“You’resohandsome.”
His dark brows—both of them—knit together. “What?”
She meant it. She’d known he wouldn’t believe her, but she meant those words with her whole heart.
He was so handsome.
So attractive.
Every piece of him.
Audrey leaned closer so she could look into his eyes. Both of them were the same, that interesting heterochromic combination of darkness surrounded by swirling light. In the soft glow of her apartment, they were liquid shades of mahogany and amber, whiskey and honey, molten and soulful and sad.
“Look at you.” She trailed a finger down the perfect slope of his nose before tapping softly at the groove just above his top lip. “Your face is lovely. Why would you hide it from me?”
At those words, his lip quivered again—and his face fully broke. A sob wracked his chest and he surged forward to press his lips to hers.
She closed her eyes and let him take her mouth, let him tell her with his lips what he’d lost the words to say. She tasted salt from the hot tears coursing down his cheeks, and her body shuddered from the force when another sob tore through his. He buried a massive hand in her hair and rested the other on her back, drawing her into his warm, strong embrace, and she threw her arms around his neck to pull him close.
This was what she’d been needing. She’d been needing his warmth, the feeling of his hands along her skin, in her hair, the taste of him in her mouth. She’d missed his wide, soft lips, and havingactually seen them now in the light and at her leisure only somehow enhanced the feeling of them against her skin. But that wasn’t all.
She could hardly believe he’d finally let her see his face.
Theo pulled away from her mouth and dipped his head low, peppering the delicate skin just beneath her jawline with tiny, ravenous kisses. She gasped and shivered in surprise at the sensation, raking her nails through his hair again, and when he buried his face in her shoulder, she held him while he cried.
Eventually, his broad chest stopped heaving, and he stilled in her arms, aside from one hand gently massaging the nape of her neck.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“For what?”
“For doubting you. For hiding for so long. For missing out, even just when I first got here.”
“It’s all right. We’re here now.” Audrey combed through his hair, and he melted further into her, relaxing his shoulders and letting the tightly wound tension humming through his entire body ease with every stroke of her nails against his scalp. “Not so bad, was it?” He shook his head, and she laughed softly when his large nose burrowed deeper into her neck.
“You’re the first new person I’ve voluntarily shown my face to since the accident. I was so worried you wouldn’t like what you saw. BecauseIdon’t.” He huffed a bitter laugh, and his breath tickled across her neck, sending shivers down her spine. “But you didn’t run from me or flinch away like I was imagining, and I feel silly for thinking that now.” A few more tears spilled from his eyes and soaked into her sweatshirt, and she pulled away slightly and wiped them from his cheeks with her sleeve before pressing his head back into her neck where it belonged.
“I told you I like your face. I wasn’t lying.” She smiled into his hair and breathed in deeply. She could get used to bathing in thatscent of his, whether it was his shampoo or his cologne. She couldn’t tell, but either way, it was intoxicating. “Ireallylike it.”
“I’ll be honest, I’m still mystified by that,” he muttered into her shoulder, his voice muffled by the damp fabric of her sweatshirt. “But I’ll take your word for it from now on. Promise.”
“You’d better, Theodore Sullivan. You’re so much more than the scars you carry.”
He grew silent for a moment before he tilted his head and looked into her eyes. “And for what it’s worth, Audrey, I…” He drew in a deep breath and rolled his lips together. “I thinkyourface is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
It was her turn to blink away tears. No one had ever really told her anything like that before. “Thank you, Theo.”
Theo closed his eyes and they lay quietly on the couch together. He wrapped his arms around her and sighed, his breathing finally slowing and steadying while he lay partially draped over her, warm and solid and safe. He was so big, they barely managed to fit on her tiny loveseat. But Audrey closed her eyes too, relishing the way his weight and warmth settled over her while she continued to stroke his hair and massage his scalp. He was like the world’s best weighted blanket, and she almost drifted off to sleep. Her exhaustion from the day was bone-deep, she was so comfortable like this, and it was sorely tempting.
Was this what life would be like with him?
Was it supposed to be this easy?
Could she have this all the time?
But studying him now unmasked and unguarded was so much more interesting than sleep. She traced her thumb along his dark, heavy brows and counted the moles and freckles that had been hidden by his hair and the mask. There were so many, like constellations spelling out the history of him in the sky, and she cataloged them with her fingertips, filing them away so she could turn themover in her mind later when she thought of him. Every once in a while, he glanced up to study her face the way she was his, perhaps waiting to see if she might change her mind or if she’d drop some act and look away. But she never did.
After a while, he ran a trembling hand through her hair, carefully teasing and twisting the elastic out of her bun so he could properly bury his fingers in it. Audrey had never thought her hair was anything particularly special: it was a plain chestnut brown, nothing more, nothing less, not quite wavy and not much longer than her shoulders. It wasn’t particularly soft or luscious, thick or long, but the way Theo was looking at her and treating it, combing through it with such reverence and care, made her feel like it was the most exquisite thing on the planet.
