The next thing I knew, we were naked. At least we used a condom this time. Thank fuck.

Oh God. Oh my God. That felt so damn good.

Everything he did—kissing me, touching me, fucking me hard or slow—it didn’t matter. It all felt so perfect.

But now, even as I was grinding myself against his hand, fucking his fingers as fast as my spent body could manage, I was back to yelling and screaming.

Only this time, only I could hear it.

I was silently screaming, berating, and hating myself for being so incredibly weak. All those years spent avoiding Cage, all those years spent avoiding my feelings, all those goddamn motherfucking years.

And here I was again. Being played like a fucking puppet.

It was if I’d never left Montana, never made a life for myself somewhere so far removed from the life. Like no time had passed since I was a sixteen-year-old loser staring up at Cage, thinking he was my whole fucking world, telling him I loved him while he stared at me and said, “It ain’t like that for me, baby.”

No. No. No. Goddamn, no!

How did this happen? How had one weekend turned my entire life inside out?

“No,” I whispered, pushing at the side of Cage’s head, trying to dislodge him from my neck.

“Will you shut the fuck up?” he said, lifting his head. “For two motherfuckin’ seconds?”

“Get off me,” I demanded, pushing at his hard stomach.

“Teg—”

“Off,” I repeated tightly, clenching my jaw, trying desperately to build that wall back up. “You’re even dumber than I thought if you think I’m going to keep letting you treat me like a fucking club whore.”

Cage’s confusion evaporated, turned instantly back to anger. His features pulled tight with irritation, his nostrils flaring.

“Fuck you, Tegen,” he growled. “You were right there with me, babe. You’re lyin’ to yourself if you’re thinkin’ you’re not wantin’ more.”

I glared at him. Sex. Sex, sex, sex. That’s all he was about; all he’d ever be about.

“No, I was not!” I snapped. “Now, get the FUCK off me!”

“FINE!” he roared, and then his weight was gone and he was on his feet.

The second he was off me, I rolled to my left and jumped to my feet. Snatching up my clothing, I quickly began to dress.

“Tegen.”

I didn’t turn around. “What?”

“Don’t do this,” he said quietly. “Don’t keep leavin’ like this. I can’t fuckin’ stand it.”

My heart began to pound.

“Why do you care?” I whispered. “You don’t even know me anymore.”

When he didn’t respond, my heart nearly seized. I hadn’t realized until the actual words had come from my mouth, how badly I wished they weren’t true.

“I know you,” he said. “Did you think I forgot all those damn tea parties? Or you forcing me to listen to all your stories, all those crazy ideas you told me you were goin’ to turn into books someday?”

My heartbeat took a hard right into overdrive. He remembered my stories?

“But now,” he continued. “Every time you come home, you treat me like shit on your fuckin’ shoe and, babe, I can’t fuckin’ stand it. Now, this shit with us happens, and even though you and my dad love callin’ me stupid, I ain’t fuckin stupid. I know when a bitch is gettin’ her rocks off and you were doin’ triple that.”

I spun on him. “No one ever said you were stupid when it came to sex, Cage! You excel at sex! Every female on the planet knows that!”

“Teacup,” he said slowly, staring straight into my eyes. “You gotta know how straight-up jealous you sound.”

It was a double whammy straight to my heart. In one short sentence, he’d shattered my carefully constructed glass house. Oooh, I hated him, or rather, I wanted to hate him. Standing there naked, his long blond hair a mess, his perfectly sculpted features serious, knowing how beautiful he was without one iota of self-consciousness, I wanted to despise him…only I couldn’t.

“I get it, babe, I do,” he continued. “You were just a kid and I did you wrong, but you’re forgettin’ I was a kid too. I was a brand new brother, only a year patched in, and I had bitches throwin’ themselves at me left and fuckin’ right, and, Tegen, you know I was drunk more often than not.”

He sighed. “It’s no excuse either, it’s just the God’s honest truth, but that didn’t mean I didn’t give a fuck about you. Or what went down between us. I gave a fuck, babe, I just didn’t know what the fuck to do about it.”

Cage paused and bent down to grab his leathers. After slipping them on, he began digging through his pockets. Pulling out a pack of smokes and his lighter, he shook two out, lit them both and held one out for me. I hesitated at first, but in the end realized I wasn’t going anywhere unless either Cage felt like letting me leave or I felt like walking through the Montana wilderness for hours. So I took the damn cigarette and when I did, Cage grinned.

His dimples popped out and it was a trillion times worse.

So. Not. Fair.

“You were never a club slut, Tegen,” he said. “Not once did I ever fuckin’ think that. To me, you were always D’s little girl. You were family and, Teacup, you were my best friend.”

My breath shuddered from my lungs. I was done for. There was no way I was walking away from this weekend intact.

Blindly, I reached out behind me, seeking one of the chairs I knew was back there at his table. At any second I was going to collapse.

Cage had just ruined me for the third time in my life. In the span of a day, he’d ruined me. Again.

The first time had been the day I met him; the second time was the morning after he’d taken my virginity and told me he didn’t love me; and right here, right now, was the third time.

• • •

Cage was getting to her; he could see it on her face. It was the single most vulnerable expression he’d seen on Tegen’s face in the past ten years. And he liked it. She looked softer, more feminine. She looked like his Teacup.

So he kept going. He fired one memory after another her way until he was no longer remembering for her, but for him, or rather he was realizing something that had never really made much sense to him in the past.

Then it wasn’t just Tegen’s feelings for him coinciding with all her bad behavior over the years making sense, but it was his reactions to her as well. Why he’d felt so damn miserable every time she’d come home and treat him like garbage.

“Cage!” Tegen shrieked, hot on his heels. “Give it back!”

Laughing, he kept running through the clubhouse, Tegen’s purple backpack held high over his head. He made a quick left out of the main room and hooked an immediate right through the double swinging doors into the kitchen. The four occupants of the kitchen all turned to stare at him.

“Asshole!” Tegen screamed from behind him. “Give it back!”

“Language!” Dorothy chastised.

Still holding her backpack over his head, Cage grinned down at her. “Aw, Teacup, what’s the matter?”

“Don’t call me that!” she yelled, jumping up and down, trying to reach her bag. “I’m not a little kid anymore!”

“No?” He laughed. “You finally grow outta that trainin’ bra?”

“Cage!” Dorothy snapped. “Inappropriate!”

Tegen’s pale, freckled face turned bright red with rage, an expression Cage knew well. She was ten seconds from slugging him in the balls so he faked left and then went right, darting around Tegen, and headed right back into the hallway.

From back inside the kitchen, he heard Tegen scream. Grinning, he kept running.

“You’ll never catch me, Teacup!” he yelled over his shoulder.

And yeah, he’d been wanting to fuck her for a handful of years now. But still, he missed his friend.

Cage’s thoughts swam. He vehemently didn’t want her to leave with a chip on her shoulder this time. He wanted her to spend the weekend with him and he damn sure wanted back inside of her.

“This is infinitely unfair,” Tegen whispered, trailing off as she stared up at him with those seriously sexy eyes of hers. Glancing down, she stubbed her cigarette out on the table ashtray and gestured with her hand for another.

He tossed her the pack and watched as she placed a fresh cigarette between her trembling lips and, with shaking hands, lit it up.

“What’s unfair?” he asked.

Snorting, she shook her head. “You,” she said. “You are un-fucking-fair.”

Cage watched her take another drag off her smoke, ash it, take another drag.

Crossing the kitchen, he took the seat opposite her, reached across the table, and slid the cigarette out from between her fingers. Tegen watched him bring it up to his mouth and take a drag. Handing it back, he smiled at her.

“Spend the weekend with me,” he said quietly. “You say I don’t know you anymore, then spend the fuckin’ weekend with me, Teacup, and show me who the fuck you are now.”

Staring at him, she shook her head. “Why?” she whispered. “Why does it even matter to you?”

“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. “It just does.”

“I can’t just leave my mom all alone,” she said, but judging by the look on her face she’d already made her decision.

“Then let’s go pick her up,” he suggested. “And we’ll go out for lunch.”

Tegen’s mouth dropped open. “What? Like on a fucking date or something?”

Uh. Cage thought about that for a split second. Was this like a date? He wouldn’t know; he’d never been on a date. He wasn’t sure whether showing up for someone’s lunch break to get a blow job counted or not.

Whatever.