“No bears? Are they afraid of invading Bigfoot’s territory?”
“Amy.” He said my name like a warning.
“Careful, Bigfoot. Keep saying my name in that voice and I’ll start earning the warning on purpose.”
That got me a look over his shoulder. Dark and deep. I smiled into my coffee as I took a sip, extremely pleased with myself. “What’s after the fence?”
“Truck needs an oil change.”
“Riveting. Then?”
“Dinner.”
He split another log, then buried the axe in the block and came toward the porch. He stopped one step below me, which put us eye to eye for the first time since I’d met him, and neither of us said anything while he took the mug out of my hand and helped himself to a swallow of my rationed coffee.
“Hey.”
“Quality control.” He handed it back. His fingers dragged across mine on the handle — slow, deliberate, nothing accidental about it — and every nerve I owned reported for duty. His mouth had been on that rim. I put my mouth where his mouth had been, maintained eye contact while I did it, and had the deep satisfaction of watching his jaw go tight.
Two could play at quality control.
“So, that’s it? That’s the whole social calendar?” I wrapped both hands around the mug to keep them from doing anything unauthorized, like reaching out and dragging his mouth down to mine.
He braced one hand on the porch post above my head and leaned in past me to grab his shirt off the rail, and for two full seconds I was inside the heat coming off his body, close enough to count the six-pack of his abs. Close enough to lean forward three inches and put my mouth on his sternum, an idea my body had fully committed to.
Then he straightened and pulled the shirt on. A sigh escaped me. Loud. Mournful. Entirely on purpose by the end of it.
“You following me around all day,” he said, “or you want to pretend to think about it first?”
He’d heard it.
“Following. Obviously. I’m medically forbidden from being left unattended.”
“That expired this morning.”
I looked up at him and shamelessly batted my eyes. “You wouldn’t want me to have a setback, now, would you?”
He grabbed my chin and leaned down. For one crazy moment, I thought he might actually kiss me. Instead, he searched my eyes, and I sat there in his grip trying to look medically fragile while his thumb rested at the corner of my mouth. If I turned my head two degrees, that thumb would be between my lips.
I turned my head one degree. His grip firmed, holding me exactly where I was. His thumb pressed once at the corner of my mouth — half warning, half promise, impossible to tell which — and then, he let go. “Behave.”
The wordsmake mewere right there, on the tip of my tongue. The same tongue that wanted to dart out and lick that thumb. My restraint deserved an award.
“Your pupils are back to normal size,” he said. “How’s the leg?”
I stretched my leg out in front of me, pulling up the hem of the shorts — an inch or two higher than the bandage strictly required.
He pulled the bandage halfway off before tracing the long red line with his fingertips.
“See? Doesn’t hurt at all.”
One dark brow rose. A gesture I was becoming familiar with. “Amy.”
“It pulls a little when I walk. So, what’s the verdict?” I asked as he put the bandage back in place, his thumb pressing into my skin for a second longer than necessary.
“I should leave you inside. Resting.”
“You could. But where would be the fun in that?”