“Teagan, babe. What happened tonight?” I ran my hands up and down his back and tried not to enjoy the feel of him in my arms, his lithe body pressed against my larger frame… but I couldn’t help the way my stomach swooped and settled into a feeling of rightness.
Teagan shook his head against my chest, which loosened the towel around his head. Fragrant, damp strands of his hair fell down to his shoulders, and I sucked in a greedy lungful of clean, warm Teagan before I thought twice.
Enough.Jesus. Some best friend you’re being. Control yourself.
I was not going to have sex with my…
“I had a decent date last night, John,” Teagan murmured against my shirt. “He was a little boring, but really okay. The last guy I dated, in September? Same thing. Guy at the coffee shop who keeps giving me his phone number? Same.”
“Oh-kay? Did… did they say or do something, T?” I whispered. “Did they disappoint you somehow?”
“No.” I felt the huff of Teagan’s laugh, but then he sniffled once again. “That’s the problem. I’m not disappointed.”
I blinked. “I… I don’t follow.”
“It used to be that I could catch feelings for a guy at the drop of a hat. I could look at someone and say, ‘Yes, I see the potential here.’ Fern used to despair of me because I sometimes saw potential that wasn’t even there, like with Martin. But now?” He waved a hand up and down himself. “Look at me. The Potential Fairy doesn’t visit this desolate landscape anymore. I am a ruined shell, unable to sense romantic possibilities with any man who happens to show interest in me. John is a decent guy. All of them were. But I don’t want any of them. I’mbroken.”
I grabbed his shoulders hard—too hard—and had to force myself to loosen my grip. “That’s not true. Look, I don’t entirely get what’s going on here, but?—”
“I’m telling you, I’m?—”
“Stop it, Teagan. Don’t you dare say you’re fuckingbroken.” I shook him gently. “Whatever happened tonight, or with those other guys, it wasn’t your fault. It couldn’t possibly be. So don’t take that on?—”
Teagan’s voice was uncharacteristically bitter. “You said that the first day we met, remember? About Martin.”
“I remember. It was true then, and it’s true now,” I growled in a voice that didn’t sound anything like my usual voice. I held his bare waist against me with one hand, bending him back slightly, while my other hand cupped his chin and tilted his head to look at me. “It’snotyour fault. You know how I know? Because you’re perfect, Teagan Donahue. You’re gorgeous. You’re brilliant. You’re witty. The way you genuinely care about people is a superpower. You make people’s lives better. You’ve mademylife better. You are infinitely better thannormal?—”
“Then Jesus, why can’t I feel a spark with anyone but y—” He broke off with a shake of his head and pushed away from me. “Forget it.”
I snatched his hands and tugged him into my arms again. “I won’t forget it. Anyone who doesn’t want you is a fucking fool, Teagan, and that’s the truth.”
“Oh, really? Really? Doyouwant me, John Curran?” he asked defiantly.
My throat went entirely dry in an instant, and my hands went numb.
“M-me?” I searched his eyes, feeling like I’d missed a crucial piece of data somewhere in my calculations. “But, Teagan, I…”
I am not going to have sex with my roommate.
Teagan closed his eyes, and his posture deflated as he slipped out of my grasp. “Yeah. That’s what I figured. Don’t worry about it. I’m going to bed. Maybe tomorrow we can wake up and pretend tonight never?—”
Ah, fuck it.
Without giving either of us a chance to think or overthink anymore, I grabbed Teagan’s hand and spun him against the wall by the door to my room.
“Yes I fuckingdo,” I snarled, and for the first and only time in three hundred and—Jesus, at that moment I couldn’t remember how many—days, I pressed my lips to his.
Teagan gasped in surprise, but his arms immediately rose to twine around my neck, and his tongue licked into my mouth eagerly, leaving me zero room to doubt that he somehow, miraculously, wanted this, too. Arousal clenched my gut as I closed my eyes and sank into the mint-and-margarita taste of his mouth, the tantalizing heat of his body, pouring months of longing into this one simple, perfect act.
I pulled back to bite his full lower lip—the lip that had been tormenting me on a daily basis for as long as I’d known him—just because I finally could, and my already hard cock throbbed against my zipper, begging for release.
“John,” he moaned breathlessly, his fingers grasping the short strands of my hair as he tilted his neck to one side so I could slide my lips down his throat. “Oh, my actual God. Is this happening? Is this real? Did I hit my head in the tub and fall into some kind of—oh, fuck, yeah—some kind of coma, where I’m living an incredibly realistic alternate u-u-universe that I’ll have to fight to make a reality once I finally regain consciousness, like in that—God, yeah. Right there!—that Hallmark movie I made us watch that one time?”
There he was.Thiswas my Teagan. My hands tightened on him with bruising force.
“I dunno, babe. This feels pretty real to me.” I slid my knee between his and found that he was every bit as hard as I was. He rubbed his towel-clad erection against my thigh shamelessly, whining at the friction.
My hands dipped down to cup his ass and pull him more firmly against me so his hard length pressed against mine,and I groaned at the pleasure of it. My head swam with a mixture of relief and desire that was way more potent than any of the drinks I’d consumed earlier.
