Page 93 of Reckless
I want him almost obsessively. Things are so good between us right now, but I’m terrified of it all blowing up in my face. I’ve been the pawn between two parents who hate each other, and subjecting my daughter to the same complications keeps me up at night.
Regardless, I can’t keep my eyes from drifting to him. My body from drawing closer to him. My hand from trailing between my legs in the bath while I think about him. My feelings for him have become more than lust.
Vivi chucks the chicken again and Peter scuttles across the floor like a geriatric cannon, narrowly avoiding the wall—and Theo’s feet. When he gets the toy, he does his best imitation of a lion killing a gazelle. Eyes wild, head whipping it from side to side. Vivi squeals with joy because this is her and Peter’s new favorite game.
“Peter, pull yourself together and bring that back.” I use my this-ER-is-going-to-shit voice, drawing Peter’s attention for a moment. With a scowl at me, he begrudgingly brings the toy back and spits it out in front of Vivi.
“That dog isn’t deaf, Theo. He just doesn’t listen to you,” I say as Theo places the plate of cookies on the coffee table in front of me with a gentle squeeze to my shoulder.
“How do you know?” he replies as he takes one cookie over to his mom, who is relaxing in the armchair.
“Because he listens to me. And I’m a doctor.” He grabs a cookie and hands it to me, before taking one for himself and sitting on the couch directly behind me. I can feel one of his bare feet against the side of my ass.
I blush.
He’s sitting so close, and his mom is right there. Plus, he ate me out and we haven’t even talked about it.
I feel like a fucking teenager around him.
“But are you a vet?” he says from behind me as he chews.
“No, but—”
“Okay. I’ll trust a vet on this then.”
“Has a vet confirmed that he’s deaf?”
“No.”
“So, your only proof is that he doesn’t listen to you?”
“Exactly. Just like you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
His knee nudges playfully at my back as Vivi turns and crawls toward her grandmother with big, sparkly brown eyes.
Her dad’s eyes.
“That I need to take you both to the vet.”
It’s Loretta who snorts this time as she reaches for Vivi, grinning wide as she pulls her in for snuggles. “Maybe you just don’t have anything interesting to say and that’s why they don’t listen to you. Did you ever think about that, Theo Dale Silva?”
My head snaps around to face Theo and I mouth, “Dale?”
He’s got a super sexy name and then...Dale?
He knees me again, but this time, he reaches under my hair and gives the nape of my neck a firm squeeze that has my entire body clenching. His head drops next to mine, and his stubble scrapes against the shell of my ear as he whispers, “Stop being so mean to me. It gets me hard when you’re mouthy. Makes me think of all the fun ways I could put that mouth to work instead. And I don’t need a boner right now.”
My cheeks flame again as he releases me and lounges back on the couch like nothing at all just transpired between us.
Perhaps I should move away from him after that toe-curling warring, but my body follows him instead. I lean back against his legs and revel in his heat and sturdiness.
He and his mom start talking aboutGrey’s Anatomy, and even though I could join in, my brain is stuck on how good it feels to lean on someone. To trust someone.
And I realize it then.
Theo Dale Silva has wormed his way into my heart, and I never stood a chance at keeping him out.
