Jesus Christ, what had this man been through?
He kicked off his ruined shoes next, and then undid his slacks. With a shove, they fell to the floor along with his boxers, and he faced me, fully naked.
“Move,” he said.
I stepped forward, letting him climb in behind me. He wrapped his arms around my chest and he pulled me backward, all the way down to the shower floor, positioning me right in front of him so I had his warmth at my back and the hot water hitting my front.
A full-body shudder wracked through me, and he held me tighter.
He growled. “If you end up with pneumonia...”
“You know you can’t actually get sick from being cold and wet, right? That’s just a myth.”
“Maybe so, but it can weaken your immune system, making you more susceptible to illnesses, and you’re already sick.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but he cut me off.
“Stop arguing with me. You need all the energy you can spare to heat your body back up.”
“I’m fine,” I lied. “You don’t need to do this. Despite what my mom told you, I cantake care of myself.”
He snorted.
“Ican,” I argued. “And you hate me, so why the hell are you sitting here trying to—”
He clapped his hand over my face, covering both my mouthandnose. “Shhh. Go to sleep.”
I tried slapping at him, but he grabbed my hands out of the air with his free one and pinned my wrists to my stomach.
“I already told you I don’t hate you,” he said. “Stop fishing for compliments. It’s pathetic.”
I bit his palm. His hand stayed where it was, and I felt his dick twitch behind me, confirming that he liked it. Oh, no. Had I been right this whole time? Did Theo have some sort of pain or degradation kink, and I’d been unwittingly feeding into it?
The long history of our arguments unspooled through my mind. In the tattoo shop. At the Italian restaurant. At my parents’ place. Hell, every time we’d been around each other for the past month. All our toxic texts and emails and death glares.
Had Theo been turned on every time? The thought made me want to clench my thighs together. Because all I could picture was his cock fully erect, tucked into his waistband to hide it from sight while we insulted each other.
I bit his hand harder.
He hissed in a breath and finally let me go, and I could feel his dick swelling at my lower back. What in the entire fuck was I supposed to do with this new information? Or did I even need to do anything with it?
“What you said earlier,” I began.
He released his hold on my wrists to push my hair aside and started kneading my shoulders. “What, specifically? We’ve said a lot of things to each other tonight.”
I closed my eyes. His fingers felt like heaven, stroking over my skin in circles, just the right amount of pressure. Between that, the water, and the heat of his body, I was finally starting to defrost, finally starting to unwind from how tightly coiled I’d been all night. Maddie. Theo and I fighting worse than usual. The almost–car accident. They’d sent my adrenaline sky-high, which masked my gastritis symptoms, but I knew the crash was coming, and honestly? Theo telling me we were done couldn’t have come at a better time, because I didn’t think I could keep this up for much longer without serious, lasting consequences to my health.
His thumbs stroked up my spine, one on either side, and then started rubbing slow circles over the top of my back. I let out a low noise and dropped my chin to my chest, only to catch sight of his thick thighs framing mine. Tentatively, I reached out and put my hands on them, forcing my fingers to keep still instead of tracing the long lines of his muscles. Part of my art courses had included anatomy, and even years later, I was still fascinated by the way the human body was put together.
“Stella,” Theo said.
“Mmm?”
“What were you about to say?”
“Lower.”
He dropped his voice. “What were you about to—”
