Song of the chapter: This is what falling in love feels like by JVKE

When morning arrives, the rays of sun that peek through my curtains to dash across my  face awaken me. However, as my reluctant body is slowly pulled into consciousness like fabric heavily dragged up from water, I am surprised by the feeling of skin against mine, of a body rising up and down as breaths are taken. 

I open my eyes to the sight of Theo's chest before me, his arm gripping me close to his body. Warmth radiates off of him and is trapped under the blankets that cover us, heating me on the cold Winter morning and making me never want to leave the spot. But we've been laying here for lord knows how long and I had certainly worked up on an appetite, our last meal having been takeaway on our return trip yesterday.

And yet I don't want to end the moment, to unweave our entwined legs and put distance between us after being so close. I have never felt this way about someone— so addicted, such a deep need for more. I just wanted to grab a sledge hammer and keep smashing down the walls that stand before Theo protecting him, even if it requires me to let him do the same to mine. 

Theo is the first male that I've ever shared a bed overnight with and, therefore, also the first guy that I've ever awoken naked next to. Sam and I never spent the night together and there hadn't been anyone else since him, with Derek and Damon having barely been a blip on the radar and rather a failed attempt to be 'normal' and date. 

I didn't know how it'd feel being like this, so closely tangled together, so within each other's personal space. I've always been someone who has admittedly enjoyed their personal space, considerably, and it is certainly the case in bed where my legs are spread all over the place and I toss and turn without having to worry about frustrating anybody. I haven't shared a bed with anyone in years and even then it might have only been for a sleepover with Jess or Lexi. 

Yet, as I lay here in the middle of my bed trapped in Theo's embrace, I revel in the feeling of waking up to someone by my side to start the day. I savour the feeling of being needed and held onto as if by instinct even in one's sleep, and think back to how it had felt in the depths of the night falling asleep in each other's arms in a haze. 

But . . . I'm still pretty hungry. 

Not wanting to take the abrupt route and wake him by suddenly shrugging out of his hold, I begin to roam my free hand over the surface of his torso, my fingers delicately gliding across the skin and retracing the path my lips had followed last night. With a smile unconsciously growing across my face, I recall how my hands ran across his body so very many times and how it was reciprocated time and time again until we collapsed with exhaustion into the sheets in the early hours of the morning.

"Good morning." 

I look up, broken out of my trance, to find Theo barely squinting his eyes open and a smile teasing the corners of his lips as he looks down to the culprit of his awakening.

Mission successful. 

"Good morning." I reply as I wriggle out of his slightly loosened hold on me, lifting my head up further onto his chest and wresting it in my hands as I look up at him. "Did you have a good sleep?"

"I sure did, and much needed one after yesterday. You worked me hard Ms. Adams," he answers, straight to the point. My face instantly collapses into his chest with embarrassment. "With all that packing and stuff, you know."

I swiftly lift my head back up to give him a death stare. "You're a smart ass you know."

He mischievously chuckles. "I have been told this once or twice. It's just too fun seeing your face change to the shade of a strawberry so damn quickly. It's cute." he says, tapping a finger against the tip of my nose.

I observe his face and the relaxed nature of it as he eases out of his sleepiness like a child awoken from a nap. I've never seen him so carefree and playful — for goodness sake, he has just booped my nose. 

A comfortable silence settles in as we both take in the reality of the moment and that we are actually laying in bed together like this after what had just happened. He lifts a hand to my face, wrapping a finger around one of the wavy tendrils that had fallen over my cheeks as I carefully watch his every moment. 

We had done what was the most typical aspect of a friends-with-benefits relationship, yet somehow it felt the most further from that between us than it ever had. I needed to make sure it wasn't just me feeling that way— that for Theo this wasn't just a normal thing.

"So, things are a bit different now, right?" Theo asks suddenly, halting me from what would have been a deep spiral of thoughts about how to approach the topic. "And obviously, it's not just because we just slept with each other. Something's changed, right?" He is repeating his words and speaking in one of the most subdued tones that I've heard from him.

"Something's changed." I nod in agreement as his hand lets go of my hair to run over my shoulder, softly beginning to run back up and down my arm. I can't quantify how grateful I am that he was the first to bring it up. "We've never done this before."  

"Slept together? No, we have not." he says, earning him a soft slap against the chest. I lift my head to see the smirk across his face, having turned away when the topic had changed so as not have to look at him as we ventured a delicate area. The teasing is worth it though to see one side of his lips raised so deliciously and eyes childishly squinting. I know deep down though that it's his way to make light of a vulnerable situation for the both of us.  

"Gee, thanks for that genius." He chuckles at me, always the easy and innocent victim to his teasing but I don't mind it— well, I just don't mind it when he does it. "What I meant to say was that we've never done this whole staying in bed together thing."

"I mean, there was last week." he points out, scrunching his eyebrows slightly in thought. With his eyes still looking drowsy from having just woken up, the combination is just too adorable which I can't say is usually the first way Theo is described. 

"Yeah, but that was just us falling asleep accidentally during a movie marathon. This is . . . different. This is us staying together after being . . . close." I explain, not entirely sure if I make sense and struggling to fight the right words to capture my thoughts. 

"Close . . . that's one way of describing it," he chuckles and I can feel that so-called strawberry skin making its appearance again. For goodness sake, I'm an adult. I need to stop blushing every time anytime anything remotely sexual is mentioned. I blame it on my grandmother— anytime anything a little romantic or sexual would come on in a movie or on television she would quite literally shout out what translated to shame, Game of Thrones style. 

"Look, I get what you mean," Theo thankfully continues, making me not feel so absurd in what I was saying. "It's nice not breaking out of our bubble. To wake up and have your skin against mine, to have you wrapped around me in our little warm cocoon under the blankets. And I like that you let me in to your bubble." 

I am trying to hold back the smile threatening to stretch wider across my face with each word he utters, biting down on my bottom lip firmly, but it's getting harder. 

"I guess I just want to say to you that I want to do this more, and I'm not just trying to get in your pants when I say this or playing around anymore." he continues, a breath very much caught in my throat as I comprehend what he is saying. What was a second ago just us playing around has now escalated. I await eagerly as he takes another moment to think over his words.  

"I want to keep doing this— to keep being this close to you and to learn about all the rest of your little quirks. Like the little constellation of beauty spots you've got on your back, or the little puffs of breath you let out in your sleep, or how you like to sleep with one foot just hanging out from under the blankets." He lists, saying things that I don't think anyone has gotten to know about me. I don't even know these things.  

 "I want more, and I don't really know how to do this or what the next step is because I've never gotten to this part but I hope you know what I'm trying to say right now?" he continues, leaving me speechless.

There's not too much specificity to it— he doesn't say what 'more' means, if it is potentially being his girlfriend or what— but he's telling me enough of what I want to hear for the bells to start ringing and for the skeptic in me to slowly open the windows of my mind to the possibility of something more. Normally not having a clear definition would drive me insane but I've found that with Theo I seem to be willing to face the uncertainty if it means having him close. 

"I know," I say, the words comings out as barely more than a whisper. "I know what you mean. I feel the same."

His hands stop moving against my skin so I look up to watch his reaction— the bashful smile completely worth it. 

"Okay . . . I'm glad." he timidly nods. "Maybe we can talk about it more later because I don't want to rush you into anything and I want us to both be sure. But . . . I'm thinking for today we should just stay in this bed for the rest of the day and we're all sorted."

"Oh yeah?" I challenge as his hands begin roaming lower down my torso before grabbing my hips and manoeuvring to push me onto my back. I am twisted up in the blanket after being turned from one side to another but he still manages to weave his fingers through the fabric so that they can rush over the sensitive skin under my arms. With a knee firmly planted on each side of me keeping me trapped under him, his lips begin to simultaneously attack me too and I writhe from the sensation. 

"Not . . . letting . . . you . . . say . . . otherwise." he declares between each stamp of my skin with his lips. 

At first I am trying to fight his hands away, but slowly the tickling dies down as he focuses his attention on what his mouth is doing. His lips move across my shoulders and then down to pepper the skin of my chest, his hands working overtime to wrap me free from the blanket but ultimately finding success.

"Look, you're making this offer increasingly hard to turn down." I say as his offer becomes not the only thing to be going down. 

"Mhmm." he hums as my fingers instinctively find themselves weaving into his hair as his actions make my own stand up straight across my arms. 

Gee, Theo sure does know how to start a morning.

His head soon disappears underneath the blanket and though he is out of sight my body knows where those lips of his are moving, down to the millimetre as each movement seemingly activates some unknown nerve and sends shivers running up my spine. 

"Jess should be home. She'll hear us." I point out, finding it incredibly hard to even put the energy to thinking about anything else. 

It is hard to capture right now what I am feeling but the only comparison that I can think of right now is that I am a damn matchbox with a millimetre wide striking surface for the matchstick to run across and he is without fail igniting that matchstick. Every. Single. Time. Sending a fire rushing under my skin. 

I don't get a verbal response from Theo. Instead, all I get is one hand that peeks out from underneath the blanket to swiftly grab a cushion and push it in the direction of my face. 

Theo, it would appear, was not one to back down.