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“I’m currently pinned on a hotel bed while your McDonald’s gets cold.”
Jem held up a finger. “Don’t do that. Don’t use McDonald’s to distract me. What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on.”
“You’re mad at me.”
“No.”
“You’re disappointed. I disappointed you.”
“What is it with men worrying about disappointing their partners? Why is that a theme today?”
Still straddling Tean, Jem squirmed forward a few inches. He tapped Tean’s breastbone with a finger. “You didn’t answer the question.”
“Of course I’m not disappointed in you.”
“Last night,” Jem said. He fought the urge to hug himself. He kept his hands on his thighs. Kept his shoulders open. He tried to smile. “I know you don’t like it when I do that. Scratch that. I know you hate it when I do that. Talk to people like that, I mean. Um, lie. I guess. And cheat. And steal. Maybe there’s something in there about highway robbery?” His face heated. “I’m sorry; I’m saying stupid stuff because I’m nervous.”
“Let me up,” Tean said quietly.
“No. You’re going to tell me you can’t live with somebody who does that kind of stuff, and then I’m going to have to chain you to a pipe in our basement so you can’t leave me, and I’ll only let you out so you can go to work every day and be the world’s greatest wildlife vet.” He could feel the flames on his cheeks now. “Nervous. Sorry.”
Tean was silent for a long moment. “That is the worst basement-prisoner plan I’ve ever heard. You’d let me leave the house every day for work?”
“Somebody has to bring home the bacon. Besides, you’re not a basement prisoner. You’re a basement sex slave. There’s an important difference.”
Tean’s nose wrinkled. “How much sex?”
“Lots. Lots and lots. We’ll send the girls to play outside every day when you get home from work.”
“Why can’t I be a regular prisoner? Why can’t you just want to make my skin into a dress?”
“No deal. Hot, steamy, raunchy sex. Relentless sex.”
Tean wrestled his glasses back into place and gave Jem a look. “What is going on?”
“That’s what I asked you.”
“And now I’m asking you.”
A lopsided smile. “Nothing’s going on.”
“Jeremiah.” And then, softer, “Talk to me.”
“I don’t know. I told you: last night, this weekend, everything. Forget it; I’m fine now. I’ll eat a million breakfast sandwiches and my stomach will explode.”
“Oh no.” Tean thrashed and wormed and wriggled, but Jem didn’t let him up. “You are not going to distract me with—”
“Your favorite thing in the world?”
“—that kind of talk. I thought we talked about this yesterday. I thought everything was ok.”
“Everything was ok. But then—” Jem shrugged. He tried to hold back the question, but it weaseled out of him. “You’re really not disappointed?”
Tean was giving him that look again. The one that was unbearably perceptive, the one that saw past the flash and dazzle, the one that made a part of Jem squirm and, at the same time, went through him like magma: low and dark and hot.
“I’m not disappointed,” Tean said. “I know you did what you thought you had to do last night. I trust your judgment. More importantly, I trust you. You are Jem Berger. I know what you did for her at the end. I know what it meant to her, or I think I know.” He took a deep breath. “What worries me, though, is that you’ve spent this weekend thinking...I don’t know. That I don’t value who you are. That I don’t respect you, or that I don’t recognize that you’re exceptional and wonderful and the best thing in my life, to be treasured absolutely and unconditionally. That upsets me.”
