Making my way through the long hallway while doing my best not to make a sound, I escape through the side door where I’m welcomed with summer’s pungent aroma of flowers and morning dew. With bare feet, I pad through the refreshing grass until I reach the front of our house and the vision of a Greek god. "Hey, you!" I shout through a whisper.
The gardener tears his hanging t-shirt from the waist of his pants and tosses it onto the mower before meeting me at the corner. "Are you out of your damn mind?" he grumbles with what sounds like animosity.His voice is deep and husky like I imagined it would be.
"I might be." It’s an honest answer because I suspect my mental state has not been in a great place during the past year or so.
"What's your name?" he asks. I’m kind of surprised he cares to know after the way he spoke me to me a second ago.
Up close, I can see that his eyes are chestnut-brown like a creamy coffee, and his lashes are long and dark, shadowing his chiseled features. The intensity of his glare makes me feel like I’m pinned against a wall while he interrogates me, trying to extract every piece of information he wants to know about my life.
"Haven." I offer up my name, keeping my tone pointed, refusing to reveal the angst I’m feeling toward him.
He shifts his weight from one foot to the other and crosses his sweat-covered arms across his glistening, hairless chest. He's squinting against the sun and breathing hard as if he were still pushing the mower, yet he’s been standing still for several minutes. Maybe I makehimnervous too. "Hasn't anyone ever told you not to get dressed with the blinds open?"
"Of course." I try to hide the smile threatening to form over my lips, feeling accomplished for achieving what I had hoped to.
"Well, you should listen to that advice." With disappointment clouding his eyes, I can’t help but wonder why he would care.
"Didn't you like what you saw?" I ask, gazing up at him through my lashes.Isn't this what a man wants?
With an unsettled look on his face, he glances around again as if he were checking for watchful eyes. "How old are you?"
"I'll be eighteen next week," I tell him, wondering what look he’ll give me next.
He grins with a nod and spits over his shoulder. "So, you're onlykind ofout of your mind." He takes a step back as if I were a hazard to be near.
His disinterest is not what I was hoping for. Not after smiling through the window at me every week. "Guess so," I tell him. Or maybe I've confined myself to the inside of this godforsaken house for so long that I'm just bored and a little cuckoo. I turn back to the side door, wishing I never came outside.I am out of my mind.
"Haven," he calls out, to my surprise.
I peer over my shoulder at him as I reach for the door. "Yeah?"
"If you weren’t living under the mayor’s roof—" He takes a few steps toward me, and the look in his eyes softens. "I'd take you out.” A small smile teases at his perfect, kissable lips and his mouth parts as if he were contemplating his next thought. “And just so you know, it's not because you felt the need to undress in front of your window. There's plenty to look at with your clothes on too." His words make my heart flutter, and they also make my stomach hurt with embarrassment. Without taking his eyes off me, he runs the back of his arm across his forehead, wiping away the newly formed sweat.I might stop breathing if I stand here for another second.
But, I have to know… "What's your name?" I ask him.Maybe it would be better if I don't know. I've spent too many nights dreaming of the day he would climb in through my window and push me up against the wall like I read in my romance books. Except, this is the first time I've spoken to him, and it’s safe to assume it will be the last.
"Raine Carson," he says.Raine. With a little drawl over the “a”. I had him pegged as a Brian or a Jared, something typical, but I like Raine better.
"And how old areyou, Raine?"
His brows knit together as if it’s odd for me to be asking him a question he just asked me. "I’m twenty-one."
"You aren't that much older than me," I tell him.
“Eh, age is just a number," he says.I couldn’t agree more."In any case, keep your damn blinds closed when you're undressing. You never know what creep is looking in your window.” With a small, crooked grin pinched between two defined dimples, he flashes a wink and turns back toward his mower.
