Page 95 of You, with a View

“Have you been reading the comments on your videos?” he asks, his eyes locked with mine. “The ones where people say they’ve called their grandparents, their parents, their people to tell them they love them because they’ve realized how lucky they are?The ones where people say this story you’re telling is helping them with their own grief?”

“Yes,” I whisper. Those are the ones that heal me the most.

“You think that’s not success? You think I don’t look at you and wonder what you see inme?” His thumb moves down to my cheek, and he follows it with his eyes. “You think I don’t watch you taking pictures or editing them on your computer with that scrunchy little face you make”—he grins when I let out a choked laugh—“and sit in awe of the work you do? How people connect with it? Because I promise you, I do. If you could see yourself through my eyes, your head wouldn’t fit through the door.”

It’s not my head that’s grown, it’s my heart, suddenly too big for my chest. It presses painfully at my ribs, struggling to get out so it can plop itself in Theo’s hands.

“Don’t put yourself up against me,” he says. “I’m going to be the one who doesn’t measure up.”

“That’s not true,” I say, insulted on his behalf.

“Itis.” There’s something searching in his voice, in the way he looks at me. He inhales, as if he’s going to say more.

But instead he lets out a pained, frustrated sigh, then grazes his lips over the corner of my mouth, moving to the other side. I close my eyes, parting my lips to let him in if he wants it.

“I hate that you felt like you had to lie to me,” he murmurs. “But just so we’re clear, I want you, Noelle. Don’t think that there are conditions to the way I feel about you.”

I pull back, as breathless as if he’d been kissing me for minutes or hours, instead of just teasing me with his mouth. “I feel the same way.”

His gaze turns intent. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He sighs, dragging his mouth along my cheek, until it gets to my ear. “Tell me a secret.”

“I don’t want to be done with this in two days.” As soon as that last confession is out, the relief pours through me like adrenaline. “Tell me yours.”

He pulls back. “I don’t want to be done with this at all.”

Firecrackers in my blood. It’s the only way to describe the feeling, and I suddenly have to be closer to him, so I crawl into his lap. I cradle his face and bring him to me, laughing against his surprised inhale, then licking up his groan. He adjusts to the change in mood flawlessly, cupping my ass to pull me closer.

Theo’s kiss turns intense immediately, and I take it, because I can. Because we battle, but at the end of the day we’re doing it side by side.

“I need you,” he says against my mouth.

“Can we go—”

He has me in his arms, striding toward the door, before I can sayinside. He closes and locks the patio door behind us, then carries me to his room, tossing me onto the bed.

“I knew you wanted to throw me around,” I say as he crawls over me, biting softly at my neck, sucking at my skin. He moves up to my jaw, the corner of my mouth, before nipping at my bottom lip.

He props himself up on one elbow, tangling his free hand into my hair. For a moment, he just looks down at me. I wish I had my camera so I could capture this moment, even though I know I’ll never forget—it’s the beginning of something I don’t see the end of.

“I meant all of that,” he says. “I want to keep seeing you when we get home.”

I run my fingers through his hair, melting when his eyes fall closed, his mouth pulling up. “I do, too. And I’m sorry I lied.”

“I understand,” he says hoarsely, then kisses me so deeply, with an urgency I’m not sureIunderstand, though my body runs wild with it.

Our clothes are gone in minutes, and I grip his hair while he settles between my legs, licking at me until I’m begging for him to make me come. He pushes me over the edge with brutal care, so hard I have to muffle my sounds with the back of my wrist. And when he crawls back over me, panting from all his tireless work, I take the condom he pulled from the pocket of his jeans and put it on him, watch as he leans back and takes himself in hand, stroking up and down through the wetness he created.

“Fuck,” he whispers, mesmerized.

“Really wish you would.” I push my hips up, trying to pull him into the clasp of my body. The need I have is so big it aches. I want it to hurt when he fills me.

He grins and I reach up, pressing my thumb into the crevice of his dimple. He curves over me, still pressing right where I need him, but not sliding in. His tongue slips past my lips, tangling with mine as he rocks his hips. I cup my hands around them to feel the way his body works, muscles playing under hot skin. Then I dig my nails in, smiling in triumph when he groans against my mouth.

“You can take me, can’t you,” he pants out, and it’s not a question. He just wants to hear me say it.

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