BEFORE THEO COULD PROPERLY PUT on his shirt, Ophelia had already closed the distance between them and placed her hand on his wrist, stopping his movements. She had only seen a glimpse of his back, but it was enough for her to want to know how he had gotten them.

"Theo, don't—" she murmured, taking advantage of still figure, his clenched jaw and pressed lips to slowly slide the shirt from his grasp and toss it to the floor. "I want to see..."

"No," he replied stubbornly, swiveling around quickly, hiding his back from her view. "They're horrible."

"I agree," she replied, dipping her head into a nod. "That's why I want to see."

Knowing his girlfriend was the most stubborn person on the planet, he begrudgingly shrugged agreeing to let her see the highlights of his tragically tortured childhood. 

Ophelia noticed the tensity that drew upon his nerves, it was evident in the way he furrowed his brows, in the way he maintained a rigid posture, in the way he clenched his fists... 

He was nervous, he was stressed.

She placed her hands on his bare chest, holding in a slight intake of breath when she felt how tense his muscles were underneath her heated fingertips, and she slowly eased him backwards, guiding him to sit on the edge of the Ottoman footboard bench.

"I won't hurt you," she whispered softly, gently placing a kiss to the base of his neck, placing her hands at his shoulders to steady herself as she climbed onto the foot of the bed, sitting on her knees.

The blonde knew he was vulnerable, just the way she had been so vulnerable back when she had an eating disorder, and Theo had helped her out of feeling extremely self-conscious about her weight.

Leaving her hands on his shoulders, Ophelia allowed her eyes to wander across the vast expanse of his back, a canvas of distressing stories etched in flesh.

Seven jagged lines and faded marks crisscrossed his skin, each scar a testament to what he had endured. As she looked closer, she noticed that there were more injuries he had sustained than the seven main scars that were splashed across his skin like they were painted by a careless artist. 

Some were thin and pale, like whispers of old wounds, while others were thick and raised, standing out like rugged terrain, each telling tales of pain and resilience, of moments that had left their mark both physically and emotionally.

"Gods, Theo," she breathed, holding her breath as her eyes traced over each and every jagged line, burning every scar into memory.

"I.. I—" Theo struggled to speak. "I don't need your pity..."

Her heart clenched once more, as if she were physically in pain at how broken he sounded. Slowly, she retracted one of her hands from his shoulders, and dared to touch one of the painted strokes of discolored skin, her finger gently trailing down his back. 

He shivered, and Ophelia pressed another kiss to the side of his neck, trying to soothe him into relaxing slightly. 

"Are you going to tell me how this happened?" she hummed, her hands slowly driving across the crisscrossed roads of old wounds etched into his skin. 

Theo inhaled sharply, but the more Ophelia touched him, the more he could feel his every scar heal from the purity and warmth of her touch. The physical scars had healed, but the emotional wounds were still as fresh as the day he had gotten them.

Once again, a rough breath escaped his lips, and he squeezed his eyes closed before opening them again. 

"Presents from my father," he scoffed humorlessly, with a dry chuckle, as if he were assessing the irony of the situation he was in. 

It was Ophelia's turn to clench her jaw in anger, but she forced herself to remain calm by taking another breath. 

"Tell me," she requested quietly, scooting forward until she fell into place beside him on the Ottoman bench at the foot of the bed. Her hand found his, and as she intertwined her fingers with his, her head fell on his bare shoulder. 

And for the first time in his entire life, Theo began to tell someone the story of his childhood life, finding a confidant in her. He spared no detail, narrating the most gruesome days he had endured, telling her all about his abusive father, the murder of his mother, and the beatings he sustained, and with every word he spoke, he felt her mere presence heal every emotional scar he bore.

She didn't interrupt, nor did she show any sort of emotion other than understanding in her softened gray eyes. She knew he would stop talking if he interpreted her expressions as pity, and Ophelia needed him to talk. 

It was only once he was done that Ophelia spoke, her fingers tightening around his, squeezing his hand in an attempt to comfort him.

"Thank you for telling me," she whispered, giving him a comforting smile. "I think you're very brave..." she added, her thumb rubbing soothing strokes across his hand, bringing his hand to her lips. "To go through all of that alone..."

Theo opened his mouth to speak, but the blonde had already lifted herself into a kneeling position and pressed her finger to his mouth, silencing him. 

"I want you to know that I'm always going to be here for you," she continued, before she settled back in her original position at the foot of the bed, facing his back with her hands on his shoulders. 

"And that you don't need to hide any part of yourself from me..." She punctuated her sentence by delivering a kiss to one of his scars. 

"Because I love all of you. Your scars may seem ugly to you, but to me... They're not. They define who you are, who you've become... And God, do they make you look ten times more attractive in my eyes than you ever were..." she breathed, closing her eyes for a second and pressing another kiss to his back, soothing the echo of his father's wrath. 

She kissed each and every one of his scars, big and small, dark and light, leaving none untouched. What she didn't realize is that every single sweet whisper of a kiss, each gentle caress of her mouth on his skin was driving Theo mad.

And after a particularly soft brush of her lips against the delicate skin above the sensitive bundle of nerves underneath his shoulder blade, his control snapped, and he turned his entire body around, pivoting on his knees, blindly chasing her lips with his own, the sheer force of him leaning towards her causing her to topple backwards into the mattress as her platinum blonde hair splayed all over the pristine, white sheets.

The wind was knocked right out of her lungs, and after a full month of pent-up longing for the taste of his lips, the moment his mouth crashed heavily on hers felt like heaven. His lips attacked hers wildly, leaving no room for restraint, and he poured every bit of yearning for her into the kiss, teeth grazing against her lower lip as he forced her mouth open to slide his tongue between her parted lips.

His hands were firm at her sides, gripping her waist tightly, grounding her there, as if he were afraid she would slip through his fingers at any given moment.

His tongue slid against hers, dancing with hers in a messy tango, and he only pulled away when she harshly tugged his hair, indicating that she couldn't breathe. 

His eyes met hers, and before she knew it, he had closed the gap between them once more, relishing every bit of the lasting taste of strawberry lip gloss in his mouth. Her hands found his bare chest once more, tracing every bit of his hard muscles beneath her fingertips, one of her hands moving to the back of his neck and pulling him closer to her, keeping his mouth latched on hers. 

"Theo—" she whispered, tugging his hair once more, as she turned her head to the side, gasping for air. Her hand drifting back from his hair to the back of his neck, she subconsciously pressed his mouth back down, only this time, instead of his lips meeting hers, they collided with the delicate skin on her neck.

A month without him had resulted in her neck being bare, with no love bites, no evidence of her relationship with him. His teeth grazed against the sensitive skin at the juncture between her collarbone and her neck, nibbling, biting and sucking a mark there, before soothing the spot with his tongue, eliciting a gasp from her as he enrolled her in a cycle of hurt and heal that made her squirm in his hold. 

"You look so pretty today," he murmured, sinking his teeth into another spot on her neck, burying his nose in the crook of her neck and inhaling her scent. 

"Irresistible," he growled, his voice rumbling against her skin, sending vibrations through every vein, every nerve of hers. 

"And you smell..." He paused, taking his time to think of an appropriate word to describe what she smelled like whilst running her tongue across the mark that began to bloom on her skin. "Fucking delicious..."

An involuntary moan rolled off her tongue and before Ophelia could even think about what she was doing, her hands were already atop his on her waist, carefully sliding them downwards, guiding them to her thighs.

He seemed to understand what she wanted, and she squirmed, suppressing a gasp as the cold kiss of his metal rings stole the warmth from her thighs, leaving a trail of cold fire in their wake as he slid them upwards, holding her bare waist from underneath her dress. 

Theo was only satisfied when her neck and collarbones were completely covered in love bites, and he gently brought his lips back down to meet hers, his mouth engaging hers in a delicate liplock. 

Ophelia was suddenly very aware, as she felt Theo's hands venture in places they had never dared to explore, across her back and leaving tiny, teasing touches across her chest and stomach. 

She could feel the slight chill of the air against her lower half, which had been bared when Theo had slid her dress up, his hands traveling pathways across her warm skin underneath the knitted fabric.

And though her heart was racing, it wasn't in fear, but anticipation. 

"Is this okay?" Theo whispered softly, his fingertips gently resting against the sides of her upper chest, afraid that if he were any louder, the spell would be broken. He was exploring uncharted waters here, he had never touched her like this...

"Yes," she whispered back, her hands sliding lower and lower across his chest, until her fingers rested at his belt buckle, her gray eyes looking up into his, full of a mix of different emotions, each conveying something different. Vulnerability, trust, love, desire, lust...

Theo let out a puff of air, meeting her gaze. "Are you sure?" he breathed delicately, retracting his hands from her body and completely pulling her dress back down. 

When she nodded, he asked her again, wanting to know if she knew what she was asking for. He grabbed his wand from his bedside table, casting a silencing charm across the room, and pointing it towards the door, locking it.

 "Give me words, Baby, I need you to be sure... Completely sure..." he murmured, underlining his words with another soft kiss at her bare shoulder, right above the neckline of her dress.

"I'm sure," she replied breathlessly, tugging at his belt again, and that was all it took for Theo to dive back down into her mouth, his hands finding the ends of the ribbon in her hair, and pulled it from her hair, setting her platinum blonde waves free. 

"You know I like your hair down," he murmured, gently brushing away a lock of hair away from her back and tucking it behind her ear.

Right at that moment, he froze. His gaze fell on her earrings— the pearl and diamond ones that Blaise had given her for her fourteenth birthday.

"Is something wrong?" Ophelia asked, wondering why he suddenly paused whatever he was doing.

"I need to confess something, Principessa," Theo admitted, his finger gently tracing her earlobe. "Blaise didn't give you this earrings... I did."

Her lips parted in a mix of surprise and shock, and her smile grew wider. "They're my favorite..." she confessed, the knowledge of him picking them out for her, of him secretly loving her all his life only driving her desire for him to grow. 

"They look so pretty on you," Theo praised, lips brushing against her nose. He inhaled sharply, his breath laced with frustration, driving his weight into her, causing another gasp to leave her when he stifled a groan. "I've loved you for so long..."

"God— Theo," she sighed breathlessly, when his lips caught a particularly sensitive bit of skin from her neck between them. 

His hands were tracing gentle strokes against her sides, drifting up and down, until his fingers landed at the hem of her dress, and after he pressed a fleeting kiss to the inside of her lower thighs, she shivered, and she sat up, helping him slide off her dress, baring herself to his gaze.

As the layers of clothing disappeared and landed on the floor of his room, each a physical hurdle between them, their emotional barriers also dissipated into thin air, baring their vulnerable souls to each other.

They lost themselves in each other, captivated with one another in a night of passion that was theirs, and theirs alone. 

Even though Theo had done this before, so many times, the moment he connected with Ophelia felt like he was tasting life for the very first time. 

And Ophelia, who had never even imagined this level of intimacy, of pleasure, gave herself to Theo, physically and emotionally, trusting someone completely, for the very first time.

Despite her knowing that things were about to change for the worst, she drove everything out of her mind except him. 

Because nothing else mattered. 

Not more than this moment.

This moment was hers, Theo was hers.

This August would forever be hers.

And nothing could change that.

{ WHISPERSSSSS OF 'ARE YOU SUREEEE???'
YES I WAITED 96 CHAPTERS FOR THIS, AND SO DID YOU GUYS!! this felt right, according to me... it felt like the perfect moment... i kinda feel like taylor swift's august fits the vibe of this chapter perfectly, and oh my godddd, i hope i did okay whilst writing it!! it's one of my favorite chapters for real, and i hope you guys feel the same.. writing this was very scary for me, but please, please... spam me with comments bc i'm feeling very insecure rn..
anyway, yes, another update!! socials are in my bio, take care of yourselves, and don't forget to comment, vote and follow...
lots of love,
jas, xoxo. }

{ FEB 03. 2025 }