they were stinkweed instead of her favorite romantic red roses. “You shouldn’t have.”
“I wanted to.”
She glanced up at his face. “No, I mean you really shouldn’t have. Did anyone see you bringing me flowers? People will talk.”
He tried shrugging off the tight claws of his ill temper. Polly never annoyed him. They’d gotten along so well until recently...until those two confusing occasions, the first when she’d dropped her dress, the second when she’d made some angry but cryptic remark about him not nailing her. Christ, he’d taken care of that, hadn’t he?
He rubbed at his aching forehead. “I bring you stuff all the time.”
“Muffins. That kind of pen I like. Not...”
“Fine,” he ground out. “Now I’m hoping Skye won’t be p.o.’d that I brought her the ingredients for s’mores. Do you think that sends a wrong message, too?”
“If so, it will be Gage who delivers the news to you,” Polly said, heading for the kitchen. “Probably on the end of his fist.”
That diverted him for a moment. “What?”
Her place was so small that Teague could watch her put the roses in water from the doorway. She fussed with them, then threw him a look over her shoulder. “I warned her, but she wouldn’t listen.”
He frowned. “You’re telling me they’re involved now? Physically?”
“Mmm,” Polly said, still arranging and rearranging the flowers. She was wearing white denim jeans that were rolled at the ankles and an oversize sweatshirt that...that was his, he realized. His well-worn fleece from the firefighter academy, originally engine-red, now washed to a soft strawberry.
It gave him the oddest satisfaction to see her in it, even though it covered up the incredible body he’d explored the other night. She was built like a gymnast, light but strong, and he’d marveled at her shape and texture, enjoying them with his hands and his mouth, even as one part of his mind couldn’t believe he was in bed with his best-friend-who-was-a-girl.
How had it begun? There’d been her sympathetic tears, his affectionate kiss, and then, pow, it was mouth on mouth, hands on skin, full freaking penetration.
He’d not taken her tenderly, he thought, replaying the event in his mind. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought of it, but it was the first time he did a mental rerun when she was so near. Heat shot toward his groin. What would she do if he strode over to the sink and picked her up, then carried her caveman-style to the bedroom and the high mattress that was perfectly positioned for him to—
He blinked, aware she was staring at him.
“Uh, what?” he asked, hoping she didn’t notice that he was more than halfway to aroused.
Polly tucked her golden hair behind her ears in a nervous gesture that wasn’t normal for her. “I said, Skye claims she and Gage are having a summer fling.”
It took Teague a moment to remember who exactly Skye and Gage were. “Summer fling,” he murmured. It was another happy phrase from the Lexicon. Could he and Polly be heading for one of those?
But she was looking at him with a hint of unease in her gaze, and he thought he better not take anything for granted. Especially, as he kept recalling, because he’d gone he-man on her in bed instead of taking the friendly, fond-and-gentle route. Shit. Had he been too rough? The stressful week had shaken him, and then when he’d started talking about it...well, it had bared something in him.
He’d been raw in every sense of the word.
“We should get out there,” Polly said, gesturing to the beach. “Especially if you’re the s’mores supplier.”
Teague followed her lead. Next door to Polly’s tiny place was Skye’s much more substantial home. On the sand a few feet from her front door, a metal fire pit was already stoked and blazing. A dozen people were assembled around it in the almost dark, some standing, some in collapsible chairs. He greeted and was greeted in return, then obligingly took up the task of getting the music going via iPod and stereo dock. The music player’s owner had already created a playlist, and before long over the crackle of burning wood and the quiet rush of waves he could hear “Endless Summer” by Aaron Lewis followed by Katy Perry’s “California Gurls.”
The summer cheer of the songs lifted his mood. He grabbed a can of beer from the ice chest on the porch, then grabbed a second, the light kind that Polly preferred, and looked around for her.
Firelight caught in her bright hair