Coming Apart at the Seams (5 page)

“School?” he asked.

“I'm seventy-five percent finished with my program. I like to say it that way so it sounds like I'm almost done. Otherwise, I'd have to say that I have a year left.”

She smiled, showing her straight white teeth. Those braces she had worn had done their job. Her teeth were perfectly aligned, no gaps to be seen. The essence of her smile was still the same, though. It was just as sweet and engaging as he remembered.

When they'd met, it had been easy to overlook Teagan's awkwardness because she had been so friendly and funny. They had established a weird conversational rhythm he'd
never experienced with anyone else. He could say one word, and she'd fill in the blanks, making it easy for him to communicate with her.

Sometimes he wondered if she even heard his stutter . . . if it even registered in her consciousness. While most people got a pained look on their faces when he spoke, Teagan's expression never changed.

Moreover, she'd never mentioned his speech impediment, not even in passing. And that was strange because she wasn't the kind of person to ignore the elephant in the room—especially when the elephant was as gigantic as his stutter.

His inability to speak without sounding like an idiot prevented him from making friends easily, yet Teagan had become his friend. And they'd stayed friends even though they only saw each other rarely. That was why he'd been so happy when Quinn had reminded him that Teagan was in Boston, too.

Nick had been bored out of his mind earlier this evening, and he had considered changing into some nicer clothes and going out to a bar. He knew he would have no trouble finding sex because women liked the way he looked, and ninety-nine percent of them didn't seem to care if he said anything or not.

They were content to use his body and ignore his mind, and he felt the same way about them. As long as his partner had a wet, welcoming pussy, he was satisfied. He didn't want her to open her mouth unless it was to suck his dick, and he didn't care about her life goals, only that they didn't interfere with his.

Just as he'd headed into his bedroom to shower, his phone had buzzed to alert him that he had a text. The message had been from Quinn:
Teagan's in Boston. Go visit her.

Once he'd known Teagan was in town, he couldn't stop thinking about seeing her. If he wasn't able to hang with Quinn and Cal, their little sister was the next best thing. And once he'd seen her, all the nervous energy he had felt earlier drained away.

He placed his glass on the cocktail table, and she leaned forward to grab a coaster for it. As she did, her pink T-shirt rose a little in the back, exposing a sliver of smooth, white skin and the top of her lacy, red panties.

His cock twinged, and he jerked his eyes away from the sight.
Jesus, what's wrong with me?

She was his best friend's little sister, and now that he was older, he respected what that meant: hands off. More important, Teagan was
his
friend, which meant the same thing.

He might be a dumb jock, but he was smart enough to know he could get sex anywhere. Friendship was harder to come by. Teagan was one of the few people he genuinely cared about, and he wasn't going to mess that up by thinking about her naked.

“What have you been doing?”

He tensed, worried for a second she had noticed he'd been checking her out. But he relaxed when he realized she'd been asking about what he had been doing since he'd moved to Boston.

“Nothing.”

“There's a lot to do here. Lots of history. The Red Sox.”

He nodded. He knew Boston could be a fun place, but he didn't want to explore the area by himself.

She looked at him for a moment, tapping her fingers against her lips. The action highlighted how full they were—plump and luscious.

His cock twitched, and he shifted uncomfortably as he tried to remember how long it had been since he'd had sex. Not that long. And
definitely
not long enough for him to be getting hard over Teagan, for fuck's sake. Maybe he
should
have gone to a bar instead of coming to see her.

“Want to hang out this weekend?” she asked.

Saturday was laundry day, and Teagan was honest enough to admit she hated spending one of her free days washing, folding, and putting away clothes. Fortunately, she had a washer and dryer in her condo, so she didn't have to make the trek to a dark and dank laundry room or a busy laundromat.

She was spoiled in a lot of ways, but at least she did her own laundry. Many of her fellow Harvard students used laundry services. But she had a thing about strangers touching her unmentionables.

If you excluded her immediate family, only one person had laid a hand on her underwear: her ex-boyfriend, Jason. He'd also had his hands (and other body parts) on the flesh inside her underwear. But he was the only one.

Quinn and Cal had tapped so much Catholic school ass that Teagan had been appalled at how easily girls gave it up. They'd made an impression on her—a bad impression—and she'd held on to her virginity until college.

She had wanted her first time to mean something. Actually, she wanted every time to mean something, which was why she hadn't been with anyone since she and Jason had broken up three years ago.

Teagan frowned. To say they'd broken up made it sound like
it had been a mutual decision, and there had been nothing mutual about it.
Jason
had broken up with
her
.

She and Jason had started dating her sophomore year in college. She'd liked him a lot, and eventually she had fallen in love with him. But how much did a nineteen-year-old really know about love?

They definitely hadn't known much about sex. Jason had been a virgin, too, and they'd fumbled their way through foreplay, oral sex, and finally intercourse. He was a smart guy, but it had taken him a year to figure out how to give her an orgasm without her help. She'd done her best to tell him what she liked.

She hoped her next lover had a lot of experience and could give her mind-blowing orgasms just by looking at her. She scoffed at the thought. Who could do that?

An image of Nick Priest popped into her head, and she laughed mirthlessly. She had no doubt he had plenty of experience. She'd seen pictures of him surrounded by beautiful women who looked like sex on stilettos, and if he was anything like her brothers, he had no trouble finding willing bed partners.

Nick was probably a horrible lover, though. Since he was so good-looking, he probably didn't even try to please his partner. Most likely, he just lounged on the bed in all his muscular, bronzed glory and let someone else do all the work.

She slammed the door of the dryer shut with more force than necessary, annoyed at the direction of her thoughts. It wasn't as if she were ever going to get the chance to find out if Nick was a pathetic lover or a four-orgasms-in-one-night kind of guy.

She scowled. She hadn't heard from him in over a week, not since he'd rebuffed her offer to hang out. She knew it was hard to adjust to a new place, and she'd been trying to be nice when she had issued the invitation.

He'd stared at her for a long time before looking away and muttering “no.” Actually, she was pretty sure he had said “hell no,” but she couldn't figure out why he'd been so rude.

Nick had never once been cruel to her in all the years she had known him. He'd always had a smile for her, even when her brothers had told her to stop bugging them.

She had managed to hide how much he'd hurt her feelings, and he had left her condo after a few more minutes of one-sided
conversation. She didn't expect to see him for another couple of years.

Hefting the laundry basket in both hands, she made her way through the kitchen. As she turned toward her bedroom, she heard a knock on her door.

She propped the basket overflowing with clean clothes on her hip to free her hand. Bebe had mentioned she might come by for dinner and a movie, so Teagan opened the door without checking the peephole.

“Hey, you're here early . . .”

Her visitor was not Bebe. It was Nick.

Surprise made her silent, and he moved his hand over her head and pushed open the door. As he walked into her condo, she stumbled backward out of his way, bobbling the laundry basket.

She watched in dismay as a pair of plain white cotton underwear floated from the top of the laundry pile to land on his foot. He followed her gaze, and before she could drop the basket and scoop them from the floor, he bent down to pick them up.

She groaned under her breath. Why, oh why, couldn't they have been one of her pretty pairs instead of the old granny panties she favored when she felt especially fat or had her period?

Before she could jerk them out of his hand, he held them up and waved them as if he were surrendering a battle. He smiled, the skin around his eyes crinkling.

“Sexy,” he said with a wicked glint in his green gaze.

She growled. “Shut up, Nick Priest. You jerk!”

He burst out laughing when she grabbed them from his big hand. She tucked the panties into the basket and held it in front of her, wishing it would make her invisible.

“Why are you here?” she asked rudely.

“Red Sox.”

She cocked her head. “You want to go to the game?”

He nodded, taking two tickets out of his back pocket. The motion pulled his T-shirt tight across his chest, and she couldn't help but stare as his pectoral muscles flexed.

She considered his invitation. He must be really desperate for company if he was asking her to go to a baseball game with him. She thought about declining his offer as rudely as he'd
declined hers. But she wasn't sure Bebe was going to come by, and she didn't want to spend Saturday night alone.

And she really loved baseball. Plus, the Red Sox were playing well after an early-season slump. It might be a really good game.

“I'll go on one condition . . .”

He raised his eyebrows, a silent question.

“You're buying the beer and hotdogs.”

He smiled slowly. “Deal.”

*   *   *

Nick wandered around Teagan's condo while he waited for her to change. Photos filled her big bookcase, and he spied one that looked familiar. He picked it up to give it a closer study and realized he'd snapped it the day he and Quinn had graduated from USC.

Quinn was in the middle, and his parents, James and Kate, flanked him. Cal stood next to their mother, and Teagan was hugged up against her dad.

Everyone had huge smiles on their faces, but Teagan's smile was the brightest. When this picture had been taken, she'd just finished her freshman year at Stanford.

Her adolescent awkwardness had disappeared, leaving a young woman with bright blue eyes and wavy dark hair that shined almost blue-black in the sunlight. Her roundness had transformed into an hourglass shape, and except for her height, or lack thereof, this was the girl he had expected to meet when he'd heard Quinn and Cal had a sister.

No doubt about it, the O'Briens were extraordinarily good-looking. But what really made them extraordinary was the love they had for one another.

Nick had never known another family that loved like the O'Briens. From what he could tell, James and Kate had a strong, loving marriage. They adored their kids, a sentiment their kids returned. Nick had been lucky they'd been willing to welcome him into their circle and eventually make him an honorary member of their family.

In a lot of ways, the O'Briens were more his family than the Priests. Of course, Nick only had his father, since his mother had died when he was a toddler.

Nick hadn't seen his father in more than a year. Simon never suggested that they get together, and Nick didn't, either.

They weren't estranged; they were just strangers, which was even sadder because that meant there were no feelings there at all. Nick couldn't claim the fault was entirely his father's. When he had stopped trying to prove to Simon that his speech disorder didn't impact his ability to learn, only his ability to communicate, their relationship had died a slow death.

He heard Teagan's footsteps and returned the picture to the bookcase, taking care not to dislodge any of the other framed shots. She came to a stop slightly behind him, and the sweet scent of strawberries drifted to him. The smell reminded him of her lips, which reminded him of the dream he'd had about her a few nights ago.

Shit.

After he'd left Teagan's condo last week, he had decided he wouldn't contact her again—no texts and no visits. But just a few days later, here he was, in the same place, thinking the same thoughts. And now he had to spend hours with her, smelling strawberries and thinking about her lips.

I'm an idiot.

And his mouth had nothing to do with it. It was his dick.

Teagan moved closer to see what had caught his attention. She bumped him with her hip.

“That was a good day. Do you remember it?”

“Yeah.”

James and Kate had thrown a graduation party for Quinn at a new restaurant in downtown Los Angeles, just a few miles from the USC campus. While everyone else had been enjoying good food and good friends, he'd been enjoying a good fuck with one of the waitresses in the alley. He was pretty sure no one had missed him while he'd been gone. He had been quick, but they'd both gotten off, if his memory served.

“I remember you disappeared for twenty minutes or so,” she said dryly. “About the same time one of the waitresses went missing.”

Huh. Someone had noticed.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turned to face her. She wore a red T-shirt with “Red Sox Baseball” written across the chest, and even though it wasn't tight, his eyes were drawn to
her breasts. They were larger than average, and he wondered if her nipples were dark like cherries.

Damn! I have to stop thinking about her breasts. And her nipples.

She'd paired the T-shirt with dark-washed jeans and red canvas sneakers, and he wondered if she had chosen lacy panties like she'd had on the last time he visited or the plain ones he'd touched earlier. Then he wondered if she had a bush or if she was bare.

Damn! I have to stop thinking about her panties. And what those panties cover.

She'd pulled her hair into a ponytail, and the end of it hung out the back of the Red Sox baseball cap she wore. He was pretty sure she had put on some makeup, too, since her eyelashes looked even longer, and her skin seemed to shimmer.

She smiled, and he noticed her lips were shiny with gloss. Then he thought about what his cock would look like sliding in and out of her mouth.

Damn! I have to stop . . .

“Ready?” she asked.

He nodded, and she turned to walk to the door. Naturally, his gaze fell to her ass, and he gasped in disbelief. Her jeans were not Rileys. They were the
competition
. He was appalled.

“No Rileys?”

Stopping midstride, she looked over her shoulder at him, her gaze both incredulous and accusing. “Were you checking out my butt?”

“Habit,” he admitted sheepishly.

“You're not allowed to do that.” She frowned. “We're friends.”

“Friend, yes. Dead, no.”