Pivotal Moments (In Time #1) (14 page)

I glanced around. More than a few of the patrons were watching the scene unfolding.

I tugged on Teagan’s arm. “Don’t do this,” I pleaded. “Please, just take me home.”

Teagan’s face softened. “Aislinn, what happened here…I can’t walk away from that.”

“I don’t care, Teagan. I just really want to go home,” I said.

He reached out a hand and gently ran his fingertips down my face. Despite my best intentions at keeping an emotional distance, I closed my eyes, enjoying the sensation. At his sigh, I opened my eyes. He was watching me with an intense look. “Okay, baby. I’ll take you home. But you,” he said, turning and pointing at Kevin, “we aren’t done.”

Kevin blanched at the unspoken threat.

With a sigh I did the only thing I could think of at that moment. I turned and walked out of the restaurant. It was obvious that Teagan was beyond angry, and I was over the situation. It wasn’t that I felt unsafe with him, but that the whole thing had been too draining to deal with any longer.

I left the building and kept going until I reached the corner, then stopped. Leaning against the wall, I considered my limited options. They were comprised of Teagan taking me home, or someone driving three hours to come and pick me up. Both made me want to break out in cold sweats.

The doorbell jingled loudly and Teagan stalked out. My breath caught at how gorgeous the man really was. It was no wonder women like Renee were making plays for him. Attractive people were drawn together like that. It was probably a basic law of nature or something.

Teagan paused at the exit and searched the area briefly. It was almost unnerving how quickly he zeroed in on me, and I forced myself to stand still as he strode toward me, but the long strides, clenched fists, and the stiff set of his shoulders made me want to bolt.

He stopped a few feet away. “We need to talk.” His eyes locked with mine.

I nodded, stomach twisting. Those four words never meant anything good.

“C’mon, baby doll.” He gestured to the SUV. “Let’s get Zver and get you back home.”

We walked to the vehicle, me dragging my feet. I’d had my first boyfriend for just a few hours, and I’d already lost him. He was going to break up with me. Why else would he say we needed to talk? I couldn’t blame him, either. I had to have broken some sort of record with this fast of a breakup.

Teagan moved ahead and opened the car door for me, and giving him a strained smile, I climbed in. He shut the door behind me, and then strode around the front of the vehicle and got in, folding himself behind the wheel and settled in, adjusting his long legs. Done, he turned to me.

“What was that about, Aislinn?” he asked quietly.

I turned my gaze to look out the window. The silence stretched between us. I didn’t know what to say to him, even though he deserved an explanation. How do you explain crippling insecurities and unwarranted jealousy when you didn’t understand them yourself?

“Is this about Renee?” he asked, breaking the silence. “Because if it is, it shouldn’t be. You have nothing to worry about.”

I snorted.

Teagan took me by the chin and turned my head to face him. “Don’t believe me, huh?” He gave a small smile. I shrugged. He narrowed his eyes as he studied me, and I flushed. It always seemed he was able to see through my layers of defenses, despite my best efforts.

He nodded to himself slightly. “Things were never serious between me and Renee. At least, not on my part.” He sighed, releasing me, and ran a hand through his hair. “I thought it was the same for her, but I guess it wasn’t.”

My curiosity got the better of me. “Do you do that a lot?”

He frowned. “What?”

“Hook ups,” I said bluntly. “Do you have a lot of them?”

He was quiet for a minute, but then he turned and settled into his seat. “Yes. No…well, maybe not a lot, but yes, I did have them.”

I nodded, disappointed but not surprised. I had suspected as much, but it was different having it confirmed. Then, like the good little masochist I was, I said, “Did they all look like Renee?”

“Come again?” He looked completely lost.

I shrugged. “You know…tall, skinny, big boobs, gorgeous.” Not like me, I added silently.

“What? Wait, never mind. What the hell is going on here, Aislinn?”

“Nothing,” I said, turning away. “Just forget about it.” I was frustrated and tired; too much had happened in too short a time. I just wanted to go home and crawl into my bed, maybe lick my wounded pride a little.

“No,” Teagan said, his tone hard. “We’re not dropping this.” He twisted to face me. “I have a past, baby. There’s nothing I can do to change that. I won’t apologize for it, either. It all happened before I met you.”

He scrubbed his face quickly before continuing. “You need to understand something—I say what I mean, and I mean what I say. You’re the first, the only girl I’ve made promises to in a really long time. You and me?” He gestured between us. “We’re just that. You and me. There won’t be anyone else. I never told Renee or any of the others that. Just you.”

“But they have so much more experience than me, Teagan!” I burst out. Eyes widening, I clapped a hand over my mouth, heat burning my face.

“Wait a…Is this…is this about you being a virgin?” he demanded, incredulous.

I shrugged, unable to form words. Just the fact he knew I was a virgin was mortifying. I wasn’t going to dig myself in even deeper.

“Seriously, Aislinn? Why would I care about that?”

“Um, I don’t know, maybe because I’m obviously not ready to deal with certain aspects of this relationship?”

The look he leveled on me should have singed my hair off. “One, that was unnecessary. Two, I know what I’m getting myself into, okay? Do you really think I’m going to push you into something you’re not ready for?” He heaved a sigh. “Aislinn, baby…I know you’re younger than I am. I know you have next to no experience—”

I snorted at that one too.

“—but none of that matters. Hell, if we’re being honest, I actually like it.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It means the pressure is taken off, baby.” He gave me a lopsided grin, gray eyes gleaming in the dark. “Neither of us have any expectations. We can relax, just let this take the course it wants to go.”

I took a deep breath, my stomach unwinding. His expression was completely sincere. “Aislinn,” he said. “I’m not going to force this on you. If you’re not sure about it, then you need to tell me.”

I shook my head. “It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?” he exclaimed. I couldn’t blame him for being frustrated. I was frustrated with myself. I took a deep breath and dove in.

“If Renee is any indication, then your past consists of incredibly beautiful women with a lot of experience. She made sure to let me know just how much experience she’d had with you, and I just…I can’t compete with that.” I paused for a moment, gathering my courage.

“I’m afraid of getting hurt or disappointed. I’m afraid you’re going to come back home and realize you can’t deal with my not being ready. Then, you’ll go to one of your friends, and…well…that’ll be that, I guess.” Tears started poking at my eyes, and I looked down at my hands folded in my lap. I swallowed hard. “I can’t handle that, Teagan. I can’t share you,” I whispered, blinking back the tears.

“You have nothing to worry about, baby,” he said as he reached out and stroked a hand down over my hair. “I won’t do that to you. I promise.”

Was I ready for this? I’d thought I was, but Renee was making me doubt myself, doubt us. “What if I’m never ready to take that step, go to that point in the relationship?” I asked him quietly, blushing furiously.

“You will be, eventually,” he said, a smile in his voice. “I’ll be here, waiting. And I’ll still be here afterward too. I meant what I said earlier. I’m all in when it comes to you.”

I didn’t fight the smile that spread across my face. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He took my hand in his. “I am. So…we good now?” He peered at me through the darkness.

I nodded. “Yeah, we’re good.”

“Okay, then. Let’s get the beast and get you home,” he said, backing the SUV from its parking space.

It was now time to go home and face Connor.

Chapter 12

My cuticle was bleeding. I glared at the offending digit. Never mind I’d been chewing on my fingers for the past hour and a half; it was the principle of the matter. I lifted my hand to start on my thumb again, but Teagan yanked it away.

“If you’re hungry, I can hit a place at the next exit, beautiful.”

I glared at the grin he flashed at me.

“You’re a riot,” I snapped. Connor was waiting at the end of this drive, and since I’d been ignoring his ten-minute interval calls the entire trip home, he wasn’t going to be happy. I was going to pay for that.

“You need to relax, sweetheart. He’s just your brother.”

“Easy for you to say,” I muttered.

“You do realize he’s going to be more pissed at me than you, right?”

“That’s not the point,” I said.

Teagan sighed, squeezing my hand. I could’ve melted when he brought my fingers to his mouth, placing a soft kiss to each of them. Falling for him was terrifyingly easy.

“Just relax,” he said. “Let me handle your brother.”

I debated between believing him and asking for his next of kin information. Knowing Connor, I was leaning more toward the latter. My thoughts must have reflected on my face because he heaved a sigh of frustration.

“Why are you so convinced I can’t handle this, Aislinn?”

I shrugged and watched the passing mileposts. Each one ticked down the distance we had left until World War III broke out. I willed the distance to slow down, give us more time.

“I’ve lived with him for two years, sweetheart. I know how he is. I can probably deal with this better than you, to be honest.”

“I’ve known him for eighteen years, and this is going to be a disaster.”

Silence met my statement.

“In fact,” I continued, “this is going to make the Fukushima disaster look like a little mishap.”

Teagan remained silent, just holding my hand in a firm grip. I scowled. He could at least pretend to show concern.

“Okay, maybe you don’t get it,” I burst out. “Connor’s already pissed at me. Add that with me going off with you, alone, plus your little hang up on him earlier, and you have a confrontation like…like Godzilla facing off with Mothra.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. A headache was starting, and it was going to be a rough one.

“So which am I?”

“What?”

“Which one am I? Godzilla or Mothra? I think I’m Godzilla,” he said, smirking as he glanced at me.

“Does it matter?” I said.

“Absolutely. Godzilla kicked Mothra’s ass. So, what do you think? Which one?”

I curled up on the seat. “I think I’m never using an analogy with you again.”

We passed several minutes in silence before I remembered he’d gotten a scholarship playing lacrosse. Grateful for the safe subject, I said, “What position do you play on the team?” If I were going to be dating Teagan, I needed to start learning these things.

“I play one of the attackmen,” he said, glancing at me.

“Oh, okay.” I frowned.

He chuckled quietly. “You have no clue what that means, do you?”

“No, not really.”

He laughed. “It’s okay. Most people don’t know. I hang out down around the other team’s end and look for opportunities to score us a few goals.”

I giggled. “I’m sure there’s more to it than that. Just the name attackman sounds like you do more than run around in enemy territory. Connor’s a long-stick midfieldman, and I know he does more than hang out in the middle of the field.” I frowned. Back to Connor.

“Why don’t you come to a few of the games next year?” Teagan suggested, squeezing my hand. “See it for yourself, maybe cheer for your man.”

I warmed at his words “My man, huh?” I teased.

“Yep, your man.” The grin he flashed my way was more than a little cocky. “So, what do you say? You gonna come to any of the games?”

I pretended to mull it over for a moment. “I dunno. Going to those games, cheering for Connor…I might cramp his style, you know?” I stifled a grin.

“Cheer for Con—” he exclaimed. “Why you little…” He reached over and poked me in my side—my very ticklish side.

I let out a shriek and grabbed at his finger, frantic. “No, please don’t! I’ll come and cheer for you!”

The look in his eyes was pure evil amusement. “So, you’re ticklish, huh?”

“No!”

“Mmhmm…sure you aren’t,” he said, reaching toward me again.

“I’m not!” I yelped, swatting away his hand.

He laughed and placed his hand back on the steering wheel. “Okay. But I have a secret weapon against Aislinn the smartass.”

I shot him a mock glare. Only Connor, Mom, and Penny knew how ticklish I was. I was not about to admit it to Teagan. So I did the incredibly mature thing of sticking my tongue out at him.

Good one, Ash. You sure showed him who’s boss. Yep.

The little asshole laughed. Not only was he not cooperating with my mental script, he was being inconsiderate.

“You’re a real butthead,” I muttered, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Yeah, but you like me anyway.”

“I may have to rethink that.”

***

“Stop!”

“Jesus, Aislinn, give me a warning, babe.”

“I’m sorry. I…” I was at a loss for what to say. My thoughts were refusing to form coherent words. Finally, I said, “Look, I just need you to pull into a parking lot or something, let me pull myself together…please?”

Teagan nodded and flipped on the turn signal, then slowed and pulled into a closed gas station. We weren’t far from the house, and I needed to get my bearings before I faced down Connor. The fight from the week before was still a bit fresh between us and hadn’t been resolved yet. And I wouldn’t put it past him to use that against me. Honestly, I wouldn’t put anything past him anymore. The Connor that I’d grown up with and the one I was dealing with now were two totally different people.

Teagan ran his fingers through my hair, tucking a few strands behind my ear. He took a deep breath, held it, and then let it out. Meeting my gaze briefly, he gave a tight smile, and then turned to gaze out the windshield.

I took his hand, squeezing his fingers. “What is it?”

He gazed at my hand with a light frown. “Sweetheart, I should tell you why your brother has an issue with us being together.” He paused, playing with my fingers.

I fidgeted. Finally, I burst out, “What? What is it?”

He shook his head. “Look, I need to tell you a few things, okay? I’d rather you hear it from me than from someone else and not get an explanation.”

I nodded. At last, some backstory. For all I knew, he’d been a drugged out pimp or something.

“I’m not proud of this,” he said. “If I could, I’d change some of it. But I can’t.” He let go of my hand and took hold of the steering wheel, gripping until his knuckles were turning white. “I dated a lot of girls in high school. Well, I guess date isn’t the right word. I hung out with a group of guys who would pretty much bang ’em and leave ’em.”

I closed my eyes. So he was a player. Or at least, he had been. To picture my sweet, considerate Teagan in that role hurt, but when I opened my eyes, he nodded seriously. “I was good at it, baby. I could talk a girl into almost anything. It was a game for us, who could get the most girls…” He sighed and shook his head, then looked out his side window. “A couple of us went to the University of Washington together and did it there too. We made it our mission to outdo the seniors on the team by the end of our second year.

“Summer after my first year, I was supposed to go to a party out at the beach, but I got sick with a stomach virus. My sixteen-year-old sister had been invited too. I told her not to go, but she thought I was trying to keep her from having a good time, so she went anyway.

“Two of my buddies, Chad and Kyle, were there that night. They saw Adrianna stumbling around, drunk off of her ass, and tried to get her to come sit with them, but she wouldn’t. She walked off with our buddy Mike, and when they didn’t come back after a while, Chad and Kyle went looking for them.”

Teagan stopped and swallowed hard, hands tightening on the wheel once again. When he turned to meet my gaze, his eyes were moist. I rested a hand on his arm, and he covered it with his own.

“They found them about a mile down the shore. They were on the ground, Mike on top of Adrianna and his hand around her throat. She…” His voice broke slightly, and he stopped to clear his throat. “Kyle said she was trying to scream, but couldn’t. Her lip was busted, she had a black eye, and her clothes had been ripped off.”

His hand tightened around mine in an almost painful grip. My heart ached for Teagan, for Adrianna. I didn’t want to hear what was coming, but he needed to tell me. It was important to him, so it was important to me.

“He raped her, and from what she said, it wasn’t just once. Chad pulled him off of her and Kyle took care of her while he called the police.” He shook his head, lips thinning out as he pressed them together. “He was arrested, and you’d think with the rape kit and eye witness reports, that’d be it. It wasn’t, though. Mike walked. Adrianna had been drinking, and his lawyer used that. She had been hanging all over Mike, and walked off with him more than willing, so…”

He wiped at his eyes and took a deep breath. “He destroyed her life, baby. Ripped trust from her and walked away. He’d been getting what he wanted from girls all that time, so he thought he deserved it, no matter what. And the justice system didn’t do a goddamn thing.”

I squeezed his hand, fighting back tears. “You delivered your own justice, didn’t you? That’s why you took a year off from school.”

He nodded. “I didn’t plan it. Adrianna’d had a bad day, crying and shit. I went out with Chad and Kyle and got drunk, ended up back at Kyle’s place. To be honest, I wasn’t doing too well, either. I’d been coming to the realization that I wasn’t all that different from Mike. I slept with almost any girl, talked them into it if I needed. The only difference was I hadn’t ever forced them into it.”

“He showed up at Kyle’s house and I lost it. I can’t even tell you what happened. One minute I was staring at him in the doorway—the next, he was on the floor unconscious, and the guys were holding me off of him. Kyle’s mom called 911. He was in bad shape—I was arrested.”

I sucked in a breath. He’d beaten someone to the point of unconsciousness. I was both incredibly impressed and awestricken at what he was capable of. “Did you go to jail?”

He shook his head. “No. It was my first offense, and the circumstances were taken into consideration as well. I would’ve gotten eighteen months of jail time, but it was commuted down to one year of probation and community service hours. I also had to go to anger management therapy, which is actually how I ended up with Zver. The therapist thought a dog would be good for calming my anger issues.”

Teagan turned back to the darkness outside his window, bouncing his knee wildly. I laid a hand on his thigh and applied enough pressure to make him stop. Truthfully, I didn’t have a problem with Teagan’s reaction. Connor probably would’ve done the same thing for me.

“So what does this have to do with Connor?” It sounded like a completely normal big-brother reaction. Why would Connor have a problem with that?

Teagan let out a loud breath and ran a hand through his hair. “One thing is how I used to be with girls, even after all of that happened. I cleaned up my act a lot, but I still wasn’t looking for a relationship. I enjoyed being single and made the most of it.”

“Then what makes me so special?”

He gave me a wry grin that said he thought I was crazy. “You’re amazing. You’re smart, funny, and beautiful. You’re the whole package I’ve been looking for.”

I blushed, and a goofy grin stretched across my face. He could’ve just fed me a total bullshit line, but right then, I didn’t care. Teagan made me feel like the most special girl in the world, and everything else could go to hell. That included Connor.

I bit my lip and shyly met his warm gaze. “You’ve been looking for someone like me?”

He gave me a quiet smile, but his eyes showed a mosaic of emotion—affection, passion, trust. As he stared at me, it felt like he was staring into me, and I ducked my head. Even so, I had a sense of rightness about him—about us.

I reached out and touched his face with a shy smile. His eyes widened, then he smiled back and captured my hand in his. He turned his head and pressed a warm kiss into my palm, making the skin his lips touched tingle. My breath caught in my throat.

My heart stuttered, then picked up and took off like a racehorse. When he slid his hand around to cradle the back of my head, leaning toward me, I sighed deeply, letting the moment sweep me away. As his mouth melded to mine, all the stress, all the worry flew away.

His thumb gently stroked my cheek, and I opened my eyes. He was giving me a tender smile. “You ready, baby?”