13. Theo

13

THEO

Bonnie skips beside me, jerking my arm with every motion. "Daddy, walk faster!"

"Bonnie, relax. Let's enjoy the walk." I nestle my face further into my scarf.

It's not a temperate November evening, that's for sure. It's dark out already, and Central Park is relatively empty, but this is the fastest way to get to Edwin's.

She huffs, her skipping turning to stomping.

"No, don't be cross." I pat the back of her hand. "We'll be there soon."

Bonnie doesn't respond.

I can't blame her completely for her attitude.

Abigail and I agreed to two weeks of distance. Two weeks through which we could shed what happened between us. Which meant no weekend adventures for her and Bonnie. And no family dinners.

Until tonight.

It's a fucking joke, really. The thought of getting anything out of my system with Abigail.

I've been thinking about her even more since that Friday night. Now, it's a compulsion. It's scaring me.

But she was perfect. More perfect than any dream or fantasy of her. So good for me. So compliant.

She allowed me to pleasure her to an extent I have not had the opportunity to pleasure a woman in a long time.

I'm not sure any woman has ever been as good for me as Abigail.

That's why I'm trying to take the walk to Edwin's slow.

I'm not ready to see her again. I'm afraid what my body might do.

I've prepared myself to stay far from her. To be polite. Keep my distance. Let Bonnie have her fun while I visit with Abigail's father.

I've been avoiding Edwin too. His texts, his calls.

I canceled the date he had arranged for me, guised it with work.

I don't know how I'll face him either.

We arrive at the Lyons' penthouse sooner than I'd like to.

But Bonnie bounces the entire elevator ride up and to the door. She rings the bell before I'm ready, so I gather myself with a deep breath.

"There's my favorite Brit!" Edwin exclaims as soon as he lays eyes on Bonnie.

He accepts her into a viciously tight hug, and I try not to think too hard about why I am not the favorite Brit.

Is it because he knows? Can he just tell? Did Abigail tell him about our one night of indiscretion?

Don't be silly, she's a child. Of course he's going to fawn over her. As he should.

"Where's Abigail ?" Bonnie asks.

I swallow.

She wastes no time, does she?

"What? Am I not fun enough for you?" Edwin shoots back.

"Here I am!"

Her voice brings me back to that night. Her foggy breath and desperate whimpers. The utterance of my name.

And with the memory of the sound comes the memory of the feeling. Hands sliding over my torso, gripping my thighs.

It comes back like lightning, so hard and aggressive I already have half a hard on.

Abigail emerges from the hall and, Christ almighty, she's decided to try and kill me tonight.

A tiny knit top that shows off her midriff and loose-fitting jeans that sit on her hips. Her hair is down, long, freshly brushed.

Bonnie darts across the front hall and straight into Abigail's embrace.

Abigail grabs onto the wall to steady herself.

I watch the two embracing, chattering like old friends.

Edwin clears his throat.

I rip my gaze from Abigail and start to shuck off my scarf. Need to stay busy. Distracted. "Sorry about that. Bonnie's been talking about this all week."

Edwin beams. "Who can blame her? You've been making yourself scarce."

My friend reaches out for a handshake of familiarity, and I break out into a cold sweat.

I try to hold back my guilt from seeping into my expression, smiling sheepishly. "Yes, well, been busy."

We shake hands.

Traitor.

"Don't make it a habit." Edwin smacks me on the shoulder. He takes my coat and goes to hang it up in the coat closet. "We need your British cheek around here."

"Ha, ha." I roll my eyes.

"Everyone's just getting ready to sit down for dinner." Edwin backs away toward the kitchen. "I'm just about to serve."

I try to stride after him. "Need any help?"

"No, you're my guest. Just relax." My friend smiles at me.

And out of the corner of my eye, my daughter hugs his daughter. It should be a beautiful and pure sight, but I've made it rotten by being unable to resist my impulses.

What if the tables were turned and Bonnie was the grown woman?

I don't even want to think about that. Can't.

"Bon, come on, take your coat off," I call out to her.

My daughter breaks away from Abigail and rushes back to me.

I keep my eyes downcast as I help her out of her purple coat, the one she picked out herself.

I feel Abigail's watchful gaze.

Bollocks, must she just stand there and wait? Why doesn't she go sit down like her father instructed me to?

Except the perverse part of me, the one that's become longer as the days have shortened, wants her to stay. Wants to tell Bonnie to run off so that I can have one singular moment alone with her, a moment during which I can show her every feeling I've had of her in the past two weeks.

I could do that in an instant.

Which is why it's too dangerous for us to be alone.

Once Bonnie is free of her confines, she goes back to Abigail and grabs her hand, pulling Abigail toward the dining room. "Will you sit next to me?"

Abigail laughs, breathless, her red hair dripping backward. "Slow down, Bonnie, I have to say hi to your father."

Every muscle in my body freezes. I forget how to breathe.

What did she say?

Abigail turns toward me. Everything is slow motion as she crosses the room.

"Hello, Theo," she says, her voice swooning and low.

Must be my imagination. "Hello, Abigail."

She grabs my hand, leans in, and kisses my cheek.

It could be friendly, but it absolutely isn't. Not when I've known how she feels inside. Not when I know the planes and curves of her body so well I could sculpt her without even looking.

Before she draws away, she whispers in my ear, "It's so good to see you."

I say nothing. Do nothing. I wait for her to back away, the minx-ish smile on her face causing me to wonder if I'm in a dream.

Bonnie grabs Abigail's hand again and pulls her toward the dining room. "Come on!"

The two girls disappear through the door.

My daughter. And my best friend's daughter.

Except Abigail is not a girl. No, she is a fully-fledged woman. She makes her own decisions, determines her own wants, acts when she is compelled to act on her own volition.

Her father was not involved in that night.

And he was certainly not involved in her decision to come over to me and kiss my cheek. Whisper in my ear.

Between my legs, there is a throbbing apex of pleasure forming.

"Bloody bollocks hell."

§

She is not more well-behaved during dinner.

We sit across from each other which gives her prime opportunity to stare.

We promised. One night. We had terms and conditions.

This is what happens when you don't actually sign a contract. It's too easy to make things null and void.

It doesn't help I have to watch Abigail be absolute perfection with Bonnie. She helps her cut her chicken, makes sure her napkin is on her lap, whispers jokes to her.

She'd make an incredible mother to my daughter. Which is another reason it is so impossible to put her into the camp of one-time lover.

I could have her every night for the rest of my life, and my daughter could have this joy every day too.

Yet, every time I get too entrenched in these thoughts, I remember…

"I have some leads for you, Dory."

I snap out of my haze, lock in on Edwin's face. He hasn't noticed I've been zoned out, rooting around on his salad dish for a crouton eluding his fork. "Have you?"

"Mhm. I mean, I've got a club full of people who could be your clients. Just got to get one, and a whole fire will start blazing. Other than me, of course," he says with a smile.

"Great, send them over."

"Of course, you can't ghost them."

I raise an eyebrow. "Ghost them?"

"Yes, like you've been dipping out of these dates I've had you set up on the past two weeks?"

I cough on my own spit.

"Not in front of…" I glance at Bonnie.

She's perfectly content trying to make a volcano with her potatoes and gravy with Nate's help.

However, Abigail is otherwise unoccupied. And she's staring directly at me.

"Told you. Been busy with work."

"I know, I know. I'm just saying, you're not getting any younger," Edwin says with a smirk.

Sonia tsks from his elbow. "Don't be mean."

"I'm just saying, I have only so many women in his age demographic to pawn him off to. They have high standards."

"As they should," his wife says.

"Yes, but one cancellation can drive them off." Edwin pats off his mouth with a napkin before shrugging. "I'm just saying, my resources aren't limitless."

Abigail speaks up. "Why does he need to date in his age group?"

My eyes widen.

Edwin shrugs. "That's his preference."

"But why?" Her forehead screws up with wrinkles. She turns her attention to me. "Why is that your preference?"

I swallow. "Just is."

"I mean, Dad and Sonia worked out," Abigail says, acting as though we are the only people in the room, that no one might overhear our conversation. "They're twenty years apart."

So are we.

"They're doing just fine with the age gap, right?" Abigail offers, the slightest hint of a smirk on her lips.

Sonia laughs. "I mean, we have our moments. Have you seen your father trying to use a phone?"

"All right, you don't need to remind me," Edwin complains with an eye roll.

I start to open my mouth to reply but stop when I feel something against my calf.

A foot. Abigail's foot.

She smiles at me. Innocent and placid.

I narrow my eyes at her, my mouth in a thin line.

Your father is right there .

Her smile falters.

We agreed.

Her foot persists up my leg.

I don't draw away.

Until we're interrupted by Bonnie cheering as she watches gravy roll down her potato volcano.

"Bonnie, don't be impolite," I chastise quickly.

"Sorry, my fault," Nate says with an apologetic smile.

"Nate's going to be the fun dad," Laney, his partner, says, before looking over at her other partner, Mason. "Mason will lay down the law."

Mason rolls his eyes. "I can't dole out all the consequences."

To add further distraction, baby Alanna starts wailing, which scares Emma, and she starts crying too.

Liam reaches out and spills a glass of water.

Suddenly, everyone at the table is in an absolute tizzy, moving things around, trying to calm babies, squabbling about spills.

It's as good a time as any for me to get up and collect myself.

"Bathroom," I mutter and excuse myself out of the dining room and down the hall to the bathroom where I splash cold water on my face, hold onto the sink, and hang my head in shame.

"You're stronger than this," I say to myself.

I've been to hell and back. Been through worse.

So, why does Abigail Lyons have me clutched in temptation with one smile? One touch?

"She doesn't."

From the moment I met her, she's been a distraction from my work, from the dower of the past few years. Something bright. Something new. It's a fixation, something that will pass with time. I can survive it.

If I choose to.

With a final sigh, I open the bathroom door.

Only to find Abigail on the other side of it.

"Jesus fucking Christ, what are you doing here?" I hiss.

"Just checking on you. You seemed stressed when you walked out of the room."

I try to step past her, but I'm blocked in and unless I want to forcefully move her, I'm trapped. "Abigail, move ."

"You're mad at me," she replies. Smiling.

I scrub my hand down the lower part of my face. Then I glance down the hallway to make sure we're alone.

"No one knows I followed you, not even Bonnie."

"For god's sake, Abigail." My frustration doesn't prevent me from grabbing her wrist and yanking her into the bathroom.

I close the door behind her and lock it. The second I turn around, she springs on me, her hands against my chest, forcing me up against the door, her mouth on my mouth.

Heaven .

I grab her elbows, try to pry her off me. "What are you doing ?"

"Isn't it obvious?" she asks with a half-cocked smile.

"We said one night ."

Abigail presses her chest to mine. "I changed my mind."

"That is not how terms work, Abigail."

"You forget I'm a scientist and not a businessman like you. I don't deal with terms and conditions, I deal with observations and experiments, and my observation is…" She trails off and lifts her mouth to mine again, close enough to kiss, close enough to say bugger all.

I put my hand up to her collarbone, keep her at bay. "This is your father's home."

"I thought your rule was not talking about my father," she rasps.

"I thought you didn't care about the rules."

"Touché."

The longer my hand is pressed to her chest, the more I feel of her. Pulsing heart, warm skin, the electricity of her body. "You can't… We can't…"

Abigail's insistent expression melts to something softer. She's so young . The spray of freckles on her face is a good reminder.

If it didn't drive me wild at the same time.

"The time apart was supposed to be a reset."

Abigail resists her vinegary responses and sighs. "All I've been able to think about is you."

And I, you .

"Nothing can come of us but hurt, Abigail."

"There doesn't have to be an us." She clings to my shirt. "It can be our secret. All it has to be is sex. Closed doors. Only when it's safe."

"Yet, you've cornered me in the bathroom of your home with your entire family in the other room?"

"I couldn't help it, Theo. Couldn't just sit there across from you at the table and pretend I'm not…" Abigail takes my hand and moves it down her body until she reaches the waistband of her trousers. I don't resist as she works my hand inside, under her panties too, until my fingers are dipped into the wet honey of her center.

I inhale. "You're wet."

"All night."

My eyes flutter shut as I probe her wetness. "Pandora's box. That's what we've opened."

"It doesn't have to be a scourge on the world, though. It can stay between us," she says with desperation. "Besides, it doesn't have to be anything beyond–" Her hand tightens on mine, pushing my fingers inside her.

I watch her expression flex with a moment of discomfort before she settles into the stretch of my fingers.

Would it really be so bad to have this place of respite? A place to let everything go? Where I can stop worrying about the weight of the world on my shoulders and come to Abigail for release?

I don't respond fast enough for her taste. "I forgot, you don't like younger women."

"That's not what I said."

"That what do you mean, Theo?"

I have tried so hard to be a man over the years. I have tried to grow up, grow my business, be a husband, a father, a good friend. I have tried and often fall just short of the goal. Being good doesn't get me far when I'm not quite all the way good.

Bugger off talk. Bugger off conversation.

If this is what Abigail wants, I am only a man. I am not strong enough to resist the woman I think about all day and night.

I wrap my arm around her, pull her flush to my body, further onto my fingers.

She gasps into me.

I growl, " Beg ."

Abigail presses her mouth to my shoulder to conceal the tiny whine at the back of her throat.

"Beg me to please you." I begin to slide my fingers in and out of her.

"Theo, please."

" Beg me, Abigail ."

She grabs onto me, fingers digging into my sides. Almost painful if it weren't her and her want.

"I can't stop thinking about you." She huffs. Her hips start moving on my hand. "I touch myself thinking about you."

A rumble crawls up my throat.

I have to be quiet, but when she says things like that –

"If you say no, I think I'll die. I walk around dripping at the thought of you."

I bite back on the things I want to say.

If I rile her up too much, we'll be heard beyond a shadow of a doubt.

"I need you more than once. Need you all the time."

My cock is rock solid beneath her, enjoying the friction of her movement despite my hand pumping between us.

Her walls are tight around my fingers.

She grows slicker with every movement of my hand.

"Theo, I know it's wrong."

Nerves fire in my brain.

The wrongness is what I've been resistant. But her saying it now makes my cock jump. It's so wrong. And yet…

"But something is telling me I have to give into you because it's so right ."

I push my thumb up against her clit and move my mouth to her ear. "Beg me to let you come."

Abigail is shaking, weak in my arms, hips jolting with need. "Please let me come, Theo. I dream about you making me come. You're the only man I want to make me come. Ever."

I'm the only man that will make you come ever again.

The thought surprises me.

We aren't promising a future to each other, just one behind closed doors, one of orgasms and kisses. A secret dalliance. And affair.

Not love .

Abigail's head dips forward. She fists the lapel of my shirt and rides my fingers with big swings of her pelvis. "Please, please, please, I need it so bad, I think I'll die."

I lock my arm around her again and pull her tight onto my fingers so she has nowhere to go. And with a final press of my thumb on her clit, she releases.

Her body snaps against mine, her face buried into my chest so her cry is concealed.

"That's it. Come for me, Abigail."

She is tight for several moments until the orgasm passes all the way through her. Then, she collapses into my arms, trying to catch her breath.

I embrace her, kiss her temple and her hair.

I was a fool to think I could do this once and survive knowing .

Not knowing what Abigail Lyons would be like in my arms felt painful. But knowing is deadly. "We'll have to come up with rules you're willing to follow."

Abigail laughs into my chest. Squeezes me. "Whatever you say."

I chuckle. "First rule." I take her chin in my hand. "Clean yourself up and make yourself scarce for a while so we're not suspicious."

Abigail blinks her light-colored lashes. "One condition."

I roll my eyes. "Abigail–"

"A kiss. I want a kiss first."

That's not a condition I can refuse.

I give her what she wants, let my lips linger there, pull my arms up around her neck and kiss her so hard I hope she feels it in the morning.