Between The Lines

He hissed when she reached down and danced her fingers over his cock. God, he’d dreamed of this, of her hand on him, stroking him just like this.

Pleasure began to gather all the way down in the soles of his feet, and he jerked back with a rueful laugh.

“Did I do something wrong?” She sat up, eyebrows raised in alarm.

“Not at all.” Catching her hand in his—the one that had just been stroking him—he pressed his lips to it in a kiss. “It was a little too good, actually.”

“Oh.” She drew out the word, understanding dawning. “Duly noted.”

She smirked. What choice did he have but to kiss her?

They fell back down to the bed, the covers tangling around them. Rolling on top of her, he braced his weight on his arms on either side of her head, looking down into that face that he knew like he knew his own.

Jo Marchande wasn’t classically pretty. Her face was a bit too square, her features too angular. Her milky-white skin stayed pale year-round, except for the times she got so absorbed in a book she was reading out in the sun that she didn’t realize she was burning. The smattering of golden freckles stayed year-round, too, and he took a moment now to brush a kiss over them on each cheek.

It was her eyes that made people look at her twice. They were huge, a stunning gray that shifted with her mood, surrounded by lashes that she never bothered to tint with mascara. She never bothered with makeup at all, something he loved because it was so different from all of the other women he knew.

Her hair spread out around her head on the pillow as she returned his gaze steadily, the chestnut color adding warmth to that pale skin. No, she wasn’t classically beautiful, but he wouldn’t have changed a damn thing.

She was his.

“I love you.” The words slipped from his lips before he could even think about what he was saying. Her mouth parted in surprise, but then he was burying his face in that long mane of hair, tucking his hand between her legs. She rocked up against him as he tested one more time that she was ready.

His fingers came away soaked.

“Theo, I—” The words got caught in her throat as he reached between them and lined the head of his cock up with the sweet, sweet heat of her center.

She gasped as he slid just the head of his erection into her slickness. He sank his teeth into his lower lip as nerves fired to life. It was everything he could do to hold still, letting her adjust to the feeling of him inside her.

He wasn’t expecting her to grab onto his hips and rock herself up.

“Fuck,” he cursed as he slid deeper into her soaking-wet channel. He wanted so badly to be in deep, to claim her from the inside out, but when the head of his cock met resistance, he had to force himself to still.

His limbs shaking with the exertion of holding back, he pressed his damp forehead against hers, looking right into her eyes. Their breath mingled, fanning out over their faces, and he kissed her again, their first kiss with him inside her.

“Are you ready?” He rocked back and forth the slightest bit, testing. She whimpered, but it was a sound of pleasure, not of pain.

“Hurry up.” Her voice was greedy, her fingers eager as they dug into his ass. She pulled him closer, and he resisted for just one more minute before he pressed forward, the cock that was swollen past the point of pain pushing deeper.

Beneath him she winced, sinking her teeth into her lower lip. He automatically stilled, but she urged him on with an impatient hiss.

Her body resisted him, clenching tightly until finally something gave way, allowing him to slide home. He grunted as he sheathed himself fully inside her, the sensation causing his eyes to roll back in his head.

“Holy shit,” Jo whispered beneath him, looking up at him with eyes that were bright.

“It will only hurt for a minute. I promise.” Theo rocked inside her, just a bit to test, and she moaned.

“It hurts, but not the kind you mean.” Her hands moved from his ass to his hips, and she shifted impatiently beneath him. “It hurts because I don’t even know what this is, but I want it so bad. Please, Theo. Please. Move.”

The last strings of his self-control snapped. With small rocking motions, he pulled back, then worked his way back in. He’d never had anything so tight, so hot around his cock, and if he wasn’t careful, he was going to lose it before he could make her feel good again.

She wouldn’t let him be careful. She rocked beneath him, urging him to go faster and faster. Her tight sheath was swollen, pulling him back in again and again. The pleasure rose hot and fast, and sweat beaded on his forehead as he strained to hold back.

Slipping one hand between their bodies, he located her clit and focused his attention on it. At the same time, he dipped his head and sucked one of her puckered nipples into his mouth.

Beneath him she went taut as a bow. Her cleft tightened as her eyes went wild with pleasure yet again, and he felt his own release start, fire licking along every inch of his skin. Closing his eyes, he finally allowed himself to let go, to let himself revel in the fact that Jo Marchande, the strong, proud girl that he’d loved since the day they met, had given herself to him.

After, he pressed a kiss to her brow. Pulling out, he disposed of the condom, then slid back into the bed, tucking them both under his soft, expensive sheets. She was already drowsy when he tugged her against him, fitting his chest to her back.

“You okay?” He tucked a ribbon of hair behind her ear. She sighed, a small murmur of contentment that made his stomach do a small flip.

How was it possible that she was his? He’d never done anything to deserve having someone so wonderful in his life.

According to his father, he was lazy. He had no drive, no direction, no purpose in life. He was squandering the opportunities that he had. This, of course, was in direct contrast to Theodore Lawrence Sr., who owned a huge import-export company. His mother, famous in her native Brazil before her death, had been a world-renowned concert pianist.

He’d never live up to either of them, so he didn’t bother to try. He knew what he was worth, and it wasn’t much. So the fact that Jo Marchande, the woman who had imprinted herself into his very DNA, had deemed him worthy?

It wasn’t something that he would ever take for granted.

“I’ve never been better.” Casting a sleepy smile over her shoulder at him, she snuggled back into his arms. “Can I stay?”

His heart skipped a beat, sending his pulse skittering to catch up.

“You can stay.” If he had his way, she’d stay forever.

* * *

“You just couldn’t control yourself, could you?”

Theo stiffened, a steel rod snapping into place in his spine. Slowly, he turned, doing his best to look nonchalant as he leaned back against the endless expanse of marble countertop in the rarely used kitchen of the house he shared with his father.

“What am I lacking control in this time, exactly?” His voice was cold when he spoke, every trace of the warmth he’d had for Jo frozen into daggers of ice, meant to maim or at the very least protect. “You have such a long list, you’ll forgive me for not immediately understanding what it is that you’re referring to, this time.”

“You know exactly.” His father stepped out of the shadows and into the dim kitchen, leaning against the breakfast bar, his stance mirroring Theo’s own. He lifted his heavy crystal snifter of expensive scotch for a small sip. His gaze slid over the matching one in his son’s hand, but as per usual, he said nothing about the fact that Theo was drinking, even though he wasn’t yet twenty-one.

Theo knew that, at the end of the day, Theodore Sr. just didn’t care.

“I assume you’re referring to Jo.” The words were sour in his mouth. He hated even saying her name right now, not wanting to cast shadows on something that, to him, was so perfect. So theirs.

“Of course I’m referring to Jo.” His father’s voice was layered heavily with impatience. “They are family friends. They are our neighbors. They are good people.”

Theo said nothing. What was there to say?

“You have nothing to offer any of them,” his father continued. The utter contempt in his voice was clear. “You’ve disappointed me time and again, Theodore, but I thought that you at least had the morals to stay away from those girls. Shame on you.”

It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. Theo took a hefty swallow of his drink, focusing on the fire that it left as it traveled down to his gut. Taking a moment to study his father—the man he’d come from—he wondered how a person could seem to detest someone who had come from them so very much.

Ha. Why was he even questioning that? He knew exactly what his father saw—he saw his lost wife. Theo had inherited his golden skin, his exotic features, his glossy black hair, even the charm that he used regularly, from his mother.

Theo knew that, if given a choice, his father would rather have his mother here in his place.

“Did you hear what I said, boy?” Theodore Sr. set his glass down on the polished countertop with a sharp crack. The hand not holding Theo’s own glass fisted in the thick velvet of his robe, kneading at it like a stress ball.

“Jo and I have been dating for over a year.” Theo tried to rein in his temper. “It’s not like I plan on sleeping with her and leaving the next day.”

“You shouldn’t be sleeping with her at all,” his father snorted with derision, shaking his head. “What if you got her pregnant? You really think you could make a go of it? You’d run right out the door, and then where would she be?”

Theo expected nothing less from his dad, but hearing the harsh words was still a lash from a whip. He knew he’d do no such thing, but hearing out loud what his own flesh and blood really thought of him reminded him of the worst hangover he’d ever had. Try as he might, he just couldn’t ever outrun the nagging pain.

“Have a nice night, Dad.” Draining the last of his scotch in one giant swallow, he left the kitchen through the servants’ door, preferring the longer route back to his room to going anywhere near his father.

The conversation they’d just had was nothing new. Often he was able to completely deflect the criticism, keeping the barbs from landing and piercing his skin.

Tonight, though? Some of those words had landed.

He loved Jo more than anything. But what if his father was right?

CHAPTER THREE

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR JOOOO, happy birthday to you.”

“Cake! Gimme.” Standing up in her seat, Jo reached for the tower of cupcakes that Mamesie had so painstakingly arranged on the antique silver platter. Grabbing the one with the most frosting, she sank her teeth into the decadent chocolate cake, shuddering with pleasure when the sweetness of the icing hit her tongue.

“I’m hurt.” Warm breath misted over her ear, and she made a sound low in her throat. “I thought I was the only one who could pull that sound out of you. Yet here you are, cheating on me with a cupcake.”

“Sorry, babe.” Turning in his arms, she tuned out the chatter of her mother and three sisters as she focused in on Theo. Thinking about what they’d done last night had a fizzy feeling bubbling up inside her, making her feel like she’d drunk a giant glass of champagne too fast. “The cupcake offers instant gratification. Unlike someone I can think of, who made me wait an entire year.”

“It was worth waiting for, though, wasn’t it?” His voice was a low rumble against her ear. And even though she was still sore, she felt molten heat gather between her thighs. “At least, you seemed to think so this morning when you were moaning my name.”

She uttered another small moan at that. Putting space between them before she shoved the cupcakes off the table and pulled him down for another round, she tucked another bite of cupcake in her mouth as a distraction.

“I know you’re trying to change the topic, but I don’t think it’s working the way you hoped.” Jo sucked in a sharp breath as Theo’s stare tracked the way her tongue was licking sprinkles off the top of the cupcake. “I can think of a lot of places that would look awfully pretty with a bit of white icing on them.”

“Stop it!” Elbowing him, Jo took another deliberate step away, conscious of the fact that her family was right there. But when she looked around, Mamesie had gone into the kitchen for plates, and her sisters Beth and Amy were fully occupied by their own pieces of cake, still being young enough to have their attention fully commanded by the promise of sugar.

Her older sister, Meg, though, cast her a wink before handing her a napkin. Even if she hadn’t heard what was said, it was obvious that she knew that something had changed with her little sister. In response, Jo felt her cheeks heat.

“I need to use the bathroom.” Giving Theo’s hand a little squeeze, she swallowed the last bite of her cupcake and excused herself. She headed upstairs to the bathroom she shared with Amy rather than the small powder room on the main floor.

She splashed icy-cold water on her face, which felt good but did nothing to fade the flush on her cheeks. How was it possible that she wanted Theo again already? Did that wanting ever stop?

Wanting to give her telltale blush time to fade before she returned downstairs—Mamesie was no idiot, but Jo still wasn’t keen on the idea of flaunting her newfound sexuality in front of her mother—Jo wandered down the hall to her bedroom. Her laptop sat open on the slab of plywood and two sawhorses she used as a desk, flashing a retro screen saver of different shapes made of neon lines, undulating around the screen. Yellow legal pads clumped in haphazard piles around the computer, most covered in her messy scrawl.

The keyboard beckoned. She still had a thousand words to go on her latest story. It was just a little article for the local paper, something she submitted every couple of weeks, but for every article that they published, she received a check for a hundred dollars. It wasn’t much, but she loved the process of sealing that check in the crisp white envelope, of feeding it into the bank machine to deposit it into her account.

Mamesie had raised her, Meg, Beth and Amy by herself, and while they certainly no longer had access to some of the finer things that they’d had when her dad had been alive, she knew that Mamesie would never accept money from her girls—not unless the situation were truly dire. So Jo tucked away what she could. She didn’t dare to dream too big, but maybe one day she could take some journalism courses. Learn a way to apply her writing to a career, when she’d saved enough.

She reread what she’d written earlier while she waited for her body to calm the hell down. Pulling out the creaky desk chair that she was pretty sure bore a permanent imprint of her butt, she rolled up to her laptop and started clicking through.

“What are you doing up here?” She had no idea how long it had been when Theo spoke from the doorway, scaring the shit out of her. She jolted, her elbow sliding over the keys of her keyboard. Swearing, she hurriedly pressed the back arrows to restore her work.

“I came up to cool off a bit after you got me all hot and bothered,” she replied, her gaze veering back to her screen. She was almost at the end. She was pretty sure she only needed a couple more sentences, and they were right there, fresh in her head...

“It’s your birthday party.” Theo frowned at her computer as he entered her room, closing the door behind him with the heel of his shoe—his fancy, hand-tooled, Italian leather shoe. Jo didn’t pay any attention to fashion, none at all, but her sister Meg did, and she was forever sighing over the gorgeous things that the Lawrences had.

Things the Lawrences had. Things the Marchandes did not. Neither family talked about it, but the difference in their positions in life was always there, the elephant in any room in which members of both families had gathered.

At least, it was always there for Jo. It hadn’t been, not always—back when her dad had been alive, they’d enjoyed a lot of the same privileges that the Lawrences had. She knew that Theo and his dad couldn’t have cared less that there was now a class difference between their families, but it also meant that when it came to certain things, like money, Theo especially just didn’t understand.

“Are you working?” Hastily Jo tried to close out of her document, but when she looked up and saw the puzzled expression on his face, she knew that he’d seen. “Why are you hiding up here working when everyone is downstairs waiting for you?”

“I told you. I came up here to cool off a bit.” She could hear the defensiveness in her voice and pulled in a deep breath. “I read a few lines of my article and got sucked in.”

“Well, come back down.” He reached for her hand. “It’s present time. Amy’s about to pee herself, she’s so excited.”

Jo started to rise, but something about the way he was being so insistent had her hackles rising. Lowering herself back to her chair, she crossed her arms over her chest, the movement stiff. “Tell them I’ll be down in ten minutes. I just have a few more lines to finish.”

“Forget the lines, babe.” Theo’s smile was charming, deadly when he aimed it at you, but Jo had known him long enough that she could steel herself against it—well, sometimes. “It’s your birthday. Finish them another time.”

“I can’t.” Her eyes narrowed—why was he pushing? “My deadline is tonight. I should have handed the piece in already.”

“Does it really matter?” Clearly confused, Theo waved a sure hand through the air—the lord in his manor. “Blow off the deadline. I don’t see what the big deal is.”

“The big deal is that they’re counting on me to hand the piece in. If I don’t, they have to scramble to find something else for that spot.” Jo’s voice was incredulous—why was this so hard for Theo to understand? “And also, if I don’t hand the article in, I don’t get paid.”

“They pay you peanuts. What’s the point?” Theo reached for her hands again, and this time instead of just avoiding him, she swatted them away. Rising from her chair, she stood to face him, clenched fists growing sweaty at her sides.

“A hundred dollars is not peanuts.” Her voice was shaking. Damn it, Theo knew—he knew—that this job was important to her. “I’m saving it for school, and you know it.”

“Well, a hundred dollars isn’t anything to me.” He shrugged dismissively, and Jo felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. “Just...please. Just forget about the article. I’ll give you the hundred dollars, okay? Just please come back downstairs so that I can give you your birthday present.”

For a long moment she was speechless. She actually kind of felt like throwing up.

She and Theo had their differences, but she loved him. She’d given him her body. Her heart.

And here he was pushing her to forget something that meant the world to her, just so he could get his way right now.

“You think I’m going to take money from you?” Horrified, Jo rubbed her hands over the hips of her jeans, trying to ease the clamminess. “After what we just did last night, how do you think that makes me feel?”

Understanding dawned on his face—at least, the tiniest inkling of it. “No, no. Jo, Jojo, that’s not what the money is for. Please—”

“No, of course it’s not.” Damn it, she was shouting. This was nothing new for her, not with her temper, but she couldn’t ever remember feeling exactly like this, sickness mixed in with the growing rage. “The money is so that I will ignore what I have repeatedly told you that I want right now, on my own damn birthday, and so that I will go do what you want. Lord Lawrence gets his way yet again.”

“Don’t call me that.” A dangerous spark flickered through Theo’s eyes. Lord Lawrence was what they’d all called him when he’d been younger and acting like a bit of a brat. “You know I fucking hate that.”

“Sucks, doesn’t it,” Jo taunted, finding a sick pleasure in getting some kind of reaction out of him. “When someone ignores what you’ve repeatedly said you want so that they can do what they want instead.”

“Wait a minute.” Theo suddenly stood up ramrod straight. He scrubbed his hands over his face before looking back at Jo. “You’re not talking about last night. Please tell me you’re not talking about last night.”

“Jesus Christ, Theo.” An inarticulate scream burst from her throat. “No, I’m not fucking talking about last night. If I hadn’t wanted your hands on me, you would have bloody well known it.”

“Right. I know,” he replied hastily, his restless hands now moving to rake through his hair. “You’re just so mad. And if we’re just talking about the article...”

If we’re just talking about the article, then I don’t know what the hell you’re so worked up about.

Her mouth, the mouth she’d used all over his body not twenty-four hours earlier, fell open with disbelief. Theo’s indifference to the gifts he’d been given had been a bone of contention between them before, but it had been...a small bone. A fish bone. Something that a sweet smile from him could help send into the garbage disposal.

This? This was a dinosaur drumstick, too big to be ground down in the kitchen sink.

“Look, I shouldn’t have done that.” Theo spoke hastily, trying to smooth over what he’d said. “That was wrong. Let’s not fight on your birthday.”

“Are you saying that because you’re actually sorry?” Resentment was bitter on her tongue. “Or are you saying it so that you get your way?”

She watched, almost as if she’d stepped outside herself, as temper flared in those caramel-colored eyes. Copper fire—that was what it looked like.

“Why are you acting this way?” He bit his words out the way he always did when he was angry, as though it took more effort to form them. “I just wanted to spend your birthday with you.”

“That’s not an answer.” He growled in response, actually fucking growled, and took a step toward her. She held up both hands and thought she might even have hissed. They’d been reduced to animals in their fury, and she was really fucking tempted to bite him.

And not in a fun way.

“Get out of my room.” Her voice was shaking. As she pointed at the door, she noticed that her hand was, too.

“What?” Incredulity lent an almost comical cast to his face. “Are you fucking serious right now?”

“I said get out!” she screamed, her voice echoing off the small confines of her room. Theo reeled back as if she’d slapped him, and her palm itched to do just that. He must have read the desire in her eyes, on her face, because his face reddened, the effect of his own temper, but he took a step back. With one last look, he spun on the heel of his ridiculously expensive shoes and stormed out of her room, slamming the door behind him. Minutes later, Jo felt the frame of the house shake as he slammed the front door as well. Crossing to her window, she hugged her arms to her chest and watched as Theo’s tall, lanky figure strode across the lawn, climbing over the short fence that separated their properties, his movements jerky.

He would drink now, she knew that absolutely. He’d pull one of his dad’s priceless bottles of scotch from the ornate liquor cabinet and numb everything he felt with the gilded liquid. He would retreat into a sullen cocoon, erecting the barriers that were his first line of defense.

He’d never erected those same barriers against her, but she knew him inside and out. And knowing him as she did, she saw with sudden, startling clarity that he truly wouldn’t understand why she’d responded the way she had. Why she hadn’t been able to just jump onboard Theo’s Fun Train...because to him, responsibility didn’t exist.

Knowing him the way she did, she wondered why she only now understood that this particular quirk of his meant that they were never, ever going to be able to work.

Acid churned in her belly as she sank down to the floor. It rose to her throat when Beth, the sister she was closest to, cracked open the door and stuck her head in, and she couldn’t reply.