He hoped his irritation would fade away, but instead it built over the next few plants, leaving him fidgety and inefficient. They should have been done with this section by now. Instead, they’d only gotten through about two-thirds.Dammit.
It was almost a relief when a fat drop landed on his cheek.
“Rain,” he grunted. He met her eye for the first time since they’d spoken and found her…sad. She looked sad.Putain, that was the last thing he needed.
“It’s time to go.”
“Now?”
“It’s raining.”
After a moment of hesitation, she pulled off one glove and the other, her eyes knowing and compassionate.
“Good-bye, Luc.”
She started to turn away, and instead of relief, he felt something frantic climb up his throat, pushing him to reach out and grab her. His hand landed on her elbow, and she froze. They both did, eyes locked where his hand held her. Slowly, his gaze rose to meet hers, expecting fear, disgust.
What he saw instead were big, black pupils swallowing up her irises, that unbelievable mouth pursed and slightly open, her bottom lip lusher than the ripest cluster of grapes. Suddenly he had to taste it.Hadto. Instead of loosening his grip and letting her go, he tightened it and pulled.
She didn’t resist, even for a second. He wondered if that was good or bad before letting his other hand—the one with blank space where there’d once been a finger—grasp the side of her face and pull it toward his.
You cannot do this.
With a pained huff—hers or his, he wasn’t sure—he removed his hands, although he couldn’t make himself step away.She’dhave to do that.
“Go,” he whispered.
But she didn’t. She shook her head, eyeing his mouth like…Hell.Probably exactly the way he’d looked at hers—like she wanted to eat it.
Quiet surrounded them, but here, in the space between their bodies, their breathing was a hailstorm, her exhalations loud enough to heat his face and tighten his groin.
She swallowed and leaned in to whisper, “What were you gonna do?” The voice sounded nothing like hers. It was tight and hoarse, older than her twentysomething years.
“No idea. Keep you here.” Slowly, as gently as his body knew how, he leaned in and nudged her nose with his. Her gasp felt like an invitation, and he took it. Up and back down the other side, until their mouths lined up and sweat broke out across his back and he wondered what in the hell had come over him.
She was the one, though, who finally pressed her lips to his. They were as soft as he’d imagined, but also solid, as if she were more real than he’d realized. Stronger. Just lips, dry and cold, the feel of them sensuous after more than two years without. When she didn’t move, he did it for her, pursing and waiting for her to do the same. She didn’t, and he shifted away. Did she not want this? Had he misread it?
Oh, but no. Not with thatlookin her eyes, all vague and heavy-lidded. That flush across her cheeks hadn’t been there before, had it? And that expression? What would you call that look?
Dazed. She appeared dazed. He was about to step away, about to give her space, when she whispered, “I… I don’t know what to do.”
God, he wanted to show her. Badly, desperately. Somehow, that single touch of their lips had been the hottest kiss of his life. And it hadn’t even been a kiss, had it? Not a real one. Nothing but that brief brush of skin to dry skin, so small in such a wide-open space.
Luc couldn’t blink the haze away.
What the hell was it about this woman that made him like this?
Okay, stupid question, he thought as he took her in. Funny, though, that it wasn’t the usual things that attracted him to her. It was something else entirely. Considering the way she watched him—tense or expectant—maybe he’d underestimated the lust hiding beneath that drab dress.
It was the thought of the dress that finally snapped him out of it.
This wasn’t someone whose mouth you shoved your tongue into. This wasn’t a woman you had passionate sex with.
He stepped back, pulling himself away, and turned his face to the side.
“You have to go.”
“I don’t—”
