I turned off the light and followed Teddy toward our room, blinking in surprise when she hit the hallway switch as we passed it.
“I don’t want Finn to freak if he wakes up in the dark,” she explained. “He’d probably be fine, but with his luck he’d fall down the stairs trying to find the bathroom.”
“I doubt they’ll wake up before morning,” I replied as we reached the bedroom. I closed the door behind me and pulled off my cut, tossing it on top of a box against the wall. “I wonder what time they passed out.”
“Probably pretty late if Jess didn’t bring Finn into bed,” she replied, kicking off her sandals. “She’s usually pretty good about that. But I guess since they’re upstairs, she wouldn’t think it was such a big deal.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, pulling off my shirt.
When there was no reply, I turned to look at her. She was staring at my chest.
“Teddy?” I called.
Her head jerked, and she looked away. “Well, we had a rule that the kids couldn’t sleep in the living room,” she explained. “If someone broke in the front door, I didn’t want them right there asleep on the couch.”
“Makes sense,” I agreed. It wasn’t something I’d ever thought about.
“Do you care if I use the bathroom first?” she asked, turning back toward me with a pile of clothes in her arms.
“Have at it,” I agreed.
I held myself perfectly still as she slid my flannel off her shoulders and laid it across the foot of the bed, the sight far more erotic than it should’ve been.
Shit, how long had it been since I’d had sex? A month before I’d left Montana? Two? I’d spent about six months hooking up occasionally with a bartender friend. It hadn’t been anything serious or defined, but she’d still been pissed when I’d told her I was moving. That, in turn, had pissed me off. I couldn’t really say we’d parted on bad terms, but there sure as hell hadn’t been any goodbye sex.
After Teddy closed herself into the bathroom, I unbuttoned the top couple of buttons on my jeans and sat down on the bed to wait. I peeled off my socks and tossed them toward the dirty clothes pile in the corner of the room that was starting to get out of control.
I needed to do laundry. I also needed to get started on the yard, since I’d told Tommy I would. Teddy and Jesse had been cooking most of our meals if we didn’t order in and cleaning up the kitchen afterward, so I should probably do the bathrooms. It was only fair. I wondered what cleaning products Kara hadstocked us up with and where she’d stored them. Tomorrow, I’d pull them out and pitch in. Dylan could do some chores too.
The bathroom door opened, and I raised my head, the thoughts I’d been using to distract myself completely disappearing.
Teddy was wearing a pair of shorts and a loose tank top, her hair piled high on her head.
She may as well have been wearing lingerie with the way I instantly hardened.
“Uh, all yours,” she rasped, clearing her throat afterward.
I nodded, not trusting my voice. When I rose to my feet, she cursed.
“Seriously?” she asked with a laugh of disbelief.
I froze. “What?”
“Who looks like that?” she asked, frowning. “With the muscles and the tattoos and thebuttons?”
“Buttons?” I asked in confusion.
“Oh, you did that on purpose,” she shot back, her lips twitching. She shimmied. “Just a couple undone. Not too many. Leave a little to the imagination.”
I looked down at my jeans and let out a bark of laughter. “Baby, we ate a lot of food tonight and followed that up with beer. They’re unbuttoned because I had to take my socks off, and I didn’t wanna get cut in half.”
Her expression moved from knowing amusement to surprise before she burst out laughing.
“But thanks,” I said, drawing out the word. “Didn’t know unbuttonin’ my jeans to make room for my gut was a turn-on.”
“To be fair,” she wheezed. “When you look like that, I don’t think it would take much to seduce someone.”
I grinned as I moved toward her, catching her by the arm as she tried to step past me.
