My mouth opened on a silent cry as he filled me inch by inch.
He wrapped his lube-slicked fingers around my cock. “This is mine,” he said, giving me a single firm stroke.
Then he braced himself over me on one forearm and moved his other hand to swipe a tear from my cheek that I didn’t remember shedding. “And this is mine, too,” he said fiercely. “Every part of you. Always. Understand?”
I didn’t. Not really. My mind had been hollowed out with need and want, and a single thought echoed through it over and over with each beat of my heart.Theo, Theo, Theo.
“I love you, Porter,” Theo said as he began to move. “I love you endlessly. Every single part of you. And I will never stop.”
More tears—where were they coming from?—filled my vision, so I clasped his jaw with both hands and held on as he began to fuck me in deep, hard strokes. Every movement was a possession, a claiming, a vow he was carving into my skin.
It wasn’t just the best sex we’d ever had; it was a reckoning.A homecoming. A reminder of every moment over the past three years that had brought us to this place.
Itwasunreasonable to love someone so much, just like Theo had said. Irrational to give another person so much of yourself and trust them to carry it carefully.
But loving Theo was also the safest, sanest thing I’d ever done.
When I came, it felt like falling and flying at once, my whole body drawn tight-tight-tight, then undone in a rush. Theo followed with a shudder, spilling hot inside me while crying my name in a voice full of wonder, like he couldn’t believe I was real.
When Theo finally pulled out of me and collapsed at my side on his back, sweat-damp and breathless, neither of us spoke for a long moment. But that was okay because being fucked that way… well, it pretty much said everything, didn’t it? Words were extraneous.
Theo turned his head to look at me.
“I love you, Porter Sunday,” he said. “In case that wasn’t clear.”
I laughed—well, wheezed—helplessly, and my heart squeezed. Okay, maybenotso extraneous.
“I love you, too,” I said. “So much. And I loveus. I believe in us. Thank you for reminding me how much.”
Theo frowned. “Had you forgotten?”
“No. Not really. I…” I hesitated.
He rolled toward me and leaned up on one elbow. “Look, I don’t want to pressure you to talk if you’re not ready. But I want you to remember there’snothingyou can’t tell me.”
I huffed. “Like those ‘we listen and we don’t judge’ TikToks?”
“Yes, exactly. If you’re unhappy in this house, or if seeing your brothers get engaged has made you want to do that sooner than we planned, or if you changed your mind and want to, ah, have a… a child,” he said, with only a slight quaver in his voice. “I’m not saying I’m ready to do those things immediately, or maybe at all, but we could certainly have a conversation?—”
“Not at all?” I blinked guilelessly. “But, honey… what about Jimmi-Lou?”
Theo’s eyes widened for a single instant before he realized I was teasing. “Cocky. Little.Shit,” he said, punctuating each word with a poke to my ribs. “I’m over here baring my heart, telling you that if you want to confess to a fucking murder, I’ll help you move the body. And meanwhile,you?—”
I grabbed his hand in both of mine and kissed it, smiling so wide I felt like my face might crack in two. “I do not want a baby. Quarterly sleepovers with Aiden—and I guess the twins, eventually—is plenty. I do want to get married, probably, but not right now. I want to stay in this house until we’re old and gray. And I don’t have any bodies to bury. I haven’t even angry-sonneted anyone in years.”
“You’d better not have,” Theo muttered darkly.
I laughed again, burying my face in his neck.
“So, then…?”
At this point, it would have been more ridiculous not to confess, right? I sighed and rolled onto my back, throwing my forearm over my eyes. Theo rolled, too, following me.
“It’s silly. And petty. And mean,” I began.
“Porter,” Theo said in a hushed voice.
“No, seriously. It is. And it’s embarrassing. Mortifying, really?—”
