In lieu of answering, Teagan pulled a glass from the cabinet next to the refrigerator, then filled it with ice. He kept his head tilted in her direction, as though waiting for her to stop him. Darcy watched him like a hawk as he cut the seal off the scotch and unscrewed the bottle before pouring an inch into the glass.
“I don’t know if I should,” Darcy said reluctantly. She wasn’t sure she ought to be drinking in front of him.
“Were you planning to never drink again either?” he asked, and his tone was very casual, but his eyes flashed with a stronger emotion that made her parse out what he might really be asking. No, Darcy had assumed that she’d occasionally have a drink. What he meant was, would he be in a position to see it? Would they still know each other? She didn’t know if they would.
Teagan didn’t own a kitchen table and chairs, so she hoppedonto the counter to take the glass from him. She took a small, thoughtful sip from the glass. Jesus, it was good. She wondered if she dared finish it.
“It’s not that great,” she lied. “It just tastes like wood chips.”
“Hmm,” he said. “Seems unlikely.” Moving very slowly and deliberately, he stepped between her knees. He framed her face with his hands as he leaned down to kiss her. “I bet it’s pretty good, actually,” he murmured against the corner of her mouth. Keeping his hands cupped around her cheeks, he teased her lips open until they were pressed hot and slick against his. Together, they savored the taste of apples and peat that still clung to her tongue.
Darcy had now kissed him dozens of times, and she did it with no more thought than it took to pop a lemon candy in her mouth. She loved the little burst of sweetness she got from seizing Teagan by the arm and tugging him down to her. She loved the flash of surprise and pleasure on his face when he realized what she wanted, and she loved the moment it always took him to decide what to do with his hands. She couldn’t recall him ever kissing her, even on a morning where they woke up curled against each other. She thought this might be the first time.
There was an edge of salt when she sucked on his bottom lip, and it had to have come from sweat or tears. That reminded her that only a little while ago, she’d been afraid she needed to call an ambulance. She needed to figure that out.
Darcy slid the glass further down the counter and curled her fingers into his shirt.
“Okay, Teagan, okay,” she said soothingly, even as he continued to press kisses along her jaw line. “Um. We should talk, if you’re feeling better.”
Teagan pulled far enough back to give her a brief nod before busying himself with her lips again. His hands dropped from her cheeks and pressed against her waist only to fall further and grip her hips.
Darcy was beginning to feel affected by his closeness and the warmth of his skin radiating through his thin shirt. She also began to suspect that was a deliberate effort on Teagan’s part. It occurred to her that in all those times she’d kissed him or pulled him onto the couch or into the shower, he hadn’t simply been happy to do whatever she liked. He’d been paying attention to what she liked. And now, when she was trying to keep her wits about her so they could calmly discuss his crisis at the office—when he knew that calmly discussing was not one of her greatest skills!—he was giving her back everything she liked. He was asking her to want him.
He pulled her forward until her hips were spread around his thighs, and she had to hang onto his chest for balance. He licked into her mouth until she was breathless and distracted.
“Teagan,” Darcy insisted, turning her head away. “Don’t you think we should talk?”
“We can talk,” Teagan said. His tongue traced a hot line up her neck to her earlobe as his thumbs brushed her inner thighs just beyond the frayed hem of her shorts.
“This doesn’t feel like talking,” Darcy said dizzily. “This feels like sex.”
“It could also be that,” Teagan agreed. He leaned back to give her a little more room to think, but he left his hands on her body, his fingers hot and tense where they rested on her bare legs.
She could tell him to stop, she supposed. And they couldrewind the discussion to an hour previous, when Teagan had been a vulnerable shape on the floor. Or she could let Teagan change the subject. Let him seduce her, pretend that she was so swept away by the promise implicit in his hands on her thighs that she could forget how scared she’d been for him.
She felt like she ought to know by now. Someone had probably figured it out and written it down somewhere, what she was supposed to do for someone who didn’t want to be the person she’d already observed him to be.
But if all she had was her intuition, it told her that if Teagan was chasing her, she ought to let herself be caught. He felt like he’d lost some part of himself; she’d give it back to him.
He’d done the reading, and it saidif someone’s holding on to you, hold on harder.
So she twined her arms around his neck and turned her face up to his.
“If this is talking, I can’t wait to see you argue,” she said.
Teagan’s exhale seemed to release all the remaining stiffness in his shoulders. His hands moved over her body more confidently, gathering the fabric of her shirt so he could pull it over her head. He took off his own and paused with his gaze on her body, fingers trailing down her arm.
Seeming to come to some determination, he took his wallet out of his back pocket, retrieved a condom from it, and set both on the counter next to her.
“Oh wow,” Darcy said. “We’re having that kind of a conversation, huh?”
Teagan nodded in agreement, head dipping to suck at the point of her collarbone.
“So it’s going to be slow missionary with lots of eye contact?” she confirmed, joking to cover up her sudden nerves. They hadn’t actually done that yet, even though she thought that was what sex had meant to Teagan before he met her. She wasn’t sure whether this was a step forward or backward.
“Are there other positions?” Teagan asked, playing along and rounding his eyes.
“I’m not sure. Maybe we can experiment on my birthday,” she said with mock seriousness, shucking the rest of her clothing.
