tongue dipped beneath the band. It wasn’t nearly close enough to where she wanted it, but her body still practically sizzled for him. “Your cock.”
“Mmm. And when you take my cock, how do you picture it?”
Oh God. She couldn’t believe he wanted details, but she found herself answering—anything to keep him kissing his way closer to the apex of her thighs. “Me on top, riding you. You, taking me from behind.” His thumbs moved, inching her panties down her hips. She gave a desperate laugh. “God, all different ways and places. The shower, your bed, the SUV again.”
“You’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my cock inside you.”
“Yes.”
Her panties hit the floor. He looked up at her, his slow grin doing a number on her heart rate. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again—you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of looking at you.”
She had the insane urge to argue with him, but she kept her lips sealed to prevent it from escaping and ruining the moment. Teague thought she was beautiful, and who was she to tell him he was wrong? Instead, she ran her fingers through his hair, enjoying the feel of it—the feel of him. He’d promised that she’d get her turn to do some exploring of her own, and she fully intended to take him up on it. So she tugged on his hair. “My turn.”
For a second, she thought he may argue, but he pushed to his feet. She wasted no time in slipping her hands beneath the hem of his old, faded T-shirt. It was soft with countless washings and obviously well loved. She paused in the middle of pushing it up and read the text across his chest. “The Pogues?”
“They’re one of my favorite bands.”
She made a mental note to look them up when she had the chance. That was the least of her concerns right now, though. He lifted his arms so she could drag the shirt over his head and drop it on the ground next to them. Then she stepped back so she could see him.
Good lord. He was magnificent, his muscles drawing her attention across his chest and down his stomach to where a trail of hair disappeared beneath the waistband of his jeans. She ran her hand up his stomach, silently delighting in the way his skin jumped at the contact, and stopped at the scar stretching diagonally across his left pectoral and over his shoulder. “What happened?”
Teague captured her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay.” Another time, they would. But even as she continued her path over his shoulder and down his arm, she knew she couldn’t ask without risking him pushing her. Turnabout was fair play, after all, so she couldn’t open that conversation unless she planned on being honest with him.
Yearning rose inside her, strong enough to steal her breath, a need to tell someone the truth. Maybe it would lighten her burden to do so, to the point where she might actually get more than forty-five minutes of sleep at a time. If only she was sure she could trust Teague totally and completely, she could risk it.
But she couldn’t.
She wanted, him—desperately—but desire and trust weren’t even in the same stratosphere. So she pressed a kiss to the scar instead. That brought her to the medallion hanging around his neck. It was familiar—she had a similar one at home, though with a different saint. “Saint Jude.”
“Patron saint of lost and forgotten causes.”
She knew that. What she didn’t know what why he’d chosen that particular saint to wear so close to his heart. It said something about the man, something that seemed to indicate scars that ran deeper than the ones on his skin. She had the ridiculous urge to bundle him close and hold him until all that hurt him disappeared.
That wasn’t why Callie was here, though. She was here so she could forget. Needing to get back on track, she went for the button of his jeans.
* * *
Teague did his damnedest to focus on Callie, instead of the memories the scar across his chest evoked. He’d had it since he was twelve, the badge of a mouthy kid who hadn’t yet learned that sometimes it was better to keep his head down instead of trying to speak up over every injustice he saw. His father had made sure the lesson was one