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Chapter Forty-Four

AURORA

T he bed shifting next to me wakes me up. Blinking through the sleep, my hand reaches out and wraps around Theo’s wrist, stopping him from leaving. He pauses and looks back at me in the darkness. “Get some rest,” he murmurs.

Anxiety fills my chest as I force myself to speak. “I don’t want you to leave.”

His face softens, and Theo shifts back into bed next to me. He settles back against the pillows, not trying to pry his wrist from my grip. “Okay,” he says. “I won’t leave. Get some rest, Aurora.”

“Theo…” I lick my dry lips. “Why are you still here?”

His brows knit together in confusion as he shifts a bit, looking over at me. “Because you just told me not to leave?”

“No, not right now.” I groan in frustration. This isn’t an easy conversation for me to have. I’m not sure why I’m picking tonight to have it. Our conversation earlier, and my subsequent spiraling thoughts, are weighing on my mind. “We fucked. Why are you still…around?”

“Did you want me to not be?”

“No!” I reply maybe a little too quickly. This is hard. Painfully hard. Feelings are not something I have a whole lot of experience talking about, especially these. The vulnerability makes me uncomfortable. “I just… Why do you still want me even after we fucked?”

He clicks his tongue and sighs. “You’re still on that, aren’t ya?” Reaching out, he twirls a loose strand of my hair around his finger. “I really don’t know how many times I have to tell you that I want you for you to understand that. Originally, yeah, I wanted to fuck you. You’re gorgeous. Then you were impossible and I still wanted you. Now? I want all the pieces in between. I want to be with you. You’re just being a bit of a brick wall about the whole thing.”

“I am, aren’t I?” I give his hand another tug, pulling him so he lays down beside me. He’s mindful of shifting the bed around my still aching ankle, although that’s the least of my worries right now. “I just…I’m scared,” I admit. It’s not the first time. He knows how much the idea of this terrifies me. “You wouldn’t just hurt me, Theodore, you’d destroy me.”

That’s the truth of the matter. Loving Theo is easier than I want it to be. It boils down to the fact that if he were to hurt me, it wouldn’t just hurt me, it would shatter me. He has the ability to destroy me because he’s the first person who’s ever made me feel seen.

I’ve allowed myself to be open and real with him in ways I’ve never been with other people. I’ve showed him the pieces. He’s seen the good, the bad, and the really, really bad. He’s still insistent that he wants me.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that either this man is extremely persistent or he wants me for more than sex. He wants me for me. And the idea of ever having something like that taken away would destroy me.

His finger untwists from the strand of hair, his hand coming down to cup my jaw. I lean into the touch, his warmth. “I’m sure you want to hear promises that I’d never hurt you, but I can’t promise that, Aurora. I can promise that I would never intentionally hurt you, and if I break you, I’ll be the one to put you back together.”

Not the most reassuring thing, but it’s real. It’s Theo. He doesn’t lace things with sugar to make them more digestible for anyone. He’s honest, probably to a fault, but I can appreciate it. “I’m just…I’m terrified, Theo.”

“Love’s a little terrifying, baby doll,” he says, flashing me a sideways smile in the darkness. “Not that I know from experience, but it’s what I hear. You’re giving someone the ability to really, really hurt you and you’re having to give up control. You won’t be able to stop the hurt unless you close your heart off and I don’t think that’s any way to live.”

I latch on to the first part instead of the most philosophical thing he’s ever said about anything: “Are you saying you love me, Abrams?”

Theo laughs. It’s one of those real, gorgeous laughs that makes him seem like a little less of a monster. “Of course that’s what you focus on.” Still avoiding my ankle, he shifts a little closer to me. Searching his brown eyes, I can see it, but he’s not going to say it. Not yet, and I don’t want to push. Instead, I melt when his lips lean in to meet mine. A quick, soft kiss before he whispers, he lips brushing mine as he speaks. “To be determined.”

I let out an annoyed growl as my hand comes up, tangling in his curls. “Getting real tired of your TBD’s,” I say before crashing my lips to his. My kiss is less gentle, hungrier. The truth can stay unspoken between us for now, that’s fine.

We both know it.

He chuckles as I try to kiss the sound from his mouth. My tongue eagerly slides against his and Theo reacts. His body comes over mine, caging me underneath him. A calloused hand slides down to my thigh and pushes it to the side, making it so I gently spread my legs for him and keep my injured ankle out of the way of danger. He’s being so much more tender than I ever thought he’d be with me.

It makes me slip back to that thought again. Does he actually love me?

Theo brings his knee up between my thighs and I grind myself against it. Every time the friction brushes over my clit, he swallows down my gasps and whines. His hand comes up to cup my breast through my t-shirt and I arch into it.

On the nightstand, his phone buzzes. We don’t part, too caught up in what we’re doing. His hand teases my nipple through the fabric, making it harden into a stiff peak that’s needy for his attention. The buzzing of his phone stops.

Then it starts again. Our lips part and Theo groans. His dark eyes meet mine, and I can feel my heart falling to the pit of my stomach. “Really?” I mutter.

He sighs and sits back, running a hand through his curls. “Let me at least see who it is, baby doll.”

I don’t think he knows how insulting that feels. We had a moment; we were going to fuck, and now he’s picking up his damn phone because that’s somehow more important. He’s a wrestler, not a damn doctor. It’s not like he’s on call in the middle of the night.

When I don’t respond, he rolls his eyes and reaches over to grab his phone from the nightstand. A deep wrinkle forms in the center of his forehead, like it always does when he’s annoyed about something. “It’s Nathan,” he says before answering. “What?”

Leave it to our billionaire boss to cock block us in the middle of the night.

I shift closer, trying to hear what Nathan might be saying on the other end, but I can’t make out anything. All I hear from the other end of the line is the mumbled sound of Nathan’s deep voice. At least I know Theo didn’t hit pause on everything for another girl .

He groans in obvious annoyance. “Now? Really? It’s almost three in the goddamn morning.” He sighs. “Fuck, fine. Give me ten and I’ll come up.” He hangs up, looking down at me. “Nathan wants to talk to me.”

“At 3 AM?”

“I know, I know. It sounds like the most bullshit reason, but you have to know that stopping this is the last thing I want to do. I would do anything to be inside of you again, Roo.”

“Except stay.”

Now his annoyance shifts toward me. “Aurora, I wouldn’t leave you for anything but Nathan said it was important. There’s a change he wants to make for the upcoming shows and I’m at his mercy. You know that.”

But I still want to argue. From everything I’ve seen, Nathan has been at Theo’s mercy. Theo makes decisions, bullies Nathan into agreeing. He convinced Nathan to give me a spot and follow a whole ass storyline, he made Austin lose his title match, he gets away with every damn thing. He leaked his own dick pics and put Nathan into a corner.

Why is he now a good employee?

With everything going so well between us right now, I decide not to fight. Putting my hand on his chest, I shove him. “Fine, go. You owe me.”

“You’ll get the dicking that you so desperately want, baby doll.” He grins, tucking his erection into his waistband before he slides off the bed.

“Saying it that way makes it sound so much more unappealing.”

That grin stays on his face. Something I once saw as pretty damn annoying has turned into something that I think is…endearing. Something uniquely Theo that I love. “Well, guess you won’t sit around missing me too much then.” After sliding on his shoes, Theo comes over and presses his lips to my forehead. “Get some rest. Text me if you need anything. I’ll be in touch. ”

And he leaves. Leaves me laying in my bed with a sore ankle, an annoying ache between my thighs that he didn’t soothe and the realization that I really hopes he loves me.

Because I know that I love him.