Audrey hummed. “I don’t know. I liked you from the beginning.”
“I could barely breathe from the moment I saw you.”
“Well, I had to ask you to kiss me,” she pouted. “When the hell were you going to do that?”
“Eventually.” He grinned at her with dark delight. “And that’s not exactly how I remember it. I remember simply being a gentleman and not wanting to pressure you.”
“I remember having to demand that you not go so slowly.”
“Ah,” he crooned. “I see that we’re at an impasse. So why don’t you remind me again how I kissed you on our first date? I’m not sure that’s burned deep enough into my memory.”
“You need a reminder, huh?” Her breath had quickened. Herbodyburned.
It was always like this with him.
She always wanted him.
Always.
Theo nodded and hummed, just barely brushing his mouth against her own. “I mean, I think it might have gone something like this, but I’m not sure. Tell me if I’m wrong, and I’ll try again.” He curled his fingers beneath her jaw, his calloused fingertips grazing across the sensitive skin as he gently tilted her mouth up to meet his. She flung one leg over his hips to carefully settle into his lap, straddling him on the couch cushions.
Theo was getting harder and harder by the second.
“That’s not how it went,” Audrey muttered.
“No?” Theo breathed, snaking a hand beneath her sweater and bra to palm one of her breasts. Her nipple hardened to a tight peak beneath his touch, and she sucked in a sharp breath when he lightly pinched her.
“Nope. Not that either,” she gasped. “Like you were ever so forward in your life.”
“Well, fuck me,” he chuckled. “I guess I’ve just completely forgotten, then.”
Liar.
“Why don’t you show me, sweetheart? I think I need my memory jogged.”
“Mmm. Okay, fine.” She cupped his face with both hands. “Close your eyes. And don’t open them. No peeking.”
Those extraordinarily unique hazel irises of his glittered with mischief before they disappeared behind their lids, his long, dark lashes sweeping half-moons across his high, pale cheekbones. “Yes, ma’am.”
They grew silent, and Audrey took her time to study him. It never ceased to amaze her how handsome he was, despite what he might have thought of himself. He was beautiful, even with the scar, perhaps evenbecauseof it in some ways, and she ran her thumb gently along its length, as quiet and soft as a whisper. This must havebeen what he was doing that night, she realized—why he took so long to press his lips to her skin.
He’d wanted to look at her the way she looked at him now.
He’d wanted to study all the dips and curves and planes of her face.
He’d wanted to capture them in his memory—just in case she might not have wanted to go out with him again after that night, despite what she said. Despite all of her clear reassurances to the contrary.
For the space of a second, Audrey’s heart ached. That would have been a very Theo thought, even as far from the truth as it was then—and even farther now.
As far as she was concerned, he was stuck with her.
She would never give him up.
She loved him far too much.
Audrey leaned forward and drew her nose across his face, tracing it the same way he had with her all those months ago. His mouth dropped open and his breath trembled at the sensation of it, only for it to catch when she pressed her lips first to one brow, and then to the other. Now he knew what it had felt like when he’d done this to her—when he’d dragged his lips across her eyelids and her cheeks, briefly rested them at the tip of her nose, tilting her head this way and that between his hands as he completely ruined her for first kisses.
And made sure she wouldn’t ever want another man.
