“All of them,” I deadpanned.
“I believe in you.”It could have been said in sarcasm, it would have worked just fine with our normal conversations.But it wasn’t.Instead, there was sincerity in the timbre of his voice.It rumbled through my blood, coursing my waning confidence to grow.Affection burned in my chest, it felt good to be believed in.
“Thanks,” I said lamely.
“So, why this state land?”
I opened my mouth prepared to tell him the tale I was telling everyone else before closing it again.Tilting my head to the side, I considered that Iknewhim.And that allowed a different kind of trust.
The nail of my thumb clicked on the bar top as I thought.
He lifted an eyebrow toward my nervous hand.“What are you thinking about?”
I leaned in, lowering my voice.“You wanna know the real reason?”
His midnight eyes sparkled.“Yes.”
“You can’t tell anyone.I shouldn’t tell you.”
“To the grave, Leese.”
I couldn’t help smiling.We both loved a secret.“The property was supposed to go to public auction, and we had a private benefactor prepared to buy and put protection covenants all over it.”
“Good.”
“But then they released the property list without this one on it, so I looked into it and saw a proposed development, and looked into the company, and found that a main investor is the son of a state congressman.”
He mouthedOh.“So, not only is it an abuse of natural resources, but an abuse of nepotism.”
“Or as I like to call it, nepotism.”
His laugh thundered down my skin—rich and messy.A storm I should seek shelter from, but it was too beautiful and wild to look away.I wanted to be swept up in it, soaked through.Get thrashed about, lost at sea, and whatever else this moment could give me.
One little touch.
The thermal cotton stretched across his chest was soft under my palm.And the muscle beneath was firm.His heartbeat drummed, and his breathing grew a bit strained—faster but measured.Did my sense of smell grow more acute?Or had he always smelled a little bit like ...something smokey, I couldn’t put my finger on it.
His crew neck rested on his collarbone.The tips of my fingers brushed a little higher, finding the skin just above the cotton.He was so hot ...to the touch.It was as if I hadn’t felt heat in years, and it was just there under the swirls of my fingerprints.
I flicked my gaze up to find his heavy-lidded eyes locked onto me.Looking at Remi was easy, my eyes slid from detail-to-detail, eating him up like a well-balanced diet.
But being seen by him, that made me squirm.He saw too much, laid me bare.Exposed.
I loved it.
Snatching my hand back, I lifted my glass to my lips only to remember that it was empty.
Still.
There was a possibility that I was more sloppy than I’d realized.It’d only been two glasses.Was I starving?Had I drank on an empty stomach?I hadn’t felt this drunk before he’d come over, before he’d taken my space and breathed my air.A pressure, a pull, edging me off balance.
Blinking, he looked away.He lifted his beer to his lips and took a long drink, the muscles of his neck flexing.
“Hey,” a perky voice said from the other side of the bar.
I startled, almost knocking over my glass.
“What can I get for you?”The tiny blond bartender flicked her eyes between us.
