Page 26 of Pick One
“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.
“Yeah, that… that seems pretty fucking real,” he gasped. “But prove it. Say something only you would say.”
I ran my teeth over his collarbone the way I’d imagined doing a million times, just to watch him shiver, and I inhaled his green-grass scent like a drug. “Want you, Teagan Donahue,” I whispered. “I’ve wanted you andonlyyou, for so damn long.”
“Oh, God. Oh, wait, really? That doesn’t help me decide atall,” he groaned. He cradled my jaw in both of his hands and pulled my head back so he could look up at me. “But say it again anyway,” he commanded.
I couldn’t help but smile down at him goofily, and then all the words I’d been holding back for eleven goddamn months started spilling out of me in a torrent. “I want you. I have wanted you from the moment you first ranted in the lobby. You were the most beautiful human being I’d ever seen.” I ran a possessive hand up the center of his chest to clench around the base of his throat. “And I think I knew even then that you wereitfor me. But you’d just gotten out of a relationship. And you wanted to stay very platonic friends—”
“I did not! I thoughtyoudid!”
I shook my head. “I went out to the bar tonight because I thought you were going out with Other-John, and the jealousy was eating me. I thought I’d missed my chance—” Just remembering how close I’d thought I was to losing him made my voice rough, and Teagan must have heard it because he yanked me down into another drugging, consuming kiss.
He ran his hands up and down my back, tugging fretfully at my shirt. “Want to touch you. Want your skin.”
I reached behind me and yanked my T-shirt up and off. Teagan had seen me shirtless a billion times before, but never likethis, and for a half second, I wondered if he found my uncut bulk and furry chest attracti—
“Oh, God,” Teagan groaned breathlessly, staring at my stomach. His hands trembled just a little before his palms touched me, and then he skated them up to tangle in my chest hair. “I’ve decided the coma can have me. I’m not waking up.” He bit his lip and looked up at me with heat in his eyes. “You’re gorgeous, John.”
I wrapped his long, silky hair around my fist as amusement andbelongingsang through my blood in a potent combination. “You’re ridiculous.” I tugged gently.
“You’resexy.” He nuzzled his face into my chest hair.
