Chapter 15: Soft Like Thunder: Chapter 14

I THREW MY HEAD BACK, biting on my bottom lip to stifle my moans. We were in an empty classroom. I didn’t even know who it belonged to—or the desk Theo had spread me out on. Theo had pulled me inside, yanked off my shorts and panties, dropped to his knees, and started devouring me. Not a single word passed between us. His tongue on my clit spoke a thousand words by itself.

If someone heard us or walked in, it would be more than embarrassing. At least for me. The threat of being caught didn’t stop me from opening my legs wider, shoving Theo’s face deeper, and coming on his lips, though.

Then he was on his feet, pushing his shorts down to free his cock, palms on my inner thighs, keeping me in place so he could drive inside me. I locked my ankles around his back, held on to his shoulders, and let him ride me.

He wasn’t kidding around, slamming into me like if he didn’t get as deep inside me as he could, the world would collapse. Since my birthday a week ago, Theo had come unleashed, spending his spare time either making me come or getting us both off. This was the only way I could completely let myself go with him. My walls crashed the second he put his mouth on me. Every. Single. Time. He was good.

“Look at you, baby.” His head dropped to watch where we were joined. “Taking me so beautifully. I can’t go a minute without thinking of what this looks like and how you feel wrapped around me.”

“I think about it too,” I breathed back.

“You think about me?” He belted my waist with his hands and captured my gaze with his sharp eyes.

“I do think about you. All the time. Too much.”

With a groan, he shoved his face into my neck and pistoned impossibly deeper inside me.

“That’s my beautiful girl, honest and real.” His lips found my pulse, sucking my skin into his mouth. “Perfect, Helen. Can’t get enough of you.”

I believed him, the way he kissed me, sucked me, fucked me. He’d nabbed me while I’d been walking down the hallway after my last class. We weren’t supposed to see each other today. But here I was, coming all over his cock so hard, I saw stars on the backs of my eyelids.

“Theo,” I cried.

He cupped the back of my head and pushed my face into his chest, muffling my moans with his body. I couldn’t help it, I had to make noise, show him what he did to me. It was biological, instinctual, something that couldn’t be stopped.

“That’s it, Tiger, that’s it,” he cooed in a deep, velvety tone that prolonged my climax until I was wrung out and all I could do was hold on.

Theo tipped me back on the desk, allowing him to go deeper. I felt him swell, stretching my walls until he rutted into me in earnest. Fucking hard and fast, holding my legs like reins, he rode me until finally he gritted out my name and coated my insides with wet heat.

He stilled, staying joined with me even as he set me upright and kissed me wet, hard, and with a passion that took me by surprise, even after the way we’d just gone at each other. I answered him back with the same fervor, nipping, biting, licking until we were both breathless.

Theo’s forehead knocked against mine. “I’m sorry. I was running late for sociology, saw you walking toward me down the hall, and something came over me. I had to have you.”

“Your apology is wasted.” I rubbed my heels down the bubble of his butt to his thighs. “I enjoyed every second of that. You need to pull out, though so I can get dressed. I don’t want to be expelled for being naked with President Whitlock’s beloved son.”

He cupped my cheeks, staying wedged inside me. “I’d never let anything happen to you.”

“Okay,” I whispered. I didn’t believe him, but it was nice that he made that promise.

We got dressed and Theo left the class first, checking if the hall was clear. When he signaled it was, I met him in the hall.

“Where are you going now?” he asked.

“I’m gonna go skate in the courtyard by my dorm, then I need to write a paper.”

“Schoolgirl.” He slid his fingers through his hair. “I’m supposed to be in sociology right now.”

“What? Theodore, get your ass to class!”

He grabbed me, holding me against him. “I’d rather skip it.”

“Hey.” I held his jaw in my hand. “Go to class. Do not take this place for granted.”

His lips touched my nose. “You’re right.” He started to let me go, but he yanked me right back, then he dipped his head to bite my throat. “Too fucking delicious.”

With my neck stinging from his teeth, my mouth thoroughly kissed, and a smile on my face, Theo sent me on my way.

It was dark, and the night held just a tiny bit of chill. Not much, but since my legs were bare, I felt it.

Theo was parked in his usual spot. Normally when he caught sight of me, he would hop out to open my door, because he was a gentleman like that. Tonight, there was no movement coming from inside his car.

He’d left it unlocked, so I climbed in the passenger side. That was when I saw him. Eyes closed, chin to chest, breathing deeply. Theo had fallen asleep waiting for me.

I worked four or five nights a week, and Theo had been here to pick me up each of those nights for weeks. I guess I’d been so caught up in school, work, Luc, and Theo, I hadn’t taken a step back to understand what that really meant. But here it was, right in front of my eyes.

Lashes brushing his cheeks. His mouth slack. Lips looking so soft, I had to quell the urge to kiss them. His arms hanging limp at his sides. Body slumped in his seat. Theo was exhausted, but he was here. He was always here. I didn’t want that to ping around my chest, touching raw nerves and filling black chasms, but it did.

I couldn’t do this. If Theo filled my empty places, I’d get used to it and crave it. That wasn’t what this was, and I didn’t want it to be that.

I poked his shoulder. “Wakey-wakey, Theodosius.”

He startled, jumping in his seat, hand flying up in defense. “What?”

“Time to go home, dude.”

Clearing his throat and wiping the sleep from his eyes, he straightened and turned to me. He took a long moment to look me over, his brow pinched in concentration.

“God, you’re gorgeous.” He sounded like he was coming out of a dream, and that rocked me.

“And you’re tired.” I couldn’t help myself. Reaching across the console, I snagged the back of his neck and brought him toward me. His mouth hit mine in a sleepy kiss that was so tender, I regretted it instantly. “Theo…”

“Tiger,” he murmured, kissing me again. His tongue slipped in my mouth, and his arm circled around me, pulling me halfway out of my seat. I clung to him, easily giving in and meeting his kiss with the same slow, sensual caress of my lips and tongue.

“You need to go to bed,” I whispered. “Come on.”

He released me, but he didn’t move to put the car in drive. In fact, he stayed looking at me while he gripped the steering wheel with one hand, the other catching mine.

“I hate that you work here.” His confession came out hard and fast, and kind of pissy.

“You don’t have to keep picking me up, you know.” Oh, I was definitely pissy.

“You don’t get me, baby. Picking you up is not the problem. I’d give you a ride out of hell if you needed it.” He nodded toward Savage Beauties. “I don’t want you working at this club, serving the kind of men who go in there.”

“I need the money. You know that.”

His fingers flexed around mine. “So, work at a regular bar where half your ass doesn’t have to hang out.”

If he had any clue there’d been a few times I’d let a lot more than half my ass hang out behind those Savage walls, he’d never look at me the same. No more tender kisses. No more sleepy smiles and calling me gorgeous. I read the judgment all over him.

“I wouldn’t make half the money at a regular bar, and I hate to break it to you, but dudes at regular bars are the same ones who go to strip clubs. It’s just that at regular bars, they can get away with being gropey because the bouncers don’t watch the floor like hawks the same way they do at strip clubs. Any time I have a customer even they have a right to my body in there, Ronaldo, Hakim, or Xavier set them straight.” I yanked my hand away and crossed my arms over my chest. “If you have a problem with it, that’s on you. It’s not on me.”

His hand shot out to grip my nape, tugging me toward him so fast he took my breath away. Then his mouth was on mine, crashing, tongue fucking, plundering. I answered back with my teeth, nipping at his lips, scraping his tongue. It was hard, fast, a little painful, and it seared my chest like a brand. Then he gently shoved me back in my seat and pulled out of his spot, driving away from Savage Beauties at a careful pace.

“I do have a problem with it, but you’re right, it’s on me.” His lovely voice was low and tired, with an edge of bitterness, but he wasn’t angry. “I don’t want anyone thinking they get to have any part of you.”

“Dudes think that when I walk down the street, Theo.”

“Theodore,” he gritted out, his hands twisting around the steering wheel like he was trying to strangle it.

“Theodore.” I gave it to him soft, the way he liked it, and his shoulders almost instantly fell from around his ears. “You can’t control people’s thoughts.”

His jaw remained hard. “No one gets to think they can have you. That is not acceptable.”

I really didn’t know where this was coming from or how to handle it. No one had ever been this…I guess, possessive over me. I’d been a friend, a convenient lay, a hookup, but that had always been where it began and ended because that was how I’d always wanted it.

He parked outside my dorm, eyes on the windshield. I should have gotten out and made a run for it. Almost everything inside me screamed to run from this, from him. But the soft part of me Theo kept uncovering wanted him to understand me.

“I get to have Luciana when I graduate.”

Theo’s head whipped sideways, his expression fierce. “What?” he breathed.

“My mom and I have a deal. I support Luc while I’m in school, pay my mom’s debts, and I get my girl when I graduate. My mom’ll sign over custody to me and Luc will be mine. I’m going to take summer classes so I can graduate in two years because three years is way too long for her to live there.”

“You’re taking on your sister?”

I nodded hard. “Yeah. She’s mine. I’m hers. There’s no choice. I have to get her out of there as soon as I can. I refuse to let her live like that.”

He was so still, I had no idea what he was thinking, but I braced myself. I hadn’t told anyone my plans for Luciana, except Mads. She’d been the one to help me formulate my plan and pushed me—pushed me —to fulfill it.

“Jesus…tell me to fuck off.” He took my face in his hand, and even in the dark, I could make out his pleading expression. “Please, baby. I have no idea what I’m talking about. Do what you need to do for Luc and tell me to fuck off.”

Leaning into his palm, my mouth curved. “Fuck off, Theodore.”

“That’s right.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek, then, when I turned, my mouth. “You’re a good girl, Helen. You know that?”

Those words trapped me in a velvet web. Theo could come along, eat my heart out, and I’d just lie there and take it because he’d called me a good girl.

“I know nothing of the sort.” I unbuckled my belt and grabbed my bag, intent on making a run for it. But like always with him, I couldn’t quite tear myself away. “Don’t fall asleep at the wheel. I’d be sad if you died.”

His shoulders shook with laughter. “Sweetest thing you ever said to me.”

I ran then, taking his lovely laugh and sweet words with me. I just didn’t know how to escape them.

Fucking Theodore. He was really going to mess me up if I wasn’t careful.

Last year, I’d taken online courses at Savage River Community College. Once, Madeline had looked at my syllabus and started hysterically laughing. At the time, I’d wanted to be offended, but I couldn’t really get it up, because my Mads hadn’t had very much cause to laugh anymore. Once she’d calmed herself, she told me I was in for a surprise when I enrolled at Savage U. Like always, Mads had been right. My classes were no joke. The work was backbreaking, and it started right out of the gate. If I hadn’t spent a year with Mads, learning how to take notes, study, and write—things I’d never done in high school—I would have been screwed.

Thursdays in the library with Theo were an indulgence. The hour we read Shakespeare could have been shaved down by half if I’d been on my own. I wasn’t giving them up.

After staying behind to speak with my professor, I was running a few minutes late. Theo was going to claim the chair first, and that wouldn’t do. I liked our battle for the seat far too much.

When I rushed down the aisle to our hidden spot, low voices pulled me to a stop. Theo’s, I recognized. I thought I knew who the other voice belonged to, especially when she called him “The,” which was honestly the worst nickname ever.

Slowly, I stuck my head around the end of the aisle, and yeah, I should have backed away instead. Theo was in our chair, and his pretty, blonde ex had her little ass perched on the arm, her legs nestled against his. I was nosy, so I stayed to watch the horror show before me.

“I don’t understand, The.”

He dug his fingers into the sides of his hair. “There’s nothing to understand. I don’t want to talk to you.”

Frustration poured from him. I had a feeling this wasn’t their first time around this circle.

Bitch sniffled. “But, baby, I still love you, you know? I made a mistake, but so did you. If we talk, I know we can get past it. We can get back to how we were. Remember Sarah and Thomas? Remember?”

Theo’s hands dropped, and for a moment, his eyes went hazy. Whoever Abby was talking about, he obviously remembered, and it affected him. His head jerked in my direction, so I fell back a few steps, behind the cover of the bookshelf.

“Yeah, I remember.” He sounded gritty and tired. I was relieved not to be looking at him. If he’d been wistful or pining, I would have punched someone. Maybe both of them. “I also remember you telling me I had to give up the sport I was deeply committed to in order to keep you. And when I didn’t jump, you walked out on two years of me giving you my everything. That’s why this is done, Abby. That’s why there’s nothing more to talk about.”

“You didn’t give me everything. You didn’t. You had more.” She sniffled again, and this time, a choked sob followed. If she hadn’t been an absolute bitch to me and Luc at the T, I would have felt sorry for her. Now, she was just in my way.

“I need you to do what you do and walk away. Right now.”

“Theo…no…”

“Then I will.”

There was shuffling, books slamming, Abby whining, then footsteps coming my way. Fast. Too fast for me to hide, so I didn’t. Theo charged toward me, and he didn’t look the least bit surprised to find me there. Without a word or pause, he grabbed my arm, dragging me with him.

He shoved me into the unisex bathroom, locked the door behind him, and pushed me into the wall. His mouth was on mine, his hands were tearing at my clothes, his steely length prodding my belly.

“Theo—”

“No,” he barked. “I have to have this with you.”

Fisting my hair, he tugged my head back sharply and took my mouth, kissing me deep and hard. His tongue lashed mine, licking my taste, stealing my protests. And then my shorts were unbuttoned and his hand was between my legs, and I forgot to protest when the pad of his finger met my clit.

“Wet, baby,” he mumbled. “So wet, just how I need you.”

Then my shorts were gone. Theo pinned me to the wall with his hips, the tip of him nudging my entrance. A single heartbeat was all it took for us to go from two to one. He speared his cock deep into me. Once he had me where he wanted me, he took control of my body, how I moved on him, bouncing me up and down his length while driving into me with brutal force. My nails grappled on his shoulders. All I could do was hold on and let him take me.

He covered me with his body, his raging emotions, his mouth, his hands, all of him. I took all he gave, holding on, shutting my brain off, solely focusing on the pleasure between my thighs. If I focused on anything else, like this was happening, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. So I pushed it all aside, keeping only Theo.

And he gave it to me. Even though he was out of his mind, barely there, he took care of me, rubbing my clit in a perfect rhythm that made my legs tremble and my belly quiver. He shoved my shirt under my chin, took my nipple between his lips, and sucked deep, groaning around my flesh. My head fell against the tile. Anguished moans escaped my throat, echoing around the small room.

My climax spurred Theo on even more. He pounded into me so rough, I couldn’t take a full breath. I knew I’d feel where he’d been and what he’d done tomorrow. He gripped my ass with bruising strength, digging his fingertips in.

I hated and loved the way he handled me in equal measures. I wanted him to stop and for this to never end. This was wrong. And so right. When he buried himself all the way to the deepest part of me, the twin tears trailing down my cheeks were mourning the end and crying out that this ever began.

Theo was breathing heavily. He shoved his face into my neck, kissing my throat like feathers.

And that was when I woke up from my sex-addled stupor. That dose of sweet pissed me off. I slapped him on the chest, then I shoved him hard. Of course, the only movement that got me was him lifting his head to give me a confused look.

“Put me down right fucking now, Theo,” I growled.

He walked me to the counter next to the sink and plopped me on it, but he did not back away, nor did he disengage our bodies. His cock was still sunk deep inside me. He held me tight, so I had no hope of kicking him out of my body.

“What just changed?” he demanded. “One second, we’re both here, breathing hard after what was honestly the hottest experience of my life—and maybe yours too, based on how tight your pussy was strangling me. The next, you’re pissy and telling me to let you go. So, tell me, what changed?”

“Get out of me immediately. I don’t want you inside me anymore.”

He froze, glaring at me. Then he slowly backed away until we were no longer joined.

I winced at the sting he left behind. But he didn’t let me move. He still stood between my open legs, rubbing his palms along my upper thighs.

“Talk, Helen. I need you to give me your words.”

“Oh, so you do know it’s me? I wasn’t sure if you were fucking me or Abby. Or maybe it didn’t really matter who you fucked, as long as you had a warm hole to dump your rage into.” I slapped his chest with enough force to make him wince. “I don’t need you to be my boyfriend, but my pussy is not a receptacle for your feelings for another woman. You owe me a lot more respect than that. So fuck you. And get the hell out of my way so I can put my underwear on before I catch hepatitis from this counter.”

“Helen—”

“No.” I hopped down, and he allowed me to slide by to grab my clothes. I shoved my legs in my shorts and glared at him. “You told me when we started this you don’t want to be responsible for my emotions—and you hammered that home just now. This is my line in the sand I will not let you cross again. We can be done. We don’t have to have a conversation. I’m out, Theo.”

“Theodore,” he murmured.

“Fuck you, Theo,” I hissed.

I got a step toward the door before Theo was on me, whipping me around to face him.

“I knew it was you,” he shot out. “How can you think I didn’t know exactly who I was with? I’ve never been this way with anyone else. What we have is only ours.”

“I saw you and Abby.”

He nodded. “I know you did, baby. I saw you too.”

“Who are Sarah and Thomas?”

He jerked back, clearly surprised by my question. He answered anyway, and I wished he hadn’t. “They’re the names we thought of for our future kids. In , Helen.”

I winced like he’d struck me. “Cute. Very Waspy and perfect. You’re obviously still torn up about your breakup. You’re so devastated and angry at her, you had to wreck my pussy and—”

He came at me, cupping my face with both hands. All the anger and roughness from earlier was gone, replaced with the gentle Theo I knew.

“Did I hurt you, baby?”

“Yeah, you did.”

His eyes flared. His hands went to the top of his head. “I hurt you, Helen? You’re telling me I hurt you?”

I nodded, but my fight had evaporated at his devastation. Because that’s what I was seeing. Theo was beside himself right now, pacing the small bathroom like a feral cat.

“Theo, I didn’t mean it like that. Yeah, you were rougher than you’ve ever been, and I will definitely feel it tomorrow, but that would have been okay if you were with me the whole time.” I pressed my hand to my forehead. “You made me feel used and cheap—and you’ve made me feel that way before. That’s what hurt—getting that from you.”

He dropped his hands, sweeping me with his gaze. And then he was on me, pulling me in his arms, not to ravage me, but to hold me against him.

“I don’t think that of you. I will never think that of you. Ever, Helen.” His lips touched the top of my head again and again. “I out of my mind, but there was never a second I didn’t know who I was with. And that was about you and me. Because the whole time she was there, I was thinking about how badly I wanted you in my lap reading Shakespeare with me.”

“You were angry.”

“Yeah, I was. I was angry at her for getting in my face, finding our spot, bringing up shit we’ve settled. I was pissed you had to see it and would think I had invited that to our spot. I shouldn’t have taken you when I was mad, but I need you to believe when I’m inside you, it’s only you and me. I will never bring anyone else between us.”

In my head, Mads was telling me to listen to what he was saying. To feel his arms around me and take it all in. But I didn’t want this, these emotions, this attachment. We agreed from the beginning what we were and what we weren’t, but we hadn’t agreed on this. And I just couldn’t.

I blinked up at him. “This is too much.”

“What?” he breathed.

“This, what’s happening here. We said sex, friendship, but not this. I’m not your girlfriend.”

He studied me with eyes that were duller than they’d ever been. Then he nodded. “You’re right. I’m bad at keeping to my own rules.”

I removed myself from his arms, grinning as I did, even though I didn’t like it.

“Do better, Theodore.” I tapped his chest. “You have it easy with me. Lots of sex, no responsibilities except not being an asshole. Don’t screw it up.”

I shoved every ounce of light I had left into my words to convince us both we weren’t more than just sex.

He cocked his head, studying me some more, now from a distance. Then he grinned, and I knew his smiles enough to recognize it was forced.

“I’ll work on that.” Then he shook his head. “I don’t want to screw up a good thing.”

“Then don’t.”

Our gazes locked, and the heaviness in them betrayed the lightness of our words. But neither of us were ready nor willing to take on the weight of what could be, that much was obvious.

Maybe one day, though. For Mads and all she’d lost, all she’d never have, I’d keep my one day open.