“I’m done stacking the ice melt.” Scott’s voice cut through the heated tension.
Casey heard Rags’s low growl.
“Good,” she said, forcing herself to look over at Scott.
Scott’s eyes darted between the biker and Casey. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No,” she breathed.
“Yeah,” Rags said, voice low and tinged with danger.
“We got a line building up,” Scott said, averting Rags’s glare.
“Then call for fuckin’ backup. I need to see some shit in the storeroom,” Rags said.
“Here I am,” Emily said, hurrying behind the counter and stopping at one of the cash registers. She smiled and nodded to a customer in line. “I can help you over here.”
Scott motioned the next person in line over to his register.
“Show me the fertilizer,” Rags said.
Casey’s breath caught and heat rose up her neck. “We don’t have any.”
“Yes, we do,” Emily said. “The back wall to the left is full of them. We just got a new shipment yesterday.”
“Thanks,” Casey mumbled as she walked from behind the counter.
Rags came beside her and touched her elbow with his hand and said, “You’re pissed because I didn’t come by the theatre.”
“I’m not,” she gritted.
“And it’s eating at you.”
She stopped in her tracks, anger prickling her skin. “You’re full of shit,” she whispered.
“No, I’m not.”
She opened her mouth, but he leaned in, close enough that she felt his breath against her cheek.
“You keep running that smart mouth,” he murmured, “and I’m gonna have to shut it the way you really want.”
Her pulse spiked. “You arrogant bastard.”
He chuckled. “Guilty.”
He grasped her arm and tugged her down the aisle.
“You do know I’m at work, right?”
“Yeah. I also know that Owen wants his people to be good to the customers.”
Before she could respond, he jerked his chin toward the back of the store. “We’ve got to talk. Now.”
She should’ve told him to go to hell and held her ground. Instead, she followed him.
The storeroom door shut behind them, and the fluorescent lights cut across stacked bags of soil and grass seed. The faint scent of earth, mulch, and cedar curled around them.
Rags didn’t say a word. His eyes raked slowly over her face, her mouth, her body; her skin prickled under the force of it. She should walk away, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to.