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Teagan exhaled heavily once more, her hands shaking a bit while relief washed over her. She’d done her best. She hadn’t doomed them. And more importantly, Eric didn’t know of Jaxon’s involvement.
Yet.
“Hey, come here,” Jaxon took the pot from her hands, setting it down gingerly before pulling her into an embrace.
“My hands are dirty,” she reminded him.
“I don’t care about that, Red.” She could tell from his smug tone that he was grinning.
She couldn’t help but smile. Dropping her head to his shoulder, she laughed. He hadn’t called her that since she was thirteen and he was sixteen and her parents had taken everyone down to the lake for the week before school started back.
She’d followed up the nickname usage by jumping on his back and trying to drown him. Not that she could drown him, but she’d given it the old college try.
It only ended when her father had yanked her off his back and she took to kicking her legs and trying in vain to wound Jaxon that way. He’d laughed and laughed and she’d tearfully asked her father to forbid him from calling her that ever again.
Owen responded he’d rather not make a proclamation that he wouldn’t be able to enforce, and she’d gone sniffling up to the dock to dry off and pout.
Jaxon caught up with her later and told her he wouldn’t call her ‘Red’ if it bothered her so much. She’d haughtily informed him that it did, and true to his word, he’d never uttered the word in her presence again.
Until today.
“Is it okay if I call you that, or does it still offend you beyond reason?” he asked.
“I like it better than ‘princess’,” she replied, laughing again and hugging him a bit more tightly.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he reminded her.
“It didn’t bother me then, and it doesn’t bother me now,” she replied.
Jaxon pulled back to catch her gaze and hold it briefly, his eyes narrowing. “You told me you hated it. You tried to claw my face off for calling you that.”
Smirking, she just shrugged, her hands still wrapped around his waist. “I thought you were making fun of me.”
“I was. But only because it bothered you.”
“It only bothered me becauseyousaid it.”
He rolled his eyes. “Still just as impossible as you were back then, Red.”
The door to the greenhouse swung open. Brad and Britt strolled in, with the latter shooting Teagan a suggestive look behind Brad’s back.
Teagan closed her eyes and turned back to Jaxon. “Looks like Britt is done with Brad.”
“Look, I’ll… I’ll come by tonight… for dinner. If that’s alright…”
“Really?” Teagan mouthed, and Jaxon nodded once before ducking down to press a very innocent kiss to her lips. It made her skin tingle, no matter how chaste he was being. His lips were chapped, but she found that she didn’t really care. It didn’t alter her enjoyment of his fake kisses any less.
She’d heard tales of Jaxon Lawson’s lip service, and how it never failed to disappoint, so she simply assumed that the only way he knew how to kiss was like he meant it.
Rising on her tiptoes, she pulled him back for more. Fake relationship be damned, she was going to enjoysomething. He started to smile into the kiss, but instead he wrapped his arm around her waist, his hand splaying the small of her back. He pressed just enough to make her arch into him. Both of her hands fisted into his leather jacket, likely getting it all filthy with the potting substrate, but that was the furthest thing from her mind at the moment.
Brad cleared his throat.
Ending the kiss, Jaxon pressed another softly against her lips before loosening his hold on her. “We should go,” he tilted his head to include Brad in his statement.
“Yeah, kiss on your own time, Teagan,” Brittany said, clearly joking while she was gazing after the two men leaving in amusement.
“See you later, Teagan,” Brad called, lifting his hand to wave to her. He turned towards Brittany and nodded to her, his face flushing crimson. “And you as well.” Jaxon sighed and waved perfunctorily at her and Britt before clapping a hand on Brad’s shoulder and leading him out of the shop.
