He grins at me, all boyish and ridiculously hot as he pillows one arm behind his head, which immediately focuses my eyes on his chest, proving me a liar. “You are. We talk, you know.”
His eyes drift to my breasts, and my nipples pebble in response. When he wets his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue, it’s clear I’m not the only one into chests.
“About?” I prompt, pretending I’m not desperate for him to put his mouth on my breasts the way they ache for him to.
“You, things you might like, this habit you have of staring at our chests when we’re shirtless, about our future.”
It is truly embarrassing how difficult it is to decide which question to ask first, but I go with my head and not my raging hormones. “What about your future?”
He chuckles. “You wanted to ask about our chests first, didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t.” I lie, feeling the tips of my ears heat.
He raises his eyebrow, but doesn’t call me out on my lie. “None of us is interested in the Florida job because of you. We want to stay here in Rios with you and start our own construction company.”
“Oh.” I scrunch my nose. “Why wouldn’t you talk to me about it?”
“We didn’t want to make demands on you before you knew what you wanted. Hunter said you froze when he brought up the future.”
“Yeah.”
I look away, recalling our conversation at the top of the stairs. I’d been on the verge of running, terrified that if I stayed, Derek would hurt them to get to me. And I was scared of staying so long that I wouldn’t want to leave because this isn’t about sex or attraction anymore. It hasn’t been for a long time. This is something else. Something scary and perfect and everything I never knew I wanted.
“He said there was a lot of quiet panicking,” he says.
“There was,” I admit in a quiet voice.
“And now?”
I lift my eyes to meet his. “I don’t know.”
He smiles. “You’re a terrible liar.”
I glare. “No, I’m not.” I move to poke his chest, but he catches my hand, lifts it to his mouth and presses a heart-stopping kiss on the inside of my wrist.
“You are,” he says softly. “That’s okay. I know what you want.”
I pull my hand from his and immediately miss the warmth of his touch. “You’re arrogant.”
He shrugs off my retreat with no change to his expression. “Not arrogant. I’m just good at reading you.”
He spends so much time quietly observing me; it doesn’t surprise me that he can read me so well. “And what do I want, Knox Winter?”
He watches me with intense focus, his gaze as possessive as it is open. “Us. A future in this town, and to keep making those homemade pies that have Nico laughing as he struggles to shut his cash register.”
I lift my brow. “Nico? No, he doesn’t.”
“You haven’t been to the diner since we started delivering those pies for you. They’re gone before midday, and people have started waiting outside before it opens. No one has driven outhere to demand pies from you directly yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that starts soon.”
My jaw drops. “I don’t believe you.”
I’ve moved away from the pies on the menu, bored with apple and blueberry or cherries, and am testing out new flavor combinations all the time now. Nico hadn’t seemed to mind when I told him what I was doing, having Wyatt, Hunter, Elias, and Knox bring back new ingredients for me to keep testing. I never realized my pies were getting so popular.
He snorts. “Why do you think Nico hasn’t asked you when you’re going back to waitressing for him?”
I open my mouth to deny it. Then I shut it.
He’s right.
