It wasn’t exactly an ‘I love you’ but it was the closest I was going to get.
In the six months I had ‘dated’ Adam, he never once got me to feel any of what I’m feeling now. That simultaneous safe but unsafe. Those skipped heartbeats. The dizziness at being this close to him. He never held me close. Hell, he barely held me at all. I think back on those lost months I had wasted on a jerk like him when I could have been with someone like Theo.
Someone who- if I had interpreted everything correctly- felt the same for me as I did for him.
Theo’s palm found my cheek, burning my skin at his touch. He traced the outline of my face, his calloused fingers gliding along my jawline and up towards my lips. He let his thumb caress along my bottom lip as I felt him move closer, shifting his body so that he was angled towards me. His forehead rested against mine and I wondered if he was staring at me, if he could see me. I blinked my eyes closed, savoring this moment as I waited for him to make a move.
“Catherine…” He whispers as I groan. He laughs at my response but the shiver he feels tells me a different story. He wants this just as much as I do.
Then his lips meet mine, soft and gentle as we fit together.
It was one of the most sensational kisses I had ever experienced, not that I had much to compare Theo to. He was only the second boy I had ever kissed, but surely no-one was as good as he was. With only the slightest of pressure, Theo had claimed me fully.
He ran his tongue across my lip, asking for permission. I groaned with wanting and gave him anything and everything he wanted in that minute. Our tongues met and danced wildly as his hands weaved through my hair and pulled me closer to him.
I shifted and found myself leaning into him so much that I eventually had him pinned on the floor under me. I pulled away from the kiss, wondering how on earth I had morphed into this girl- the girl who didn’t care that she was straddling a stranger in a closet.
“Catherine?” Theo panted under me, his voice sending me wild. “Are you ok?”
I laugh. Was I?
I laugh so much at the absurdity of the situation that tears sting my eyes, and I collapse into a heap next to Theo’s lithe body. I placed my hand over my mouth to cover the sound but I couldn’t. I laughed until it hurt and then I laughed some more.
“You are seriously giving me some sort of complex, you know, Catherine,” he huffs, rolling onto his side and strokes the hair from my face.
“I-I-I…” More laughter. Then I get a grip and get serious. “Sorry. I’m sorry. What is going on?” I ask myself more than him before continuing. “I am not this girl. I do not make out with strangers in closets.”
“Ah,” Theo mumbles into my ear. “But what if you are that girl, Catherine?”