The smell of food woke me up. Disoriented, I reached around even though I knew Teagan couldn’t possibly be with me. Someone had to cook the food I was smelling. Still, I was disappointed when my hand didn’t touch any warmth and I forced my eyes open.

My muscles ached as I moved, and I smirked to myself when I remembered the previous night. We were doing way too much of that lately.

I found a clean pair of shorts and pulled them on, then made my way to the kitchen. Teagan glanced up, throwing a grin my way. She was dressed in another one of my shirts with the sleeves rolled back, only I didn’t think there was anything under it. I was tempted to do a replay, only the table was already set.

"Hey, Ronan. Come here and sit down, breakfast is almost ready."

Right. My stomach rumbled, replacing my libido as a top priority. I didn’t eat a lot of cooked meals unless I ate out, which I rarely did. My choices were limited to fast food or frozen dinners, so it was a welcome change. And having Teagan be the one to cook the food for me made it… better somehow.

"Can I do anything to help?"

She shook her head, pointed the wooden spoon in her hand at me, then at the table. "No, but thank you. I pretty much did everything while you slept in. Just pick a chair and I'll bring the food to you."

"You could have woken me."

"No, it's fine. Besides, I didn’t want you distracting me." She sent me a mock glare, ruining it when she giggled. "I want to actually eat this time."

To be fair, I did let her eat before we moved to the bedroom. Then I had to wait for her to carefully put her dress away so we could make a mess on the bed.

I moved to the table and took a seat, watching her as she swayed softly to some beat in her head. Even when she had food in front of me, I couldn’t help looking at her. It was simple toast and eggs, but it was better than I could do.

"You know, if you didn’t want me to distract you, you shouldn’t have put on my clothes."

She arched her eyebrows at me over her coffee mug. "You realize I don’t leave a lot of my clothes here? I couldn’t exactly walk around in yesterday's dress, let alone cook in it."

"Well, yeah, but you look so hot in my clothes and I can't help myself."

She smirked, setting her coffee down and tugging at the folded back sleeves. They were so long, her arms disappeared to the fingertips. Most of the buttons were left undone, and if she removed just one, or two, of the top buttons, I would see more of her breasts than I already could.

"Should I take it off, then?"

"Oh, please, no," I groaned. I wanted to, but if I ached she must have felt sore. "After last night, we can stand to wait a little longer. And I guess I do feel kind of bad, I barely let you eat."

"It was fine. I wasn’t exactly complaining."

No, but that wasn’t so great either. The sex was amazing, but the more I was with her, the more I realized she was looking for a lot more. Inviting me to a party at her parents' house, even if it was her home, introducing me to her 'pussycat' dad as her boyfriend… I had known for a while a purely physical relationship wouldn’t cut it, but I ignored it. There could have been other ways to get close enough to her that she'd invite me home. I just never thought them out. I almost regretted it now.

After breakfast, she took the dishes and put them in the sink, rinsing them out. I watched her wash the dishes and wipe down the counter, then wipe her hands with a clean, dry rag. Then she turned to me and walked over, plopped herself in my lap with her arms going around my neck.

"I love you," Teagan declared.

I was waiting for it, had been for a long time, but it still surprised me.

I wanted to be happy. This beautiful, amazing woman was interested in me. If the situation were better, I could see a future with her.

If anything, what I felt just then was uncomfortable. What made it worse was knowing some part of her wanted to hear me say it back. She wouldn’t be mad at me if I didn’t, but she would be disappointed.

A ringing startled us both and her eyes slid away from mine. I realized it was her phone when she got up and headed for the bedroom in a hurry. I felt happy, relieved. She wouldn’t force me to say the words, but I didn’t want to be faced with her disappointment, either. She came back with the ringing phone in her hand, frowning down at it. Then it stopped ringing.

"Why didn’t you answer it?"

"Hmm?" she looked up, frown still in place.

"The phone?"

"Well, it's my dad. He and I were supposed to talk last night, I guess I kinda blew him off. But he didn’t specify when just after the party. I didn’t expect him to be the first to call."

"It could be important." I didn’t picture Quinn as the kind of person that called just to say hi. If Teagan thought it was strange, it was probably something I would want to know. "You should have picked it up. Just call him back, now."

It was the lesser evil, and partly better than the current situation. I didn’t want to be around her while she talked to him, it wouldn’t help with the guilt. But if he asked her about me, I would need to know, then decide whether to be worried or not.

She dialed the number and held the phone to her ear.

"You know, it's strange for my dad to call me at this time in the morning? The night after one of his parties, he usually isn’t up by ten, ten-thirty. Even his usual time is late since he does a lot of work till late at night."

I could imagine.

"Hello, Dad? Sorry, I missed your call, I was just—"

I was getting up to leave the room, give her privacy, though she hadn't asked for it. But when her voice cut off, I glanced up, only to freeze when I saw the frown grow more pronounced on her face, mingled with worry. Then she paled, her expression went blank in shock, and her phone dropped through her suddenly lifeless fingers.