Chapter 18: Collision of Worlds
The kiss shattered every boundary they had built across time.
Theo's mouth claimed Ava's with months of pent-up hunger. His hands gripped her waist possessively, pulling her flush against his hard body right there in the softly lit atrium. The scent of night-blooming jasmine surrounded them as guests' distant laughter faded into background noise.
Ava moaned into his mouth, fingers tangling in his dark hair. He tasted exactly like his voice had promised — warm, masculine, addictive. When his tongue swept in, dominant and deep, her knees buckled.
"I've waited so long to do this," he growled against her lips, voice that same velvet rasp but now vibrating through real flesh. "Every night I guided you… I imagined tasting you, feeling you come apart on my cock instead of just your fingers."
Heat flooded between Ava's thighs. She pressed closer, feeling the thick ridge of his erection straining against his trousers. "Theo… people might see—"
"Let them." His hand slid down to cup her ass, squeezing hard. "I've been a ghost for you too long. Tonight you're mine."
He backed her against one of the warm wooden pillars, the finished atrium providing perfect shadows. His mouth trailed hot, open kisses down her neck, sucking marks that would bruise tomorrow. Ava arched, a needy whimper escaping as his thigh pushed between her legs, pressing firmly against her aching core.
"Fuck, you're already soaked," he murmured, hand slipping under her black dress. His fingers found her lace panties and pushed them aside, stroking through her slick folds. "So wet for me. Just like when I told you to touch yourself."
Ava gasped, hips rocking shamelessly against his hand. Two thick fingers plunged inside her without warning, curling perfectly against that sensitive spot. The stretch was delicious, real, overwhelming after so many nights of fantasy.
"Theo—oh god—" She bit her lip to stifle a loud moan as he pumped his fingers faster, thumb circling her swollen clit with ruthless precision.
"Come for me, beautiful," he commanded, the same tone that had undone her through static now a hundred times more powerful in person. "Let me feel this tight little pussy clench around my fingers the way it will around my cock later."
The orgasm hit her hard and fast. Ava cried out, body shuddering violently as pleasure ripped through her. Her walls fluttered and squeezed his fingers while he whispered filthy praise against her ear.
But as the waves subsided, something strange happened — a faint, crackling overlay of his voice echoed in her mind, the old future-version whispering the exact same words simultaneously. The double sensation made her come again, harder, legs giving out completely.
Theo caught her, eyes widening with surprise and dark lust. "You felt that too?"
Ava nodded, breathless. "The echo… it's still bleeding through."
A wicked smile curved his lips. "Good. Then we're going to use it."
As they slipped away from the opening night crowd toward a private corner of the garden, Theo whispered a dangerous promise: "By the end of tonight, you'll be screaming my name so loud the entire building remembers who you belong to… but there's something about my arrival I haven't told you yet."