“Yeah. She did.”
They finished the cake in silence. But it was a different silence. Like something had shifted between them, some small wall coming down.
She gathered the dishes, needing to move. He stood at the same time, reaching for his bowl. They collided in the small space between table and counter. Her hip against his thigh. His hand brushing her waist as he steadied her.
Heat shot through her.
“Sorry, I?—”
“It’s—”
They both stopped. She was too close. So close she could see the gold flecks in his eyes, and the way his pupils contracted a little as he looked down at her.
This close, she could almost imagine that softness she’d seen in the barn. The version of him that murmured endearments to frightened creatures and smiled. His hand was still on her waist. Massive. Warm through her tunic. She should step back.
She didn’t.
Neither did he.
His gaze dropped to her mouth, lingered there for one heartbeat, two, then jerked away.
He stepped back. “I need to check the krulaati.”
“Right. Of course.”
Grabbing his jacket, he headed for the door. Then he stopped and looked over his shoulder at her.
“The cake. Thank you.”
Then he was gone.
Juni stood in the empty kitchen. The house felt smaller somehow. Tighter. Like the walls were pressing in.
She cleaned the dishes. Wiped the counter. Straightened things that didn’t need straightening. Anything to keep her hands busy while her mind raced.
That look. The way his hand had felt on her waist. The careful distance he’d put between them after.
She needed air. Needed to move. Needed to not think about how his voice had roughened when he’d thanked her, how his eyes had lingered on her mouth, how the kitchen still smelled of him, that warm scent she couldn’t name.
She grabbed the oversized jacket he’d given her for the trip to town. She’d clear her head and get some fresh air at the same time as she explored the ranch.
Anything to stop feeling like something inside her was coiled and ready to snap.
The cold would help. It had to help.
Because staying in this house, thinking about him out there with the animals, thinking about the way he’d looked at her...
That way lay madness.
The breath that she took when she stepped outside was cold and biting.
Juni stood on the doorstep, looking out. The ranch spread out before her, pale moonlight turning everything silver and shadow. There were no lights except for the soft glow from the house behind her. She picked a direction at random and walked, gravel crunching under her boots. Her breath clouded in front of her face.
She walked past the main barn with its weathered sides and past the equipment sheds, metal roofs gleaming dully under the stars. The silence was complete. There was no traffic, no neighbors, no hum of machinery. Just the occasional creak of wood and the sound of her footsteps.
Perfect. Exactly what she needed to get her head straight. To stop thinking about the way his voice had gone rough when he’d said her name. The way his hands had felt impossibly hot through her shirt.
Except her body wasn’t cooperating. Every step reminded her how hyperaware her skin felt, how her clothes pressed too tightly everywhere, and how that hollow ache low in her belly had nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with?—
