My thoughts rapidly shift from what the fuck I’m going to do about my erection to concern for Maisie. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“Fine.” Avoiding my gaze, she tucks her left hand behind her back.
I walk over to her, ignoring the hungry look she gives my chest. “Let me see.”
“It’s nothing.”
She bumps into a counter as she retreats, her eyes widening in surprise when I clasp her by her hips. Her skin is so soft and warm; I’m going to have a real problem taking my hands off her. And up close, her blackberry and wild honey scent merges with the bakery smells, tempting me to put my mouth to her skin and kiss her all over.
Does she taste as good as she smells? I’m thinking she does.
“Let me see,” I softly order, aware she came to Rios with bruises and a deep wariness about anyone getting too close to her. I’m surprised she’s letting me touch her at all, but I’m grateful not to scare her.
“It’s nothing,” she says, hiding her left hand.
I dip my head, closing the distance between us. “Youhurtyourself, beautiful. That is the very opposite of nothing.”
The endearment causes her to widen her huge blue eyes. “What did you call me?”
“You heard me.”
She gives me a searching look. With a sigh lifts her left arm, showing me a thin red mark on the back of her hand. A burn. It's not a bad one, but burns are almost always painful.
“How?” I take my hands off her hips, gripping her wrist and turning her hand to see it better.
“I was trying to clear my mess so you could use the kitchen and brushed up against the hot pie pan. The last pie, so of course that’s the one I burn myself on.”
With a hand on her wrist, I tug her over to the sink and turn the faucet to cold, holding her hand—and the burn—under it. “The last pie?”
I didn’t even know we had pie pans in this kitchen, and I’m in here more than anyone. Maisie must have found it in the pantry. This rented farmhouse came fully furnished, and the landlord had said his wife owned so much kitchen equipment that he left most of it behind when he moved to a smaller place in town after she passed.
Her hair brushes the front of my chest when she nods, the soft strands ticklish and strangely erotic. “Uh, huh.” She clears her throat. “I wanted to make pie for you all to say thanks for letting me stay. Uh, and I used up most of your apples and the cherries in the freezer. And the sugar. Um, and the flour and butter took a hit as well. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Those apples would’ve ended up in the trash when no one ate them, and I forgot we evenhadcherries in the freezer. The rest is pantry stuff, and no one in this house is baking.”
The longer I stand with her tucked against my front, my left arm wrapped around her middle, the more I realize it was a bad idea.
“How many pies did you make?” I ask to distract myself from how good she feels against me.
She glances to the right.
I turn to look.Fuck me.My jaw drops when I spot the two additional pies, in addition to the one she just took out of the oven, cooling beside the refrigerator.
From her profile, her cheeks are pink. “I promise to clean up the mess and replace all the ingredients,” she says in a rush.
I bend down to meet her pretty blue gaze. “You don’t have to replace anything. And I’m less concerned about a messy kitchen than I am about you hurting yourself and not being able to sleep.”
“What made you think I wasn’t able to sleep?”
I give the one-woman pie operation she's running a pointed look.
She lets out a sigh. “Talking about Derek might have brought back some memories I’d rather forget.”
Fuck.
None of us considered that opening up to us might have awakened ghosts. But we should have.
Last night, she’d been smiling when she returned to the kitchen after Wyatt introduced her to his parents over the phone. We’d made her laugh over dinner as we talked about our years spent traveling across the country working together. Later, she’d gone up to bed, relaxed, well-fed from dinner, and yawning into her hand.
