Page 23 of Flagrant Foul (Totally Pucked #3)

I take it gratefully, and when I’ve downed most of it, I put the glass and plate on the side table next to me. I feel like I should say something, but I don’t know what. Teddy is being super weird. The whole day is being weird.

Something very strange has happened in this apartment, and it’s making Teddy larger than life. He’s all I can see, and he’s somehow managed to fill the entire room with his smell, and despite all the bacon and water I’ve had, there’s a sweet taste in my mouth I can’t shake .

Teddy is still eerily calm, but added to that, a vague reverberation of amusement has engraved a large comma into one of his cheeks. The way he’s looking down at me leaves me one hundred percent certain his amusement comes at my expense.

“Ready?” he asks almost kindly.

My head is a little loose on its hinges and bobs without any active involvement from me. A very, very distant voice murmurs something to me in a soft, breathy whisper. It’s so quiet that I can’t quite make out what it’s saying, though it seems important.

Teddy reaches down and long, graceful fingers curl around the hem of his T-shirt.

I’m transfixed. Hyperfocused. The fabric is soft and tightly knit.

Luxurious. The stitching of the hem is exactly the same color as his shirt.

I’ve never noticed it before, but now that I have, I wonder how hard it is to make that happen.

Is it someone’s job to match colors like that?

If so, how do you get into that kind of thing?

Is there, like, a special qualification or something?

I think about asking Teddy these questions, as he seems like the kind of guy who would know, but I’m so absorbed by the movements of his fingers that I can’t remember how my tongue works.

He lifts his hand and his T-shirt comes up with it. He moves slowly. Steadily. Showing more skin in increments so gradual that I feel myself aging as it happens. Changing. Mutating.

At first, a hint of his stomach is exposed.

It’s okay, I tell myself. It’s no problem. It’s not a big deal. We’re teammates. We play on the same team. I see him shirtless in the locker room all the time. I grew up with him. We used to go to the public pool in Alabaster all the time. I’ve seen his chest lots of times. It’s fine.

The problem is, this time is nothing like the other times.

Teddy’s different this time. His eyes are different.

So is his mouth. There’s this inexplicable heat radiating off him.

A raw sexuality that’s oozing out of him, spilling onto the floor, and wrapping itself around my legs.

His lips are different too. They’re curled at the corners like paper that got too close to a flame.

I feel like I might be a little too close to a flame too.

He looks more than eerily calm now. He looks sure. Of the situation, of me, but more than that, he looks sure of himself.

That scares me.

My hungover heart squeezes hard, winding me and wiping my mind clean.

I’ve never seen Teddy like this. Never. Not at the nightclub in New York.

Not in the street outside it. Not even that spring break in Alabaster when he held my hand and tried to kiss me in the backyard.

My right hand clenches at the memory, clutching at nothing as though it’s trying to hold on to something intangible.

It was a still night, warm and cloudless, and the moon was full.

We were outside. Alone. Nate was out with a girl he’d been chasing for a while.

Cindy something, I think. No. Sylvie. Sylvie Jackson.

We had plans to meet up, Nate and I, but he sent me a message that morning letting me know he couldn’t make it.

I read the message while I was doing something else and forgot all about it.

I forgot that Mr. and Mrs. O’Reilly would be out and that Teddy would be home alone. I forgot that it wasn’t a good idea for me to be anywhere near Teddy without Nate there to act as a buffer. I stood on the porch and rang the bell like I always did. Everything was normal.

He opened the door and nothing was normal again.

He was happy to see me, and he didn’t try to hide it.

He was so happy that his hand flew to his chest. His fingers found the chain around his neck and wrapped around it tightly.

He held on to it like it was a talisman.

He smiled at me the way he used to smile at me when we were kids.

Like I was something big. Something that mattered. Someone worthwhile.

The sky was pitch black. A sprinkling of stars danced around the moon, and as we walked down the stairs that led from the back porch to the lawn, Teddy slid his hand into mine.

He did it so casually that it felt natural.

Like the most normal thing in the world.

Like something we’d done lots of times before.

His hand was warm in mine. So warm. Our fingers fit together perfectly, as though they were made for each other. It felt so right that it took me longer than it should have to pull away.

I told myself it didn’t mean anything. That friends held hands sometimes. That nothing more would happen. That it was just the one time.

I knew I was lying to myself, but I couldn’t make myself let go.

I feel like that now too. I should be closing my eyes now, or blinking at least, but I can’t make myself do either.

His hand is still moving. Still traveling up.

His whole belly is exposed now, and I can see him breathing.

His ribcage expands as it fills with air.

Little dents form above his navel when he expels it.

He’s three yards away from me. Close, but not close enough that I could touch him if I reached out.

I can feel his breath on me despite that. It lands lightly but hits hard.

Hot.

It hits hard and it’s hot .

It singes my face and makes my cheeks flush.

Look away says the soft, breathy voice from before.

I forcibly blink to buy myself time.

When I open my eyes again, it’s too late to look away because Teddy is holding his top up near his clavicle.

He’s using both hands now. One to lift it, the other to pull it outward and away from his body.

A pair of pale-pink nipples taunt me. They’re puckered, tiny bumps forming where his skin has pulled tight.

They’re hard. Taut. Tiny and so fucking sexy that I start grinding my teeth involuntarily.

Teddy disappears under his T-shirt, and thank God for that. My soft focus function has glitched, and I need the moment his disappearance offers to gorge myself on the sight of him in private and then concentrate on pulling myself together.

I’ve always wondered what it is that makes you want some people more than others.

I haven’t worked it out yet, but I think it has something to do with their skin.

Or their smell. Or it’s the combination of their skin and their smell.

Teddy’s skin is pale and clear. Almost translucent.

It makes him look strong and fragile at the same time.

Masculine and gentle. Hard and so fucking sweet I can’t see straight .

His smell makes my head spin. It makes me hard.

Solid like granite. I’m not talking about the scent of his body wash.

Citrus and leather are nice and all, but they have nothing on his own personal smell.

The smell of his neck. Of his chest and his pits.

It’s earthy and has more density than any artificial scent ever could have.

There’s a realness to it. A manly musk sluiced with a prickly bouquet of sweetness and spite.

It messes me up.

It messes me up so much that by the time Teddy emerges from under his shirt, chest bare but for the chains that hang from his neck, I feel drunker than I did last night.

I must look it too because Teddy laughs at the state of me. His lips part and a soft, angelic sound bubbles out of him. It’s so fucking beautiful that my head drops back against the couch and my mind goes blank.

His hand traces a line down the middle of his chest, teasing me.

Taunting me. Tracing a path between his pecs, down to his navel, and then even lower.

A neatly trimmed nail flicks the button of his jeans.

Brass glints. He worries the button until my lungs are paralyzed and parts of my soul wither and come unstuck at the seams. Until I can’t blink and my tongue is so thick in my mouth, I can’t talk or swallow .

He undoes it the same way he lifted his T-shirt. Slowly. In stages.

When the button finally opens, my mouth is open too.

I blink again, and when I open my eyes, I see that my hand is suspended, reaching out toward him.

A clear, angelic sound rings like a bell, arctic blue narrows, and for a second, I think he’s going to slap my hand away.

He doesn’t. He barely touches me. He just digs two fingers under the hair tie I have on my wrist and pulls it off over my hand.

He puts the band on his own wrist as I frantically try to make sense of what’s happening.

My thoughts are sluggish and thick. Slow as fuck.

His right wrist.

He put the band on his right wrist. His beautiful right wrist. Graceful and angular.

Sculptural, but sturdy as well. The band is black and a little looser on his wrist than it is on mine.

It lies nestled in the dip next to the bone that protrudes on the pinky side of his hand. The pisiform bone, I think it’s called.

Actually, I don’t think, I know that’s what it’s called. I’ve googled it more than enough times to be sure.

I don’t know what the fuck it is about this guy or his wrist that turns me on this much, but seeing my hair tie stretch and slide over his hand, coming to rest right next to that fucking bone, cuts off my air.

It strangles me as surely as it would if he’d wrapped that goddamn hair tie around my neck. Twice.

I have no way of knowing how long it takes me to realize he’s stopped. That he’s not taking anything else off and we’re still in the living room. It’s still daytime. I’m still me, and Teddy is still Nate’s brother.

“That’s it?” I croak.

He nods sweetly. “For today.”

“Mmkay,” I manage. It’s impossible to describe what a dumb fuck he’s turned me into. I know nothing. Understand nothing. I have questions, though, and I’m too fucked up to stop myself from asking them. “What happens now?”

“Well,” he says brightly, “I’m going to fetch you some Advil because you look like hell, and maybe some OJ, and then we’re going to put something mindless on TV.”

I nod agreeably, grateful the worst of the threat seems to have passed.

“Lucky for you, we have the day off, so we’re free to rot for the rest of the day. I mean it. We’re not going to move from the couch, no matter what.”

A day off. Yes. Thank fuck. I’ve never needed a day off more than I need one today.

He heads off to get the Advil from his bathroom, and I use the time to rest my eyes.

They’re feeling super strained from the hangover.

To be on the safe side, I keep resting them when he gets back and pours the OJ.

From the whirring and popping sounds coming from the microwave, I think he might be making popcorn.

When the seat of the couch dips under his weight, I steady myself before opening my eyes. I’m a little disoriented, but all things considered, I think I did pretty well. I wasn’t perfect, but I could have been a lot worse, so overall, I’m taking it as a win.

The W turns to an L the second light hits my retina. Teddy is still shirtless, still stunning, and his jeans button is still undone.

I slump against the arm of the couch as he arranges the popcorn and juice on the coffee table. He shakes out a blanket and throws it over his legs and mine before stretching out and putting his bare feet on my lap.

“Rub,” he says.

Since I don’t have two coherent thoughts to fuse together, it seems only sensible to do as I’m told.

So I circle the arch of one of his feet with both hands, digging my thumbs into muscle and meat.

I drag my thumbs up from his heel to the ball of his foot.

He makes a low sound, a throaty rumble that sounds exactly like sex.

Like slow sex. The kind of sex that stops and starts and goes on for so long that you think it won’t ever end.

His feet are a solid weight in my lap. A deep, strangely reassuring pressure across both of my thighs. They’re close to my dick. Close, but not touching, and when I think about that for too long, I start feeling extremely uneasy.

I don’t know how long I’ve been hard for, but it’s been a long time. Possibly a longer time than recommended by medical professionals.

I’m uncomfortable. My underwear is too tight, my waistband cutting into me.

Every time Teddy moans from the foot rub, a fresh spurt of precum leaks out of me.

Whatever he was watching ends. It must because he picks up the remote and starts scrolling again.

“How ’bout some Housewives ?” Before I have time to respond, he continues, “You can think about whatever you like while we watch.”

The way he says it makes it seem like a good offer. A kind offer. Benevolent, even. I’m so severely delayed that I almost thank him.

“I don’t mind if you drift off either. I know you had a late night, but I want you to know that I’ll be thinking of you as I watch.

” He shakes his head ruefully at himself, not me.

“I do that, you know? I’ve always tried to hide things like this from you, but I’m tired of that too, so I want you to know that’s what I do, Sev.

I think of you. I think of you when we’re alone together, and when we’re with the team.

On flights. In bars and hotels. I think of you when we’re with Nate and the two of you are talking, and I’m tagging along.

It doesn’t matter where we are or who we’re with.

I always think of you.” He nudges me with his foot.

“Want to know what I think about specifically?”

I emit a dry, cracked sound that he takes as a yes. I know that because he keeps talking.

“I think about you and me naked. No clothes. Just skin. Just you and me. Lying together. I think about the weight of your body and how good it would feel on top of me.” He lowers his chin, which lowers his voice slightly.

“I think about your skin on my skin. Your body on my body.” My dick jerks so hard that my hands slump to my sides.

“But most of all, I think of you moving inside me.”

I lose my train of thought so thoroughly that he has to give me a little kick to remind me to keep rubbing his feet.