OFF LIMIT

Chapter 4

The bookstore was empty.

No cashier, no other customers, just the two of us and the long, narrow aisle of the fiction section, shelves rising high on either side.

Theo had a book in his hand one second and then it was gone, dropped somewhere I didn't see, because his hand was suddenly at my waist instead, pushing me back until my shoulders met the spines of a hundred books I couldn't name.

"You've been playing with fire," he murmured, close enough that I felt the words more than heard them, "and pretending you don't know it."

I didn't have an answer for that. I didn't need one.

His mouth found my neck first, slow and deliberate, and I felt my fingers curl into the front of his shirt, holding on like the floor might disappear from under me.

He moved to my jaw, my chin, everywhere except the one place I wanted him most, drawing it out until I was breathless and reckless and done pretending I didn't want exactly this.

I pulled him down by the hair.

I kissed him like five years of denial had finally run out.

His hands were everywhere after that, slow and certain, learning me like he'd been waiting a long time for the chance.

I lost track of where we were, the shelves, the books, the fact that any of this was supposed to be impossible.

I only knew his mouth on mine and the low sound he made against my lips when I arched into him, and his hand sliding lower, teasing, patient in a way that made me ache.

One of his hands slid slowly up my thigh, stopping agonisingly close to where I needed him most, while his other hand caressed my neck.

I couldn't stop myself from moving closer, chasing his touch, every tease making my patience disappear.

When he finally gave me what I wanted, my breath caught.

I moved against his hand instinctively, desperate and reckless, while his other hand slipped from his neck to my breast.

The sensation sent a shiver through me, and I clung to him, completely lost in the moment.

His touch became more demanding, and whatever restraint I had left disappeared.

I buried my face against him, breathless, as he f****d me senseless with his fingers.

The tension inside me kept building until I was trembling, so close to losing myself completely—

Then, suddenly, I woke up.

He was close to giving me exactly what I wanted when I woke up.

I sat bolt upright in a tangle of damp sheets, heart pounding, my whole body still humming with the ghost of something that hadn't actually happened.

It took a full, humiliating minute for my brain to catch up with reality.

The room was dark, quiet, entirely ordinary.

No bookstore. No shelves. No Theo pressing me back against a wall of books like he'd been waiting years for the chance.

I pressed my palms against my eyes and groaned into them.

Great. Fantastic. Exactly what I needed.

I peeled myself out of bed on unsteady legs, painfully, embarrassingly aware of exactly how worked up I still was, and made a beeline for the shower.

The water ran hotter than it needed to. It didn't help nearly as much as I wanted it to.

By the time I'd showered, brushed my teeth, and pulled on a simple sundress, telling myself firmly that today was a normal day and I was a normal, composed adult who did not have inappropriate dreams about her best friend's father, I'd almost convinced myself I had it together.

Then I walked downstairs and found him sitting in my kitchen.

For one full, dizzy second, I thought I was still dreaming.

My stomach dropped somewhere near my feet, my face went hot, and I stood frozen in the doorway trying to determine whether my subconscious had genuinely conjured him twice in twelve hours.

"Isabella."

His voice was easy, unaware, exactly the voice of a man who had spent the night doing absolutely nothing untoward.

"Morning."

"Morning," I managed, and prayed my face wasn't doing whatever it felt like it was doing.

My mother appeared from the kitchen a beat later, wiping her hands on a dish towel, entirely too pleased with herself.

"I invited Theo and Sienna for brunch. It's Saturday, figured we'd make a thing of it."

Of course she had.

Theo was dressed down, a soft gray polo and dark pants, comfortable in a way that made him look younger, less like the man who ran a boardroom and more like someone I could have imagined, God help me, doing exactly what he'd done in that dream.

I forced my eyes away before that thought could finish forming.

"You look well rested," he said, and I nearly choked on my own spit.

"Didn't sleep great, actually."

"No?" A flicker of concern crossed his face, entirely genuine, entirely unaware of what he was concerned about.

"Everything alright?"

"Fine. Just a weird dream."

I moved past him toward the coffee pot before my face could betray anything else.

I was saved from further conversation by a pair of arms wrapping around me from behind, tight and enthusiastic.

"There she is!"

Sienna, flour dusted on one cheek, grinning like she'd been waiting all morning to ambush me.

She loved cooking. I loved eating whatever she made. It had always worked out well for both of us.

We migrated outside not long after, the table already set on the back patio, late summer sun warm without being oppressive.

I ended up seated beside him, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his arm, and I spent the first few minutes of brunch caught in the strange, exhausting effort of wanting to be closer and needing to put distance between us at the exact same time.

"You should eat more," he said at one point, nudging a plate of fruit closer to me, the gesture so automatic, so purely paternal, that it landed like a small, quiet blow.

He looked at me and saw a girl who needed looking after.

I wanted, desperately, for him to look at me and see a woman instead.

I ate.

I stayed mostly quiet through the meal, nodding along to conversation, not trusting my own voice not to give something away.

Eventually my mother disappeared inside to deal with something in the kitchen, and Sienna's phone rang, pulling her away toward the garden gate with an apologetic wave.

Gabriel hadn't come at all, no explanation given, and I felt a small, familiar ache at that, the sense that he kept drifting further from all of this every time I saw him.

Which left Theo and me alone at the table.

I cleared my throat, mostly to have something to do.

"So. Anything new with you?"

"Nothing much."

A faint, dry smile.

"A few awards for being, and I quote, 'exceptional in leadership.' Otherwise, same life you already know about."

"Modest."

"I try."

He studied me for a moment, that familiar careful attention.

"What about you? Did you end up applying anywhere?"

"Not yet."

I focused very hard on my coffee cup.

"No? I thought you had a few places in mind."

"I do. I just haven't sent anything out."

I hesitated, then decided honesty was easier than a lie he'd probably see through anyway.

"If I tell you where, you're going to make a call. Pull a string. Smooth something over before I even get the chance to try on my own. And I don't want that. Not this time."

Something flickered across his face, surprise, maybe, or the particular kind of respect that came with being caught out.

"You think that's what I'd do."

"I know that's what you'd do."

He didn't argue.

That was somehow worse, a quiet admission that I wasn't wrong, that he probably already had two or three names in mind he'd have reached for the second I said a company's name out loud.

"Fair enough," he said finally, low, careful.

"I won't ask again."

"Thank you."

"Are you seeing anyone?"

He asked, the question landing so casually I almost missed how much it didn't belong in the conversation we'd been having.

"What?"

I blinked at him.

"No. Why?"

"Just curious."

He shrugged, easy, unbothered, reaching for his coffee like he hadn't just derailed my entire nervous system with four words.

"Whoever it ends up being, I'd want to make sure he's good enough for you. That's all."

That's all.

I nodded, said something forgettable in response, and let the conversation move on to something else entirely, but my mind had already wandered somewhere it had no business going.

For one reckless, humiliating second, I let myself wonder if there was something underneath the question.

If some part of him had asked because he wanted to know, not because he was being protective, but because it mattered to him for reasons that had nothing to do with looking out for me.

I hated myself a little for the thought almost as fast as I had it.

That was exactly the kind of thinking that had gotten me in trouble for five years, reading meaning into things that were never there, building entire fantasies out of a man simply being kind.

He asked because he cared about me the way a father cared about a daughter.

That was all it had ever been.

That was all it would ever be.

I must have gone quiet longer than I realized, because when I looked up, he was watching me with a small line of concern between his brows.

"Everything alright?" he asked.

"You can tell me anything, you know that."

"I know."

I forced a smile, easy and unbothered, the way I'd had five years of practice perfecting.

"Just tired. Bad night's sleep."

He studied me a beat longer than felt entirely comfortable, like he wasn't quite convinced, but he let it go, and the conversation drifted somewhere safer after that.

I sat there beside him, quietly furious with myself, and thought that if this was what the rest of the summer was going to feel like, I was in far more trouble than I'd let myself admit.