A dangerous glint flickered in his eyes. “You think I make you forget words?”
“Sometimes,” I admitted before my brain could stop my mouth.
He inhaled quietly, and something changed in the air between us that felt like a thin, electric thread stretching tight.
“Okay,” he said. “My turn.”
I braced myself. “Fine. Go ahead.”
“Rule one,” he said, stepping closer. “You don’t spiral about something until you talk to me first.”
My pulse jumped. “I don’t spiral.”
“You do. And it’s okay.”
I glared. “Rude.”
“Rule two,” he added, ignoring that. “You tell me if something scares you on the trail.”
My throat tightened. “Carson…”
“And rule three,” he said softly, voice lowering into something warm and molten. “If we’re going to behave, you can’t look at me the way you did last night.”
“I didn’t—”
“You did.”
His nearness swallowed the room, and I backed up one step.
He followed, and my spine bumped gently against the old wooden filing cabinet.
I swallowed hard. “We’re supposed to be working.”
“We are.”
“This isn’t working.”
“It feels like it is.”
Oh God.
My heartbeat galloped like our zebra running wild from the pen.
“This is a terrible idea,” I whispered.
“Probably.”
“So we shouldn’t.”
“No,” he agreed, voice a low hum. “We shouldn’t.”
His hand rose slowly, slowly enough that I could have stopped him and brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, but I didn’t.
I exhaled shakily and realized every rule we made probably just went out the window.
“But,” he added, “you keep looking at me like you want me to do something about it.”
Shock and fire tore through me all at once.
