Audrey laughed and tilted his head back under the shower stream, using her fingers to comb through and help rinse all the shampoo from his hair. “Not your worst nightmare anymore, then?”
He closed his eyes, and a satisfied, roguish smile cracked his mouth wide open, digging both dimples deeply into his cheeks.
“No, Miss Adams. In fact, I’m pretty sure this counts as a very literalwet dream.” His hand shifted and dropped between her legs, his fingers stroking and teasing at her clit and her folds, and it was Audrey’s turn to gasp and close her eyes. A heat altogether very different than that of the shower began to build in her core, and she rocked her hips against Theo’s hand, wrapping her arms around hisneck as she rode him. His erection pressed into her stomach, thick and hard, and he grunted when she rubbed against it. Audrey opened her eyes and found his searching her own, water droplets tumbling from his long, dark lashes.
The way he looked at her never failed to send shivers down her spine.
It was as if she was the only thing that mattered.
“Audrey,” he whispered. “We don’t have to if you’re too—”
His words were swallowed by a moan when she wrapped her hand around his length and pumped once before shifting in his lap, lifting her hips, and guiding him to her entrance. She used his shoulders as leverage and slowly slid onto him, exhaling and relaxing as he stretched her, filling her so fully and completely once again. He was still almost too much for her to take, but the ache of him was just as delicious as it had been yesterday, and she savored it, folding forward and burying her face in his neck.
His chest rose in a sudden gasp beneath her, and a chuckle rumbled after. “God,” Theo muttered, his voice cracking and strained as he buried his hands in her hair, his arms holding her steady at her back. “Never in my wildest, wettest teenage dreams did I ever imagine I could have someone as beautiful and precious as you.”
When Audrey rocked her hips against his, he matched her cadence with his own, dragging his warm, plush lips everywhere he could reach while he held her tightly against his heart.
Neither of them managed to say anything else coherent for the rest of that shower.
But the chair held upsplendidly.
Audrey smiled again now, and when she met Theo’s gaze, she knew he was thinking about the same thing. A single dimple was shadowed into his cheek, his crooked grin as soft as she’d ever seen it. She smoothed a hand over the front of his coat and tugged it straighter across his chest.
“And I’m going to tell you again, Theo: you look really,reallyhandsome.”
“Thank you, sweetheart.” He pulled out a black KN95 mask from the box and stilled for a moment, turning it over in his hands and staring at his fingers entwined with the elastic.
“What is it?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.” With one graceful, practiced motion, he slid one strap over his ear and pulled the mask across his face, securing the other side so easily, he could probably do it in his sleep before they left home and headed uptown.
It was along, quiet subway ride to Manhattan.
Audrey sat next to Theo, still clutching her half-eaten bagel and resting her head on his shoulder as he sketched the people around them in his little black leather notebook. But it wasn’t the drawings she was most interested in.
It was his hands.
He hadn’t seemed to notice how much the shaking in his right hand had diminished. It wasn’t entirely gone, not by any means; she still noted an odd tremor here, a strange twitch there. But the difference from yesterday was remarkable.
It was unmistakable.
After everything, Theo was so much steadier than he’d been before.
When he wrapped his left arm around her waist, she closed her eyes and let the gentle swaying of the train lull her into another light sleep.
He woke her with a kiss on the forehead when they got to their stop, and he led her up into the harried streets of Manhattan, winding through the crowds until they arrived at a massive skyscraper. The doors were busy, constantly opening and closing toaccommodate the hustle and bustle of all the professional-looking, buttoned-up office workers dodging in and out.
“HEY!”
Theo’s hand had just closed around the handle when they both turned toward the shout. Diego was sprinting toward them from down the street, his woolen coat and scarf flying in the wind. He skidded to a stop and bent, resting his hands on his knees while he panted.
“What—the fuck—are you doing?” he breathed, glaring up at Theo between gasps for air.
Theo raised an eyebrow. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m going inside to talk to my mother, like I texted you I was. What areyoudoing here?”
Diego straightened and grabbed his wrist. “Are you crazy?” He twisted slightly. “It’s Friday. Your uncle’s in there too.”
“Yeah. I figured as much. Seemed logical, given that he’s a partner.” Theo twisted out of his friend’s grasp.
