“I can walk, you know!” she squeaked.
He shook his head and tossed his shirt over his shoulder with his other hand. “Not tonight, you don’t.” He pulled her into his chest and picked her up. “You have to be right here, against my heart, the whole time. That’s the price you pay for choosing to stay.”
“So it’s like a bridge-troll-toll thing?”
“I was thinking more of a monkey’s-paw situation. Unintended consequences versus actual tax.”
Audrey threw her arms around his neck and surrendered while he carried her into his room, dipping only to switch on the lamp by the side of his bed before setting her gently down on it. Turned out the entire third floor was the master suite.
And she was right.
His bed was predictably huge.
Wonder of wonders, Theo was, of course, the type of man who had an actual bed frame—thick, sturdy wood in a modern style, low profile and stained a cool walnut. It was a king size, draped in a plush white duvet covered in a multitude of luxurious pillows accented with simple charcoal throws piled at the head, all neatly arranged without a wrinkle in sight. More industrial pipe shelving was mounted to the historic brick walls of the house next to a matching dresser across from the bed, dotted with a smattering of books and photos and fabric storage boxes. A few tasteful paintings hung on the walls in a combination of abstract and modern art styles, all of them in vibrant shades of red. There was no TV in sight, and the windows were uncovered and overlooked the river, just like the ones in the living room.
“Do you wake up at dawn with the sunlight streaming in?” she asked, drawing her legs beneath her on top of the thick covers.
Theo chuckled and shook his head. “No. Just watch.” He scooped up a remote from the nightstand closest to the door and punched a button. Machinery whirred and dark blackout shades descended from a thin slot she hadn’t noticed in the ceiling.
“My god,” she gasped. She turned to face him. “Seriously: How much money do you have? I know it’s rude to ask, but this is insane.” Then she narrowed her eyes accusingly at him. “Or did you just rent some fancy Airbnb for a night to impress me? Is this all some elaborate ruse? You planned this, didn’t you?”
He laughed harder and pulled the covers back, fluffing the pillows and tossing her a few as he went. “No, sweetheart, I promise. Not an elaborate con. But I will tell you a secret if you’ll tell me another of yours.”
“You want more than my deepest, darkest, I’m-still-a-virgin confession? Violet’s the only other person who knows.”
“I showed you my scars. My family, doctors, and Diego are the only other people who’ve seen those.”
All right, that was a fair point.
“Speaking of Violet,” Theo said, opening a drawer and digging around in it before passing her an extra phone charger. “Do you need to text her?”
“Oh shit, yes, thank you. She’d be one to worry. And she’s going to be way too excited about this outcome.”
“That makes two of us.”
“Yeah, well, Vi will be leaping straight to conclusions all over the place.” She pulled her phone out from her pocket and shot off a quick text before turning it off entirely to avoid the inevitable explosive aftermath and plugging the charger into the built-in USB port on the nightstand next to her side.
She looked back up as he was getting ready to slide into bed.
“Wait, Theo—do you honestly expect me to believe you sleep in sweatpants?” She pointed at them. “No one actually sleeps in these things, right? And you’re like a walking furnace.”
He paused, hand gripping the covers frozen in midair, and gave her a pointed look. “Areyougoing to? Sleep in that getup, I mean. Because—”
He blanched when Audrey reached up and fully unzipped his hoodie before ripping off his ginormous pants and tossing them both onto the edge of the bed, leaving her just in her panties and his circus tent of a gloriously soft T-shirt. The cool air prickled against her bare legs.
“Happy now?” She jutted her chin out defiantly. “You know what? I’ve already confessed, and I trust you. I’m not going to dance around things anymore.” She threw herself under the covers—which, of course, were so soft and silky they probably cost a fortune and had some ridiculously high thread count—and waited, watching him intently to see what his next move was.
Theo rolled his jaw pensively and considered her for a moment. Red crept up the sides of his neck and to the tips of his ears, but he hooked both thumbs under the waistband of his sweatpants and tugged them down sharply, stepping out of them and lifting them up for display before dropping them defiantly to the ground.
Oh.
Audrey’s mouth went dry.
Theo was…
He was practically naked, and his black boxer briefs did nothing to minimize the massive bulge between his thick, muscular legs. She didn’t know much about these sorts of things, but she did know he was big in more ways than one. Her heart raced while she thought about what that thin fabric was concealing, and what Theo had demanded of her right before dropping her onto the bed. But she must have been staring, because he cleared his throat and ran a handthrough his thick hair, sending it swirling around his jawline like liquid silk.
“Happy now?” he asked with a shrug, a single dark eyebrow raised.
