Stroke is where he begins… Read them all.

Before he was worshipped, he was witnessed.

Nico Reyes didn’t start out a god.
He started out naked. In an art class. Being watched.

This is his story, before the novel His Theirs Enough, before the Quadruple, before Elias, Alaric, and Lina ever touched his life in the ways they would.

Set during his chaotic, unfiltered college years, Stroke follows Nico as he learns what it means to use his body as a medium, to be drawn by someone who doesn’t just want him but sees him. Here, desire is not just about touch… It’s about gaze, presence, and the holy ache of being really seen.

These are his formative years:

• The moment he turned nudity into performance.
• The sketch that made him feel held.
• The slow undoing of swagger into surrender.

Nico will one day become a core part of the Tethered Quadruple, a body among bodies, a dominant with a history of being known too deeply to ever pretend again.

But Stroke is where he begins.
This is the first time someone draws him with more than hands.
And it leaves a mark.

Pencil, Then Tongue

Chapter One

The classroom smelled like wet graphite and bodies that had tried not to sweat and failed.

Late morning light spilled through the half-cracked high windows, warping the scuffed linoleum into something almost beautiful. Everyone looked bored. A few students tapped their pencils against sketchpads like they were drumming out a cry for help. The model was twenty minutes late. And no one had spoken in ten.

Until the door slammed open.

Not just opened. Slammed. Loud. Audacious. Inevitable.

Nico Reyes skated straight into the room like momentum had made the choice for him, board tucked under one arm, tank top clinging to his ribs, sweat streaked down his neck like a holy relic. His jeans were slung low, his rings clinked when he pushed the bandana back from his hair, and his mouth, always his mouth, carried that particular brand of grin that made people want to slap him or kiss him or both.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, not remotely sorry. “Studio B ran over. Someone lit their canvas on fire. On purpose, I think.”

No one asked follow-up questions.

He dropped into a sprawl against the far wall, kicked his board aside with the grace of a dancer raised on graffiti and cheap tequila, and shot a wink at a girl three stools away who immediately looked at her lap like it might offer her protection.

Nico grinned wider. His tongue caught the corner of his mouth. The sweat on his chest gleamed like intentional highlight.

“Where’s the model?” he asked, eyes flicking across the motionless group. “This another one of those find-yourself-by-staring-at-nothing weeks?”

“We’re waiting,” said the professor, dryly, from behind a clipboard. She was an older woman with paint beneath her fingernails and the patience of a saint on nicotine withdrawal. “Apparently they got the days mixed up.”

“Mmm.” Nico scratched his stomach absently, revealing a sliver of hip bone and a black tattoo written in Spanish no one ever got to read properly. “Well, that’s tragic.”

A few people laughed. It broke the stillness. Everyone shifted.

“Unless someone wants to strip and save the session…” the professor added, with that kind of worn sarcasm that always carried just a hint of dare.

It was meant to fill the silence. A placeholder. A shrug.

But Nico stood.

Or more accurately, he unfolded. Like something too big for the space he was occupying.

“Sure,” he said, eyes gleaming. “Why not?”

A ripple moved through the room. A low chuckle, nervous. No one quite believed him. He always talked like that. Teased like that.

But then he reached for the hem of his tank and pulled it over his head in one smooth, unbothered motion.

Paint flecks and sweat shimmered across his chest like he’d rolled through holy oil. His stomach was tight, lean but not sharp, more dancer than athlete. There was a scar just beneath his rib, small, crescent-shaped, maybe a burn, and a silver chain disappearing under the waistband of his jeans.

The room went quiet.

“You’re joking,” someone whispered. Not to Nico. To the space.

He kicked off his shoes.

The professor raised a brow. “Reyes, I was not being serious—”

“Too late.” He was unbuttoning his jeans now, slowly, theatrically. “I’m committed to the bit.”

There was a beat... the kind of pause that thrums... and then the jeans dropped.

No underwear.

Of course not.

No shame, either.

Nico stepped out of them like it was the most natural thing in the world, like he’d been born for the sole purpose of taking off his clothes in inconvenient places and making other people think about it for days.

He turned, bare, unapologetic, half-hard just from the energy of the room, and padded barefoot to the model’s platform in the centre.

The professor sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose, and muttered, “Fine. Don’t move.”

Nico lay down on the cool wood like a god who’d grown bored of divinity and decided to major in Fine Arts instead.

The room held its breath.

And Nico smiled.

The platform creaked softly beneath him.

Nico lay on his side at first, elbow bent, cheek resting against one curled fist. The pose was lazy, almost feline, the kind of posture that said, I didn’t mean to seduce you, but here we are. His long hair fell across one shoulder like it, too, had been waiting for an audience.

He stretched one leg, bent the other, cock resting heavy against the inner curve of his thigh. Not hard. Not soft. Just… there. Warm. Undeniable.

He was utterly at ease in his nakedness, which was perhaps the most confronting thing about him. Not bravado. Not performance. Just the disarming stillness of a body unbothered by its own exposure.

He yawned, blinked slowly, and turned his head toward the room.

“Well?” he said. “You lot gonna draw, or just keep staring?”

A few people fumbled for pencils. One dropped a charcoal stick. Another coughed, too loud. The sound bounced off the concrete walls and made everything feel even more ridiculous.

Nico grinned and shifted slightly, rolling onto his back with a deliberate stretch. His arms reached up and folded behind his head, lifting his chest and pulling the skin taut over the slope of his abdomen. The shift made his cock sway gently, the soft weight of it a kind of punctuation… casual and obscene in equal measure.

The professor gave a long, theatrical sigh, then picked up her clipboard again.

“Ten-minute studies,” she announced flatly. “Warm-up rounds. You know the drill. Don’t waste it.”

A flurry of sketchpads opened. Graphite scratched. Nico settled.

And the room changed.

The energy was no longer awkward. It was charged.

People tried not to look too long at his mouth, his thighs, the thin, dark trail of hair from navel to cock. But they did.

Nico didn’t move.

He just watched them, slowly, eyes drifting across the group like he was the one drawing them. His gaze was velvet. Teasing. Wicked in the gentlest way.

Some couldn’t meet it. Others held it just long enough to tremble.

In the far corner of the room, a figure caught his eye.

A boy. Thin, with a hoodie too large for him and black ink smudged on the edge of his palm. His hair was dark, curly, unstyled. There was something quietly serious about the way he moved his pencil… not frantic, not fussy. Intentional.

Nico let his eyes linger.

The boy didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink.

He looked at Nico. Not around him. Not through him.

At him.

And Nico felt it.

Not just as attention.

But as touch.

He smiled, slow and crooked. Just a fraction.

The boy’s pencil paused.

Then moved again.

Bolder this time.

Nico stretched one leg down the platform, let his ankle fall sideways. Let his cock shift. Just enough.

He watched the boy’s throat move as he swallowed.

And for the first time that morning, Nico felt the start of a pulse, low in his belly, deep in the root of himself… not desire exactly, but the possibility of it.

He closed his eyes.

And let the room keep watching.

Ten minutes became twenty.

The professor didn’t call time.

No one asked.

The usual shuffling, of pages turned, poses reset, chairs scraped back, never happened. Instead, the studio settled into something stranger. Stiller. The kind of atmosphere Nico loved most, reverent and restless all at once.

He remained stretched along the platform like a study in slow confidence, body soft but alert, legs slightly parted, one arm trailing off the side like he’d grown bored of pretending to be contained.

And Theo, though he didn’t know his name yet, kept drawing.

Not with the fast, nervous lines of the others. Not with the blunt, practical strokes of anatomy students either.

His movements were spare. Focused.

He’d filled nearly three pages already, each one a variation… a fragment, a suggestion, a worship.

He wasn’t drawing Nico’s body.

He was drawing Nico’s presence.

And Nico fucking felt it.

Every time the boy’s eyes met his, Nico’s chest tightened in a way he didn’t entirely understand. Not fear. Not arousal, exactly. Something more disarming. Like being read in a language he hadn’t realised he’d written himself in.

The pencil dipped. Lifted. Paused.

He was on a new page now, no full figure this time. Just a detail.

Nico watched him study the shape of his inner thigh, then the curve where his hip dipped into the softness beside his cock. The boy’s brow furrowed, lips parted slightly. His gaze held.

Longer than it should have.

Nico tilted his head, not enough to break the pose, just enough to offer something.

Theo’s pencil twitched.

Then drew again.

Not the thigh. Not the shoulder. Not the face.

The cock.

Not in a pornographic way. Not crude. There was precision, yes, but affection too… like he was tracing the memory of something holy.

Nico felt the breath leave his lungs in a slow, shaky exhale.

He was getting hard.

Not fully, not performatively. Just that slow, certain swell of blood and heat that happened when the body forgot to pretend it wasn’t being seen.

He didn’t hide it.

Why would he?

He let it thicken, let it shift against his thigh, let the weight of it settle into the curve of the pose like punctuation.

Theo’s eyes didn’t flinch.

The pencil didn’t falter.

And Nico, for all his swagger, all his chaos, felt a sudden pulse of vulnerability beneath the performance. The kind that only came when the line between observer and subject collapsed entirely.

He’d fucked plenty of people. Been drawn before. Photographed. Watched.

But this was different.

This boy was making him into something.

Not fantasy. Not fetish.

Something worthy of detail.

And it did something to Nico he hadn’t expected.

It made him want to stay still.

To let it happen.

To be undone slowly by a pair of ink-smudged hands that hadn’t touched him at all.

The platform had cooled beneath him, wood grain pressing faint patterns into his skin.

Nico didn’t shift. Didn’t speak. He was still, not stiff, not frozen, just completely and utterly inhabiting.

His body felt… large. Not muscular. Not dominating. Not in the way the gym boys in second-year tried to perform. But expansive. A body that took up space without apology. A body that was seen and didn’t shrink.

The class had stopped drawing him like a model.

They were drawing him like a question.

What happens when stillness becomes spectacle? When the subject knows he’s being watched… and likes it?

Nico let the silence wrap around him, thick as linen. His cock had settled into a gentle curve now, semi and soft again, but the heat hadn’t left his skin. It hummed just under the surface. His thighs tingled from the tension. His lower back ached in that familiar way from being held, not just in pose, but in attention.

He closed his eyes.

Breathed.

And let his mind drift.

To other times he’d used his body like this.

That summer in Madrid, modelling for the sculpture student who’d traced every ridge of him in clay, then begged him to stay for wine and sweat and three slow orgasms.
The performance piece where he’d stood naked for six hours inside a makeshift greenhouse while strangers placed objects at his feet and whispered secrets they thought he couldn’t hear.
The late-night photo session in the dorm stairwell where the girl with the shaved head had asked him, “Can you look a little more like you want to be broken?”

He always said yes.

Not because he didn’t have boundaries.

But because he liked finding them.

And today… today, in this cheap studio with its cracked windows and flickering strip lights and the smell of sweat and charcoal, something was happening that didn’t need sex to be erotic.

It needed presence.

And he was giving it.

He could feel the room bending around him now, people sketching slower, less for the lecturer and more for themselves. The air had thickened. The usual classroom itchiness, impatience, boredom, the hum of phones in back pockets, had evaporated. No one checked the time.

Even the professor had stopped pacing. She stood near the supply cabinet now, arms folded, head tilted. Watching.

Nico smiled faintly.

He’d done this.

Turned a room full of art students into pilgrims.

He cracked one eye open and glanced toward Theo.

The boy was still drawing.

Still.

His hand moved delicately. His mouth was slightly open. His eyes were darker now, like something in him had tipped.

Nico’s smile deepened, not arrogant, not cruel.

Just aware.

He flexed one foot, slowly. Let the calf muscle twitch. Let the room remember he was alive, not just form.

And Theo… he reacted.

His pencil skipped. Then steadied.

Their eyes locked.

Briefly.

Nico didn’t look away.

Theo flushed. Not deeply. Just the faintest bloom of pink under each cheekbone.

Then he kept drawing.

And Nico, for the first time in weeks… months, maybe… felt not just desired, but held.

He didn’t know what it meant yet.

But he knew he didn’t want it to stop.

The sound of chairs scraping back was almost jarring.

The spell had broken, but not shattered… more like a slow fade, a curtain lowered without applause.

“All right,” the professor said, almost reluctantly. “That’ll do. Ten-minute break. Then we’ll try something less distracting.”

The laughter was polite. Thin. No one quite knew how to re-enter their bodies.

Nico stretched slowly, bones cracking like punctuation. He sat up on the edge of the platform, sweat slick down his back, cock soft again but still heavy, still unhidden. He didn’t cover himself. Didn’t reach for the towel someone had finally set on the chair nearby.

He just sat there.

Watching.

Waiting.

The students avoided eye contact. Most of them, anyway. Some scurried out for coffee. Others hovered in that aimless way young artists do when something’s moved them and they’re not sure how to hold it.

He liked that.

Liked being something they didn’t know what to do with.

But not him.

The boy in the hoodie stayed.

Still at his stool, still sketching, still pretending not to be waiting for Nico to move.

He didn’t pack up until Nico stood.

Even then, it was slow, deliberate. Each page of the sketchpad turned with careful fingers, as if sealing something private between them.

Nico pulled his jeans on. No rush. No underwear, so everything shifted as it would… low, visible, marked with the memory of exposure. He left the tank top off. Draped it over his shoulder instead.

The boy finally stood.

Nico crossed the room like the floor belonged to him.

“Let me guess,” he said, voice low and amused. “You got nothing done. Too distracted by my overwhelming beauty.”

The boy looked up. His eyes weren’t nervous anymore.

“I drew,” he said, voice quiet but not shy.

Nico raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

The boy nodded.

Nico gestured to the sketchpad. “Show me.”

A pause.

Not long. But enough.

Then… the pad flipped open.

And there it was.

Nico’s breath caught.

He hadn’t expected to feel anything. But the drawings weren’t just good. They were… intimate. Unforgiving and tender in the same breath. Lines that traced not just his shape but his charge, the way he’d shifted his hips, the tilt of his gaze, the subtle swell of his cock as it responded.

He turned the page. Another. Another.

Each one quieter. More detailed. As if the artist had peeled away something with every pass.

Then… the last one.

A sketch, raw and unfinished. Nico’s cock, half-hard, resting against his thigh. The head shaded in fine detail. Lines like a reverent mouth had almost touched it.

Nico exhaled.

“Shit,” he murmured. “You draw like you’ve fucked me already.”

The boy’s mouth twitched. Just slightly.

Nico handed the sketchpad back.

“What’s your name?” he asked, eyes still on the page.

“Theo.”

Nico grinned. “Of course it is.”

Theo raised an eyebrow. “Why ‘of course’?”

“Just sounds like someone who’d stare at a naked stranger for ninety minutes and make it look like prayer.”

Theo blinked. Then smiled. Quiet. Crooked. Beautiful.

Nico leaned in.

“You coming with me?” he asked, already stepping back. “Or are you just going to keep imagining it?”

Theo hesitated.

Just for a second.

Then he followed.

Nico’s dorm was exactly what you’d expect from someone who treated his body like a palette and his life like an unfinished performance piece.

It smelled of turpentine, incense, and something sweetly fermented… maybe wine, maybe fruit left too long on the desk. A cracked window let in late-afternoon air, carrying in the hum of distant traffic and the occasional scream of seagulls.

The walls were chaos. Pinned sketches, layers of ripped canvas, smeared charcoal handprints. One wall was almost entirely consumed by a half-finished self-portrait: Nico, bare to the waist, back turned, arms raised above his head like surrender or crucifixion. A halo of gold leaf half-surrounded him. The brushstrokes around his spine were precise. Worshipful.

Theo stood in the doorway, still holding his sketchpad like a shield.

“Wow,” he said, finally.

Nico dropped his board against the wall, kicked his shoes under the bed, and tossed his shirt onto a chair already smothered with garments in various states of undress.

“It’s a mess,” he said cheerfully, “but it’s my mess.”

Theo stepped inside. The door clicked shut behind him.

Nico watched him.

Not hungrily. Not like prey.

But like something he’d already drawn with his tongue a hundred times in his head.

“Want a drink?” Nico asked. “There’s beer. Possibly juice. Possibly not juice.”

Theo smiled, still hovering near the threshold. “I’m alright.”

“Alright,” Nico echoed. “No pressure. You can leave whenever, or not.”

Theo nodded. Set his sketchpad down gently on the bed, then stood awkwardly beside it.

Nico crossed the room slowly.

He didn’t touch him.

Not yet.

“You ever done this before?” he asked.

Theo looked up.

“Drawn a stranger naked?” he asked. “Or followed them home after?”

Nico grinned. “Either. Both.”

“No.”

Nico tilted his head. “And you’re not scared?”

Theo met his eyes. “Should I be?”

Nico stepped closer, just enough.

“No,” he said. “I don’t take anything. But I offer a lot.”

Theo’s breath caught.

Nico reached out, finally, and brushed the back of his knuckles against Theo’s wrist.

“You want to draw me again?” he asked softly.

Theo nodded.

Nico took his hand.

“Then come here,” he murmured. “And use your hands first.”

He guided Theo toward the bed, stepping backwards with the lazy grace of someone who had never doubted his own gravity.

Theo followed.

They didn’t kiss at first.

They stood close, breath mingling. Nico’s body was warm, unhurried. His bare torso still faintly damp beneath the shirt he hadn’t worn home. He took Theo’s hands and placed them flat against his chest.

“Draw me,” he said. “With this.”

Theo’s fingers moved.

Up, then down. Across each pectoral. Along the slope of his collarbone. His thumb brushed a nipple and Nico inhaled, sharp and low.

He leaned forward, brushed their noses.

“Still want to imagine it?” he whispered.

Theo shook his head.

And then they kissed.

It wasn’t frantic. It wasn’t innocent.

It was deliberate.

Nico opened his mouth with intent, letting Theo taste the full weight of what he’d been offered. Their bodies aligned quickly, Theo’s hands in Nico’s hair, Nico’s thumbs brushing the waistband of Theo’s jeans, then slipping inside.

“Let me show you,” Nico breathed, pulling him gently down.

They tumbled to the mattress.

Paint-stained sheets. A floor lamp flickering. The city just beyond the window, unaware.

Theo lay back. Nico straddled him. Shirtless, ringed fingers working open Theo’s buttons like he was unwrapping a gift no one had dared give him before.

When the shirt came off, Nico paused.

“You’re beautiful,” he said. Simple. Factual.

Theo flushed. “I’m—”

“Shut up,” Nico whispered. “You are.”

And he meant it.

Not for the smooth skin or the wiry frame. Not for the abs or the angles.

For the way Theo looked at him.

Still looking. Still seeing.

Nico leaned down. Mouth to throat. Chest. Hip.

“Touch me like you’re still drawing,” he murmured.

And Theo did.

Nico lay back.

Not in surrender. Not in control, either.

In invitation.

His arms rested loose beside his head, wrists exposed, fingers twitching slightly from restraint not asked for, but implied. His thighs fell open with ease, long legs bent just enough to catch the lamplight across his skin.

Theo knelt between them.

Still half-dressed, shirtless, but jeans undone, belt hanging open like a mouth that hadn’t quite decided what to say.

He was trembling.

Not from fear.

From reverence.

Nico saw it. Felt it. And didn’t say a word.

Theo’s hands moved like they had on the page… slow, intentional, tracing lines he already knew by memory. The curve of Nico’s ribs. The dip of his hip. The gentle rise of his belly where breath caught and released in shallow waves.

Then lower.

Fingertips drifted along Nico’s cock, now hard… not with urgency, but with that thick, pulsing presence that came from being held in gaze.

Theo paused.

Nico watched him.

“You can,” he whispered. “Only if you want to.”

Theo nodded.

Then lowered his mouth.

It wasn’t smooth. Wasn’t skilled. But it was real, lips parted with effort, tongue unsure, hands trembling as they rested on Nico’s thighs for balance.

Nico exhaled, long and low.

“Good,” he murmured. “Fuck, Theo. That’s… yeah.”

Theo tried. Pulled back. Tried again. Gagged slightly, blushed, adjusted his grip.

Nico didn’t laugh. Didn’t guide with pressure.

Just words.

“Breathe through your nose. Relax your throat. Don’t take more than you want. I’m not going anywhere.”

Theo looked up at that.

Eyes wide. Glazed with something that wasn’t quite tears. Nico stroked his cheek once, thumb brushing the corner of his mouth.

“Beautiful,” he said.

And Theo swallowed him again.

This time slower. More deliberate.

Less about performance, more about contact. Sensation. The act of being connected.

Nico’s head fell back against the pillows. His breath began to stutter.

“You’re gonna ruin me,” he groaned. “You are.”

Theo moaned around him. The vibration sent a shock up Nico’s spine.

His hips lifted once, then steadied.

He didn’t fuck Theo’s mouth.

He let himself be held there.

And when it became too much… too hot, too close… he pulled Theo up, not roughly, but with urgency.

Kissed him hard.

“You want this?” he asked, voice hoarse. “Want me to come?”

Theo nodded, straddling his hips now, jeans shucked the rest of the way, both of them naked and flushed and half-drunk on the feeling.

Nico reached down, stroked himself once, twice, slick from Theo’s mouth, cock thick and desperate.

Then paused.

“You could just… watch,” he said, a little wicked now. “Like before.”

Theo’s breath hitched.

And he did.

He sat back, palms planted against Nico’s thighs, and watched.

Nico let his head fall to one side. Bit his lip. Pumped slow, then faster. Not theatrical. Not coy.

Just needing.

His moans came in short gasps, hips jerking up into his hand.

“Theo,” he choked out. “Fuck. Theo… watch me.”

“I am,” Theo whispered.

And Nico came.

Hard.

Spilled across his own stomach, chest, wrist. Thick and hot and undeniable.

His breath broke open in a long, shuddering exhale. One arm flung across his eyes. The other still lazily wrapped around his softening cock.

Theo stared.

Stunned.

Awed.

Then moved forward again, took a finger, and smeared a line through the mess Nico had made of himself.

“Don’t waste it,” Nico said, grinning.

Theo brought the finger to his lips.

Didn’t flinch.

And Nico, completely wrecked, utterly relaxed, laughed softly, then pulled Theo down beside him into the warmth.

They lay there. Sticky. Quiet. Full of the kind of silence that doesn’t ask to be filled.

Not yet.

The light had shifted.

It wasn’t quite night, but the blue of it had changed, deeper now, filtering through the single cracked window like it had somewhere better to be.

Nico hadn’t moved.

His arm lay draped across his ribs, hair tangled against the pillow, eyes half-lidded in that afterglow state he loved more than the climax itself. That quiet, suspended place where the body still felt electric but the mind had gone soft, generous.

Theo sat nearby, cross-legged on the floor, sketchpad in his lap.

He hadn’t spoken since Nico came.

And Nico hadn’t needed him to.

Every so often, the scratch of pencil over paper broke the hush. A pause. A breath. The faint creak of the bed as Nico shifted just enough to let the warmth pool again between his thighs.

He could still feel it, his own come tacky on his stomach, cooling now, drying against his skin like a mark he didn’t want to wipe off yet.

He watched Theo from under half-lowered lashes.

The boy had a good jawline. Soft mouth. The kind of mouth that looked bruised now, but hadn’t been bitten. Just kissed too slow, too long. Handsome in the kind of way that unfolded the longer you looked at him.

Nico stretched, catlike, and let the sheet fall down to his hips.

“Drawing me again?” he asked, voice hoarse but smug.

Theo didn’t look up. “Always.”

Nico smiled lazily. “You addicted already?”

Theo’s hand stilled.

Then turned the pad toward him.

Nico blinked.

The sketch wasn’t of the performance. Not of the cock, not the pose, not the easy smirk.

It was this.

Him now. After. Wrecked. Resting.

His body relaxed. His stomach streaked with come. His hair a halo of disarray. One arm folded under his head, the other loose across his belly. A look in his eyes he didn’t recognise — soft, open.

Not seductive.

Seen.

Nico sat up slowly. Took the sketchpad from Theo’s hands.

“This is different,” he said, quietly.

Theo shrugged, almost embarrassed. “It’s still you.”

Nico studied it.

“No. This… this is someone who doesn’t need to be looked at.”

Theo’s brow furrowed. “But I still want to.”

Nico looked at him.

And for the first time, there was no flirt in his gaze.

Just something settled.

Something real.

He set the sketchpad down carefully, then reached for Theo’s wrist. Pulled him gently up onto the bed. Guided him beneath the sheet, body to body.

They didn’t kiss.

They didn’t need to.

Nico curled into him, let Theo’s head rest against his shoulder, let their legs tangle beneath the mess of warmth and breath and sweat and leftover want.

He stared at the ceiling.

Then at the sketch again, still propped against the pillow beside them.

“Fuck,” he whispered. “You made me look like someone I’d want to stay the night with.”

Theo chuckled, soft in his throat. “Would you?”

Nico turned. Pressed his lips to the corner of Theo’s jaw.

“I might,” he murmured. “I just might.”