The Dealmaker (Sex & Bonds 1)

I don’t know if hanging out with Theo is a good bet or a really bad one. Either way, it’s a gamble I’m willing to make.

The Funk Zone is this cool little slice of downtown Santa Barbara that’s been revitalized over the past decade, teeming with amazing restaurants, bars, and shops. Wineries from the nearby hills have set up shop in these cool little warehouse spaces, their doors flung open to the delicious late afternoon sunshine. Theo takes me to his favorite one, a spot called Area 51, and we taste a flight of juicy reds before heading to my favorite store in the area. It’s a vintage shop that stocks everything from midcentury home goods to funky clothes and stunning antiques, and Theo and I browse side by side for over an hour. I pick out a few strands of translucent green and gold trade beads; he nabs a vintage designer handbag “for my shithead sister who doesn’t deserve it but whom I love dearly, so, yeah.”

I smile. “You know how to use ‘whom’.”

“It’s all the Tessa Dare I’ve been reading,” he replies with a twinkle in his eye. A literal fucking twinkle. The bubble in my center expands, making it difficult to breathe.

“Surely she didn’t teach you to call your sisters shitheads, though.”

“Nah. I learned that from you.”

“Stop it! I’ve never called you a shithead.”

“Not to my face.” He hovers a finger directly over my eyebrows. “But I know you’re always thinking it.”

“Of course I’m thinking it. It’s true.”

“It is,” he says with this rakish grin that just—ugh, it’s adorable. “I don’t think you could lie if you tried. You wear your heart on your sleeve.”

“Not with everyone.”

“I know.” He keeps looking at me, that twinkle in his eye deepening into something richer. I have to look away.

At the next shop, we’re both drawn to sets of coasters graffitied by a local artist with all kinds of hilarious profanity. My personal favorite is a set scrawled with “dick barf” in neon orange bubble letters; Theo buys a set marked with “pussy power” in pink.

We split a charcuterie board at the French-inspired café next door. Our table is outside, but the buildings around us protect us from the cool breeze blowing in off the water. It’s warm and quiet and perfect, and we sip local Viognier and fight over the last bits of Roquefort until it’s dark.

My feet hurt, I’m full to the point of bursting, and I’m tired—a couple of late nights, plus the time change, equals exhaustion—but I’m afraid to mention heading back to the hotel. Mentioning it means thinking about it, and when I think about entering Theo’s hotel room and staying there for the night, my imagination takes over. The bathtub will get too uncomfortable. He’ll grab his pillow and sneak into the bed, thinking I’m asleep. But I’m not asleep, I’m wide awake and hot and bothered, and I’ll realize he’s not wearing a shirt because of course Theo sleeps practically naked, and I’ll “accidentally” reach over and graze his bare chest, and he’ll growl and pull me against him, he’ll reach inside my tank top and—

Good God, woman, pump the brakes.

“You’re beat,” Theo says.

“No, I’m not. Well, the time change hasn’t been easy . . .” I put a hand on my face. My skin is scalding. “Is it that obvious?”

“Not really.” He rises and holds out a hand. “But I meant what I said about learning you. You have these tells—you get talkative when you’re nervous but quiet when you’re tired.”

I think back to the conversation we had at the gate at Charlotte-Douglas, when I was vibrating with nerves before our flight. I did talk a lot then. And I’m not now.

I glance at his outstretched hand, the callouses on his palm and fingers so pronounced I can see them in the half-light of a sinking sun. The bubble inside me turns into an ache.

Theo has not treated me kindly in the past. But now he’s treating me how I’ve always dreamed of being treated by a boyfriend, a partner, a friend, and it’s killing me. The attention to detail. The kindness. The genuine concern, and the eagerness to delight.

He’s turned this afternoon into a fucking fairy tale, and I don’t know what to do with that.

I don’t know what to do with myself when he’s looking at me like this, not with condescension but with care. When he’s holding out a hand that offers help, warmth, a safe place to land—and yeah, that’s the same hand that helped give me one of the best, most intense orgasms of my life.

How in the world do I feel safe with the same man who, a week ago, almost made me cry? I need to know more.

Which is why I take his hand and let him help me to my feet. If I keep trusting him, maybe he’ll trust me enough to share the rest of his story.