Page 44 of What We Don't Say: Part One

“All right.” I lean my head back against the wall and let my shoulder relax near his. “I’m staying.”

The first few minutes are only breathing.

Theo’s comes in sharp little pulls. Mine has to become something slower on purpose, because every time his fingers twitch against my wrist, every time the cardamom in his scent spikes, I want to gather him into my lap and promise things I don't know how to promise yet. So I sit there and breathe where he can hear me. I let the house make its quiet noises around us:distant water in the pipes, the low hum of the dryer, Sloane’s muffled voice somewhere far enough away not to press.

Theo inches closer until his forehead rests against my shoulder.

My hand moves into his hair.

He melts.

The change is so complete that I have to close my eyes for a second. His body doesn't just relax. It yields, the rigid line of his spine softening against my side, his fingers loosening around my wrist only to find the hem of my cardigan. His scent shifts too, the sharp edge of cardamom easing into something warmer beneath the peach blossom.

“Callie,” he breathes.

It is barely sound. It still lands everywhere.

I look down, and he's already looking at me. The closet is dim, but I can see enough. Wet lashes. Flushed cheeks. The frightened set of his mouth giving way to something I have no safe name for.

“Hi,” I whisper, because apparently that is the only word I know today.

His gaze drops to my mouth.

My chest goes tight.

He looks back up, waiting for me to stop him, and that is the part that moves me. Not the want by itself. The waiting. The fact that he has learned to ask with his whole body before his voice can get anywhere near permission.

“Theo,” I say softly.

He leans in.

It isn't smooth. His mouth catches the corner of mine first, a trembling press that almost misses, and then he adjusts with a tiny, frustrated sound that breaks my heart open. His lips find mine again, fuller this time, warm and unsure and hungry under all the fear.

I mean to stay still for him.

I manage it for one breath.

Then he makes a sound against my mouth, and my hand tightens in his hair.

The kiss changes.

He follows the pressure of my fingers like he has been waiting for permission to fall. His hand slides from my cardigan to my waist, fisting in the fabric there, and he presses closer until the nest of my clothes shifts beneath us. I taste lemon sugar from the bar he ate earlier and the salt of his nerves, but mostly I feel him. Theo. The man who found my sleeve in a house full of Alpha scent and built himself a center out of it.

He's still trembling, but the tremor is different now.

I pull back just enough to breathe. “Is this okay?”

He nods, forehead bumping mine.

“Use the card if it stops being okay,” I whisper. “Or tap my wrist twice.”

His fingers move instantly to my wrist. Tap. Tap.

My heart stutters. “That means stop.”

He shakes his head, then taps once.

“One means yes?” I ask.