He twisted that lock of hair around his index finger. “You’re what?” The question was low and strained.
I couldn’t answer. I was too overcome with heartbreak and worry, terror and hopelessness, to even try. There was no doubt he saw the raw pain on my face, because in a beat, he slipped off the ledge, letting go of my hair, and coming in close. He stopped right before touching me.
A rough sound of frustration caught in my throat, making his full mouth tip to the side with heated amusement. “I’m going to touch you, Imogen.” His ragged voice mirrored the beat of my heart. “If you’ll let me.”
I could only give him the barest nod.
His hands gripped my waist then, hard fingers curling into my flesh. He wasn’t gentle as he pressed the full length of my body against his. “There,” he groaned.
The sensation of his chest against mine, of our stomachs touching one another, filled me with sharp need. “Theo,” I breathed, overcome. “I want—”
He nodded eagerly and rumbled ayesbefore he placed his leg between mine and pressed my body down against it, arms clamped firmly around my waist.
Our lips hovered close, but neither of us closed the small distance.
“It’s miserable…” He sounded almost angry as he slid my body away from his, across his hard thigh. It sent a shock of pleasure though my belly. “To see you and not be able to touch you. To hear pain in your voice and not be able to soothe you.” He drew me sharply back toward him, sloshing the water between us.
I dragged my fingers over his chest. “Don’t you dare…” A moan cut me off.
Again, he moved me across him, his guidance frustrated and strong. One of his hands dove into my wet hair and tipped my head back, baring my neck for him to kiss.
“Don’t talk to me about…” My inhale shook as his soft lips pressed to the underside of my jaw, over my racing pulse, behind my ear. “Misery.”
He gave a vexed growl. We both knew the deep ache of wanting and not having.
Between the searing wet kisses he set over my neck and shoulders, he mumbled words that I could only make out in bits.I need this… Feel incredible… Imogen, let me…He dropped his other hand to my backside and squeezed. “Fuck.”
If we’d clung to any restraint at all, it went to smoke then. We lost ourselves to frantic, intoxicated desire. Bodies writhing, teeth and lips scraping and pressing. Each moan and movement seemed laced with our pain and fury, and even as he kept guiding me across his muscled leg, even as a hot curl of pleasure began to slowly wind its way up my spine, as he kept those low encouraging words in my ear, we did not kiss.
It seemed we both knew without having to speak it—that intimacy would shred us into scraps.
This.This was what we’d needed, I told myself, but in truth, this was all we could have. My hands coasted over his hard shoulders,up into his thick hair. My body began to tense from the way he pulled and pushed at my hips, leading me closer and closer to the edge. “Please. I want…”
“You can have it.” The words were dark and graveled. “Anything,” he breathed. His mouth was against my collarbone, his tongue making languid swipes across my skin.
“Theo.”
He pulled back abruptly, hold hard as he ground me against him. “I need to watch you.”
Gods damn him for looking at me like that. His dark eyes danced over my face, over my breasts, taking me in like it was the last time he’d get to. Like I was an unknown breath away from turning to water and slipping through his hold forever.
I took over then, keeping our eyes locked as I moved toward release.
“Good,” he breathed. His fingers that had been firm at my hips coasted up my sides as he watched me. “Like that.”
When I tipped back my head, he ran them down my neck, between my breasts. The water rippled and sloshed. I savored the salt on my tongue, the sounds of his heavy breaths.
Finally, I fought to trap my moan as that coiling heat inside me burst. Theodore groaned like the sight of me trembling and arching caused him pain. He took my face between his hands. “I—”
But he stopped himself. Shook his head. He set a kiss to my ear. Scraped his teeth across the lobe. We listened to the soft echo of our slowing breaths.
The quiet that fell between us was the strained kind. The kind that begged to be acknowledged, but neither of us could do it. Instead, Theodore quietly scooped me up into his arms and settled me on the edge of the pool. He placed himself on the tiled ledge before me.
Seawater ran over our bodies, pooling on the sparkling tile. “I’m not done with you,” he said as he traced at every curve and line of my wet body with brazen hunger in his eyes. “Open your legs, Imogen.”
The command made my whole body sparkle with molten anticipation. I wanted him to take me, wanted him to drown out my every assailing thought with the force of his body. I wanted to be close to him, as I might never get the chance to be again. I obeyed him slowly, feeling safe and unrestrained and dazzling.
His gaze was fire and shadow as he took me in. His jaw tightened, his chest expanded with a slow breath. Sweet pain carved a line between his brows. “I don’t know how you do it,” he said as he lifted a dripping hand to skate up the inside of my thigh.
