“I got that,” I say, and he laughs, grabbing my hips to set a pace that’s hard and perfect.
Our amusement bleeds away to rough groans, the sounds of Theo’s body working into mine. His fingers dig into me, moving up to my breasts. He rests a hand on my chest, the heel of his palm pressing over my heart. It’s the softest pressure there, the most intense pressure inside me, but his hand feels heaviest. It hurts the best.
I reach up and press my palm over his heart. It’s racing. We’re even. He smiles, like he wants that. Like that’s what he was waiting for.
It’s only minutes until I’m close. I tell him shakily, digging my fingers into his arms. His eyes get fever bright, and he curls over me, sealing our mouths together as he snakes his hand between us to get me there.
“Oh god.” I groan, my eyes squeezing shut as my body pulls tighter and tighter.
“Yeah,” he breathes against my ear, nipping at my skin. “When you come, I come. I can feel how fucking close you are—”
His words push me so hard over the edge of pleasure that I surge up against him, crying out. He presses his face into the curve of my neck, panting, until his pace shortens, stutters. The sound he makes as he comes stretches out my orgasm; it’s so relieved, so wrung out.
The tension leaches out of Theo’s body in waves, in the slowing undulation of his hips and the way our kissing turns from frantic to sated. Everything slows, and after an indeterminate stretch of time, Theo lets out a sigh, his final kiss so much like the first: tender, soft.
He lifts some of his weight off me, brushing my wild hair back from my face. I frame his jaw with my hands, pressing my thumb to his bottom lip. We stay caught in a gaze that says so much of what I can’t out loud. His heart is racing from what we just did.
Did he feel it, too? That line we crossed? It didn’t feel like simple sex. Then again, nothing between us has ever been simple.
My heart skips as he gets up to take care of the condom, and it’s still unsteady when I come back from my trip to the bathroom. He’s lying with his hands behind his head, eyes fixed on the ceiling. They move to me when I crawl in next to him, and his mouth pulls up proudly.
“You look wrecked.”
I appraise him as I settle in. “Did I not work you hard enough? You should be passed out. Or incapable of speech, at the very least.”
He brings me closer, wrapping me up in his arms and dropping a kiss on my head. “You destroyed me, Shepard. I’m just not ready to sleep yet.”
There’s a tenderness in his voice that pushes straight into my heart. I tilt my head back, searching for it in his eyes. It’s there. He’s not even trying to hide it.
“Me neither,” I murmur. “Want to watch a movie or something?”
His response is immediate and accompanied by a smirk. “Or something. But a movie’s good in the meantime.” I huff out a laugh, and he rolls on top of me, biting gently at my neck. “We gonna fight over who gets to pick it?”
“Always,” I say.
He freezes and then I do, realizing how that sounds. Like we have an infinite number of these days, when in reality we have a handful and then it’s done.
His mouth parts, like he’s going to say something, but instead after a beat, he grazes his lips over mine. He takes it deep within seconds, tangling his fingers in my hair.
Whatever he was thinking of saying, I’m glad he stopped. I don’t have the right words, either.
Twenty-Three
We get to our Airbnb in Page, Arizona, Monday afternoon. It’s an adorable boxy white stucco house, standing out starkly against the desert landscape. I release a happy breath, glad to be out of a hotel room and back in a place that feels like a home. We’ll be in an Airbnb in Sedona, too.
“How many bedrooms this time, Shep?” Theo asks as I pull the van into the driveway edged with red rock gravel.
Unimpressed, I reply, “Three.”
I checked after the Zion snafu. And once Theo and I started sleeping together, checked again.
He tosses me a wink that I catch in the air and pretend to flick out the window, but that only amuses him further, his dimple carving deep into his cheek. Behind us, Paul chuckles. We’ve kept things normal around him, but I can’t help but think he’s playing chicken with us. Theo told me earlier that he suspected Paul was awake when he snuck back into their hotel room this morning.
The thought of what we did last night—the sex, and the movie after it—has my body and heart pulsing in tandem.
Pushing that thought aside for now, I thread my arm through Paul’s as we walk inside. The house is gorgeous and a bit of a splurge; it has soft white walls and wood-beam ceilings, with windows all along the back of the house that look out onto a wide patio and, beyond that, a valley surrounded by majestic red and pink buttes. The sunsets must be unreal.
“Don’t worry, I got the bags.” Theo’s dry statement from the front door is punctuated by two thumps.
“Awesome!” I call back, grinning over at Paul, who laughs and pats my hand.
We explore the rest of the house together while Theo goes to the grocery store to grab food for dinner.
The backyard extends well past the patio, and we spend some time poking around back there, attempting to identify all the different plants, which sends Paul into a fifteen-minute monologue about the plants he’s got his eye on for his own backyard. His excitement is so adorable that I could listen to him all night, but eventually we head inside. I insist that Paul take the master bedroom, mainly because he’s Paul. Even though he and Theo have been happily sharing a room this whole trip, I want him to be comfortable.
But it doesn’t hurt that the remaining bedrooms are on the other side of the house.
“Oh, I couldn’t take this,” he says, his eyes roaming around the large room, which also has an en suite bathroom.
“Of course you can, and you will. You’re the guest of honor on this trip.”
He turns to me, pulling me tight against his side. “No, sweetheart, that’s you. It’s been years since Theo and I have traveled together, and you made it happen. I owe you the world for letting me have this time with him.” He smiles. “And with you.”
I have nothing to say that won’t end in me ugly crying, so I pull him into a proper hug instead.
The front door opens and closes, but it’s been too long since I’ve had a hug like this—still strong but softened with age, with a whiff of old-school cologne—so I don’t step out of Paul’s embrace, even when Theo’s footsteps stop in the doorway.
“Is she okay?”
When I pull back, I see the stricken look on his face. It wipes clean when he sees that I’m, in fact, just fine.
“Just having a tender moment.” I nudge Paul gently, my chest aching from that hug and Theo’s concern. “What’d you get us at the store?”
Theo’s gaze lingers on me, then Paul, and I swear longing flashes in his eyes. But he blinks and it’s gone. “I picked up steak and vegetables. We can grill it all together.”
Once we’ve prepped everything in the kitchen, Paul stays behind to get the potatoes going. Meanwhile, I follow Theo to the grill, which is already heated up.
I set up my skewer station and get to work while Theo throws the steaks on the grill. They hiss, and for a minute, it’s the only sound between us. Even the world surrounding us seems hushed, waiting for something.