“That and scraping or a massage.” Since I was busted and I didn’t need my knee keeping me awake on top of joking around with a shirtless Teller, I would admit to my real intentions. “I was going to use a butter knife for scraping. It helps loosen everything.”
He set his glass down and dug around in a drawer, withdrawing a plastic baggie. Then he sifted through another drawer and got out a butter knife. “Have a seat. I can help. We can try massage first.”
“Y-you don’t have to do that.” My heart rate kicked into a climb. He was not offering. He couldn’t be.
“Listen, if you’re going to be making me cookies every week, we cannot have your knee hurting.”
The humor amplified the heat building inside of me. What a weird turn-on, and still not appropriate. “You claim to not be a runner, but you dominated hopscotch.”
“When you’re the middle brother, you learn how to barter your way out of chores. Then when a ton of sisters show up, you realize you can dump a fuckton of work on them by betting on games.”
“Sibling warfare?” A tug of envy and nostalgia hit me. “Scott used to get me to feed the chickens and horses after school by telling me that he’d do it in the morning, but then he’d sleep in and go to a friend’s house and I was stuck with it anyway.”
“Tate tried that on me a few times. I kept falling for it.” He gestured behind me. “Have a seat somewhere and tell me what you need.” He stepped closer and my breath hitched, but he reached over to the fridge to fill the baggie with ice. His body heat fought through the AC to curl around me. I could lean into him.
My need was the problem. “You’re not massaging me.”
“I’ve been told I have talented hands.”
Arousal caressed my insides. The skin on my leg tingled, telling me just where he should put his skilled hands. “Teller, it’s fine.”
“I’m the one who made you jump all afternoon.”
“I would’ve anyway.” Today was the most fun I’d had in a long time. Teller’s family gathering was everything I had dreamed of. Everything I had known I was missing. I shouldn’t have experienced just how joyful and comforting it was. Now my early years seemed even more bleak.
“We had to jump for almost an hour. Sit.”
“Really, it’s fine.” I started for the stairs.
“I didn’t know you were such a chicken.” Taunting challenge filled his tone.
I stopped. This distance between me and the bottom stair could just as well be miles. “Are we twelve?”
“I bet if you were twelve, you wouldn’t run.” He pretended to polish the backs of his fingernails against his chest. “I do realize how irresistible I’ve gotten as an adult.”
He was joking, but he couldn’t be more spot on. He’d only grown more appealing with age. His trimmed beard, rugged good looks, body honed by the outdoors, and the way his eyes saw right through people all painted a broad, handsome picture.
It was why his outburst all those years ago had warped my attitude toward him. How dare he lump me in with the rest of my family when he’d been so good about accepting others where they were? That dynamic had shifted over the last couple of weeks.
He was also correct that I was a chicken. What if he touched my skin, rubbed me down, and then walked away like it didn’t affect him? I’d be crushed physically and emotionally. I was mature enough to understand that.
Then there was the flip side, and I couldn’t go there. That was some other lucky girl’s future. Not mine. “You don’t think I can resist you?”
“Oh, Mad Maddy. I think you’re doing very well at resisting me.”
That stupid rumble sent shivers skittering over my skin. My nipples were hard, and dammit, I was glad the light was off. “Fine. But I’m not sitting on the couch.”
“I’m that potent, I know.”
He was so solemn I chuckled and shook my head. I went to the dining room table and pulled a chair out.
“Sit on the top so I can use the chair.”
I gave him a look that asked him why the hell I’d plant my ass on his tabletop. He shrugged, the baggie of ice swinging from his fingers. “Give my back a break. I’m not twelve anymore.”
He pulled out a chair at the end of the table where he usually sat and plonked his butt down. He used the butter knife to gesture to the spot in front of him.
My skin got tight as I scooted myself up. I kept my knees closed and hunched my shoulders so he couldn’t make out how tightly peaked my nipples were.
