The Worst Wedding Date

I don’t know where I am, or possibly even who I am, but as I slowly drift to consciousness, unaware if I’ve been asleep for five minutes or five hours, I don’t care.

I’m content.

Every bit of me.

My body is a giant lump of happy. My brain is whispering peaceful suggestions of beach sunrises with the gentle sounds of the surf. Something is vibrating comfortably on my hip. And I can smell the musky, clean scent of warm man and feel his body lined up behind mine.

Theo.

Oh my god.

I had sex with Theo.

And it was glorious.

Magnificent.

Earth-shattering and life-altering.

And he’s still in bed with me. In paradise.

And that’s a cat curled up on my hip, purring.

This, my soul whispers. This is what you’re missing.

I never would’ve expected feeling so much peace and safety here. With Theo. But I do.

Fun? I’ve always envied his ability to find it anywhere. Always. And I’ve thought some extremely unflattering things about his sense of responsibility over the years at the same time that I was craving fun.

But I never realized he could be fun and have moments of utter peace. That he ever has moments of rest.

That he can be smiling with the mischief of ten thousand wood sprites one minute and washing my face of tears the next.

And that I’d love to listen to the rhythmic sound of his breath, and that I’d like that he’s holding my breast in his sleep, and that I like even more that I’m slowly realizing there’s a thick, hard meat stick cradled against my butt cheeks.

Meat stick.

Oh my god.

I said that.

“Beans,” he murmurs into my hair.

Oh my god again. I told him beans was my safe word.

Who uses beans as a safe word?

Worse, why did I think I’d need one when I was in charge? Tie me up and blindfold me, Theo.

I am still so boring.

“Beans,” he repeats, stronger, and I realize he’s using the safe word.

“Do—do you want me to leave?” I whisper. There’s pale morning light filtering in through the curtains.

“Stop—claws—ow.” He moves his hand off my breast and swats at something. “Beans, Miss Doodles.”

Oh.

The cat.

He’s shooing the cat.

I giggle as the cat leaps off the bed.

He harrumphs into my hair, readjusts his whole body so his erection is nestled harder against my butt, and resumes holding my breast.

I bite my tongue.

Am I supposed to ask how he slept? Or if he wants me to do something to relieve some pressure in his penis?

Hi, I’m Laney, and I am so lame and bad at dirty talk.

He probably forgot it’s me here in bed with him.

This is probably one of those things he does so often that he doesn’t really care who he’s with.

But is it?

He told me I’m not convenient. Did he change his mind in the ten minutes that he was making me come in the bistro kitchen, or when we had sex?

Or is he pickier about who he dates than I think he is?

“I was this close to getting engaged a year ago,” my brain decides I need to blurt out.

Theo yawns. “Guess you’re awake.”

“And I haven’t slept with anyone since,” my mouth continues for me.

“The logic logics,” he murmurs in my hair.

He’s not telling me to shut up.

Not squirming.

Not running for the hills.

“You’re right. You ruined me for sex with any other man, so I’m now going to turn into the crazy woman who desperately needs to marry you for your penis.”

He snickers, which makes his cock rub more along my butt crack, and oh my god, I’m wondering what it would be like if he played with me there.

And I sigh.

I’m not a can you see if I get turned on if you play with my butt? kind of girl, nor can I manage to tell him I like him without sounding like a complete doofus.

But then he kisses my shoulder. “Regrets, Laney?”

“No,” I whisper. “Not at all.”

He doesn’t reply.

He doesn’t kiss me again either.

Doesn’t pinch my nipple, even though I know he could.

“Do you do this all the time?” I cringe, wishing I’d done a better job of hiding the naked vulnerability obvious in the question.

He’s not moving, so it’s not like he can go more still, but I swear he does. More tense. More something.

Did he quit breathing?

Am I finally freaking him out?

“No,” he replies quietly before I can take the question back.

He doesn’t elaborate.

I should get up.

Or turn around and stroke his erection and ask if he wants to have morning fun.

Instead, I think I’m ruining this. “Why not?” I whisper.

“Some things matter.”

My heart flutters in a slow somersault. “What matters to you?”

“Do you always wake up this talkative?”

“No.”

He takes a deep breath and settles closer, pulling me even tighter still, until his chin is resting on my shoulder. I shift too and hold his forearm against me.

And I wait.

Once again, I don’t think he’ll answer me. But even when he’s quiet, even when he’s not answering—and let’s be real, why should he?—I don’t feel like an inconvenience.

I don’t feel like I’m annoying.

I don’t feel like he’s pulling away.

Hard to imagine when he has me tucked so thoroughly against him.

“Why’d you say no?” he asks.

“Not like I have anyone to talk to in the mornings.”

“To the proposal.”

I cringe.

He tightens his grip.

Not like I can’t breathe tight.

More like I’ve got you, you’re safe tight.

“I didn’t like him,” I whisper. “I was supposed to, and he was fine—he didn’t mistreat me—but I didn’t like him. My parents loved him, so I thought there was something wrong with me that I didn’t. That if I just got to know him better, I’d find this mystical thing that seemed to be missing in our relationship. But when he started talking about getting married…”

Theo doesn’t say anything.

Just lies there, quietly breathing behind me.

“When I realized I was more worried about disappointing my parents than I was about if I’d be happy with him, I knew it wasn’t the right relationship for me. And I realized I didn’t even know if my whole life was the life for me.”

“Hard thing to face.”

“Why is it so easy to tell you this?”

“I’ve been too much of a shit to judge anyone else.”

“I don’t think you’re a shit.”

“Can be.”

“Are you being a shit here? Right now?”

“No.”

“Would you tell me if you were?”

“Yes.”

“Would Sabrina think you’re being a shit?”

That earns a soft chuckle. “She always thinks I’m being a shit.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

He shifts behind me, and this time, he pulls away.

But only for a minute before he’s pushing me onto my back and crawling on top of me. It’s instinct to spread my legs and cradle his hips and his impressive morning erection.

“Hi,” I whisper, like a complete and total dork.

His brown eyes study me. There’s no cocky grin. No mocking my awkward hi at the first sight of his face this morning. Just an entirely more serious Theo than I ever would’ve given him credit for being. Even if only in the occasional moment.

“I don’t fuck around with women I don’t like.”

My belly tingles. My nipples tighten. And my overworked vagina decides she’s not so tired after all.

“Is this—is this fucking around?”

“I like you, Laney. I have always liked you, even when I hated myself for it. This is the scariest shit I have ever done.”

“I don’t want to be scary.”

“You were born that way, princess.”

“I didn’t mean to be.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, but there’s a smile playing on his lips. “You’re my favorite pain in the ass.”

I loop my arms around his neck, wanting to lick the patterns of his tattoos from his collarbone down as far as they go. “I like you too.”

One eye cracks open, and oh my heart.

Is Theo Monroe terrified that I’ll hurt him? That I’m playing with him? That this is a vacation fling, a walk on the wild side, something to get out of my system so I’ll have stories to tell when I go back and marry a total stick in the mud that my parents approve of?

He seems so immune to what anyone thinks about him.

But he does care.

He cares what Emma thinks. He cares what his dad thinks.

And I’m slowly realizing he cares what I think.

“I’ve been stuck in this holding pattern for the past year,” I tell him, “waiting for something exciting to happen, and that’s exactly the problem. I can’t wait to live. I have to take the step. And I don’t know who I’ll be when I land, but I can’t find out if I don’t jump.”

“You wanna jump?”

“I’ve always wanted to jump, but I’ve never been brave enough to deal with the consequences.”

“Feeling brave now?”

I nod while I brush his hair back off his forehead.

“You sure?”

I nod again.

He studies me again like he can see into not just my soul but my future.

I hold my breath.

I don’t know why. But it feels necessary.

Like jumping off of one cliff just showed me there are so many more to leap from.

My mom used to say that the only way you go when you jump is down.

But I don’t think she’s right.

I think jumping is the first step to soaring.

And then Theo’s serious face disappears behind the world’s largest, most mischievous, most breathtakingly gorgeous grin. “Good.” He scoots off me, rising in the morning light without an ounce of modesty or discomfort about being naked. “Let’s go.”

“Go…where?”

He flings my suitcase up on the bed, bringing with it one of those knitted hearts that are all over the resort, then bends, giving me a view of the most spectacularly chiseled butt cheeks for a mere second before he’s pulling briefs up to cover them.

“Time to be brave, Laney.”

“But—but—” I can’t make the words aren’t we going to have morning sex? come out of my mouth, so instead, I jerk a hand up and down, demonstrating my bare breasts.

His grin gets grinnier. “Only good girls who face their fears get more orgasms.”

My heart pitter-patters.

I could fall for this Theo.

I could fall very, very hard.

And it might hurt when I land, but what if it doesn’t?

Only one way to find out.

And that’s to be all-in.