That was right. He’d never seen her freckles before—they’d always been covered. When he leaned down and pressed his lips to one of them, closing his eyes and running his nose softly along all the tiny russet spots she’d so long despised, Audrey felt her cheeks burn anew. She’d never really liked them. Kids used to make fun of her for them in school, calling her a dirty little orphan, permanently flecked with mud.
It didn’t help that her foster mom at the time didn’t wash her clothes very often.
“I would spend a lifetime trying to count, catalog, and kiss all of your stars.” When he did exactly that with another, and another, and another, tracing them all with his fingers and tapping pointedly as he pretended to number them, the corners of Audrey’s lips tugged upward despite herself.
Trust an artist to appreciate the paint the universe had splattered her with.
But still something itched at the back of her mind. “You’ve made me pasta before, haven’t you?”
Theo waggled his eyebrows at her, his smug look back in full force. “Maybe.”
She sighed and shook her head. She should have guessed. “You’ve never brought meanythingfrom a restaurant, have you?”
His smugness only grew, and he dipped down to nip at her lips again, drawing the bottom one between his teeth. “Maybe I really like cooking, since I like working with my hands. Maybe I got into dough-based foods as part of my PT, since kneading works all my hand muscles so thoroughly. And maybe I quite liked it, and got quite good at it.”
“You cheeky bastard.”
He cooked.
She’d won the lottery.
He snorted. “That’s not all I had prepped. I also made dessert—a surprise—and I had something else planned while we waited for things to cook. An activity for us to do together.” He trailed his fingers down her neck and tilted her head to the side so he could press his lips just beneath her jaw. When he grazed his teeth across her skin, she shivered.
“Oh yeah?” Her voice shook as she spoke. It was all she could do to stay coherent for whatever game they were playing now. “What activity?”
“I was going to eat you out on top of my quartz counters.”
He—what?
Audrey’s mouth went dry.
“You were going to bemyappetizer,” he growled. Theo dipped lower, nuzzling along the swell of her breasts while he mouthed at her nipples again. “Tiny thing that you are—a delicious. Little.Snack.” He punctuated each word with a deliberate suck, smacking his lips with apparent relish.
Oh god.
When his calloused hands grazed across her ribs, she jolted and arched beneath his weight at the sensation. He was steadily making his way lower, sweeping his lips across her stomach, teasing her and tickling her softly with his fingers and his mouth as he went.
“I was going to lift you up, rip those fucking jeans off, and spread your pretty little legs wide for me,” he breathed, his breath swirling warm atop her stomach, scalding her far more than the water of his shower had. “Taste you with the tip of my tongue”—he licked it across her skin in a demonstration, dragging it lightly along her hip while his fingers dug into her thighs—“listen to you gasp and scream, watch you writhe, make you beg until my mouth made you see stars.”
He pressed a kiss to the top of her mound where her hair curled dark before leaning down and slowly parting her legs with his wide palms, watching with rapt attention while he gradually revealed her sex for a closer inspection. “I’ve been dying to explore you, you see. I’m really quite the intrepid adventurer.” He looked back up at her and raised one dark eyebrow, his expression positively wicked. “I’m curious about what sounds you’ll make for me this time. And I want to see for myself if you taste every bit as sweet as I suspect you do.”
Audrey could hardly breathe as he tugged her legs over his shoulders, tilting her hips up slightly and sliding a pillow underneath. She’d never done this before, no one had ever been down there like this before, her heart was pounding in her ears, her cheeks were hot, she couldn’tbreathe, and then—
And then Theo lowered his face between her legs.
The second his mouth made contact with her clit, Audrey gasped and threw her head back.
Lightning coursed through her entire body.
Electricity danced beneath her skin.
Theo didn’t look up. Instead, his lips continued their ministrations as he mouthed at her slit, languidly kissing her everywhere he pleased, taking his time while he tasted her the way he’d promised he would. But when she flailed on the bed, his left hand shot up to grab one of hers, and he gradually lowered it to his damp hair.
“Hold on tight, sweetheart,” he murmured against her inner thigh, pressing her fingers to his scalp while he pressed another kiss to her skin. “Pullhard. I like it.”
She buried her hands into his thick waves and held on, exactly as he said. And when she jolted and yanked as he grazed a particularly sensitive spot with his lips, he moaned before digging his hands forcefully into her ass, pulling her all the way up to his mouth and slipping his tongue inside.
Audrey closed her eyes and gave herself over to the building sensation as Theo devoured her with the enthusiasm of a man starved and rabid, hungry and desperate. The urge to move was overwhelming, and he helped her when he seemed to sense it by rocking her hips across his face with his hands as he worked, his large nose grazing against her clit and driving her mad with every tilt forward and up. It took them a moment, but together they found their rhythm.
