Chapter 24: Teague

“Baby, why do you feel so uptight?” Sadie’s hand kneaded my upper arm as her friend, some chick the Rogues had banged once or twice before, rolled her fingers over my shoulders, trying to work out the tension in my muscles.
“I’m fine,” I muttered, closing my eyes as Sadie’s voice grated on my nerves. “It’s just been a long couple of days.”
“Mmmm,” Sadie’s friend, Monica, purred in my ear. “How can we help you feel better?”
I raised the half-empty bottle of rum to my lips and took a swig, hardly feeling the burn anymore. I’d been doing everything in my power to stay away from Eve, which was proving to be more and more difficult as time passed. Hoping to distract my mind with something else, I’d found Sadie and her friend smoking cigarettes behind the academy about an hour before, figuring that, if nothing else, a quick fuck session might detour my thoughts from Eve. But we hadn’t even arrived to sex, and I still wasn’t feeling it. Nobody but fucking Evelina Bloom had forced a reaction from my body since meeting the woman.
And I fucking hated it.
“I can suck you off,” Sadie purred, dropping to her knees in front of the chair I was lounging in. Her eyes flashed fire as she reached mischievously for the button on my jeans, teasing me. I closed my eyes and put my head back as Monica leaned down and kissed my neck, trailing her lips down the sensitive skin, but even that didn’t wake me up.
“Fuck,” I growled as Eve’s face popped into my mind. I pushed Sadie away, startling her, and burst to my feet, swaying drunkenly where I stood.
“You don’t want me?” Sadie asked, lip popping out in a pout. “I thought that’s why you brought us here.”
I sized Sadie up, wishing more than anything else that I did, indeed, want her. Even Monia, Sadie’s little friend, had long, flowing waves of auburn hair and legs that went on for fucking days. But even then, still, it didn’t matter. They didn’t compete.
“Get out,” I said, pointing at the door with the bottle.
“But Teague—”
“I said get out, Sadie. Please.”
Sensing how serious I was, Sadie got to her feet, reaching for Monica, who looked terrified at my sudden outburst.
“Let’s go,” she said to Monica, her eyes on me. “We tried.”
I didn’t have the energy to argue with her as Sadie stalked towards the door, slamming it hard behind her and her friend, leaving me in silent peace. With a groan, I took another swig of the booze and dropped back down into the chair. I didn’t even have the desire to seek out my brothers for company. I felt lost, caught somewhere between a rock and a hard place. I knew it was my depression acting up. With bipolar like mine, I often had weeks of mania paired later with weeks of complete and utter depression. Almost nothing at all could pull me from the slump. It was about surviving it, not just beating it, and sometimes I wasn’t even sure I would survive.
In my pocket, my cell phone buzzed again, but I ignored it. I knew it was either Beau or Keane checking up on me, but I didn’t feel like company. I didn’t feel anything, really, anything except growing, intense rage.
I was nearly finished with the bottle of booze when there was a light rap on my bedroom door. I sat and stared at it for a moment, realizing that if it was Keane or Beau, they would have knocked it down instead of knocked. For a second, I considered ignoring it, but curiosity got the better of me, and I stood from the chair, setting the bottle aside before crossing the room. I expected it to be Sadie when I opened the door, and I was ready to rip her a new one, but it wasn’t Sadie.
It was Eve.
“Teague,” she said quietly, wringing her hands together anxiously. “Can I—can I come in?”
I stood in the doorway and stared at her for a long moment, trying to decide if this was some sort of joke. Had Keane set her up? Sent her over to coddle me?
“What do you want?” I asked, hating the way my body reacted to hers without hesitation.
“I wanted to see you,” she said gently. “It’s been a while since we’ve talked.”
“And what made you think tonight was the night to do that?” I asked. Without bothering to answer me, Eve stepped around me and into the bedroom, inviting herself in. She stopped inside the room, turning to stare at me until I closed the door behind us.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Honestly, I don’t know. I just felt that something was—off.”
“Really.” Brushing past her, I went back to where I’d been sitting and picked up the bottle of rum, finishing off the last little bit.
“Yes,” she said. “I also saw Sadie and some other girl leaving your room. My curiosity piqued.”
I grinned maliciously and scoffed. “Jealous, are you?”
Eve shrugged. “Should I be?”
I swallowed and dropped the empty bottle onto the floor, lumbering over to the bed to collapse onto the mattress. A moment later, Eve crossed the room and perched herself on the edge of the bed near me. She didn’t touch me. That was good because I was still fuming with the sort of anger I couldn’t quite place.
“Look,” she said as I stared unblinking at the ceiling. “The last time we were together, I was rude. I was—well, I was mean. And I’m sorry.”
“Why would you be sorry?” I demanded, folding my hands across my abdomen. “I put my nose where it didn’t belong. You had a right to tell me off.”
“No, I didn’t.” Eve sighed and looked away from me at the floor, and I had to fight the overwhelming urge to reach over and touch her. Feel her. Hold her.
Fuck her.
“It doesn’t matter.” I put my hands over my face and rubbed the tired from my eyes, feeling nausea from the rum pool in the pit of my stomach. “But thanks for trying.”
“It does matter.” I was surprised when Eve reached over and put her hand on top of mine. An electric shock shot through my arm, and I started to jerk away in surprise, but she didn’t pull back. “It matters because you were right,” she continued quietly. “You found out some things about me that I’d been avoiding facing. And that was hard for me.”
Sensing her vulnerability, I sat up on the bed, meeting her face, feeling my heart tighten in my chest as her misty eyes met mine. Fuck, I hated how this girl had me. She had me hook, line, and sinker. I was nothing but a puddle of goop in her hand, and I think she knew it.
“What is it?” I asked, one hand rising to touch her cheek. Fire burned beneath my fingers, and heat rose in my groin, begging for her touch. “What is it about your family that brought you here, Eve? Can you tell me?”
Instead of answering, Eve leaned forward and pressed her lips against mine. For a moment, I hesitated, caught off guard, but then my body took over, and I kissed her back, slipping my tongue between her lips to taste her, feel her against me. As she started to pull back, easing away, I pushed her down on the bed, pressing my body against hers. A small moan of surprise escaped her lips, and Eve squirmed beneath me as I continued to kiss her, my lips trailing from her mouth and down her neck, softly biting the sensitive skin.
“Teague,” she moaned, her legs parting as I placed my body on top of hers, demanding her attention. “I’m not ready for this.”
“Then we won’t,” I whispered, biting down on her lip. Eve squealed, her hips rising to meet mine as my cock hardened beneath my jeans. Simply being this close to her invoked a reaction in me that no other woman was currently capable of, and it took everything I had in me not to rip off her clothes and take her right there, listen to her scream, and cry my name.
With a groan of frustration, I jerked my body back and away from hers, trying to garner control of myself. If I hurt her, she might never trust me again, and I couldn’t let that happen. Not when we—when I—was so close.
“Why did you stop?” Eve whispered, pushing herself up on her elbows to stare at me. She was still on her back on my bed, legs open, fully clothed, and I worried that, given the opportunity, I might just take it too far.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, getting to my feet and crossing the room, putting distance between us. “I—I can’t control myself around you, Evelina. And I don’t want to frighten you. I refuse.” My prick was hard against the seam of my pants, begging for her, aching, but I ignored it, trying to focus on something, anything else, to survive this moment.
For a few moments, Eve said nothing at all. Then she pushed herself into a sitting position and smiled timidly at me, closing her legs. “Thank you,” she said, catching me off guard. “Thank you for not taking it too far, Teague. Sometimes even I can get ahead of myself. And I—I need someone to trust, especially when I can’t trust myself.”