18. Abigail

18

ABIGAIL

I watch Theo disappear out of the tent and into the darkness of the beach.

My heart surges in my throat as I watch his head tip forward. He's hurting.

And it's my fault.

I have managed a moment alone to sip my umpteenth glass of champagne, hiding by the bar, making myself as small as possible.

I'm not getting drunk the way I wish. I'm just giving myself a headache.

I haven't been able to shake that look on his face when I said, "I don't know."

I don't think I've ever made a man so sad. And Theo is too good a man to take his emotions out on me.

He stepped away, gave me room to breathe, like I needed.

But hours later, I need anything but space.

I need him.

I glance around the party. Thank god Bridget and Seth opted for a big blowout rather than an intimate affair. There are hundreds of people here, swaths and clusters of people to disappear in. And given how late it is in the night, things are starting to get sloppy. Screams and cheers, drunken mishaps, so much laughter.

Bonnie is still up and at ‘em with Camilla and Laney on the dance floor, screaming along to some pop song.

My heart doubles in size every time I look at her. It's something inexplicable and strange. She is not mine and yet, I wish she was.

I never wanted to be a mother this young. My own mother always warned against it, even though I think I turned out okay for the most part. And yet, the idea of being the figure Bonnie turns to always and forever doesn't terrify me at all.

It only compounds the way I feel for Theo.

Which makes this all the more heartbreaking that it has to end.

Before he left the tent, I kept stealing glances at him sitting with my father and a younger man. He was stoic and silent, not at all the breathless smiling Theo I've come to know.

I think I've broken his heart.

Broken mine too.

When I look at my dad now as he puffs his cigar and laughs with his friend, something creeps up the back of my neck. All that blame I placed on Theo for taking my father away, all that blame should have been on my father.

I never had the heart to hold him accountable for all that time I missed him because he's tried to become a better man. But he was not a good man when I needed him most to be.

And now here I am, pussyfooting around the things I want to preserve his feelings.

My own friend wants me to sacrifice the things I want for my father too.

Fuck that.

People shouldn't have kids to protect their own feelings. Doesn't matter if it was an accident. In fact, my being an accident is all the more reason he should support me and love me through whatever choices I make.

Even if I choose his best friend.

I finish my champagne and place it on the bar. And without looking around, taking stock of who might see me, I march out of the tent to follow Theo.

The breeze has kicked up, causing my skin to prickle with goosebumps.

I wrap my arms around myself and head toward the water's edge, stopping when I see Theo's shoes in the sand. I kick my sandals off beside his and smile to myself at the look of us side by side in a different way.

When I get down to the water, I glance down the beach and see Theo in the distance.

He sits with his knees drawn up, his toes lapped by the water. Drawing up my skirt, I walk toward him, steady and measured so he doesn't notice me in case I chicken out and turn around.

But I don't chicken out. I keep walking. Faster and faster until I'm several yards away, and I find my mouth forming his name: "Theo."

Theo's head shoots up. His eyebrows are lifted. "Abigail, what are you doing out here?"

I pad closer to him. "I came looking for you."

Theo doesn't reply, looking out over the calm waters.

I take a seat beside him, not minding my dress getting sandy.

It's difficult to resist leaning into him, but I do.

We sit there in a steady silence for a while, nature our soundtrack, until Theo lets out a heavy sigh. "Someone might have seen you."

"I know. I don't care." I put my finger in the sand between us and start to draw swirls out of sheer nervousness. "I was worried about you."

"You needn't worry about me, Abigail."

"I don't worry because I need to," I say, not lifting my eyes from the sand. "I worry because…I care about you."

Theo tsks. "Why do you have to say things like that?"

I finally lift my eyes to take him in again.

His jaw is set tight, lips pursed.

"Like what?"

"Things that remind me that–" Theo huffs. "For fuck's sake, Abigail, I can't do this."

My heart cracks in another place.

"I can't observe these rules anymore and pretend like what we have is strictly sex and pleasure. It hasn't been that way for me for a really long time."

The crack amends itself almost immediately.

"But I know that with your father and your family, us existing as an entity is impossible." Theo's head drops down. "That doesn't mean it doesn't cross my mind. More. Between us."

I take a chance and lean toward him, placing my hand on his knee. "It crosses my mind too."

Theo glances my way.

"I think about you all the time," I say. "Which is why Sonia knowing…it's killing me, Theo."

He threads his fingers through mine. "You're young, Abigail. Don't waste your energy on someone like me."

"Someone who is caring and wonderful and has given me more orgasms in a couple months than I've had in my life?"

Theo's cheeks are purple in the blueness of the night as he laughs, throwing his head back. "Well, again, you're young. There are plenty of men out there who could fill–"

"There aren't." My voice chokes in my throat.

Theo's brow pinches at the center. His hand tightens on mine. "Abigail…"

"If we can only have these two months, I want them," I say as clear as a bell. "I want as much time with you as I can."

"I want that too, Abigail, but your father–"

"Fuck him," I spit, harsher than I mean to. "If it upsets him, he's a hypocrite. Sonia too."

Theo laughs softly. "You are absolutely enchanting, you know that? So full of fire."

"You can't say that just because I have red hair."

"Not just that, love." He cups my cheek in his hand.

I never thought it possible to look into a man's eyes and feel like I could live there. But that's how I feel in Theo's eyes.

Still, the concern does not leave his face. "Abigail, this is dangerous for me."

"I'll take the blame. He can't disown his own daughter for–"

"Not because of that. Not only because of that." His thumb comes down my chin, and he tilts his head to the side. "I'm falling for you, Abigail."

I'm falling for you too .

"And that's too complicated for what two months offers us."

"You want to end things?" My voice warbles.

Theo wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me close.

I am warm again.

He shakes his head. "I thought it would break my heart to never have you, but the thought of you walking away from me–"

"What if we ignore the two-month limit? What if we stay together and–"

"And have your father come after me with a pitchfork?"

"You wouldn't face a few pitchforks and angry townspeople for me?"

Theo looks me in the eye. "I would. I absolutely would."

I fist the front of his shirt, drawing myself close.

"But Bonnie…I have to put her first. She needs family. And she needs consistency."

My mouth falls. "Which I can't give her if I'm gone."

"No, you can't, darling."

I lean my forehead against his shoulder. "Please, Theo. I'd rather have two more months with you than never again."

His arms tighten around me.

I whisper, "You're not the only one who is afraid of a broken heart."

"Why, Abigail? When you're so young and you could have anyone?"

I lift my mouth to his neck. "They're not you, Theo. None of them will ever be you."

Two simple sentences to encapsulate the incredible wealth of feelings I have for him.

Watching him be a father to his daughter is what started it. Then his bad jokes. The humble way with which he's offered pieces of his story to me, both self-conscious and vulnerable in a way I've never known a man to be.

I don't know any man like him. I want to make him mine.

I plant a kiss to his skin.

Time will heal the wounds. We'll get by. It will be a beautiful memory. Our time together. "Don't let anyone take this from us."

Theo buries his face in my hair, breathes me in. "Abigail Lyons, just promise me it won't be you who hurts me. When it's time for this to end, promise it won't be–"

I wrap my arms around him. "I promise, Theo. I promise I won't hurt you."

His soft mouth finds mine, a promise sealed with a kiss. And one kiss cascades into many, many more.

It doesn't matter that down the beach there is a tent full of people who could find us, people who would try and tear us apart because of their own pride or shame.

We kiss like there is no tomorrow. Because when it comes to us, that's the truth of it. We have many tomorrows, but one day there will be an official no tomorrow. That day is much sooner than either of us would like.

I have to take advantage of every blessed moment.

As our lips roll and tongues clash, I push Theo down onto his back in the sand.

"What can I give you?" I say against his mouth.

"I was about to ask you the same thing." He repositions my hips over his so I can feel his erection through his pants.

I smile, grinding my hips against him, relishing the grunt that comes from the pit of his belly and how his eyes roll upward. "I think it's your job to tell me that."

Theo smiles, bashful and shy. "Still getting the hang of that, I think."

I press my chest against his and nip at his neck.

"How about…" His hands grip my hips. "I want to watch you ride my cock in your pretty dress. I want to watch you writhe as I fill you."

The fabric of my dress moves up my legs.

"I want to see myself enter you and grow slick with your essence."

My belly flips.

"That's what I want. Ride me, darling."

I hurry to unbutton, unzip, pull aside, push down, then there he is. That beautiful, thick cock lolling up onto his belly.

"I've missed this." I run my hand up his length, tightening right beneath the head to see that pearly bead of precum dripping out.

Theo grabs my wrist and guides my hand back so that his cock is standing at attention, like a pole for me to work down. "Come on. Take me. All at once if you can."

Oh, I definitely can.

I lift myself on my knees and pull my panties aside, letting my glistening center hover over the head of his cock until it hits my opening. And, as instructed, I take him all at once, slamming myself down onto his full-length.

It shocks us both, the tightness, the fullness, the stretch.

Theo grabs my thigh so hard it hurts, his mouth falling open and head bending back into the sand. "Bloody hell , Abigail."

I have no words, almost like his cock has reached all the way up to the base of my throat.

Over the weeks we've been apart, all I've been doing is missing him. Now that he's inside me, filling me up so completely, I understand the extent to which I missed him.

Entirely .

I get my bearings and begin to ride him as he asked, tipping my head back to a sky full of stars.

From the tent far down the beach, the music blasts, and there is a series of screams of delight.

Theo grabs the front of my dress and pushes it up so he can watch my pussy swallow him over and over. He presses his hand to my belly, contracting the space inside me even more, causing my hips to jerk. "Good girl. Show me how I make you feel."

I lean back and grab his thighs, sliding up and down his cock.

"Bloody hell, yes, like that," he groans through clenched teeth.

Our hips collide over and over.

I lose myself. Where I am. Who I am.

Because when Theo and I are together, we are all that exists.

Why have I chosen him?

Because I have to.

Theo grabs onto my thighs and pulls me so far down onto him that it's hard to tell where he ends, and I begin. "Right here, darling. Work it right here. "

I grind back and forth on him, holding in my every whimper and cry.

Theo wriggles his thumb in between us to give me something to work my clit against.

"Yes, yes, like that."

I press my hands onto his shoulders, holding on for dear life.

The orgasm is inching up on me, an incremental build.

"Look at me, Abigail. Look in my eyes."

I do.

And a current of emotion whips through me. One that spurs tears from my eyes.

"You feel so good," I sob.

"That's it. All for you. Let it out."

I do. The tears rush down my cheeks.

"That's my girl."

"Yes," I answer. Because I am his girl.

"Give it to me. Give me everything."

Everything.

My orgasms, my moans of pleasure, my life .

I'd give him everything if he'd just let me.

An orgasm squirms up into my belly and bursts, along with a sob from the deepest part of me.

Theo pulls me down into his chest, allowing me a place to cry out into his neck. He puts his hand against my tailbone and pushes my hips down so we are sealed together.

His warm spend floods me, a moan buried in my hair. That moan turns into a kiss. That kiss turns into a whisper.

"You are my girl, Abigail. Even if it's just for now."

As we lay on the beach, tears still staining my face, I try and do the math needed to turn the now into forever. But there are variables I don't yet know. I can't solve the equation.

‘For now' will have to do.