoped for them, but the way that this man could touch her in such a calculating way like he had planned it out beforehand, her body felt brutally on edge and primed.
She could feel Ronnie watching them, the discomfort and anger a mere speck trying to compete with everything she could feel from Theo and her own pulsing needs.
"The point I would have made is that if he had wanted to, he should have. And I want him to feel what it is like losing you. A long time on this earth, and I still want to choose petty," he mumbled. It made her laugh. Because he was a controlled man. A man who wouldn't do anything without careful thought of consequence. But here, with her in his arms, he lost a fraction of that and she could see the frustration in his eyes, hear it in his voice.
His words touched with healing hands a wound inside of her.
To be wanted in this way...there was no room for her to question his earnestness.
And without hesitation, as those words worked a magic inside of the place she'd long buried never hoping to revive, she pulled chief Theo Landry down as she reached up to touch her mouth to his. It was the most forward thing she'd done in so long that it felt like she was about to free-fall after not having spread her wings for so long.
But then her body was pulled up and into his in such a tight hold, his own hand fisting in her hair as he let her kiss him gently, slowly, until he needed to take over.
