Everything disappears. The rain, the night, and every ounce of my hesitation, every fear for the future or what might happen next. There is only now. Right now. Here, us, this.
I pull my T-shirt over my head and drop it to the floor.
Theo sucks in a startled breath. Wide-eyed, he stares down at me, his gaze raking over my naked breasts. He’s frozen, unwilling or unable to move, so I take matters into my own hands and grip the hem of his wet shirt. I pull it up and over his head, pulling it past his chin, yanking harder when his hands get caught in the sleeves. The shirt and towel tumble to the floor.
Then he’s standing bare-chested in front of me, his eyes incandescent like some nocturnal animal’s, silvery bright in the dark.
I place my hands on his chest. With my fingertips, I trace his scars, the snarls and puckers of flesh, his roadmap of ancient trauma. Suzanne guessed right: he was burned, and badly. The left side of his body from shoulder to hip is a testament to the accident that stole his speech.
But to me, his scars are beautiful. So eloquent, these monuments to his pain. It’s perverse, but I wish I had scars like these. I wish I could look at my body in a mirror and think, Yes. There is the physical evidence of my suffering. It can’t be all in my head, because there it is, carved on my skin like etchings on glass.
I have nothing so concrete. All my wounds are on the inside, hidden in places they can never heal.
I press a kiss to his chest, right above his throbbing heart. Then I tilt my head back and look up into his blazing eyes. “I don’t care if we’re crazy. You make me believe that all the things I stopped believing in might actually exist. You give me faith, Theo. Until I lost it, I had no idea how impossible it is to live without.”
His lids drift shut. He slowly exhales. Then he opens his eyes, picks me up in his arms, and heads toward the staircase.
Effortlessly, he takes the stairs two at a time. I cling to his strong shoulders, watching his profile, my mind clear, the nagging voice inside it mercifully silent. When we get to the bedroom, he strides straight over to the bed. Then he lays me down on the mattress, kneels beside the bed, slides one arm underneath me and the other around my hips, and rests his head on my stomach.
Then he simply breathes.
I touch his damp hair, running my fingers through the strands. Rain slides down the patio windows in long, silvery trails, like tears.
He turns his head so his lips are on my stomach. They’re moving swiftly and silently, as if he’s saying a prayer.
It isn’t until I feel water slide over my temples that I realize I’m crying.
Theo lifts his head and looks at me. His eyes burn as hotly as his skin.
I whisper, “Please,” but I don’t know what I’m asking for.
Still on his knees, he takes my face in his hands and gently kisses me. It’s a reverent kiss, soft and chaste, at least at first. He’s hesitant, his lips barely grazing mine, until I thread my hands around the back of his neck and pull him closer.
I curl my body toward his and take his tongue into my mouth. Desire flashes over me like a detonation.
He makes a sound of pleasure deep in his throat. His fingers twist in my hair.
Outside, a rolling boom of thunder rattles the windows. Waves pummel the shore with a wild, powerful sound that matches the crashing beat of my heart.
Then his lips are gone, but I get them again somewhere else—the tender flesh of my inner thigh. The heat of his open mouth on my flesh is shocking. He sucks, and the sharp scrape of his teeth makes me gasp.
“Theo. Theo.”
His name is a plea, a soft, broken noise beneath the drum of the rain. He slips his fingers into the waistband of my shorts, then slowly eases my shorts and panties past my hips and down my legs. Then his big, rough hands are all over my body. Everywhere they roam, they’re followed by his lips.
Breasts, stomach, thighs, neck—his shaking hands and greedy mouth map the contours of my body. I quake as he devours me, my eyes closed and my lips parted, dragging air into my lungs. When I feel his mouth between my legs, I release a low, guttural moan that makes him dig his fingers into my bottom.
Like grief, pleasure comes in waves. It builds and recedes and builds again until it crashes over you. Then you either swim, or drown. I’ve ridden hundred-foot-tall waves of grief—cresting the top so I can see the endless line of waves waiting to roll in before tumbling to the bottom and starting the ride up all over again—so I know how to survive without going under.
What I didn’t expect was pleasure that could surpass the height and power of those waves of sorrow. I didn’t expect I would so gladly stop treading water so I could drown.
With my nails digging into his shoulders and a cry of surrender raw in my throat, I convulse around that bright, burning spot of pleasure between my legs. I sink so deep into that pleasure, it’s like a kind of death—there’s nothing else. I’m obliterated.