“But—”
“I’ve no interest in adding mechanic to the list of things I do for you without recompense.”
That was unfair. She’d offered from the start to pay him for tutoring, and he’d sneered—what did he want from her?
“Oh, that’s right.” She crossed her arms. “I’d forgotten you can’t leave town, thanks to the evil sorcerer.”
He pushed back from the table and stood. She thought he would walk out on her, but he stomped to the couch and sat. To continue working on her problem for no recompense, apparently.
Half of her wanted to thank him again, and the other half wanted to blow a raspberry at him. She finished the last bit of her sandwich, compiling other examples of his mulishness until one gave her an idea.
“What if I don’t touch the car? Would that work?”
He heaved a sigh. “Unless you can steer with your mind—”
“No, no. I’ll show you.”
She retrieved her thick pair of winter gloves, pulled them on and grasped both his hands—with no ill effects, not counting his deepening frown.
“Hah!I’mbrilliant,” she said, which should have elicited at least a snort from him, but no. She cleared her throat. “I remembered I couldn’t feel a thing that time you ‘helped’ me out of your chair. You had gloves on.”
“Yes, but there’s no guarantee that would work for long.”
“Sounds like an experiment.”
He gestured to the other side of the couch. “Sit, then, and stop hovering over me.”
The minutes ticked by with nary a tickle. Her idea was proving sound. But he was unusually—aggressively—silent. He wasn’t looking at her, and he was sitting as far from her as the couch allowed.
Finally she could stand it no longer. “Hartgrave ...”
“What.”
“What’s wrong? What have I done?”
“You’ve no right to ask me that,” he said to the floor, as if he wanted it to relay the message. “You’ve traded your questions away.”
She wanted to shake him. “It’s not that kind of question.”
“Oh? It’s not an attempt to extract information from me against my will?”
“No, it’s an attempt to find out why you’re upset, because I care about you, you dolt!”
He abandoned his grim perusal of the floor to eye her. “My ability to do things for you, you mean.”
The pang of guilt this brought on was as sharp as heartburn. Of course he would think that. Hadn’t she been telling herself the same thing?
She scooted closer and put her other hand on his. “Whatever it may look like, I do care about you, Hartgrave. You. Not simply what you know.”
She was about to add that he was the closest thing to a friend she had—she was now spendingfarmore time with him than Bernie—but she didn’t get the chance. Because he sliced through the space separating them and kissed her.
She didn’t register any sensation at all for a second, so great was her shock, but then her nerve endings roared back to life. Everywhere his skin touched hers—his lips on her lips, his hand cradling her jaw, the tip of his nose against her cheek—prickled, itched, buzzed.
It felt reallygood. No—good was a massive understatement. She gasped. He pressed in further, tongue touching hers, and the aftershock zipped to every part of her body.
That was when reason belatedly kicked in. She jerked back, trying to get her tingling mouth to form the words, “I can’t kiss you yet, I hardly know you”—and all that came out was a shaky, “Can’t—know!”
This sounded far worse.
