Leaving at Noon (16 page)

Minutes after Theo withdrew, he dipped his
fingers in her sensitized pussy, whispering filthy things about
coming inside her. He kissed her as he fingered her, and she rode
his hand until that fourth climax took her.

It was a darn good thing her legs were
wrapped around Theo. If Zoey had been forced to endure all that
pleasure on her own two feet, she’d likely have drowned.

Thoroughly sated, she collapsed on her towel
on the sand beneath the umbrella, Theo lying beside her in the sun.
Zoey was so physically satisfied and so happy to be with Theo
again, she almost didn’t bring up their issues. As it was, she let
herself drift off in an afternoon nap, postponing the
inevitable.

The last thing she wanted was to ruin their
perfect afternoon together, but Zoey could postpone the inevitable
discussion no longer. When she opened her eyes again and found him
lying on his side, watching her with toasty warm eyes, she slipped
her hand in his big, firm one, tangling their fingers together.

“
How come you never held
the vicious things I said to you against me?” she asked.

“
I did.” He’d rested his
elbow in the sand and his head on his hand. His eyes were troubled.
“Your comments hurt, and that hurt made me lash back every chance I
got.”

A pang of pain slashed through her. “You
lashed back pretty effectively.”

His lips twisted, telling her he regretted
his jibes.

“
But,” she continued, “you
only lashed out in the heat of the moment. After that you forgot
what I’d said.” She lifted their arms and gestured to his wrist.
“You didn’t even remember the vicious remark I made about your
accident.” And that had been unforgivable.

Theo shrugged. “The comments I make in anger
don’t really reflect what I’m thinking. I figure it’s the same for
you.”

“
Mostly I was thinking I
was furious, I was upset and I wanted to hurt you.”

“
And you did—with every
insult. Goal achieved, end of story.”

Zoey gritted her teeth, knowing she had no
choice but to accept Theo’s frankness. “But that doesn’t explain
how you got past the insults so quickly. I remember every word,
every nasty, horrible dig you took.” Nausea bubbled in her throat
recalling some of them. “Why don’t you?”

Theo narrowed his eyes and his gaze drifted
over her shoulder. Deep in thought, he pursed his lips. “I grew up
with three sisters. Went through puberty four times—once personally
and once with each of them. I have more experience with PMS than
any man should ever have to deal with.”

Zoey bristled. The hairs on her neck stood
on end, and she had to force herself to talk rationally. If any
comment was going to piss her off, it was blaming their issues on
PMS. “Are you putting our problems down to hormonal
imbalances?”

“
Heck, no. I’m reminding
you I grew up with three sisters, each of whom had the capacity to
be a huge fucking cow.”

“
Theo!” Zoey gasped. His
sisters were nothing less than wonderful. Every one of them. And
they all adored their brother.

“
Babe,” he reassured her,
“I love them. Unconditionally. But they could be major pains in the
ass. All of them. Remember the whole learned-patterns-of-behavior
thing I mentioned earlier? You and your mother? Same thing with me
and them. They taught me that things get said that shouldn’t be
said. I learned to absorb the meanness, hit back with brilliant
precision, then shrug it off and move on. Five minutes after a
fight, we’d forget it ever happened. Well, all of us except Jan.”
Theo grinned again as he mentioned his younger sister. “She likes
to sulk a fair bit.”

Zoey gaped at him, amazed. There was nothing
malicious about his smile. It was filled with genuine affection.
She shouldn’t be surprised by his explanation. Theo and his sisters
squabbled often, and every time, Zoey was amazed how quickly they
made up.

Making up and moving on from a serious fight
had never been a skill Zoey learned. “It was never like that for
me,” she told Theo. “If I said anything nasty to my mother, she
held it against me for days. Weeks.” But then her mother held most
everything against Zoey, starting with her existence.

Hell, her mother and father had yet to mend
fences, and their final fight had taken place over twenty years
ago. Not that she’d ever expected them to kiss and make up, but a
little amiable small talk on occasion might have been nice.

Perhaps if she’d had siblings of her own,
Zoey might have found different ways of coping after fights. But
she’d never had a full brother or sister, and she’d made a
concerted effort to have as little contact with her half-siblings
as possible.

“
Ah.” Theo held up a
finger. “There’s a difference. My sisters may
act
like
bitches, but your mother
is
one. A certified, grade-A bitch.
There’s no coming back from that classification, I’m afraid. Not
sure how you turned out so well. Can’t give her credit for
that.”

Zoey waved away talk about the woman who’d
given birth to her. She’d already wasted too much of her life
worrying about her. “Okay, next question.”

“
Yeah?”

“
How’d we manage to live
together all this time without it ever getting so bad? We’re
different, you and me. We view the world differently, react
differently. How come we never blew out of control before
now?”

“
I’ve been wondering that
myself.”

“
We’ve fought before now.”
Yelling at each other, swearing, acting out on any frustration or
anger they’d had. “But we always made up. Always found a way around
the problem. Why not this time?”

Theo shook his head. “Wish I had an answer
for you. I keep thinking there must have been something that
changed, a specific point where things began to go bad, but I can’t
place it.”

“
You ordered a
Corona.”

“
Excuse me?”

“
At Dinner Club. You
ordered a Corona.”

Theo looked at her steadily. “Instead of our
customary bottle of wine?”

Zoey nodded.

“
You noticed?”

“
Of course I did. Everyone
noticed.” She closed her eyes. “You might as well have slapped me,
it stung so bad.”

“
Jesus, Zo. I wanted it to
sting. I wanted it to be a real
fuck-you
. You’d just said
something shitty—it’s slipped my mind what—and all I could think
about was doing something that’d hurt you as much as you’d hurt me.
But you didn’t even blink. You carried on as though I hadn’t just
broken with tradition.”

Zoey rubbed her chest, feeling the burn of
his rejection all over again. “If I’d blinked, I’d have started
crying in front of all of our friends.”

“
It upset you?”

“
No, Hughesy.” Zoey bit
her lip. “It broke my heart.”

His eyes went limpid, and there, reflected
in them, was every iota of agony Zoey felt.

“
Mine too, babe. Never
enjoyed a dinner less. Er, until our last Dinner Club.”

Zoey shuddered. “I think I began to give up
on us at that point. Your ordering beer was so symbolic of our
marriage falling apart.”

Theo closed his eyes as though shutting them
would shut out her words. “You still giving up on us?”

“
Hughesy,” she whispered
and ran her thumb over his. Goose bumps broke out along his arm. “I
just fucked you in the ocean, with people swimming all around us.
Does that sound like something I’d do if I’d given up?”

His shoulders relaxed visibly. “How’d you
feel about fucking me on the beach with people lying all around
us?”

Zoey smiled. “If I thought you could get it
up again, I’d tell you to go for it. We could pull the umbrella
down low and hope no one notices.”

“
Oh Christ.” Theo grimaced
and let go of her hand, flipping over to lie on his stomach with a
groan. “You’re messing with my head.”

“
Did you just get it up
again?” she murmured huskily, barely able to keep the smug
happiness from her voice.

“
No.” He glared at her.
“You did.” A choice expletive left his lips. “Do you have any idea
how uncomfortable it is lying on the beach with an
erection?”

“
Wanna join me under the
umbrella?” She ran her hand over his back, loving the strength of
his muscles beneath his sun-heated skin. “I’ll take care of that
discomfort.”

The glare didn’t lessen. “Tempting as the
offer may be, getting arrested for public indecency isn’t a top
priority right now.”

Zoey lay back on her towel with a dejected
sigh. “You’re no fun anymore. I can’t remember the last time I made
you come on the beach.”

“
March,” Theo growled
instantly.

Zoey snorted. “Oh yeah. Sandiest BJ
ever.”

“
Didn’t hear you
complaining at the time.”

“
I never complain when I
have you in my mouth. Got way better things to do.” She rolled onto
her side. “Like lick your balls and suck your cock and taste your
come. Mmm.”

“
Zo.” Her name was a
warning.

“
I love sucking your cock.
Love how wide I have to stretch my mouth to fit you in. Love the
way you bump against the back of my throat.” Zoey moaned softly. “I
love how the more excited you get, the more you tug on my hair. Or
how you lose control. When you can’t seem to hold back and you
drive into my mouth like you drive into my pussy. I love the
way—”

Zoey didn’t complete her sentence. Theo
moved so fast, Zoey had time only to gasp as he sprang to his feet,
plucked her off her towel and, carrying her in his arms, sprinted
off the beach, through the gate and into Fiona’s complex.

Zoey laughed the whole way. A long time
before Theo got them into the apartment she was cupping his
erection above his boardies. While he struggled to open the door,
her hand was in his boardies, stroking him, and seconds after that
door had slammed shut behind them, his cock was in her mouth.

Apparently Theo didn’t have a problem
getting it up again—no matter how many times he’d already come
today. And apparently Zoey had no problem taking good care of it
while it was up. And even better care getting it to go down.

“
I don’t buy your wine
theory.” Theo and Zoey were snuggled up on Fiona’s couch. The telly
was on, but neither of them watched. They were too busy gazing at
each other with stupid smiles.

Pity Theo was about to knock Zoey’s gorgeous
grin off her gorgeous face.

“
What theory?” she
asked.

“
You said you gave up on
us when I ordered beer instead of wine.”

Zoey’s shoulders sagged. Her smile vanished.
“We’re back to this?”

“
It’s like you said. Sex
won’t solve our problems. We need to talk about them.”

“
I know, I know. I just,
well, I like the camaraderie right now. I don’t want to ruin
it.”

“
I like it too, babe. But
I want it back for good, not just until we have our next
fight.”

She sighed and made a rolling motion with
her hand. “Okay, go forth. Explain the fault in my theory.”

“
I don’t think ordering a
beer was the cause of our problems. It was a symptom.”

“
Meaning?”

“
Meaning the tension was
already between us. It’s why I ordered the Corona.” He watched her
intently, looking for any nuances that might indicate she was
getting upset—or pissed off. So far there were none. “I think
something else happened. Something significant that precipitated
the rest of our shit. The silence, the fighting, the
bitching.”

Her shoulders stiffened. “It’s like I
said—work got to me. I lost myself setting up the clinic, and in
the process I stopped talking to you.”

“
Nope.” He massaged the
shoulder closest to him, determined to defuse any tension before it
blew out of control. “That may have led to the silence, but the
other shit? Uh-uh. You’ve worked long hours before. Your final
year, your internship, exams. Those were all way more stressful
than setting up the clinic.” He’d gone days without seeing his wife
when she’d specialized. Even when she was home, she’d spent most of
the time sleeping. Her studies had been equally taxing, yet she and
Theo had survived years of Zoey sitting medical exams. “We got
through those times without strife. Which tells me stress at work
wasn’t the only problem here.”

Zoey was silent a long time, and then she
began to fidget. First she twisted her wedding ring one way then
the other, and then she jiggled her leg. She jiggled so quickly,
the couch shook.

Theo placed his hand on her knee, stilling
her. Although it wasn’t his intention, he left it there. He hadn’t
touched his wife for the pure joy of touching her in so long, he
couldn’t pull away.

Zoey stilled. Her eyes darkened, her lower
lip pouted and she inched her legs apart, giving Theo access to her
inner thighs.

Christ. Who could resist an invitation like
that?

Not a man who for months had been deprived
of physical contact with the woman he loved. His hand crept around
her leg, stroking from her knee up the curve of her thigh and back
again.

She sighed, her eyelids fluttered closed and
she widened her legs, offering him direct access to her tempting
pussy.

Itching to give her what she wanted—and take
what he craved—Theo squared his shoulders, gritted his teeth and
pulled his hand away. The effort nearly killed him. His hardening
cock twitched in displeasure.