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“Okay,” he began, sort of confused by her wording, but she was quick to set everything straight.
“Just a short one. I’m tired, so I won’t use all the hot water, so if you need one after… I’m going to go to bed afterward. I’m just… I maybe ate too much?” She was backing towards the door the entire time she was talking.
By the time she got there, she was fumbling in her pocket for her keys and running to her car.
Jaxon swallowed.
What the fuck was that?
Chapter Sixteen
Teagan dragged her finger over the thin layer of condensation that was beading up on the countertop by the cash register. She traced patterns in it. Patterns that would bleed into each other until it wasn’t visible any longer.
Not that this kept her from thinking. Nothing could.
She had so many thoughts. Feelings. Questions.
All of which felt eternal because they only multiplied the longer she thought about them. All of them centered on the floor of Jaxon’s house. And that last egg roll.
But not that. It was more than that.
It was the way he kissed her. She couldn’t shake it from her mind. It felt different this time. Real. Desperate. Like hehadto, or he’d die or something.
She couldn’t recall having ever been kissed like that. But perhaps that was just Jaxon? He was a good kisser. That fact had already been established. Many times.
But in the past, he’d never kissed her like that. His kisses felt very controlled. His lips molded to hers, careful not to push too hard or pull her, either. He was very rehearsed and perfect. Just the way she’d expected him to kiss every single time she’d thought about it. Which had been often.
That’s how she’d always known it wasn’t real. Not really. He was so careful to let her lead. Let her stop when she needed to. It was an act. For her. To help her.
This had been a different, a more chaotic perfection than she’d ever felt before. His teeth had been very present, his tongue too, in a delving, wet sort of way. Just thinking about it made her breath catch in her throat. Pinpricks of arousal bloomed low in her belly, causing her to clench her thighs in an effort to push them away because she was atwork, for god’s sake.
It stood to reason that what she’d witnessed was a real kiss. But there was no one around. No one looking. So who had that kiss been for? It wasn’t helping her. Certainly not. If anything, it only made her more confused. Because while before she’d been kissing her brother’s best friend, this time she’d been kissingJaxon.
And Jaxon was into her. He couldn’t fake that, right? With words maybe, but not with…that.
She’d almost expected to be scared ofthat, but she’d surprised herself. Maybe it was some kind of primal instinct that had never surfaced before now. It was almost as if everything else melted away and what she had to hang onto him for dear life. He was her life-breath and if she let go, she’d float away. There was no fear, no second-guessing, just what his lips were doing to her and what she wanted to do to him.
She lost herself in it. In the headiness of the kiss, in the clutching of his hands and the way he pressed hard between her legs.
And then when she was shaken cruelly back to reality, that’s when the fear caught up to her.
Sure, he had wanted her, but he wanted others too, hadn’t he? She wasn’t a jealous individual, especially of faceless women who’d likely been acting out of the same wantonness she’d felt. She couldn’t blame them.
Or him either.
Really, she didn’t know what to think. But she knew that she couldn’tstopthinking that if she’d stayed there, it’d have ruined everything.
It wasn’t some guy she liked from class. It was Jaxon.
This had the potential to go horribly wrong. And after everything he’d given her, she couldn’t drag him there as well.
Not that selflessness had been the reason she’d practically lurched from his arms and out the door. No, she’d done that because she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t positive he actually wanted her. Hewanted. That much was clear.
But maybe it was friction. Not just the physical kind, either. It had been weeks since they’d been doing this. All of Winter Break. She was actually going back to start her final semester of class the following week.
And according to Brad, Jaxon had been living the life of a singleton for a while before that.
She didn’t want to think that of him. That all he needed was something she was hindering. But it was a very real possibility. More real than the unlikelihood of him developing real feelings for her.
