“Sam, sweetie, you’re not low-key. You’re barely medium.” I groan, pressing my face into my hands. “Theo is gonna kill me if you guys turn this into a circus.”
“Oh, please, he knew what he was getting himself into when he decided to start sleeping with you,” Naomi scoffs. Before I can argue, Rose throws an arm around me, pulling me into a side hug that squishes my towel dangerously low.
“We’re not hijacking your engagement or wedding,” she says softly. “We just want to celebrate you.”
Elena nods. “You picked a man who worships you. And that’s worth celebrating.” Naomi lifts her glass. “To Sam. And to the man who is somehow even more obsessed with her, than we are annoyed by her.”
“Rude,” I mutter, but my throat is tight again. Harper raises hers last. “To the future Mrs. Jones—may she always remember to lock the office doors,” I laugh. I cry a little more. I try not to flash anyone when the towel shifts. And just when I think it can’t get any sappier, the front door opens.
“Samantha?” Theo’s voice echoes at the entrance, and the four women who trespassed in my apartment look at me like hungry wolves. “Oh no,” I whisper.
Rose grins. “Oh yes,” Naomi smirks, and I swear, right then and there, I considered drying off fully before walking toward my fiancé, but where’s the fun in that? He likes me better when I’m wet anyway.
Theo steps fully into the living room, stopping dead in his tracks when he sees the scene: four women, an open champagne bottle, confetti that was NOT here this morning, and well, me in a towel. Dripping wet. He blinks once. Then slowly drags his gaze from my wet ankles all the way up to where the towel is threatening to give up on its career.
“Sam,” he says, voice deliciously low, “is there a reason you’re hosting a party dressed like you’re about to film my favorite kind of home movie?” Rose chokes on her drink.
Naomi fans herself dramatically. “God. No wonder she said yes.”
I shoot them a glare before turning back to Theo. “I thought I was being murdered,” I say defensively. He raises a brow. “And your plan for dealing with a murderer was… running toward them in a towel still dripping wet?”
“Uhm, yeah?” I snort. “In what universe will that work?”
“In mine!” I snap, pulling the towel tighter as Theo walks toward me with that slow, calculated, I ’m-about-to-do-something-inappropriate stride. Hestops in front of me, eyes heated, amused, and entirely too pleased. “I leave you alone for one afternoon,” he murmurs, “and you end up half-naked in front of an audience.”
I whisper back, “It’s not my fault they broke into the apartment like champagne gremlins.” Harper raises her glass. “We take offense to that.”
“No, you don’t,” I shoot over my shoulder. Theo brushes a wet strand of hair off my cheek, thumb grazing my jaw, the bastard. “You know,” he says softly, “you could’ve texted me a warning.”
“What? ‘Hey, babe, come home, I’m naked and terrified for my life?’”
“I would’ve run red lights.”
“Told you,” Naomi mutters. “He’s obsessed.”
“Ladies, if you excuse me,” he says to them, but leans in, mouth at my ear, whispering so low I feel it, right down my spine. “When they leave, that towel’s coming off.” My knees attempt to resign from their job.
Elena claps her hands. “Okay! Boundaries. Let’s give them a few minutes to get Sam dressed before Theo combusts.”
“Or before I do,” I mutter. Theo just smirks, brushing past me toward the kitchen like he didn’t just threaten to ruin my life in front of an audience. And God help me, I can’t wait for them to leave. I manage to escape into the bedroom, muttering something about ‘needing panties’.
The door clicks shut behind me, and I’ve barelytaken two steps before I feel Theo at my back. “Thought you would like the sight of me wet in a towel,” I tease without turning.
“Oh, I do…” he says, voice dark and velvet-smooth. “But that towel needs to come off, you know, so I can have a better view of how wet you might be.” Before I can fire back, his fingers hook the edge of my towel, and he pulls it loose.
The towel slips down my skin in a hush, pooling at my feet. I gasp, not because I’m cold, but because he’s already sinking to his knees in front of me. “Theo—” I whisper, but my throat goes tight when he places his hands on my hips, thumbs stroking slow, sinful circles that melt my bones.
He looks up at me, eyes dark, full of hunger. He doesn’t bother to hide it. “Let me take a moment,” he murmurs. “Don’t make a sound.” His lips brush my inner thigh, and my knees wobble. I thread my fingers through his hair, tugging just enough to make him groan. “You have five minutes.”
He smirks against my skin. “Oh, that’s more than enough.” The rest of the world, the champagne, the chaos, the towel at my feet, everything fades into a blur as he pulls me closer, as my breath catches, and he puts his mouth on me. He licked me once, twice, and I was long gone by the third. One of his hands slid under my thigh, and he lifted one of my legs over his shoulder, giving him better access to, well, everything. “Oh, fuck?—”
“Quiet, Samantha, they’re going to know what I’m doing to you.”
“Oh, let them know that my fiancé is going down on me.” He just chuckled and kept going. I was so close already, it was ridiculous. By the time I could breathe again, I was half draped across Theo’s shoulder, drunk in that very satisfied, very ‘I forgot what year it is’ sort of way. He presses one last kiss to my hip—smug bastard—before standing and pulling me up with him.
I pat his chest. “You’re a menace.” He kisses my forehead like he didn’t just obliterate all my motor functions. “You’re welcome.”
I try to walk. I really do. But my legs wobble like a newborn deer in heels. “Ugh. I can’t go out there like this. They’ll never let me live it down.” Theo slides an arm around my waist before I eat the floor.
