Once she was out of my sleeping bag and on the opposite side of the tent, I sat up, listening to the rustle of clothing that she was no doubt putting back on, and I allowed the gravity of the situation to descend fully.
One, which was the worst if you asked me, Teagan now knew she could turn me on in zero seconds flat. I would probably never live that fact down in her book.
Two, I now knew she had a thing for Luke,
which at any other time would’ve given me a one-up on her, to heckle her mercilessly…if it weren’t for number one.
And three... “What the fuck were you thinking?” I hissed. “Your parents are three tents away! Hell, my parents, everyone and their goddamn parents are all around us, and you decided that, what...this would be the ideal time to get kinky with my brother?”
She huffed out an annoyed breath. “Oh, will you stop? You make it sound like I ran off all willy-nilly and did a stupid thing without even thinking it through.”
“Well, didn’t you?” I demanded. “Because, really, what the hell did you think to accomplish here?”
“I told you,” she muttered petulantly. “I was just trying something.” With another sniff, she mumbled the next part so lowly I couldn’t quite hear her and probably didn’t want to, because the part I could understand after that was damaging enough. “This is why I chose Luke. Not you. At least he wouldn’t give me a goddamn lecture afterward like some eighty-year-old grandpa who’s too old and wise and responsible to even attempt trying something that might end up being remotely fun.”
Her words cut straight into me, because they sounded too similar to some of the things Sonya had rambled before she’d given me my ring back and taken off for good. I drew in a deep breath, trying not to think about that, even as it replayed in vivid Technicolor through my head. “You have no passion. No soul. All you ever worry about is doing what’s responsible and right. You’re like a robot. Well, I want a flesh and blood man.”
Memories wrapped around my chest like vines, tangling and tightening until it felt as if I was suffocating, while next to me, Teagan raged on.
“What the hell are you doing in Luke’s tent, anyway?”
This, I could at least respond to. “I’m not in Luke’s tent. Luke’s tent is red.”
“I know. That’s why I crawled into this tent. Because it’s fucking red, dumbass.”
“Stop calling me a dumbass. I know what tent I’m in. I’m in mine, and it’s goddamn blue. Now leave me alone and go rub your tits on Luke… Since that’s who you wanted all along.”
Except that wasn’t what I wanted her to do, not at all, because the idea of her doing to Luke what she’d just done to me made my heart pound, my equilibrium go wonky, and my amygdala trigger like crazy until I experienced vivid visions of doing my own brother bodily harm. And oh hell, I think I sounded as jealous and petulant in my head as I suddenly felt.
What in God’s name was happening to me?
This was Teagan. Teagan!
“Maybe you need to go back to kindergarten and relearn your colors, bud, because the tent we’re in doesn’t get any redder than this.”
Before I knew what she was about, she flashed her phone on and held it next to the canvas wall to prove to me that the color of the tent was a bright, startling crimson that in no way could ever be mistaken for blue.
My mouth fell open. I shook my head in denial. “What the hell?” Grasping Teagan’s wrist, I forced her to move the phone around so I could determine it was also Luke’s sleeping bag, and duffle, and unopened, party-size bag of peanut M&M’s surrounding me. “Why am I in Luke’s tent?”
“Good question, dumbass.”
I shot Teagan a scowl, only to gulp when I realized this was the first time I’d seen her face since I’d felt up her ass and breasts and ground my dick between her legs. For some reason, she looked different. Her lips were plusher and her eyes a little darker and bigger—the pupils still dilated with arousal. Her hair wasn’t fixed at all but still stringy and crunchy as if all she’d done since getting it wet in the river was maybe run her fingers through it a few times and let it air dry. She looked hot as hell with no makeup on, just the tops of her cheeks a little sunburned. Made a guy want to grab handfuls of that tangled blonde mess and haul her plush mouth in for the kiss of a lifetime.
And here came the wood again, growing hard and ready. Stupid pecker. Didn’t it realize this was Teagan I was looking at, the aggravating little brat who’d just called me a dumbass three times in the past five minutes? The hot-as-hell woman who wanted my brother, not me?
Apparently not, because it just kept growing and aching until my idiot heart joined in, thumping out a hard tattoo on the inside of my rib cage.
Sympathy flashed in Teagan’s eyes as she met my gaze before she flicked her phone off, plunging us back into darkness. “You were pretty tanked when you stood up from supper and announced you were going to bed. You probably just crawled into the wrong tent.”
“I wasn’t that far gone,” I argued, mostly just for the sake of not agreeing with her, because yeah, I’d been pretty far gone.
But I’d just needed something a little extra to get me through the day. The family had wanted me to be happy, so I’d downed some liquid giddy to help with that, except it’d only left me feeling more depressed, not happier.
“Yeah,” Teagan murmured softly, sympathetically. “You really were. I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever seen you that drunk before. Poor Zoey worried all afternoon about you falling out of your canoe and drowning.”
Well shit, no wonder why Mom had asked me to stay the night. I hadn’t meant to worry her. Or anyone.
Warm fingers grazed my arm. “You’re still not over the breakup with Sonya, are you?”